Drug Dealer Was Targeted A Week Before Murder

(left to right) Stephen Harkness, Anthony Baumgartner, and Jefferey Allen are accused of murdering 19-year-old Daniel Delfin.

Boone County Sheriff's Office

(Boone County, Ky.) - Three men accused of killing and cutting up the body of a Boone County drug dealer may have been planning more similar acts.

New disturbing details have emerged in the kidnapping, torture, and murder of known drug dealer Daniel Delfin, 19.

The suspects - Jefferey Allen, Anthony Baumgartner, and Stephen Harkness - all appeared in Boone Circuit Court Thursday. A judge ordered them held without bond and forwarded the case to a grand jury.

Boone County Sheriff’s detectives testified during the hearing, WLWT-TV reports. The investigators said Allen and the others targeted Delfin last week because he was dealing drugs in southern Boone County. The teen had a previous conviction for dealing heroin near Walton-Verona High School.

Allen, Baumgartner, and Harkness wanted Delfin to tell them who was supplying the drugs.

"They would continue to go down the line of finding the drug dealers and assaulting them and gathering information out of them to continue to go up the ladder," Detective Jeremy Rosing said in court.

The attack was planned a week earlier. After setting up a staged drug buy to lure him into a car January 9, Delfin was choked by Allen. When he became unresponsive, Allen allegedly slit his throat and stabbed him in the chest using Baumgartner’s knife.

Delfin’s remains were later cut up using a hatchet and scattered in a field near Allen’s home on Messmer Lane in Verona. Other body parts were tossed into a dumpster behind a Florence motel. Detectives had to rely on tattoos and what was left of Delfin’s clothing to identify him. The admission by Allen and his alleged accomplices also helped. 

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