Last week, the parole board continued Ritchie’s parole for another 10 years. Brooks testified that he saw Ritchie beat her daughter Samantha to death, but defense attorneys argued that Brooks had molested and killed the girl.
“My mind is kind of racing,” said attorney Michael Krumholtz, who represented Ritchie at trial. Krumholtz said he had not known about Brooks’ subsequent convictions and would have to talk to his co-counsel, David Williamson, before commenting further.
“That certainly comes as no surprise, unfortunately,” Williamson said after learning about Brooks’ convictions. He declined to comment further.
Through a spokesman, Montgomery County Prosecutor Mathias H. Heck Jr., declined to comment, stating he did not discuss defendants from other counties.
Brooks, who was convicted of low-level felonies in connection with the hiding of Samantha’s body, was released from prison on Dec. 29, 1997. At the time, his attorney told the Dayton Daily News that he did not know where Brooks was, but that he had probably moved away from the Dayton area because he was “fearful for his own safety.”
Brooks moved to Fairfield County, where he was indicted on an attempted rape charge in August 1998. The incident, involving an 11-year-old girl, occurred on June 26, 1998, according to court records.
Convicted of the charge, he re-entered prison on April 1, 1999 and remained there until Aug. 3, 2003, when he was released on supervision.
Brooks’ parole was revoked after he was accused of attacking a 9-year-old girl in August 2005.
Brooks, then living in Lancaster, was accused of fondling the girl in a car. Brooks knew the girl’s family, the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette reported.
Brooks pleaded guilty to one count of rape and two counts of gross sexual imposition in October 2005.
At Brooks’ sentencing, the girl’s mother told the judge that she had not known about his prior conviction or that he was a registered sex offender, the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette reported.
During Ritchie’s trial, said to be the first covered live on television in Montgomery County, Brooks testified he and Ritchie were having sex in the basement of Ritchie’s home when the girl interrupted them. Ritchie, who had a broken arm, struck the girl in the head with the cast, then used a wrench to cave in the back of the girl’s skull.
Defense attorneys presented a pathologist at the University of Indiana School of Medicine who testified that Samantha was sexually molested before she died. Deputy Montgomery county Coroner Lee D. Lehman testified for the prosecution that there was no evidence of molestation.
Ritchie created one of the region’s largest media frenzies on July 18, 1995, when she reported Samantha missing. For four days in the summer of 1995, police and volunteers searched for the little girl while Ritchie made anguished pleas for her return.
Search dogs found Samantha’s body submerged in a water-filled pit at the abandoned GHR Foundry, which was at 400 Detrick St., just blocks from Ritchie’s home at 809 Herman Ave. in Dayton’s McCook Field neighborhood.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2057 or lgrieco@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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