Although Samuel Legg’s identity hadn’t been known, BCI had been hunting him for years.
CODIS DNA records had linked the same unknown man to three murders: the 1992 killing of Sharon Kedzierski at an Austintown truck stop, the 1996 killing of Victoria Collins at a Wood County truck stop and the similar murder of Julie A. Konkol the next year in Illinois.
Looking for the perpetrator of these brutal killings, the Criminal Intelligence Unit repeatedly developed suspects and the CODIS Unit would run their DNA. But time and again, CODIS returned no hits.
After familial DNA testing became an option, a special council at BCI approved its use in the case. The test searches CODIS for DNA so similar to a perpetrator’s that it might come from a family member, and this round led to Legg. A DNA sample from him confirmed the match.
Legg was arrested in 2019, initially on charges from a 1997 rape in Medina County — a crime whose DNA profile matched the serial killings. The former long-haul truck driver also is suspected in the murder of his 14-year-old stepdaughter, Angela Hicks, in 1990, and authorities suspect he committed more crimes.
But the prosecution of Legg has been complicated by his mental state. He suffers from schizophrenia and neurosyphilis and is involuntarily committed to a mental institution.
Read more: How familial DNA led to ‘a serial killer’
Reagan Tokes, a 21-year-old Ohio State student abducted in Columbus, was found raped and murdered at Scioto Grove Metro Park. Many units across BCI contributed efforts to help find her and get justice for her. For example, the Criminal Intelligence Unit tapped License Plate Recognition technology to help locate her car.
The DNA Unit obtained a profile from a cigarette butt found in the back seat, and it was entered into CODIS within eight hours of BCI receiving the evidence. The profile matched to Brian Golsby, whose DNA was in the system. He had been released from prison the year before after serving time for kidnapping and rape.
Golsby was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.
The first case solved by familial DNA testing, a team effort between the DNA and CODIS units, involved the 2016 abduction of a 6-year-old from her bedroom in Cleveland. She was sexually assaulted and dropped off on a street corner.
CODIS linked DNA from the crime to an earlier attack: A few months earlier, a 10-year-old in Elyria had gotten away from a man who climbed a ladder to her bedroom and tried to grab her.
But the DNA from the crimes did not match to a known offender whose DNA was in CODIS. Authorities feared the perpetrator would keep grabbing girls, so a special committee at BCI green-lit the more complicated familial DNA testing. As a result, forensic scientists identified 200 possible male relatives of the perpetrator.
Criminal intelligence analysts and investigators worked through family trees until they arrived at Justin A. Christian, whose DNA turned out to be a match to the abduction cases. He was arrested, pleaded guilty to kidnapping, rape, gross sexual imposition and burglary, and is serving a 35-year prison sentence.
In 2001 in Englewood, a 14-year-old girl was asleep when a man removed a window screen, invaded her bedroom and raped her. Despite developing a DNA profile from evidence left behind, authorities couldn’t ID any suspects.
The case grew cold, but investigators never gave up: In 2003, to head off statute of limitations problems, a “John Doe” indictment was filed against the DNA profile.
Years later, on July 1, 2011, an Ohio law went into effect that required the collection of a DNA sample from any suspect arrested on felony-level charges. It was just in time: Robert S. Bernardi was arrested the next day on charges of aggravated menacing and unlawful restraint in connection with the abduction of a 15-year-old girl.
His DNA was collected and CODIS linked it to the 14-year-old’s rape in Englewood. Bernardi pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
In 1991, 15-year-old Jessica Keen was living in a home for troubled teens in Columbus when she went missing from a nearby bus stop. Two days later, she was found raped and murdered in a Madison County cemetery.
The scene told a terrible story: Jessica had escaped her captor and was running for her life when she was caught and beat to death with a gravestone.
Police suspected her boyfriend, whom her parents called a bad influence. After meeting him, Jessica had started skipping school and quit the cheerleading squad. But BCI DNA testing proved the boyfriend was innocent.
The case went cold until 2008, when new DNA technology was applied to evidence. The resulting DNA profile got a hit in CODIS: Marvin Lee Smith, a Columbus man who had been free on bond at the time of Jessica’s attack.
Soon after, Smith had been convicted of assaulting two other Ohio women and was sentenced to prison. While he was in custody, Ohio passed its first law requiring DNA collection: All felons convicted of violent crimes had to be swabbed. That is how his DNA came to be in CODIS.
In 2008, Smith was living in North Carolina and, after the CODIS match, he was extradited to Ohio. He admitted abducting and killing Jessica and received 30 years to life in prison.
In 2005, Ohio passed a law requiring DNA collection from all felony convicts — not just those who had committed violent offenses. The change quickly proved valuable.
Jonathan Gravely, a father of four, had been convicted the year before of failing to pay child support. His DNA was collected by a probation officer after the new law went into effect.
By January 2006, thanks to a match in CODIS, he was confessing to killing Ohio State freshman Stephanie Hummer, who had been raped and beaten to death in 1994. It was a crime that horrified the university community and focused the entire city of Columbus on campus crime.
Hummer, a Cincinnati native, had been walking home on a warm night in March when she was snatched. A railroad worker found her body the next day in a Franklinton field.
Thirteen years later, Gravely was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
In 1999, two women living in condominiums less than 5 miles apart in Cincinnati’s suburbs were raped by a man who had snuck into their homes through an unlocked window or door.
In 2001, within days of Ohio bringing its CODIS database online, the system linked their attacks through the rapist’s DNA and, in the state’s first match between crimes and perpetrator, pointed to Sean B. Price.
Price’s DNA was in CODIS because, after those two attacks in 1999, he was convicted of burglary with sexual intent in another case. When Ohio started collecting DNA from a subset of convicted felons, he qualified. A sample was taken from him in prison.
After initially challenging the DNA technology in court, Price pleaded guilty. In the Deerfield Township case, a Warren County judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison. In the Symmes Township rape, a Hamilton County judge sentenced him to 30 years.
Price will not be up for parole until 2032.