Lane further incensed victims families and the community when he smirked and wore a shirt with the word killer written on it at his sentencing hearing. Richey returned to prison in 2012 when, after moving to Mississippi, he drunkenly phoned and threatened a common pleas judge, according to The Toledo Blade. The Lincoln PD said Smrekar admitted burying Martin under the new construction of I-55 (an area that can never be excavated), which was underway to replace Route 66 at the time of Ruths disappearance. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Login; Meigs County, OH Area Cold Cases. James Serey, 26, And Children, Age, 4, and 1, Fatally Shot., The terribly sad story reads, A 26-year-old Hutchinson mother shot her two young sons to death in the living room of her home yesterday afternoon and then turned the .38 caliber revolver on herself, inflicting a head wound which resulted in her death several hours later., The wife of James Serey was described by The Logan Banner as an attractive brunette and former member of the Womens Army Corps.. Bonnie J. Thompson, Investigative Writer/Author(Copyright 2013, 2015, 2017). Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. He then raped the girl before beheading both of the children, according to the website Forgotten Ohio. Goff had delivered furniture to the house earlier that day and went back to commit a robbery, according to court records. Cleveland.com reporter Patrick Cooley contributed to this story. Low 37F. This is perplexing and makes me wonder if my father was fully aware of all the evidence in the Schneider case. She disappeared, Months later, on Oct. 9, 76, Jay Fry and his 3-months-pregnant wife, Robin, both 24, were shot-gunned to death in their home just 9 days prior to a scheduled hearing on the Kroger case. On Wednesday, August 18, 76, the day before the Schneiders demise, Jones approached me in the back of the circuit clerks office and told me with a smirk on his face, Somethin big and somethin bads gonna happen. The only big and bad thing that happened in Lincoln immediately following his ominous prediction was the Schneider triple homicide. The letters were written in block style and contained vindictive, violent and vulgar material. There's actors, businessmen, philanthropists, war heroes and industrialists, but there's another side, a seedier side that includes criminals, mass murderers, crooked politicians and cult leaders. Dillon was arrested on weapons charges in 1992 and later pleaded guilty to the murders to avoid the death penalty. It turned out to be Herbert, half-dressed, likely sexually assaulted and beaten to death. Extensive investigations throughout the years have linked the murders together, though the killer has never been identified and the murders remain unsolved. Bica had for months told others she was pregnant and claimed the baby as her own. The small town of Circleville and the people of Pickaway County began to encounter what some might call a real-life-A -from-Pretty-Little-Liars-experience in the late 70s when thousands of individuals started receiving personal, mysterious letters about their lives. I never heard Drabing or Jones say a word, but they were right beside Hanley, in Hanleys Chevy pickup, when the exchange took place. Neither Krueger nor the Lincoln PD will account for its whereabouts they are remaining silent. Thank you! Following his conviction, Hanley and Jones pursued law degrees and became attorneys. Vicki Riffle Dylewski, 25, was murdered on April 20, 1981. Co-defendant Timothy Mosley who stabbed Justin Back nearly two-dozen times while Myers watched avoided the death penalty by testifying against Myers. Mansfield reluctantly accommodated Smrekar, but after Smrekar left campus and hitchhiked to Joliet (with the guitar) Mansfield got scared and dumped the records under a stairwell near a trash chute in his dormitory. The car showed signs of having been driven off the beaten track, and it was later learned that Ruth had the right front tire filled on June 1st because of a slow leak. He is now serving a sentence of life in prison. Nancy Schneider, the eldest of the three Schneider daughters,had a huge outdoor party at the Schneider farm one monthprior to the stabbings. The state of Ohio later paid $4.1 million to inmate victims who said overcrowding and mismanagement led to the uprising, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. the most comprehensive account and reveal of the facts concerning the 1976 Logan County murders. Officers said Mrs. Serey had been despondent since the birth of her last child. "We were both strong-willed, stubborn," he said with a laugh. Russell Smrekar died in October 2011. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2010 refused to hear his appeal. I was seated in my car nearby and witnessed what happened. The most notorious person from each of Ohio's 88 counties. Danielle Greene was born on the Fourth of July. She was subpoenaed for the second trial, but it was declared a mistrial before she testified. Hand received the death penalty for killing a 7-year-old boy with a hammer in Rockford. Drabing lost his unloaded J.C. Higgins revolver in the struggle with Lloyd. They found the 56-year-old dead inside in May 2005. It seems obvious to me why theyre resisting because I opened a HUGE can of worms, and I think theyd prefer the public not know all the facts. No other explanation was ever given for the tragedy. He searched for the gun but couldnt find it. The same day Mansfield disappeared, the burglary matter was continued to March (unbeknownst to Mansfield and Smrekar) because the two female students whose dorm room had been burgled were still on their European vacation. Milan, Ohio is best known for being the birthplace of Thomas Edison. It wasnt until early September 76 that Logan County learned that Mansfield was officially a missing person and his family hadnt seen him since December 31, The bloody T-shirt was the most important evidence collected in the Ruth Martin case, . Detectives arrested Reese a diagnosed schizophrenic released to his sisters care in 1954 while investigating the disappearance of a car salesman found buried at the farm. Maurer, whos now unfortunately deceased, claimed in March of 2002 that he didnt know anything about a T-shirt. Peggy Louise Casey, age 39, was brutally murdered on 04-02-94. Travis Lee Fischer was just 17 years old when he raped and killed a woman authorities described as being like a mother to him. He was finally declared dead seven years later in 1982, though his body was never recovered, and speculations as to what happened abound to this day. No part of these e-books may be copied, reproduced, sold, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Irwin said the Cold Case Unit is investigating the case at the request of Fairfield police. The 40-year-old Shawn Grate was arrested in September 2016 and is charged with aggravated murder in the deaths of two women. The signal has never been detected again. Blood and a mutilated spent .22 caliber bullet were found in the Martin garage. According to these past reports, there were 2 Marion County murders in 2015, 5 in 2016, 7 in 2017, 3 in 2018, and 6 in 2019. Wells, 18, was found dead in the middle of a street in a retirement neighborhood that he had no known connection to, about 10 miles from his home in Bond Hill in June 1999. Sept 21, 2020 The Ohio Attorney General's Office has created a new cold case unit to investigate unsolved crimes, and it is looking at several area cases of note. Ariel Castro's kidnapping of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus attracted international attention when the women escaped his Cleveland house in 2013. Russ was a sociopath and a pathological liar who enjoyed leading people, especially police, on wildgoose chases. Search Ohio homicide victims by name, city or keywords. Baumeister escaped to Ontario, Canada and committed suicide before police could take him into custody, according to The New York Times. Search Unsolved Homicide Victims Search Ohio homicide victims by name, city or keywords. Historians believe McAdams described as a peculiar girl with cold eyes poisoned their food. Anita Taylors page from the Unsolved Homicides Database. Charles Hart became one of Paulding County's earliest recorded executions when he hanged in 1895. Husband and wife Michael and Sharon Gravelle adopted 11 special needs children but kept them in cages at their Clarksfield Township home. Mastronardi and his insurance company also paid $3 million to Brabanders family, according to The Plain Dealer. Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire at their high school on April 20, 1999, killing 13 people and wounding two-dozen others before committing suicide. His alibi for the night of the Schneider murders was never fully corroborated. Davis disappearance garnered national attention before her body was found 10 days later in a Summit County park. Following the incident, Hanley tried to run me off the road and then he blocked a one-lane bridge with his truck, preventing me from crossing it. Scott grew up in Henry County and later returned to Ohio, where he was charged with killing a man believed to be harboring his teenage son. Maurer, whos now unfortunately deceased, claimed in March of 2002 that he didnt know anything about a T-shirt. Canadian businessman Ollie Mastronardi served nearly four years in prison for the drunken boating accident that killed Scott Brabander in 1995. That information was/is remarkably compelling, yet it was not spelled out in detail in the typewritten lab report, the only crime lab report that existed in my fathers old files in 2001/2002. Interestingly, the T-shirt is the only item of evidence in the Martin case thats allegedly MISSING from the Lincoln PD, without explanation. Your account has been registered, and you are now logged in. Then there is the 1930 murder of Logan Police Chief Roy Knotts, who was shot and killed on his first day on the job by Enoch Scaggs, a former Logan deputy and close ally of the Hatfield family, with Joe Hatfield serving as sheriff at the time of the killing at the Smoke House restaurant in Logan. Ruth wasnt called to testify in the first trial, which ended in a hung jury. The direction he ran was in the opposite direction from where he claimed he parked his car. The Lincoln PD regards the Martin case as closed because Smrekar allegedly confessed. Someone had attempted to wipe up the blood on the Martins garage floor the day Ruth vanished, and it had been spread out over a larger area. He is also a suspect in several other deaths, officials said. Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. William A. Krueger and Thomas Maurer were the leading Lincoln PD detectives assigned to the Martin case in 76, and both men lied to me about the facts pertaining to the T-shirt. Thompson, 19, was a University of Cincinnati freshman on spring break when she disappeared in the spring of 1978. Chardon High School shooter T.J. Lane killed three students and wounded three others when he opened fire at the school on Feb. 27, 2012. Ohio city ranked second safest small city or town in U.S. 'The final straw;' Mikesell's . Hardin County resident Terry D. Shepherd is serving three life sentences for the 2008 murders of two women there and one in adjacent Wyandot County. Investigators say Overmyer was improperly taking drugs from the drop boxes. Hopedale resident Matthew Dowdel committed Harrison County's first murder in more than a decade when he killed Joe Strother in 2014. Lindsey shot Donald Hoop twice in the head outside the Mount Orab bar owned by Hoop and her husband. Rich guitar from the dorm room of two female LC students. Their bodies were found days later in a field near a local cemetery. Both were shot in the back. The Toledo Blade's coverage of the Coingate scandal showed how Noe used cash and gifts to curry favor with state officials. The victims, Melvin Baisden, 74, Ervin Johnson Schoolcraft, 51, and 22-year-old Vicie Lucinda (Lilly) White, a widow from Varney in Mingo County, were found the morning of June 15 in a one-room cabin near the Pecks Mill location. Clearly, these murders should be reinvestigated by agencies outside Logan County, for many obvious and warranted reasons. In 2006, a German attorney filed a complaint accusing Miller of crimes against humanity, but he was never charged. He has been sentenced to life in prison. The Republican and former chairman of the House Administration Committee had been known as Mayor of Capitol Hill before he pleaded guilty to corruption charges. Nine inmates and one corrections officer died after 450 inmates rioted and took control of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility on Easter Sunday in 1993. 46 Cause of Death. Crime is ranked on a scale of 1 (low crime) to 100 (high crime) Logan County violent crime is 11.1. Of course, the 1800s also is the time period for the killings that took place during the world-renowned Hatfield-McCoy feud. Months later, on Oct. 9, 76, Jay Fry and his 3-months-pregnant wife, Robin, both 24, were shot-gunned to death in their home just 9 days prior to a scheduled hearing on the Kroger case. When Carols son got sick at school, her husband picked him up and took his step-son home where they found Carol dead in her daughters room. The Kirtland cult leader claimed God commanded him to kill the five members of the Avery family on April 17, 1989. Larry Taylor died in a motorcycle crash in 1978. Ruth disappeared on a weekday during morning hours, sometime around 9:15. What other infamous Ohio cold cases or unsolved mysteries do you know of that have yet to be explained? She would be the only survivor. We won't share it with anyone else. Regardless, in my humble opinion, If it happened, it is history. And history need not be entombed at least not forever. She even went as far as to travel to Marietta where she was able to find the house where she believed she lived during the past life as well as the gravesite of Sandra's grandmother. PLEASE NOTE: BURIED TRUTH The Unabridged Trilogy Copyright 2013, 2015, 2017 By Bonnie J. Thompson. Investigators found the body of Heskett who disappeared on Valentine's Day in 2015 in a burn barrel on Ash's property. Invalid password or account does not exist. To request that an unsolved homicide be included in BCI's statewide database and featured on this website, Ohio law enforcement agencies should contact BCI at 855-BCI-OHIO (224-6446) or e-mail OhioUnsolvedHomicides@OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov and reference Ohio Unsolved Homicides. They also say he was deceiving doctors and pharmacists to obtain pain medications such as Percocet, and that he misused money for the department and altered records. A jogger found her. Carol Zastudils page from the Unsolved Homicides Database. On Dec. 21, 1983, her husband, Richard Zastudil, left for work about 7:15 a.m. and her kids got on the school bus an hour later. Democrat Wayne Hays served in U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1976 and was known for his firm rule of the Committee on House Administration. She had been strangled. Two weeks later, on April 8, a state game warden looking to check the licenses of fishermen happened across Thompsons body on an embankment off the 260 block of East Kemper Road. His accomplice Eve Irene Kelley is serving more than 15 years in prison for her role in the murder. John Spirko Jr. has been sentenced to life in prison for the 1982 murder of Elgin postmaster Betty Jane Mottinger.