Violence In The Valley - Manley Case

Manly Case

Episode Transcript

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Now The Violence in the Valley podcastwith retired Parkersburg Chief of Police Bob Newell
and others. Brought to you byInterstate Insurance three generations of Insurance Excellence.
Marietta is a city rich in history, as it was the first settlement in
the Northwest Territory in the late seventeenhundreds, and therefore is often referred to

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as the pioneer City. Among themany historic sites in Marietta is the Oak
Grove Cemetery, established in eighteen sixtyone, the same year the United States
Civil War began. Oak Grove isthe largest cemetery in the city and is
in the heart of the residential sections. But in nineteen ninety two the burial
grounds earned an unfortunate footnote in itshistory after a gruesome and disturbing discovery.

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On August twenty fourth, a coupleof men were walking through the cemetery and
saw what appeared to be a bodylying among the tombstones. They immediately notified
Mary at a police department. Officerssoon found the body of a young woman
who had been stabbed repeatedly and leftto diye along a pathway. The gruesome
and bloody sight was an immediate reminderthat there were already two other open and

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unsolved murder investigations of young women inthe same county, as well as a
disappearance of thirteen year old Elizabeth Burkhammerfrom a decade earlier. The girl in
the cemetery was identified as ron DeManley, a local teenager who had recently
graduated from Washington County Career Center.She had been raped and then stabbed several
times. Her death was relatively immediate, considering the viciousness of the attacker.

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A neighborhood canvas found nobody who hadheard any arguments or screams coming from the
cemetery during the middle of the night, when the murder was likely to have
occurred. There were no leeds afterthe initial investigation, and the case went
cold, joining the unsolved cases ofTerry Roach two years earlier and Patsy Sparks,
whose body was yet to be foundTonight ninety two, when Manly was

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murdered. Retired Mary att A policesergeant Rick Meek recalls reopening an investigation in
nineteen ninety five. Fall of nineteenninety five. I remember reading that file
for the first time, which wasthousands of pages long, at that point,
I mean that was three years intothe homicide, and two officers had
pretty much two or at that pointfour different officers. Two had worked on

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initially and then two others were assignedsubsequently. That was all they were doing,
was working on that case. Sometimesit doesn't look like it to people
that that much time is put intoa case like that, but it is.
By the time Sergeant Meek reopened themanly murder, the body of Patsy's
Sparks had been found by deer huntersin adjoining Noble County a year earlier.

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Speculation that a serial killer was onthe loose in Washington County spread fear among
area residents, especially young women.After reading through hundreds of pages of reports
generated by the previous investigators, onename caught the attention of Sergeant Meek.
When I initially read the case,I found the name Aubrey Davis in the

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file. His name had come upas a result within a few days of
the homicide, where they had checkedfor people that might have been injured at
the hospital, there was blood foundat the scene, there was blood found
that was not her blood, andwhen they checked hospital records at Marion Memorial

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hospital, there was an individual butthe name of Aubrey Davis, who had
come in and received some stitches.Well. This initially seemed to be a
possible link to the murderer. Investigatorswere assured by medical personnel in the hospital
that the injuries were not a resultof a knife wound. Officers then at
that time, based on a conversationwith a nurse, determined that those cuts

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on that person that received those stitchesthat were as a result of a beer
bottle. When I read that inthe file in the fall of ninety five,
I became suspicious of that she hadbeen stabbed. Several times I talked
with my supervisor and subordinate as wellabout this name, both convincing me that
that had been ruled out and thatthat wasn't the suspect. However, Aubrey

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Davis had gone by an a listin previous years, and adding to the
possible confusion was that another person's lastname of Davis had been investigated as well.
There had been what we called theblooding list in that case, where
a number of people's blood had beendrawn and compared for DNA with the blood
that was founded the scene. Therewas another individual by the name of Davis

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also on that list, and Ithink that it somehow got confused with his
name and it was a negative thisother person. Obviously, as you know,
DNA was in its infancy during thattime. In ninety two, as
time progressed, they started to doDNA and one of the things they did

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do in DNA was they created anational database. And in his more and
more states have joined it and joinedit and join it, and is called
COTIS. COTIS is the acronym forthe Combined DNA Index System maintained by the
FBI. It is a national databaseof DNA profiles of people arrested were incarcerated
in state and federal prisons. Bythis time, the Marrietta Police Department in

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the Washington County Sheriff's Office were workingtogether as the thought had not escaped anyone
that these murders might indeed be connected. Lieutenant Jeff Sievers of the Washington County
Sheriff's Office colde Case Unit received atip also naming Aubrey Davis as a person
who had committed the murder. Again, here's retired police Sergeant Rick Meek.

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Eventually there was a COTIS match inabout two thousand and two, and that
was Aubrey Davis. He was inprison in Tennessee for a rape that meant
that they had a DNA match forthe blood that was found at the scene
of Manly's death. Davis had beenconvicted of committing a kidnapping, an attempted
rape, and Chattanooga, TI,Tannessee. In nineteen ninety eight, he

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had stopped to assist a stranded femalemotorists and offered to give her a right
to her apartment. Davis then droveto a nearby parking lot, brandished a
knife and forced the victim to siton the floorboard of the car to avoid
detection. After spotting a police carin the area, as he attempted to
drive to an undisclosed location, thevictim jumped out of the moving car.
Davis was arrested and later found guilty. In two thousand. He was sentenced

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to twenty two years for the kidnappingand three years for the attempted sexual assault.
His DNA was entered into the CODISdatabase upon entering prison, and a
match was made A couple years laterin the Manly case, the investigators traveled
to the prison in Temptonville, Tennessee, to visit mister Davis and confronted him
with the evidence that he was amatch in the murder of ron of Manley.

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I never saw the adrenaline on aperson react more strongly than I did
during that interview. And when westarted to talk to him about that homicide,
his entire body shook. His legs. They talk about knee he's knocking
together. His knees were coming apartat least a foot and coming back together,

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and it was very rapid as hewas sitting there, and he told
us that he wanted a lawyer.Once he got a lawyer, he would
tell us what we wanted to know. We returned a week or so later
and with a lawyer, and thenhe confessed to the murder. Davis told
officers he and mainly knew each otherand he had driven her to the cemetery

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with the intention of having consensual sex, but after arriving she refused. He
then raped her. He told ushe pulled a knife and then she gave
in when he produced the knife,and then she told him that she was
going to tell on him, andhe proceeded out of desperation after what he
had done. In two thousand andthree, Davis appealed the length of his

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kidnapping sentence in Tennessee, hoping toreduce his time before returning to Ohio to
serve the additional term in prison.His appeal was rejected and he had to
serve out his years in a Tennesseeprison until his transfer in twenty seventeen.
He was in return and is nowserving a minimum of twenty years in Ohio
and will be eligible for parole intwenty thirty seven. The murders of Elizabeth

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Burkhammer and Passey Sparks have since beensolved. The body of Burkhammer has recovered
nineteen ninety seven after a prison inmateconfessed to killing her and revealing where her
body would be found. Randy Sliderwas convicted in the murder of Passey Sparks
and is serving a life sentence inOhio. Meanwhile, the murder of Terry
Roach is still an active investigation andanyone with information is asked to call any

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local police department. Again, Iwant to thank retired Marietta Police Sergeant Rick
Meek for joining us in this podcast. Join us for our next podcast featuring
more crimes of the Middle High Valley. The violence in The Valley Podcast has
been brought to you by Interstate Insurance, three generations of insurance exel notes for

(09:00):
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