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Home > Blogs > Dayton Courts: Legal and crime news > Archives > 2010 > June > 22
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Cundiff trial: Man convicted of attacks on 3 women sentenced to 38 years in prison
DAYTON — Mary Beth Bozarth’s voice quivered as she said that her stabbing had altered her life, but the Miami Valley Hospital emergency room nurse promised that she would continue to care for others.
“As anyone can guess, this has forever changed my life,” Bozarth told Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Michael T. Hall. “But it will never change who I am.”
Minutes later, Hall sentenced Bozarth’s attacker, James Cundiff, to 38 years in prison.
“You are a dangerous man,” Hall told Cundiff, who is 42 and will not be eligible for release until he is 80.
Cundiff was convicted of three attacks on women last year. One was Bozarth, who was stabbed in the neck after she left work Oct. 1. Another was Shannon George, who was homeless when she was robbed and slashed on Aug. 28. A jury convicted Cundiff on May 28 of four counts of aggravated robbery and four counts of felonious assault in those cases.
The jury did not hear any evidence concerning the third attack, the Sept. 29 assault of Lillian Klosterman, and that incident was never referenced in front of the jurors. Cundiff waived his right to a jury trial in those charges, so that evidence was presented only to Hall, who convicted Cundiff of those charges — a felony abduction count and two misdemeanors — just before sentencing.
Hall also found that Cundiff was a Repeat Violent Offender, and used that sentence to add nine years to the sentence.
Neither George nor Klosterman were able to attend, but assistant county prosecutor Kim Melnick told Hall that both asked for the maximum sentence.
Bozarth said that she harbored no anger toward Cundiff, but said she feared he would stab again if he were free. She noted that he did not demand her belongings until after he stabbed her in the neck.
“I would have given him everything,” she said. “He didn’t ask.”
Bozarth told Hall that she intended to continue her work as a nurse, and that she would help Cundiff if he showed up injured at the hospital.
“It doesn’t define who I am,” she said. “And God will take care of him, just like he took care of me.”
Cundiff, who maintained his innocence at trial, did not say anything during the hearing.
During the trial, Bozarth testified about her assault, which occurred in a parking lot near the corner of Main and Apple streets. Bozarth was stabbed in the neck, a blow that knocked her off her feet, and the attacker grabbed her purse and lunch bag.
George, who was homeless at the time, testified that she was behind a building on Main Street, across from the Montgomery County Fairgrounds, when her attacker pulled a knife on her and demanded money. She gave him the $40 she had in her front pockets, but the robber demanded to see if she had any in her back pockets. When he made her turn, she decided to run, and the attacker slashed her across her breast and her arm, she said.
During his closing argument at trial, assistant county prosecutor Steve Knippen noted similarities in both attacks, which happened within a few blocks of each other. Both were also near “Tent City,” the homeless encampment where Cundiff was living at the time, Knippen said.
In both cases, the attacker wore dark clothing, approached women walking in parking lots at night, and was wearing hospital apparel. George’s attacker wore a surgical mask which covered his nose and mouth. Bozarth’s attacker wore green surgical gloves, Knippen said.
Both Bozarth and George identified Cundiff as their attacker during the trial.
Lillian Klosterman, who lives on Belmonte Park, said Cundiff was the man who startled her on her front porch, then placed her in a choke hold, then fled after she was able to open her door and let out her dog.
Cundiff was 17 when he was tried as an adult and convicted in Mahoning County in 1984 of rape, felonious assault and aggravated robbery charges, according to Dayton police. He was released in 2002 after serving 18 years and has to register every 90 days as a Tier III sex offender, reserved for the state’s most violent sexual predators.
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