Wednesday, July 07, 1999
Car fire, homicide mystify police
Victim's remains in gutted auto
BY SHEILA McLAUGHLIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LEBANON — Sometime after 3 p.m. Saturday, Troy L. Temar hopped into his brother's black Mustang and left the home they shared in Deer Park.
Tuesday, sheriff's detectives were trying to figure out how the 30-year-old self-employed contractor wound up shot dead in the trunk of the burning car nearly 20 miles away.
“He had no business up here. He doesn't work up here. He doesn't have any known contacts,” Warren County Sheriff Tom Ariss said.
“Robbery doesn't appear to be a motive, but we don't really have a motive.”
Little evidence remained
Police have no suspects and little evidence remained in the car, which was gutted by fire in an attempt to conceal the homicide, he said.
Investigators don't know where Mr. Temar was killed.
“That's the catch. They checked his house and it was clean,” Sheriff Ariss said.
Union Township firefighters found Mr. Temar's body in his brother's Mustang around 4:30 a.m. Sunday after extinguishing the blaze in the front yard of an abandoned farm house on Mason Morrow Millgrove Road, across from Vickers Electronic Systems.
The road, in South Lebanon, is dotted by industry. A motorist on his way to work in Mason reported the car fire 20 minutes earlier. A security guard from a neighboring business also called to report the fire, dispatch records show.
Jimmie Temar told police he last saw his brother when he left home about 3 p.m. Saturday. When Jimmie Temar returned 90 minutes later, Troy Temar was gone and so was the Mustang, which Troy Temar often borrowed from his brother, Sheriff Ariss said.
Jimmie Temar filed a missing person report with Deer Park police after sheriff's detectives contacted him to question him about the burned-out Mustang.
Warren County investigators asked him to file the report, because the body in the trunk had yet to be identified, Sheriff Ariss said.
Criminologists at the Miami Valley Forensic Laboratory in Dayton made the identification Monday.
Refrain from comment
Gathered with relatives at his parent's home in Dillonvale Tuesday morning, Jimmie Temar declined to comment, saying detectives had asked him not to talk about his brother or the slaying.
Neighbors in the 4000 block of Matson Avenue, a modest middle-class neighborhood where Mr. Temar lived, also shied from media attention.
But Deer Park Sgt. Al Gille called the Temars “good people” who were heavily involved in the school system. The victim's mother, Donna Temar, is transportation coordinator for Deer Park schools, where her children attended.
Both Sheriff Ariss and Sgt. Gille said there was nothing in Troy Temar's background to help them solve the mystery of his death. He had no criminal record, only traffic citations.
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