Just Another Crime & Punishment Story

Barberton Police Seek Accused Killer Month Before Pregnant Teen Shot

DNA links David Stoddard, 24, to violent home invasion in Barberton a month earlier

That was the headline in the online version of this article today, an article on the list of ‘most read’ articles.  In the hard copy paper delivered to my doorstep the headline, above the fold, in the B section read “Man Wanted Before Teen Killed.”  Online there was no photo with the story.  Hard copy had a tiny half-inch head shot of the killer.

The three comments in the online comment section read:

1.      ‘Sure lets blame the cops for this psychopath killing the girl. The attorney says he was in daily contact with his client, while knowing the police were looking for him, yet refusing to cooperate. Get over yourself dude, not even sure how you sleep at night defending scum like that.’

2.      ‘"“It’s kind of one of those things that you just keep checking for the suspect and if you come across him, you deal with him at that time,” Eberhart said."  So what did the cops do keep checking the jail cell... "No he's not in there yet".’

3.      ‘What Trexler didn't say, was that the DNA evidence gotten from the dog wasn't certain enough for anyone to be convinced or convicted. Police wanted to meet with the loser to collect additional DNA for testing. They were building their case.’

What is the story as reported today?

24 year-old David Stoddard, from Barberton, is accused of bursting into a private home to kill his girlfriend but ended up murdering 16 year-old Anna Karam and shooting 19 year-old Jessica Halam in the head.  Karam was four months pregnant; Halam is recovering at Akron General.

Yesterday’s story has a photo of a candlelight vigil for the two victims.  Today’s story tells us that the shooter was already wanted for a “violent home invasion” by the Barberton Police.

DNA evidence linked Stoddard to the home invasion.  Barberton Police had been in ongoing negotiations with Stoddard’s attorney to get him to turn himself in.  Barberton Police arrested Stoddard on a gun charge “a month after the home invasion” but released him.  The Barberton Police had not secured a warrant for Stoddard’s arrest by the time he was murdering Anna Karam.

Here is what the police told the Beacon reporter:

‘Officer Marty Eberhart, Barberton police spokesman, said officers in December looked for Stoddard, checking the various addresses he was known to frequent. Beyond that, Eberhart was unable to say how intense the search was for Stoddard and how long they searched.

“It’s kind of one of those things that you just keep checking for the suspect and if you come across him, you deal with him at that time,” Eberhart said.

Eberhart said police did not have a warrant for Stoddard’s arrest in December. At the same time, however, he said Stoddard would have been arrested once he met with detectives.

“We needed to talk to him about it,” Eberhart said. “We were making arrangements with his attorney to turn himself in and be charged at that time.”’

The friends of the victims are “left to wonder.”  I am left to wonder if Stoddard was a 24 year-old black man, with a violent criminal history, who was known to the police and openly living in his own home…wouldn’t he have been arrested before he killed anyone?  If aggregate data (about arrests, police discretion, and racial profiling) can help us at all, we can only conclude that if he were black he would have absolutely been arrested, even if the previous criminal history had not been violent.

‘On Jan. 6, police say, Stoddard barged inside an East Archwood Avenue home and opened fire. Witnesses say he was looking for his ex-girlfriend when he shot Karam and Halman. Stoddard fled the house and was found inside a motel room hours later by Wadsworth police. 

The home invasion took place on Oct. 5 inside a Jefferson Avenue home. Police say three men, one armed with a gun, burst inside and demanded money. One person inside was assaulted, and the resident’s 10-year-old pit bull named Duke was shot to death after biting the arm and leg of one intruder.’

DNA from the dog’s mouth linked to Stoddard and the victim of the home invasion identified Stoddard even before the DNA results were available to police.

‘“My client was not eluding police,” Sinn said. “He was in town, living at home and I was in daily contact with him. We were in discussions with police….”’

A suspect identified by the victim for a violent home invasion, with corroborating DNA evidence, was ‘in discussions with police’ through his attorney??   I wonder if this is either evidence of a police department with an admirable respect for due process and alternatives to punishment, or a police department giving special rights to one of its own?

Of course, we could all follow one online commentator and add information to the story, reassuring ourselves with comments like ‘the police were building their case,’ or ‘the evidence was inconclusive,’ or ‘the police were trying to trick the suspect into giving up information.’  Even if we assume these speculations are true, would we make these same extra-ordinary efforts to ‘fill-in the blanks’ for the police if a young black man had been left on the streets, without a warrant even issued for arrest, only to then commit a violent murder?  Or if Anna Karam and Jessica Halam were our daughters?