PHOENIX Nov 8 (Reuters) - An Arizona man was found guilty on Wednesday of murder and other charges in the death of a 10-year-old girl who was locked in a small bin for taking a Popsicle without permission, a court official said.
The verdict by the Maricopa County jury allows the trial of John Allen, 29, to move to the penalty phase, in which the panel will determine if he should face the death penalty, court spokesman Vincent Funari said in a statement.
That phase begins on Thursday and could take weeks, he said.
Sammantha Allen, John Allen's wife, was
sentenced to death in August after she was also convicted of murder in the 2011 death of 10-year-old Ame Deal, who was her cousin.
Police said the child, who was left in the Allens' care, was forced to exercise intensely for hours in the summer heat as punishment for taking the frozen treat.
The couple then ordered her to get a hinged, plastic container and climb into it, police have said.
Sammantha Allen watched as her husband padlocked the girl in the box and the couple then fell asleep, police said.
The dead girl's body was found inside the small container, which only had tiny air holes at its handles.
The jury found John Allen guilty of first-degree murder, three counts of child abuse and conspiracy to commit child abuse, officials said.
Family members initially told police Deal died in a hide-and-seek game that turned tragic. Police unraveled that story during their investigation.
In John Allen's trial, jurors watched a video of him confessing to locking the girl in the box and going to sleep.
Source: Reuters, November 9, 2017
Phoenix man found guilty in death of girl locked in box
A Phoenix man was convicted of 1st-degree murder Wednesday in the 2011 death of a 10-year-old girl who was locked in a storage box in sweltering summer heat.
After deliberating for a day, a Maricopa County Superior Court jury also found John Michael Allen, 29, guilty of child abuse in the killing of Ame Deal.
Jurors now must determine whether the killing was especially cruel or heinous before moving onto the sentencing phase, which could include the death penalty.
Allen's 28-year-old wife Sammantha Allen, a cousin of Deal's, was convicted of murder in the girl's death in June. She now is on Arizona's death row.
Authorities said the couple forced Ame into the small, plastic box as punishment for stealing ice pops. They then went to sleep and the girl was found dead the next morning.
Defense attorney Robert Reinhardt had argued that John Allen, a father of four young children, did not intend for the girl to die and that the other adults in the home created the abusive environment.
Ame's death was the culmination of a shocking history of abuse at the hands of relatives who were charged with caring for her.
Authorities said the girl was forced to eat dog feces, crush aluminum cans barefoot, consume hot sauce and get in the storage box on other occasions. She also was kicked in the face, beaten with a wooden paddle and forcibly dunked after being thrown in a cold swimming pool, according to police investigators.
Adults at the home originally claimed Ame hid during a late-night game of hide-and-seek and wasn't found until hours later.
3 other relatives are in prison serving sentences for abusing Ame.
David Deal, who is listed as the girl's father on her birth certificate, is serving a 14-year sentence after pleading guilty to attempted child abuse.
Ame's legal guardian at the time of her death was her aunt, Cynthia Stoltzmann, who is serving a 24-year prison sentence for a child abuse conviction. Ame's grandmother, Judith Deal, is serving 10 years for child abuse.
Ame's mother left the family years earlier after suffering abuse from relatives and moved to Kansas without her daughter.
Source: Associated Press, November 9, 2017
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
