Appeals court upholds 2 life sentences for Casey Frederiksen

The Iowa Court of Appeals upheld the 2015 conviction of Casey Frederiksen, who is serving two life sentences for sexually assaulting and killing 5-year-old Evelyn Celeste Miller in 2005.

The court found the state's evidence sufficient for a jury to find Frederiksen, 37, guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree sexual abuse. The court said Frederiksen's arguments would be better directed at jurors who are judging credibility and deciding what weight to give certain testimony.

Frederiksen's lawyers argued on appeal the state didn't prove he was the person who sexually assaulted the child and then killed her to cover up the assault, as the state had argued. His defense also contended he wouldn't have had time to commit the crimes in a four-hour period and disputed testimony from a prison inmate and the admissibility of statements in which Frederiksen said he was sexually attracted to the child.

The court said four hours was enough time to carry out the 'dastardly acts” and he had sole access to Evelyn, his girlfriend Noel Miller's child whom he was baby-sitting. Frederiksen didn't have a working car that night but, during trial, investigators testified they traveled by foot from the apartment where he and Noel lived to the Cedar River, where the body was found, to see how long it took. Various investigators carried 45-pound weights to represent Evelyn and made it round trip in about two hours.

The testimony of inmate Richard Carter was credible, the appeals court said, because he gave information about the child's abduction and murder that he couldn't have known unless Frederiksen told him. Carter said Frederkisen told him he sexually assaulted Evelyn when the girl was 2 years old, and he told Carter that Evelyn had been sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple times.

The court said Frederiksen's attraction to Evelyn and young girls in general were factors in determining his guilt. The state presented plausible evidence that he had to cover up his sexual assault of the girl by fatally stabbing her because he caused significant injuries to the child, and her father was coming to pick her up for a weekend visit.

The court also pointed out Frederiksen's changing stories of what happened the night Evelyn disappeared. He claimed years later that another man kidnapped the girl at knifepoint and he didn't tell investigators earlier because he was afraid of her mother's reaction.

The two life sentences were ran consecutively with the 14 years Frederiksen already is serving on federal child pornography charges in Illinois.