Post by Graveyardbride on Jul 8, 2015 12:32:19 GMT -5
Trego, Lynch and Lemons
Is a Serial Killer Stalking Chillicothe?
The FBI is now assisting in the investigation of a string of disappearances and murders in this small Ohio town over the past 13 months. Six women have vanished since May of last year and four of them were found dead. The women who disappeared were mostly in their 20s and 30s and were mothers. One victim was a grandmother with her third grandchild on the way, authorities said.
Lt. Mike Preston of the Ross County Sheriff’s Office would not say he believes this is the work of a sole serial killer, but that is the theory supported by many of the relatives of the women. “We’ve got too many women missing in our community and it's time to get some answers,” Sheriff George Lavender said at a press briefing on Monday.
Most of the six women had a known history of drug use, with at least three having had an addiction to heroin, family members told ABC News. Friends have reported that some of the women were known prostitutes, and while some relatives were unable to confirm their daughters and nieces were involved in prostitution, Robinson said she thinks the association kept police from doing more earlier. “I don’t think they were worried because they were just saying ‘these are just women who are strung out on drugs, or doing whatever,’” Robinson said.
Charlotte Trego, 27, was the first to disappear and has not been seen since. “I last spoke with Charlotte on May 3, 2014,” her mother Yvonne Boggs told ABC News, “and she told me, ‘Mom, I’m ready to come home and get clean.’” Trego is described as a 5-foot-4-inch white woman, weighting 160 pounds, with dark hair and eyes. She has “James” tattooed on her head and a Playboy bunny on her upper arm.
Tameka Lynch, a 30-year-old married mother of three, disappeared the same day as Trego and it has since been revealed that the two women knew each other. Unlike Trego, however, Lynch’s body was found three weeks later on May 24 in Paint Creek, which runs just outside Chillicothe. Angela Robinson, Lynch’s mother, told ABC News that police told her that it was clear if her daughter died before being put into the water, which she believes, proves her daughter’s death was no accident. “She was scared to death of water. She wouldn’t go swimming, and she was scared of the woods,” Robinson insisted. “She would do anything for anybody. ... That was her biggest downfall,” the distraught mother added. “I felt that after the first three women went missing a year ago, it had to be someone they all know and trust to even go with them, and it has to be more than one person – my daughter was not a small person.”
Wanda Lemons, 37, disappeared six months later. “She called me in November, the 1st of November, and we were talking about Thanksgiving dinner and spending some time with me,” her mother Diana Willett told ABC News. Lemons, who has not been seen or heard from since, has five children ranging in age from their early 20s to her youngest, 6-year-old Heaven. She also has two grandchildren with a third on the way. According to Willett, her daughter was “using drugs,” including heroin, around the time of her death and while she “couldn’t say for sure” if her daughter was working as a prostitute, admitted, “I’m not going to deny she wasn’t, because she had before.”
Himelrick, Sayre & Claytor
Shasta Himelrick, 20-years-old and pregnant, was the fourth woman to vanish. She was last seen on Christmas Day, 2014, and her body was discovered in the river January 2. There were non-fatal levels of oxycodone and cocaine in her system at the time of death, the newspaper reported. The coroner ruled her death a suicide because there was “no sign of pre-mortem trauma.”
Tiffany Sayre, 26 and the mother of two toddlers, went missing May 11, 2015. After searching for more than a month, her body was found wrapped in a sheet in a wooded area June 20. “Makes me mad, makes me hurt,” her father Thomas Kuhn told ABC affiliate WSYX. “All I know is we are going to catch you, whoever you are, we are coming for you.”
Timberly Claytor, a 38-year-old mother of five, was found dead May 29 near a guardrail in the 3200 block of Trego Creek Road. She had been shot in the head three times. According to Marcia Pummell, a friend, Claytor had confined to her that she was addicted to heroin. Jason McCrary, 36, a black convicted sex offender, is the prime suspect in Claytor’s death, but he has not officially been charged and some contend he is innocent.
Police have not publicly specified which cases they are looking into and refused to say officially the murders are connected, but Preston told ABC News they are looking at six cases. According to the Chillicothe Gazette, investigators are also considering whether the shooting death of Timberly Claytor is connected to the other cases, even though police have a suspect in that murder. Ross County Prosecutor Matthew Schmidt declined to comment on whether Claytor and the other women knew each other, but admitted evidence suggests they could have known some of the same people.
The FBI is now involved in the case and the relatives, many of whom have begun meeting on a weekly basis to discuss the missing and murdered women, said they are happy to have the extra help. “It’s awesome,” Willett said of the FBI’s involvement. “[They] should’ve done it a long time ago when all this started happening, but they’re doing their job now.”
Author: Graveyardbride.
Sources: Meghan Keneally, ABC News, June 24, 2015, and Caitlin Turner, The Chillicothe Gazette.
