OH OH - Cheryl Fossyl, 16, Georgetown, 4 June 1977

This case was never discussed on a national level, yet was well covered locally. It has never been officially solved. What is so striking is not only the horrific murder of the 16 yo law enforcement student, Cheryl Fossyl- but also the rumors and allegations of a coverup by the very people who were charged with investigating the murder. Some of the suspects involved in the murder are now dead. Some are still living. Some accused of being involved in the coverup are no longer in office. Some are. Was she killed to cover up the fact that she had information about another killing? or to coverup a drug ring?
Opinions seem to vary. It has been almost 30 years since the murder in a small town and rural area- where the victims family and the suspects see each other at the only grocery store in town. Many residents are still reluctant to discuss it or speculate about the murders and the coverups.

http://www.kdbs.us/help_the_children_link.htm

Georgetown, OH -- Feb. 13, 2001 -- State Highway Patrol Trooper Toby Via swallowed hard, staring at the shallow waters of Straight Creek and the severed head of a teenage girl who would haunt this small rural town for the next 24 years.
A few minutes earlier on that June 11, 1977, day, four boys who had been fishing the creek had frantically flagged down Via's cruiser as it approached the U.S. 68 bridge.

They led Via and Sgt. Wayne Vessels to a spot near the bridge where the boys had found horror instead of bluegills and bass - a sight Via would later describe as one of the worst in his 25-year patrol career.

"It was all bloated up to about the size of a basketball," the retired trooper recently recalled. "I assume whoever did it was driving over the bridge and just flipped it out the window."

Seventeen days later and 18 miles distant, two boys camping near Ohio 125 in an adjoining county found the matching, headless body of a 16- year-old girl lying just off the highway.

The disappearance of Cheryl Fossyl, a Georgetown High School junior missing for 24 days, had been solved. It was later determined that she had been beaten to death, then decapitated.

But discovery of her body only partially eased the fears of this close-knit farming community 45 miles southeast of Cincinnati.

Then, as now, the question remained: Who killed Cheryl Fossyl?


http://www.cincypost.com/2002/10/09/brown100902.html

Forensic evidence examined by experts hired by the Fossyl family, Gerhardstein said, shows the 4-foot-11, 84-pound Fossyl was brutally beaten before her body was cut apart and strewn across two counties.

Fossyl was killed to keep her from talking about the murder of Monroe Hines inside R.G.'s Bar — also known as Kelly's Bar, according to the suit.

http://www.channelcincinnati.com/investigations/1710648/detail.html

http://www.wkrc.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=88B88607-06D6-4D87-B9A1-BBF21C52C996

There are many more links out there on Cheryl's murder, and on the possible related murder of Monroe Hines. Very little is known about the investigation that was done as much of the paperwork, reports and evidence cannot be located. One deathbed confession does not appear to have been offically investigated. I haven't copied the entire articles that are specifically mentioned here and there is a lot more information in those articles.

It never fails to amaze me that people can know who committed murder and there just isn't enough evidence to arrest, try and convict them. This is another sad example of that.

I read the articles. One thing that stands out is that she wasn't reported missing for almost a week. Do you know why that was? Secondly, did anything come out of the lawsuit the family filed?

tennessee said:

It never fails to amaze me that people can know who committed murder and there just isn't enough evidence to arrest, try and convict them. This is another sad example of that.

I read the articles. One thing that stands out is that she wasn't reported missing for almost a week. Do you know why that was? Secondly, did anything come out of the lawsuit the family filed?

Click to expand...

I am not sure how long she was missing before it was reported. I do know that she was missing 24 days before the body was found. It was the 70's and a rural area. At that time I believe a person had to be missing 48 hrs before a report would be filed. When the report was actually filed I am not sure. I have not heard anything on the local news as to the Fossyl family's lawsuit. I checked the 6th district US court and they do not list their cases unless an opinion has been issued and nothing shows under the Fossyl name.
So I am not sure what the status of the case is.
One of the things that has been well publicized on this case, is how little evidence there is that the case was ever investigated. The current sheriff has stated that when he requested the original case file, it contained only one sheet of paper. Also outstanding is that when one of the alleged witnesses was on her deathbed, she requested to make a statement, and no one was ever sent to get the statement.

This case has always haunted me. It still affects the county today. The current county sheriff used the fact that he would push for a new investigation of this case as one of his campaign promises. He followed through. Cheryl's body was exhumed, and a new autopsy completed with an eye toward attempting to gather forensic evidence. A special grand jury was called, held in a neighboring county, with a special prosecutor drawn from another county. Over one hundred people were called to tesify mostly LE officers. The grand jury ended without an indictment.
One of the suspects were picked up in a drug sting around the time of the grand jury hearing, and he committed suicide before his drug trial. He was the one who worked in the bar next to the courthouse. The bar served as a local lunch place for people at the courthouse, and frequently as a place to meet for drinks. The bar was owned by his mother.
After the grand jury ended, the county prosecutor tried to have the current sheriff impeached based on a question of the sheriff's qualifications. The investigation found no reason to impeach.
Since that time the budget for the sheriff's office has been cut by almost a million dollars. Due to the cuts, the staffing has been severly cut and the office can barely investigate current crimes, road patrols are cut to one deputy per shift, and they have no time for looking at old cases.
The sheriff still has a committment to having the case solved, but does not have the resources to spare for investigation.
Some of the articles that are listed here now have outdated links. I will try to dig up some of the articles I have found on this including the prosecutor's press releases about the case (if I can find it again).
There are several things that had happened that may or may not have been related to this case. Other murders, the courthouse blowing up. A couple persons of interest have died. One person who has been convicted of one of the related murders has recanted his confession.

Articles telling the story
http://p076.ezboard.com/fmissing87975frm93.showMessage?topicID=20.topic

http://www.kdbs.us/cheryls_story.htm

http://www.free-webspace.biz/thevictims/fossyl_cheryl.html

The grand jury articles
http://www.wcpo.com/news/2002/local/08/20/fossyl.html

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2002/08/21/loc_no_indictment_in.html

An article about the suit filed by the family against the county. (I have never been able to find the results of the suit)
* http://www.kypost.com/2002/10/09/kdead100902.html

http://www.cincypost.com/2002/10/09/brown100902.html

an article discussing the suspects
* http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2001/02/13/loc_two_suspects_in_1977.html

An article from the attempted impeachment of the sheriff
http://wc1.worldcrossing.com/WebX/.1ddb7bcb

Editorial by the local paper regarding the budget cuts. (Incidently it mentions the Carrie Culberson murder, however it has always been thought that she was murdered in neighboring county that she lived in. There was a search of a property in this county a couple of years ago, where some items thought to be hers were found. However, there was no body found. A person was convicted of her murder, by the neighboring county).

http://www.newsdemocrat.com/main.asp?SectionID=14&SubSectionID=94&ArticleID=120233

I just found this recently- press releases by the county prosecutor regarding the Fossyl murder and the request for the impeachment of the current sheriff
An interesting read.
* http://69.58.9.98/~prosecutor/pressrelease/2002pressrel.php

A county forum discussion
http://procounty.net/sites/modules....ic&p=144&sid=7f043a3bcbb2fd3b33157c50c6b4ce3f

One theory about Cheryl's death is connected to this case.
* http://www.wkrc.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=88B88607-06D6-4D87-B9A1-BBF21C52C996

http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-78405.html

I believe this fire occurred during the Hines/Moore murder trial and has been alleged to be related.
http://www.ohiobar.org/pub/?articleID=361

Just for interest some pictures taken in Brown Co. which show the current courthouse and a picture of downtown
http://www.markspearman.com/ohiosights/album/Brown/pages/webGeorgetownCourthouse_jpg.htm
http://www.markspearman.com/ohiosights/album/Brown/pages/webgeorgetownDowntown_jpg.htm

Although there are a number of intriguing clues or inferences that this girl was killed by someone local, her death may also have been the work of a serial killer.

Donald Leroy Evans was a drifter who traveled through Kentucky in the late 1970's and into 1980. He was a particularly evil individual who was very brutal to his victims, both male and female. See the thread on Randy Lee Sellars, who was also from Kentucky, just south of Cincinatti, Ohio.

That might be a possibility, but for the fact of a deathbed confession that no one heard.
A woman was dying in Texas and contact was made with the county LE that she wanted to make a statement before she died. No officials showed up to hear the confession, but what she allegedly stated was that she and three others were present when Cheryl was killed. One of the other witnesses, a woman, had already died at the time of her confession. She named two men she said had committed the murder and she named a person who had allegedly planned and ordered the murder. The person who allegedly planned and ordered the murder later was caught in a drug sting, and committed suicide while out on bail. That leaves two men who are still alive and free and they are local.

Thanks for posting this, M...It seems to me that the connection to the other murder and drug activity is valid, possibly the beating was to extract exactly what she knew and if she knew of anyone else with knowledge? However, I doubt what was done to her was to direct attention at a "cult", but was more likely a statement to anyone else....Meaning there are others who know.

What are the three other unsolved murders mentioned? Is the Hines case included in that? (Sorry, I didn't read all the links, but you did an exceptional job of research! :clap: )

I have heard two theories concerning the motives to the murder. One is that she had info about one of the murders and intended to take her info to LE.
The other theory is that she had info regarding a drug ring, and she intended to report that to LE. In both theories the Tsanges individual was reportedly involved in what she planned to report.
Of the articles I posted the most interesting are the prosecutor's press releases, the Kentucky post story on the families lawsuit, and the article by wkrc about the possibly related murder and the article about the suspects.
I placed stars next to those.

Back in the area of Brown County in the 1970's everyone knew everyone. So if you were seen somewhere or had done something.... everyone knew including family. Brown County was an area of one relative after another... including "BY MARRIAGE".

I personally believe that Cheryl was to be somewhere during a certain time period... a day.... overnight..... like a friend's home. However. her mother never heard from her after those arrangements and activities were made and had occurred. I do not believe that her mother waited one week to report her missing. Cheryl had a large family in Brown County back then..... and family kepted track of one another very closely.

A very close relative kissed her goodbye as she was leaving one morning for school. That was the last time this relative ever saw her.

The last words I have been told that were said to this relative via Cheryl is, " I am going to tell on them." Her mother died of a broken heart of not knowing what happened to her baby girl. I believe Cheryl trusted in a society that she was taught to trust in... a system that betrayed her. There is a God, there is justice ... and that day will come.

Cheryl was very loved and cared for by her family. She was not a young teenager that no one cared about. I am so happy to see her face and her story on the internet. The crime committed so many years ago has never "JUST WENT AWAY" as most people hope when they commit a crime. She is their reminder of what they have done to a child.

This domain was set aside in Cheryl Fossyl's memory

http://www.kdbs.us/help_the_children_link.htm

This new domain that is in progress will be in her memory

http://www.kdbsglobal.us


Thank You!

Keep any news or links or information coming!!

Then, as now, the question remained: Who killed Cheryl Fossyl?

Whatever scar that may have healed over this ragged wound of uncertainty during the last 24 years was ripped open when newly elected Brown County Sheriff Dwayne Wenninger announced he was reopening the case.

Wenninger said a deathbed confession by a woman who said she saw Fossyl killed led to two suspects still living in the area. But no charges have been brought against the men, since the case is still under investigation, and no names of anyone involved in the slaying have been released.

Nevertheless, the sheriff's announcement rekindled many of the old fears and suspicions that swept Georgetown two dozen years ago in the wake of the slaying.

Only this time, people have been told that Fossyl was killed not by some crazed, anonymous outsider but conceivably by two of their own.

"Not knowing who did it, that's the worst thing, both then and now," said Kathy Vessels of Georgetown.

"We may be living among them. They may even be our friends. You just don't know," she added. "You're looking with a jaundiced eye at everybody now. It's a strange situation."

And once again, people are not only wondering who, but why?

"Things like that just don't happen around here," said Donna Sowers of Georgetown. "You think of something like that happening in the city, not in a quiet little town like this.

"It's a story you just can't believe when you hear it."

She wanted something more' Twenty-three years ago, Georgetown was a community of about 3,000 people in Ohio's tobacco heartland. Things were pretty much the way things had always been since the village was established as the Brown County seat in 1824.

Here, God and country meet. There are a nearly equal number of churches and farm equipment dealers. Apple joins Cherry and Main streets on the town square of hardware, sundry and barber shops. Houses come with a front-porch neighborliness of rocking chairs and wooden bench swings.

In other words, this was a good place to escape from in 1977 - if you were a local teenager coping with the kind of problems and possibilities, from drugs to sexuality, that you thought your grandparents never knew or even dared whisper.

"The further you got away from town, the better. We knew all the back roads and hideouts," Roger Parker, 41, recalled. "We'd go down to the creek and have a bonfire or a party, just sit around and talk, or walk in the woods, throw some rocks, go swimming."

There were drugs, mostly marijuana, and alcohol, too, "but not like anyone getting falling-down drunk," Parker said.

Above all, there was a bond between teens that Parker believes may have contributed to the slaying of Cheryl Fossyl, his classmate. "I think Cheryl's downfall was that she was too trusting of the society we had back then, here in the country."

He remembered her as a quiet, popular girl. She was an average student who "could've been better, but she put more focus into friendships and belonging, being cool."

And yet, "she wanted something more for herself." Parker said that may be why Fossyl was taking law enforcement courses at a vocational school.

"She would've been good at it, too," he said. "She was a small girl, maybe 120 pounds soaking wet, but she had good street smarts."

Apparently not good enough, however.

Capt. Barry Creighton, chief of detectives, outlined what the Sheriff's Department believes happened:

Fossyl was taken to an unknown location in the countryside by two local women and two men who thought she was going to turn them in for some drug activity.

After Fossyl was beaten to death and an attempt made to decapitate her with some kind of sharp object, her feet were tied to a tree, a chain wrapped around her neck and hitched to a car, and her head pulled off.

"They wanted to make it look like some weird cult did it, and get it [the crime] off their backs," Creighton said. "The girls were watching, fearing for their own lives. They didn't interfere, but nevertheless, they were in for the long ride, you know."

Everyone, as it turned out, was in for a long ride.
It was easier not to think about it' "Truth has only to change hands a few times before it becomes fiction," warns the sign outside the Georgetown Church of the Nazarene.

And it didn't take long for the scant details of Cheryl Fossyl's slaying to become the stuff of whispered speculation - then and now.

Some locals suspect that "big money people" with power and influence were somehow connected to the killing, a cover-up or both. BIG DEAL!

Some claim to know the suspects, describing them as respectable family men, but say no more. As one resident remarked, "This is a close-mouthed town, and I wouldn't even dare to say who was involved."

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? THEY ALLOW THIS AND KNOW THESE
MURDERING SOB"S WALK AMONGST THEIR CHILDREN?

THEY KNOW?

A sixteen year old girl was brutally beaten and decapitated and nobody in the whole town grew a backbone?

They let the children live in fear. What a pack of Sc%M#A&S

Some claim to know the suspects, describing them as respectable family men, but say no more. As one resident remarked, "This is a close-mouthed town, and I wouldn't even dare to say who was involved."

So the people who did this . They were not afraid that this poor child's family would not seek revenge on one of them or theirs? I mean if someone brutally murdered a little 16 year old girl in such a disgusting manner and people knew, or so they say, they must have lived in fear of their own life and their families well being for a long time. How do you know if the victims family members would not snap?
I don't know how .

I don't know who these people thought they were but I read through the Court documents and eventually this is going to blow wide open . This is obviously not just a murder and drug thing anymore.
They totally disregarded a child's life and hid paperwork covered it up and
How long did they look for the girls body after her head was found? Or did they even bother?
Is this the same County that Carrie Culbertson was missing from?

This case is now over 30 years old. Has anyone seen any Anniversary articles on it?

Cheryl Fossyl made the top 10 stories for 2001. The listing is from the News Democrat. Many links regarding her case are gone from the internet.

The Brown County Sheriff's Department was re-opening a 23-year old murder case. Sixteen-year old Cheryl Fossyl was last seen about 5:30 p.m. June 4, 1977. Fossyl's death occurred on or about June 7, 1977, when she was beaten to death and decapitated. Fossyl's head was discovered June 11, 1977 in Straight Creek near the bridge on U.S. 68, just south of Georgetown. Her body was discovered June 28,1977 just off the roadway on State Route 125, about one mile east of Decatur and about one-half mile east of the Adams-Brown county line. In December of 2001 Fossyl's body was exhumed from a local cemetery for DNA testing. The murder remains under investigation.

I found this article June 11, 2007.

Sheriff Wenninger opend Cheryl Fossyl's case but he also opened others. There is the unsolved 1989 double murder of Rickey and Judy Martin, the death of Linda Curtis and the unfound remains of Carrie Culberson.

Does anyone know any additional information on any of these cases? Or even old newspaper articles? Carrie Culberson has a website with alot of information, Cheryl Fossyl has newspaper articles and advocates with websites, but the Martin and Curtis cases have very limited information.

I believe what I heard or read somewhere is the Martin's had several children that were present hiding under a bed when the parents were murdered and possibly went to live with relatives in Florida. Curtis I believe was shot in her home.

I would like to place more information on these cases on my website http://kdbsglobal.us

Thanks!!

Wrongful death suit filed by the family began today
http://www.local12.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=e36c730b-70c8-431f-be31-2e819978ea6a

I have posted this case because this is a cold case that haunts me. And I know that periodically we have people who come here talking about a murder in their families where no one has ever been charged, hoping that someone can come up with answers. More and more I am seeing cases in the news where a possible perpetrator has been determined, but there was no prosecution because it was felt there wasn't enough evidence. For a murder case they need enough evidence to prove the case.
More and more I am seeing these cases taken to trial in wrongful death cases, because they have a lower standard of proof there. Always something to keep in mind when families come searching for answers.

That is what is happening in this case.
30 years ago the decapitated body of a 16 year old girl was found in one county and the head was found in another county. There were suspects. But no prosecution and the case has been pretty much at a standstill with the victims family and the suspects all living in the same small town.
In 2001 her body was exhumed and the case was finally taken to a special Grand Jury, but by this time some witnesses were dead, evidence was lost. The Grand Jury didn't indict.
The family has filed a wrongful death suit. Evidently the suit against the county was settled out of court.
The attached link has a pretty good assessment of the case and updates on the wrongful death court hearing.
In court the investigator who does the polygraph testing blurted out that the suspect failed a polygraph. Now the case is in danger of being dismissed.

http://www.newsdemocrat.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=124017&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&S=1

It has taken 30 years, to get this case to any kind of justice. County has settled a civil suit out of court. One civil suit against Thomas Watson and Michael Milligan ended in a mistrial. But finally, the second civil trial went through. Thomas Watson and Michael Milligan have been ordered to pay $1 mil in damages to the family of Cheryl Fossyl.
http://www.local12.com/content/brea...ntent_id=4f66a864-2d78-498f-b7e9-002e8cc994ae

http://www.newsdemocrat.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=124029&TM=57713.99

I am so happy to see some resolution to this. Maybe they haven't been to criminal court. But at least the case has finally been heard and there has been some kind of judgement rendered.

Here's my thought on the case from only what I get from virtually all these "closed lip" people who don't talk publicly (remember publicly) about what they know about it. I have spoken to a few of them back in well it would have been 2001. They are country folk and they don't keep their lips closed. They may do so publicly but off the record they spill.

The general jist of all their stories consist of some very intriguing details that yes are circumstantial but should be underscored because of the nature of 1977 Georgetown.

Remember that most of the local (city and county) government in Brown County at the time were related to one another. It wasn't either a drug ring snitch or alternately an M1 witness issue. It was both. The girl was supposedly going into LE and had some kind of ties to the family that ran the town you know to get her foot in or what have you. Well that backfired because she saw very quickly how things operated. They used her as an example of what happens when people snitch on them.

Then they torched the courthouse and all the evidence. Scrubbed clean. What amazes me is how people even just cursorily suspected of such things stay in office. How does that happen? Well that was the 70's I suppose but don't kid yourself. It happens today.