People have seen plenty of unsolved murder cases on TV, but there are many that occurred right in the Dayton area. Cases of murders and missing people have occurred in the region over the decades and some remain unsolved even to this day. Here is a list of some of these murder cases that people are still wondering the answers to:
Marvin Lee King
Marvin Lee King went missing from his Springfield home on Jan. 25, 1973. The next day, anonymous calls were received, saying that a man’s body was lying in a ditch near West Possum Rd. Authorities had to search for four hours to find this body, but when they did, it turned out to be that of King’s, who had been dead between 12 and 16 hours. It was determined that King had been strangled. Police had some suspects, but no one was ever convicted in this case. Earlier in the day of his disappearance, King’s pet hamster had died and he and his mother had discussed the topic of death.
Marcia King
Marcia King was 21-years-old when she was found to be gone from her Arkansas home in 1980. She was never officially reported as a missing person due to being an adult and there was no proof that anything had gone wrong. On April 24, 1981, a woman who would become known as “Buckskin Girl” was found dead in Troy, Ohio wearing a buckskin jacket, but no shoes. It was later concluded that she was strangled and experienced blunt force trauma. It wasn’t until 2018, however, that technology had advanced enough to identify this woman. After performing ‘pollen studies on her clothing’ and examining DNA samples collected in 1981 that the woman was identified as King. To this day, however, there are no clues as to who murdered her nor how she came to Ohio.
Erica Baker
Erica Baker, a 9-year old girl, disappeared on Feb. 7, 1999, in Kettering while taking her dog on a walk. Her dog was found, but to this day, authorities are still trying to recover Baker’s body. A man by the name of Christian Gabriel served six years in prison who ‘confessed’ to fatally hitting Baker with his van. Since he and his passenger, Jan Franks, had a history of criminal activity, Gabriel put Baker inside his van and left with her to avoid trouble. Gabriel was charged with ‘abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence” in 2004. He has since been released, but will not confess what happened to Baker after he took her. Franks is no longer a source of information since he has died. Officials are still searching for Baker’s body to this day, but they feel that it is up to Gabriel to help them do so.
Rebekah Davidson
Contributing Writer