Siblings charged with killing family members

INDIANAPOLIS -- A man and his 18-year-old sister were charged Wednesday with murder for allegedly killing their mother and grandparents, entombing the bodies in a basement and then heading off to Las Vegas with the victims' cash.\nKenneth Allen Jr., 29, and Kari Allen were charged with three counts each of murder and conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of robbery hours after authorities dug a leg bone from recently poured concrete in their grandparents' basement.\nFurther digging Wednesday showed that the concrete pit holds the dismembered bodies of the Allens' mother and grandmother and the intact body of their grandfather, officials said. All three were killed about five weeks ago.\n"It's the most horrific thing I've ever seen," Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said after visiting the scene in the working-class neighborhood on the city's east side.\nAs light snow fell Wednesday, neighbors watched as workers in jumpsuits dumped buckets of concrete onto a tarp spread out on the home's front porch.\nBrizzi said Kenneth Allen plotted the killings to get at his grandparents' finances, including about $200,000 in bank accounts, after his November release from a federal prison in Kentucky, where he had served time for counterfeiting.\nAllen and his sister, who were stopped Tuesday for speeding in Missouri, told officers that they were on their way to Las Vegas. The siblings appeared nervous and gave conflicting stories about their trip to Nevada, police said.\nAccording to a probable cause affidavit filed in the case, Kari Allen eventually told a St. Charles, Mo., sheriff's deputy that her brother killed their mother and grandparents while she served as a "lookout." Kenneth Allen later acknowledged his involvement, police said.\nThe affidavit alleges that St. Charles police found bloody bedding in the siblings' car, along with along jewelry, cash and credit cards. The credit cards belonged to the grandparents, said Sgt. Steve Staletovich of the Indianapolis Police Department.\nThe charges allege that Allen stabbed his mother, Sharon Allen, 53, to death Dec. 30 in her Noblesville apartment after she refused to help in the plot to murder her parents.\nOn Jan. 3, Allen allegedly lured his 75-year-old grandmother, Betty Bradley, to the apartment in the Indianapolis suburb by telling her that Sharon Allen was sick. He smothered Bradley with a plastic bag in her daughter's apartment, Brizzi said.\nLater that day, Allen entered his grandparents' Indianapolis home and laid in wait for his grandfather, Leander Bradley, 91, whom he bludgeoned to death with a hammer, the affidavit states.\nBrizzi said Kenneth Allen used a saw to cut up the bodies of his mother and grandmother. He wrapped the remains in plastic and took them to the Bradleys' Indianapolis home, the prosecutor said.\nThere, he and his sister allegedly used a rented jackhammer and concrete mixer to open up a 6-foot-square hole in the floor of the home's basement where all three victims were entombed in concrete.\nA forensic anthropologist worked with the Marion County coroner's office to excavate the remains, some of which were removed Wednesday afternoon. John Linehan, the county's chief deputy coroner, said they would be examined Thursday.\nKari Allen was fully involved in the three murders, Brizzi said.\n"While she may not have directly participated in the physical murder, she acted as a lookout," he said.\nThe two siblings, who Brizzi said could face the death penalty, were being held without bond Wednesday by Missouri authorities. Staletovich said a team of detectives from Indianapolis was traveling to Missouri to meet with police there.\nNeighbors said they had recently heard a jackhammer inside the home and had seen two people they thought were their neighbors' grandchildren carrying bags of concrete into the house a few days ago.\nLaveda Stoner, who lives two houses down, watched Wednesday as officials removed dozens of items, including a rocking chair, suitcase and chest from the cluttered house to clear the way for the basement work.\nShe said the two grandchildren were inside the house this past week and that they had recently had a satellite dish installed.\nStoner said she was sick to know that they were inside the house with the bodies.\n"It gives me goosebumps thinking about it," Stoner said.