Hometown Killer. Carol J. Rothgeb
Avenue, next door to where Martha Leach lived when she disappeared. He and his mother had moved there about three months after the murders.
Jamie and his mother lived in an upper duplex, and Jettie Willoughby, Martha’s mother, still lived in the upper duplex next door. The two houses were so close to each other that the landings on the outside stairs almost touched each other.
About 10:00 that same night, Alexander Boone was arrested at police headquarters, where he had turned himself in.
Later that night, Damien Tyler* was arrested and questioned and then held on unrelated drug-trafficking charges at the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center. He was fifteen years old.
Alexander Boone and Damien Tyler both submitted to having their blood drawn for DNA testing.
On Wednesday, March 3, 1993, Boone and Turner were arraigned and charged with two counts each of aggravated murder. Their cash bond was set at $500,000 each.
The following Monday, the Clark County grand jury indicted Jamie Turner and Alexander Boone on thirteen counts each: six counts of aggravated murder, two counts of rape, two counts of kidnapping, one count of obstructing justice, and two counts of abuse of a corpse.
The charge of aggravated murder carried death penalty specifications. According to the law in the state of Ohio, committing murder with prior intent, or while committing rape, or while committing kidnapping, are considered separate offenses. Hence, since there were two victims, six counts each of aggravated murder.
That afternoon Jamie’s distraught mother requested help from the police while, understandably, she moved away from her home on Lagonda Avenue. The uniformed officers stood watch while she moved her belongings, making sure that none of the neighbors bothered her. She claimed that some of them had been taunting her.
Detectives Eggers and Graeber had been to see Jettie several times over the months to keep her informed about the case, but because of the volatility of the situation, they knew they couldn’t tell her that her next-door neighbor was a possible suspect.
With the arrests of Jamie Turner and Alexander Boone, the town breathed a collective sigh of relief. They thought it was over. They could stop viewing every stranger with suspicion. They could loosen their grip on their children—just a little. They thought they could go back to normal. They were wrong.
On Friday, March 5, twenty-three-year-old John Balser, another mentally impaired young man, came to police headquarters with information about the two murders. He and Jamie Turner had gone to school together at Town and Country. John would prove to be one of the biggest challenges to the detectives; his IQ was similar to Jamie’s. He was a heavyset man at 5’7” and 180 pounds.
During this visit, in a very confusing statement, John claimed that Jamie had told him and several other people that he had been there when the girls were killed. John had tried to get Jamie to turn himself in and get help. John also told Detective Graeber and Sergeant Moody that Jamie told him a man named Lloyd Tyler* was with them that night. Lloyd was Damien’s uncle and he also went to Town and Country Day School.
“I would get up in front of anyone and say Jamie didn’t do it. I know . . . I know Jamie too well. I know Jamie would never hurt no one. Jamie’s been with me almost since . . . I know Jamie all the way through school, never did nothing like this and all,” John Balser stated.
But then John claimed that he heard Jamie say, “I killed both and raped both.”
According to John Balser, John’s stepdad, David Marciszewski, also heard Jamie say it.
John, however, did not believe Jamie. “I say it was Lloyd instead of Jamie. I don’t think Jamie would do it,” Balser maintained.
“Why do you say that, because Jamie’s your best friend?” Graeber asked.
“No—no way. Me and Jamie got together always through school. Jamie never did nothing like that,” Balser emphasized.
John told them the names of three other people who had heard Jamie talking about the murders. Besides his stepdad, John claimed that his three cousins had been present when Jamie was talking about the crime: Willie Jackson*, Robby Detwiler*, and Frank Fisher*.
He also claimed that Lloyd Tyler heard Jamie and told him to “shut up.”
A few days later, Detective Graeber talked to Frank Fisher, a forty-year-old mentally retarded man. Frank verified that he was with John, Jamie, and the others when Lloyd Tyler told Jamie to shut up because he “did not want to hear no more.” Frank could not or would not tell the detective what Jamie had said.
8
It was difficult with a lot of them because you didn’t know whether you weren’t getting the answers to your questions because they were being deceptive or if it was because their mental capacity just wouldn’t allow it.
—Sergeant Barry Eggers
March 24, 1993, was an exhausting day for the determined investigators, as a number of interviews were conducted that day.
Sergeant Moody and Detective Eggers questioned thirteen-year-old Willie Jackson and fourteen-year-old Robby Detwiler, John Balser’s cousins. Because the young boys had spent the weekend of August 22 and 23, 1992, at David and Wanda Marciszewski’s house, the detectives thought they might have information pertinent to the investigation. John lived on South Light Street, with Wanda (his mother) and David (his stepfather). John’s real father had died.
Willie, a thin, dark-haired boy, told the detectives that John Balser and Jamie Turner had been together the night of the murders. When John came into the house a little after 11:00, he asked Willie and Robby if they wanted a cookie. When they asked where he got them, he replied that he got them from “the bakery.”
The detectives knew that the cookies that Willie described to them almost certainly came from Schuler’s Bakery. These were soft chocolate-chip cookies, each wrapped individually in the cellophane that the bakery clerk used to pick them up gingerly and place them in a bag or a box.
But the cookies that John offered the boys weren’t in a bag or a box—they were in his pants pockets. The two young cousins thought that he had stolen them, but they didn’t ask because they “knew he’d get mad and start yelling.”
Willie also told the detectives that when he saw Jamie a couple of days after the murders, Jamie had bruises on his arms. When Willie asked him what happened, Jamie claimed that he had wrecked his bicycle.
And, referring to John, Willie offered, “He kept coming up with details that wasn’t on the news or nothing.”
At 2:00 that afternoon Detectives Eggers and Graeber interviewed John Balser again. Even though it was early spring, John was bundled up in a bulky winter coat and sweatpants. John’s very worried guardian, Joe Jackson*, accompanied him to the police station. Jackson was also John’s uncle and Willie’s father.
John Balser tried desperately to give Jamie Turner an alibi for the night of the murders. He gave a convoluted account of times, places, and people he had seen that day. His concept of time was questionable, so Joe Jackson tried to help the detectives interpret the series of events as John told them.
Joe knew that John had not been home all evening on the date in question because he had called the house several times to check on John, and neither John nor David Marciszewski was there. Wanda was at work, caring for an elderly lady who lived on Lagonda Avenue.
Eggers: From what I understand, John and Jamie were together from noon that day until ten-thirty that night.
Graeber: Here’s the problem we got here—the way he’s putting the times together, puts him right in the middle of the murder.
Jackson: That’s what I’m afraid of.
Graeber: Believe me—putting him right in the middle of the murder.
Jackson: It worries me because when he came back home—he’s been so upset. I don’t know that