The father of a 9-year-old girl who was found bludgeoned and dismembered said Wednesday that he knew the man accused of killing his daughter and had no reason to distrust him. "I can't talk about it because I'm still coping with it. It's too hard to talk about," Dawayne Maroney of Centerville, Iowa. He added that the gruesome slaying has him overcome with grief.

Maroney had not talked with his daughter, Aliahna Lemmon, or her mother, because they frequently changed their phone number. He knew and trusted the man accused of killing his daughter, 39-year-old Michael Plumadore, through his daughter's mother, Tarah Souders.

Tarah Souders had moved her three young girls to a run-down trailer park teeming with convicted sex offenders in rural Indiana to help take care of him as his lungs rotted from emphysema.

Allen County coroner E. Jon Brandenberger said  he won't be able to determine the cause of death for Aliahna until further tests are completed, including microscopic findings and toxicology results. "All of which are integral parts of the autopsy and all of which play significant roles in the accurate determination of the cause of death," he said.

Plumadore put the girl's body inside trash bags and put it in a freezer in the trailer he lived in that formerly belonged to the girl's grandfather, who died earlier this month. He told authorities that later that he used a hack saw to dismember the girl's body.

Plumadore faces a preliminary charge of murder. He made a brief initial court appearance on Tuesday where he was ordered held without bond. He is due back in court on Friday morning and has yet to be formally charged in Aliahna's death.

(Photos: Hollybaby)