Convicted of a Rape While Out on Bail for a Murder Case
By: Zahruja J
Tags: True Story, Crime, Murder, True Crime, Justice

Convicted of a Rape While Out on Bail for a Murder Case

Hannah Hill (source)

Hannah Hill was born in Akron, Ohio, on the 20th of May 1991. She was an only child and lived with both of her parents. She had just graduated from high school. During the summer, she worked as an ATM secretary, and with her first wages, bought her first car. The plan was for her to go to college after the summer.

Hannah was a popular girl and had a lot of friends. She also had a boyfriend, Brad O’Born, whom she lived with for a while though their relationship was very volatile and violent at times. This was why she moved back with her parents, although they were still together.

On Wednesday the 19th of May 1999, Eighteen-year-old Hannah got home from work and planned to stay in for the night. Around 9.00 pm, She changed into her pajamas and retired to her room. Hannah’s mother Kimberly heard her daughter on the phone, and at 10.30 pm, a fully dressed Hannah was on her way out. She told her mother that she would be back later. Kimberly thought that Hannah appeared to be disturbed about something when she left that night.

Ignoring vital piece of information

Hannah failed to return that night, and the family thought nothing of it until her boss called the next morning, looking for her. On the 20th of May, Hannah Hill’s family decided to file a missing person report, including Hannah’s car description. The police did not take immediate action because they believed that all kids at this age go off without notifying anyone. Hannah’s friend Jennifer called all their mutual friends to check if they had seen Hannah. No one had seen her.

Around this time, the police had received a call about an abandoned car (this was Hannah’s), but at this stage, they haven’t uploaded the missing report into their system as they were so relaxed about it. So instead they have sent traffic police and put a parking ticket on it. They have not connected the car with Hannah.

One week later, after Hannah’s disappearance, investigators went back to the abandoned car and found Hannah’s body in the trunk. What they saw was indescribable. The victim was naked from the waist down, deliberately exposing her, showing the killer’s contempt for Hannah even in death.

Hannah’s Boyfriend Brad O’Born (source)

The police have decided to trace her footsteps on the night of her disappearance. They have first spoken to her boyfriend, Brad O’Born, who initially went to the police urging them to search for Hannah; this was before her body was found. Officers noticed scratches on Brad’s arms and asked about it. He confirmed that they argued before her disappearance, but it was not very serious.

Beaten and Strangled

The autopsy revealed that Hannah’s body was beaten and strangled. There were bruises and cuts to her face, and there was evidence that she had sex prior to her death. The cause of death was “asphyxia by manual compression.”

The police also believed that she was raped by the sexual manner her body was staged. There was a bite mark on her arm, and a white residue was found on her lip. After going through her phone records, detectives found a person of interest. Denny Ross was an acquaintance of Hannah’s, and she attended a few of his house parties. The police had previous dealings with Denny as he sold drugs to police informants and pleaded guilty to dealing drugs. He was given a slap on the wrist with mere probation instead of a prison sentence.

Denny Ross (source)

Declaration of mistrial

The police visited Denny Ross in his apartment, wearing an arm cast which he claimed to have broken his arm in a fight. He also admitted to meeting a distraught Hannah in his apartment in the night she disappeared and that they had ‘kissed and stuff.’ He then said that she left his apartment around 1.30 am, sober. Her autopsy revealed that she was intoxicated at the time of her death. Seven hours later, police returned with a search warrant, and they found a garbage bag outside his window; inside were Hannah’s socks, underwear, and purse.

Denny Ross was charged with beating, raping, and strangling Hannah Hill in June 1999. At the trial, judge Jane Bond declared a mistrial because a juror told other jurors about evidence that was excluded from the trial.

A new judge then barred a retrial on double jeopardy grounds. However, in 2008, a federal appeals court reversed his decision and, in 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the reversal, allowing the state to retry Ross.

While he was appealing the retrial of Hannah Hill’s case and was out on bond in connection to Hannah’s case, Denny Ross was sentenced to 25 years in prison for beating and raping another woman in October 2004. He was convicted of attempted murder, rape, kidnapping, and felony assault of Jennifer Tittle, 32, who he raped at knife-point.

At the retrial, the jury did not hear about the conviction of Jennifer Tittle’s rape, but they have listened to her testimony of how she fought back while he was threatening her kids and how she played dead and heard him say, “Oh, f***, she’s dead. Not again.” Jennifer was beaten and strangled before being raped, just as it happened to Hannah. Only this time, Jennifer survived and lived to tell the tale.

In 2012, 13 years after the murder, Denny was found guilty of murder and other charges. He was sentenced to a life in prison to serve a minimum of 19 years.