IndianaNews

Judge moves up man’s sentencing in Fort Wayne girl’s killing

(Photo supplied/Allen County Jail)

A judge has moved up an Indiana man’s sentencing in the 1988 abduction, rape and killing of an 8-year-old Fort Wayne girl.

59-year-old John D. Miller’s sentencing had been set for Dec. 31 after the Grabill man pleaded guilty to murder and child molestation in April Tinsley’s slaying.

But The Journal Gazette reports Allen County Superior Court Judge John Surbeck said Tuesday he’s moved Miller’s sentencing to Dec. 21.

(Photos supplied/Fort Wayne Police Department)

Surbeck is retiring Dec. 31 and he says he moved the sentencing to ensure that there would be no delays.

A plea agreement calls for Miller to serve 80 years in prison.

The girl’s family is not pleased with a plea deal made between prosecutors and the confessed killer.

Janet Tinsley tells Fort Wayne’s NBC the deal wasn’t good enough.

“He killed her, I want his head,” Tinsley says her husband said to Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards.

Richards reportedly told the family she wanted to skip a trial for the family’s sake. But the deal took the death penalty off the table, and Tinsley says after the past 30 years of not knowing who raped and murdered her daughter, that wasn’t good enough.

Miller was arrested last July after DNA evidence led police to him.

Tinsley was abducted in April 1988. Her body was found three days later in a ditch about 20 miles away. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

The Associated Press contributed to this story

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