INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A panel of judges has rejected the appeal of a man sentenced to 80 years in prison for the beating death of an Indiana University student.
The Indiana appeals court decision released Thursday upholds the murder conviction against 51-year-old Daniel Messel in the April 2015 killing of 22-year-old Hannah Wilson of Fishers.
Messel’s appeal argued that the sentence was excessive and some evidence was improperly allowed at his trial.
The 3-0 decision says Messel “preyed upon an intoxicated young woman” after she left a taxi ride home in Bloomington following a celebration with friends ahead of her upcoming college graduation. It says Messel “brutally bludgeoned her to death” before dumping her body along a road in rural Brown County, about 10 miles from IU’s Bloomington campus.
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