The Zanesville Times Recorder reports that 40-year-old Jamial Bayly is scheduled for a video arraignment Thursday in Cambridge Municipal Court.

Guernsey County Sheriff Michael McCauley says deputies went to the Cambridge home Sunday after getting a tip from family members.

The sheriff says the father acknowledged putting the boy in the dryer earlier in the day. Deputies didn’t see any visible injuries on him. McCauley says he doesn’t know how long the boy had been in the dryer.

The sheriff says the boy was released to his mother, who wasn’t home when deputies arrived.

Cambridge Municipal Court records don’t list an attorney for Bayly.

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The brine wastewater comes from drilling operations that use the so-called fracking process to extract gas from underground shale. But Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Jim Zehringer said during a news teleconference that fracking is not causing the quakes.

“The seismic events are not a direct result of fracking,” he said.

Environmentalists and property owners who live near gas drilling wells have questioned the safety of fracking to the environment and public health. Federal regulators have declared the technology safe, however.

Zehringer said four injection wells within a 5-mile (8-kilometer) radius of an already shuttered well in Youngstown will remain inactive while further scientific research is conducted.

A 4.0 magnitude quake Saturday afternoon in McDonald, outside of Youngstown, was the 11th in a series of minor earthquakes in area, many of which have struck near the Youngstown injection well. The quake caused no serious injuries or property damage, Zehringer said.

Thousands of gallons of brine were injected into the well daily until its owner, Northstar Disposal Services LLC, agreed Friday to stop injecting brine into the earth as a precaution while authorities assess any potential links to the quakes.

Michael Hansen of the Ohio Seismic Network said Saturday that more quakes are possible, most likely small ones, until the pressure at the fault line has been completely relieved.

The temblor Saturday appeared to be stronger than others, which generally had a magnitude of 2.7 or lower. Some residents reported feeling trembling farther south into Columbiana County and east into western Pennsylvania.

Area residents said a loud boom accompanied the shaking. It sent some stunned residents running for cover as bookshelves shook and pictures and lamps fell from tables.

A few miles from the epicenter, Charles Kihm said he was preparing food in his kitchen when he heard a noise and thought a vehicle had hit his Austintown home.

“It really shook, and it rumbled, like there was a sound,” said Kihm, 82. “It was loud. It didn’t last long. But it really scared me.”

There are 177 similar injection wells around the state, and the Youngstown-area well has been the only site with seismic activity, the department said. Zehringer said that to shut down all of the wells because of seismic activity near one would be an overreaction.

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Michael Gunn says Hein put up the sign after he brought his daughter, who is Black, to her pool and Hein complained that the chemicals in his daughters hair made the pool cloudy.

ABC News Reports:

The Ohio Civil Rights Commission found on Sept. 29 that Hein did violate the Ohio Civil Rights Act by posting the sign, but Hein has asked that the decision be reconsidered. The sign has since been stolen.

“I’ve never said anything to that child,” Hein said. “If I have to stick up for my white rights, I have to stick up for my white rights. It goes both ways.”

Read More At ABC News

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In Ohio, an important swing state, voters rejected the law enacted by Gov. John Kasich and the Republican-controlled legislature that limited the ability of public-employee unions to collectively bargain.

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In Mississippi, abortion rights advocates defeated a proposed initiative that would define the word “person” to include every human being “from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.”

Before you start celebrating, Ohio voters also rebuffed Obama’s health care law. Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure saying that no federal, state or local law or rule could compel any person or employer to participate in a health care system.

Read more at the Root.

After an all-night hunt that extended into the afternoon, nearly all of the 50 or so escaped animals had been either gunned down or captured alive, authorities said. As of midafternoon, the only animals still on the loose were a wolf and a monkey, according to the sheriff’s office.

When Animals Attack! 5 Pets You Shouldn’t Own

Schools closed in the mostly rural area of widely spaced homes 55 miles east of Columbus. Parents were warned to keep children and pets indoors. And flashing signs along highways told motorists, “Caution exotic animals” and “Stay in vehicle.”

“It’s like Noah’s Ark, like, wrecking right here in Zanesville, Ohio,” said Jack Hanna, TV personality and former director of the Columbus Zoo. “Noah’s Ark filled with tigers and lions and all leopards and a few monkeys and whatever, and it crashes here, and all of a sudden they’re out there.”

Officers were under orders to shoot to kill for fear that animals hit with tranquilizer darts would run off and hide in the darkness.

The owner of the privately run Muskingum County Animal Farm, Terry Thompson, left the cages open and the fences unsecured before committing suicide, Sheriff Matt Lutz said.

Authorities would not say how he killed himself, and Lutz wouldn’t speculate on why he did it or why he went out with what appeared to be one last act of vengeance.

But Thompson had had repeated run-ins with the law, and Lutz said the sheriff’s office had received numerous complaints since 2004 about animals escaping from the property. Thompson had gotten out of federal prison just last month after serving a year for possessing unregistered guns.

“This is a bad situation,” the sheriff said. “It’s been a situation for a long time.”

John Ellenberger, a neighbor of Thompson’s, speculated he freed the animals to get back at neighbors and police.

“Nobody much cared for him,” Ellenberger said.

Neighbor Danielle White, whose father’s property abuts the 40-acre animal park, said she didn’t see loose animals this time but did in 2006, when a lion escaped.

“It’s always been a fear of mine knowing (the owner) had all those animals,” she said. “I have kids. I’ve heard a male lion roar all night.”

The sheriff said his office started getting calls Tuesday evening that wild animals were loose just west of Zanesville on a road that runs under Interstate 70. He said deputies with rifles went to the animal preserve, where they found Thompson dead and all the cages open. Several aggressive animals were near his body and had to be shot, the sheriff said.

Lutz said his main concern was protecting the public in the area, where homes sit on large lots of sometimes 10 acres. Nearby Zanesville has a population of about 25,000.

Hanna defended the sheriff against criticism that the animals should have been captured alive.

“What was he to do at nighttime with tigers and lions, leopards, going out there?” Hanna said. “In the wild this would be a different situation.”

Hanna told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that if an officer shot a bear, a leopard or a tiger with a tranquilizer at night, “the animal gets very excited, it goes and hides, and then we have his officer in danger of losing their life, and other people.”

The preserve in Zanesville also had cheetahs, giraffes and camels. Lutz called the animals very big and aggressive but said a caretaker told authorities they had been fed on Monday.

White, the preserve’s neighbor, said Thompson had repeatedly been in legal trouble.

“He was in hot water because of the animals, because of permits, and (the animals) escaping all the time,” White said. A few weeks ago, she said, she had to avoid some camels that were grazing on the side of a freeway.

At a nearby Moose Lodge, Bill Weiser said: “It’s breaking my heart, them shooting those animals.”

Bailey Hartman, a night manager at a McDonald’s, also said it saddened her that the animals were shot. But she said, “I was kind of scared coming in to work.”

Ohio has some of the nation’s weakest restrictions on exotic pets and among the highest number of injuries and deaths caused by them. In 2010, an animal caretaker was killed by a bear at a property in Cleveland.

On Wednesday, the Humane Society of the United States criticized Gov. John Kasich for allowing a statewide ban on the buying and selling of exotic pets to expire in April. The organization urged the state to immediately issue emergency restrictions.

“How many incidents must we catalog before the state takes action to crack down on private ownership of dangerous exotic animals?” Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO, said in a statement.

Police claim that Manigault was killed by his girlfriend’s ex lover, 22-year-old Marco Cardenas who had broken into their home.

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Reuters reports:

Cardenas went past two juveniles who were in the home and entered the bedroom, where several shots were fired, police said. Manigault ran from the room and collapsed from a gunshot wound to his head, they said.

Vindy.com, a Youngstown news site, said Manigault’s 34-year-old girlfriend had told police that Cardenas hit her on the head with the gun and tried to shoot Manigault again before the two juveniles forced him out of the house.

Read More At Reuters

Flossie Tabor says she grabbed a skillet and hit one of the intruders in the head with it.

She explained that she surveyed her surroundings, shielded her grandson by placing him behind her and then grabbed a skillet.
“The first thing I could see was a skillet, and I grabbed and hit him across the head as hard as I could, then he ran out the door. The little one said, let’s go, let’s go,” said Tabor.

Read more at theGrio.com

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The email instructs Black male students to identify themselves as students, and cooperate with the police when they are stopped.

Here is an excerpt of the letter:

As you may be aware, a series of robberies have occurred around campus over the last few weeks particularly on the south and east ends of campus. Although, most of these crimes have not been committed by University of Akron students, the primary suspects have been African American Males between the ages of 18-23.

In the event that you are stopped by the police, here are a few tips to follow:

Cooperate fully with questions

Identify yourself as a UA student and please carry identification with you at all times

Even if you are angered, refrain from using profanity as you could be charged with disorderly conduct

Do not run from the police as you could be charged with a crime

Read more at BlackCollegeStudents

Mayhem! 47 Shot In NYC Holiday Weekend Of Violence

Kaylen English, from Ohio, jumped out of the moving cruiser and off the Salem Avenue Bridge as officers were taking him to jail on Saturday night. He landed in a rocky part of the span rather than the water and was rushed to the hospital. He later died from his injuries.

A video appearing on Worldstarhiphop shows a man claiming to be Kaylen’s uncle calling the bridge claim “bogus.”

Click here to view the video

Read More Here

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Unpopular Republican Ohio governor John Kasich is proposing an $8 billion cut from his state’s 2011-13 budget. Despite the cut, reports indicate that it increases state spending by five billion dollars.

The Republican-controlled state House and Senate have already passed versions of the budget. Final passage is scheduled to come at the end of the month.

In response, the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus voted in opposition to the state budget last month to no avail. Despite failing to block passage, the Caucus continues to voice their displeasure with the governor’s bill.

“This budget slashes necessary services such as childcare vouchers, education funding and senior services, yet the Republicans have added 5 billion dollars in spending,” President Williams remarked. “By shifting the burden onto local government and communities, the middle class and minorities are disproportionally affected. This budget does nothing to address the underlying funding gaps, but increases them.”

Here are some of the cut areas:

State workers: Local governments are probably the biggest losers in Kasich’s budget, losing 50 percent of their funding by the second year of the plan. And prison workers worry that the provision to sell off Ohio’s prisons will lead to layoffs. Altogether, a report by think tank Innovation Ohio estimates, the budget will cause a loss of 51,000 state jobs.

People who enjoy learning and/or teaching stuff: Education loses 11.5 percent of its current funding in the Kasich budget. According to the Ohio Education Association, that would mean firing of 10,000 teachers. Cleveland schools are already planning to lay off at least 500 educators. At the university level, the cuts average 13 percent. Ohio State, one of the largest universities in the nation, soon will be presenting its plan to account for the deficit to its board. Spokeswoman Shelly Hoffma says the budget-balancing measures include early retirements, not filling vacancies, and raising tuition for the second year in a row.People who enjoy learning and/or teaching stuff: Education loses 11.5 percent of its current funding in the Kasich budget. According to the Ohio Education Association, that would mean firing of 10,000 teachers. Cleveland schools are already planning to lay off at least 500 educators. At the university level, the cuts average 13 percent. Ohio State, one of the largest universities in the nation, soon will be presenting its plan to account for the deficit to its board. Spokeswoman Shelly Hoffma says the budget-balancing measures include early retirements, not filling vacancies, and raising tuition for the second year in a row.

Read more at Progress Ohio

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Terrelle Pryor’s career at Ohio State, which started with so much promise and potential, came to an abrupt and scandal-ridden end.

The Ohio State quarterback announced through his attorney Tuesday that he would not play for the Buckeyes this season. He had already been suspended for the first five games for breaking NCAA rules by accepting improper benefits from the owner of a tattoo parlor.

“In the best interests of my teammates, I’ve made the decision to forgo my senior year of football at The Ohio State University,” Pryor said in a statement issued by Columbus lawyer Larry James.

Pryor will most likely make himself available for an NFL supplemental draft.

“I would hope so. Also, he would hope so,” said James, who added that Pryor was not available for comment. “But he’s going to take the next couple of days to get his head together.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer first reported Pryor’s announcement.

The NCAA is looking into all aspects of Ohio State’s once-glittering program, from cash and tattoos to players, cars deals for athletes and other potential violations.

Pryor’s announcement comes just eight days after Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel was forced to resign for knowing about the players’ improper benefits but not telling any of his superiors.

“He did not want to be a a distraction to his teammates,” James said of Pryor. “This is something he came to consider after much thought.”

Ohio State’s athletic director, Gene Smith, quickly issued a statement wishing Pryor the best.

“We understand Terrelle’s decision and wish him well in this next phase of his life,” Smith said. “We hope he returns to The Ohio State University one day to finish his degree.”

Luke Fickell, who will serve as Ohio State’s interim head coach in place of Tressel this fall, found out about Pryor’s decision on Tuesday night.

“I was notified this evening that Terrelle has decided to pursue a professional career,” Fickell said. “I wish him the best in his pursuits.”

Pryor came to Ohio State on March 19, 2008, from Jeannette, Pa., as the most acclaimed high school quarterback prospect in the country. His career will be remembered in his adoptive home state for his three victories in as many tries against archrival Michigan, and victories in the Rose and Sugar Bowl.

But it will also be remembered for a series of missteps and controversies that seemed to follow the 6-foot-6, 233-pound physical specimen wherever he went and no matter what he said.

In the midst of an NCAA inspection into his cars, he drove a sports car to practice on the day that Tressel resigned. Even when it was shown that his mother had legally bought the car, which is four years old, many fans were angry. The fact that he was driving it made it headline news across the state and around the Big Ten.

On the field, Pryor was very good. He had a 31-4 record as a starter (starting one bowl game as a wide receiver), rushed for an Ohio State-record for a quarterback 2,164 yards and passed for 6,177 yards. He was often at his best in big games, holding the school record with seven games with at least 300 yards of total offense and 22 games with at least 200.

But there were other moments that kept him from ever becoming a fan favorite.

He wore “Vick” on an eyeblack patch in honor of Michael Vick in 2009, after the NFL quarterback had been involved in a dogfighting operation. Pryor then infuriated many by saying, “Not everybody’s the perfect person in the world. I mean, everyone kills people, murders people, steals from you, steals from me, whatever. I think that people need a second chance.”

After Wisconsin beat the Buckeyes in October, handing them their only loss last season, Pryor petulantly said that Ohio State could beat the Badgers nine out of 10 times.

He also has called former Ohio State quarterback and current ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit “a fake Buckeye” for questioning Pryor’s emotional sideline behavior.

Few NFL draft experts consider Pryor to be a ready-for-the-NFL quarterback. With his speed and size, he might be better cut out as a big wide receiver in the mold of Plaxico Burress.

Despite the NFL labor problems, a supplemental draft could still be held this summer, although no one has yet committed to entering it. Former Ohio State star Cris Carter went that route after he lost his senior season due to NCAA infractions involving an agent and he went on to a stellar career as one of the best receivers in NFL history.

Ohio State will go before the NCAA’s committee on infractions on Aug. 12. With Tressel no longer with the program, along with Pryor who has been the most visible of those who were suspended, it was no surprise that Buckeyes fans expressed relief at Pryor’s surprise announcement.

The Buckeyes have several choices to take Pryor’s place. The most experienced player is fifth-year senior Joe Bauserman, with Kenny Guiton, Taylor Graham and talented freshman Braxton Miller competing for the job. All four got plenty of snaps in spring practice, since Pryor missed the April workouts after having surgery on his right ankle in January.

With Pryor no longer a college football player, he is no longer obligated to meet with the NCAA.

James would not comment on whether Pryor would continue to cooperate with the NCAA.

James said that Pryor was reflective when he made the decision to quit college football.

“You know how sometimes you have the weight of the world on your shoulders and then something like this takes a little bit off?” James said. “He’s still only 21.”

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The students complied and, true to his word, Edwards will fulfill his promise. The good deed is expected to cost him around $1 million.

Over the weekend, Edwards tweeted:

As the 2nd most hated man in Clev & a man of my word, today I will honor a promise made to 100 students in Cleveland years ago. The last of my Advance 100 students will graduate from my program and head off to college on scholarships that I will provide them with. Guys, enjoy and embrace your new beginnings and remember your promise to me, to reach back & help someone else along the way.

READ MORE AT BLACKVOICES.COM

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Brown’s daughter faces his longtime tailors in a Cleveland area small claims court on Friday. Deanna Brown Thomas tells The Plain Dealer newspaper of Cleveland she sued Curtis and Marilyn Gibson as a last resort, after asking them repeatedly to turn over a silver cape made for her father before he died in late 2006.

Thomas says she wants her father’s costumes for a museum and that she paid the Gibsons $7,000 for what they had.

Curtis Gibson maintains that Thomas never contacted him about the cape and says he was stunned that she decided to sue him. He said he planned to bring the cape to court.

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In the garbage bin next to his house, which occasionally reeked with the smell of something rotting inside. In the bowels of a boarded-up house down the block. Beneath a pile of debris in an overgrown, vacant lot.

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There are many places to hide a body in East Cleveland – a crime-ridden neighborhood where a man once lived among the corpses of 11 women for months and nobody noticed.

Ever since those bodies were found stashed throughout Anthony Sowell’s home, investigators have wondered: Did he bury more bodies nearby?

“I think it was on everyone’s mind,” says Richard Bell, one of the city’s chief prosecutors and director of Cuyahoga County’s cold-case unit. “We were not only finding bodies in his attic, but there were bodies out in the yard. The crew had to stay out there extensively, for days and days, wondering if they had dug deep enough.”

County Prosecutor Bill Mason said there was nothing to do but reopen the cases of the old, unsolved murders of women who resembled the victims found in Sowell’s house: poor, drug-addicted black women.

“Our approach to all of this was to find more Sowell victims,” Mason says. “Because we believed there were more.”

Mason’s cold-case team pulled the files of 75 unsolved homicides from within a three-mile radius of the two homes on the east side of town where Sowell – who has pleaded not guilty to killing the women – had lived since the 1980s. They dusted off old paperwork, pored over the reports and searched for any biological evidence that might still be tested for DNA.

Nicknamed the “Sowell surge,” the project was meant to assuage the fears of a city still shaken by the violent deaths of so many women.

“What we didn’t expect to find,” Bell says, “was another serial murderer.”

—

The evidence is buried in storage rooms all over the city, stuffed in boxes and bags and manila envelopes.

At police headquarters, the cluttered property rooms are overflowing with hundreds of drawers and shelves, each one stuffed with pieces of a crime: guns, metal cages, lawn rakes, egg crates, battered car seats, an old car muffler.

“This ain’t like CSI, where everything you need is in a pretty white box,” says Michael Beaman, one of the investigators.

The investigators rely on a stack of red leather-bound books dating back to 1911 that list each item and where it is stored. Evidence for a single case could be scattered among several storage facilities on opposite ends of town, from a suburban police precinct to walk-in freezers at the coroner’s office.

Retired homicide detectives in their 50s and 60s make up most of this cold-case team, along with a couple of scientists from the coroner’s office, a paralegal and a prosecutor. Paid with soon-to-end federal grant money, they’ve investigated old cases since 2006, focusing primarily on unsolved rapes and sexual assaults – the crimes that yield the greatest potential for DNA evidence. Until the Sowell Surge, they had filed 13 indictments in unsolved cases.

The team is scattered among several buildings but investigators mostly work in a cramped office in the depths of police headquarters, alongside current-duty investigators with active cases.

“When you look back at the number of unsolved homicides in Cuyahoga County, you know, there’s a lot on the shelf,” said Mike O’Malley, the chief investigator. “Now is an opportunity with the new technology to maybe solve some of those cases.”

Only female victims found nude or partially clothed were considered for the surge project. If there was no record of evidence that might contain DNA, the case was put back in the filing cabinet.

“From there, the investigators have to go out and find the stuff,” Bell says. “And that’s when we ran into some difficulty.”

Some of the evidence listed in police and autopsy reports for the surge cases had been lost or damaged over the years. Evidence from crimes committed before the advent of DNA technology in the 1980s was often not refrigerated, increasing the likelihood of damage, says Dr. Mohammad Tahir, executive director of the Cuyahoga County Regional Forensic Science Laboratory.

“Once biological material leaves the body, degradation starts,” Tahir says. “The higher the temperature, the faster the degradation.”

Once biological material reaches the coroner’s office, it can take a month or longer to produce a DNA profile, which is then submitted to CODIS, the FBI’s national database of DNA profiles from convicted offenders.

One day in November, a year after the bodies were found in Sowell’s home, O’Malley walked into Bell’s office and said there was a DNA hit in one of the surge cases: Mary Thomas, 27, who was strangled and beaten to death in 1989.

But the name on the lab report was not Anthony Sowell.

It was Joseph Harwell, who pleaded guilty to fatally strangling a woman near Columbus in 1997 and is currently serving 15 years to life at a prison in Mansfield, an hour south of Cleveland. Harwell, 50, has a long criminal history dating back to the 1970s, including a conviction for felonious assault in 1989, when he attempted to strangle another woman, who survived.

Harwell had already shown up once before on the cold-case radar. In 2008 – before any bodies were found in Sowell’s home – investigators had traced Harwell’s DNA to yet another woman killed near that East Cleveland neighborhood.

Tondilear Harge, 33, was found dead in September 1996 in a lot overgrown which shrubbery, blocks from where Harwell lived. The abandoned building where Thomas was killed seven years earlier was but 1.5 miles from Harwell’s home. Sowell’s home was nearby.

Prosecutors say Sowell, 51, lured vulnerable women to his home with the promise of alcohol or drugs. Police discovered the first two bodies and a freshly dug grave as they investigated a woman’s report that she had been raped there. For months, the stench of death wafted down the street where Sowell lived, but it was blamed on a sausage factory next door.

Investigators say there’s no evidence that Sowell and Harwell even knew each other. What they had in common was jail time for attacking a woman before they were accused of killing anyone. Investigators say they also shared a desire to rape and kill poor, drug-addicted black women.

—

“Can you give me the crime-scene pictures of this murder?”

The room is silent as photographs flash on the projector screen. It is Mary Thomas, lying face-down in the abandoned building, her body tangled in a pile of garbage, a red cord tied around her neck. She was three months’ pregnant when she died.

“This is the one where we’re having problems with the ligature,” Bell says. “The red ribbon.”

Next up on the screen are photographs of Harge, face up, half-naked, in a wooded lot near a demolished garage. Her death was ruled a homicide “type undetermined,” and she remained nameless, unidentified for a month after she was killed.

It is mid-January, and the DNA hit has spurred the cold-case team to re-investigate the murders of these two women. Though their deaths were nearly a decade apart, Thomas and Harge lived and died in similar fashion – roaming the streets of East Cleveland, high on crack, looking for their next hit. They are among the pool of drug addicts who have been turning up dead in this neighborhood since the crack epidemic swept through here in the 1980s.

“Crack destroyed a lot of places,” Beaman says, “and East Cleveland was one of them.”

There is a sense of anger in the black community that the Sowell victims were neglected by police – that their disappearances were not taken seriously – simply because most of them were hooked on drugs. In recent months, the victims’ families have filed a flurry of wrongful death lawsuits accusing the city’s law enforcement agencies of what amounts to a complete systemic failure.

O’Malley won’t get into any of that controversy.

“We have to concentrate on what we do,” he says. “All we can do is come back and say, 20 years later, we solved this case.”

Re-tracing old steps, the cold-case investigators knocked on doors in East Cleveland, tracking down family members who’d moved often over the years. They encountered such obstacles as the disappearance of the red cord used to strangle Thomas. It has vanished from a police storage facility and cannot be found.

Witnesses have vanished, too. And the ones still around are sometimes unreliable because they are addicted to drugs themselves.

“It’s not just a matter of getting a (DNA) hit,” O’Malley says. “You’ve got to kind of separate the wheat from the chaff – what’s true and what’s not.”

As of early March, 46 of the original surge cases remain active. Most of them await further testing at the coroner’s office. So far, Thomas is the only victim to produce a DNA hit.

On Tuesday, more than a year after the Sowell surge began, the prosecutor’s office charged Harwell with six counts of aggravated murder, two counts of rape and six counts of kidnapping in the deaths of Thomas and Harge. The multiple counts for each death came with different legal specifications.

Harwell does not yet have a lawyer.

—

Mary Ann Prater has not heard the name of her deceased daughter, Mary Thomas, spoken aloud in a long time. She has boxed away the old photographs and memories, trying to move on. Sometimes it feels like Thomas died only yesterday.

The worst day of Prater’s life was March 28, 1989, when she got home from her job as a hospital nurse and turned on the evening news to hear of a young woman killed a few blocks away. It dawned on her, as the broadcaster described the dead woman’s clothing, that her daughter had worn that very outfit hours earlier, as she smiled, braiding a friend’s hair into cornrows, and waved goodbye to her mother.

Prater asked a friend that night to drive her to the morgue.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t be her, but you know, I just had a feeling it was,” she says.

Looking at the body, she allowed herself to think at first that this could not be her daughter – that there was still hope – not this girl with the darkened, ash-colored skin and that red cord wrapped around her neck.

For a long time afterward, Prater feared the killer would come after her. She moved back to St. Louis, her hometown, and stayed there for 10 years.

“I was so paranoid,” she says. “I didn’t want nobody coming to my house.”

When bodies were being carried out of Sowell’s house, Prater called East Cleveland police and asked if they thought her daughter’s death might be connected to Sowell. They said no. But she held out hope that police might find the person who did it.

So did Yolanda Cooke-Gillis, Harge’s sister-in-law, who helped raise Harge’s children after she died.

“She was just fun and outgoing and so warm,” Cooke-Gillis says. “And funny. And she always made you laugh.”

All these years later, she still visits the cemetery on Harge’s birthday to light candles and say a prayer.

“But that’s not gonna bring her back,” she says, wiping tears from her eyes. “That’s not gonna bring her back.”

Two weeks ago, the youngest of the four children that Thomas left behind was killed in a shooting at the night club where he worked. Prater says he was an innocent bystander, in the wrong place at the wrong time. His death reopened old wounds that the family still hasn’t healed from.

“I was telling my daughter today, history repeats itself,” Prater says. “And when do it stop? When do it stop?”

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RICHMOND HEIGHTS, Ohio- Jason Popp, the coach of the Richmond Heights Boys Varsity Basketball has come under fire for racist comments and harassment. According to documents, Popp would use racial slurs against his players and insult them for being poor. Among the things he said were

“I”m going to need you to play like n—-ers, which you are”

According to Fox 8 in Richmond, several players are willing to boycott Popp:

Most players say they are willing to give up their undefeated season if the coach remains. Although some want to keep playing.

“I think as a team, we should still get our butts on the court because no matter what somebody says to you, we love basketball, all of us loves basketball and I think no matter what he says, we need to go for our goal and go 20-and-0,” said varsity player London Fulton, Jr.

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Jamail E. Johnson, 25, a senior at Youngstown State University, was shot to death early Sunday as he tried to separate two groups at an Omega Psi Phi fraternity house party. Authorities say there had been a dispute, two men had left the house and then returned and sprayed bullets into the crowd. Among the injured was a critically wounded 17-year-old.

When the shots rang out, “it was practically a stampede atmosphere,” according to witness accounts, city prosecutor Jay Macejko said.

Investigators did not know what the initial argument was about and had yet to determine a motive for the shooting, Youngstown Police Chief Jimmy Hughes said Monday. The two suspects were neither students at the university nor members of the fraternity, police said.

The two men, Braylon L. Rogers, 19, and Columbus E. Jones Jr., 22, were charged with aggravated murder, shooting into a house and 11 counts of felonious assault, said Hughes. They were being held at the Mahoning County Jail, said jail officials, who did not know whether the men were represented by attorneys.

Court appearances for the suspects scheduled for Monday morning were postponed until Tuesday, and the charges against them could undergo “adjustment,” Hughes said.

Johnson and the others were shot off-campus at a two-story brick house in a neighborhood of once-elegant homes, many of which are now boarded up. The house party had been bustling with 50 or more people early Sunday, the police chief said.

Johnson apparently was trying to separate two groups when he was shot, Capt. Rod Foley said. He was shot once in the head and multiple times in his hips and legs, said Dr. Joseph Ohr, a forensic pathologist with the coroner’s office. An autopsy is planned Monday.

The wounded ranged in age from 17 to 31; six were students. About half were shot in the foot, police said. Two were hit in the abdomen. The 17-year-old was wounded near one ear.

By Sunday afternoon, eight had been treated at a nearby hospital and released, spokeswoman Tina Creighton said. She said she could not release the conditions of the remaining three.

University president Cynthia Anderson said police assured her there was no threat to the campus.

Members of the university-sanctioned fraternity lived at the house, though Cooper said the fraternity does not own it. He said that after the shooting, Johnson’s fraternity brothers were “very solemn, very alarmed, very hurt.”

Johnson had recently traveled to North Carolina for a fraternity program emphasizing manhood and scholarship, said Christopher Cooper, a legal officer for Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

Johnson “was just an excellent, excellent young man, and our loss runs deep,” Cooper said.

“This is one of those days that every university president across the country, as well as many other officials, always dread,” Anderson said.

Roughly 15,000 students attend the urban campus in northeast Ohio near the Pennsylvania state line. The university planned to hold a prayer service on campus at noon Monday.

A neighbor, Rodger Brown, 54, said the house and an adjacent home with Greek lettering, indicating a fraternity, often have parties on weekends but had caused no problems in the neighborhood.

“It’s a nice, quiet neighborhood,” Brown said.

Gov. John Kasich said he was “shocked and saddened” by the shootings. He offered the school the use of “any and all state resources they might require.”

Kasich planned to meet Monday in Youngstown with Anderson and Mayor Jay Williams to discuss the shootings.

The university said counselors and clergy also would be available to students and others on campus.

Along with Pryor, running back Daniel Herron, wide receiver DeVier Posey, offensive lineman Mike Adams and defensive end Solomon Thomas must sit out and repay between $1,000 to $2,500 to charity.

Pryor must repay $2,500 for selling his 2008 Big Ten championship ring, Fiesta Bowl sportsmanship award and his 2008 gold pants, a trinket given to players who are a part of a team which beats rival Michigan.

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said the school will appeal the suspensions.

“While we believe sanctions should be rendered, we do believe they are severe,” he said Thursday at a news conference. “We do believe we can give mitigating circumstances for the NCAA to consider.”

The NCAA did not suspend the players for Jan. 4 Sugar Bowl against the eighth-ranked Razorbacks because the “student-athletes did not receive adequate rules education during the time period the violations occurred.”

“These are significant penalties based on findings and information provided by the university,” Kevin Lennon, NCAA vice president of academic and membership affairs, said in the release.

Lennon said a game was added on to the usual four-game penalty “because these student-athletes did not immediately disclose the violations when presented with the appropriate rules education.”

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Quindell Sherman, 20, was fighting with the 3-month-old’s mother, Sonja Mitchell, before he took the infant outside, threw him to the ground several times and then ran off with the infant, according to a police report.

Columbus police officers were called to the 1100 block of East 16th Avenue at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Officers found the infant, severely injured, in a trash bin.

The infant was transported to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in trauma arrest.

He was pronounced dead at the hospital less than an hour later.

Sherman was arrested and charged with murder Tuesday night.

Read entire article at NBCi.com

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The Ohio Parole Board had recommended against mercy for Cornwell, but Strickland said jurors might have chosen a different sentence if they had known of the condition, called Klinefelter Syndrome. The genetic condition caused Cornwell to develop motor and language skills late and gave him large breasts as a boy, which led to repeated teasing and required surgery.

Cornwell, 33, of Youngstown, was scheduled to die by injection Tuesday for the killing of Jessica Ballew. The girl was on her porch in Youngstown in 1996 as Cornwell and other Crips gang members were hunting for a member of a rival gang. He opened fire on people who apparently knew his intended victim, killing the girl.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said he did not believe Cornwell deserved mercy.

“Although I disagree with the governor’s decision, I respect his right to make that decision,” Gains said.

Cornwell’s public defenders had cited the medical condition, in which males are born with an extra X chromosome, in seeking mercy. They also said Cornwell was abused by his father and fell under the influence of gangs as a teenager.

Cornwell’s trial attorney did not get medical records that would have been relevant, including that he had a testosterone deficiency and had undergone breast reduction surgery, Assistant Ohio Public Defender Rob Lowe said.

“This is a case that the jury just did not get all the information to know who Sidney was, and whether he should live or die for the crime he committed,” Lowe said.

Cornwell was diagnosed with Klinefelter Syndrome within the past several months. Lowe said earlier attempts to have the cost of testing covered were rejected, and it was only recently that the money was made available to have the two-step genetic test done.

Another of Cornwell’s public defenders, Andrew King, expressed gratitude to Strickland and said he made the right decision in the case.

“We also want to acknowledge that Sidney’s still remorseful and regretful for what he did,” King said.

Seventeen men have been put to death since Strickland took office in 2007. Cornwell is the third death row inmate this year to be spared by the governor.

In September, Strickland cited “legitimate questions” about evidence used to convict Kevin Keith, though he said he believed the inmate committed the crimes of which he was accused. In June, he also spared Richard Nields, who strangled his girlfriend during an argument, because of court decisions that questioned the appropriateness of a death sentence.

The decision is the last Strickland must make regarding a death penalty case. He was defeated in this month’s election and will be succeeded by Republican John Kasich in January. Ohio’s next execution is scheduled for Feb. 17.

Kasich also may have to address concerns about a shortage of a lethal injection drug that has prompted execution delays across the country.

State prisons spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said Cornwell was in the process of being moved off death row at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown.

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Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Stephen McIntosh sentenced Burgess after saying it’s likely not even she knows why she went after Pickens with a gun, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

Burgess did not attempt to explain her actions, but apologized to family members in the courtroom.

“Saying I’m sorry can never fully express how I feel,” Burgess said.

Pickens was fatally shot in a car on Easter Sunday outside Burgess’ house.

Prosecutors said Burgess got into a fight with Pickens over the outfit Pickens wore to Burgess’ home for Easter dinner — jean shorts and a green T-shirt tied up around her midriff.

Burgess “thought the shorts that Danielle was wearing were too short,” Assistant Prosecutor Laurie Arsenault said. “She was upset when she thought that her husband was looking at them.”

Arsenault said Burgess chased Pickens around the house, kicking and punching her and eventually swinging a baseball bat at her. While family members tried to restrain Burgess, Pickens ran outside and got into a car with her sister, who was unable to start the car.

By that time, Burgess had broken free of relatives and followed Pickens outside with a 38.-caliber handgun.

As Ralinda Pickens tried to shield her sister in the car, Burgess pulled the victim by the hair with one hand and fired the gun with the other, the prosecutor said.

Family members did not comment in the courtroom, but Pickens’ mother asked the prosecutor to deliver a statement for her.

“As a mother, she worried constantly about her children … but you shouldn’t have to worry when they’re with family,” Arsenault said in relaying Sheena Pickens’ statement.

The victim’s uncle, Tameico Pickens, released a statement read by a court employee that said the shooting had cost the family two members and left it divided.

“We all wish we could wake up and it was just a nightmare,” the statement said.

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Ohio (Examiner)– Katurah Petty and her female accomplice Staniel Petty were arrested on Thursday after allegedly stealing merchandise from the Wal-Mart store. Katurah Petty was in labor at the time of the theft.

Authorities said that the women stole approximately $271 worth of computer software by using computer – generated serial number labels to steal the merchandise.

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“As the election season is here we wanted you to know which candidates will help our business grow in the future,” reads the letter. “As you know, the better our business does it enables us to invest in our people and our restaurants. If the right people are elected we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above our present levels. If others are elected, we will not. As always, who you vote for is completely your personal decision and many factors go into your decision.”

“The handbill endorses candidates who have in essence pledged to roll back the minimum wage and eviscerate the safety net that protects the most vulnerable members of our workforce,” said Attorney Allen Schulman of Canton law firm Schulman Zimmerman & Associates, which received the documents from an employer who stepped forward.

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The Dayton woman had been arrested the day before on a theft charge alleging she stole a computer from a Cincinnati area Walmart store. The Cincinnati Enquirer said police explained they don’t routinely do body cavity searches on new inmates.

Newport pleaded guilty Thursday to theft and illegal conveyance of drugs of abuse. She will be sentenced Nov. 16.

No information was released about her baby.

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The school board in Mount Vernon, Ohio, moved to fire middle school science teacher John Freshwater in 2008 after an internal investigation concluded that he had preached Christian beliefs in class.

He sued current and former Mount Vernon school board members, but his attorneys filed notice of the lawsuit’s dismissal on Thursday.

Freshwater says in a statement that he had been offered settlements, but he says a settlement would have ended a state hearing on his dismissal before the referee could issue a decision.

As Freshwater puts it: “The opportunity for truth would never have come out.”

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Freshwater taught a form of science called “creationism” that discounts evolution and teaches science from a Biblical perspective.

Authorities say Dominic Holt-Reid pointed a handgun at his pregnant girlfriend and forced her to drive to a women’s clinic, where she was able to slip a note to an employee who got help. She was not harmed.

Holt-Reid entered the not guilty plea in Franklin County Common Pleas Court and was ordered held on $350,000 bond. A public defense attorney for him did not comment.

In court, public defender Priya Tamilarasan said Holt-Reid is a lifelong Columbus resident and father of six children who lives with his aunt. He attends Columbus State Community College full time, taking classes on heating and air conditioning, school spokesman David Wayne said.

The attempted murder count was filed because Holt-Reid tried “at gunpoint to force her to have an abortion against her will,” county prosecutor Ron O’Brien said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

O’Brien said Ohio previously rewrote its murder law to prohibit the “unlawful termination of a pregnancy” to avoid a debate over an unborn fetus’ legal rights. The statute has allowed his office to win convictions on two counts in murder cases in which the victim was pregnant, he said.

The Columbus Dispatch first reported O’Brien’s filing.

Police said Holt-Reid had become angry with Yolanda Burgess because she refused to go through with an abortion scheduled Oct. 6 at a women’s clinic. After the two dropped their 5-year-old child off at school, Holt-Reid took a loaded .45-caliber handgun out of the glove compartment of Burgess’ car, aimed it at her, threatened her and forced her to drive to the clinic, police said.

Once there, Burgess was able to slip a note to an employee, who notified police.

It was unclear Wednesday whether Burgess still is pregnant and, if so, how many months. A woman answering the phone at a listing for Yolanda Burgess said it was a wrong number.

Federal court documents and the Bureau of Prisons show that Holt-Reid served a 20-month sentence in federal prison stemming from a 2007 drug conviction and is on supervised release. A message left with the attorney who represented Holt-Reid in the federal case was not immediately returned.

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TMZ has obtained a lawsuit filed by VaNeisha Robinson — in which she claims Maverick Carter and his mom staged a 9-man ambush to jack a $10,000 pendant she claims she bought at a garage sale for $5 back in 2005 thinking it was costume jewelry. Turns out, it was real.

But in the suit, filed in Ohio, Robinson claims Carter concocted a diabolical plan to lure her into his home, insisting that LeBron would be present to make a deal — instead, she claims, a horde of 8 or 9 people held her in the house against her will and forced her to give up the bling.

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A suspected Walmart shoplifter who hid from police in a dumpster may have chosen too good of a hiding spot.

The suspect, identified as James Brienzo, saw the police and jumped into a dumpster to hide. When a garbage truck picked up the dumpster with Brienzo inside, he was able to call a friend for help.

He was in a lot of pain,” said an Alliance Police Officer on the scene. “He had been compacted several times. He was just begging us to empty the truck.”

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Police say 35-year-old Kristina Hensley, of Higginsport, told officers that she was hired for a private show last month in 31-year-old Jae Cho’s home in Monroe, near Cincinnati. They say she reported that Cho kept touching her inappropriately and that she tried to leave. She says he jumped in front of her car when she tried to drive away.

Butler County Prosecutor Robin Piper said Tuesday that Hensley was indicted on two counts of murder and one count each of aggravated robbery and failure to stop after an accident.

Court records do not list an attorney for Hensley. She could get up to life in prison if convicted of murder.

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An Ohio couple has a house full of babies now after delivering sextuplets. Mia and Rozonno McGhee had their four boys and two girls named Isaac, Josiah, Elijah, Rozonno, Madison and Olivia on June 9th at the Osu Medical Center.

This is their first time coming home since they were born, but not before the staff at the hospital gave them a going home party.

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LeBron James may have experienced a taste of what is to come when he returns to Cleveland to play his old team, the Cavaliers.
According to You Been Blinded, LeBron James played basketball at the famous Ohio amusement park, Cedar Point, on Monday and was taunted. Security surrounded the basketball game, keeping fans at a distance, but they could not stop King James’s detractors.

A woman yelled, “I bet you miss”; a man chimed in, “Bron, shoot left-handed; your elbow hurts!” The crowd reacted to every miss. According to You Been Blinded, a fan also shouted, “Just like Game 5,” after one of James’ misses.

Watch Lebron getting harrassed in Ohio:

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Ohio State University says former football star Maurice Clarett has been granted re-entry to pursue his degree after he spent more than three years in prison.

Ohio State spokesman Jim Lynch says in a statement that Clarett started classes on Monday after he was readmitted by the College of Education and Human Ecology, where he was originally enrolled.

Clarett says in a statement that it is a “surreal feeling to be back at Ohio State” and that he doesn’t want to be a “distraction or nuisance” to the football team or other students.

Clarett led the Buckeyes to the 2002 national championship in his only college season. He pleaded guilty in 2006 to aggravated robbery and carrying a concealed weapon, and served 3 1/2 years in a Toledo prison, where he took college-credit courses.

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Vaneisha Robinson, the woman who claimed she bought a LeBron James pendant at a Cleveland garage sale for $5, only to find out it was worth more than $10,000, is now claiming that some associate of LeBron James forced her to give back the pendant. She claims that she received a phone call from the mother of LeBron James’ right hand man, Maverick Carter who runs James’ marketing firm, LRMR.

“[Powers] said that LeBron James was at her house and they wanted me to come over there. They were going to make me an offer that I couldn’t refuse,” Robinson said.

It turned out the one-of-a-kind pendant belongs to Carter, who claims it was stolen. Robinson said she and her mother went to the Wadsworth house Carter shares with his mother, believing James was going to buy the pendant and give it back to Carter.

“When I got there, LeBron James was not there. It was about eight or nine other people there,” Robinson said. “They pretty much accused me, they threatened me and they used their authority to they (sic) best ability to get the pendant in their possession.”

Robinson said she and her mother drove to Carter’s house in the 500 block of Caledonia Drive in her mother’s pickup truck.

“They blocked her truck in the driveway. They told us that we weren’t going anywhere until they got that pendant. I was scared for my life,” she said.

From NewsNet5

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LeBron James addressed the letter by Cavs owner, Dan Gilbert at a press conference in Miami. Here’s what he had to say:

To hear my former owner’s comments, I absolutely know I made the right decision

When things hit the fan, you see a guy’s true colors. I have no reaction because at the end of the day, Dan’s comments won’t stop me and my family from sleeping at night. It just won’t do it. It’s just going to make us powerful, more powerful.

Source

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From the NY Times:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — With the unemployment rate still stuck close to 10 percent, President Obama flew to this political swing state on Friday to tout his economic stimulus program, which he credited with its 10,000th road project.Mr. Obama said the country needed to invest more in infrastructure projects like the Columbus one in order to compete globally. “We’ve got to get serious about our infrastructure,” the president said.  “Repairing our existing infrastructure isn’t enough. We can’t let other countries get the jump on us.”

This is a “big … deal,” he said, his coy pause an unmistakable allusion to a recent vice-presidential gaffe.

White House officials said the road improvement project in downtown Columbus will create more than 300 construction jobs. Columbus and the surrounding area have received around $729 million in stimulus funding.

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MONROE, Ohio – A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.

The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m., Monroe police dispatchers said.

The sculpture, 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday.

The fire spread from the statue to an adjacent amphitheater but was confined to the attic area, and no one was injured, police Chief Mark Neu said. The fire department would release a monetary damage estimate Tuesday, he said.

Travelers on Interstate 75 often were startled to come upon the huge statue by the roadside, but many said America needs more symbols like it. So many people stopped at the church campus that church officials had to build a walkway to accommodate them.

The 4,000-member, nondenominational church was founded by former horse trader Lawrence Bishop and his wife. Bishop said in 2004 he was trying to help people, not impress them, with the statue. He said his wife proposed the Jesus figure as a beacon of hope and salvation and they spent about $250,000 to finance it.

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By William C. Rhoden

At 12:10 a.m. Friday, LeBron James answered one final question from the news media horde, stood up, slung his knapsack over his shoulder and left the room.

For all practical purposes, it might have been King James’s final act as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers. James’s Cavs had been eliminated from the N.B.A. playoffs by the Celtics, 94-85. James played well. He had 27 points, 19 rebounds 10 assists, but also nine of Cleveland’s 22 turnovers.

Now James was standing in the corridor, where he mingled with his other team: family, friends and associates, some of whom may help him decide where to play next season.

One soap opera ends, another begins.

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CLEVELAND — An Ohio man tasted freedom for the first time in nearly 30 years Tuesday after DNA evidence showed he did not rape an 11-year-old girl and a judge vacated his conviction.

“It finally happened, I’ve been waiting,” Raymond Towler, 52, said as he hugged sobbing family members in the courtroom.

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He walked from the courthouse, arms around his family members, amid the smell of freshly cut grass, blooming trees and a brisk wind off Lake Erie. Asked how he would adjust, Towler responded: “Just take a deep breath and just enjoy life right now.”

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He deflected a question about demanding an apology and said he understood justice can take time.

“I think it was just a process, you know, the DNA,” he said. “It just took a couple of years to get to it. We finally got to it and the job was done.”

In a brief, emotionally charged session, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Eileen Gallagher recapped the case, discussed the recently processed DNA evidence and threw out his conviction. She also told him that he can sue over his ordeal.

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Towler smiled lightly, nodded and kept his intertwined fingers on his lap.

“You’re free,” the judge said, leaving the bench to shake Towler’s hand at the defense table. The judge choked back tears as she offered Towler a traditional Irish blessing.

Towler had been serving a life sentence for the rape of a girl in a Cleveland park in 1981. Prosecutors received the test results Monday and immediately asked the court to free him.

The Ohio Innocence Project, an organization that uses DNA evidence to clear people wrongfully convicted of crimes, said Towler was among the longest incarcerated people to be exonerated by DNA in U.S. history. The longest was a man freed in Florida in December after serving 35 years, according to the project.

Attorneys with the project at the University of Cincinnati have been working on the Towler case since 2004, and Towler said that and his faith had given him hope.

“That’s how I’ve been living these last years, I’ve just been keeping hope,” Towler said as relatives and friends crowded around him after the court session, some whooping, “Alleluia.”

Clarence Elkins, who was freed in 2005 in Akron on the basis of DNA evidence after serving seven years in the rape and murder of his mother-in-law and the rape of a 6-year-old relative, watched from a rear courtroom seat.

“Today is a great day. Once again, justice is served a little late, but better late than never,” he said. “Almost 30 years is a very long time. One day is too long.”

Elkins, 47, won a $1.075 million settlement from the state for wrongful conviction and said he would recommend that Towler get counseling and take his new freedom day by day.

“It’s like being reborn again, a whole new life,” Elkins said.

Prosecutor Bill Mason said his staff would test crime-scene evidence to try to identify the attacker.

From STLToday.com:

KETTERING, Ohio — Bilal Momin watched as one family member after another succumbed to a genetic and degenerative kidney disease. In 2006, Momin, the associate minister of Freedom-Hill Baptist Church in Dayton, thought he was next.
But, as Momin tells it, one of his flock in the congregation approached him one day and said, “God told me to give you a kidney.”

Nearly four years later, Momin said, he can’t thank Michele Gee enough for her gift. He hopes more in the black community follow her lead and donate organs.

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Nationally, blacks wait two to three times longer to receive organs than whites because of the shortage of matches from donors.

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