Ame Lynn Deal (July 24, 2000 – July 12, 2011) was an American 10-year-old girl who was murdered in Phoenix, Arizona, in July 2011. Deal had been the victim of long-term abuse by her family members before being locked inside a footlocker, where she subsequently died from suffocation. Sammantha and John Allen were convicted in 2017 of first degree murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection, while Sammantha Allen's mother, Cynthia Stoltzmann, arranged a plea deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Biography Personal life Ame Lynn Deal was born in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, on July 24, 2000, to Shirley Deal, who was married to David Deal at the time she conceived. According to Shirley, she was seeing another man during the time she conceived, therefore it is not known for sure if David Deal is the father of Ame. However, David Deal is listed as Ame's father on her birth certificate. Shirley and David had two other children together before Ame was born. Shirley and David were living together until Shirley and her children went to stay with her mother in Donora, Pennsylvania. Eventually Shirley and the children joined David again and they lived in Midland, Texas, together with David's mother, Judith Deal, and his sister, Cynthia Stoltzmann. Shirley claims that while David's family made her a slave to them, called her names and hit her, they did not abuse the children. Shirley claims also that the family threw her out and she left without her children, relocating to Iola, Kansas. Abuse Neighbors claimed that Ame was often abused and reported seeing her forced to walk back and forth on the sidewalk, barefoot, in extremely hot Phoenix temperatures. At other times she was beaten with a paddle which they called the "Butt Buster" and she was forced to eat hot sauce and dog feces. Ame was also forced to sleep in the shower stall without bedding because she had wet her bed. The punishment was supposedly for lying or for stealing food. The family had often moved and had lived in Pennsylvania, Utah, Texas and Tucson, Arizona, among other places. When the family lived in Wisconsin, the local child protective services were called because of the "disgusting conditions" of their residence. Before the family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, they were living in Ogden, Utah, where school officials claimed that they had reported many incidences of