INDIANA MAN GETS LIFE IN PRISON FOR DISMEMBERING GIRL

An Indiana man was sentenced to life in prison Monday for bludgeoning to death and dismembering a 9-year-old girl he was baby-sitting just days before Christmas.

39-year-old Michael Plumadore last month pleaded guilty to murder, abuse of a corpse and removing a dead body from the scene in the Dec. 22 death of Aliahna Maroney-Lemmon. Prosecutors initially called for the death penalty but agreed to life in prison without the possibility of parole in exchange for the guilty plea. On Monday, a judge accepted that plea deal and added a further 36 years to the sentence: three more years for abuse of a corpse; three years for moving her body; and 30 years more for the murder charge because Plumadore is a habitual offender.

The day Aliahna died, Plumadore was looking after the third-grader and her 6-year-old sisters at his mobile home because their mother was sick. Aliahna’s family and Plumadore lived in the same trailer park in Fort Wayne. Aliahna’s relatives described him as a trusted family friend who had helped care for the girl’s dying grandfather.

Police found the girl’s head, hands and feet in the freezer at the mobile home where Plumadore had lived with Aliahna’s grandfather, who had died about three weeks earlier. The other remains were thrown into trash bags and discarded at a gas station. The other girls weren’t harmed.

At last month’s hearing, Plumadore told the judge he killed Aliahna by repeatedly striking her in the head with a brick, then he cut her up with a hacksaw. “I put parts in my freezer and took the rest down to the Marathon station and put them in a Dumpster,” he said.

Plumadore has criminal records in Florida and North Carolina including convictions for trespassing and assault, and an Indiana conviction for forgery.