State v. Fox

• Decision Date: 04 May 1994
• Docket Number: No. 92-2019,92-2019
• Citation: 69 Ohio St.3d 183,631 N.E.2d 124
• Parties: The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. FOX, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 183

69 Ohio St.3d 183

631 N.E.2d 124

The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. FOX, Appellant.

No. 92-2019.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted Jan. 25, 1994.

Decided May 4, 1994.

On September 14, 1989, Leslie Keckler applied for a waitress job at a Bowling Green restaurant. Defendant, Richard E. ("Dick") Fox, worked there as a grill cook. As Keckler filled out her job application, Fox pointed out Keckler to a coworker and said, "I'd like to have some of that." At Fox's request, the restaurant manager showed Fox the job application, which included Keckler's telephone number.

Sometime after September 14, Keckler told her boyfriend, girlfriend, and mother about an exciting restaurant supply job opportunity. Keckler described the job to her girlfriend and said that she had an interview. According to Keckler's mother, her daughter was very excited about this "sales route" job, which involved selling supplies such as towels and aprons to local area restaurants.

On the evening of September 26, Keckler went to the Holiday Inn where a job interview for the sales route job was to take place. Keckler's boyfriend saw her just before she left. Keckler told him she might be gone for two or three hours while she went over the sales route. When Keckler did not come home that night, her boyfriend and mother filed a missing persons report with police. Police found the car Keckler had been driving abandoned at the Woodland Mall.

On September 30, two boys riding bicycles found Keckler's body in a rural drainage ditch. Keckler was still wearing her new black dress and leather jacket. However, a clasp on her brassiere was broken, her belt was unbuckled, two dress buttons were missing, and her pantyhose were torn in the crotch. Aside from a nearby shoe, police found no other evidence at the scene.

Keckler had died as a result of asphyxia from ligature strangulation and multiple stab wounds. She had been stabbed six times in the back; three stab wounds penetrated her lungs. Her right wrist had a deep gash, and her face had bruises on her left eye, upper lip, and nose consistent with blunt force injury. The coroner found no signs of sexual molestation.

The evidence at trial later showed that at the hotel, Keckler had met Fox, who later stabbed her six times, strangled her with a rope, dumped her body into a ditch, and then drove home. The facts surrounding Keckler's abduction reminded police of an incident several months earlier involving Marla Ritchey and an After driving a distance and parking, Bennett (Fox) told Ritchey he thought her dress was too long. Eventually, Ritchey decided this was a "fake interview" and told Fox she was not interested in the job. Fox then asked what Ritchey would do if someone "pulled a knife" on her and asked her for money, or asked her "to do other things." When Ritchey jumped out of the car, Fox tried to grab her and said "come back, that he wasn't finished with [her] yet." Ritchey immediately reported the May incident to the police and helped them prepare a composite police sketch of Bennett.

                unknown man who called himself "Jeff Bennett."   In May 1989, Marla Ritchey had applied for a waitress job at a Bowling Green restaurant.  Fox then worked at that restaurant.  Some days later, arrangements were made for Ritchey to go to the Bowling Green Holiday Inn for an 8:00 p.m. "job interview."   At the Holiday Inn, Fox, calling himself Jeff Bennett, told Ritchey that he worked for Great American Foods, and they needed a local sales representative.  Ritchey agreed to accompany "Bennett" in his car that evening to discuss the job
                

Because of the similarity between Keckler's abduction and the earlier Ritchey incident, police circulated an updated composite sketch of "Bennett," the man Ritchey had met. Police thought he might be a suspect in Keckler's abduction. On October 2, an acquaintance of Fox told police that this composite sketch resembled Richard Fox of Tontogany. Police confirmed that Fox matched Ritchey's description of "Bennett," and Fox's car also matched the description of "Bennett's" car.

On October 2, police secured a warrant to search Fox's car and the home where Fox lived with his parents. Then, Detective Sergeant Thomas Brokamp and Investigator John Helm drove there. Fox consented to a police search of the house and his car.

After other officers conducted the search and found some suspicious items, Fox agreed to go voluntarily to the police station, where he waived his Miranda rights and agreed to talk further with police. Before Fox was placed under arrest, he admitted that in early May he had worked at a restaurant where Marla Ritchey had applied for a job, that he met Ritchey at the Holiday Inn, and that he took her for a drive and discussed her skirt length.

Fox also admitted he knew Keckler and claimed they had met and talked at the restaurant where he worked and met again a couple of days later. He described his encounter with Keckler at the Holiday Inn on September 26 as a date. Later, at the mall, "he saw Leslie and they talked and ended up taking a drive in his car."

Fox said that, after driving for a while, he and Keckler parked, and "things were getting warmed up." However, "then Leslie did not want to participate." She called him "an asshole and started to get out of the car." Fox told During the interview, Fox also described another remote rural location. At that location, police subsequently recovered Keckler's purse, her notebook, a letter she had written, her other shoe, a button from her dress, and a piece of nylon cord. Forensic examination of Fox's car revealed blood on the front passenger seat, door, and window. Samples tested were Keckler's blood type. In Fox's garage, police found a fillet knife and a thin nylon rope; both had blood on them.

                detectives, "no one calls me an asshole."   Then "he grabbed Leslie by the coat as she was standing up to get out of the car and pulled her back in," and he "pulled the coat up over her head."   Fox got a knife out of the glove compartment and "stabbed her in the back 4 or 5 times."   Then, he "got the rope out of the trunk 'just to make sure she was dead' [and] strangled her."   Police terminated the interview when Fox asked for a lawyer
                

A grand jury indicted Fox for kidnapping and aggravated murder with a felony-murder death penalty specification alleging kidnapping. After Fox's motion for a change in venue was overruled by the trial court, Fox waived a jury and tried the case to a three-judge panel.

At the guilt phase, Fox's retained counsel conceded that Fox had killed Keckler but disputed that the evidence established kidnapping. The parties stipulated that Fox had no criminal record. On cross-examination, some witnesses testified to Fox's good character and hard work. Despite his arguments, the three-judge panel convicted Fox as charged.

At the sentencing hearing, Fox presented several character witnesses and expert witnesses who testified regarding his mental condition. Testimony from his mother and Dale Fox, his adoptive father, established that Dick's natural father, Walter Low, drowned before Dick was born. Two and one-half years after Low died, Fox's mother married Dale Fox; they moved to Tontogany and raised Dick and their own two daughters. Dale adopted Dick when he was twelve years old because the different last names of the children caused difficulty. When Dick was adopted, his paternal grandparents refused to have anything more to do with him.

While growing up, Fox was active in Little League, church activities and Boy Scouts, where he received the "God and Country Award." He played football and baseball throughout high school. He was described as friendly, kind, very energetic, and helpful to others; he also helped around the house a lot, taking good care of the four-and-one-half-acre grounds where the family lived. After high school, Fox attended Owens Technical College, where he studied to be a chef. For the fifteen or so years before his arrest, he worked as a cook, near minimum wages, at twenty different restaurants. In his leisure time, he played softball and other sports and raised rabbits.

In 1980, Fox moved from his mother's home and married Kim Swinehart. They had a daughter, Jessica, born in 1982. In 1983, he and Kim separated, and Kim died. Fox and his daughter Jessica then moved back into Dale Fox's home and lived there until this offense. Fox's mother took care of Jessica while he was at work. Fox was described as a good father who spent time with Jessica and loved her very much.

Friends and neighbors who had known Fox his entire life testified as to his good character. The Tontogany postmaster described Fox as gentlemanly, cooperative, and respectable. Fox's teacher at Owens Technical described him as cheerful, outgoing, courteous, sensitive and respectful. A retired minister knew the Fox family as a pillar of the community. As a youngster, Fox was very active in Bible study and church service projects and remained active as an adult. According to the minister, "any man would have been proud to have called him son."

A good friend of Fox's for twenty years described Fox as very kind. Another friend described Fox as a normal, honest American boy with a good community reputation. Fox's family was very religious and civic minded. A neighbor for thirty years testified Fox was a fine, honest person. Another neighbor believed Fox was a friendly, honest boy from a good Christian home, with a good reputation for honesty and integrity.

An aunt who helped raise him testified that she loved him very much, and he loved her. Jerry Wiles, a minister engaged to one of Fox's sisters, visited Fox in jail and testified he was very remorseful and filled with repentance. Reverend Wiles felt Fox was a calming and stabilizing influence over other prisoners.

A sheriff's lieutenant, deputy sheriff, and corrections officer all described Fox as a model prisoner and a nice man, who was very cooperative...