Tuesday, May 18, 1999
Suspect 'on the run all his life'
Sightings, but no arrest in slaying
BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Lance Love
|
Reported sightings of Lance Wayne Love in Over-the-Rhine and Corryville turned up nothing for police Monday, three days after the homicide suspect eluded a manhunt that included three helicopters, two search dogs and about 50 officers.
On the day friends and family buried businessman Jim Osterbrock, 52, vice president of Xpedx paper distribution company, Cincinnati police continued to search for the man who crashed Mr. Osterbrock's truck Friday morning and took off into the woods.
Mr. Love's closest friends describe him as someone who has dodged authority all his life.
At 32, he couldn't hold a steady job, relationship or even a steady address, said David Hartzell, 32, who grew up with him in Northside.
“I'm not surprised he got away. He'll do whatever it takes to get away,” he said. “When we were young, we used to always go hiking and stay in the woods. He pretty much just never grew out of it.”
Search dogs lost Mr. Love's scent Friday in a subdivision that backs into a 90-acre wooded Clermont County farm, where Mr. Love crashed Mr. Osterbrock's GMC Yukon truck.
Since then, police have circulated a picture they say is of Mr. Love trying to use Mr. Osterbrock's bank card at an ATM, and a mug shot of Mr. Love, a 5-foot-10, 170-pound muscular man who uses the alias Sequoia Johanson. Mr. Love has tattoos on both arms, including images of a man holding a guitar, a German cross, barbed wire and a black panther.
He's a person who could make friends and blend in, said Roxanne Schnelle, an ex-girlfriend in St. Bernard.
His criminal record includes convictions for drug abuse and unauthorized use of a vehicle. He does not yet face any charges related to Mr. Osterbrock's death.
But he does face a theft charge for allegedly stealing a Ruger 9mm handgun from a car May 8 and trying to sell it about a block from Mr. Osterbrock's home in Mount Auburn's historic Prospect Hill neighborhood.
He also had an outstanding warrant on a domestic violence charge. That case came about two months ago, when a Symmes Township woman told police he was angry about hav ing no car to go to the store for cereal, so he broke a chair leg and threatened to break her ribs.
“He's real deceiving,” Mr. Hartzell said. “He is real intelligent, but in my opinion, he's paranoid. He gets your confidence. He'll stay with whoever will take him in.”
His connection to Mr. Osterbrock, a wealthy antiques collector who lived alone, is unclear. Police have not said whether the two knew each other or whether Mr. Love worked on Mr. Osterbrock's restored Victorian home, which neighbors said had an elaborate security system.
Mr. Osterbrock's colleagues say he was a soft-spoken man who surrounded himself with many opposites.
“The only way I can capture the feeling of being around Jim would be to say that his warmth and openness was the dominant force when you were around him,” said Robert Stern, general manager of Loveshaw, a Pennsylvania packaging company.
Police have not released the cause of death but said Mr. Osterbrock did not appear to be shot or stabbed. Officers found him dead in his cellar Thursday with plastic bags over him, days after his family reported him missing.
Now Mr. Love is the one police have listed as a missing person.
“It's kind of weird,” Mr. Hartzell said. “Everybody else sees a killer on the loose.
“It's like I see him from the inside. It's like they see a different person than I see. I see someone who's been on the run all his life.”
Anyone with information about Mr. Osterbrock's death or Mr. Love's whereabouts is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 352-3040.
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