By Janice Morse
Enquirer staff writer

HAMILTON - A 50-year-old Hamilton man is on trial this week for his alleged role in a grisly Butler County dismemberment case.

A Common Pleas Court jury is being asked to decide whether Gary Benson is guilty of two charges: tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse. He faces up to six years in prison if convicted.

Benson and two other men were indicted in March on charges involving the death and mutilation of Jeffrey Glenn Watson, 41, of Hamilton. Watson's charred torso was found New Year's Eve along a rural road near the Preble County line.

Authorities allege Benson and Anthony C. Ruffin, 44, of East Price Hill, helped Cardale A. Goens, 37, of Hamilton, dismember Watson, their longtime friend. Authorities allege Goens shot Watson to death in Watson's South 11th Street home.

Goens faces the death penalty in an aggravated murder trial set for Jan. 25. No trial date has been set for Ruffin, scheduled for a hearing Monday.

Judge Patricia Oney has been assigned to all three cases.

After a pair of hunters found Watson's badly burned, decomposing remains near a Milford Township cornfield, Butler County Sheriff's investigators enlisted help from a human-bones expert, who developed a general age, height, weight and race of the victim.

Investigators compared that information with missing-persons reports nationwide and found seven possible matches, including two from Greater Cincinnati.

Officers publicized the physical description along with photos of scraps of clothing and a knife found with the victim.

That information led authorities to think Watson was possibly the victim. They confirmed Watson's identity through DNA comparisons with his relatives in late February, almost two months after his remains had been found.

Within days of identifying the victim, authorities arrested the trio.

E-mail jmorse@enquirer.com