COLUMBUS – Science, dogged detective work and a tip prompted by a media report helped solve the murders of two central Ohio teenagers that happened nearly a half-century ago.
Lori Nesson (right) was a 15-year-old honors student at Eastmoor High School when she disappeared after a football game and was found dead beside a roadway on Sept. 28, 1974, on the west side of Reynoldsburg, Ohio attorney general Dave Yost and Reynoldsburg Division of Police Chief Curtis Baker announced in a joint release Wednesday.
Investigators were unable to figure out what had happened to her and the case grew cold, Yost and Baker said.
Reynoldsburg police took a new look at the case in August 2019 at the urging of Lori’s family and asked the Franklin County Coroner’s Office to re-evaluate the original autopsy. Investigators then submitted evidence to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in January 2020 (see video).
“Reynoldsburg police officer Craig Brafford led this cold case murder investigation, and his relentless pursuit for answers brought us to where we are today. We are honored to be able to give Lori Nesson’s family and friends the answers they deserved long ago,” Baker said.
Later that year, WBNS 10-TV reported on the case and a viewer tipped off police that there were similarities between the Lori Nesson case and that of Karen Adams, a 17-year-old Whitehall girl found assaulted and murdered in 1975 in Blacklick.
It was a lead that panned out.
Using forensic evidence from articles of Lori’s clothing the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation was able to compare DNA from the crime scene to that of two suspects and developed profiles of the likely assailants, who are both now dead, Yost and Baker said.
“This case was solved by pure determination by investigators, the application of modern DNA technology to a decades-old case and a well-timed tip from the public that proved to be true,” Yost said.
Charles Webber of Columbus and Robert Meyer of Cincinnati met in prison after Meyer was convicted of murder in 1963 and spent 10 years in the Ohio Penitentiary.
Both were released in the early 1970s and authorities say they responsible for the deaths of not only Lori and Karen, but also the kidnapping, assault and attempted murders of two women northwest Ohio area.
The two were convicted of those crimes in 1977 and imprisoned.