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Indiana man gets 65 years for 'barbaric' killing of baby

Douglas Walker
dwalker@muncie.gannett.com

PORTLAND — Dalton R. Davis was sentenced Wednesday to 65 years in prison for brutally killing his then-girlfriend’s 5-week-old daughter.

The 22-year-old Jay County man offered no explanation about what had compelled him to take the baby outside last Sept. 28 and, holding the infant by her legs, slam her head and back down onto the pavement two or three times.

He also uttered no words of remorse, or anything approaching an apology to his victim’s mother, or the others in the courtroom who had loved young Lillian Grace Lloyd.

In fact, Davis wasn’t even in the courtroom for his sentencing hearing. He had waived his right to attend, and participated in the hearing via a video link to the nearby Jay County jail.

“I’ve never seen anything as senseless or barbaric as this,” said Jay Circuit Court Judge Brian Hutchison, who accepted the plea agreement calling for Davis to receive the 65-year sentence for a murder conviction.

Police: Man confessed to baby's brutal killing

That is the maximum penalty for murder in Indiana, other than a term of life imprisonment without parole, or a death sentence.

Jay County Prosecutor Wes Schemenaur filed the documents necessary to pursue a life sentence, but agreed to end that effort in exchange for Davis’ guilty plea, entered at a hearing last month.

After the hearing, Schemenaur said he believed Davis would have to serve 85 percent of his sentence — about 55 years — before he would become eligible for parole.

Since the plea agreement accepted by Hutchison specified the length of Davis’ sentence, prosecutors and public defender Robert Beymer called no witnesses to the stand at Wednesday’s hearing.

“Is there anything you wish to say?” the judge asked Davis through the video connection.

“No,” the convicted killer responded.

Davis — who was not the baby’s father — was arrested two days after her killing. He reportedly told deputies he was angry at the child’s mother at the time.

An autopsy showed the little girl likely died instantly from her massive head injuries.

Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. Follow him on Twitter: @DouglasWalkerSP.

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