Daniel Messel, convicted in murder of IU student, sentenced to 15 years in separate attack
04/24/2018 11:27 am PDT
via WXIN:
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- (WXIN) -- A man serving an 80-year sentence for killing an Indiana University student pleaded guilty Tuesday in a separate case involving an attack on another IU student.
Daniel Messel faced charges including rape, criminal deviate conduct, criminal confinement, battery and theft in connection with the September 2012 attack.
Messel pleaded guilty Tuesday morning to battery. He was sentenced to eight years in the Department of Correction with a seven-year enhancement for being a habitual offender. He'll serve the sentence concurrently with his 80-year sentence in the murder of IU student Hannah Wilson.
Wilson was killed in April 2015. Police found her body in a vacant lot in Brown County about 30 minutes away from the IU Bloomington campus. Messel was convicted of murder in her death in 2016.
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He appealed his sentence, but an appeals court upheld it in a 2017 ruling.
The investigation into the September 2012 case began after the victim contacted police in 2016 because the circumstances of the attack on her mirrored those of the assault on Wilson.
The woman said Messel offered her a ride and drove her to a secluded parking lot near Griffy Lake, where she was beaten and sexually assaulted. Investigators connected Messel to the assault through DNA evidence.
FULL STORY: Daniel Messel, convicted in murder of IU student, sentenced to 15 years in separate attack - WXIN