Murder of Allison Feldman

On February 18, 2015, 31-year-old Allison Michelle Feldman (June 14, 1983 – February 17, 2015) was found dead at her house in Scottsdale, Arizona, at least a day after she was killed. Investigations revealed that Feldman was being sexually assaulted and beaten to death by her attacker, who remained unidentified for three years until 2018. The perpetrator, Ian Mitcham, was identified via familial DNA testing and he was therefore arrested and charged with burglary, rape and murder.

Eight years after his arrest, Mitcham was found guilty of first-degree murder in April 2026, and the prosecution sought the death penalty for the defendant. However, in May 2026, his sentencing trial ended in a mistrial, because the jury deadlocked on the death penalty. As of 2026, a date has not been set for Mitcham's second sentencing trial.

Murder On February 18, 2015, 31-year-old Allison Feldman was found dead in her home in Scottsdale, Arizona. According to reports, Feldman's family did not receive any calls from her since the previous day, and her phone was also off. The family felt that something was amiss given that Feldman worked in sales and her phone was normally not supposed to be off.

Subsequently, Feldman's boyfriend decided to head to her house to check on her welfare, and when he arrived, he noticed that the door was locked. Feldman's boyfriend unlocked the door with a spare house key, and as he went inside, he detected a strong smell of bleach or chlorine permeating from inside the house. When Feldman's boyfriend reached the hallway, he discovered the nude body of Feldman lying on the floor.

When Feldman's corpse was found, she was naked and her body showed signs of being badly beaten, strangled and sexually assaulted with a bottle,

Background information showed that Feldman, who was born and raised in Minnesota, had relocated to Arizona during her college years, and graduated from the University of Arizona after completing her degree in Spanish and communications. Feldman continued to stay in Arizona due to the state's warmer climate, and worked in sales for a Swedish medical-device company, where she received a positive performance review and was also well-liked by her colleagues, friends and clients.

Investigations Early stages The death of Allison Feldman was classified as murder and the police investigated the case after identifying the victim. Through early investigations, the police deduced that Feldman was most likely killed while alone in her house on the night of February 17, 2015, after she returned home from a shopping trip at 9pm, with the attack occurring sometime later. A neighbour later told the police that she heard a scream coming from Feldman's house at around 9:30pm, and the police also speculated that a struggle had taken place throughout her home, since there were many broken items and blood found in the pool and kitchen.

In April 2015, a $1,000 reward was offered for information to help solve the murder of Feldman, and the amount was later increased to $10,000 by June 2015.

In February 2017, two years after the killing, the case still remained unsolved, and the authorities confirmed that investigations were still active to find the killer.

In February 2018, the case still remained unsolved and while they were still investigating it, the Scottsdale police cited it as one of the most difficult cases they ever came across.

2018 breakthrough and arrest On April 10, 2018, three years after the murder, the investigation reached a breakthrough when authorities arrested 42-year-old Ian Mitcham, a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, after familial DNA testing linked him to the crime. Mitcham denied any involvement despite the DNA evidence. Before Mitcham's arrest, Arizona authorities had turned to familial DNA testing, a newly enacted investigative technique that was then used in only 12 states, to help solve the Feldman case. The DNA profile recovered from the crime scene did not directly match anyone in the database but produced a familial match to Mitcham's 54-year-old brother Mark, who was serving a 40-year prison sentence for a sexual offense committed in the 1990s. This development prompted investigators to examine his immediate family members as potential contributors to the DNA profile.

Mark's father had died by that time, while his two older brothers had no criminal records. Investigators subsequently focused on Mark's youngest brother Ian Mitcham, who had previously been arrested for several misdemeanors, including a 2015 DUI. Authorities had retained a blood sample from Mitcham's DUI arrest, and subsequent testing determined that the sample was a perfect match to the DNA profile recovered in the Feldman case. The case was widely reported as the first murder in Arizona to be solved using familial DNA testing, a technique that had also attracted significant attention for its role in identifying and arresting other high-profile serial offenders, including the Golden State Killer and the Grim Sleeper in California.

Charges and pre-trial motions After his arrest, Ian Mitcham was charged with first-degree murder and second-degree burglary on April 11, 2018. His tentative trial date was delayed until January 2022, and it was expected to be further delayed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

On January 26, 2023, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Roy C. Whitehead granted Mitcham's motion and barred the DNA evidence from being used at trial. He noted that when Mitcham was arrested for DUI in 2015, he signed a notice stating that his blood sample would be destroyed after 90 days if no further testing was requested. Instead, police retained the blood for several years and, after Mitcham became a suspect in Feldman’s murder, analyzed it for DNA without a search warrant. Judge Whitehead ruled that Mitcham’s consent to blood testing for alcohol or drugs did not extend to DNA analysis for an unrelated criminal investigation. He found that Mitcham had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his blood and that a warrant was therefore required. The judge also rejected the prosecution’s argument that the DNA would have been inevitably discovered through other lawful means, finding that the claim was speculative.

On June 13, 2023, the prosecution filed an appeal against Judge Whitehead's ruling and sought to re-admit the DNA testing results as evidence for Mitcham's trial.

On August 23, 2023, the Arizona Court of Appeals overturned the ruling of the Maricopa County Superior Court and once again allowed the DNA test results to be admitted as evidence in the upcoming trial.

On September 26, 2024, Mitcham appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court to challenge the legality of the DNA testing and evidence obtained from him during the investigation of Feldman's murder.

On December 17, 2024, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that in spite of the violation of Mitcham's constitutional rights by testing his DNA sample without a warrant, it did not discount the fact that the DNA evidence would have inevitably be obtained and used from an independent, untainted source by the authorities through lawful means, and in this aspect, it satisfied the legal exception of "inevitable discovery" from the requirement of a warrant in search and seizure law.

On April 28, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Mitcham's petition regarding the DNA evidence in his case.

Murder trial Submissions and conviction The trial of Ian Mitcham began on October 20, 2025, and jury selection commenced on the same day.

A 12-member jury was assembled and opening statements were formally presented in court on November 12, 2025, with the prosecution arguing that Mitcham was the killer responsible for raping and murdering Feldman in her home back in 2015.

On April 6, 2026, closing submissions were made from both sides. The prosecution argued that the DNA evidence proved that Mitcham was the killer of the case and that he entered the house to kill and rape the victim, and also tried to wipe out the evidence by cleaning the body and house with bleach. The defence, however, argued that the DNA evidence was not enough to illustrate that Mitcham was the perpetrator and further argued that the prosecution was seeking to convict an innocent man and that the investigators did not adequately investigate all leads or clues regarding the case, and therefore urged the jury to acquit Mitcham.

On April 9, 2026, 11 years after the murder of Allison Feldman, the jury found 50-year-old Ian Mitcham guilty of first-degree murder, sexual assault and second-degree burglary.

First sentencing phase and mistrial On April 15, 2026, the sentencing trial of Mitcham began before the jury. On that same day, the jury found two aggravating factors existed in Mitcham's case, mainly that he was previously convicted of a serious offence and that the murder was committed in a cruel manner, which made him eligible for the death penalty.

On May 21, 2026, the jury began to deliberate on sentence after the prosecution and defence completed their closing submissions on sentence.

On May 27, 2026, in midst of the deliberation, one of the jurors was removed from court because it came to light that the particular juror had shared information from her boyfriend about life in prison, and also made her individual research, which jurors are not supposed to do. An alternate juror filled up the vacant spot and the jury continued deliberating on the sentence after being re-assembled. However, in the end, the jury deadlocked on the death penalty for Mitcham, and as a result, the judge officially declared a mistrial, specifically for the penalty of Mitcham's murder conviction.

On May 28, 2026, a day after the mistrial order, Mitcham was sentenced for the lesser charges of burglary and sexual assault. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sunita A. Cairo sentenced Mitcham to years' imprisonment for burglary and a consecutive term of seven years for sexual assault, and in total, Mitcham would serve a total of years in prison, with a credit of 2,328 days served and he was also required to register as a sex offender.

Second sentencing phase After the mistrial declaration, Mitcham's sentencing for the murder charge was put on hold, pending the prosecution's decision. The prosecution had the prerogative to either negotiate a plea deal with the defendant, which may possibly remove the death penalty as an option, or to seek a re-sentencing trial before another jury to decide between life in prison or a death sentence. Under Arizona state law, if Mitcham's second sentencing trial ended with another hung jury, he would avoid the death penalty and instead receive a mandatory life sentence.

On June 18, 2026, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell announced that her office would seek a second sentencing trial for Mitcham, and the prosecution would again seek the death penalty. As of 2026, there was no date scheduled for the new penalty phase.

Aftermath In August 2015, a woman's safety event titled Allison's Watch, which was named after Allison Feldman, was held in remembrance of the victim, and also offered safety tutorials, performances and guest speakers to advocate women's safety.

In November 2015, the family members, friends and neighbours of Feldman, as well as members of the local community, gathered for a candlelight vigil outside the home of Feldman to commemorate her.

On February 17, 2016, the first anniversary of Feldman's death, a public candlelight vigil was held outside the Scottsdale Justice Center in remembrance of the victim.

The Allison Feldman Memorial Scholarship, which was named after Feldman, was first established in February 2018 by two of Feldman's friends and aimed to help students participate in UA Study Abroad programs. In February 2019, Feldman's family gathered at the University of Arizona, Feldman's alma mater, to organise a gathering to memorialize the victim, and a crowdfunding campaign was also carried out to continue the scholarship that was named after her.

During the next few years after his daughter's murder, Feldman's father, Harley, became a board member of a non-profit group Parents of Murdered Children, which was aimed at helping the parents of murder victims in coping with the legal and emotional issues surrounding their loved ones' cases.

Feldman's father died on April 29, 2026, less than a month after the conviction of Mitcham, although the cause of his death was yet to be revealed at this point.