The 1995 murder trial against Elwood Jones was about as controversial as it gets.
Mention Jones’ name to longtime members of the legal community in Hamilton County, Ohio, and chances are they’ll recognize the name.
“I’m telling you, this case had a stench,” said Cincinnati defense attorney Bill Gallagher, a staunch opponent of the death penalty who followed the case as a local attorney. “He felt there was evidence that was not as presented in court, that it was something other than that.”
After a two-year investigation halted by COVID, reporters from The Cincinnati Enquirer and USA TODAY Network’s award-winning true-crime podcast “Accused” can confirm that some of the evidence presented to jurors was presented as more conclusive than it was. weren’t.
But does that mean Jones is innocent?
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Augmented reality experience:Enter the crime scene at the heart of “Accused: The Imending Execution of Elwood Jones”
Jones is currently awaiting execution on Ohio’s death row during the fatal 1994 beating of Rhoda Nathan, 67, a New Jersey native who traveled to Blue Ash, Ohio, for the bar mitzvah of the grandson of her best friend.
On September 3, 1994, this best friend returned to the women’s shared hotel room to find Nathan unconscious on the floor. When Jones was arrested a year later, police and prosecutors said they were awaiting forensic test results before charging their prime suspect.
It was misleading: forensic tests were underway, but none of those scattered tests pointed to Jones as Nathan’s killer. On the contrary, the “irrefutable” evidence that prosecutors pointed to during the trial was uncovered within two weeks of the murder, leading Jones’ supporters to ask: If this evidence against Jones was so strong, why was it? did it take a year to file a complaint?
A murder in a university town, a father disappears:What Happened In ‘The Accused’ Podcast Seasons 1-3
Jones, now 69, has maintained his innocence from the start, insisting he was castigated at best or outright framed at worst.
Original investigators and the assistant district attorney on the case are adamant that the right man has been arrested in the death of Nathan, which captured national attention when it was featured on an episode of the true crime television show “Forensic Files”.
“So we didn’t have an eyewitness. We didn’t have a confession,” said Assistant District Attorney Mark Piepmeier, who handled the case against Jones. “But we had, for me, overwhelming circumstances that pointed to a person and a thing that happened. I prefer those cases.”
“Accused” revisits the case from start to finish through seven initial episodes, with an eighth episode expected this spring. Subscribers to The Enquirer and Cincinnati.com can binge on the first seven episodes, ad-free, starting Jan. 25. For non-subscribers, episodes will start dropping weekly on February 8. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Follow Accused on Twitter: @AccusedPodcast.
Follow journalists Amber Hunt and Amanda Rossmann on Twitter: @ReporterAmber, @ARossmann02.
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