Elwood Jones closer to freedom as Ohio makes last-ditch effort to revive murder case
Elwood Jones is one step closer to permanently being a free man.
The state’s case against him in a 1994 murder in Cincinnati-suburb Blue Ash has fallen to pieces as Hamilton County, Ohio, prosecutors attempt a last-ditch appeal to bring back crucial testimony that was central to their case.
The testimony in question came from former Blue Ash Police officer Michael Bray, who said in Jones’ original trial that he alone found a necklace belonging to the murder victim, Rhoda Nathan, in Jones’ car.
Bray testified in the first trial that he found a pendant in a toolbox inside of Jones' car trunk that matched one the victim reportedly wore every day. Bray testified he was alone when he found it, but others had searched the same car without noticing the pendant.
Judge Wende Cross, who overturned Jones’ conviction in 2022, ruled in a hearing Oct. 19 that the prosecution could not use the testimony because Jones’ lawyers wouldn’t be able to effectively cross-examine Bray, who died in 2018, and Jones has a constitutional right to cross-examination.
A spokesperson for the office of the Hamilton County Prosecutor did not immediately return a phone call.
Elwood Jones case 'has been destroyed,' prosecution says
Seth Tieger and Phil Cummings, Hamilton County assistant prosecutors, wrote in a court filing on Oct. 25 that their case is now in shambles.
“The ruling excluding evidence has rendered the state’s proof with respect to the pending charge so weak in its entirety that any reasonable possibility of effective prosecution has been destroyed,” they wrote.
David Hine and Jay Clark, who represent Jones, said that entering Bray’s testimony would have violated Jones’ right to a fair trial.
“The reality is their case to the extent it ever existed was already gutted because it happened in August,” Hine said. “They have no witnesses. They have literally no case.”
In August, less than a year after she threw out Jones' conviction because the state withheld evidence, Cross decided none of the original trial testimony from the 1996 case could come into the retrial, but prosecutors argued that Bray's testimony specifically should be allowed to stay in.
They argued that the more than 4,000 pages of discovery material that was withheld in the original 1996 case – which included witness statements that pointed to other potential suspects in the case and details about Bray allegedly finding Nathan's pendant in Jones' car – did not undermine Bray's testimony. Cross punted on making a ruling on Bray until defense lawyers had a chance to submit what they considered proof otherwise.
She ultimately ruled that the testimony must be excluded because the defense cannot cross-examine Bray because he died five years ago. Another key witness, the doctor who insisted that Jones sustained a controversial hand injury by punching Nathan in the mouth, is also dead.
There’s no timeline for Ohio's 1st District Court of Appeals to rule on the appeal, but as a matter of law, if the state’s request is denied, charges against Jones would be dropped.
Elwood Jones long maintained his innocence
A jury convicted Jones, now 70, in the 1994 murder of Nathan, a New Jersey grandmother fatally beaten in her Blue Ash hotel room while in town for a friend’s grandson’s bar mitzvah. Jones had been scheduled to die multiple times in the subsequent decades. The state delayed his execution date several times for appeals, and then, more recently, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing issues with lethal injection medications.
Jones, who is Black, worked at the hotel where Nathan was killed and has maintained his innocence since a hand injury he sustained on the day of Nathan's death put him in investigators' crosshairs. Cross overturned Jones’ conviction in late 2022 after his lawyers demonstrated in a three-day court hearing that police and prosecutors withheld evidence, including the reams of discovery material, in the original trial.
Meanwhile, Jones has had several cardiac procedures since his release, including bypass surgeries that have left open wounds on each of his legs. Because of that, he had his electronic-monitoring unit removed.
Prosecutors for decades argued that Jones is guilty. In a radio interview after Cross overturned Jones’ conviction, former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters called him a "murderous bastard," while Tieger told Cross that "the only thing that can stop him is prison."
"He’s 70 years old," Tieger said in January. "He’s got a lot of crime left in him."