HAMILTON — Paul Wesley Brown's death certificate says someone stabbed him multiple times and he bled to death; some children found his body face-down in Two Mile Creek. But under “place of injury,” “time of injury” and “location of injury” the document reads: “unknown, unknown, unknown.” The 33-year-old Hamilton man's family is desperate for answers to those unknowns — and to the biggest question: Who committed such a vicious crime against an intelligent, peace-loving man who had no known enemies?

Nedda Brown, mother of Paul W. Brown, and Paul's sister Leanne Bowling look at panels they will display in Hamilton. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        “We can't imagine who would have done this or why — and it's really hard to deal with,” said his sister, Leanne Bowling, 31, of Hamilton. “There's an animal out there somewhere who did this, and I think people should be a little frightened — I know I am.”

        Ms. Bowling is among a group of Mr. Brown's loved ones who are launching a crusade to get someone, anyone, to come forward with information about the 5-week-old homicide.

        Slayings are pretty unusual in Hamilton, the Butler County seat. The Tristate's second-largest city has a per-capita homicide rate of about one per every 10,000 people. (In contrast, Cincinnati's homicide rate was about one in 5,250 last year.)

        Further, many of Hamilton's homicides arise from predictable circumstances: drug deals or domestic violence — and there's no sign of either in this case. And most of the city's slayings are solved quickly. Sgt. Thomas E. Kilgour estimates only about four went unsolved during the past several years, including this one.

        Mr. Brown's brother, Matthew, 30, is worried about the trail growing colder. But Police Chief Neil Ferdelman said investigators are working diligently on every lead.

        The Brown family and their supporters plan to meet today in the parking lot of the BW-3 restaurant in the 700 block of Northwest Washington Boulevard near Hobby Lobby. With an 8-by-8-foot sign as an attention-getter, Mr. Brown's supporters will hand out fliers advertising a $1,000 reward from Crime Stoppers.

        The gathering spot was chosen because BW-3 is one of the last places Mr. Brown was seen alive, Ms. Bowling said. After Matthew Brown dropped off his brother there, he apparently walked to the nearby Meijer store; a surveillance camera showed Paul Brown there around 10 p.m. March 23, a Saturday.

        The next day, his family began leaving telephone messages at his apartment. The messages went unreturned — something that never happened before.

        “We really started getting frantic,” Ms. Bowling said.

        They left notes at his door. They drove around looking for him.

        They tried filing a missing-persons report, but police said the case didn't meet criteria, such as foul play being suspected.

        Chief Ferdelman said, “We're going to see whether or not we did the right thing.” He added, though, that filing a missing-persons report probably would not have changed Mr. Brown's fate.

        By the time news broke about a body being discovered March 27, some of his relatives strongly suspected Paul Brown was dead.

        Since then, the family has been awash in grief, frustration and confusion.

        “He was harmless. There's no better way to put it. Unless you go back to second grade or something, he had never been in a fight, he had never been in an argument,” Matthew Brown said. “I had never even met anyone who didn't like him.”

        A 1991 graduate of Miami University with a bachelor's degree in public administration, Mr. Brown was “highly intelligent,” and was a worshipful person who listened to religious radio broadcasts, his brother said.

        Chief Ferdelman agrees the case is puzzling.

        “They're as frustrated as we are in terms of a motive, as to why this victim may have been murdered,” he said. “We're committed to solving this one.”

        He said the lead detective on the case, David Weissinger, has accumulated a case file several inches thick and has many leads to follow. And he said police welcome the family's activism.

        “We understand their level of frustration and we think it's great they're this willing to be involved — and we'll take their help as well as anyone else's,” the chief said.

        Matthew Brown makes this plea: “If you were out on the west side of Hamilton that night and saw anything that seemed strange, call. Because any little bit of information could be what it takes to find out who perpetrated this crime ... We need to know something.”

        Anyone with information is asked to call Hamilton police at 868-5811, Ext. 2002, or Crime Stoppers at 352-3040 or (888) 352-3040.
       

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