OkieGranny
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OH - Lt. Ray 'Joe' Clark, 49, murdered at his Marietta home, 7 February 1981
- Thread starter OkieGranny
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OkieGranny
Retired WS Staff
- Joined
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- 21,516
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- 1,542
OkieGranny
Retired WS Staff
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2013
- Messages
- 21,516
- Reaction score
- 1,542
by Megan Ashley
The Cold Case Murder of Lieutenant Joe Clark Solved After 3 Decades
31 Dec 2021 rbbm.
''In 1981, a deputy arrested a burglary suspect. The suspect would not confess and continued to maintain his innocence. The deputy packed him into his squad car, drove him out to a secluded area, and beat him until he confessed. The deputy then packed him back up, brought him back to the county jail, and started the paperwork to process the confession. The suspect told other officers what had happened, and it launched an investigation into the deputy, who had not only gone against what was legally allowed as a police officer but was also so beyond the scope of excessive force. Joe Clark had been the lead on that investigation and had been directly responsible for that deputy being fired.
The deputy in question was Mitchell Ruble.
Mitchell Ruble (image courtesy of the Washington County Jail)
Ruble had come from a long line of decorated police officers and military men. He had served in the Vietnam war. He had felt it had been his destiny to follow in their footsteps, but he didn’t have the same dedication that other officers had. He was willing to color outside the lines of what was allowed as a member of law enforcement to “get results.” The worst kind of cop, one who didn’t feel that the rules applied to him.
He had not taken the firing well, and no one else was willing to hire an officer that had been fired for excessive force. He would later find work as a corrections officer at the Noble Correctional Institute, where he worked for twenty-five years. It was also discovered that in 1981, he also had a blue Ford Pinto, but it had been registered in his wife’s name, and he also had the same shotgun registered to him.''
''Detectives, now confident that Ruble was the suspect who had murdered Joe Clark back in 1981, wanted the final nail in the coffin. They wanted the weapon. They tracked down Ruble’s airforce buddies and one by one interviewed each of them, asking each of them if they had ever bought a gun off of Mitch Ruble. The last man on the list said he had and could hand over the shotgun to law enforcement. They matched the gun to the shell and pellets recovered from the crime scene and positively identified the gun as the same weapon that had killed Joe Clark.
At sixty-four years old, Mitchell Ruble was arrested on September 9, 2014, for the murder of Joe Clark in 1981. He may have been anticipating the arrest because when officers were executing a search warrant for his home, they had found dozens of illegal, hand-made explosives, in addition to a modified AR-15 fully automatic rifle, several hand grenades. The explosives and prohibited weapons added seven more felony counts.
On March 11, 2016, he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He died in prison on March 18, 2017, apparently dying in his sleep of natural causes.''
The Cold Case Murder of Lieutenant Joe Clark Solved After 3 Decades
31 Dec 2021 rbbm.
''In 1981, a deputy arrested a burglary suspect. The suspect would not confess and continued to maintain his innocence. The deputy packed him into his squad car, drove him out to a secluded area, and beat him until he confessed. The deputy then packed him back up, brought him back to the county jail, and started the paperwork to process the confession. The suspect told other officers what had happened, and it launched an investigation into the deputy, who had not only gone against what was legally allowed as a police officer but was also so beyond the scope of excessive force. Joe Clark had been the lead on that investigation and had been directly responsible for that deputy being fired.
The deputy in question was Mitchell Ruble.
Mitchell Ruble (image courtesy of the Washington County Jail)
Ruble had come from a long line of decorated police officers and military men. He had served in the Vietnam war. He had felt it had been his destiny to follow in their footsteps, but he didn’t have the same dedication that other officers had. He was willing to color outside the lines of what was allowed as a member of law enforcement to “get results.” The worst kind of cop, one who didn’t feel that the rules applied to him.
He had not taken the firing well, and no one else was willing to hire an officer that had been fired for excessive force. He would later find work as a corrections officer at the Noble Correctional Institute, where he worked for twenty-five years. It was also discovered that in 1981, he also had a blue Ford Pinto, but it had been registered in his wife’s name, and he also had the same shotgun registered to him.''
''Detectives, now confident that Ruble was the suspect who had murdered Joe Clark back in 1981, wanted the final nail in the coffin. They wanted the weapon. They tracked down Ruble’s airforce buddies and one by one interviewed each of them, asking each of them if they had ever bought a gun off of Mitch Ruble. The last man on the list said he had and could hand over the shotgun to law enforcement. They matched the gun to the shell and pellets recovered from the crime scene and positively identified the gun as the same weapon that had killed Joe Clark.
At sixty-four years old, Mitchell Ruble was arrested on September 9, 2014, for the murder of Joe Clark in 1981. He may have been anticipating the arrest because when officers were executing a search warrant for his home, they had found dozens of illegal, hand-made explosives, in addition to a modified AR-15 fully automatic rifle, several hand grenades. The explosives and prohibited weapons added seven more felony counts.
On March 11, 2016, he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He died in prison on March 18, 2017, apparently dying in his sleep of natural causes.''