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Last updated on Monday, December 7, 2015
(NASHVILLE) - The Brown County Prosecutor has filed a habitual offender enhancement against Daniel Messel, who is accused of beating to death Indiana University student Hannah Wilson.
The new charge filed Thursday could increase Messel's jail time imposed in the murder case.
50-year-old Messel of Bloomington is being held without bond at the Brown County Jail, charged with the death of Wilson, a 22-year-old senior from Fishers.
Messel, a print shop worker from Bloomington, was arrested after police found his cell phone near Wilson's body. Police found Messel at his home on Ison Road, where they say they found him with bloody clothes in a garbage bag and blood in his car.
Wilson's body was discovered a day after she was reported missing. On April 24 a motorist discovered Wilson's body face-down in a vacant lot at State Road 45 and Plum Creek Road in Brown County.
An autopsy determined Wilson had died from blunt force injuries to the back of her head.
Police say Messel has an extensive 25 year criminal history which includes violence against women.
According to court records, Messel was arrested in 1989 on allegations that he beat his grandmother and broke bones in her face. Two years later, a girlfriend told police he had battered and confined her. In 1993, he pleaded guilty to one of three battery charges against him and received a 30-day suspended jail term and six months of probation.
In 1995, he got an eight-year jail sentence after pleading guilty to felony battery. In that case, Messel got angry with a married couple and started beating the husband. Police report that when the wife intervened, Messel got a 2-by-4 and beat her, causing severe lacerations to her head.
Messel is scheduled to appear in court on December 14 for a pretrial conference, with a tentative jury trial scheduled for February 2016.
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