Judge disallows evidence of Messel's prior convictions

NASHVILLE, Ind. (AP) - A judge has ruled prosecutors cannot present evidence of prior convictions for violence against women during the trial of a man accused of killing an Indiana University student.

While jurors hearing the murder trial of 51-year-old Daniel Messel were at lunch Monday, Brown County Judge Judith Stewart denied the state's request to present evidence that his past victims also had their hair pulled out and suffered blunt-force trauma like Hannah Wilson. The body of the 22-year-old suburban Indianapolis woman body was found in April 2015 in a vacant lot about 10 miles from the Bloomington campus.

The (Bloomington) Herald-Times reports (http://bit.ly/2b1gHc1 ) Stewart reasoned she cannot "allow evidence from one incident to get in to show what may have happened" to Wilson.

Messel has pleaded not guilty to Wilson's slaying.

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Information from: The Herald Times, http://www.heraldtimesonline.com