by James Renner
Maryann’s only public statement even related to the murder was made in an ad she placed in a weekly shopper a couple of months later: “Thank you . . . to all my family and friends for all your support, gifts, and flowers, after the tragic, unexpected death of my boyfriend, Dan Ott. A special thanks to all my clients at Hair Plus for their understanding and patience during my time of leave. Thank you to Brad Hess and all the girls for taking over my responsibilities during my absence. I’ll be back soon!”
Many found the public notice troubling. Advertising your return to work doesn’t seem logical if you’re the only witness to a murder and you believe the killer is still on the loose.
Weber reported that agents from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification had collected evidence, including fingerprints, from the crime scene, to be processed at their lab in Richfield. He learned from the sheriff that cigarette butts had been found outside the house and that a seven-man team from the Sheriff’s Department is working the case, interviewing people while waiting for results from the crime lab.
Weber is also intrigued by the fact no shell casing was found in the house. Without the casing, it’s impossible to say for certain which weapon killed Dan. Most shotguns automatically discharge the spent shell. “Either he had a closed-breach gun, like one of these here, where the shell doesn’t come out,” says Weber, pointing to a gun on a shelf behind him, “or he shot it and didn’t pump it. Or he picked it up on the way out.”
As he continues reviewing the case in the back of the Gunrunner, Weber concedes there may be another explanation for the murder. “I’ve dated about four hairstylists,” he says. “They’ve all got stalkers and they’ve all got these satellite dudes that are hanging around them. Because think about it: you get a real lonely-heart guy, he comes in there and gets his hair cut, what’s the girl doing? Touching him. That girl’s friggin’ rubbing against him. She’s listening to him like a shrink. They can form this really weird union, like I told [Sheriff Dan] McClelland, if there was a shooter and it wasn’t Ricker, he’s in that appointment book at the hair salon.”
* * *
In the months following Dan’s murder, Sheriff McClelland has been featured in several national TV interviews, but not to talk about the unsolved case. He’s on TV to talk about his pet Chihuahua, Midge, which he has trained as a drug sniffing K-9.
The occasional media request for updates on the investigation are forwarded to Lt. John Hiscox, the public information officer for the Geauga County Sheriff’s Office. “You should write about Baby Doe” instead, he suggests. “Back in the mid-’90s, a mailman discovered the body of a newborn in a ditch. It had been dismembered by animals. We’d like to know who did it.”
He offered an exclusive interview with the retired detective working the Baby Doe case. Then he ushered me out of the room.
* * *
On the other side of Dan’s old house, about 500 feet from the front door, is the homestead of a young Amish woman. There’s a buggy parked out back. She arrives at the door flanked by two children. The woman wears a simple blue dress and has wispy salt-and-pepper hair. Her son has recently cried, his eyes red and puffy. Her daughter is about four years old, blond. She sucks her thumb quietly as the woman tells what she knows.
“I was up at 5:30 a.m.,” she says. “I didn’t leave the house. I didn’t hear anything. No gunshot. I didn’t see anything.”
Across the street, Ken Sinkenbring is setting up for a family reunion. He’s a kind man with a firm handshake and today he’s wearing a Budweiser t-shirt and a Budweiser baseball cap while drinking a Budweiser. Standing next to him, his brother-in-law silently mocks him in a Guinness t-shirt and matching cap.
“I got up about 6 a.m.,” says Sinkenbring. “I didn’t hear anything. I knew Dan. He didn’t do drugs, didn’t drink, wasn’t in debt.” When he talks about the time Dan helped him wrangle up a cow that had gotten loose from his farm and wandered into Urban Growers territory, his wife stops him short. It’s not good to let other farmers know that they lost a cow.
“Thing is, we don’t have many neighbors out here, as you can see,” says Sinkenbring, gesturing to the expanse of forest in the valley behind Dan’s house that seems to stretch to Canada. “If it’s a random killing, that’s a scary thought. If it’s not random, what does that mean?”
John Urbanowicz is working across the street at his greenhouse. He was Dan’s boss and friend. His aunt owned the house where Dan was living. He says there was no sign of a shotgun blast in the house or trauma of any kind, but some carpet was missing.
* * *
That night, my phone rings. It’s a guy named Brad Hess. “Maryann wants to talk,” he says. Hess is Ricker’s manager at the Hair Plus salon in Middletown, five miles east of Burton. “But she thinks you’re working with Weber. He’s the one that needs to be shut up.’ ”
Seems Weber has already blogged about our interview, and this, apparently, is the basis of Hess’s claim that the gunrunner and I are in cahoots. He cannot be dissuaded from this, even when informed that Ricker did not respond to efforts to reach her before Weber’s blog post.
Ricker’s relatives are not helpful, either. A man who confirms he is a “close relation” says Ricker doesn’t want to speak to any media but agrees to pass along the request.
Later, a friend of Maryann’s, Mary Jo Newport, calls to speak on her behalf. “The police have not told her what to do,” says Newport. “However, they have made strong recommendations that it would hurt the case if Maryann was verbal about the case. If there was a case, it could hurt it. Everyone who knows Maryann, knows her as a loving and caring person. And honest. People love gossip. They love to criticize. I don’t know what they should expect. What do people expect? Should she go off and kill herself in her bedroom? Is she not allowed to exist now?
“The police are still investigating. They don’t have the evidence back yet. Why is it taking so long? We need to get this killer off the streets.
“The only thing I wanted to let you know is that [Weber] twists and turns things. He’s kind of like the Howard Stern of Burton. He’ll say anything to get publicity, say anything to get attention.”
But Scott Weber isn’t the only one beginning to question Ricker’s sincerity.
“It just didn’t seem like she was as upset as she should have been at the funeral,” says Frank Workman, who had known Dan since middle school. “I saw her laughing at the viewing. She was there with a guy. I didn’t know who he was, if it was a brother or what. But she was laughing.” It’s possible the man was Maryann’s boss from the hair salon, as some have suggested, there to console his friend, but neither he nor Maryann would verify this.
Workman stayed in touch with Dan on an almost weekly basis until his friend’s death. They talked about everything—except Maryann. Dan never mentioned her to Workman until Dan’s sister broached the subject at Christmas. “Oh, it’s nothing serious,” Dan said at the time.
There were undercover detectives at the viewing and funeral, says Workman. They were keeping a watchful eye on guests and writing down license plates in the parking lot.
Ken Kishman was also rankled by the presence of the man at Maryann’s side during the funeral. “Who the fuck is that guy?” he recalls thinking. “Who’s going to bring some guy to her boyfriend’s funeral?”
Also puzzling is what Maryann said to the congregation at St. Mary’s Church in Vermilion, that morning. According to Workman and Kishman, who were present, Dan’s father asked Maryann loudly to tell everyone what Dan had said to her before he died.
“He said, ‘I’m sorry, Maryann, I thought that man was going to rape you.’ ”
“That doesn’t make sense,” says Kishman. He doesn’t believe it would be possible for Dan to have said anything after taking a shotgun blast to the chest. “Being an avid hunter, I know what kind of damage a shotgun can do. No way are you going to get all that out.”
If he were in Maryann’s position, he’d be on th
e phone to America’s Most Wanted. “I think it’s selfish of her not to go on the record. She has so far done nothing to help find Dan’s killer. Her doing nothing is not going to help. She needs to get off her ass and do something.”
* * *
A source who asked to remain anonymous suggested to me that the full picture of what took place in Dan’s living room the morning of May 26 is yet to be revealed. This person claimed to have direct knowledge that Maryann told police the masked intruder had approached Dan and asked what his name was before he shot him and that the shooting had occurred outside, on the front steps, which supports Urbanowicz’s theory that no gun was discharged inside the small house.
“That is one of the statements that Maryann has told us,” says Sheriff McClelland when reached by phone. McClelland also confirms that Maryann was sequestered without a lawyer for several hours after the shooting and was subjected to a voice stress test, a type of lie detector.
When asked if he could share the results of that test, McClelland says, “I cannot.”
When asked if Maryann is considered a suspect in Dan Ott’s murder, McClelland says, “We have a number of people we have not ruled out. The investigation has yet to focus on a specific person. We continue to work on it very diligently. It’s not a simple case.”
Another person detectives are interested in is a troubled young man named Ryan Yost, who once lived in the house where Dan was killed. Yost had several run-ins with the Geauga County Sheriff’s officers while he was still a juvenile. After his family moved to another section of town, Yost worked with Dan at Urban Growers. According to friends of Maryann, Yost called Dan shortly before the murder and they argued on the phone about a job.
Sheriff McClelland, however, seems decidedly unimpressed with Yost as a suspect. “Our detectives are aware of this individual and have followed up on that information,” he says in a tired voice.
Gail Yost, Ryan’s mother, says detectives have been to her house but have not questioned her son, who was with his father the day Dan was murdered. She explains that the phone call her son made to Dan was to ask about another job at Urban Growers to fulfill a school-to-work program requirement.
“Ryan looked up to Dan,” she says. “Once, when he was working with Dan at Urban Growers, Ryan dropped an expensive piece of equipment and Dan paid for it so that Ryan wouldn’t get into trouble with the owner. Dan was the nicest guy.”
In Pancaketown, the scuttlebutt continues.
* * *
Anyone with information related to this crime should contact detectives at 440-279-2009.
The scene of the crime. No one heard the gunshot.
Blogger and gun shop owner Scott Weber has his own theories about the crime.
Everyone who knew Dan Ott seemed to love him. Friends can’t image who want to kill him.
Chapter 10
Hiding in Plain Sight
The Unsolved Suicide of Joseph Newton Chandler
Sherman, Texas: December 21, 1945
Our mystery begins with a tragic confluence of events that occurred along a dark stretch of country road just before Christmas, not long after the end of the second World War.
The Chandler family are in their 1941 sedan, driving south through Sherman, on their way to Grandma’s house in Weatherford. The Chandlers live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Joe Chandler II is a field rep for Buick Motor Company. His wife, Billie, and their only child, eight-year-old Joe the Third, are with him in the car, packed between wrapped presents and luggage. They are planning to spend the holidays in Texas.
There is a man driving a car headed north, a ways down the road. He doesn’t know the Chandlers. And that’s a blessing, really. Considering what happens next.
In the road between them, a truck full of lumber has pulled to the side of the northbound lane, resting halfway on the shoulder. Probability is on the man’s side—this is not a busy highway. Chances are, there won’t be any cars coming the other way, not for those few seconds it will take to correct himself if he swerves to avoid it.
It’s like hitting the lottery, then, when he does hit the Chandler sedan as it approaches from the other direction. The vehicles collide head-on. The man survives. The Chandlers do not. The presents in the car are donated to a local charity; the bodies are laid to rest near Grandma’s house.
* * *
Eastlake, Ohio: July 30, 2002
Judging by the position of the body, it appeared the old man was looking at his reflection in the mirror when he put the gun in his mouth and blew out the left side of his skull.
Detective Christopher Bowersock found him lying in a sticky pool of coagulated blood inside the cramped bathroom of the efficiency that was rented out to Joseph Newton Chandler. The stink was so bad—this was the one of the hottest days of a very hot summer—that Detective Bowersock was forced back outside, where he waited until someone could bring air packs from the station. Neighbors had noticed a smell coming from apartment D and had altered a Dover Apartments manager, who called the police. But, inside, it was much worse.
The detective got a better look at the efficiency when he went in again, this time breathing through an air filter. It was a single room, divided in a corner by a waist-high wooden bar. On one side was the kitchenette—toaster oven, mini fridge, tiny stovetop. On the other was the living room/bedroom. A Murphy bed, covered in a patterned flannel sheet was in the “down” position. Across from this was a couch sitting below a framed picture of a castle in Spain—both of which probably came with the furnished efficiency. A TV was set against the window in the front wall. Next to the bed was an open closet. Inside the closet was a pair of work pants and a plain button-up shirt, looking lonely next to two clip-on ties hanging beside them, and a tweed hat. Sitting on the wooden bar was an antiquated computer, two books (How to Make Money in Stocks and Making Money with Your Computer at Home), and an open gun case, the kind with gray pointy foam inside.
The bathroom was covered in ’70s-era yellow wallpaper, which was mostly obscured by a legion of flies scuttling across it. They buzzed and dived around the detective as he bent to the body, which had fallen, face down, in the corner in front of the mirror, about a week before. Detective Bowersock pulled an arm to move the body and felt it slide from the torso like “a drumstick being pulled from a well-cooked chicken.” Maggots poured out of the hole in the head and landed on the floor.
Under the body was the handgun, a five-shot revolver, with four live rounds still in the spinner. It was an old gun. Much older than the case that was lying on the counter.
The police double-bagged the body for the coroner.
To Detective Bowersock, it seemed like a simple suicide.
He was about to learn that nothing about this case was as simple as it seemed.
* * *
The emergency contact listed on Joe Chandler’s rental application was a man named Mike, Joe’s one and only friend, if he could even be called that. Mike asked me not to publish his last name, because he’s tired of the notoriety that has come with being the Mystery Man’s executor.
Mike hadn’t seen Joe in at least four months when he found out he was dead. He and his wife were on vacation when it happened. When they returned, there were several messages waiting on the answering machine, from the police and the coroner’s office. They wanted him to ID the body.
Mike had met Joe while working at Lubrizol, an east side chemical plant. Joe was a talented electrical engineer, employed by a temp company called Comprehensive Designers, Inc., even though he had basically worked full time at Lubrizol for 12 years, beginning in 1986. He designed new equipment, handling everything from drawing to scheduling installers. And he fixed anything that needed fixing in the plant. For this, he was paid $17 an hour, earning $36,000 a year. Mike’s office was located right next to Joe’s, so he got to know him about as well as anyone could.
Joe Chandler was quite peculiar. He wore factory-style protective eyeglasses, even outside of work. He stood about five foot eight a
nd looked to be in his 60s, although Mike noticed that whenever someone asked how old he was, Joe always gave a different age. He had larger-than-average hands, with thick, not extremely long, fingers. He smelled like he didn’t bathe often. And he was always making little gadgets.
Joe built himself a white-noise machine that piped static through headphones which he wore at all times. He kept it turned up so loud you could hear it if you were standing close to him. Joe also wired his TV to shut off during commercial breaks and click back on when the program started up again—he hated advertisements of all kinds. As a favor to another co-worker named Mark Herendeen, Joe once rigged the Madison Fire Department’s alarm system so that it turned on the lights in the sleeping area whenever it sounded.
Joe also had a habit of disappearing. Occasionally, he would call Mike and explain he wouldn’t be coming to work for a while. “They’re getting close,” Joe would say. Usually, he was only gone for a few days, although at least once he was gone for months.
“I should have suspected something,” says Mike, thinking back. “But I didn’t. I just thought he was a paranoid schizophrenic or something.”
Mike felt sorry for Joe; he didn’t seem to have anyone. He never mentioned family. He carried around a notepad with lists of restaurants that were open for Thanksgiving and Christmas, for Christ’s sake. So, he invited Joe to have supper at his apartment one evening. The meal was awkward. Joe wasn’t much of a conversationalist. But eventually, he gave up a few more details. He told Mike he had once been married to a Cuban woman and had lived in Florida.
When Mike’s wife, Marilyn, celebrated her 50th birthday with a costume party, they invited Joe, both thinking that he would never show up, “not in a million years.” To everyone’s surprise, Joe showed up dressed head-to-toe as a mobster—pinstripe suit, fedora, cigar.
