Medina County prosecutor expects local resentencing for Wadsworth teen convicted of murder

WADSWORTH — A resentencing hearing in Medina County could be on the horizon for Gavon Ramsay, who was found to have murdered his elderly Wadsworth neighbor in 2018.

Arguments heard last week in the Ohio 9th District Court of Appeals will play a hand in determining if Ramsay’s sentence is modified there according to new state guidelines or if his case comes back to Medina County for resentencing, according to Medina County Prosecutor Forrest Thompson.

Ohio Senate Bill 256 went into effect last month and grants parole eligibility to individuals convicted of violent crimes, including murder and rape, after serving 18 to 30 years in prison if they committed those crimes before turning 18.

“Either the Court of Appeals has to modify his sentence or remand the case back to us, the trial court, for resentencing,” Thompson said Monday. “But we’re going to have to resentence Mr. Ramsay under the new law. We argued that resentencing should take place in Medina given the ability for families to make impact statements.

“I do anticipate it will come back to our trial court sometime this year.”

Ramsay was found guilty in November 2018 for the murder of 98-year-old Margaret Douglas, which took place in April of that year and included sexual assault and strangulation, according to investigators and court testimony.

The murder was committed when Ramsay was 17.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision standing by a juvenile life sentence could further complicate matters, Thompson said.

In late April, the Supreme Court upheld a life sentence for Brett Jones, of Alabama, who murdered his grandfather at age 15 after what’s been characterized as an argument over Jones’ girlfriend.

“This validated the position of the old Ohio law,” Thompson said of that ruling. “Ohio’s law was good and it didn’t need fixed in the first place. I’m not a justice on a Court of Appeals but in my mind, they now only have one of two choices. It’s just the way this state law is right now. It would be sent back to the trial court, Medina County, with instructions to sentence under the new law.”

A new section of Ohio Revised Code states that parole board members must consider factors in the crime related to offenders’ age at the time. Those convicted of aggravated murder as juveniles will be evaluated for parole eligibility after serving 25 years if their offense involved the killing of one person. If two people were killed, parole eligibility will be looked at after 30 years.

Ohio’s SB 256 also creates a new crime classification, aggravated homicide offenses, which involves the killing of three or more people and will remain eligible for a juvenile sentence of life without parole.

Relatives found Douglas’ body on April 9, 2018, inside the closet of her Wadsworth home while performing a welfare check. It is believed Ramsay killed her in the early morning hours of April 6, breaking into the home, strangling her while wearing plastic gloves, and sexually assaulting her body while photographing the act.

Later that month, police found photos and videos of the crime on Ramsay’s cellphone while investigating a series of local petty crimes.

Ramsay, who just turned 20, filed an appeal in February 2019 with the 9th District Court of Appeals roughly one month after his discretionary life sentence was handed down by Medina County Common Pleas Judge Joyce Kimbler. The appellate court affirmed on March 31 the sentence against Ramsay on charges of murder, aggravated murder, kidnapping, gross abuse of a corpse and aggravated burglary.

The teen initially pleaded not guilty to charges but later switched to a no-contest plea.

The Ohio Supreme Court announced Dec. 31 it had dismissed an appeal attempt on Ramsay’s behalf, which came after the 9th District Court of Appeals decided to uphold his life sentence last April.

Parole case nears for killer of Niles police officer

The juvenile killer of a Niles police officer in 1982 has had his parole hearing moved up because of a new state law that is giving juvenile murderers more chances at freedom.

Fred E. Joseph Jr., convicted in 1983 and sentenced to 30 years to life in the slaying of Niles patrolman John A. Utlak, will face a parole hearing this September.

Authorities had originally set a 2022 date for a parole hearing, after Joseph’s bid for parole in 2012 was rebuffed. But a new law approved by the Legislature during a 2020 lame duck session and signed by Gov. Mike DeWine on Jan. 3 this year, states all juvenile offenders must have a chance at parole.

A grandson of a murdered 94-year-old woman at the hands of a juvenile offender said recently the new law should have been named the “Teenage Killer Protection Act.”

“The law applies retroactively, which makes zero sense,” said Brian Kirk, whose grandmother Marie Belcastro was brutally murdered by 15-year-old Jacob LaRosa of Niles in 2015.

Now another Niles murder case is being reopened, according to Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, who said the new law is opening a Pandora’s box for the public.

Sometime in September as the summer of 2021 fades, Joseph, who was 17 at the time of Utlak’s killing, will face a panel of three from the Ohio Parole Authority outside his cell at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. If the parole board rules in favor of Joseph, now 55, the prison website said he would be eligible for release on Nov. 1, 2021.

Vienna police Chief Robert Ludt, who was Utlak’s police partner, testified at Joseph’s parole hearing in 2012 with Utlak’s sister, Joanne Robbins. Ludt said he plans to go to the parole hearing in September to again testify against Joseph’s release.

“If I crawl there, I plan on being there no matter what,” Ludt said.

Joanne Robbins said every day, she mourns the loss of her brother and frets going through another parole hearing.

“Going through this parole process each time is like reliving my beloved brother’s murder and the years of heart-wrenching despair again and again,” the sibling said. “Years that were stolen from me and my family and replaced with constant grieving.”

She said she thinks of her brother every day.

“I know that I would give anything for him to be here with me,” Robbins said. “He was my best friend, my biggest cheerleader, my hero. We can’t ever fully put him to rest, there is no recovering from this tragedy, as we are always braced to fight for what little justice can be sought for this horrific crime.”

Robbins has started an online petition drive to the Ohio Parole Authority asking it to deny parole to Joseph after the hearing in September

After a jury found him guilty of killing Utlak, then-Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge David F. McLain sentenced Joseph to 30 years to life in prison. A parole panel decided in 2012 to keep him in prison at least for another 10 years, until DeWine picked up his pen and signed the legislation earlier this year.

Watkins said Utlak’s mom and stepdad, Irene and Joe Sudano, and his half-sister Joanne, have carried the torch for justice through the years.

“Surely from any review of the circumstances of the crime and the overwhelming guilt of the offenders proves Randy Fellows and Fred Joseph Jr. are in the highest category of the worst of worst offenders,” Watkins said as he contemplated writing the parole board again.

FACTS OF THE CASE:

On Dec. 8, 1982, Fellows and Joseph brutally and premeditatedly robbed and murdered patrolman Utlak, 26. After committing the crime, both fled the state and were apprehended three days later in Cheyenne, Wyo.

Fellows and Joseph were both tried by Trumbull County juries in 1983 and both were convicted of aggravated murder with aggravating circumstances and received life sentences. Fellows was 19 at the time and went to trial first, followed by the juvenile Joseph.

Watkins was the lead prosecutor at both proceedings, and said the juvenile Joseph was the triggerman in the Utlak murder.

“I know from talking to jurors in the Fellows case that the jury did not impose the death penalty because they knew the actual killer could not receive the death sentence — since he was a juvenile at the time of the offense,” Watkins said.

Watkins believes if both Fellows and Joseph were tried today, they would get a life without parole sentence, something Ohio law didn’t provide in 1982.

According to the letter Watkins wrote to the Ohio Parole Authority in 2012, both Fellows and Joseph had criminal histories and, in fact, had a working relationship with the Niles Police Department, especially with officers Utlak and his partner Ludt. Fellows and Joseph were undercover informants in the area of drug trafficking, Watkins said.

“There was trust between these police officers,” but Watkins said on Dec. 8, 1982, this trust was broken.

“Fellows telephoned Utlak requesting Utlak to bring a lot of money with him so they could make some drug buys,” Watkins wrote in the letter. “Then in an ‘in-cold-bold’ like scenario, Utlak went to a prearranged isolated parking lot located near a steel mill off Hunter Street in Weathersfield. He was approached by Joseph, who was dropped off by Fellows, who was driving his mother’s car.”

Joseph ambushed the helpless officer, Watkins said, shooting him twice in the head. The fallen officer was robbed of his money, his department-issued .357 caliber handgun, a pump 12-gauge shotgun and a portable radio. Utlak’s body was found about 6:30 a.m. the next day by a Gibraltar Steel Corp. worker.

In the commission of this murder, Watkins said the two committed other crimes — Fellows stole his mother’s 1982 AMC Ambassador; Joseph had stolen his father’s jewelry worth about $10,000.

According to an affidavit produced by sheriff’s detective Sgt. Dan D’Annunzio, the two told a relative and a girlfriend that they were leaving the area and Fellows added as he was leaving that “if a cop had tried to stop him, he would shoot him to get away.”

Both men were armed when they were last seen, first by Fellows’ sister and then by Fellows’ girlfriend.

Instead of going south, the killers went west. Both were arrested in Cheyenne: Joseph was first nabbed by police for driving erratically and shortly thereafter, Fellows was arrested at a motel. Both admitted to murdering the police officer, and Cheyenne detective Leo Pando helped recover the murder weapon that was carried by Joseph. At the trials, ballistics evidence established the link between Joseph’s .22-caliber weapon and the bullets that killed Utlak.

A KEY WITNESS

Among the key trial witnesses was Arthur “Skip” Krause, who was a hitch-hiker picked up by the pair of killers in Illinois on the way west. In fact, Krause testified he led the pair to where he lived in Cheyenne.

Here’s part of Krause’s statement to Trumbull County sheriff’s deputies:

“From the conversation that I had with them, they indicated they had planned to kill the officer and to take his money … Both said that if they got caught, they would have a shootout before they would go back.”

As the discussion went on, Joseph told the hitch-hiker he would plead insanity if caught, Krause told deputies, and the authorities would go easier on him because he was a juvenile.

Fellows showed the hitch-hiker the .22-caliber revolver, an older dull silver model with one black grip because the other side was missing. Fellows said he had carved off the ends of the bullets so they couldn’t be traced. The hitch-hiker noted there were four live rounds in the gun and two spent casings. Joseph told the hitch-hiker this was the gun that he “wasted the cop with.”

“He told me … that he had shot the officer because of the money that he had on him and because he had told people on the streets about their ‘narc-ing,’” Krause told deputies. “While they were telling me about this, neither one of them showed any emotion or felt sorry about this. They didn’t even seem scared. I didn’t really believe them.”

The state of Ohio director of the National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Murderers has been lobbying against Senate Bill 256 since it was made law by DeWine at the first of the year. The Ohio director said the sentencing of Joseph was not a mistake.

“The murder of Officer Utlak was not less reprehensible because one of the killers was under the magical age of 18,” the Ohio director said. “SB 256 is based on the false idea that all juvenile crimes (with the exception of triple homicides, apparently) are mistakes made due to underdeveloped brains. But the reality is that some juveniles commit horrific crimes with full knowledge of the consequences and with the intention to bring about those consequences.”

‘Pandora’s box’ opened

Parole hearing recalls 1982 slaying of Niles police officer

Click here to join a petition drive to ask the Ohio Parole Authority to deny parole to Fred E. Joseph Jr., the killer of Niles policeman John A Utlak.

The juvenile killer of a Niles police officer in 1982 has had his parole hearing moved up because of a new state law that is giving juvenile murderers more chances at freedom.

Fred E. Joseph Jr., convicted in 1983 and sentenced to 30 years to life in the slaying of Niles patrolman John A. Utlak, will face a parole hearing this September.

Authorities originally had set a 2022 date for a parole hearing, after Joseph’s bid for parole in 2012 was rebuffed. But a new law approved by the Legislature during a 2020 lame-duck session and signed by Gov. Mike DeWine on Jan. 3 this year, states all juvenile offenders must have a chance at parole.

A grandson of a murdered 94-year-old woman at the hands of a juvenile offender said recently the new law should have been named the “Teenage Killer Protection Act.”

“The law applies retroactively, which makes zero sense,” said Brian Kirk, whose grandmother Marie Belcastro was brutally murdered by 15-year-old Jacob LaRosa of Niles in 2015.

Now another Niles murder case is being reopened, according to Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, who said the new law is opening a Pandora’s box for the public.

Sometime in September, Joseph, who was 17 at the time of Utlak’s killing, will face a panel of three from the Ohio Parole Authority outside his cell at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. If the parole board rules in favor of Joseph, now 55, the prison website said he would be eligible for release on Nov. 1, 2021.

Vienna police Chief Robert Ludt, who was Utlak’s police partner, testified at Joseph’s parole hearing in 2012 with Utlak’s sister, Joanne Robbins. Ludt said he plans to go to the parole hearing in September again to testify against Joseph’s release.

“If I crawl there, I plan on being there no matter what,” Ludt said.

Joanne Robbins said every day, she mourns the loss of her brother and frets going through another parole hearing.

“Going through this parole process each time is like reliving my beloved brother’s murder and the years of heart-wrenching despair again and again,” the sibling said. “Years that were stolen from me and my family and replaced with constant grieving.”

She said she thinks of her brother every day.

“I know that I would give anything for him to be here with me,” Robbins said. “He was my best friend, my biggest cheerleader, my hero. We can’t ever fully put him to rest. There is no recovering from this tragedy, as we are always braced to fight for what little justice can be sought for this horrific crime.”

Robbins has started an online petition drive to the Ohio Parole Authority asking it to deny parole to Joseph after the hearing in September

After a jury found him guilty of killing Utlak, then-Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge David F. McLain sentenced Joseph to 30 years to life in prison. A parole panel decided in 2012 to keep him in prison at least for another 10 years, until DeWine picked up his pen and signed the legislation earlier this year.

Watkins said Utlak’s mom and stepfather, Irene and Joe Sudano, and his half-sister, Joanne, have carried the torch for justice through the years.

“Surely from any review of the circumstances of the crime and the overwhelming guilt of the offenders proves Randy Fellows and Fred Joseph Jr. are in the highest category of the worst of worst offenders,” Watkins said as he contemplated writing the parole board again.

FACTS OF THE CASE

On Dec. 8, 1982, Fellows and Joseph brutally and premeditatedly robbed and murdered patrolman Utlak, 26. After committing the crime, both fled the state and were apprehended three days later in Cheyenne, Wyo.

Fellows and Joseph were both tried by Trumbull County juries in 1983 and both were convicted of aggravated murder with aggravating circumstances and received life sentences. Fellows was 19 at the time and went to trial first, followed by the juvenile Joseph.

Watkins was the lead prosecutor at both proceedings, and said Joseph was the triggerman in the Utlak murder.

“I know from talking to jurors in the Fellows case that the jury did not impose the death penalty because they knew the actual killer could not receive the death sentence — since he was a juvenile at the time of the offense,” Watkins said.

Watkins believes if both Fellows and Joseph were tried today, they would get a life without parole sentence, something Ohio law didn’t provide in 1982.

According to the letter Watkins wrote to the Ohio Parole Authority in 2012, both Fellows and Joseph had criminal histories and, in fact, had a working relationship with the Niles Police Department, especially with Utlak and his partner Ludt. Fellows and Joseph were undercover informants in the area of drug trafficking, Watkins said.

“There was trust between these police officers,” but Watkins said on Dec. 8, 1982, this trust was broken.

“Fellows telephoned Utlak requesting Utlak to bring a lot of money with him so they could make some drug buys,” Watkins wrote in the letter. “Then in an ‘in-cold-bold’-like scenario, Utlak went to a prearranged isolated parking lot located near a steel mill off Hunter Street in Weathersfield. He was approached by Joseph, who was dropped off by Fellows, who was driving his mother’s car.”

Joseph ambushed the helpless officer, Watkins said, shooting him twice in the head. The fallen officer was robbed of his money, his department-issued .357 caliber handgun, a pump 12-gauge shotgun and a portable radio. Utlak’s body was found about 6:30 a.m. the next day by a Gibraltar Steel Corp. worker.

In the commission of this murder, Watkins said the two committed other crimes — Fellows stole his mother’s 1982 AMC Ambassador; Joseph had stolen his father’s jewelry worth about $10,000.

According to an affidavit produced by sheriff’s detective Sgt. Dan D’Annunzio, the two told a relative and a girlfriend that they were leaving the area and Fellows added as he was leaving that “if a cop had tried to stop him, he would shoot him to get away.”

Both men were armed when they were last seen, first by Fellows’ sister and then by Fellows’ girlfriend.

Instead of going south, the killers went west. Both were arrested in Cheyenne: Joseph was first nabbed by police for driving erratically and shortly thereafter, Fellows was arrested at a motel. Both admitted to murdering the police officer, and Cheyenne detective Leo Pando helped recover the murder weapon that was carried by Joseph. At the trials, ballistics evidence established the link between Joseph’s .22-caliber weapon and the bullets that killed Utlak.

A KEY WITNESS

Among the key trial witnesses was Arthur “Skip” Krause, who was a hitch-hiker picked up by the pair of killers in Illinois. In fact, Krause testified he led the pair to where he lived in Cheyenne.

Here’s part of Krause’s statement to Trumbull County sheriff’s deputies:

“From the conversation that I had with them, they indicated they had planned to kill the officer and to take his money … Both said that if they got caught, they would have a shootout before they would go back.”

As the discussion went on, Joseph told the hitch-hiker he would plead insanity if caught, Krause told deputies, and the authorities would go easier on him because he was a juvenile.

Fellows showed the hitch-hiker the .22-caliber revolver, an older dull silver model with one black grip because the other side was missing. Fellows said he had carved off the ends of the bullets so they couldn’t be traced. The hitch-hiker noted there were four live rounds in the gun and two spent casings. Joseph told the hitch-hiker this was the gun that he “wasted the cop with.

“He told me … that he had shot the officer because of the money that he had on him and because he had told people on the streets about their ‘narc-ing,’” Krause told deputies. “While they were telling me about this, neither one of them showed any emotion or felt sorry about this. They didn’t even seem scared. I didn’t really believe them.”

The state of Ohio director of the National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Murderers has been lobbying against Senate Bill 256 since it was made law by DeWine at the first of the year. The Ohio director said the sentencing of Joseph was not a mistake.

“The murder of officer Utlak was not less reprehensible because one of the killers was under the magical age of 18,” the Ohio director said. “SB 256 is based on the false idea that all juvenile crimes (with the exception of triple homicides, apparently) are mistakes made due to underdeveloped brains. But the reality is that some juveniles commit horrific crimes with full knowledge of the consequences and with the intention to bring about those consequences.”

Parole hearing recalls slaying of Niles officer

The juvenile killer of a Niles police officer in 1982 has had his parole hearing moved up because of a new state law that is giving juvenile murderers more chances at freedom.

Fred E. Joseph Jr., convicted in 1983 and sentenced to 30-years-to-life in the slaying of Niles patrolman John A. Utlak, will face a parole hearing this September.

Authorities had originally set a 2022 date for a parole hearing, after Joseph’s bid for parole in 2012 was rebuffed. But a new law approved by the Legislature during a 2020 lame duck session and signed by Gov. Mike DeWine on Jan. 3 this year, states all juvenile offenders must have a chance at parole.

A grandson of a murdered 94-year-old woman at the hands of a juvenile offender said recently the new law should have been named the “Teenage Killer Protection Act.”

“The law applies retroactively, which makes zero sense,” said Brian Kirk, whose grandmother, Marie Belcastro, was brutally murdered by 15-year-old Jacob LaRosa of Niles in 2015.

Now another Niles murder case is being reopened, according to Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, who said the new law is opening a Pandora’s box for the public.

Sometime in September as the summer of 2021 fades, Joseph, who was 17 at the time of Utlak’s killing, will face a panel of three from the Ohio Parole Authority outside his cell at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. If the parole board rules in favor of Joseph, now 55, the prison website said he would be eligible for release on Nov. 1.

Read more in Sunday’s Tribune Chronicle.

Local police chief pushes to block inmate’s parole hearing who killed Niles officer

NILES, Ohio (WKBN) – A convicted cop killer is eligible for a parole hearing and tonight, a local police chief is asking for help to stop it.

Niles Police Officer John Utlak was murdered in 1982.

Wednesday night, Vienna Police Chief Bob Ludt, a former Niles policeman, asked Niles City Council for help in keeping Utlak’s killer in prison.

“Back on December 8, 1982, there was a terrible incident where one of our police officers was killed in the line of duty. He was shot and killed, it was an assassination type thing,” Chief Ludt said.

The killer’s name is Fred Joseph, Jr. He was a juvenile when he killed Utlak and was sentenced to life in prison. But due to a change in state law, Joseph is now eligible for a parole hearing.

“I was hoping tonight to get the city of Niles to, as a group or individually, contact the parole board to object to the release or parole of Fred Joseph,” Chief Ludt said.

Chief Ludt’s request has the support of councilman Doug Sollitto.

“Since being in prison, he has been far from a model inmate,” Sollitto said.

Sollitto said he’s confident that his fellow council members will support Chief Ludt’s request.

“The state of Ohio is all about rehabilitation and correction, but sometimes the rehabilitation process just doesn’t happen. You don’t want more lives to suffer at the expense of trying to fix something that might not be able to happen,” Sollitto said.

Chief Ludt says letting Joseph out would send the wrong message to anyone connected to Utlak.

“What kind of message does that send to us as police officers? What kind of message does that send to the family of John Utlak? His sister? His family?” Chief Ludt said.

No formal decision was made at Wednesday’s council meeting.

Joseph’s parole hearing is set for sometime in September.

Niles to fight parole potential for teen killer

NILES — City council voted Wednesday to pass a resolution to petition the Ohio Parole Board to request convicted killer Fred Joseph serves the rest of his sentence.

Joseph was convicted in 1983 of the killing of Niles police officer John Utlak in 1982 and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison, but could get a parole hearing in September. The legislation passed unanimously by council comes after Senate Bill 256 was signed by Gov. Mike DeWine, eliminating life-without-parole sentencing for juvenile offenders.

The law creates new parole eligibility provisions for those who committed offenses under the age of 18 and makes it possible for juvenile killers to be released in the future. Joseph was 17 when he killed Utlak.

At a previous meeting, council heard from retired Niles police officer and current Vienna police Chief Bob Ludt, who asked council to contact the parole board and object to the possibility of Joseph’s parole. Council President Bob Marino Jr. recommended a resolution in support of Joseph’s continued incarceration.

“That kind of behavior is certainly not tolerated for any individual, not only in the city but across the country. The resolution that was passed I fully support, and hopefully the incarceration time is enough for (Joseph) to reflect on what he did and realize his heinous crime,” Mayor Steve Mientkiewicz said.

From a legal standpoint, Law Director Phil Zuzolo said the resolution has no legal effect, but signifies the city’s support for continued incarceration.

“As city representatives, it says they want him to stay in prison,” Zuzolo said.

First Ward Councilman Doug Sollitto has been a state corrections officer for more than 30 years, and said Joseph has not been rehabilitated due to numerous reports of poor behavior as well as assaults on some of the prison staff.

“Everyone comes in at medium-level security. Depending on how you do at that facility, individuals can either go to minimum-security or rise to maximum or super-maximum facilities,” Sollitto said. “He’s had more than 10 assaults on staff and has risen from medium security to one of the highest-level facilities in the state. As heinous as his crime was before he went to prison, he’s been predatory since he went to prison and has been to the rules and infraction board for rule violations over a couple dozen times. He’s now guarded at one of the highest-level prisons in the state.”

ANOTHER CASE

A second individual, Jacob LaRosa, is in prison for murdering 94-year-old Marie Belcastro when he was 15. Under SB 256, LaRosa also could be given leniency for the rest of his sentence. On Wednesday’s agenda, legislation was presented to council to oppose any chance at parole for LaRosa, but Sollitto addressed council and said doing so at this moment won’t be as impactful because LaRosa doesn’t have a chance to appear before the parole board for another eight years.

Sollitto told council due to the nature of LaRosa’s crime, including other felonies, his first parole hearing could be what Sollitto calls “flop,” meaning LaRosa wouldn’t make parole.

“He probably, realistically, won’t have a chance until he hits 20 years (in prison),” Sollitto said.

Sollitto added the legislation is premature in the sense that LaRosa’s hearing isn’t for quite some time.

“While I agree we should do everything we can to stop LaRosa from getting out, this resolution is very premature,” Sollitto said to council. “I would think we should revisit this when we get closer.”

After hearing what Sollitto had to say, council voted unanimously to table the resolution for a later date.