Indiana police probe grisly slaying of 9-year-old

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A man charged this week in the bludgeoning death and dismemberment of a 9-year-old Indiana girl was wanted in Florida for violating probation in 2000, officials said Wednesday.

Michael Plumadore, 39, faces one count of murder in the death of Aliahna Lemmon of Fort Wayne, Ind.

Plumadore was being held without bond Wednesday. He was arrested Monday night after the girl’s body was found, dismembered with a hacksaw, the head, hands and feet stored separately.

Florida Department of Corrections records show Plumadore was charged in May 2000 with battery on a law enforcement officer, firefighter or EMS worker in Miami-Dade County, and was later sentenced to a year of community supervision, according to a statement released to The Times.

But Plumadore failed to report to his probation officer or attend a court-ordered community service and anger management class, according to the statement.

Details of the offense were unavailable, but Plumadore is listed in the department database as an ‘absconder/fugitive,’ the statement said.

Plumadore has admitted to investigators that he struck the girl in the head with a brick repeatedly as she stood on the front steps of his mobile home in the early hours of Dec. 22, according to a probable cause affidavit released Tuesday and cited by CNN.

He told authorities he stored Aliahna’s body in garbage bags in a freezer at his home until that night, when he dismembered it with a hacksaw, according to the affidavit. Plumadore allegedly told investigators he threw body parts in a nearby commercial trash bin but kept the head, hands and feet at his mobile home where they were later recovered, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit does not say why Plumadore allegedly killed the girl.

Amber Story, the girl’s grandmother, has said Aliahna and her two sisters were staying with Plumadore in his Fort Wayne mobile home for about a week while their mother, Tarah Souder, recovered from the flu. The girls’ father apparently worked nights, according to Fort Wayne’s Journal Gazette.

Allen County Sheriff Ken Fries told CNN’s Nancy Grace that Plumadore’s confession came after several hours of interrogation by investigators Monday evening.

‘They just had to sit there and listen to him as if they were just listening to a story with no emotion, just trying to get him to say more and more and more,’ Fries said.

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