GUILTY IN - Claire Ellis, 26, found in shallow grave, Anderson, 8 May 2005

ANDERSON, Ind. -- A man has pleaded guilty to beating a woman to death and burying her body in the backyard of his home where police found it five months later.

David M. Bell, 31, of Anderson, is facing 45 to 65 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder Wednesday in Madison Circuit Court. His sentencing is set for Jan. 11.

Bell told authorities that he killed Claire Ellis, 26, of Anderson, in May, then buried her body in the yard where police found it about 3 feet deep on Oct. 12.

...Ellis' mother Marian Hilligoss was decorating her daughter's grave when she received a call that Bell was pleading guilty, she said.Hilligoss cried in court Wednesday, and Bell never looked at her, nor expressed regret."He's not sorry," Hilligoss said.

Hilligoss said the guilty plea caught the family by surprise.
"It was really hard," she said of looking at Bell. "It made me really mad. This will never be behind us. Claire's daughter knows her mom is dead. She doesn't know it happened on Mother's Day, but she will eventually."

More: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051208/NEWS01/512080512/-1/RSS

From May 2009:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/05/02/murderer-confesses-to-18-killing-second-woman.print.html

Barren County Sheriff Chris Eaton says 35-year-old David M. Bell admitted to killing 42-year-old Nancy Daddysman in a four-hour interview this week.

Bell is serving a 63-year sentence for the 2005 murder of Claire Ellis in the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City...

Daddysman's body was found two years after she went missing, partially wrapped in a piece of upholstery fabric just outside a cave off Iron Mountain Road near Park City.

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