Formal charges expected in Indiana girl's murder

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - A man accused of killing a 9-year-old girl by bludgeoning her with a brick and then dismembering her likely won't be in court Friday when formal charges are filed against him, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor said.

Michael Plumadore, 39, is expected to remain in his jail cell when the formal charges are filed, said Danielle Edenfield, the Allen County prosecutor's office chief investigator. A warrant listing the charges will be read to him, she said.

Plumadore, who the family previously described as a trusted friend, was in court Tuesday when a judge ruled there was probable cause to hold him for 72 hours on the preliminary charge of murder in the death of Aliahna Lemmon.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed Tuesday, Plumadore told authorities he hit the girl repeatedly in the head with a brick. He then put the girl's body inside trash bags and put it in a freezer in the trailer - the same trailer where Plumadore cared for the girl's grandfather until he died earlier this month. Plumadore, who is being held without bond, told authorities that later that day and early on Dec. 23 he used a hack saw to dismember the girl's body.

An initial hearing on the formal charges likely will be held next week, Edenfield said. Plumadore has no lawyer of record, she said.

On Wednesday, Aliahna's family began moving her belongings out of the trailer where she lived because the mother couldn't bear to look at it, the the girl's her stepfather, Allen Souders, told The News-Sentinel.

"She just can't stand to be around this stuff after what happened," he said.

He said they were moving her things to a storage facility.