84-year sentence given in Indianapolis teen's brutal death

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A man convicted of killing a 15-year-old girl whose badly burned body was found in an Indianapolis backyard was sentenced Friday to 84 years in prison.

Jurors convicted William Gholston, 48, last month for the August 2014 slaying of high school student Dominique Allen, a freshman who dreamed of becoming a model.

"You're not a monster. You're a man," Marion Superior Judge Marc Rothenberg said Friday. "But your actions are beyond monstrous. They haunted me."

Prosecutors argued that Gholston kidnapped Allen from the front porch of her sister's home, strangled her and hogtied with a coaxial cable and then burned her body in an attempt to destroy evidence. Her body was found in a backyard on the west side of Indianapolis near Gholston's last known address.

Investigators found Gholston's DNA on the girl's body and shoes. He was arrested about three months after her death.

Dominique's sister, Shenika Poindexter, described her family's loss during the hearing. She said if Gholston received 100 years in prison "it won't be enough."

"We missed everything," Poindexter said. "She was the last baby. Everything is gone. We don't have anything."

Defense attorney David Staples contended during the trial there were no witnesses or evidence showing what happened to Allen from the time she disappeared until her body was found.