The trial for the man accused of pulling the trigger in a murder-for-hire plot that left a Burton Township man dead got underway in Geauga County Common Pleas Court Monday.
Chad South, 46, of Moraine, is accused of shooting Daniel E. Ott to death the morning of May 26, 2006, while Ott was inside his Claridon Troy Road home with his then-girlfriend, Maryann Ricker.
Prosecutors allege that 60-year-old Joseph Rosebrook, of Florida, hired South to kill Daniel C. Ott, a convicted car thief and reputed Rosebrook associate, in retaliation for his role in convicting Rosebrook of attempted murder for hire in 2005.
But instead of killing Daniel C. Ott, who has never lived in Geauga County and would have been around 70 years old in 2006, South invaded the Geauga County home of 31-year-old Daniel E. Ott and murdered him.
South, Rosebrook and his 57-year-old brother Carl “Jeff” Rosebrook — the alleged moneyman responsible for paying South — were named in a five-count indictment, filed June 10, 2015, and charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, aggravated murder with prior calculation and design, aggravated murder during the commission of aggravated burglary, and the kidnapping of both Daniel E. Ott and Ricker.
Last week, South waived his right to a jury trial and asked instead that Judge Forrest Burt decide his fate.
Monday’s bench trial began with South confirming he had rejected a plea bargain prosecutors proffered him last week.
“I am completely uninterested,” South told Burt.
Prosecutors waived their opportunity to make an opening statement Monday.
South’s court-appointed attorney, Geauga County Public Defender R. Robert Umholtz, did not.
Umholtz told Burt during the initial investigation into Ott’s murder, “two very real suspects were developed” and never cleared as far as their involvement.
During the course of the investigation, Umholtz said investigators learned Joseph Rosebrook had been convicted in Logan County in an attempted murder for hire of Daniel C. Ott. They contacted Daniel C. Ott and he referred them to the Logan County Sheriff’s Office.
“From that point on, I believe the evidence will demonstrate that Mr. Ott and Mr. Frazier, who was an associate of Mr. Ott’s and Mr. Rosebrook’s in the operation of a multi-million dollar chop shop, along with certain deputies from Logan County sheriff’s department, then began to marshal and direct the evidence of this case,” Umholtz said.
“The evidence that will be presented to court will demonstrate that the state’s material witness and his predecessors, who were working for Logan County sheriff’s department and had deep connections to Mr. Frazier and Mr. Ott, are totally incredible and unreliable,” he added. “I believe the evidence will also show that the Geauga County sheriff’s department became so enmeshed in this pursuit down these rabbit holes and following the information provided by these people, and invested so much time and money, that they cannot extract themselves.”
Umholtz then compared the investigation to an “Amish horse headed for home.”
“Blinders on, seeing only what they want to see and that is the end result,” he said. “And all warnings, all evidence to the contrary, were completely ignored as they focused on the end result.”
Prosecutors called several witnesses to the stand Monday, including Ricker, who testified about the events of May 26, 2006, when she and Ott were asleep on an air mattress in the living room of a small two-story farmhouse adjacent to Urban Growers Greenhouse, where Ott had worked.
Most of the home’s belongings had been moved to Michigan because Ott had taken a job in Grand Rapids in January and had planned to move there in June.
Ricker said she thought she heard someone upstairs and woke up to find a man of average height and build, dressed in olive camouflage from head to toe, standing in a doorway holding a shotgun.
The doors to the house were unlocked because it was Geauga County, she explained.
In a non-distinctive voice the intruder asked two questions: Was anyone else in the house? What was Ott’s name?
The intruder instructed Ricker and Ott to roll onto their stomachs and then told Ott to move onto the floor. Ricker said she pulled a blanket over her head because she thought she was going to be shot. She heard duct tape being unrolled.
After the sound of the duct tape had stopped, Ricker said Ott jumped up, yelled an expletive and ran toward the mudroom. She looked up and heard a gunshot.
Ricker then looked out the living room window and saw a maroon vehicle she described as a Ford Taurus backing out of the driveway. Using Ott’s cell phone she called 9-1-1 before attending to Ott.
There was blood everywhere, Ricker said.
Ricker gave a statement to five investigators over the course of roughly eight hours of interviews that day. She also was administered a gunshot residue test at the Geauga County Safety Center.
Investigators eventually ruled out Ricker as a suspect.
Also called Monday morning were two Geauga County Sheriff’s Office deputies who were responsible for collecting evidence. Aaron Graley, now a sheriff’s office detective, was first arrive on scene. Three other deputies as well as EMTs arrived moments later.
“It was one of the worse scenes I had seen in my career,” Graley testified, adding when he entered the home he found Ricker kneeling over Ott and applying pressure to an upper chest wound.
Deputy Brian Sebor followed the ambulance to University Hospitals Geauga Medical Center, where he collected evidence from the shotgun blast.
Monday’s main witness was Detective Joseph Keough, the on-call detective with the sheriff’s office that morning. Keough was the “case investigator” from 2006 until he retired in October 2008.
When he arrived on scene, Keough said he saw no signs of forced entry and a tremendous amount of blood.
Keough began interviewing people who knew Ricker and Ott because “nothing made sense.” No leads were developed, however, and everyone he talked to said Ott was a “great guy.”
Investigators identified two suspects warranting a closer look: Raymond Lee, a Warren man who showed up at Amish homes in Parkman and Middlefield posed as a law enforcement officer looking for escaped felons; and Ralph “Bucky” Phillips, a convicted murderer from western New York who had driven a car that matched the make and model of the vehicle Ricker described.
However, both men had been ruled out as suspects by the time Keough left the sheriff’s office in 2008.
On a whim, Keough said he searched Ott’s name in a law enforcement database the Ohio Attorney General’s Office oversees and discovered an agent he knew with the National Insurance Crime Bureau had recently searched Ott’s name.
Keough spoke to the agent and was told the agent had searched the name of Daniel C. Ott, whom he had used as an informant. Keough was told to call a City of Eastlake detective who had a relationship with the man and arrange for an interview.
Daniel C. Ott told Keough to contact the Logan County Sheriff’s Office and speak to Detective Jon Stout, but the detective no longer was employed there.
Keough ended up speaking with Detective Mike Brugler who told him about Rosebrook’s multi-million dollar chop shop operation. Rosebrook was the “brains,” Curt Frazier the mechanic and Daniel C. Ott stole cars, mainly corvettes.
Keough also was told how Frazier had cut a deal with Logan County to save himself and agreed to testify against Rosebrook, who had hired Daniel C. Ott to kill Frazier. But Daniel C. Ott turned state’s evidence against Rosebrook and he was sentenced in 2005 to 10 years in prison in the attempted murder-for-hire plot.
On cross-examination, Umholtz confirmed Ricker was a suspect in the murder. He argued she was emotionally upset because she and Ott had broken up sometime between October 2005 and May 2006, and he dated one of her friends.
Umholtz also got Graley to admit he suspected Ricker of being deceptive when she was interviewed.
Umholtz also questioned Keough about a close acquaintance of Rosebrook’s named Eric Snyder, an outdoorsman who raised deer and elk, and wore camouflage clothing. Snyder reportedly would do anything for Rosebrook.
An unidentified animal hair was found in Ott’s hand at autopsy, Umholtz noted, but never analyzed.
In addition, Umholtz had Keough admit an analysis of the duct tape failed to produce any trace evidence of value; a DNA analysis of a cigarette butt found on scene failed to produce any names; a wire-tape of an unauthorized cell phone Rosebrook used in prison failed to produce any leads and none of the calls referred to Chad South; an analysis of animal hair was not done on evidence collected from Raymond Lee’s home; an analysis of trace fibers from the duct tape was not done; and Daniel C. Ott was not being completely frank with him.
The final witness Monday was Amish construction worker Eli Yoder. He testified about a suspicious car parked between two oil tanks near his Mumford Road home around 6:15-6:30 a.m. in May 2006. He first spoke with detectives in January 2015, but could not describe the vehicle or whether there were any passengers. He also did not see anyone get out of the car or change clothes. Yoder said he spoke to the driver who he described as a white male in his 20s, 30s or 40s.