Stephen Marlow was captured in Kentucky after fleeing from Ohio where he has been charged in a quadruple murder. According to police in Ohio Stephen Marlow would shoot and kill four people, Clyde Knox, 82, Eva Knox, 78, Sarah Anderson, 41, and Kayla Anderson, 15 before fleeing the State. The FBI would issue an alert and Stephen Marlow would be captured in Kentucky where he now faces extradition back to Ohio to stand trial for the quadruple murder where he may face the death penalty. Police in Ohio are still trying to figure out a motive that led to four murders
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The man charged with aggravated murder in the fatal shooting of four people in Ohio was arrested Saturday night in Lawrence, Kansas, the FBI’s Cincinnati field office announced.
Stephen Marlow, 39, was arrested by the Lawrence Police Department just before 10 p.m., according to John Porter, the police chief in Butler Township, Ohio, where the shooting deaths occurred.
Marlow is now in Lawrence Police Department custody, and arrangements for extradition are being made, Porter said.
The FBI had issued a wanted poster for 39-year-old Stephen Marlow, whom they said should be considered “armed and dangerous.” He has ties to Indianapolis, Chicago and Lexington, Kentucky, and “could be in one of these cities,” FBI Cincinnati had said on Twitter.
Marlow was wanted in connection with the shooting deaths of four people in Butler Township, a small town north of Dayton on Friday, police said.
Police responding to reports of gunfire shortly before noon found the four victims suffering from gunshot wounds at “multiple crime scenes” in a residential area, the Butler Township Police Department said.
The four victims were pronounced dead at the scenes. They were identified Saturday by police as Clyde Knox, 82, Eva Knox, 78, Sarah Anderson, 41, and Kayla Anderson, 15.
Marlow was charged with four counts of aggravated murder on Friday and a state warrant was issued for his arrest, according to the FBI. A federal arrest warrant was also issued on Saturday after he was charged with “unlawful flight to avoid prosecution,” the FBI said.
“At this time, we believe that he has left Ohio. Law enforcement agencies in multiple states have been made aware of this and are on high alert,” the Butler Township Police Department said.
Butler Township Police Chief John Porter addressed Marlow during a press conference Saturday, asking the suspect to turn himself in. “I want you to know that we want to help you. You have the ability to resolve the situation peacefully if you turn yourself into law enforcement as soon as possible,” he said.
Marlow is the primary suspect, police said.
Porter said they don’t believe there is a continued threat to the neighborhood but “we will continue to have crews in the area in case Marlow would return,” he told reporters on Friday. The Dayton Police Department Bomb Squad was also contacted “out of an abundance of caution,” he said.
Neighbors were asked to review any video camera footage from that day.
Porter said police were working to determine “if there were any motive to this horrible tragedy” and did not have any further information on the investigation.
“This is the first violent crime in this neighborhood in recent memory,” Porter said.
Marlow was believed to have fled the area in a white 2007 Ford Edge SUV with the Ohio license plate JES9806, police said.
He was described by police as approximately 5’11”, 160 pounds with short brown hair and was last seen wearing shorts and a yellow T-shirt.
Gail Eastwood Ritchey has been found guilty of murdering her newborn baby nearly 30 years ago in Ohio. According to court documents Gail Eastwood Ritchey gave birth to a newborn who locals dubbed “Geauga’s Child.” and placed the newborn in a trash bag and abandoned it in a wooded area. When a local newspaper carrier found “Geauga’s Child.” it had been mutilated by animals.
The case would go unsolved until 2019 when a DNA match occurred. Officers would upload the DNA from “Geauga’s Child.” to a genealogical website where they were able to wither through the results and landed on Gail Eastwood Ritchey. Gail Eastwood Richey would be arrested and later convicted of murder. When she is sentenced Gail Eastwood Ritchey may face the maximum penalty of life in prison.
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The jury reached a verdict Monday evening in the trial for a woman charged with dumping her newborn baby in the woods in Geauga County in 1993.
Gail Eastwood Ritchey was found guilty of murder and not guilty of aggravated murder. She was arrested in 2019.
“I’m frankly shocked and surprised at the jury’s verdict,” said defense attorney Steven Bradley. “I certainly respect the jury’s verdict, but the state frankly did not have enough evidence to meet their burden of proof.”
Closing arguments wrapped up earlier that morning.
Jurors had to decide whether they believed Ritchey’s defense claim that the baby was stillborn.
Jurors got the case around noon.
Based on the charges, the prosecution had to prove the killing was intentional.
“She made the decision to put her baby in a garbage bag,” the state argued.
According to prosecutors, because Ritchey knew she was pregnant 3 months before the child was born and did nothing to prepare for the birth of a child shows intent.
“She literally treated him like a piece of garbage,” prosecutors said. “Tossed him in the woods…didn’t even bury him.”
“There really is no evidence…no reliable evidence that this was in fact a live birth,” Ritchey’s defense claimed.
Prosecutors argued that the defense couldn’t prove the baby was born alive without a reasonable doubt.
On the stand Saturday, was Montgomery County Coroner Dr. Kent Harshbarger who said he was not able to determine if the child was born alive or dead.
He said coroners look at certain markers when determining live birth, including lung function and expanded alveoli and also food in the stomach.
Other factors, including decomposition, could cause air to fill the lungs without a breath being taken, he said.
He said he can’t determine if the baby was born at full term but that it’s most likely the case because the baby’s weight and other developmental factors were evidence of a full-term pregnancy.
The baby was known as “Geauga’s Child.” The community raised money for a funeral, headstone and burial.
Gail Eastwood Ritchey was arrested in the cold case in 2019. Investigators arrested the Euclid mother after they say DNA linked Ritchey to the child.
A Geauga County sheriff’s deputy explained that the DNA profile came from the baby’s tooth bud
Donald Seamon described how the family tree linked back to Ritchey.
In May of 2019, they served warrants to Gail Eastwood Ritchey, her husband and her sister for DNA samples.
Seamon had a hidden camera when he met Gail Eastwood Ritchey at her home. The video was shown to jurors
In the video, Seamon asked Ritchey if she knew why he was there.
“About a baby,” Ritchey replied.
“We’re not here to judge you, Gail. We don’t know what was going on at the time,” Seamon said.
“We’re not here to arrest you. We would like to take your DNA. We want to hear your side of the story.”
Video showed him take a DNA swab from Ritchey.
Then they showed a video of Ritchey’s interview at the sheriff’s office.
She said she learned she was pregnant about 3 months before the baby was born. She was 22 at the time.
She didn’t remember the month or day the baby was born but later said she thought it was January of 1993.
“I was at work. I was at Nanny for a family in Shaker Heights.”
She said she had been feeling sick all morning.
“I knew I was giving birth to the baby in the toilet.“
“I didn’t know what to do,” she whispered.
“I put the baby in a bag,” she said.
“I had no idea what the sex was. I never looked at it.”
“I put it in the trunk,” she said in the interview.
“I wasn’t sure what to do. No one knew.”
She was with a youth group a short time later when she dumped the baby, she told detectives.
“I got in my car and just drove…I just ended up stopping on a road,” she said.
“I took the bag out of the trunk, and I laid it in the woods.”
“I don’t remember it making any noise,” Ritchey told detectives who told her that the baby had been born alive.
Gail Eastwood Ritchey said the baby may have been left in the car for a week.
The baby was found dead in the woods on March 25, 1993. He was mauled by animals.
Shirley Jenkins was delivering newspapers when she found the dead infant.
“We were driving down the road and it looked like a baby doll on the side of the road,” Jenkins said. “I saw the blood running down his nose… He was in bad shape.”
Jenkins said she ran to a nearby house to call the police.
Her defense team said Gail Eastwood Ritchey was scared and that the child was stillborn. The medical examiner said that the child was alive when it was born.
According to the interview with detectives, she and the baby’s father were not married when she got pregnant.
“My father was very adamant about not having children before you’re married,” Ritchey told detectives in a recorded interview.
“I was afraid of what his family would think,” she said.
Gail Eastwood Ritchey said she was afraid her boyfriend, who she described as the only man who ever loved her, would leave her if he knew she was pregnant.
Ritchey told detectives she considered ending her life on the day they came for the DNA sample.
Ritchey’s Euclid neighbors described her as a church-going woman who was active in the Boy Scouts and PTA.
Ritchey has three adult children and was married to the newborn’s father at the time of her arrest.
Despite the widespread coverage of the case, Ritchey told detectives she had never heard about the investigation.
Investigators said she has not taken ownership of the baby, so he will remain buried in Thompson Cemetery as Geauga’s Child.
Ritchey was expected to take the stand in her defense, but the defense rested without her testimony Saturday.
Ritchey’s criminal trial had initially been postponed because of COVID-19.
LaChelle Anderson is a teen killer from Columbus Ohio who would fatally stab her one year old baby According to court documents LaChelle Anderson would call 911 and tell the operator that her daughter was not moving. When ambulance attendants arrived at the scene they would find the one year old girl with multiple stab wounds and LaChelle Anderson covered in blood. This seventeen year old teen killer would initially be charged with murder however she would later plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and be sentenced to 20 years in prison
An Ohio teen who was charged with stabbing her 1-year-old daughter to death has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The Columbus Dispatch reports a judge sentenced 18-year-old LaChelle Anderson Monday after she pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, felony assault and child endangering.
Prosecutors say Anderson was 17 when she called 911 to her Columbus home last September because her child Lalanna Sharpe was not moving.
Police and paramedics arrived to find the baby with several stab wounds and Anderson covered in blood. Lalanna was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Psychologists determined that Anderson suffers from an anxiety disorder, but she was found competent to stand trial.
Anderson said Monday “no words will ever convey” how sorry she is.
John Wesley Wooden has been charged in the murder of Imam Mohamed Hassan Adam. According to police reports John Wesley Wooden would fatally shoot Imam Mohamed Hassan Adam in late December 2021. After John Wesley Wooden became a suspect police in Columbus Ohio would search his residence and would find the gun that killed Imam Mohamed Hassan Adam. Imam Mohamed Hassan Adam was a community leader for Somali refugees in Ohio. John Wesley Wooden and Mohamed Hassan Adam were involved in a business deal however Columbus police did not elaborate.
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A Columbus man was charged Thursday in connection with the December death of Imam Mohamed Hassan Adam.
John Wesley Wooden, Jr., 46, is accused of shooting and killing the 48-year-old local Somali community leader on or about Dec. 22, according to records from the Franklin County Municipal Court.
According to a report from Franklin County Coroner Dr. Anahi Ortiz’s office, Adam died after being shot multiple times.
During a news conference Friday, police said it appears at some point Wooden and Adam were involved in a business transaction, but they wouldn’t elaborate any details.
According to police, after identifying Wooden as a suspect in Adam’s death, they issued a search warrant for Wooden’s residence, where a gun was found that was a ballistic match in Adam’s case.
Former Doctor William Husel trial is to begin this week in Ohio where he is facing fourteen counts of murder however many are wondering whether his intent was to kill or to help. According to police records William Husel, who was initially charged with 25 murders, gave a large dose of painkillers to dozens of patients who were near death. When a new prosecutor took over the case he decided to only charge William Husel with fourteen murders as they had received fentanyl. During the trial which could last for a while a jury will have to decided whether or not William Husel is a serial killer or he was making the final decision for his patients.
William Husel More News
In September 2018, an ambulance rushed Bonnie Austin to a nearby Columbus, Ohio, hospital after she complained to her husband of chest pains and labored breathing.
A night shift doctor in the intensive care unit named William Husel was in charge: He ordered 600 micrograms of fentanyl, a powerful opioid used to blunt pain, and a large dose of a sedative known as Versed, administered through an IV, according to her medical records.
About a half-hour later, Bonnie Austin, 64, would be pronounced dead, the records show.
David Austin said it was Husel who first delivered the gut-wrenching news to him that his wife of 36 years was brain-dead. But he insisted he would have wanted the doctor to do everything within his power to try and keep her alive.
“Of course I wanted my wife to survive,” David Austin told NBC News in 2019.
The amount of painkiller Husel allegedly ordered at the moment he did will become the focus of a long-awaited trial in which the doctor, whose medical license was suspended in January 2019, faces murder charges in the deaths of 14 intensive care unit patients. Jury selection is set to begin Monday in the trial.
The case became a stunning example of alleged medical malpractice with prosecutors in Franklin County initially charging Husel in the deaths of 25 patients. They said he ordered excessive doses of opioids to dozens of near-death patients between 2015 and 2018, when he was employed with the Mount Carmel Health System, one of the largest in central Ohio.
A new prosecutor in Franklin County, G. Gary Tyack, winnowed the number of counts down to 14, centering the trial on patients who were allegedly given higher doses of fentanyl — as much as 1,000 micrograms. Medical experts have said a typical dose for nonsurgical situations might be around 50 to 100 micrograms.
The amount of fentanyl allegedly ordered is only one facet of Husel’s trial, which had been delayed during the pandemic and could last up to two months. Themes of medical treatment and ethics, and end-of-life comfort care using opioids are expected to come into play in one of the biggest cases of its kind against a health care professional in the United States.
In addition, complex medical testimony, emotional stories from the families of the deceased and the notoriety brought by Husel’s defense team will make for an intriguing set of proceedings, observers say. The team includes high-profile lawyer Jose Baez, who once counted NFL player Aaron Hernandez, Florida mother Casey Anthony and Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein as his clients.
“It puts a lot of drama on the trial,” said former prosecutor Ric Simmons, who teaches criminal law at Ohio State University. “The defense can say that you think you know this story, but you don’t know the whole version yet, and you shouldn’t put a judgment on it until you do.”
Husel, 46, has not spoken publicly or given media interviews since the allegations of misconduct first arose in a series of lawsuits filed by families in early 2019. When he appeared before the state medical board that same year as it weighed whether to suspend his license, members said he asserted his “Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to virtually all questions.”
Husel, who pleaded not guilty, has remained free on a $1 million bond.
Legal experts say his trial will offer a more nuanced view of the doctor, who began his career with a residency in critical care at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, as the prosecutors and the defense outline their cases.
While Husel faces murder counts, prosecutors could offer evidence to jurors of another option: a lesser offense of reckless homicide for each count. While a murder conviction carries a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years, reckless homicide, which in some states is a type of involuntary manslaughter, has a penalty of up to five years in prison.
For each charge of murder, prosecutors must prove that Husel purposefully caused the death of the patients under his care. That will be trickier in this case, Simmons said, because the patients who died were generally already dying or close to it.
Therefore, he added, prosecutors will also need to show that each patient died because of how much fentanyl William Husel authorized, and that perhaps they could have lived longer or their lives could have even been saved.
If prosecutors steer toward a reckless homicide argument for a particular count, then jurors would have to decide whether the doctor knowingly engaged in behavior that could result in a death, and not that it was his intent to kill.
In Husel’s case, prosecutors could say “the first or second time could be accidental, but by the 14th time, he must have known or was at least aware of the risk someone was going to die,” Simmons said.
The defense has argued to the court that Husel should be immune from prosecution because Ohio law declares that physicians who say they were acting in “good faith” shouldn’t be held liable even when a “medical procedure, treatment, intervention, or other measure may appear to hasten or increase the risk” of death.
But Franklin County Judge Michael Holbrook said in a response this month that such a claim will be a central question for jurors to decide: Was Husel acting in good faith?
His lawyers have contended that the answer is yes, and the doctor was trying to provide comfort to people who were dying and in excruciating pain as they were being taken off ventilators.
“Dr. Husel practiced medicine with compassion and care,” Baez told reporters in December. “That was his intent. And under the law — Ohio law — is that even if that killed them, so long as his intention was medically-based, then it’s not murder.”
A request for further comment to Baez’s law firm was not returned, and the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment ahead of the trial.
Simmons said Husel’s lawyers will be careful not to suggest that the ordering of large doses of fentanyl for comfort care was meant to quicken patients’ deaths.
“We don’t allow euthanasia in Ohio, so that is not a possible defense,” he added.
Many of the patients whose deaths are part of this case were in the ICU already dying or near death and older. A few were as young as their late 30s, but many were in their 70s and 80s.
Simmons said he would expect Husel to take the stand since it will be important for the jury to hear directly from him as to his thinking.
Also up for discussion will be if there was any apparent pushback from other hospital staff, including the nurses, over the amount of fentanyl allegedly ordered.
Attorneys for some of the victims’ families have previously said that William Husel may have been persuasive enough to get his medication orders filled, and colleagues working late nights beside him may not have felt they could overrule his commands.
At least three dozen co-workers, including ICU nurses, came to Husel’s defense in a letter to Mount Carmel after he was fired. One former ICU nurse previously told NBC News that “it’s ludicrous to think you’re going to convince 38 health care workers to collude to end anyone’s life prematurely.”
The trial hasn’t been the only legal battle hanging over Husel.
About 35 families filed wrongful-death lawsuits against him, the hospital and other staff, with several of the families settling for a total of about $13.5 million. Husel’s wife, Mariah Baird, who was a nurse at Mount Carmel, was also named in at least one of the suits.
David Shroyer, a Columbus lawyer who represents families of two of the deceased who will be part of the criminal trial, including Bonnie Austin’s family, said 10 lawsuits are still outstanding.
While the allegations center on William Husel, Shroyer contends there was a larger oversight by the hospital and that a system for obtaining fentanyl and accounting for every vial of a drug was either missed or willfully ignored.
“These things were falling in a dark hole without any kind of review,” he said.
In the wake of the allegations, the Mount Carmel CEO stepped down saying the hospital made “meaningful changes throughout the system,” and it fired almost two dozen employees, including nurses, physicians and members of the pharmacy management team. The hospital declined to comment ahead of Husel’s trial.
No matter the outcome of the criminal case, Shroyer said, a larger reckoning is needed to ensure that what happened to the Austins doesn’t happen to any other family.
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