Broken Heart: The Elkhart Police Saga Part 4

ELKHART, Ind. – ABC57 Investigates gets an answer to a question we had in our last installment of Broken Heart: The Elkhart Police Saga.

Our plan was to tell you about an Elkhart police officer under criminal investigation, but we recently received an answer to a question we asked in Part 3 of our series; why was Taryn Lanzen suspended for three days in 2017?

In Lanzen’s personnel file, there were just a few lines detailing the suspension, but no information on what caused it. She was suspended for "immoral conduct."

Here’s what we learned.

In 2017, Taryn Lanzen was issued a three-day suspension without pay. Internal police documents say, at the time, Lt. Lanzen affected “the morale, efficiency, and operation of the department and jeopardized public trust."

A Professional Standards Review alleges Lanzen had an inappropriate relationship with an individual, who’s name is redacted in the documents we received. The relationship is said to have caused problems inside and outside of the police department.

To our knowledge, this was the first time Lanzen was accused of having an inappropriate relationship.

The other incident in her disciplinary file began last year when she and her husband, fellow officer Nathan Lanzen, gained, what an internal review called “complete financial control over an Elkhart resident.”

Taryn Lanzen is still on the force after serving a suspension for that incident.

On Tuesday night, we have shocking new revelations about what happened inside an interrogation room almost 20 years ago that led to a wrongful conviction.

We’ll also share new documents related to Lt. Carl Conway, the detective in that murder case. Those documents relate to discipline Conway faced in 2012.

To read and watch our past installments of Broken Heart: The Elkhart Police Saga click here.