BROWN COUNTY, Ind. -- Daniel Messel, who received an 80-year sentence last fall for killing an Indiana University student, is appealing his conviction.

A jury found Messel guilty of murdering Hannah Wilson in August 2016. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison and another 20 years for being a habitual offender.

In a court document filed Wednesday, Messel’s attorney argues that the sentence handed down by a Brown County Circuit Judge was “unfair and excessive.”

The attorney points to evidence issues and the court’s failure to take “mitigating factors” into consideration during sentencing.

Messel’s appeal asks that the court grant him a new trial, reduce his sentence or grant him a resentencing.

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Wilson was a senior at IU when her body was found in a vacant lot in Brown County in 2015. Messel’s phone was found lying nearby, and investigators found her blood, hair and DNA in Messel’s 2012 Kia SUV.

A coroner later determined that Wilson had died from blunt force trauma to her head.

Messel was serving his sentence in Michigan City but has since been transferred to a psychiatric hospital.

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