Authorities in Ohio and Nebraska said Thursday they have found nothing to substantiate a prisoner's claims that he killed several men in the Cincinnati area this year.
Harold Couch, 35, who told police he is from Cincinnati, is jailed in Omaha, Neb., awaiting trial on felony charges that he robbed an Omaha- area liquor store this summer, Douglas County sheriff's Lt. Neil Paulison said Thursday by telephone from Omaha.
In two interviews with Douglas County sheriff's investigators, Mr. Couch claimed that he had killed about six black men this year in the Cincinnati area, Lt. Paulison said.
Mr. Couch described his purported victims as street people or drug addicts, Lt. Paulison said.
The Omaha investigators asked the Hamilton County sheriff's office to investigate. But after several days of interviewing people and visiting a west-side Cincinnati construction waste landfill where Mr. Couch said he had dumped his victims, Hamilton County sheriff's officers concluded there was no truth to Mr. Couch's claims and ended the investigation, office spokesman Steve Barnett said.
"We're finished," Mr. Barnett said. "None of it held water." Lt. Paulison said his office is consulting with the Douglas County attorney about possibly charging Mr. Couch with the misdemeanor of filing false reports of a crime.
Mr. Couch was arrested Aug. 8 on the Nebraska robbery charge and is still jailed in Omaha, Lt. Paulison said. No trial date has been set.
