OH OH - Ronald Vargo, 26, Columbus, 11 Aug 1992

Ronald Vargo Junior, a 26 year old single man from Carroll in Fairfield County, Ohio, was staying at his aunt’s Midgard Road home in Clintonville on the north side of Columbus.

Ronald Vargo’s aunt was on vacation while he was house-sitting her home and taking care of her dogs. His aunt also had a brand new fully loaded forest green Chevrolet Camaro. Ronald Vargo was driving his aunt’s Camaro while she was on vacation.

On the afternoon of August 10, 1992, Ronald Vargo took his grandmother to the veterinarian to pick up her pets. No one in his family saw ever him alive after that.

Two withdrawals were made during the early morning hours of August 12, 1992 from Vargo’s card at a University area ATM in Columbus. But there are no surveillance images when the withdrawals were made from the ATM. Later on that same day, Ronald Vargo failed to show up for work at his job.

Ronald Vargo’s mother stops by at the house where her son was house-sitting in Columbus on August 13, 1992. Vargo’s mother realizes that the dogs had not been fed.

Ronald Vargo’s aunt returned home from her vacation on August 15, 1992. She finds that her brand new forest green Chevrolet Camaro is missing and contacts police to report her car stolen. Ronald Vargo’s family also file a missing person report in Fairfield County on that same day.

On the west side of Columbus during the afternoon of August 17, 1992, a homeless man walking in a wooded area directly across the street from the Sears Distribution Center on Fisher Road found Ronald Vargo’s body in the woods.

Ronald Vargo was found lying on his back and he had been shot multiple times in the head.

The missing Camaro was found two days later parked on a north side residential street. Neighbors living on Oakland Avenue reported that the Camaro had been parked there for a few days.

Two different stolen license plates were found on the missing Camaro. The original license plates from the aunt’s Camaro have never been found. The aunt’s home was 1 ¼ of a mile away from where her missing Camaro was found.

In early October 1992, police asked for the public’s help about Ronald Vargo’s murder in a Columbus Dispatch crime stoppers newspaper article.

A female eyewitness contacted the crime stoppers tip line after reading the crime stoppers newspaper article about Ronald Vargo’s murder.

The female eyewitness reported that four men in a Camaro pulled up beside her at a traffic light at Georgesville Road and Atlanta Drive on the west side of Columbus. She recalled there was a commotion inside the Camaro and also recalled seeing Ronald Vargo riding in the back seat.

The female eyewitness noted the license plate of the Camaro but didn’t think anything about the commotion she had seen until she read the crime stoppers newspaper article several weeks later.

Homicide detectives believe that the suspects were after the Camaro when Ronald Vargo Junior was kidnapped and taken to a wooded area on the west side of Columbus where he was murdered either on August 11 or 12, 1992.

The murder of Ronald Vargo Junior remains unsolved to this day. Police do not have any suspects in his murder, but they have composite sketches of two suspects and several good fingerprints that were taken from the Camaro.


Sources:

Mother’s hope dims; son’s 1992 killing still unsolved

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/07/14/unhealed-wounds.html


Ronald Vargo Junior Murder Case Timeline

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/07/14/cold-case-timeline-ronald-vargo-jr.html


Ronald Vargo Junior Murder Case On Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1joJZFD5M8

Bumping for Ronald...it's now been over 28 years.

Bumping

Note in the article “Mothers Hope Dims” they say all evidence was lost. So they don’t have his clothes or anything they collected at the crime scene. All they have are fingerprints from the car. I hope they keep checking and those guys are in the system.