A forty-year-old murder case is being revisited with modern DNA testing technology. A Van Wert County judge has granted John Spirko the opportunity to have evidence in the Betty Jane Mottinger murder case tested by a Virginia laboratory.
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A man believed to be responsible for his ex-wife’s disappearance and death has been indicted in Huron County.
Authorities are pulling submerged vehicles from the Columbia River, including a car thought to have belonged to a Portland couple who vanished in 1958 while out for a drive with their three daughters.
November 7, 2024, Press Release from the Office of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost: (COLUMBUS, Ohio) — At the request of the Dayton Police Department, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is conducting a cold case review of the unsolved 2009 homicide of 85-year-old Army Sgt. Maj. (Ret.) North Woodall, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced today. “The military has an ethos that you don’t leave a teammate behind,” AG Yost said. “We’re hoping on Veterans Day that someone remembers something — they heard something or saw something — and will reach out to help us get justice for this American hero.” Woodall, a decorated veteran of World War II and the Vietnam and Korean wars, was killed on July 27, 2009, inside his home on Walton Avenue. Even though authorities collected fingerprints and DNA from the scene, the case went cold.
August 8, 2024, Press Release from the Office of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost: (HUDSON, Ohio) — In another victory for cross-agency collaboration on Ohio’s cold cases, BCI investigators and forensic scientists have linked the brutal attacks in 1987 of two northeastern Ohio females – one fatal – to the same suspect. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, Hudson Police Chief Perry Tabak and Cuyahoga Falls Police Chief Christopher Norfolk today announced that Thomas Collier Jordan, who died in 2009 in Arizona, was responsible for the rape and homicide of a 30-year-old woman in Hudson Township and the rape of a 17-year-old girl in Cuyahoga Falls. Jordan was identified through extensive detective work and forensic analysis conducted by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Cold Case Unit at the request of the Hudson Police Department.
On October 9, 2000 at approximately 945 pm, Officers from the Lima Police Department were dispatched to a residence located at 1500 S Main St in reference to a possible shooting. Upon arrival, officers entered the residence and found Craig Simpson on the floor of the kitchen deceased. Craig’s apparent cause of death was a gunshot wound.
Back in 2005, Timothy Ryan was found dead in an alleyway with a gunshot wound. Now 15 years later, Lima police are still trying to figure out who was with Ryan on the night he was shot.
Earlier this month marked the 18th anniversary of the death of Jon Bryant. With no real leads at the moment, this case has grown cold, but there could be hope in the near future. It was the third homicide of the year back in 2002 when the body of 37-year-old Jon Bryant was found in his South Central Avenue home. His family had been concerned after he'd missed work and they hadn't heard from him for about 24 hours. A few family members went to check on him, and that's when they found him in his living room. An autopsy report revealed that he was shot. His family, wanting answers about what happened, believe that whoever Bryant saw that night was someone he knew.
A new technique in criminal investigations is leading to cold cases being cracked like the Golden State Killer.