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AGs Website Shouts: Don’t Get Murdered In Akron
By: Tim Sharp
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A new emphasis on Ohio's more than 5,000 cold-case homicides will include the listing of cases on the attorney general's website and help from state crime experts to crack them.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced the plan Thursday in Mercer County in western Ohio.
Two of the cold cases occurred there, including the 2011 slayings of a 70-year-old man and his 47-year-old daughter who were bound with duct tape and shot.
A check of the Attorney General's cold-case site shows that just 166 of the thousands of unsolved cases are listed.
Perhaps the most notable detail is that of that number: More than 40 percent of the unsolved murders listed on the site are in Akron in Summit County.
Just seven in Southern and Southeast Ohio are listed on the searchable site.
The victims and the location of their deaths are:
- Priscilla Hickman – killed in 2009i in Licking County
- Dion Spraggins – killed in 2007 in Hocking County
- Jennifer Burgette – killed in 2006 in Pike County
- Curtis Francis – killed in 2006 in Pike County
- James Stulka – killed in 1998 in Coshocton County
- Mary Lodatto – killed in 1991 in Jackson County
- Patrice Braxton-Fedock – killed in 1991 in Hocking County
Missing from the site is the case of Terrence Ross, killed in the parking lot of an Athens apartment complex in 2008.
In addition to listing cold cases on the Ohio Attorney General's website, local authorities can now tap into the expertise of investigators at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
State officials plan symposiums on unsolved homicides around the state next year to educate local law enforcement on the effort.