Hamilton County: a Win-at-all-cost Mentality

Posted on December 21, 2025 by Justice for Willie

Jeffrey Wogenstahl’s former fellow death row inmate, Elwood Jones, has had his case formally dismissed. Like Jeff, Jones was tried in Hamilton County, Ohio; like Jeff, his lead prosecutor was Joseph Deters.

Jones was granted a new trial in December, 2022, after Judge Wende Cross ruled that prosecutors with­held from him thou­sands of pages of evi­dence. This material included a statement about another person’s confession to the crime, and information about a pen­dant found in Mr. Jones’ vehicle.

Judge Cross referred to the prosecution’s “win-at-all-cost men­tal­i­ty”, and concluded,
 “The Sixth Amendment requires a new tri­al as the only appropriate remedy.”

Jones was released on bond soon after that ruling. From December 12, 2025 he has become an unconditionally free man.

Former prosecutor Joseph Deters (now Ohio Supreme Court Justice Joseph T. Deters) has expressed outrage that his office is accused of hiding evidence in order to convict an innocent man. He continues to contend, without offering evidence, that Jones is a killer.

But the suppression of vast amounts of potentially exculpatory evidence in Jeff’s case mirrors that in Jones’s case, providing further evidence of the “win-at-all-cost men­tal­i­ty” of Prosecutor Deters and his team in Hamilton County.

We trust that Jones’s exoneration will give Jeff some cheer during the festive season. We wish both Elwood Jones and Jeff Wogenstahl a happy and peaceful Christmas.

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Seven Years On

Posted on September 4, 2025 by Justice for Willie

Today, September 4 2025, marks exactly seven years since Jeffrey Wogenstahl received a significant, favorable ruling from a Sixth Circuit Court. It was this ruling that finally led to Jeff’s evidentiary hearing last fall.

Judge Christian Jenkins is now mulling over the evidence in Jeff’s case, getting ever closer to delivering his judgment.

We trust that Judge Jenkins will acknowledge the extensive prosecutor misconduct in this case. Sadly, official misconduct correlates strongly with murder case exonerations: nearly 75% such exonerations involve official misconduct.*

Now is a particularly stressful time for Jeff. The impending decision could at last afford him relief; but he must wait to find out if this is so. After 32½ years on Ohio’s death row, it is hard to keep hope at bay, but Jeff has learnt from bitter experience that he must try to do this.

And so Jeff tries to keep himself occupied in order to avoid thinking about his case at all.

We wish him success.

* From the National Registry of Exonerations. Go down the left rail on the Explore Exonerations page and open up Crime; tick the Murder box. Move back up to Contributing Factors and open it to view the contribution to wrongful Murder convictions made by different factors, including Official Misconduct. Note that Perjury or False Accusation also correlates strongly with wrongful Murder convictions.

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New Case Summary Page

Posted on February 27, 2025 by Justice for Willie

A decision as to whether Jeffrey Wogenstahl should be granted a new trial could be announced shortly: it is nearly two months since Jeff and the State filed their respective post-hearing documents* with Judge Christian Jenkins of the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court.

To help you understand how the case against Jeff has been dismantled, we have created a new ‘Case Summary’ page, where you can view a PowerPoint summary.

We are thinking of Jeff, as the time for the Judge’s decision nears.

*You can read Jeff’s two documents on Legal Dockets page, under 2025 filings.

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Indiana State Police: Records Suppressed

Posted on February 14, 2025 by Justice for Willie

Indiana State Police (ISP) records about Jeffrey Wogenstahl’s case were made available to him only weeks before his evidentiary hearing last year: it took a court order for them to be produced. As with records from other agencies involved in Jeff’s case, coercion was needed for Jeff to gain access to what should rightfully have been available to him 32 years ago.*

ISP records show that witness Kathy Roth told police she was “unable to observe” the face of a man she saw at the crime scene on the night of Amber’s disappearance. If Jeff’s defense had known this, they would have highlighted the impossibility that this witness could have reliably identified the man she saw from a police line-up.

Another witness, Brian Noel, told ISP initially that the man he saw at the side of the road near where the body was found had a “scraggly beard”; yet this description later evolved into a “beard + mustache (not a full beard)”, then, at trial, into facial hair that he first described as “three or four days’ growth” and later as “like two or three days’ growth”. Again, if Jeff’s defense had known about the earlier descriptions, they could have pointed out that, according to a State witness, Jeff was clean-shaven on the night in question.

ISP records also include impeaching information about the car seen near the murder scene: the descriptions given by witnesses to the police do not match Jeff’s car.

The Indiana records even contain further information about Eric Horn: “Eric looks into the bedroom, but does not check each child individually, and closes the door.”  Yet at the trial Eric said that he saw two of the children, but “Amber wasn’t there”. Clearly this huge discrepancy could have been highlighted by the defense if the records had been made available to them.

The ISP documents add to the shamefully long list of records from other agencies that were suppressed by the State, thus contributing to the overwhelming unfairness of Jeff’s trial. Judge Christian Jenkins is soon to decide whether to grant Jeff a new trial. Now is surely the time to end this appalling injustice.

*State of Ohio, Plaintiff, v. Jeffrey A.Wogenstahl, Defendant. B926287. Post Hearing Brief. In the Court of Common Pleas Hamilton County, Ohio. January 3, 2025. Pp.30-31 (Pp. 34-35 of pdf) and pp. 11-13 (Pp. 15-17 of pdf)

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Evidentiary Hearing Day 5: The Speck of Blood

Posted on November 17, 2024 by Justice for Willie

The last day of Jeffrey Wogenstahl’s evidentiary hearing was short, but significant: the testimony of a Forensic Science consultant shattered the State’s myth about a speck of blood lifted from Jeff’s car.

The prosecution had argued that the speck, later linked to Amber Garrett by DNA testing, provided definitive proof that Jeff murdered the child.

But according to consultant Marc Taylor, this blood could have been transferred to the car during the crime investigation. An earlier Forensics expert witness at the hearing, Brian Clark, had noted with concern “the lack of documentation and photographs of the suspected bloodstain collected… on the door handle of [Jeff’s car] during the first search of the vehicle”. The same expert confirmed that there was no evidence of Jeff’s car being involved in the murder:
“The laboratory conducted approximately 242 presumptive tests for blood on evidence collected from the vehicle… All tests were negative…”

In their book about the history of DNA testing, The Truth Machine*, the authors insist,
‘“DNA” does not transcend mundane, organizational practices or the possibilities that reside in stories of a crime’.

In Jeff’s case there are ‘stories’ aplenty for Judge Jenkins to consider. Stories of the State’s failure to disclose Eric Horn’s arrest for marijuana trafficking†; of a jailhouse informant falsely testifying against Jeff in return for favors; of police files withheld; of an FBI expert’s testimony that he found a hair on the victim’s underwear, when previously none was there.

As The Truth Machine authors remind us,
‘Police and prosecutorial motives and practices … come into play when DNA evidence is treated less as an abstract source of “truth” than as material that is collected, handled, labeled, and possibly planted’.

We trust the judge will take note.



*Michael Lynch, Simon A. Cole, Ruth McNally and Kathleen Jordan   The Truth Machine: the Contentious History of DNA Fingerprinting (The University of Chicago Press, 2008), pp. 345-346

†State v. Wogenstahl. B-926287. Defendant Wogenstahl’s Motion for leave to file a Motion for New Trial, based on newly discovered evidence from the U.S. Department of Justice, filed in the Court of Common Pleas, Hamilton County, Criminal Division. Filed January 28, 2014. Pages 10 – 11. 



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Evidentiary Hearing: Day 4

Posted on October 19, 2024 by Justice for Willie

Jeffrey Wogenstahl’s evidentiary hearing concluded for the week on Friday, October 18. It will continue at a later date, when more witnesses will be available.

On Friday (Day 4) a psychologist specializing in attention, perception and memory testified about the problems with eyewitness testimony in Jeff’s case. Police relied too heavily on witnesses who said they glimpsed someone in unfavorable light and viewing conditions; and they failed to follow recommended procedures during photo arrays and identification lineups.

This expert’s report on Jeff’s case is described here, and can be read here.

Jeff’s attorney, Sarah Gelsomino, later said that information from the Indiana State police, which became available to Jeff’s defense team only weeks ago, impugns each of the eyewitness statements.

Jeff’s attorneys also highlighted discrepancies between Eric Horn’s original statement to police and his court testimony. According to Indiana Police supplemental police reports, which have been made available to Jeff’s attorneys only in the last few weeks, when Eric returned from Beard’s house:
“Eric looks into the bedroom, but does not check on each child individually, and closes the door. Eric goes back to watching television.”
There is no mention here of Eric noticing that Amber was missing.
At trial, however, Eric stated that when he looked in the bedroom he saw that Amber was not there.

As this week ends, our thoughts are especially with Amber Garrett’s father, who has been struggling with the information presented in court. As Gelsomino says,
“The victims of crimes are victims of wrongful convictions, for sure, because now 30 years later this poor family has to relive all of this.”

N.B. The paragraph about Eric Horn has been amended in the light of more accurate information becoming available.

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Evidentiary Hearing: Day 3

Posted on October 18, 2024 by Justice for Willie

Jeffrey Wogenstahl’s evidentiary hearing continued on Thursday, October 17, 2024.

A forensic pathologist stated that in his opinion two people were involved in the murder of Amber Garrett. His statement contradicts the state’s theory that Jeff committed the murder and disposed of the body alone.

A former attorney of Jeff’s testified that when she was assigned Jeff’s case in 2013, Harrison Police records were not included in his file. This echoes yesterday’s testimony by Jeff’s trial lawyer that significant police notes were not passed on to him by the state.

One of the jurors at Jeff’s trial testified that her decision to convict might have been different if she had been given more accurate information during the trial. (You can read about how some of Jeff’s jurors reacted to discovering they were given incomplete, misleading information at the trial.)

The hearing continues.

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Evidentiary Hearing: Day 2

Posted on October 17, 2024 by Justice for Willie

Jeffrey Wogenstahl’s evidentiary hearing continued on Tuesday, October 16, 2024, with an expert’s unequivocal rejection of the state’s theories about Amber Garrett’s death. Brian S. Clark, an expert on Forensics and Investigations, was clear that no matter how the prosecutor chose to speculate, there was no evidence to support theories that Jeff’s car or apartment were linked to the murder.

Clark’s report supporting his claims can be viewed here, with an addendum to the report here.

Mellisa Ellis testified that she saw the victim’s mother, Peggy, in the early hours of Sunday, November 24, 1991. Peggy was with a man that the witness did not recognize, and seemed distraught. (See also information about the affidavits of Ellis and her late husband.)

Jeff’s trial lawyer, Mark Krumbein, stated that at the time of the trial he was not shown police notes recording sightings of the victim after the time when Jeff was taken into custody. Krumbein agreed that these records would have helped him to build a defense if he had been given them.

Krumbein also expressed surprise that a FBI expert ‘supposedly found a hair or two’ in the victim’s underwear. He added
“I was dumbfounded that in a case of this magnitude that [previously] the county coroner couldn’t find hairs on such small articles of clothing that, like a 10-year-old girl would wear it, knowing that that was a death penalty for a murder case.”

The hearing continues.

Note: The paragraph beginning “Krumbein also expressed surprise” was added on November 15, 2024.

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Evidentiary Hearing Begins

Posted on October 16, 2024 by Justice for Willie

Jeffrey Wogenstah’s long-awaited evidentiary hearing began yesterday, Tuesday, October 15, 2024, at the Hamilton Court of Common Pleas.

An expert botanist quashed the significance of the foliage on Jeff’s jacket by explaining that such foliage is not restricted to the area where the body was found: it grows throughout Ohio.

A forensic hair expert confirmed that the hair testimony at Jeff’s trial was flawed and should be discounted. When asked if law enforcement would have had access to Jeff’s naturally shed hair, he replied that law enforcement possessed numerous hairs from drains and sheets in Jeff’s apartment, some of which might have been naturally shed. (In closing arguments at Jeff’s trial, the prosecutor was adamant that the state was not in possession of Jeff’s naturally shed hair.)

One of Amber Garrett’s classmates testified that she saw Amber sitting in a truck, crying, at about 10.00 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, November 24, 1991. (Jeff was already in custody at this time.) Other evidence referred to the suspicious behaviour of the church bus driver who picked up children, including Amber, on Sunday mornings. The police were made aware of both incidents, but failed to turn over this, and other, evidence to Jeff’s defense at the time of his trial.*

The hearing also heard that the prison witness, Bruce Wheeler, only found out about Jeff’s case when he saw it reported on television. He testified against Jeff because he hoped for favors for himself. (See more here.)

The hearing continues today.

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“A Political Seizure of Power”

Posted on October 2, 2024 by Justice for Willie

Jeffrey Wogenstahl’s evidentiary hearing at the Hamilton Court of Common Pleas has been rescheduled: the dates will be Tuesday 15 – Friday 18 October, 2024.

The rescheduling became possible as soon as the Ohio Supreme Court concluded Jeff’s other pending legal claim. In that claim, Jeff argued that a statute in place at the time of the victim’s murder unfairly led the state to presume that she was murdered in Ohio, and thus that the murder trial should be in Ohio. On October 1, 2024, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected Jeff’s argument.

A dissenting judge, Justice Brunner, exposes the faults in the majority’s decision. She notes that the majority judges dwell on Jeff’s tardy filing in order to avoid addressing his potentially legitimate constitutional claim. She adds that if the statute – R.C. 2901.11(D) – was unconstitutional, then the outcome of Jeff’s trial is invalid; and normal legal time limits do not apply:
“To hold otherwise is a political seizure of power that the people of Ohio have never granted to this court.” 

Justice Brunner even criticizes the court itself for not having of its own accord examined whether the all-important statute was constitutional. 

Despite the court’s unsatisfactory decision, we are pleased that at least a decision has been made. This has allowed Jeff’s evidentiary hearing to be rescheduled; and we are thankful that the wait for it to start will be short.

We wish Jeff well.

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