BROWN COUNTY (WTHR) - Daniel Messel was found guilty in August in the case of murdered IU student Hannah Wilson.
The 22-year-old suburban Indianapolis woman's beaten body was found in a vacant lot about 10 miles northwest of IU's Bloomington campus in April 2015.
"It doesn't make it go away. It's one less thing to have to worry about sleeping at night. Wondering if this is ever going to happen. So now we can get past this and move on," said Wilson's father, Jeff. "I'd never want to do this again. I wouldn't anybody to ever have to go through that."
"I needed to be here for Hannah, because Hannah could not be here. She had no voice anymore. So it was important that myself and our family, Hannah's friends were here to speak for her, because an evil person took that right away from her," said Robin Wilson, Hannah's mother.
Brown County Prosecutor Ted Adams argued during trial evidence pointed toward Messel's guilt: His cell phone was found near Wilson's body, her blood was found in his car, and Messel was carrying a bag of his clothes spotted with Wilson's blood when he was arrested.
"I think Hannah Wilson's final act was to allow the key to be found and that was that cell phone. And she's the hero. I think her final act of fighting of the struggle we talked about in our case allowed us to secure this conviction because she was able to get that cell phone to drop out onto the ground, which led to everything," Adams said after the verdict.
Messel could be sentenced as habitual offender, which would add years to his prison term.
"She's affected so many people. A lot of people I didn't know she even knew. I just see her up there smiling, and she's doing well, and we're going to try to do well, too, after this," Jeff Wilson said.
