Law enforcement officials in Fort Wayne, Indiana are dealing with a crisis of untold proportions.
Mother of three young girls, Tarah Souders, moved her family to a trailer park in rural Indiana in order to take care of her ill father. That particular park consists of about two dozen mobile homes and there is a convicted sex offender living in almost every one of them.
Souders was reportedly worried about moving her young daughters into such a potentially dangerous situation and she even checked with her father before moving to ask if his caretakers, both sex offender, could pose a danger to her girls. One of those now stands accused in her daughter’s death.
Weeks after that ominous question was posed, Souders’ nine year old daughter, Aliahna Lemmon, was the victim of a brutal murder. 39-year old Michael Plumadore is accused of bludgeoning Aliahna to death with a brick and then dismembering her body, hiding her heads, hands and feet at her grandfather’s trailer before dumping the other remains elsewhere.
The grandfather reportedly knew Plumadore because they had been incarcerated together. The child’s grandfather was a registered sex offenders also, having been convicted ofchild molestation in March of 2006, according to Indiana Department of Corrections records.
The Allen County Sheriff’s Department is in charge of the investigation.
According to an affidavit, Plumadore told police that after beating Aliahna to death on the front steps of the home in the early morning hours, he stuffed her body into trash bags and hid her in the freezer. He said he later cut up her body with a hacksaw and stuffed her remains into freezer bags. The next morning, Plumadore made a trip to a convenience store to buy a cigar, according to surveillance video and The Journal Gazette.
Police said Plumadore told them he had hidden Aliahna’s head, feet and hands at the trailer and discarded her other remains at a nearby business. Police obtained a warrant to search the trailer on Monday and found the body parts.
Authorities didn’t say Tuesday why Plumadore killed the child, but Sheriff Ken Fries said investigators suspected Plumadore was involved since soon after she was reported missing Friday night because of inconsistencies in his story that the girl had vanished while he went to a store that morning.
A judge ordered Plumadore held without bail or bond at an initial hearing Tuesday. He has yet to be formally charged in Aliahna’s death. It is unclear at this time whether anyone else is suspected of being involved.
A state website shows that 15 registered sex offenders live in the park that numbers about two dozen homes. Self-identified sex offenders living at the trailer park said Tuesday that they were given maps by the Indiana Department of Corrections and a local mission showing them where it was OK to live. The aerial maps show areas legally away from schools and daycare centers and help guide offenders when they are released from prison to new homes.
