Baby sitter murder charge filed in Indiana girl’s death
Baby sitter murder charge filed in Indiana girl’s death
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — Prosecutors in Indiana charged a baby sitter with murder and two other felonies today in the bludgeoning and dismemberment of a 9-year-old girl just days before Christmas.
Michael Plumadore, 39, was charged in Fort Wayne with murder, abuse of a corpse and removing a dead body from the scene in the Dec. 22 killing of Aliahna Lemmon.
Authorities say Plumadore told police he killed Aliahna in the early hours of Dec. 22. He had been looking after the girl and her two younger sisters because their mother was sick. Plumadore had looked after Aliahna’s dying grandfather and her family had considered him a trusted friend and neighbor.
Plumadore is jailed without bond and did not attend the court as prosecutors filed the charging documents.
Danielle Edenfield, the Allen County prosecutor’s office chief investigator, has said the charges will be read to him in jail. She said an initial court hearing on the formal charges likely will be held next week.
According to court documents, Plumadore told police he hit the girl repeatedly in the head with a brick. He then put the girl’s body inside trash bags and stuffed it inside a freezer in the trailer where he had lived with her grandfather.
Plumadore told authorities that he later used a hack saw to dismember the girl’s body.
Police arrested him Monday after an intense two-day search of the trailer park just north of Fort Wayne where he and Aliahna’s family lived.
Police said Plumadore told them he had hidden Aliahna’s head, feet and hands at the trailer and discarded her other remains at a nearby business. Police obtained a warrant to search the trailer on Monday and found the body parts.
Plumadore has a criminal record in Florida and North Carolina that includes convictions for trespassing and assault, and an Indiana conviction for forgery.