CINCINNATI (AP) — A man who spent more than a quarter-century on death row for the robbery and murder of a woman at an Ohio hotel had his case dismissed Friday by prosecutors.
Elwood Jones has been free since shortly after a judge granted him a new trial in December 2022, concluding that prosecutors had not turned over relevant evidence to his attorneys years ago.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich said the dismissal of his case followed a monthslong comprehensive review of evidence and court filings in his case.
“I did not take this extraordinary step lightly,” Pillich said in a statement. “But after reviewing the evidence, I am not convinced that Mr. Jones killed Rhoda Nathan.”
Jones was convicted of aggravated murder, robbery and burglary in the 1994 beating death of the 67-year-old from Toms River, New Jersey, in Blue Ash, a Cincinnati suburb.
Under Pillich’s predecessor, Melissa Powers, the prosecutor’s office had appealed the judge’s decision and that lawsuit was still moving through the courts.
Just last week, the Ohio Supreme Court had found the appellate court erred in blocking the challenge and returned it to the lower court for reconsideration. Supreme Court Justice Joe Deters, the former Hamilton County prosecutor who secured the original conviction against Jones, recused himself from that decision.
But Pillich said going forward with a new trial without evidence, witnesses or up-to-date science “would be futile.”
Among issues addressed by her review were: the lack of physical or forensic evidence directly linking Jones to the murder; a lack of sufficient follow-up on multiple witness statements pointing to alternative suspects; and failure to provide Jones’ defense with a large volume of investigatory material before trial. Modern-day medical testing has also excluded Jones as a suspect.
Police had said that Nathan, a grandmother in town over the Labor Day weekend to attend the bar mitzvah of her best friend’s grandson, was killed after she surprised a would-be robber in her room. Jones was an employee at the hotel and was on the job that day, police said.
A message seeking comment was left with Jones’ attorney. In court filings, his defense team argued that what the trial court portrayed as a “win-at-all-cost mentality” at the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office “stole over 28 years from Elwood Jones — an innocent man — and it very nearly cost him his life.”
Pillich said she is establishing a Conviction Integrity Unit to search and review claims of wrongful conviction and unjust sentencing using national best practices.
“Had such a unit existed years ago, this decision may have been reached much sooner,” she said.
Jones is the 12th death row inmate exonerated in Ohio and the second from Hamilton County, said Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, which seeks a repeal of the death penalty.
He said the public is fed up with wrongful convictions.
“We’re thinking of the Nathan family and we’re thinking of the Jones family, both who were irreparably harmed by Ohio’s death penalty system,” he said in a statement.
