A 46-year-old Cold Case Murder Re-opened in Ohio

As any criminal defense attorney will be quick to tell you, there is never a statute of limitations for a murder case. Unlike other type of crime, a murder case can be tried many decades later.

A recent example of this is in the recent coverage of Lori Nesson’s murder. Channel 12 News in Cincinnati reported on the latest developments in this case.

The sad story of Lori Nesson dates back to September 28, 1974, when she was last seen at a high school football game in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, near Columbus. Nesson, a 15-year-old at the time, disappeared that day. Her body was found the following day, but nobody was ever arrested in connection with the crime.

Evidence had been collected in 1974 during the original investigation. At that time, however, DNA evidence was not used in the advance way it is today.

Lori Nesson’s family contacted the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) for the state of Ohio in 2019. They sent the evidence they had kept, and encouraged police to re-open the cold case.

Reynoldsburg Police began looking at the evidence, and with the help of BCI were able to identify two men. One, Charles Webber, was a Columbus man who had already died.

The other man, Robert Meyer, was a resident of Cincinnati.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said that Meyer and Webber had also murdered two women in northwest Ohio. That double-murder had happened in 1975. Meyer was eventually convicted in 2012 of another 1975 murder. Meyer died in prison while serving a life sentence.