A grand jury indicted five people Friday in two separate murders - four for the shooting death of Donnie Putnam, 39, of New Marshfield, and one for the death of Crystal King, 27, whose charred body was found last week in a burning car.
Official indictments will be filed at the county courthouse when the four men and one woman, all currently in the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail, are notified of the charges. Most will face 15 years to life in prison if convicted, said County Prosecutor C. David Warren. None of the charges qualify for the death penalty.
Both sheriff's deputies and investigators working for the prosecutor's office logged extensive overtime hours on the cases. As a result, Sheriff Pat Kelly said he's burned through half his $45,000 overtime budget for the year. Warren said he's talked with two part-time investigators about temporarily working full time to handle the workload.
Neither Warren nor Kelly, both longtime law enforcement officials, could recall a time when the county had seen two murders in one week, let alone two murders taken to the same grand jury.
The grand jury indicted Mohat M. Osman, Phillip D. Boler, Eric C. Fussner and Hamda A. Jama for felony murder and aggravated robbery in Putman's death. Investigators say all four drove to 7467 New Marshfield Road early morning on Feb. 15 to rob a house. During an ensuing gunfight, Putman arrived home and was shot in the chest. He died later at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital.
Prosecutors also charged Abdifatah Abdi, a 17-year-old who accompanied the four to the house, with felony murder and aggravated robbery. Juvenile Judge Robert W. Stewart decided Wednesday Abdi will be tried as an adult. As of Friday afternoon, Abdi had yet to be indicted.
Osman and Boler were charged with felony murder with a gun specification, though Warren and Kelly declined to say what type of guns they carried or if investigators knew who shot Putman. Abdi also carried a gun to the house, Assistant County
Prosecutor Keller Blackburn said in a
hearing last week. The gun specification raises the minimum jail time for felony murder, if convicted,
to 18 years.
Investigators found stolen weapons in the house, which was being watched already by the sheriff's narcotics unit, Kelly said. He later added the theft of 60 firearms from a gun club in Meigs County appeared to be related to the case, but couldn't say how.
Investigators said Abdi, Osman and Jama, - all Somali immigrants living in Columbus - are members of an unspecified gang. Columbus police are familiar with the group, Kelly said. Fussner and Boler, who rode with the other four to the house, both live in Athens County, Fussner in Nelsonville and Boler in New Marshfield.
We have a zero tolerance for drugs
whether it be people coming into our county or drug dealers in our county Kelly said. If they're selling drugs in this county we're gonna seek them out
we're gonna find them
we're gonna arrest them and we're gonna put them in jail.
And not only the group from Somalia, any other group that decides that they want to bring drugs into Athens County, they're not welcome here, he said.
The grand jury also indicted Steven N. Dougan
27
of 130 U.S. Route 33 for murder
felony murder
aggravated arson
tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse. Investigators said Dougan killed King and burned her body in a car near Chase Road.
Dougan's criminal record stretches back to 2000
when a grand jury indicted him in two separate felony cases. He pleaded guilty and struck a deal
