Pike County jurors took roughly four hours to find 45 year old Charles Allen of Louisiana, Missouri guilty in the March 2019 stabbing death of 65 year old Donald Collard of Pleasant Hill on Friday. Allen faces between 20 and 100 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for one count of first degree murder. The verdict given by 9 women and 3 men concluded a week-long trial in Pittsfield. The jury believed Allen stabbed Collard, his former father-in-law, in the chest four times deliberately.
Allen defended himself in court by saying the stab wounds were in self-defense because Collard had come out of his Pleasant Hill home to fight him in his vehicle, according to the Quincy Herald-Whig. Pike County State’s Attorney Zachary Boren said the story was a self-serving lie in court arguments and that Allen had been the aggressor after Allen had arrived uninvited to pick up one of his daughter’s who had locked herself in the bathroom of Collard’s home after getting upset after a family gathering. The daughter had called on her sister to come get her from the Collard residence.
Allen remains lodged at the Pike County Jail until he faces sentencing on March 18th.