Too busy to call a dead girl's family back (that's Frantz in the Hawaiian shirt).
In 2007, I began to investigate the murders of three young girls–Tina Harmon, Krista Harrison, and Debbie Smith–who were abducted or dumped within a mile or two of State Route 250 in the early 1980’s. I was originally looking for anything that might link these murders to the unsolved homicide of Amy Mihaljevic. A man named Robert Buell was put to death in 2002 for the murder of Krista Harrison and is assumed to also be responsible for the murders of Tina and Debbie as well. Much to my surprise, I discovered a box of Buell’s handwritten notes which appeared to implicate his nephew, Ralph Ross Jr., in these crimes. Tina Harmon’s family have never believed she was murdered by Bob Buell and so, in November of 2008, I began to work with the Harmon family to re-open the investigation into Tina’s death.
It had been more than 25 years since Tina was murdered and her clothes had never been tested for the presence of DNA. Last last year, Wayne County Prosecutor Martin Frantz told the family that it had been an unfortunate oversight that no one from his office had ever called them to explain that their daughter was murdered by Bob Buell and that no one had been investigating the crime for over two decades. Ooops.
The ensuing media attention pushed Wayne County into action (or at least to pretend there was action). In January, Wayne County Sheriff Thomas Maurer released a press release that stated:
Wayne County Sheriff Thomas G. Maurer has announced the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office will be working in cooperation with Ohio BCI&I to examine evidence from the Tina Harmon homicide case.
It’s been over six months now since we’ve had any updates about the Tina Harmon case. Randy Harmon, Tina’s brother, continues to call the Sheriff on an almost daily basis but does not receive even a courtesy call in return.
I have attempted to obtain documents proving that Wayne County has sent Tina’s clothing to BCI&I for testing. Several months ago, I discovered that BCI&I had never received clothing from the Harmon case. When I brought this to Sheriff Maurer’s attention, he assured me that it had just been sent. Last week, I sent a public records request for correspondence between Wayne County offices and BCI&I related to the Harmon case. A letter from the prosecutor’s office informed me that there was no such documents.
In the meantime, Randy keeps calling me, asking me what’s going on, when will we get the results from the test. But now, I’m not certain the evidence was ever sent. There appears to be no proof that it was. A request for evidence log documentation has been ignored. It’s beginning to seem, from the family’s perspective, that this was all just a smokescreen to divert media attention from a case that may prove a man was executed for a crime he did not commit.
What the hell is going on in Wayne County? You tell me.
