Case dismissed against former death row inmate in Ohio who had been freed pending a new trial
Source: Associated Press
CINCINNATI(AP) — The case was dismissed Friday against a man who spent a quarter-century on death row for the robbery and murder of a New Jersey woman at an Ohio hotel nearly three decades ago.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich said the dismissal of the case of Elwood Jones of Cincinnati followed a monthslong comprehensive review of evidence and court filings in his case.
“I did not take this extraordinary step lightly,” Pillich said in a statement. “But after reviewing the evidence, I am not convinced that Mr. Jones killed Rhoda Nathan.”
Elwood was convicted of aggravated murder, robbery and burglary in the 1994 beating death of the 67-year-old from Toms River, New Jersey, in Blue Ash, a Cincinnati suburb. He has been free since a judge granted him a new trial in December 2022, concluding that prosecutors had not turned over relevant evidence to his attorneys.
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The original prosecutor had withheld thousands of pages of evidence from the defense. Mr. Jones was originally sentenced to the death penalty, and served 28 years before his release in 2023.