Hunting Humans： The Terrifying Case That Shocked Rural Ohio

Hunting Humans： The Terrifying Case That Shocked Rural Ohio

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Southern Ohio's rural counties are perfect for outdoor recreation, but
the cow of this quiet community was shattered in nineteen
eighty nine when a sniper gunned down an outdoorsman without reason.
It was only the first in a string of random,
terrifying murders. Hiding in the distance behind a high powered rifle,

(00:29):
A madman was hunting humans along Ohio's county.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Roads starting in the spring of nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
A madman proud the woods and fields of rural Ohio.
He was a hunter. A high powered rifle was his
weapon of choice. Joggers and fishermen were his quarry. The
hunter Rome Phi, struck at random and left no clues.
He was as elusive as he was lethal. Investigators knew
he had to be stopped, but no one knew how.

(01:35):
I'm Jim Calstrom, former director of the FBI's New York office.
Most murderers have a connection to their victims and a
motive for their crime, but not a serial killer. His
victims are randomly chosen to fulfill an uncontrollable need to kill. Often,
he leads an ordinary life, his family and friends unaware

(01:55):
of his homicidal passions. But serial killers established profiles as
the stinked as fingerprints, and when a match is made,
it is only a matter of time before they are caught.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
The rural counties of southern Ohio are hilly, rocky, and
wide open, a quiet place for coal miners, factory workers,
and farmers, the kind of place where people leave doors
unlocked and where violent crime is almost unheard of. On

(02:36):
April first, nineteen eighty nine, thirty five year old Donald
Welling did what he frequently did on Saturdays. He went
jogging along the back roads of Tuscararas County. His quiet
morning run ended with a single shot. The rifle bullet

(02:58):
ripped through Welling's heart, killing him instantly. Local authorities could
find no motive and not a shred of evidence. The
rifle was never found. November tenth, nineteen ninety another Saturday morning,

(03:26):
nineteen months later, twenty one year old Jamie Paxton of Bannock,
Ohio rose early to go bowhunting. Leaving his crossbow in
the car, he took a walk through the tall grass
off State Route nine. Paxton was alone and unarmed. He

(03:51):
didn't notice the red pickup truck that stopped a short
distance away. The gunland was quiet and careful. Jamie Paxton

(04:21):
was shot three times by a high powered rifle. There
were no witnesses. The killing horrified at quiet community that
considered murder to be a problem for big cities. Hunting

(04:42):
accidents are not uncommon in southern Ohio, but Belmont County
Sheriff Tom McCourt knew right away that this wasn't a
hunting accident.

Speaker 4 (04:52):
When we saw more than one wound, we knew that
it could not be an accident. That an accidental death
honey accident has called it one shot plus we saw
it was a bullet wound instead of something from an arrow,
and the gun season was not in yet.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Sheriff Tom McCourt's jurisdiction is large geographically, but the community
is closely knit. There. People work hard, and everyone seems
to know everyone. The cord even knew Jamie Paxton. What
he didn't know was who killed him. The gunman had
left no clues.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
We checked the area for spent empty cartridge cases, for
tire tracks, for anything in that area be where we
thought the shot came from. We also checked the area
around the body, looking for the spent projectiles that had
passed through the body. We even took mental detectors in
looking for the projectiles. At that time, we were able

(05:56):
to find anything. They're right over there to that by
the marina.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
And after interviewing Jamie Paxton's friends, family, and acquaintances, they
were unable to find anyone with a motive to kill him.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
Everyone in the area knew Jamie Paxton. No one that
we knew of or was able even to this day,
I'd ever found anyone who disliked a young man.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Sheriff McCourt had an apparently random killing of a popular
young man with no history of trouble, a seemingly unsolvable murder,
with no physical evidence and no witnesses, not even a
plausible theory about what happened. I think it's about it.

(06:44):
After her son's death, Jeene Paxton's grief impelled her to action.
She began composing letters to a local paper, the Martin's
Ferry Times Leader, designed to draw out the killer.

Speaker 5 (07:00):
There was just every time I would sit down to
write a letter, I would say a prayer, and I
would say, please God, just give me the words to
get to the person that killed my son.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
The letters were at once stern and passionate to the
murderer of my son, Jamie, She wrote, would it be
easier for you if I wrote words of hate? I
can't because I don't feel hate. I feel deep sorrow
at losing my son. You took a light from my
life last November and left me with many days of darkness.

(07:33):
Have you thought of your own death? It'll happen. Unless
you confess your sin and ask for God's forgiveness, you
will face the fire and fury of hell at your
own death. If the killer were reading Gene Paxton's letters,
he seemed unaffected by them. On November twenty eighth, nineteen ninety,

(07:58):
just eighteen days after Paxton's murder, thirty year old Kevin
Loring was on a hunting trip in Muskegem County, Ohio,
some forty miles from where Jamie Paxton was killed. While
his friends finished eating lunch, Kevin decided to get a
head start walking across a field in search of game.

(08:30):
Lauring himself became prey Unknowingly moving into the sights of
the gunman. Lauring was killed by a single gunshot wound

(08:52):
to the head. The killer had taken care to commit
his murders in different counties to slow an investigation that
would have to take place over hundreds of rural miles.
The result, investigators in muskegam County were unaware of the

(09:16):
other sniper victims in nearby counties. They decided that Lauren's
death was probably a hunting accident. Gene Paxton never gave up.
She kept writing throughout nineteen ninety one, determined to draw
out Jamie's killer.

Speaker 5 (09:38):
And I always felt if I could get my letters
into the hands of the person that killed my son,
I felt that I could get a response from them.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
She turned out to be right. I am the murderer
of Jamie Paxton, A typewritten letter read. Amie Paxton was
a complete stranger to me. I never saw him before
in my life, and he never said a word to
me that Saturday. Paxton was killed because of an irresistible
compulsion that has taken over my life. I knew when

(10:12):
I left my house that day that someone would die
by my hand. I just didn't know who or where.
I'm an average looking person with a family, a job,
and home, just like yourself. Something in my head causes
me to turn into a merciless killer with no conscience.

(10:35):
The letter arrived at the Martin's Ferry Times Leader, a
few days before the one year anniversary of Jamie's death.
The letter described the Paxton murder in chilling detail. I
was very drunk, and a voice in my head said

(10:55):
do it. I stopped my car behind Jamie's and got out.
Jamie started walking very slowly down the hill toward the road.
I raised my rifle to my shoulder and lined him
up in the sights. I took at least five seconds

(11:17):
to take careful aim. My first shot was off a
little bit and hit him in the right chest. He
groaned and went down. I wanted to make sure he
was finished, so I fired a second shot, aimed halfway

(11:38):
between his hip and shoulder. While he was prone on
the ground. I jerked the shot and hit him in
the knee. He never moved again. Five minutes after I
shot past and I was drinking a beer, and it
blacked out all thoughts of what I had just done
out of my mind. I thought no more of shooting

(12:05):
Paxton than shooting a bottle at the dump. I know
you hate my guts, and rightfully so, I think about
Jamie every hour of the day, as I'm sure you
do for Sheriff McCourt. The letter was a beginning evidence
that might lead to a murderer, but he needed more.

(12:26):
The typewriter used to write the letter a guandi. While
investigators searched, the killer continued his own hunting. Saturday, March fourteenth,

(12:51):
nineteen ninety two, Claude Hawkins got off his midnight shift
at the Pittsburgh Blayden Glass Company about son. It was
a good time to fish, and Hawkins went straight to
a favorite spot on the river below Wheels Creek dam.

(14:04):
Hawkins had a wife and four children. Another outdoorsman had
been killed while alone, but this one took place on
federal property. The FBI stepped in. The FBI joined the

(14:25):
hunt for the roadside sniper who just killed his latest
victim on federal property. Investigators from the three counties involved,
along with the FBI and the Ohio Division of Wildlife,
formed a task force. It didn't take long to realize
how few clues they had in each case. The killer

(14:48):
had no contact with a victim, no rifling of pockets,
no robbery shell casings had been carefully removed, and the
victim's cars were untouched. Special Agent and to Harry Trombitis
was stationed at the FBI's Columbus, Ohio Field office.

Speaker 6 (15:05):
What we did know is that mister Hawkins died from
a gunshot. And usually you would find some type of
a shellcasing in the area. And I remember looking very
hard metal detectors and hands and knees for any shellcasings
in that and none where ever found. And so that
was something that you know, if in fact we had

(15:25):
somebody who was evidence conscious enough to pick up the
shellcasing after they shot and killed somebody, we were dealing
with a different brand of person here.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
The multi jurisdictional task Force concluded that the death of
Kevin Lauring, first ruled accidentally, was actually a homicide.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
We got a problem, okay is.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Reviewing the four murders, the investigative team saw plenty in
common outdoorsman hunters, fishing, and her joggers alone in a
rural setting, all shot with a high powered rifle. All
but one of the murders occurred on a weekend, and
the killer was careful enough to leave no evidence victims.

(16:28):
It was more clear than ever that a single individual
was responsible. The task force was on the trail of
a serial killer. As they began to mobilize the killer
struck again. I know we can capture this person.

Speaker 7 (16:44):
I know we can't.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Ten days after the task force meeting, on April fifth,
nineteen ninety two, year old steelworker Gary Brett left his
home in neighboring West Virginia to go pond fishing in
Noble County. H Bradley's wife and three children would never

(17:43):
see him alive again. The task force had another murder.
The road sniper had to be stopped. The task force
wanted to learn more about the personality of the sniper.
They asked the FBI to draw up a psychological profile

(18:05):
of the serial killer. Such an outline would be invaluable
in tracking him down.

Speaker 6 (18:13):
Okay, maybe there's something there.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
With Major Dane Shriock of the Kshatton County Sheriff's Office
headed the task force.

Speaker 8 (18:21):
Right after we had initially made an assessment that maybe
these things might be linked. The Columbus FBI office and
set up at a meeting to have the Behavioral Science Unit
to come to Columbus, Ohio and actually set down and
talk with the investigators of these five counties of the homicides.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
The FBI's Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia can accurately
sketch personality profiles of individuals from sparse clues. Larry Ankram
is a member of the Behavioral Science unit assigned to
the road sniper case. He studied all the available evidence,
the investigative reports of the five murders, and especially the

(19:01):
letter that the killer had written to Gene Paxton.

Speaker 9 (19:04):
And I came back to Quantico and reviewed these cases
more in detail, and I came out with a former profile.
We were probably looking for a white male. We were
looking for someone that was intelligent, someone who was an
outdoorsman himself, someone that wouldn't look out of place in
the woods, someone that was probably responding to some significant

(19:29):
event in his life that was going wrong at that
particular time. One of the things that was apparent that
it was a sniper type mentality here, that we were
dealing with someone that didn't want confrontation, someone that was
doing things from afar, and this is something that we
see many times with our arshness. We ought to be

(19:50):
looking at some different types of activities that he might
be involved in, such as nuisance types of offenses, shooting
out windows, shooting out tires of cars, cruelty to animals,
arson fires.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Angram believed that the violence was triggered by stress and
fueled by alcohol. The task Force now had a psychological
sketch of the roadside sniper, and they had his letter.
FBI forensic scientists studied the letter intensely. They found distinguishing

(20:32):
features in the typeface. If they could find the typewriter
it was written on, it would be easy to link
the confessional letter to the owner, and thus link the
murder to the murderer. They had to hurry, the sniper
was still out there. On July twenty first, nineteen ninety two,

(20:56):
two hunters in a state park in Muskegem County came
face to face with the killer. As they moved through

(21:17):
the brush, one of them noticed something terrifying, a nearby
figure with a gun pointed right at them. They called
out to him, and the man scurried away to a
red pickup truck. It happened too quickly for the hunters
to get a good look at the man or the
vehicle's tag numbers. Bewildered, they called local police, who alerted

(21:44):
the task Force. Throughout nineteen ninety two, desperate to catch
a man still ready to kill, the task force investigated
and cleared more than one hundred suspects. By August nineteen
ninety two, after three years, the investigation had hit a

(22:05):
dead end. The task Force was badly in need of
information and decided to go public.

Speaker 10 (22:14):
It is in the opinion of this multi agency task
force that these.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
They held a press conference and issued a press release
detailing the FBI profile of the man they wanted and
asking anyone with information to come forward to.

Speaker 11 (22:27):
Community, including the FBI made a press release and it
was done at one time to mass and got everybody
six o'clock news.

Speaker 8 (22:38):
I mean everybody was showing this case. And the phone
started ringing instantly.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Wilson, one of those calls received a Task Force headquarters
on August twenty sixth, nineteen ninety two, sparked to lead.
The man on the phone was named Richard Frye. He
said he thought the task Force should know about a
high school end of his named Thomas Dylon l l N.

(23:08):
Investigators had a name and someone willing to talk. A
Task Force member arranged to meet Richard fry at a
rest stop on Route seventy seven.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
Tom Dylon I went to high school with him.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
We grew up again there. Fry talked about his old
friend Tom Dylane. They used to drive around rural Ohio,
shooting at road signs and small animals, but Fry eventually
found Dylan too eccentric and violent for his taste. Similar

(23:43):
persessed with serial killers like Ted Bundy, Dylan had taken
to killing family pets and cattle and setting random fires.

Speaker 11 (23:51):
A few months back and Fry got married and for
most of the nineteen eighties forgot about his strange friends.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
But in nineteen eighty nine, Fry ran into Thomas Dylan
at a gun show in Cleveland.

Speaker 12 (24:07):
Tom Thomas Dylan invited him to ride along with him again,
Just like in the old days, old friendships die hard,
and Richard Fry again found himself driving the back roads
of rural Ohio, drinking beer and shooting road signs.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Nothing but Dylan had deteriorated. Fry discovered. Dylan asked whether
Fry thought Dylan had ever killed one.

Speaker 10 (24:39):
You known each other for a long time twenty some
years ago.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, do you think I could ever kill anybody?

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Tom? You know, like you said, we go way back.
I mean. He discussed how to get away with random killings,
including the tactic of killing in different counties to thwart
investigators County and.

Speaker 13 (25:03):
They never connected and being at random, they'd have no
clues whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Not average your average guy.

Speaker 14 (25:13):
Back.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
I said that when he read the press release, he
immediately thought of Tom Dylan. He gave a description of Dylan,
including the vehicle he drove, a red pickup truck, just
like the one spotted by the Hunts. As matter of fact,
it is Lieutenant Walt Wilson of the Tuscararis County Sheriff's
Office was a task force member. His job was to

(25:37):
follow up on leads and tips, which were coming much
more frequently as press coverage of the case increased. He
decided Tom Dilon fit the FBI profile and needed to
be investigated.

Speaker 15 (25:54):
I began to follow up on the information that mister
Fry had given us. I went to Tom Dylan's workplace
in the City of Canton employees.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Dylan had been employed for a dozen years as a
draftsman at the Canton, Ohio Water Wilson obtained Thomas Dlon's
work schedule to compare Dylan's days off with the dates
and times of the murders. The purpose was to eliminate
Dylan as a suspect. But he couldn't. He found that
Dylan didn't work weekends when most of the incidents occurred,

(26:25):
but that didn't prove much. However, two weekdays Dylan took
off from work caught Wilson's attention. July twenty first, nineteen
ninety two, the day the hunters saw a man point
a rifle at them, and November twenty eighth, nineteen ninety
the day Kevin Lauring was killed. Eight please Dylan could

(26:46):
be the one. As the other members of the task
force followed up on hundreds of leagues, Detective Wilson began
surveillance on Thomas Dillon.

Speaker 11 (27:00):
Navy.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Dylan would return to a crime center or lead investigators
to more clues. The surveillance began in October nineteen ninety two.
Detective Wilson followed Tom Dylan on his weekend excursions, driving
the back roads of southern Ohio.

Speaker 15 (27:18):
Typically a day would start me around seven in the
morning on Tom's days off the weekends usually, and he
would leave his home and he would sometimes he would
stop at a convenience store and buy some beer, and
then he would go south of his home into other counties,
just driving all the back remote roadways.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
On October tenth, nineteen ninety two, while tailing Dylan, Wilson
briefly lost track of the suspect's vehicle. As Wilson crept
around the corner, he came face to face with Thomas Dylon,
his cover possibly blown his case in jeopardy. Wilson had
to think fast.

Speaker 15 (27:57):
I waved at him, and he waved at me, and
we kept on going. He stopped at the end of
the drive to see if I was going to stay
there or not.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Wilson couldn't risk being identified. He let Dylan drive away.

Speaker 15 (28:18):
My big concern was, I hope he doesn't stop and
ask me what I'm doing on that property, because I
had all of my gear laying in the car with me,
and I didn't want him to see my radios and
my gear that I had with me.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
A few days later, Larry Owler of Barnhill, Ohio, was
hunting about one hundred and fifty yards off a road
in Tuscararas County. He heard a car stop through the trees.
He saw a stocky white male. The man lifted a rifle.

(29:10):
Ohler was unhurt and watched in terror as the truck
sped away. Although Ohler's description of his assailant resembled Dylan,
he was unable to make a positive identification. The task
force realized that Thomas Dillon was their most likely suspect.

(29:31):
Surveillance of him would have to be beefed up. Throughout
October and November of nineteen ninety two, the FBI coordinated
a massive air and ground surveillance. Dylan was observed shooting
road signs and busting car windows with rocks, exactly the
sort of petty vandalism outlined in the FBI profile. But

(29:55):
if they arrested Dylan for vandalism, they might never gather
enough evidence to a rest him for the murders. It
is difficult to tail someone on an empty rural road
in broad daylight. The stakes were high. If Dylan tried
another shooting and the FBI weren't in the right spot,
they could have another murder. If they crowded Dylan too much,

(30:17):
they might be found out and Dylan would slip. In
dividing the ground surveillance had to be well off of Dylan.
Agent Trivitis and Captain Shryot relied on the air surveillance,
since their eyes and ears, they would move in if
something happened. One day, the surveillance team faced its worst

(30:42):
fear from Bidis and Tryot were far behind Dylan when
the air surveillance called out an alert. Up ahead of
Doling on the river was the classic profile of a
road sniper. Vicum a jogger female, this time alone in
a rural seven Almas Dylan were indeed the gunman. This

(31:02):
jogger may be irresistible bait. Trombiitis and Tryot got nervous.
Hoping for the best, they sped forward. Dylan continued too,
right towards the jogger, up armed, driving at top speed.

(31:23):
Trombidis and Tryout frantically called to the agents and the
plane where is he is he stopping? The airplane reported back,
Dylan is approaching her. There is no one nearby. The
agent's car hurtled forward. A call from the air Dylan
is pulling up alongside the jogger. The agents held their breath.

(31:50):
He passed her without incident. The feeling of relief lasted
only moments. The airplane radio that Dylan had taken a
right turn onto a smaller roof. The aerial unit stayed
on him, instructing from Bitis in shriof where to turn,

(32:16):
then a second right term. Could he be circling back?
They called to the airplane. Is the jogger still there?
Dylan continued to make right turns until he was back
on the road. The jogger had been on his U turn,
justified the agent's fear he was going back for her.

(32:41):
Where is the jogger from Bids, yelled into his radio.
Cannot see the jogger, came the reply. But the agents
knew she had to be somewhere ahead of Dylan. If
he came upon her again, they were sure he would
kill her. The air unit called in that Dylan had

(33:06):
stopped his truck and had gotten out. He had something
shiny in his hands. Would he kill her? Right under
their noses. The jogger couldn't be seen from the air,
but that didn't mean she wasn't there. The agents in
the car heard shots and feared that Dylan had struck
again while under their surveillance, but the airplane radio that

(33:32):
Dylan was shooting a stop sign. The jogger had turned
off the road. She was safe. Unaware of her close
encounter with Thomas Dylon.

Speaker 6 (33:46):
I think so.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
The cat and mouse game with Thomas Dylan began to
wear on the task force members.

Speaker 8 (33:53):
A lot of pressure. I mean, you're wondering whether this
guy today is going to go out and kill somebody
and you aren't going to be able to stop it,
and you know that he's probably the one that is
responsible for killing other people. You're working fourteen sixteen hours
a day, You're living out of a car, You're drinking
coffee like placemen, you know, and you aren't eaten right

(34:13):
and distress is is tremendous.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
But the net continued to tighten around the suspect. The murderer,
in his letter to the newspaper, had admitted being bothered
by the Paxton murder and visiting his grave. Investigators returned
to video footage of Jamie Paxton's grave recorded November tenth,
nineteen ninety one, the first anniversary of Jamie's murder. Many

(34:40):
people paid their respects that day, but curiosity, rather than respect,
was the agenda of one visitor, photographed Thomas Dillon. Investigators
immediately recognized the man they had been tailing. Surely he
was the sniper, but to earn a conviction they needed direct,
incriminating it evidence. After the second anniversary of Jamie Paxton's

(35:10):
death in nineteen ninety two, surveillance observed Dylan entering the
Times Leader building. He bought a copy of the previous
day's paper full of the details of the Paxton memorial service.
The FBI had good circumstantial evidence on Thomas Dillon, but
they still lacked physical evidence a bullet, a gun, or
a typewriter to link him with just one of the victims.

(35:40):
Hunting season was fast approaching, Dylan was still out roaming
the rural roads, drunk, armed, deadly. The communities of southern
Ohio had been terrorized for three years. The people feared
going outside, but tried to live normal lives. Dylan had
to be taken off the streets. The Task Force knew

(36:03):
Dylan had been in trouble in the past for illegally
owning a silencer and was forbidden to possess firearms, a
stipulation he clearly violated during his vandalism spreez The Task
Force had little choice. Before he could kill again, they
would arrest Thomas Dillon. But the plan wasn't just to

(36:26):
arrest him on a weapons violation, but to convince him
he was caught red handed and get him to confess
to murder. Lacking ballistic evidence and holding only a relatively
minor weapons charge on Dylan, the FBI badly needed to
elicit a confession. Trembidis had a plan.

Speaker 6 (36:44):
Since we knew what his routine was through the surveillances
in that where he left his residence and he would
go to this dairy mard every day before he left
and went on his three four hundred mile drives. We
would try to make the approach at the dairy mart.
And what we had was an office building right across
from the dairy mart where we occupied. We took over

(37:08):
the basement of that building. Detective Wilson and I did
was we went down into the basement where we were
going to conduct the interview, and we put up along
the walls of the whole room maps of the areas
that he drove in crime scene photographs, in newspaper articles.
We wanted to make that setting just irresistible to him.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Then we're just going to laying us out in front
of him and see what kind of reaction we get
from him.

Speaker 6 (37:39):
It would be overwhelming, and you know, it would put
him in the best frame of mind for us to
be able to sit down and interview him and get
a confession.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
On November twenty seventh, nineteen ninety two, the plan went
into effect. Their entire case so far rested on getting
a confession.

Speaker 6 (37:59):
The idea was for when he came out of the
drrymart we were going to approach him, identify ourselves, and
basically requested that he follow us voluntarily over to this
room where we wanted to share some information with him
and show him some things that we knew that would
interest him.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
If Dylan refused, trom Biitis would raise his right hand
to signal ATF agents were responsible for making arrests and
weapons cases, to cuff.

Speaker 6 (38:25):
Dylan, and I can just remember his reaction, I mean,
his jaw just for about five seconds, and then he
composed himself and he said, I want to talk to
my attorney first.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
That was the cue. Trom Bitis gave the signal, and
the ATF agent stepped in and arrested Thomas Dillon. Dylan
didn't realize it, but it was a bitter defeat for
the FBI. Trom Bidis thought he'd blown it, despite all
the evidence he'd gathered, despite that they had the roots

(39:01):
they good. He feared that he would see a five
time murderer, quickly released on a minor weapons charge. At
the very time of Dylan's arrest, other tests for his
members were executing a search want on Dylan's house. Finally,
the FBI felt they would come away with the physical
evidence desperately needed to link him once and for all

(39:23):
to the murders, but they didn't. To their surprise, the
search turned up nothing more incriminating than some area maps
marked with arson and vandalism sites. Dylan was refusing to talk.
They were holding him, but there was nothing they could
do with him.

Speaker 6 (39:41):
It was pretty much over when he said he wanted
to talk to his attorney. So we went back to
the restaurant and we're going to have a cup of coffee,
and all of a sudden, we got the word that
he wanted to talk to us, and so Walt and
I jumped into our car and we made a B
line Dark County Jail.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
From Bidison. Wilson confronted Dylan with one piece of evidence
after another, photographs, videotapes, newspaper clippings showing his link to
the murders.

Speaker 6 (40:17):
I would pull out one piece at a time and
show him, and just as we had suspected he just
was keenly interested in the information that we had, the
surveillance pictures, the crime scene photos, you know, just the animal,
you know, the shots of the animals that we had
along the roadways, and that you could just see that
he was just fascinated by that.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Fascinated but not talkative. Dylan said, it would serve no
purpose to admit anything. Now another dead end for the FBI.
Dylan's attorney he is arguing that he should be spared
jail time on the weapons charge now. Unless something turned
up on him very quickly, Thomas Dylon would have to
be released.

Speaker 10 (41:02):
Thank the various representatives of the media for showing up today.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
The task force was now fighting the clerk. Desperate for
physical evidence, they held another press conference appealing to the
public for any information about guns they may have bought
or sold with Thomas.

Speaker 10 (41:16):
Dillon, had any contact with mister Dylon.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Meanwhile, Task Force member Jerry Wade, if the Ohio Division
of Wildlife was following up on a tip. A witness
steered Wade to a spot where he'd seen Thomas Dillon
firing his rifle a couple of years back. Wade hoped
that would lead him to some ballistic evidence to link
Dylan to one of the killings.

Speaker 16 (41:42):
This individual that brought us to attention that he'd seen
Thomas Lee Dellon shoot this dear with a rifle. Thought
the rifle might be one of them that was used,
and if we could locate some physical evidence the shellcasings
per se, and if we could get those and match

(42:03):
them to the murder weapon, we could put that rifle
in Thomas Lee Dillon's hand prior to the murders, which
would really give us a lot stronger case far as
him possessing the rifle prior to the murders.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
The chances of finding the small shells in such a
wide area were slim, and it had been two years
since the rifle had been fired. There determined, Wade patiently
combed inch by inch through a grassy field where the
anonymous witness said he saw Dylan shoot the deer. Beginning

(42:40):
at the tree described by the witness, Wade searched the
area in a circular pattern by hand and with a
metal detector, carefully marking off the territory. Miraculously, Wade hit
the jet. He found two rifle shellcasings later identified as

(43:04):
coming from the same gun that killed Gary Bradley and
Claude Hawkins. Finally a physical link to the murders.

Speaker 16 (43:19):
I felt like celebrating.

Speaker 13 (43:22):
It was just unbelievable that I found them because after
the time, the length of time that it had been
since the shooting and the incident, and the individual wasn't
sure the location of the tree exactly, the scene had
changed since he had been there. They had done removed
a fence row and pushed out the area. So I
felt very, very much fortunate to find him, and I

(43:43):
felt like a celebration at the time. It was just like,
you know, it was a gift handed to you.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
Meanwhile, the publicity from the press conference asking the public
for help was about to bear fruit. On December fourth,
Captain Shryock was manning the phones at Task Force headquarters.
A man named al Cope was on the phone. He

(44:14):
said he bought a weapon from someone who may have
been Thomas Dillon at a gun show the previous spring.

Speaker 10 (44:20):
Give me about fifteen minutes the date.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
April fifth, the same day Gary Bradley was murdered. The
rifle was sent to the FBI laboratory in Washington for
ballistics testing. Special Agent Paul Schrecker is a ballistics expert
for the FBI.

Speaker 7 (44:48):
As the bullet passes down the barrel of the weapon,
that bullet, by coming in direct contact with the interior
of the barrel of the weapon, picks up the microscopic
imperfections the microscopic features of that barrel, so that bullet
is marked with the fingerprint of that barrel.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Fragments of bullets taken from the bodies of victims Claude
Hawkins and Gary Bradley were examined at FBI labs.

Speaker 7 (45:15):
A bullet fragment may still be a value for comparison.
Even though a bullet may fragment, may break up as
a result of striking a victim, and maybe only fragments
are ever recovered, those fragments are still marked, they still
bear the impressions of the inside of the barrel of
the weapon, and those fragments can still be used to

(45:36):
make a positive association or an identification. When the weapon
was submitted to our laboratory, the weapon was test fired
and the test fire bullets from this weapon were then
compared to the bullet fragments taken from the victims.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Alcob's gun was test fired and the bullets examined for
characteristics they may have in common with the bullet fragments
taken from Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins. The conclusion Alcobe's
gun sold to him by Thomas Dillon matched the gun
used to kill both Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins. The
FBI finally had the goods on Thomas Dylon. Players agent

(46:25):
Trombidas visited Dylan in jail and confronted him with the evidence.
He and his truck fit the descriptions of a few witnesses.
He had been off work when each murder had occurred,
He had a history of random violence and gunplay, and
the FBI could prove in court that a gun he
once owned killed at least two of the victims. What

(46:45):
kind of proof? All the proof we need? But trombita'sknew
Dylan was guilty of all five murders, and he wanted
closure for the victims' families. He offered Dylan a deal
as leverage. Trombida's reminded Dylan that he faced Ohio's electric chair.
Dylan got nervous and he began to negotiate. Man, what's
your assessment that situation?

Speaker 10 (47:08):
That can't believe you got that part of it.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
What we have happiness. Thomas Dylon met with the prosecutors
in June of nineteen ninety three. He agreed to admit
to five killings if the death penalty were dropped as
a possible sentence.

Speaker 10 (47:24):
Terms one E three of the Acts Committee.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Unjuly ninth, Dylan confessed to prosecutors in order to save
his life. On July twelfth, nineteen ninety three, a smirking
Thomas Dillon walked into the Noble County Courthouse to make
his play.

Speaker 17 (47:48):
Mister Dylan, at this time, how do you plead to
count one in the indictment in case number ninety three
c R four involving the death of the aggravated murder
charge involving the death of Gary Bradley, How do you
plead guilty?

Speaker 1 (48:05):
With the families of the victims watching? Dylan confessed to
murdering Donald Welling, Kevin Loring, Claude Hawkins, Gary Bradley, and
Jamie Paxton. That he was still smirking and unrepentant as
he left court at.

Speaker 17 (48:23):
This time of the indictment Case number ninety three c
R four.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Guilty, Hello, Tom Thomas, Yeah, Dylan's incredibly cavalier attitude was
detailed by a local reporter whom Dylan repeatedly called from prison,

(48:48):
marveling at his own violence, reveling in his celebrity, and
laughing off the murders except one. He would not discuss
the murder of Jamie Paxton. Forget it, all right, just
forget it. Gene Paxton, Jamie's mother, was in court the

(49:10):
day Dylan pleaded guilty.

Speaker 14 (49:12):
I just want to talk to him about Jamie. The
kind of person Jamie was. Jamie was everything Thomas Dylon
could never be. He is, Dylan is a coward. He
hid behind a gun, and Jamie was. Jamie was not
that way.

Speaker 5 (49:28):
Little did I know that on the evening news he
was watching that and it made him very angry that
I had called him a pathetic coward.

Speaker 6 (49:36):
We talked to him about remorse and how did you
feel after these homicides, And the only one that he
said that it really bothered him about was Jamie Paxton.
He said, I didn't realize the kid was so young.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Gene Paxton had looked forward to confront him Dylan in court,
but his guilty pleaded Closter that opportunity. She asked Sheriff
McCourt to arrange a conversation. Agreed. That evening Gene Paxman's
phone rang, she found herself speaking with the murderer of
her son.

Speaker 5 (50:09):
When I picked up the phone that evening, it was
just like somebody calling up to sell me something. He said,
Missus Paxton, this is Tom Dylan. It was just almost
more than I could comprehend. The tone of his voice,
the way he came across. Still, the arrogance was there.

Speaker 10 (50:31):
You really hurt my feelings.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
This afternoon when Dylan told Gene Paxton that when she
called him a coward, she had hurt his feelings, Uh huh.

Speaker 5 (50:40):
I really don't think he expected to get what he
got from me. I think that Thomas Dylon could have
handled the crying, the screaming, the saying of calling names,
the cursing. I think he could handle that. But I
did not lower myself to that level. I talked to

(51:01):
him as a mother, and I really feeled it through
this whole thing. That is what got to Thomas Dillon.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
I understand after three years, Gene Paxton felt vindicated.

Speaker 5 (51:16):
I felt really good. I walked out on my front
porch and I just felt like for the first time
in three years that I was free. I was free
of Thomas Dillon. I felt that I had defeated him
by words, and I did it all for Jamie.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Thomas Dillon made it clear he did not want to
go to Lucasville PRISP, the toughest in Ohio, so Gene
Paxton saw to it with a petition drive that that
was exactly where Dylan was sent. In August nineteen ninety three,
Gene Paxton won a twenty five million dollar wrongful death
judgment against any future money Dylan might make. Dylan's wife

(52:02):
had been trying to sell his story to Hollywood. Paxton
and State Senator Bob Nye passed the Paxton Bill, barring
killers or their relatives from profiting from the crime. Thomas
Dillon remains in Lucasville prison. He is eligible for parole
in one hundred and sixty five years.