Cathy Sano/Christian Wells timeline
July 16, 1981: 14-year-old Cathy Sano is last seen alive in the 4500 block of Wilmington Pike in Kettering.
July 30, 1981: Cathy Sano’s mother, Ann Sano, offers a reward for her daughter’s safe return.
Jan. 14, 1982: Ann Sano announces the reward has grown to $5,000.
Feb. 4, 1982: Skeletal remains found in a wooded area south of Rollandia Golf Center in Sugarcreek Twp., about 1.5 miles from where Cathy Sano was last seen, are identified as Cathy Sano’s. Investigators say the girl was killed by a blow to the side of the head.
April 19, 1984: Nearly three years after Cathy Sano was last seen alive, and nearly eight months after the case was first brought to a Greene County grand jury, 32-year-old Christian Wells is indicted for the murder of Cathy Sano.
June 4, 1984: Wells’ trial starts in Greene County Common Pleas Court.
June 8, 1984: Judge declares a mistrial after an unidentified caller called a juror at home after midnight and says, “Hang him.” The trial is moved to Van Wert in northwest Ohio.
June 12, 1984: Wells’ trial begins in Van Wert. Prosecutors say Wells had a fixation with Sano and on several occasions has admitted to acquaintances that he had killed her. Defense attorneys say Wells is a scapegoat arrested because of intense media coverage and pressure from Sano’s parents.
June 29, 1984: After deliberating for 12 hours, a Van Wert County Common Pleas Court jury convicts Wells of murder. After professing his innocence, Wells is sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
September 27, 1989: After his attorneys file numerous appeals over five years to overturn Wells’ conviction and to get a new trial, the Ohio Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal to the most recent ruling that upholds the conviction.
May 17, 2004: The Ohio Parole Board rejects parole for Wells, citing the brutal nature of the crime and of the blow inflicted that caused Sano’s death.
August 21, 2009: The Ohio Parole Board rejects parole for Wells, citing the nature of the offense, the young age of the victim and the beliefe that “release of the inmate into society would create undue risk to public safety.”
Oct. 24, 2014: The Ohio Parole Board determines by majority vote that Christian Wells is a suitable candidate for release. The board states that Wells “takes responsibility for this offense, utilizing insight and remorse” and has “good support and a realistic release plan.”
Dec. 18, 2014: A full Ohio Adult Parole board hears testimony from Christian Wells’ brother, who tells board members that his brother had maintained his innocence to him “until four to five years ago,” and has “become more remorseful” in recent years, according to parole board records. The board votes to release Wells, saying he “has been assessed as a low risk for future violence.”
Feb. 18, 2015: Christian Wells is released from prison to a halfway house in Clark County.
“It’s unsettling. Hopefully, he has been rehabilitated, but who’s to know for sure?”
Ann Hogberg on the release from prison of her daughter’s killer, Christian Wells.
It took convicted murderer Christian Wells more than two decades to acknowledge that he killed 14-year-old Cathy Sano of Kettering in one of this region’s most high-profile crimes of the 1980s.
That acknowledgement, made to members of his own family, played a pivotal role in the Ohio Parole Board’s decision to release Wells on Feb. 18 after he had served 30 years of a 15-to-life sentence, according to parole board records.
The parole board’s decision was made over the objection of Cathy Sano’s mother, Ann Hogberg, who said in an interview she was “disappointed, but not surprised” by the release of the man convicted of murdering her teen-age daughter.
“It’s unsettling,” Hogberg said. “Hopefully, he has been rehabilitated, but who’s to know for sure?”
Wells, now 63, was released to a halfway house in the Springfield area, and his sister told the parole board that the former inmate wants to move to Columbus following the transition period at the halfway house.
The Cathy Sano case generated intense public interest and media coverage after she went missing in July 1981 while walking along Wilmington Pike in Kettering. The ABC News program 20/20 produced a segment on the case.
Seven months after she was last seen alive, Sano’s skeletal remains were found in a wooded area near Rollandia Golf Center in Sugarcreek Twp., about 1.5 miles from where she was last seen. An autopsy determined the girl was killed by a blow to the side of the head.
Wells emerged as a suspect in the months after the slaying because of what prosecutors would later describe as his “fixation” with Sano, a 110-pound, dark-haired girl who loved playing softball and who was headed into her freshman year at what was then Kennedy Junior High School in Kettering. Prosecutors also said Wells, who was 29 when Sano was reported missing and 30 when her body was found, told acquaintances he had committed the crime.
But investigators had virtually no physical evidence linking him to the slaying. He was not indicted until April 1984, more than two-and-a-half years after her disappearance.
Phone call results in mistrial
The first attempt to try Wells in Greene County Common Pleas Court ended in a mistrial early in the proceedings after an unidentified person called a juror at home after midnight and said two words: “Hang him.” The mistrial, along with the publicity surrounding the case, prompted Greene County Common Pleas Judge Judson Shattuck to move the trial to Van Wert County in northwest Ohio.
The Van Wert jury heard more than two weeks of testimony and deliberated more than 12 hours before finding Wells guilty.
The verdict seemed to stun both Wells and his co-defense attorney Dennis Lieberman, who said after the trial that he was “disappointed and frankly a little bit surprised” at the jury’s decision because the prosecution’s case was weak and based almost solely on circumstantial evidence.
The prosecution team of then-Greene County Prosecutor William Schenck and his first assistant, Montgomery County Prosecutor and now Common Pleas Judge Dennis Langer, acknowledged after the trial that the Wells case was among the most difficult they had prosecuted.
After the jury left the courtroom, Wells told the judge, “Very simply, your honor, I would like to testify before the state of Ohio that I am innocent of this charge. My heavenly father knows this. I seal this testimony in the name of my savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Shattuck was unmoved by Wells’ proclamation, and immediately sentenced him to 15 years to life in prison. “Mr. Wells,” the judge told the defendant, “may God have mercy on you.”
The 15-years-to-life sentence was the maximum at the time for a conviction of murder. Prosecutors did not attempt to file the more serious charge of aggravated murder because physical evidence that may have proved that the slaying was premeditated or was committed during another felony such as kidnapping or rape — among the requirements for an aggravated murder charge — was not available. The seven months that had passed before Sano’s body was found had prevented the collection of such evidence from the crime scene, prosecutors said in 1984.
For more than two decades behind bars, Wells continued to deny his involvement in Sano’s murder, and that worked against his chances for an earlier parole, according to Ohio Adult Parole Authority records obtained by this newspaper.
In 2004, parole board hearing officer Melvin Morton recommended against paroling Wells, writing: “The inmate’s inability to admit to his crime leads also to his inability for programming to reduce his risk to re-offend.” Morton recommended waiting five years before re-considering parole for Wells.
Wells’ 2009 review was more positive. It noted that Wells had not been disciplined in prison since 1997 and had attended sessions designed to reduce the chance he would commit crimes upon release. Wells “expresses genuine remorse” and has family support, an evaluation concluded.
But his parole was again denied, in part because of the nature of the offense and the age of his victim, parole board records said.
A subsequent 2012 denial of parole was more blunt, according to parole board records. Wells “is not suitable for release at this time,” a report said. “The inmate has a history of violence, (the victim) was a minor. The inmate expressed little insight into the offense. Community members object to the inmate’s release.”
Changing tone
The tone began to change in Wells’ favor in an Oct. 24, 2014, review of his case, which noted that Wells “takes responsibility for this offense, utilizing insight and remorse. He has completed several relevant programs to abate his risk to re-offend and demonstrated positive motivation and offender change. He also has good support and a realistic release plan.”
A Dec. 18 parole hearing included testimony from Wells’ brother and sister. Herb Wells told board members that his brother had maintained his innocence to him “until four to five years ago,” and had “become more remorseful” in recent years, according to parole board records. His sister, Claudia Marsee, said she would notify parole officers herself if her brother violated the conditions of his parole.
Hogberg also attended the hearing — the first time she had done so. For previous parole hearings, she had written letters in opposition to parole. Two representatives of the Greene County Prosecutor’s Office also attended, and one spoke against the granting of parole. Their testimony was blacked out in the parole board records to protect the victims and their families, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said.
Hogberg said she expressed concern at the hearing about her family’s safety and security if Wells was paroled. And as she listened to Wells’ family members talk about the educational opportunities Wells had taken advantage of while in prison, and a family trust fund that will help pay for his living expenses after release.
“My thought was, ‘My daughter was not given the opportunity to pursue any of her dreams,’” Hogberg said.
But this time, the parole board voted to release Wells, saying it “finds that inmate Wells has been assessed as a low risk for future violence, he has addressed his risk factors, and has demonstrated significant change, such that a release would not cause undue risk to public safety and would be consistent with the welfare and security of society.”
The board said Wells would receive five years of “very high supervision,” and is to have no contact with the victim’s family as a condition of his parole.
Greene County Prosecutor Steve Haller said his office “learned at the hearing that (Wells) had acknowledged to his family within the last five years or so that he did in fact murder Cathy,” Haller said.
Attorney: No full confession
Lieberman, who served as one of Wells’ two defense attorneys at his 1984 trial and was involved for several years afterward in efforts to overturn the verdict, cautioned against viewing Wells’ acknowledgement as a full confession. Prison inmates realize they will not be paroled until they admit to their crimes, so even those who are in prison for crimes they did not commit often end up acknowledging their crimes and expressing remorse, Lieberman said.
He has spoken with Wells “on several occasions over the past 30 years,” Lieberman said, adding, “I was happy that he was paroled, and I was perplexed as to why it took so long. In my opinion, he deserved to be paroled much earlier.”
Attempts to reach Wells through Lieberman were unsuccessful.
Schenck, who now serves as senior adviser to Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, said he was “not surprised” at the parole board’s decision.
“I’m not critical of the parole board for what they’ve done,” Schenck said. “He has served 30 years, twice the minimum sentence, and that’s a long time.”
“I feel great empathy for the Cathy’s family. This has got to be very hard for them.”
After the Dec. 18 hearing, Hogberg said, parole board officials assured her they would keep “a watchful eye” over Wells and take steps to ensure he abides by the conditions of his parole.
“Hopefully, they’ll live up to that,” she said.
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