Sammantha Allen is a woman from Arizona who along with her husband John Allen would murder a ten year old girl
Sammantha Allen and John Allen were suppose to be taking care of ten year old Ame Deal however the little girl would be tortured before she finally died. According to reports Ame Deal was forced to exercise for long hours for minor offenses and locked in a 31 inch foot locker overnight where the child would die
Sammantha Allen and John Allen were both arrested, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Ame Deal
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Where Is Sammantha Allen Now
Sammantha Allen is currently incarcerated at the ASPC Perryville, Lumley Unit the home of Arizona Death Row for Women
Death Sentence Upheld For Sammantha Allen
Sammantha Allen still faces the death penalty for the murder of her 10-year-old cousin, Ame Deal, after the Arizona Supreme Court sustained her most severe sentence Tuesday. Allen had appealed her sentence, raising 22 issues.
Out of the 22 issues she raised in her appeal, only her allegation that the state illegally placed an aggravated sentence of two years for negligent child abuse was sent back to the lower courts for resentencing.
The courts’ opinion on the appeal explained the state needs to provide two aggravating factors when it comes to aggravated sentencing. In this case, the state only provided one for the negligent child abuse conviction: the offense involved an accomplice.
In the summer of 2011, Allen and her husband forced Ame Deal to get into a small footlocker in their garage that was not air conditioned during a sweltering July night. Deal was found dead the next morning.
Allen was found guilty in 2017 on five counts: felony murder, conspiracy to commit child abuse, negligent child abuse, and two counts of intentional child abuse.
She received the death sentence for the felony murder conviction and a total of 76 years of prison time for the others.
In another issue, Allen claimed the state didn’t meet the Enmund/Tison requirement, a standard Arizona uses to impose the death penalty when there is more than one person involved in a killing.
In the Enmund requirement, “the state has to prove that the defendant killed, at- tempted to kill or intended a killing to take place.” In Tison, the state has to prove that “the defendant was a major participant in the underlying felony and acted with reckless indifference to human life.”
Allen claimed it was her husband who killed Deal since he had been the one who physically put her in the box and locked it. She also claimed her “passive conduct” in watching her husband do this did not mean she was a “major participant.”
In the ruling, the court pointed out Allen admitted to blocking Deal from leaving the room while her husband got the box. This was enough for a jury to reasonably conclude that Allen had killed Deal and played a major part in the killing.
“Sammantha actively participated in [Deal’s] punishment and her failure to release [Deal] from the box before she suffocated was what killed her,” the justices wrote.
The justices also set a precedent that a jury doesn’t have to unanimously agree on which of the two requirements fits the crime.
According to the court records, Allen and other relatives had repeatedly abused Ame Deal, forcing dog feces on her, beating her with a paddle and dunking her in cold water, among other forms of violence. Placing her in the foot-locker box, 21 inches smaller than she was, became a standard form of punishment.
A jury found Sammantha Allen guilty in the summer of 2017. Her husband, John Allen, was later found guilty and sentenced to death.
Both Allen and her husband originally claimed that Deal’s death was an accident caused by a game of hide and seek.
Her story changed, and she later claimed that she knew her husband put Deal in the box but told him to let Deal out before going to bed. Eventually, she admitted that she and her husband made Deal do backbends and that she let him put Deal in the locker because they thought Deal had stolen a popsicle.
After a week of deliberating the jury sentenced Sammantha Allen to death after weighing the cruelty of the case against her age, her clear criminal record and her toxic upbringing. Her mother, Cynthia, Stoltzmann, and grandmother, Judith Deal, were also convicted of child abuse and are currently serving 24-year and 10-year prison sentences, respectively.
