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Revision as of 11:44, 3 January 2025 by NelsonLee20042020 (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) 1985 murder and rape of a boy in Ohio| Raymond Fife | |
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| Born | Raymond C. Fife (1973-01-27)January 27, 1973 Trumbull County, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | September 10, 1985(1985-09-10) (aged 12) Warren, Ohio, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Death by fatal assault and suffocation |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Student |
| Known for | Victim of a rape-murder case |
| Parent(s) | Benjamin Fife (father) Miriam Fife (mother) |
| Family | Four unnamed siblings |
On September 10, 1985, in Warren, Ohio, 12-year-old Warren Boy Scout Raymond Fife disappeared after he was last seen going outdoors to meet his friend, and after it was discovered that he never made it to his friend's house, Fife's family went to search for him. The search lasted for more than four hours before Fife's father discovered his body at a wooded field behind a supermarket on Palmyra Road; Fife died from his injuries, presumably from a physical assault, two days after he was found. An autopsy report ruled that Fife's death was due to a homicide and it confirmed that the boy was raped before he died.
The investigations led to the arrests of two men, Timothy Combs and Danny Lee Hill. The duo were put on trial and convicted for raping and murdering Fife, but out of the two, only Hill, who was 18 when the killing occurred, was sentenced to death while Combs was spared the death sentence due to his age of 17 at the time of the murder and hence, he was sentenced to life in prison. Combs died in prison in 2018 at the age of 50, while Hill, whose appeals against the death sentence failed, is currently facing imminent execution on July 22, 2026.
Murder
On September 10, 1985, in Warren, Ohio, a 12-year-old boy was abducted by unknown men and raped before he was assaulted and later died.
The victim, Raymond Fife, was last seen leaving his house on a bicycle at approximately 5:15pm. Fife was supposed to visit his friend Billy Simmons, but by 5:50pm, Fife had not reached Simmons's house. As a result, Fife's family went to search for the missing boy.
More than four hours after Fife went missing, his father found the naked body of Fife at a wooded field behind a supermarket on Palmyra Road.
Trials of Danny Lee Hill and Timothy Combs
Combs's imprisonment and death
Appeal processes of Hill
Tentative execution date of Hill
On September 21, 2022, 37 years after the rape and murder of Raymond Fife, the death warrant of Danny Lee Hill was approved by the Ohio Supreme Court, and his death sentence was scheduled to be carried out four years later on July 22, 2026.
At that time, capital punishment in Ohio was indefinitely suspended since the state's last execution in 2018, after Governor Mike DeWine ordered the state to stop conducting executions via lethal injection, the state's sole legal method of execution, and the moratorium on all future executions shall remain in effect until the Ohio General Assembly approved a new execution method to replace lethal injection. With the moratorium in place, it was possible that the original date of Hill's execution could be postponed should the state unable to find a suitable execution method in time to carry out his death sentence as scheduled.
See also
- Capital punishment in Ohio
- List of death row inmates in Ohio
- List of people scheduled to be executed in the United States
References