Hannah Aberegg died in South Bend, Indiana, on May 6 after she was shot by police during a standoff at a petrol station, authorities said. She was 25.
Indiana State Police said it is investigating the officer-involved shooting that unfolded Wednesday, May 6, 2026, after South Bend police and St. Joseph County police responded and before state troopers arrived. Police said Aberegg produced a handgun during the encounter, and Sergeant Ted Bohner said the shooting happened after an officer with the South Bend Police Department opened fire.
Aberegg was known to many viewers from the Netflix docuseries Girls Incarcerated, which she appeared in at age 18. Her death comes as family members and investigators are left to describe the same final minutes in very different terms: one as a medical emergency that turned fatal, the other as a police confrontation that escalated when a weapon appeared.
Her mother requested the welfare check because Aberegg was experiencing a medical episode, according to the facts released about the incident. That call brought officers to the scene, where the encounter turned into a standoff. Indiana State Police said it was treating the case as an officer-involved shooting and that its work would take several weeks to complete.
Bohner said the agency’s role is to gather facts and not to decide the outcome, leaving that determination to the Prosecutor’s Office. He also said Aberegg was armed at the time and pulled out the handgun during the interaction with police, which led the South Bend officer to fire. The state police investigation is expected to test every part of that account, from the first response to the final shot.
Aberegg’s obituary says she was born July 2, 2000, and was the devoted mother of two children, Kai’son Aberegg and Ari’Ella Thompson-Aberegg. It also describes her as the cherished daughter of William Aberegg Sr. and Heather Trobaugh and the loving sister of William Aberegg Jr. and Nevaeh Trobaugh. For her family, the facts of the shooting now sit beside the details of a life cut short at 25.
