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A Washington County man has been convicted of a double murder following a cold-case investigation
By: WOUB News Team
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — Following a two-week trial, a Washington County jury found a Waterford man guilty of murdering a mother and her 17-month-old son three decades ago.
“These brutal murders went unsolved for three decades, leaving a family searching for answers and justice,” Attorney General Dave Yost said in a prepared statement. “Thanks to the dogged work of detectives and prosecutors from multiple agencies … this villain is finally behind bars.”
Hickman was indicted in October 2021 following an investigation by cold-case detectives with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The team of investigators began re-examining the cold case in 2019, 24 years after the Fultons’ bodies were discovered in a burnt-out mobile home in Palmer Township on March 5, 1995.
In the months that followed, investigators exhumed and autopsied the bodies and concluded the victims had died before the fire was set.
Hickman will be sentenced on Oct. 14.
An additional defendant, Johnny Ball of Marietta, was indicted in May 2024 on five counts of perjury and one count of obstructing justice. His case remains ongoing.
The case was prosecuted by the Special Prosecutions Section of the Attorney General’s Office.