Did you hear the one about the social worker who stumbled on a mugging victim bleeding in an alley and said: "We've got to find the man who did this. He needs help."

That is not Rachel Hutzel. The former social worker who is now the Warren County prosecutor would say, "We've got to find the man who did this. He needs 25 to 40 in Lucasville."

And she would find him. "You never give up on a case," she says.

Hutzel, who recently replaced Tim Oliver when he was promoted to judge, is the first woman prosecutor in Southwest Ohio, and one of only six in Ohio.

Farmer's daughter

But she doesn't want to be judged solely by that, any more than she wants to be judged solely as an ex-social worker with degrees in psychology and sociology. She's also one of 13 children of Catholic missionaries who lived on a Hamilton Township dairy farm; a tough prosecutor who got a life sentence on a killer in a cold 10-year-old case that had to be built on circumstantial evidence because there were no witnesses; and a mother and wife who has worked for 10 years in the Warren County prosecutor's office.

Hutzel looks like a PTA mom. She joked about "rearranging the furniture" when she was sworn in. But she's the last prosecutor criminals will want to see - and maybe the last one they will see if she rearranges their future in court.

Her top targets are child abuse and domestic violence. "Of the last four most serious cases we've had - two attempted murders and two aggravated murders - three of them were domestic violence," she said.

She has conservative positions that fit Warren County the way 4-H fits a county fair. She has no problems with legalizing concealed weapons or asking for the death penalty. Her office will continue to be "very aggressive" in prosecuting porn peddlers, she says. And she is strongly pro-life.

'She's not a wuss'

But her critics wonder if she is pro-life and conservative enough.

Lori Viars, who leads the pro-life wing of the county's GOP, says, "I like her a lot. She's a go-getter. She's not a wuss. There are many things I admire about her.''

But.

Viars backed Lebanon lawyer David Fornshell for prosecutor because she says he is a stronger pro-life and conservative candidate. In Warren County, where politics comes in one flavor - GOP - the battle divided Republicans like brother fighting brother in the Civil War. Hutzel won the central committee vote, 57-54. But Fornshell will run against her in the primary next March.

"It's a little puzzling to me,'' Hutzel said. "I have a conservative track record."

She thinks she was caught in a crossfire between the pro-life Viars wing and the county GOP establishment, as the party was divided by the betrayal of conservatives by Gov. Bob Taft.

"I think it has way more to do with power and control than with pro-life, to be frank," she said.

Rachel Hutzel is right. She's conservative enough. No joke.

E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.