Mullenix’s ex-boyfriend gets same sentence

A Huntington Beach man was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison Friday for helping kill his then-girlfriend’s mother in 2006 and dumping her body into Newport Harbor.

Ian Allen, 23, was given the same sentence as Rachael Mullenix, 19, who was his girlfriend at the time and was convicted of the killing in July.

On Sept. 23, 2006, Allen and Mullenix killed Barbara Mullenix, Rachael’s mother, because she disapproved of their relationship. Barbara Mullenix was stabbed more than 50 times with at least two knives, expert witnesses testified. When her body was pulled out of Newport Harbor the next day, where the couple had dumped her, authorities found a butter knife lodged in her eye.

Allen’s friends testified that he told them he wanted to kill Barbara as painfully as possible, and offered them money to help dispose of the body in the desert.

“He wanted to make it slow and painful,” testified former friend Ryan Neptune during the trial. He told jurors Allen talked about the killing the weekend before during a get-together with friends.

Prosecutors said that after the couple killed Barbara, they stored her body in a large cardboard box and drove it to Newport Beach in her car, where they dumped it in the harbor.

After trying to clean up the scene of the crime, the couple fled to Florida, where they planned to stay with a friend of Rachael’s.

Newport Beach police sent out a nationwide call to authorities to be on the lookout for Allen’s truck. They were caught in Louisiana and sent back to Newport Beach.

Allen was convicted for his part in the murder in September.