A black serial killer with a taste for elderly victims, Howard Allen never strayed far from hometown Indianapolis in his search for prey. In August 1974, at age twenty-four, he invaded the home of 85-year-old Opal Cooper, beating her to death in the course of a petty robbery. Convicted on a reduced charge of manslaughter, Allen received a term of two to twentyone years in state prison. Paroled in January 1985, he returned to Indianapolis and found work at a car wash, biding his time before he resumed the hunt.

On May 18, 1987, a 73-year-old Indianapolis woman narrowly escaped death when she was choked and beaten by a prowler in her home. Two days later, Laverne Hale, 87, was attacked in a similar fashion, dying of her injuries on May 29.

The raids continued, on June 2, when a burglar ransacked the home of an elderly man five blocks from the scene of Laverne Hale's murder. This time, the tenant was absent; the prowler vented his anger by setting the house on fire. On July 14, Ernestine Griffin, age 73, was murdered in her Indianapolis home, stabbed eight times with a ten-inch butcher knife, a kitchen toaster smashed repeatedly against her skull. Grieving relatives estimated that the killer had escaped with fifteen dollars and a camera belonging to his victim.

The case broke on August 4, 1987, with Howard Allen's arrest on multiple charges. Witnesses linked him with the May 18 attack, leading to Allen's indictment on charges of battery, burglary, and unlawful confinement. He was also charged with arson and burglary (from the June 2 incident), as well as the murder of Ernestine Griffin.

Police were not finished with their suspect, however. As it happened, Laverne Hale had been a neighbor of Allen's, living directly behind his house, and he remains a suspect in her murder, based upon the killer's modus operandi. In early August, detectives announced that Allen was a prime suspect in eleven other cases, each involving robbery or assault of elderly victims in their homes around Indianapolis.

In the spring of 1988, Allen was convicted of burglary and felony battery in the May 18 assault, with an additional count of habitual criminal behavior. He was sentenced to 88 years on those charges, but the worst was yet to come. On June 11, 1988, he was convicted of murder and robbery in the slaying of Ernestine Griffin, with members of his jury recommending the death penalty.