In closing arguments Monday, prosecutors told jurors they needed to look no further than the gold and diamond pendant found in Elwood Hubert Jones' toolbox to find proof he beat Rhoda Nathan to death in her Blue Ash hotel room in 1994.
But defense attorneys countered that the case against Mr. Jones, a 44-year-old former hotel employee, was wrongfully targeted - to the exclusion of other possible suspects - because of his record.
The case took a year of investigation, a year of pre-trial preparations and five days of testimony from 43 witnesses before lawyers for both sides made their final pitch to the jurors in the courtroom of Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Ralph Winkler. The jury of six men and six women deliberated five hours Monday. After being sequestered for the night, they will resume deliberations this morning.
Mrs. Nathan, a New Jersey grandmother in town to attend the bar mitzvah of her best friend's grandson, was beaten to death Sept. 3, 1994, in her room at the Blue Ash Embassy Suites.
Her custom-made diamond and gold pendant was found in Mr. Jones' toolbox, in his car. ''This item is so unique, it's as if Rhoda Nathan left her fingerprint with the suspect, and this item is so convincing, so damning ... there's no getting around it,'' Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier said in closing arguments.
Prosecutors say Mr. Jones snatched the pendant from Mrs. Nathan's neck after he brutally beat her with his hands, his feet and his walkie-talkie radio. Her jaw was broken in two places, a bone near her eye was crushed, two teeth were knocked out and 17 ribs were broken.
But defense attorneys say the shoes and radio that left distinctive bruises on Mrs. Nathan's chest could have come from any similarly styled items. None of the experts who tested the objects could state conclusively that Mr. Jones' radio or shoe were the ones used in the attack.
The defense says reasonable doubt exists, mostly because the Blue Ash police department - under pressure to solve the city's first homicide in more than 14 years - failed to examine possible leads once it focused its investigation on Mr. Jones.
Defense lawyer Cathy Adams said that while investigators molded evidence to point to Mr. Jones, other leads - such as suspicious Embassy Suites employees who had access to room keys and hotel radios - were ignored.
''Did the police put blinders on?'' she said during closing arguments. ''They're asking you to make a huge leap to convict this man of aggravated murder, aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery based on ... little pieces put together from here and there.''
If Mr. Jones is convicted, jurors would reassemble next month to decide if he should be sentenced to life in prison or death by electric chair.
Published Nov. 26, 1996.
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