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Sunday, December 03, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: John L. Smith Somewhere, a woman's killer sleeps easy knowing he's escaped justice
Somewhere tonight, the person responsible for the violent death of Hannah Hill knows he's getting away with murder. Not that it's making him lose any sleep, for a conscience can't be the long suit of whoever killed the 18-year-old Akron, Ohio, woman and stuffed her body in the trunk of her Geo Prizm in May 1999. The victim, found by police six days after her death, appeared to have been raped before she was severely beaten and then strangled. The police and Summit County, Ohio, prosecutor believed they found their man when they arrested former Las Vegan Denny Ross. At the time, the evidence against Ross, the son of controversial Las Vegas gambling figure Allen Ross, must have seemed overwhelming. The young woman's semen-stained underwear were found in a bag outside Ross' Akron residence. A DNA test revealed the semen had come from Ross, Hill's friend. The plasterlike substance found imbedded in Hill's face appeared to match the material used in a cast Ross was wearing at the time of the murder. And an apparent bite mark on her elbow was said to be a possible match with Ross. Although Ross repeatedly denied he had been with Hill on the night she was killed, he eventually admitted to police that they were together. But Ross denied having anything to do with her demise, and his high-rolling father had enough money to hire what reporters in Ohio referred to as a "Dream Team" that included Las Vegas attorney David Chesnoff, San Diego's Michael Pancer, San Francisco death penalty specialist David Nickerson, Akron lawyer Larry Whitney, and Bay area private investigator David Fechheimer. Together, they tore down the government's theory of the case piece by piece and raised so much doubt about the thoroughness of the police investigation that in the end jurors voted to acquit Ross. Judge Jane Bond declared a mistrial before the jurors could announce their verdict. The Ohio Supreme Court eventually will determine whether the signed acquittal will stand, but with the Summit County prosecutor's office talking about cutting a deal it's clear Ross will likely be set free soon. Whether he is getting away with murder -- or whether police bungled when they failed to arrest Hill's jealous, violence-prone boyfriend for the crime -- may never be known. What is obvious is the fact Ross owes his life to his legal team. The plastic bag contained damning evidence, but for some reason lacked fingerprints. The position of the bag outside Ross' home allowed the defense to raise the issue of whether it had been planted by someone out to implicate the defendant. Upon cross-examination, the prosecution's expert admitted that the plasterlike material might have come from a substance not quite so closely associated with the defendant. And the bite mark? It might have been the imprint left by the victim's hair clip, which was found at the bottom of the trunk. Once the door was opened, Chesnoff cross-examined Akron police Detective Russ McFarland, who admitted there had been several potential suspects in Hill's death. That included her boyfriend Brad O'Born, who defense attorneys called insanely jealous and who appeared to have scratch marks on his neck at the time police questioned him. "Within 15 minutes, the jury had 30 other possibilities," Chesnoff said. "We were told this was a slam dunk, that he was going to die. The best deal they might have offered us was life without parole. ... Now they're talking about offering him credit for time served. "In this case, where there's no physical evidence of rape and their theory is this is a rape-murder, then I got to believe they haven't done their job. Factual innocence is a real reality here, which made this case a lot harder to prove. But no one is going to jail. "We feel very confident that this is over with." Perhaps for Denny Ross, who can count all the lucky stars in the night sky that his family could fund a million-dollar defense. But not for the victim's family and friends. Somewhere tonight, Hannah Hill's killer knows he's getting away with murder. John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
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