A man who had spent over 25 years on death row for the robbery and murder of a woman in an Ohio hotel has seen the charges against him dismissed by prosecutors as of Friday.
Elwood Jones gained his freedom shortly after a judge granted him a new trial in December 2022. This decision came after it was revealed that prosecutors had failed to disclose significant evidence to his defense team many years prior.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich announced the dismissal following a thorough review spanning several months, which involved examining both evidence and court documents related to the case.
“This was not a decision made lightly,” Pillich expressed in a statement. “However, after a careful evaluation of the evidence, I am not persuaded that Mr. Jones is responsible for the death of Rhoda Nathan.”
Jones had been convicted of aggravated murder, robbery, and burglary in connection with the 1994 killing of 67-year-old Rhoda Nathan from Toms River, New Jersey, at a hotel in Blue Ash, a suburb of Cincinnati.
Previously, under the leadership of former Prosecutor Melissa Powers, the prosecutor’s office had contested the judge’s ruling, and legal proceedings were still ongoing in the courts at that time.
Just last week, the Ohio Supreme Court had found the appellate court erred in blocking the challenge and returned it to the lower court for reconsideration. Supreme Court Justice Joe Deters, the former Hamilton County prosecutor who secured the original conviction against Jones, recused himself from that decision.
But Pillich said going forward with a new trial without evidence, witnesses or up-to-date science “would be futile.”
Among issues addressed by her review were: the lack of physical or forensic evidence directly linking Jones to the murder; a lack of sufficient follow-up on multiple witness statements pointing to alternative suspects; and failure to provide Jones’ defense with a large volume of investigatory material before trial. Modern-day medical testing has also excluded Jones as a suspect.
Police had said that Nathan, a grandmother in town over the Labor Day weekend to attend the bar mitzvah of her best friend’s grandson, was killed after she surprised a would-be robber in her room. Jones was an employee at the hotel and was on the job that day, police said.
A message seeking comment was left with Jones’ attorney. In court filings, his defense team argued that what the trial court portrayed as a “win-at-all-cost mentality” at the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office “stole over 28 years from Elwood Jones — an innocent man — and it very nearly cost him his life.”
Pillich said she is establishing a Conviction Integrity Unit to search and review claims of wrongful conviction and unjust sentencing using national best practices.
“Had such a unit existed years ago, this decision may have been reached much sooner,” she said.
Jones is the 12th death row inmate exonerated in Ohio and the second from Hamilton County, said Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, which seeks a repeal of the death penalty.
He said the public is fed up with wrongful convictions.
“We’re thinking of the Nathan family and we’re thinking of the Jones family, both who were irreparably harmed by Ohio’s death penalty system,” he said in a statement.
