Hometown Killer

by Carol Rothgeb

  Graeber: Except the panties.

  John: I don’t know where those at. You was in my whole house.

  Graeber: You told me they were in your top dresser drawer.

  John: Yeah.

  Graeber: Okay, when we got over there, they weren’t in there.

  John: Yeah, and I don’t . . . I really don’t know where they’re at.

  Schrader: Well, Dave says you do.

  John: I don’t. I never seen those.

  The interrogation of David Marciszewski was still in progress.

  Moody: When you were at the house before you and John and Jamie ever left that evening—did Jamie tell you that he had a date with two girls?

  David: He said something about that. Said, “I got to go meet a couple of girls.”

  Moody: So you knew you were going to Schuler’s to meet a couple of girls, didn’t you?

  David: Yeah.

  Moody: Had Jamie or John been drinking?

  David: I think they both were.

  Moody: What else do you think we need to know about what happened? Did those girls slap you at all? Did they hit any of the other guys? Why do you think this all happened, Dave? Think it’s just something that got out of control?

  David: Yeah.

  Moody: Why did you hit her with a board?

  David (awkwardly explaining): ’Cause I wanted her to shut up. I didn’t like the screaming. I probably wasn’t, didn’t really know what I was doing at that time. See, I wasn’t drinking either. I don’t drink at all. I ain’t drinked in almost five years. Plus I had a headache on top of it that night—a bad one.

  Moody: Who had the rock that night?

  David: A rock? I didn’t even know there was a rock involved with it. I knew about the board.

  Moody: ’Cause someone said you hit them with a rock. Did you hit them with a rock?

  David: No, all I hit them with was the board.

  Moody: Did you see anybody hit the girls in the head when they were there by the pond? Did you hit them again when they were down there by the pond?

  David: No, I didn’t see anybody else hit them.

  Moody: What did they get covered up with?

  David: I thought they got covered up with branches, leaves, and skids.

  Moody: How many skids?

  David: I think there was two of them—I think.

  Moody: Dave, did you guys all help cover the girls up?

  David: Yeah.

  Moody: Did you throw anything in the pond? Did you throw any article of clothing in the pond?

  David: No. I laid them beside.

  Moody: What did you lay beside?

  David: Shoes.

  Moody: You know when we found the girls that Sunday—remember when that all happened? Did you come back down there while all the crowd of people was down there?

  David: No, I didn’t go back down there. I was wanting to come down here and tell you guys about it. But I was scared.

  Moody: Did you tell John that you wanted to come down and tell us about it?

  David (softly): I did say something to him. He scared me.

  Sergeant Moody and Detective Eggers once more read David Marciszewski his rights, at 10:45 that same night, and they asked him to go through his story again. It was the same story he had told them earlier, with some exceptions.

  Moody: Were the girls hit one more time when they were there facedown? This is important, David. Was there a discussion among you guys that you didn’t think they were dead yet? Did anybody say, “We need to make sure that these girls are dead so they can’t tell on us”?

  (There was a long silence before David finally whispered, “Somebody said it.”)

  Moody: So what did you guys do to make sure that they couldn’t tell on you? One last thing got done. What was it? Come on, Dave. The hard part’s done with. Did you hit them one last time? David?

  David: Yeah.

  Moody: What did you hit them with? David? What did you hit them with?

  David: A rock.

  Moody: A big rock?

  David: Yeah.

  Moody: Did you hit them both?

  David: I think I only hit the one.

  Moody: Why would you just hit the one, if you were doing it to make sure they were dead? Did the one make a noise or move or something that made you think that she wasn’t dead? Or did you hit them both? David, we’re almost done here, you need to clean this up.

  David (imploring): This is the last part of it?

  Moody: Yep. This is basically the last thing we need to know. You need to tell us. When the girls were facedown, did they get hit one more time? Before you covered them up? Come on, Dave. You’ve already said you hit the one with a rock. Did you hit the other? With that same rock?

  David: Yeah.

  Moody: Where did you hit those girls with that rock? The part of the body?

  David: The head.

  Moody: What part of the head?

  David: It had to be the back of the head because they was facedown.

  Moody: Where did you leave that rock when you were done with it?

  David: I left it laying beside them, right there beside the girls.

  Moody (emphatic): You left it on that girl’s head. The last time you hit that little girl in the head, you left it on top of her head, didn’t you? Now I sat here and told you we already been to the scene; we saw it. Why don’t you tell us the truth? It’s true, isn’t it? The last time you hit her in the head, you just left it on her head, didn’t you?

  David (whispering): Yes.

  Moody: David, are you sorry about what happened? Are you sorry about this?

  David: Yes.

  Moody: Why didn’t you try to stop what happened? Was it exciting to you? I know you were scared, but was it exciting too?

  David (his voice low): I was mainly scared.

  (At the end of the interview, David Marciszewski submitted to having his blood drawn for DNA testing.)

  Shortly after midnight on Sunday morning, March 28, 1993, John Balser and David Marciszewski were arrested and charged with two counts each of aggravated murder. The next day, both of the mentally challenged men were arraigned in Clark County Common Pleas Court and both pleaded innocent to the charges. They were held without bond in the Clark County Jail.

  John and David both had told the detectives there could possibly be evidence in a “hole” in a field next to their house, but nothing of any evidentiary value was found. The hole turned out to be the basement of a house that had been torn down.

  On Monday morning a woman named Sally Herman* came to police headquarters and asked to speak with someone about John Balser. Herman explained to Detectives Eggers and Graeber that she worked at the United Dairy Farmers Store on West Main Street. She knew John because he lived nearby and was a regular customer. She stated that John hung around the neighborhood with small children and on one occasion something had happened that frightened Sally’s nine year-old daughter, Halley*. John had told the little girl that he would never hurt her—unless he was drunk or angry.

  She also told the detectives that after Jamie Turner was arrested, John came in the store nearly every day and asked her to read the article in the newspaper to him about the investigation. When he asked her if the police were looking for additional suspects and she told him that they were, John became very nervous and upset.

  According to Sally Herman, John always carried a cutoff two-by-four with him, with KILLEM printed on it. He told the kids in the area that it was his “equalizer.”

  When the grand jury met on Monday, April 5, 1993, they handed down thirteen indictments against John Balser: six counts of aggravated murder, two counts of rape, two counts of kidnapping, one count of tampering with evidence, and two counts of abuse of a corpse.

  Fourteen counts were handed down against David Marciszewski: six counts of aggravated murder, two counts of rape, two counts of kidnapping, one count of tampering with evidence, two counts of abuse of a corpse, and one count of felonious sexual pene
tration. Marciszewski was also named as the principal offender.

  When the DNA results came back negative on fifteen-year-old Damien Tyler, he was cleared as a suspect. His uncle Lloyd submitted to having his blood drawn for testing on March 30.

  10

  Nobody really doubted that there was involvement of some nature by these individuals and I had to make one of the most difficult decisions that I had to make in my prosecutorial career.

  —Steve Schumaker

  On Friday, April 16, 1993, common pleas court judge Douglas Geyer dismissed all the charges against Jamie Turner and Alexander Boone, at the request of Clark County prosecutor Stephen “Steve” Schumaker. The charges were dismissed “without prejudice,” which meant that Boone and Turner could be reindicted at a later date.

  Boone’s trial had been set for May 6 and Turner’s for May 25. In order to meet the requirements of the U.S. Constitution for a speedy trial, May 31 was the deadline to start the trials.

  Schumaker stated that he would not have final results of DNA tests until mid or late June. He indicated that he would submit the evidence to the grand jury when it arrived from the FBI.

  William West and Richard Mayhall, Alexander Boone’s attorneys, objected to the dismissal without prejudice, to no avail. They contended that the only evidence against their client was the statement he made to the detectives.

  According to their statement prepared for the court: “Had this case proceeded, we would have proven that Alex’s statement was unreliable and, far from being evidence of guilt, actually proved that he had no independent knowledge of, or involvement in, these terrible crimes.

  “The reason there is insufficient evidence is because Alex is not guilty.”

  Jamie Turner’s court-appointed attorney, Noel Kaech, was pleased with the dismissal, but he was disappointed that it was without prejudice.

  The final results of the DNA tests were received sooner than expected, and by the end of May, the investigators knew that not one of the four men who had been charged matched the DNA that was found in the semen in the bodies of Phree Morrow and Martha Leach. This did not prove that these men were innocent of the murders, but the question remained: Who raped the girls? And it raised new ones: Whom were the men protecting? A friend? Someone they were afraid of?

  At the tender age of sixteen, while working part-time at his first job, in a dry-cleaning store, Steve Schumaker had been the victim of an armed robbery. The thief placed a gun between the slender teenager’s eyes, demanded the money, and threatened to come back and kill him if he called the police.

  Steve did call the police. A few weeks later, on a Saturday afternoon, the thief came back into the establishment, sat down, and stared at him.

  “I did what every red-blooded American male does—I called my mother.”

  Within a very short period of time, Steve’s father, a World War II veteran, “came roaring” into the store with a gun in his hand, told his son to get him a chair, and sat there with the gun at his side until the man left.

  The man was caught, convicted, and sent to prison.

  The experience of watching the case work its way through the court system sparked an interest in Steve, an interest that continued through college. While studying political science at nearby Wittenberg University, in his spare time he went to the courthouse and watched the trials and the lawyers in action.

  He received his undergraduate degree in political science and went on to Ohio State Law School. After receiving his law degree and passing the bar exam, he returned to Springfield and served as the assistant prosecutor from 1978 to 1984. He became the Clark County prosecutor in January 1985.

  He was the father of two young sons and a five-year-old daughter.

  When Schumaker asked Judge Geyer to dismiss the charges against Jamie Turner and Alexander Boone, even though it was without prejudice, he realized that he was putting his job on the line.

  He had had to make an extremely difficult decision in this high-profile case: whether to go forward—and, very likely, have Boone and Turner walk out of the courthouse permanently, as free individuals—or whether to dismiss the cases and “come back and fight another day.”

  On May 21, 1993, Detective Graeber interviewed John’s young cousin Willie Jackson again. Willie’s father, Joe Jackson, was present during the questioning, which mostly concerned the comings and goings of the people present at Wanda’s house on Saturday, August 22, 1992.

  A few days later, Detective Graeber questioned fourteen-year-old Robby Detwiler again. Robby, a thin boy with dishwater blond hair, was restless and uneasy throughout the interview. Typical for his age, his voice was changing. Mostly it sounded boyish, and then—midsentence—it would briefly crack with the fleeting promise of ensuing manhood.

  Graeber: What time did John and Dave get back (the night of August 22, 1992)?

  Robby: I think it was probably about ten-thirty at night.

  Graeber: Those guys didn’t tell you that night they were down to Schuler’s?

  Robby: Yeah, they said they stopped at Schuler’s and got some doughnuts, but . . . I didn’t even find out about it until a week later because I never watch TV or nothing. I mean, I watch TV—I don’t read the paper and stuff.

  Graeber: Willie knew about it. Willie said they told him about it.

  Robby: They didn’t tell me about it.

  Graeber: Willie said you went down to Schuler’s with them.

  Robby (vigorously protesting): I didn’t go down to Schuler’s! I can swear on anything I didn’t go down to Schuler’s!

  Graeber (firmly, but patiently): Let me tell you something. What did I tell you when we came down here?

  Robby: “Don’t lie,” but I ain’t lying!

  Graeber: You’d better start talking to me. We’re talking about four of your buddies killing somebody.

  Robby: I know.

  Graeber: Two somebodies. You never forget that.

  Robby (insisting nervously): I didn’t know they killed them. How was I supposed to know they killed them? I didn’t go down to Schuler’s. And I’ll get him (Willie) in here and tell him to his face I didn’t go to no Schuler’s.

  (After a break Sergeant Moody joined them in the interrogation room. But now Robby changed his whole story.)

  Moody: I want you to calm down, okay. Are you saying that you weren’t at Wanda’s house that weekend?

  Robby: I’m saying I was at my house. Wanda wouldn’t let me come up.

  (For the next several minutes, Robby tearfully insisted that he had lied about being at Wanda’s that weekend. He even claimed that Willie wasn’t there either.)

  Moody: Are you more scared of them or are you more scared of the police?

  Robby: Really I’d be more scared of them.

  Moody: So you’d much quicker lie to us because you know that policemen aren’t going to hurt you.

  Robby: I know.

  Moody: Right. Why are you afraid of them?

  Robby (incredulous): If they killed somebody, they’re going to kill again!

  (Robby hesitantly admitted that he was at Wanda’s that night: “This is the truth.”)

  Moody: Did you walk down to Schuler’s with them?

  Robby: No. That’s one thing I will not lie about. I know I lied so many times, but I didn’t walk down there.

  Moody: Are you willing to give us some of your blood?

  Robby: Yeah.

  When Sergeant Moody and Detective Graeber talked to Wanda Marciszewski the next day, she told them that she had been married to David for two years. She met him through her son, John Balser. David and John knew each other through mutual friends.

  Heavyset at 5’2” and 172 pounds, Wanda had very long salt-and-pepper hair, and was clad in dark polyester slacks and a bright T-shirt. She was thirteen years older than her husband, and she worked as a caretaker for an elderly woman.

  Wanda was born and raised in southern Ohio and was the youngest of sixteen children. She was not mentally retarded, but the
detectives soon came to believe that, at the very least, she was mentally unbalanced.

  She confirmed that Willie and Robby were at her house the night of August 22 and she was angry with Dave because he left them alone while she was at work. She called home every fifteen or twenty minutes, and when she got home about 10:00 P.M., Dave and John still weren’t there.

  Dave got home at 11:00 P.M.; about five or ten minutes later, John came home. She stated that she did not talk to either one of them because she was mad.

  Dave told her, “I dirtied my pants.” He threw his clothes away after he took a bath. Wanda claimed she never saw the clothes. When the detectives asked her about washing bloody clothes, she stated that John washed clothes also.