Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Now The Violence in the Valley podcast with retired Parkersburg
Chief of Police Bob Newall and others, brought to you
by Interstate Insurance three generations of insurance excellence.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Law enforcement in the Middle High Valley had survived the
nineteen sixties and seventies without a death in the line
of duty, during a time when police officers was a
target of anti war and anti establishment groups throughout the country.
Organizations such as the Students for Democratic Society, the Black Panthers,
and the extremely violent Weathermen or Weather Underground contributed to
this movement. Among the violent acts targeting the police were
(00:42):
bombings of police cars in large cities during protests, and
even a bombing of the police station in Shaker Heights, Ohio,
is outside of Cleveland. But the anti police settlement was
present in every city in the country, regardless of its size,
as many of us could see patrolling the bars and
nightclubs in Parkersburg during the summer of nineteen seventy four,
a police officer was attacked after being surrounded by a
(01:04):
crowd of over two hundred nightclub and tavern patrons while
trying to handcuff a man who was under arrest. Here
is retired police officer Jerry lyons.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
There was a person in the middle of the street
with a beer bottle trying to hit cars and yelling
and screaming and swinging at cars.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Sam Olinger, who was a regular on a Seventh Street beat,
was placed under arrest. He began resisting arrest, causing both
men to go to the ground. One handcuff was jammed
to lay in the arrest and allowing scores of people
to empty the bars and into the street to watch.
The uniform night shift was short of help on that busy,
hot Saturday night.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I do remember that particular night, we was very short
on help. We had just a few uniform cars out
that the area. Seventh the Lynn was a really bad
trouble spot, with Mark Hannah having one of the bars
(02:04):
on the one side of the street, and that was
Cunningham's bar was on the other side of the street,
and there were numerous other bars there.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Someone in the crowd assaulted the civilian who was participating
in a police ride along program with officer Lions, and
fractured his nose. However, he was able to radio for help.
Another man in the crowd, later identified as Lonnie Farley,
kicked officer lions inside of the head while he was
on the ground wrestling with Olinger, rendering the officer unconscious.
(02:35):
Farley then removed the officer service revolver and pointed the
weapon at him while the crowd. Chanted killed the pigs,
but fled before more officers arrived. Detective Joe Lance was
close by and arrived first, along with some tactical patrol
officers who helped finish putting handcuffs on Olinger. Farley was
later arrested and pled guilty to the assault. But in
(02:56):
February of nineteen eighty one, a brazen murder of a
law officer occurred across the river from Parkinsburg, just outside
of Marriette, Ohio. Chief Deputy Ray Clark of the Washington
County Sheriff's Office was shot to death and he stood
at a window while inside his own home. The murderer
had shot through the window from the outside and then fled,
leaving behind a single shotgun shell and a bootprint of
(03:20):
which a plaster cast would be made to preserve as evidence.
The suspect had laid in wait, which made it clear
that the deputy had been targeted, making the crime even
more reprehensible. Neighbors reported seeing a blue Ford Pento lurking
suspiciously nearby. Information surrounding the murder was kept mostly within
(03:41):
the department at the time. Sheriff Dick Ellis and Chief
Clerk were close friends, and no doubt the sheriff wanted
his department to bring justice to the fallen deputy. The
first thought among other agencies was that the murderer had
to do with drug investigations being conducted by the department.
Clark had recently announced plans to focus on drug dealers
in the county. The Middle High Valley had become inundated
(04:02):
with drugs and arrayed a couple years earlier did little
to curb them, But the sheriff had a haunting suspicion
as to who would have wanted Clark dead early in
the investigation. As a chief deputy, part of Clark's duties
was to investigate bad cops who had committed gross misconduct
or crimes while they were on the department. The investigations
(04:23):
generally resulted in the firing of these officers. A fact
that would have been unknown to most people outside the
department was that he had fired a deputy named Mitchell Rubel,
who had beaten a handcuffed prisoner. Rubel had ordered a
probationary deputy driving the police car to pull off in
a secluded area, where he then entered the back seat
and beat the prisoner until he gave a confession. A
(04:45):
complaint was made against Rubel and the evidence proved he
had committed a crime. Here is cold case. Detective Lieutenant
Jeff Severs of the Washington County Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
He technically fired him, but if only the sheriff can
do that. But Clark did the investigation where he was
taken prisoners or whatever and beating on them and doing
some threatening and stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
So he was let go because of that pitch.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Ruben was interviewed weeks later, but the thought of someone
killing a fellow officer seemed unlikely at the time, although
he always remained a person of interest.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Yeah, he was probably a person of interest back in
the day, but they really didn't look at him. That
investigation back then kind of led him in the direction
of that it was drug related.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Hundreds of hours were spent by deputies following every lead
rumor or been a speculation received, but the case went
cold in nineteen ninety, while the Clark murder investigation was
still active, Washington County suffered the loss of another deputy
killed in the line of duty. On April seventeenth, Noble
County Sheriff Landon Smith called for assistance from their departments
(05:54):
after he had tried to serve a warrant on Robert
Ignet for attempted murder. Ignant ducated himself in a barn
with the rifle, and Sheriff Landon had been wounded by
fragments of a bullet shot at him. Deputy Rod Kinsey
and other deputies from Washington County were sent to Noble
County to assist. Shortly after arriving, Kinsey was shot after
(06:16):
exiting his cruiser. Deputy Kensey tried to move to a
better location, but was at a great disadvantage since the
shooter was perched in the third story of the barn
and the deputy was in an open area. Here again
is Lieutenant Jeff Severs.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
He was going from one location. He was moving to
a different location, but he happened to be under it.
There was a street light, and the shooter was in
a barn and it was like three stories up. It
was he had he had the advantage because he was
up high, and you know he was. He got shot
when he was trying to get to a different location
for a better cover.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
Right. I understand because myself and.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Joe Row we we were in we were back at
a distance at that time, because when we showed up,
Rod had already been shot and killed, but he was
in a road and nobody could get to him for
several hours.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Landon Smith was the only sheriff of Noble County for
decades and was known for his unorthodox ways in law enforcement.
The sheriff made a controversial, but well justified and agreeable
decision on how to end the standoff. After the deputy
was killed and he himself had been wounded as well,
he ordered the barn to be set on fire. Robert
Ignet never emerged from the flames. A couple of years
(07:30):
after the Kinsey incident, Dick Ellis retired and Sheriff Bob
Slicker took over. Deputies continued falling a few new leads,
but all led to dead ends and still leaving the
fired deputy as a person of interest. After Schlicker retired,
former IRS agent Larry Minks, who had been working for
the department's special deputy became sheriff. Soon after, the Cold
(07:52):
Case Unit was formed to look into a series of
unsolved murders going back several decades, including the murder of
Ray Clark. Here again, Lieutenant Severs.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
We began by first reading the case file, and I
think at that time our case file was probably sixteen
or seventeen.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Thousand pages, So it took us a while.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
It took us a while to put the First of all,
we had to put the case file together because it
was just shuffled in a box, so it took some
time to put it together. But each one of the
investigators that's part of our procedures that we do now.
We kind of everybody got a copy of the case
file and we read it separately, and then once we
finished reading it, then we.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
Have a discussion on it.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
And kind of strategize how we were going to lead
that investigation.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
The team began focusing in on the main suspect, former
Deputy Mitch Rubel. Rubel had been interviewed several times before
and denied any knowledge or involvement in the death of Clark.
Another former deputy who was a friend of Rubel, became
another person of interests who could tie Mitch Rubel to murder.
Bob Smithberger and Mitch Rubel also served in the National
(09:05):
Guard together, and on the weekend of the shooting, had
traveled back and forth through monthly drill in Grantsville, West Virginia.
Smithberger owned a blue Ford Pinto at the time. Smith
Berger been interviewed before as well. Lieutenant Severs always felt
he wanted to talk in previous interviews, but was fearful
of Ruble. It was clear there was good reason to
(09:25):
be afraid of Rubel, after all, he had murdered a
law enforcement officer and showed no signs of guilt or remorse.
Smith Burger had also previously been subpoena to testify before
a grand jury, but still denied any knowledge of the murder.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Yeah, he was also a person of interest.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
He was looked at, and he was interviewed a couple
of times. He always denied it, and I think at
one time he was brought in I think it was
nineteen ninety nine. I think the prosecutor brought him in
to a grand jury. Of course, he denied it.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Then the cold case investigators brought Smithberger in one more
time to be interviewed. This time, they offered him immunity
and police protection.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
We interviewed Smithberger probably it was three different times, and
he never never once shut the interviews down, which told
me that he was wanting to say something, but he
just he just didn't know how to go about it.
So I think it was on the third day that
(10:24):
we had been talking to him. I think it was
Bruce Shook and John Jenkins were interviewing smith Berger and
I had the brakes, but I was talking to the
sheriff and we were kicking some things around because we
were listening to the interview as it was progressing, and
Sheriff Mix and I were toning some stuff around it.
The idea come up is hey, this offering please protection.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
The pressure of the many years of fear of either
being implicated in a murder he didn't commit, or becoming
the target of Mitch Rubel as the only living person
who could put him in prison had taken its toll.
Smith Burger took the deal offered to him. He described
the events leading up to the night he drove Rouble
and dropped him off near the Clerk home and the
threats of fired deputy made in the past This was
(11:09):
all the investigators needed, and Rubel was arrested. At the trial,
several witnesses testified as to the timeline of that day,
but smith Berger was the most crucial witness. He testified
that after the Saturday drill duties, Rubel showed up his
home later that evening and asked to borrow shotgun. He
was still in his military fatigues, including his military issued boots.
(11:34):
Rubel directed smith Berger to drive him in the direction
of Clark's home and drop him off, with the instructions
to wait fifteen minutes for him. After Rubel failed to return,
smith Berger drove back to his home. Some time later,
Rubel called his house and asked him to pick him
up in Marietta. Smith Burger drove the two of them
back to his home, where Rubel told him of the murder.
(11:56):
Smithberger claimed Rubel backed him against the wall with a
large knife and threaten to kill him if he ever
told anyone. He also reminded his friend that he was
now an accessory to murder and would go to prison
as well. Another witness he rode with the two men
to the drill duty that weekend, testified that Rubel was
drinking on the way back and made threats about Clark,
(12:16):
stating he would like to blow him apart. The first
trial in a hung jury, but the second jury convicted
Ruble of the murder. He was sentenced to life in
prison and sent to an out of state facility for
his own protection, since he had also worked as a
prison guard in Ohio. However, less than a year later,
Mitch Rubel died in his sleep of natural cause in
(12:38):
his prison cell. I want to again thank cold case
Detective Jeff Seevers of the Washington County Sheriff's Office and
join us in our next podcast as we discussed more
crimes in the Midehio Valley.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
The Violence in the Valley podcast has been brought to
you by Interstate Insurance three Generations of Insurance Excellence. For
even more details, get a copy of the book at
Amazon dot com.
Now The Violence in the Valley podcast with retired Parkersburg
Chief of Police Bob Newall and others, brought to you
by Interstate Insurance three generations of insurance excellence.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Law enforcement in the Middle High Valley had survived the
nineteen sixties and seventies without a death in the line
of duty, during a time when police officers was a
target of anti war and anti establishment groups throughout the country.
Organizations such as the Students for Democratic Society, the Black Panthers,
and the extremely violent Weathermen or Weather Underground contributed to
this movement. Among the violent acts targeting the police were
(00:42):
bombings of police cars in large cities during protests, and
even a bombing of the police station in Shaker Heights, Ohio,
is outside of Cleveland. But the anti police settlement was
present in every city in the country, regardless of its size,
as many of us could see patrolling the bars and
nightclubs in Parkersburg during the summer of nineteen seventy four,
a police officer was attacked after being surrounded by a
(01:04):
crowd of over two hundred nightclub and tavern patrons while
trying to handcuff a man who was under arrest. Here
is retired police officer Jerry lyons.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
There was a person in the middle of the street
with a beer bottle trying to hit cars and yelling
and screaming and swinging at cars.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Sam Olinger, who was a regular on a Seventh Street beat,
was placed under arrest. He began resisting arrest, causing both
men to go to the ground. One handcuff was jammed
to lay in the arrest and allowing scores of people
to empty the bars and into the street to watch.
The uniform night shift was short of help on that busy,
hot Saturday night.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I do remember that particular night, we was very short
on help. We had just a few uniform cars out
that the area. Seventh the Lynn was a really bad
trouble spot, with Mark Hannah having one of the bars
(02:04):
on the one side of the street, and that was
Cunningham's bar was on the other side of the street,
and there were numerous other bars there.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Someone in the crowd assaulted the civilian who was participating
in a police ride along program with officer Lions, and
fractured his nose. However, he was able to radio for help.
Another man in the crowd, later identified as Lonnie Farley,
kicked officer lions inside of the head while he was
on the ground wrestling with Olinger, rendering the officer unconscious.
(02:35):
Farley then removed the officer service revolver and pointed the
weapon at him while the crowd. Chanted killed the pigs,
but fled before more officers arrived. Detective Joe Lance was
close by and arrived first, along with some tactical patrol
officers who helped finish putting handcuffs on Olinger. Farley was
later arrested and pled guilty to the assault. But in
(02:56):
February of nineteen eighty one, a brazen murder of a
law officer occurred across the river from Parkinsburg, just outside
of Marriette, Ohio. Chief Deputy Ray Clark of the Washington
County Sheriff's Office was shot to death and he stood
at a window while inside his own home. The murderer
had shot through the window from the outside and then fled,
leaving behind a single shotgun shell and a bootprint of
(03:20):
which a plaster cast would be made to preserve as evidence.
The suspect had laid in wait, which made it clear
that the deputy had been targeted, making the crime even
more reprehensible. Neighbors reported seeing a blue Ford Pento lurking
suspiciously nearby. Information surrounding the murder was kept mostly within
(03:41):
the department at the time. Sheriff Dick Ellis and Chief
Clerk were close friends, and no doubt the sheriff wanted
his department to bring justice to the fallen deputy. The
first thought among other agencies was that the murderer had
to do with drug investigations being conducted by the department.
Clark had recently announced plans to focus on drug dealers
in the county. The Middle High Valley had become inundated
(04:02):
with drugs and arrayed a couple years earlier did little
to curb them, But the sheriff had a haunting suspicion
as to who would have wanted Clark dead early in
the investigation. As a chief deputy, part of Clark's duties
was to investigate bad cops who had committed gross misconduct
or crimes while they were on the department. The investigations
(04:23):
generally resulted in the firing of these officers. A fact
that would have been unknown to most people outside the
department was that he had fired a deputy named Mitchell Rubel,
who had beaten a handcuffed prisoner. Rubel had ordered a
probationary deputy driving the police car to pull off in
a secluded area, where he then entered the back seat
and beat the prisoner until he gave a confession. A
(04:45):
complaint was made against Rubel and the evidence proved he
had committed a crime. Here is cold case. Detective Lieutenant
Jeff Severs of the Washington County Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
He technically fired him, but if only the sheriff can
do that. But Clark did the investigation where he was
taken prisoners or whatever and beating on them and doing
some threatening and stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
So he was let go because of that pitch.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Ruben was interviewed weeks later, but the thought of someone
killing a fellow officer seemed unlikely at the time, although
he always remained a person of interest.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Yeah, he was probably a person of interest back in
the day, but they really didn't look at him. That
investigation back then kind of led him in the direction
of that it was drug related.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Hundreds of hours were spent by deputies following every lead
rumor or been a speculation received, but the case went
cold in nineteen ninety, while the Clark murder investigation was
still active, Washington County suffered the loss of another deputy
killed in the line of duty. On April seventeenth, Noble
County Sheriff Landon Smith called for assistance from their departments
(05:54):
after he had tried to serve a warrant on Robert
Ignet for attempted murder. Ignant ducated himself in a barn
with the rifle, and Sheriff Landon had been wounded by
fragments of a bullet shot at him. Deputy Rod Kinsey
and other deputies from Washington County were sent to Noble
County to assist. Shortly after arriving, Kinsey was shot after
(06:16):
exiting his cruiser. Deputy Kensey tried to move to a
better location, but was at a great disadvantage since the
shooter was perched in the third story of the barn
and the deputy was in an open area. Here again
is Lieutenant Jeff Severs.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
He was going from one location. He was moving to
a different location, but he happened to be under it.
There was a street light, and the shooter was in
a barn and it was like three stories up. It
was he had he had the advantage because he was
up high, and you know he was. He got shot
when he was trying to get to a different location
for a better cover.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
Right. I understand because myself and.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Joe Row we we were in we were back at
a distance at that time, because when we showed up,
Rod had already been shot and killed, but he was
in a road and nobody could get to him for
several hours.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Landon Smith was the only sheriff of Noble County for
decades and was known for his unorthodox ways in law enforcement.
The sheriff made a controversial, but well justified and agreeable
decision on how to end the standoff. After the deputy
was killed and he himself had been wounded as well,
he ordered the barn to be set on fire. Robert
Ignet never emerged from the flames. A couple of years
(07:30):
after the Kinsey incident, Dick Ellis retired and Sheriff Bob
Slicker took over. Deputies continued falling a few new leads,
but all led to dead ends and still leaving the
fired deputy as a person of interest. After Schlicker retired,
former IRS agent Larry Minks, who had been working for
the department's special deputy became sheriff. Soon after, the Cold
(07:52):
Case Unit was formed to look into a series of
unsolved murders going back several decades, including the murder of
Ray Clark. Here again, Lieutenant Severs.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
We began by first reading the case file, and I
think at that time our case file was probably sixteen
or seventeen.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Thousand pages, So it took us a while.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
It took us a while to put the First of all,
we had to put the case file together because it
was just shuffled in a box, so it took some
time to put it together. But each one of the
investigators that's part of our procedures that we do now.
We kind of everybody got a copy of the case
file and we read it separately, and then once we
finished reading it, then we.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
Have a discussion on it.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
And kind of strategize how we were going to lead
that investigation.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
The team began focusing in on the main suspect, former
Deputy Mitch Rubel. Rubel had been interviewed several times before
and denied any knowledge or involvement in the death of Clark.
Another former deputy who was a friend of Rubel, became
another person of interests who could tie Mitch Rubel to murder.
Bob Smithberger and Mitch Rubel also served in the National
(09:05):
Guard together, and on the weekend of the shooting, had
traveled back and forth through monthly drill in Grantsville, West Virginia.
Smithberger owned a blue Ford Pinto at the time. Smith
Berger been interviewed before as well. Lieutenant Severs always felt
he wanted to talk in previous interviews, but was fearful
of Ruble. It was clear there was good reason to
(09:25):
be afraid of Rubel, after all, he had murdered a
law enforcement officer and showed no signs of guilt or remorse.
Smith Burger had also previously been subpoena to testify before
a grand jury, but still denied any knowledge of the murder.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Yeah, he was also a person of interest.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
He was looked at, and he was interviewed a couple
of times. He always denied it, and I think at
one time he was brought in I think it was
nineteen ninety nine. I think the prosecutor brought him in
to a grand jury. Of course, he denied it.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Then the cold case investigators brought Smithberger in one more
time to be interviewed. This time, they offered him immunity
and police protection.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
We interviewed Smithberger probably it was three different times, and
he never never once shut the interviews down, which told
me that he was wanting to say something, but he
just he just didn't know how to go about it.
So I think it was on the third day that
(10:24):
we had been talking to him. I think it was
Bruce Shook and John Jenkins were interviewing smith Berger and
I had the brakes, but I was talking to the
sheriff and we were kicking some things around because we
were listening to the interview as it was progressing, and
Sheriff Mix and I were toning some stuff around it.
The idea come up is hey, this offering please protection.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
The pressure of the many years of fear of either
being implicated in a murder he didn't commit, or becoming
the target of Mitch Rubel as the only living person
who could put him in prison had taken its toll.
Smith Burger took the deal offered to him. He described
the events leading up to the night he drove Rouble
and dropped him off near the Clerk home and the
threats of fired deputy made in the past This was
(11:09):
all the investigators needed, and Rubel was arrested. At the trial,
several witnesses testified as to the timeline of that day,
but smith Berger was the most crucial witness. He testified
that after the Saturday drill duties, Rubel showed up his
home later that evening and asked to borrow shotgun. He
was still in his military fatigues, including his military issued boots.
(11:34):
Rubel directed smith Berger to drive him in the direction
of Clark's home and drop him off, with the instructions
to wait fifteen minutes for him. After Rubel failed to return,
smith Berger drove back to his home. Some time later,
Rubel called his house and asked him to pick him
up in Marietta. Smith Burger drove the two of them
back to his home, where Rubel told him of the murder.
(11:56):
Smithberger claimed Rubel backed him against the wall with a
large knife and threaten to kill him if he ever
told anyone. He also reminded his friend that he was
now an accessory to murder and would go to prison
as well. Another witness he rode with the two men
to the drill duty that weekend, testified that Rubel was
drinking on the way back and made threats about Clark,
(12:16):
stating he would like to blow him apart. The first
trial in a hung jury, but the second jury convicted
Ruble of the murder. He was sentenced to life in
prison and sent to an out of state facility for
his own protection, since he had also worked as a
prison guard in Ohio. However, less than a year later,
Mitch Rubel died in his sleep of natural cause in
(12:38):
his prison cell. I want to again thank cold case
Detective Jeff Seevers of the Washington County Sheriff's Office and
join us in our next podcast as we discussed more
crimes in the Midehio Valley.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
The Violence in the Valley podcast has been brought to
you by Interstate Insurance three Generations of Insurance Excellence. For
even more details, get a copy of the book at
Amazon dot com.
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