Police: Babysitter beat, dismembered Indiana girl Aliahna Lemmon
(CBS/AP) FORT WAYNE, Ind. - A babysitter and trusted neighbor confessed to beating a 9-year-old Indiana girl to death with a brick and then dismembering her body, police said Tuesday.
Authorities say 39-year-old Michael Plumadore admitted to hiding Aliahna Lemmon's head, hands and feet at his home and dumping the rest of her remains nearby.
Allen County Sheriff's investigators said in an affidavit that 39-year-old Michael Plumadore admits he killed Aliahna Lemmon on Dec 22. According to the affidavit, Plumadore told authorities that after beating the girl to death, he stuffed her body into trash bags and hid her in the freezer at his trailer.
Plumadore said he later chopped up her body and stuffed her remains into freezer bags. Police said Plumadore told them he's hid her head, feet and hands at his trailer and her other parts at a nearby business. After obtaining a search warrant, police found the body parts in his trailer Monday.
Plumadore is being held without bail or bond after an initial hearing Tuesday, sheriff's department spokesman Cpl. Jeremy Tinkel said.
Aliahna and her sisters were staying with Plumadore because their mother was sick with the flu and Aliahna's stepfather works a night job.
Plumadore originally told the media Sunday that he had left the three girls in his mobile home, went to go buy a cigar, and had dead-bolted the door. "When I got back," he said, "all the girls was there."
Plumadore said Aliahna's mother called the next morning at 10 a.m, and then he realized the door to his home was unlocked and the girl was missing. He said Aliahna's sisters told him she had left with her mother. At 8:30 p.m. that night, it was discovered that Aliahna was missing and police were contacted.
The sheriff said Plumadore was arrested after being interviewed by detectives for several hours Monday.
"The story just didn't make sense to our investigators or to me when I first heard it," Fries said. "I thought this is the guy we needed to focus on. If we are going to find her, he's going to be the one who has the answers for us."