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| This photo provided by Wayne County shows Jerrod Metsker, 24, of Green Township, Ohio. Metsker, 24, was scheduled to appear Monday morning, Dec. 16, 2013 in the Wayne County Court of Common Pleas on an aggravated murder charge in the death of 9-year-old Reann Murphy, who authorities said was his neighbor. |
WOOSTER, Ohio
(AP) -- A man accused of killing a 9-year-old neighbor and hiding her
body in a trash bin had been building a snowman with her just hours
before she was reported missing, investigators said Monday.
Jerrod
Metsker, 24, was the last person seen with the girl at the trailer park
where they lived, a sheriff's investigator said. He later joined
neighbors and relatives in a search for her, a neighbor said.
Metsker
was arrested Sunday, about 12 hours after deputies found second-grader
Reann Murphy's body. A judge ordered him held in jail on a $1 million
bond.
Investigators with the Wayne County
Sheriff's Office described Metsker as a family friend and neighbor.
Capt. Douglas Hunter said Metsker has a "diminished mental capacity,"
but he wouldn't release information about a specific diagnosis.
People
who live in the trailer park said Metsker would play outside with the
neighborhood children and built a playhouse out of blankets alongside
his home, where he'd spend time with youngsters less than half his age.
Reann
and her mother had just moved into the trailer park a few months ago
around the beginning of the school year, relatives said. They lived in
an apartment above a maintenance garage at the park outside Smithville,
30 miles southwest of Akron.
The girl's mother
was at work Saturday afternoon while she was at home with her mother's
live-in boyfriend, Hunter said. She went outside to play in the snow and
was with several other children in the trailer park's courtyard, but
the others went home, leaving Metsker alone with her, he said.
Reann
was reported missing Saturday evening, about two hours after she was
last seen with Metsker, Hunter said. Police officers, firefighters and
neighbors went door to door looking for her. Her body was found buried
under trash five hours after she was reported missing.
Metsker took part in the search, neighbor Judy Jarvis said.
Authorities
spoke with Metsker soon after at the trailer home he shared with his
mother, but he wasn't arrested until Sunday afternoon, Hunter said.
Metsker's
mother and sister refused to comment publicly on Monday and referred
questions to a county public defender appointed to represent Metsker,
who's unemployed. Attorney John Johnson Jr. said he couldn't discuss the
case.
Metsker appeared for his arraignment
Monday before a Wayne County municipal court judge via video from jail. A
preliminary hearing was scheduled for Dec. 23. County prosecutor Daniel
Lutz said the case could go to a grand jury on Friday if the evidence
is processed in time.
Authorities haven't
offered a possible motive for the girl's killing. Lutz said a coroner
will determine the cause of her death but she wasn't shot or stabbed.
"The charges that we ultimately bring will clarify what we think the motive was," Lutz said.
Relatives
said Reann lived with her mother but also spent time with her father
and his family. They said she loved to play outside and described her as
a tomboy.
"She was a little firecracker,
always ready to wrestle and play," her cousin Paula Watts said. "She
wasn't into girlie stuff. Last Christmas, she said she wanted some
girlie stuff. I don't know if she ever wore the makeup we got her."
Reann's father, Richard Murphy, broke down crying at a vigil Sunday night, WEWS-TV said.
"She's
the best thing that ever happened to me ... this is the hardest thing
I've ever been through in my life," Murphy said. "She saved my life. I
wish I could trade her places."
