The Monroe County man accused of murdering Indiana University senior Hannah Wilson graduated from Ball State’s prison education program, which is no longer in place.
Greg Wright, university spokesperson, confirmed that Daniel Messel, who spent time in prison in the late 1990s, graduated in May 1999 with an associate in arts degree in general arts.
In May 1996, Messel was sentenced to eight years in prison for battery with a deadly weapon and six years, suspended, for battery causing serious bodily injury.
He was a part of the prison education program, which was stopped due to a lack of funding after an Indiana law passed in 2011 that cut Frank O’Bannon grants to inmates, the Associated Press reported in 2012. There were about 1,000 inmates enrolled in the program when it was cut.
Educated prisoners are less likely to be repeat offenders, according to an Institute for Higher Education Policy study.
However, Indiana is no longer able to have a prison education program because legislators didn’t think it was fair for inmates to get free education paid for by taxpayers while everyone else has to pay out-of-pocket for tuition, the Associated Press reported.
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