Allen was born on February 10, 1949 in Indianapolis. In 1974 he beat to death Opal Cooper, eighty-five, during a robbery of her home. He was convicted and sentenced, and was released on parole in 1985 or 1986 after about twelve years.
In 1987 he attacked elderly people in Marion County again. Ernestine Griffin, seventy-three, was stabbed and beaten to death at her home in August 1987, and Laverne Hale, eighty-seven, died after an attack in the same period. He robbed the houses and in some cases set fires.
He was arrested on August 4, 1987 and sentenced to death on June 11, 1988 for the Griffin murder.
He remained on Indiana's death row for thirty-two years. Indiana carried out no executions between 2009 and 2024, and he was never executed; he died in custody in 2020.
The parole is the substance of it, as in several cases in this archive: a man convicted of beating an elderly woman to death was released after twelve years and attacked elderly people again within months. The higher figure reflects further attributions in the 1987 series.