Female skeletal remains found in a wooded Spring Valley Township area this week mark at the least the fourth body found in an outdoor area in Greene County within the last five years.
Identification on the bones found in the 2000 block of Elam Road is still unknown, but Middletown police are waiting to see if they belong to Lindsay Bogan — a 30-year-old mother who has been missing since September.
The county sheriff’s office is transporting skeletal remains from the Miami Valley Crime Lab to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation for advanced DNA testing, said Greene County Sheriff Gene Fischer on Thursday.
“It’s ironic that we’ve had four of them,” Fischer said. “I don’t think anybody is singling out Greene County as a way to do it. We’ve identified every one of them so far and worked the cases with the appropriate jurisdictions where the crime would’ve been committed.”
The practice of dumping bodies is not routine but probably more common in rural areas compared to metro or suburban communities, said Patrick Oliver, the Cedarville University Criminal Justice Program director.
”So if you want to dump a body, you want to do it in a place where you’re less likely to be seen that’s in a rural suburban area where the traffic is light with a great distance between homes,” Oliver said. “Those rural roads, tiny roads (and) state routes, there’s a long distance where you can see vehicles approaching.”
Wilber Gamboa Naranj, of Costa Rica, found in Beavercreek Township
Naranjo’s body was found by a driver traveling on South Alpha Bellbrook Road in 2011. The exact location where the homicide occurred is still to be determined, according to the sheriff.
No arrests have been made in Naranjo’s murder. The case is still an active and open investigation.
“We have two probable cause arrest warrants to serve once we locate the suspects,” Fischer said on Thursday. “We’ve been looking for them for a while.”
The sheriff’s office has previously said it had no motive for the murder, but Naranjo, 35, suffered a “violent death” and the incident was not a random crime.
This newspaper previously reported Naranjo, who was engaged to a Xenia woman, had been in and out of the country during the five years before his death, according to the sheriff’s office. Investigators found his expired passport at the scene.
Kayla Archer, of Indiana, found in Cedarville
Archer, a 44-year old Indiana woman, was found dead in a ditch near the intersection of Rakestraw and Federal roads in 2013. Her husband, Lorenzo Archer Jr., 50, was arrested several days later in Myrtle Beach, S. C.
Investigators believe Archer died from asphyxiation and was dead for up to three days before she was found almost 200 miles from her home in Terre Haute.
Archer’s husband pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and other charges before he was sentenced to 18 years in prison, according to an Associated Press report.
Curtis Gene Miller, of Springfield, found in Ross Twp.
Greene County deputies found Miller’s body wrapped in a tarp in a flooded quarry on Gravel Pit Road in 2012.
Police believe several blows to Miller’s head and body caused his death. The Montgomery County Coroner’s Office ruled Miller’s death a homicide by unspecified trauma.
The murder case against Apone and Smith was dismissed in 2012, but at that time, the prosecutor said he had plans to refile charges. This newspaper previously reported Clark County Prosecutor Andy Wilson said there were issues that made it difficult to meet speedy trial requirements.
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