TOM O'NEILL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMERSVILLE -- Four years and two weeks after 70-year-old Dorothy Crase was stabbed four times and her home set ablaze, residents of this gently rolling farmland haven't forgotten her.
Neither, prosecutors said Monday, did the man who sat in the getaway car as she was killed.
"His conscience just had enough," Brown County Prosecutor Thomas Grennan said of the man who came forward recently to implicate three other local men, including two who lived down the street from Mrs. Crase.
"I'm sure they thought they were home free."
Authorities said that the motive was robbery and that the three suspects didn't realize the widow was there when they entered the small brick home on Colthar Road. The fire caused minimal damage. Grand jury indictments unsealed Friday charge Henry Fields II, 26, of Hamersville, and Clinton Rutherford, 23, and Shane Workman, 24, both of Bethel, with aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary. Mr. Workman and Mr. Fields also were charged with aggravated arson.
The men could face the death penalty if convicted.
Mr. Fields and Mr. Workman were being held in the Brown County jail on $250,000 bond. Mr. Rutherford was being held there on $50,000 bond. Mr. Grennan said Mr. Rutherford's bond was lower because he has been cooperative and passed a lie-detector test. The informant, whom authorities declined to identify, has not been charged.
Mr. Fields, who investigators think stabbed Mrs. Crase, failed a polygraph, the prosecutor said. Mr. Grennan said DNA tests are expected for a spot of human blood taken from the back seat of the car police say the suspects used that Tuesday night in March 1994. By Monday, word of the arrests had already spread along Colthar Road, home to farmhouses and mobile homes, a mix of older residents and young couples with kids.
"A lot of people moved out after she was killed," Paula Carter, 28, said Monday. "My mom had seen her just a half-hour before the fire, in her yard. It was a shock. She always had her hand up when you drove by, just a nice lady. She's missed."
Mrs. Crase, a retired telephone operator who lived with her husband until he died six or seven years before her, was the type of person who never locked her door, Mrs. Carter said.
"I'm glad his conscience finally gave out," she said of the informant, as her son, Zachary, 3, played in the front yard across the street from the Crase home.
Down the road, Rose Darling, 31, said of one of the suspects, Mr. Workman: "I used to ride to work with him. He used to come over. He was a good friend. Shane's not the type."
No one answered the door at the home where Mrs. Crase lived and died, but a front window was left open, and blue-and-white striped drapes swayed in the unseasonably warm breeze.
There is no outward indication of the fire that police now say was set to cover up Mrs. Crase's stabbing death.
Property damage was estimated at $10,000 and the contents loss was $3,000, a state fire marshal's office spokesman said Monday. Mrs. Crase's body was found on the floor in a doorway, between the living room and the hallway leading to her bedroom. The case was ruled an arson and homicide within days.
After the informant came forward, grand jury indictments were sealed Jan. 30, so that authorities could locate and arrest all three men at the same time, Mr. Grennan said.
Mr. Workman and Mr. Rutherford were arrested at their homes Thursday. Mr. Fields was taken into custody at his home sometime between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Friday, authorities said.
