The quiet, rolling hills of rural southern Ohio, a landscape known for its coal mines, farms, and a way of life where doors are left unlocked and violent crime is a distant rumor, became the hunting grounds for a predator unlike any the region had ever known. For three years, from the spring of 1989 through the summer of 1992, a phantom stalked the backroads, armed with a high-powered rifle, selecting his victims not for money, not for revenge, but for the sheer, chilling compulsion to đđžđđ. He was a sniper, a serial killer who turned the peaceful countryside into a killing field, leaving behind a trail of grief, terror, and a community that would never feel safe again.
The case, which would eventually involve multiple county sheriffâs departments, the Ohio Division of Wildlife, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, remains one of the most disturbing and methodical serial murder sprees in American history, a stark reminder that evil can lurk in the most unexpected of places.
The first shot rang out on April 1, 1989, a date that would forever be marked by tragedy rather than jest. Donald Welling, a 35-year-old man who enjoyed the simple pleasure of a Saturday morning jog, was running along the back roads of Tuscarawas County when a single rifle bullet ripped through his heart, killing him instantly. There was no warning, no confrontation, no motive.
Local authorities were baffled. They found no evidence, no witnesses, and no reason why anyone would want to harm the quiet outdoorsman. The rifle used in the murder was never found, and the case quickly grew cold, a puzzling anomaly in a region where violent death was almost unheard of.
For 19 long months, the killer vanished into the shadows, leaving the community to wonder if the Welling murder was a terrible, isolated incident. But on November 10, 1990, the nightmare resumed. Jamie Paxton, a 21-year-old bowhunter from Barnesville, Ohio, rose early on a Saturday morning, leaving his crossbow in his car to take a walk through the tall grass off State Route 9.
He was alone and unarmed. A red pickup truck stopped a short distance away. The gunman was quiet and careful.
Jamie Paxton was shot three times by a high-powered rifle. There were no witnesses. The killing horrified the quiet community of Belmont County, a place where murder was considered a problem for big cities, not for their own backyards.
Belmont County Sheriff Tom McCourt knew immediately that this was no hunting accident. The presence of multiple wounds, the fact that gun season was not yet open, and the absence of an arrow all pointed to a cold-blooded homicide. Yet, despite a thorough search of the area for spent cartridge cases, tire tracks, and projectiles, investigators found nothing.
The gunman had left no clues. Interviews with Paxtonâs family, friends, and acquaintances revealed no motive. Everyone knew Jamie Paxton, and no one had a bad word to say about him.
The sheriff was faced with an apparently random, seemingly unsolvable murder with no physical evidence, no witnesses, and not even a plausible theory about what had happened.
In the wake of her sonâs death, Jean Paxton was consumed by a grief that she channeled into action. She began composing letters to the local newspaper, the Martins Ferry Times Leader, designed to draw out the killer. Her words were a mix of stern warning and passionate plea.
âTo the murderer of my son Jamie,â she wrote, âwould it be easier for you if I wrote words of hate? I canât because I donât feel hate. I feel deep sorrow.
But losing my son, you took a light from my life last November and left me with many days of darkness. Have you thought of your own death? Itâll happen unless you confess your sin and ask for Godâs forgiveness.
You will face the fire and fury of Hell at your own death.â If the killer was reading her letters, he seemed unaffected.
Just 18 days after Paxtonâs murder, on November 28, 1990, the killer struck again. Kevin Loring, a 30-year-old man on a hunting trip in Muskingum County, some 40 miles from where Jamie Paxton was killed, decided to get a head start while his friends finished lunch. Walking across a field in search of game, Loring himself became the prey.
He was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head. The killer had taken care to commit his murders in different counties, a calculated strategy to slow any investigation that would have to span hundreds of rural miles. As a result, investigators in Muskingum County, unaware of the other sniper victims, initially decided that Loringâs death was probably a hunting accident.
Jean Paxton never gave up. She kept writing throughout 1991, determined to draw out Jamieâs killer. âI always felt if I could get my letters into the hands of the person that killed my son, I felt that I could get a response from them,â she later said.
She turned out to be right. A typewritten letter arrived at the Martins Ferry Times Leader a few days before the one-year anniversary of Jamieâs death. It began with a chilling confession: âI am the murderer of Jamie Paxton.â
The letter described the murder in graphic detail, revealing a cold and calculating mind. âJamie Paxton was a complete stranger to me,â it read. âI never saw him before in my life and he never said a word to me.
That Saturday Paxton was killed because of an irresistible compulsion that has taken over my life. I knew when I left my house that day that someone would die by my hand. I just didnât know who or where.
Iâm an average looking person with a family, a job, and a home just like yourself. Something in my head causes me to turn into a merciless killer with no conscience.â
The letter continued with a terrifying account of the murder itself. âI was very drunk and a voice in my head said do it. I stopped my car behind Jamieâs and got out.
Jamie started walking very slowly down the hill toward the road. I raised my rifle to my shoulder and lined him up in the sights. I took at least five seconds to take careful aim.
My first shot was off a little bit and hit him in the right chest. He groaned and went down. I wanted to make sure he was finished so I fired a second shot aimed halfway between his hip and shoulder while he was prone on the ground.
I jerked the shot and hit him in the knee. He never moved again. Five minutes after I shot Paxton, I was drinking a beer and blacked out all thoughts of what I had just done out of my mind.
I thought no more of shooting Paxton than shooting a bottle at the dump. I know you hate my guts and rightfully so. I think about Jamie every hour of the day as Iâm sure you do.â
For Sheriff McCourt, the letter was a beginning, a piece of evidence that might lead to a murderer. But he needed more. The typewriter used to write the letter was a crucial clue, but investigators needed to find it.
While they searched, the killer continued his own hunting. On Saturday, March 14, 1992, Claude Hawkins, a 44-year-old steelworker who had just gotten off his midnight shift at the Pittsburgh Clayton Glass Company, went to a favorite fishing spot on the Wills Creek Dam. He had a wife and four children.
He was another outdoorsman, alone and vulnerable. The killer struck, and this time, the murder took place on federal property. The FBI stepped in, joining the hunt for the roadside sniper who had just claimed his latest victim.
Investigators from the three counties involved, along with the FBI and the Ohio Division of Wildlife, formed a multi-jurisdictional task force. It didnât take long for them to realize how few clues they had. In each case, the killer had no contact with the victim, no rifling of pockets, no robbery.
Shell casings had been carefully removed, and the victimsâ cars were untouched. Special Agent Harry Trimble of the FBIâs Columbus, Ohio field office recalled the frustration. âWhat we did know is that Mr.
Hawkins died from a gunshot, and usually you would find some type of a shell casing in the area. I remember looking very hard, with metal detectors and on hands and knees, for any shell casings in that area, and none were ever found. That was something that told us if in fact we had somebody who was evidence conscious enough to pick up the shell casing after they shot and killed somebody, we were dealing with a different brand of person here.â
The task force concluded that the death of Kevin Loring, initially ruled accidental, was actually a homicide. Reviewing the four murders, the investigative team saw plenty in common. The victims were all outdoorsmen, hunters, fishermen, or joggers, alone in a rural setting.
All were shot with a high-powered rifle. All but one of the murders occurred on a weekend. And the killer was careful enough to leave no evidence.
It was more clear than ever that a single individual was responsible. The task force was on the trail of a serial killer. As they began to mobilize, the killer struck again.
Ten days after the task force meeting, on April 5, 1992, 44-year-old steelworker Gary Bradley left his home in neighboring West Virginia to go pond fishing in Noble County. His wife and three children would never see him alive again. The task force had another murder.
The road sniper had to be stopped.
Desperate to learn more about the personality of the sniper, the task force asked the FBI to draw up a psychological profile of the serial killer. Such an outline would be invaluable in tracking him down. Major Dan Dyer of the Coshocton County Sheriffâs Office headed the task force.
âRight after we had initially made an assessment that maybe these things might be linked, the Columbus FBI office set up a meeting to have the Behavioral Science Unit come to Columbus, Ohio and actually sit down and talk with the investigators of these five counties of the homicides,â he said.
The FBIâs Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia, can accurately sketch personality profiles of individuals from sparse clues. Larry Ankrom, a member of the unit assigned to the road sniper case, studied all the available evidence: the investigative reports of the five murders and especially the letter that the killer had written to Jean Paxton. âI came back to Quantico and reviewed these cases more in detail and I came out with a former profile,â Ankrom said.
âWe were probably looking for a white male. Weâre looking for someone that was intelligent, someone who was an outdoorsman himself, someone that wouldnât look out of place in the woods, someone that was probably responding to some significant event in his life that was going wrong at that particular time. One of the things that was apparent was that it was a sniper type mentality here, that we were dealing with someone that didnât want confrontation, someone that was doing things from afar.
This is something that we see many times with our arsonists. We ought to be looking at some different types of activities that he might be involved in, such as nuisance types of shooting out windows, shooting out tires of cars, cruelty to animals, arson fires.â
Ankrom believed that the violence was triggered by stress and fueled by alcohol. The task force now had a psychological sketch of the roadside sniper, and they had his letter. FBI forensic scientists studied the letter intensely, finding distinguishing features in the typeface.
If they could find the typewriter it was written on, it would be easy to link the confessional letter to the owner and thus link the murder to the murderer. They had to hurry. The sniper was still out there.
On July 21, 1992, two hunters in a state park in Muskingum County came face-to-face with the killer. As they moved through the brush, one of them noticed something terrifying: a nearby figure with a gun pointed right at them. They called out to him, and the man scurried away to a red pickup truck.
It happened too quickly for the hunters to get a good look at the man or the vehicleâs tag numbers. Bewildered, they called local police, who alerted the task force.
Throughout 1992, desperate to catch a man still ready to đđžđđ, the task force investigated and cleared more than 100 suspects. By August 1992, after three years, the investigation had hit a dead end. The task force was badly in need of information and decided to go public.
They held a press conference and issued a press release detailing the FBI profile of the man they wanted, asking anyone with information to come forward. The FBI made a press release, and it was done at one time to mass media. âI mean, everybody was showing us this case, and the phone started ringing instantly,â one investigator recalled.
One of those calls, received at Task Force Headquarters on August 26, 1992, sparked a lead. The man on the phone was named Richard Frye. He said he thought the task force should know about a high school friend of his named Thomas Dillon.
Investigators had a name and someone willing to talk. A task force member arranged to meet Richard Frye at a rest stop on Route 77. Frye talked about his old friend Tom Dillon.
They used to drive around rural Ohio shooting at road signs and small animals. But Frye eventually found Dillon too eccentric and violent for his taste. Obsessed with serial killers like Ted Bundy, Dillon had taken to killing family pets and cattle and setting random fires.
Frye got married and for most of the 1980s forgot about his strange friend. But in 1989, Frye ran into Thomas Dillon at a gun show in Cleveland. Tom Dillon invited him to ride along with him again, just like in the old days.
Old friendships die hard, and Richard Frye again found himself driving the back roads of rural Ohio, drinking beer and shooting road signs. But Dillon had deteriorated. Frye discovered that Dillon asked whether Frye thought Dillon had ever killed anyone.
âYou known each other for a long time, 20-some years I guess, yeah. Do you think I could ever đđžđđ anybody? Tamo, you know like you said, we go way back,â Frye recalled.
Dillon discussed how to get away with random killings, including the tactic of killing in different counties to thwart investigators. âConnected and being at random, theyâd have no clues whatsoever, not average to your average guy,â Frye said. When he read the press release, he immediately thought of Tom Dillon.
He gave a description of Dillon, including the vehicle he drove: a red pickup truck, just like the one spotted by the hunters.
Lieutenant Walt Wilson of the Tuscarawas County Sheriffâs Office was a task force member. His job was to follow up on leads and tips, which were coming much more frequently as press coverage of the case increased. He decided Tom Dillon fit the FBI profile and needed to be investigated.
âI began to follow up on the information that Mr. Frye had given us,â Wilson said. âI went to Tom Dillonâs workplace in the City of Canton.â
Dillon had been employed for a dozen years as a draftsman at the Canton, Ohio, plant. Wilson obtained Thomas Dillonâs work schedule to compare Dillonâs days off with the dates and times of the murders. The purpose was to eliminate Dillon as a suspect, but he couldnât.
He found that Dillon didnât work weekends, when most of the incidents occurred. However, two weekdays Dillon took off work caught Wilsonâs attention: July 21, 1992, the day the hunters saw a man point a rifle at them, and November 28, 1990, the day Kevin Loring was killed. If Dillon was the one, he was a prime suspect.
As the other members of the task force followed up on hundreds of tips, Detective Wilson began surveillance on Thomas Dillon. Maybe Dillon would return to a crime scene or lead investigators to more clues. The surveillance began in October 1992.
Detective Wilson followed Tom Dillon on his weekend excursions, driving the back roads of southern Ohio. âTypically a day would start around 7:00 in the morning on Tomâs days off, the weekends usually, and he would leave his home and sometimes he would stop at a convenience store and buy some beer and then he would go south of his home into other counties, just driving all the back remote roadways,â Wilson said.
On October 10, 1992, while tailing Dillon, Wilson briefly lost track of the suspectâs vehicle. As Wilson crept around a corner, he came face-to-face with Thomas Dillon. His cover possibly blown, his case in jeopardy, Wilson had to think fast.
âI waved at him and he waved at me and we kept on going,â Wilson said. âHe stopped at the end of the drive to see if I was going to stay there or not.â Wilson couldnât risk being identified.
He let Dillon drive away. âMy big concern was I hope he doesnât stop and ask me what Iâm doing on that property, because I had all of my gear laying in the car with me and I didnât want him to see my radios and my gear that I had with me.â
A few days later, Larry Oller of Barnhill, Ohio, was hunting about 150 yards off a road in Tuscarawas County. He heard a car stop. Through the trees, he saw a stocky white male.
The man lifted a rifle. Oller was unhurt and watched in terror as the truck sped away. Although Ollerâs description of his assailant resembled Dillon, he was unable to make a positive identification.
The task force realized that Thomas Dillon was their most likely suspect. Surveillance of him would have to be beefed up. Throughout October and November of 1992, the FBI coordinated a massive air and ground surveillance.
Dillon was observed shooting road signs and busting car windows with rocks, exactly the sort of petty vandalism outlined in the FBI profile. But if they arrested Dillon for vandalism, they might never gather enough evidence to arrest him for the murders.
It is difficult to tail someone on an empty rural road in broad daylight. The stakes were high. If Dillon tried another shooting, the FBI werenât in the right spot, they could have another murder.
If they crowded Dillon too much, they might be found out, and Dillon would slip into hiding. The ground surveillance had to be well off of Dillon. Agent Titus and Kevin Streelman relied on the air surveillance as their eyes and ears.
They would move in when something happened. One day, the surveillance team faced its worst fear. From Vytas and Shryock were far behind Dillon when the air surveillance called out an alert.
Up ahead of Dillon on the way was the classic profile of a road sniper victim: a jogger, female, alone in a rural setting. If Thomas Dillon were indeed the gunman, this jogger may be irresistible. From Vytas and Shryock got nervous, hoping for the best.
They sped forward. Dillon continued to ride toward the jogger, driving at top speed. From Vytas and Shryock frantically called to the agents in the plane.
âWhere is he? Is he stopping?â The airplane reported back that Dillon is approaching her.
There is no one nearby. The agentsâ car sped forward. They waited for a call from the air.
Dillon is pulling up alongside the jogger. The agents held their breath. He passed without incident.
The feeling of relief lasted only moments. The airplane radioed that Dillon had taken a right turn into a smaller road. The aerial unit stayed on him, instructing from Vitus and Shryock where to turn.
Then a second right turn. Could he be circling back? They called to the airplane, âIs the jogger still there?â
Dillon continued to make right turns until he was back on the road the jogger had been on. His U-turn justified the agentsâ fear: he was going back for him. âWhere is the jogger?â
from Vytas yelled into his radio. âCannot see the jogger,â came the reply. But the agents knew she had to be somewhere ahead of Dillon.
If he came upon her again, they were sure he would đđžđđ her. The air unit called in that Dillon had stopped his truck and had gotten out. He had something shiny in his hands.
Would he đđžđđ her right under their noses? The jogger couldnât be seen from the air, but that didnât mean she wasnât there. The agents in the car heard shots and feared that Dillon had struck again while under their surveillance.
But the airplane radioed that Dillon was shooting a stop sign. He had turned off the road. She was safe, unaware of her close encounter with Thomas Dillon.
The cat and mouse game with Thomas Dillon began to wear on the task force members. âA lot of pressure,â one agent recalled. âI mean, youâre wondering whether this guy today is going to go out and đđžđđ somebody and youâre not able to stop it.
And you know that heâs probably the one that is responsible for killing other people. Youâre working 14, 16 hours a day. Youâre living out of a car and youâre drinking coffee like policemen do, and you arenât eating right, and the stress is just tremendous.â
But the net continued to tighten around the suspect. The murderer in his letter to the newspaper had admitted being bothered by the Paxton murder and visiting his grave. Investigators returned to video footage of Jamie Paxtonâs grave, recorded on November 10, 1991, the first anniversary of Jamieâs murder.
Many people paid their respects that day, but curiosity rather than respect was the agenda of one visitor. Photographs captured Thomas Dillon. Investigators immediately recognized the man they had been tailing.
Surely he was the sniper. But to earn a conviction, they needed direct incriminating evidence.
After the second anniversary of Jamie Paxtonâs death in 1992, surveillance observed Dillon entering a Times Leader building. He bought a copy of the previous dayâs paper, full of the details of the Paxton memorial service. The FBI had good circumstantial evidence on Thomas Dillon, but they still lacked physical evidence: a bullet, a gun, or a typewriter to link him with just one of the victims.
Hunting season was fast approaching. Dillon was still out roaming the rural roads, drunk, armed, and deadly. The communities of southern Ohio had been terrorized for three years.
The people feared going outside but tried to live normal lives. Dillon had to be taken off the streets.
The task force knew Dillon had been in trouble in the past for illegally owning a silencer and was forbidden to possess firearms, a stipulation he clearly violated during his vandalism sprees. The task force had little choice. Before he could đđžđđ again, they would arrest Thomas Dillon.
But the plan wasnât just to arrest him on a weapons violation; it was to convince him he was caught red-handed and get him to confess to murder. Lacking ballistic evidence and holding only a relatively minor weapons charge on Dillon, the FBI badly needed to elicit a confession. From Vytas had a plan.
âSince we knew what his routine was through the surveillances, in that where he left his residence and he would go to this Dairy Mart every day before he left and went on his 300, 400 mile drives, we would try to make the approach at the Dairy Mart. What we had was an office building right across from the Dairy Mart where we occupied, we took over the basement of that building. Detective Wilson and I did was we went down into the basement where we were going to conduct the interview and we put up along the walls of the whole room maps of the areas that he drove in, crime scene photographs, infant newspaper articles.
We wanted to make that setting just irresistible to him. Then weâre just laying this out in front of him and see what kind of reaction we get from him. It would be overwhelming and it would put him in the best frame of mind for us to be able to sit down and interview him and get a confession.â
On November 27, 1992, the plan went into effect. Their entire case so far rested on getting a confession. The idea was for when he came out of the Dairy Mart, we approach him, identify ourselves, and basically requested that he follow us voluntarily over to this room where we wanted to share some information with him and show him some things that we knew that would interest him.
If Dillon refused, from Vytas would raise his right hand to signal ATF agents who were responsible for making arrests in weapons cases to cuff Dillon. âI can just remember his reaction,â from Vytas said. âI mean, his jaw just for about five seconds, and then he composed himself and he said, âI want to talk to my attorney first.ââ
That was the cue. From Vytas gave the signal, and the ATF agent stepped in and arrested Thomas Dillon. Dillon didnât realize it, but it was a bitter defeat for the FBI.
Some thought heâd blown it. Despite all the evidence gathered, despite his certainty that they had the road sniper, he feared that he would see a five-time killer quickly released on the minor weapons charge.
At the very time of Dillonâs arrest, other task force members were executing a search warrant on Dillonâs house. Finally, the FBI felt they would come away with physical evidence desperately needed to link him once and for all to the murders. But they didnât.
To their surprise, the search turned up nothing more incriminating than some area maps marked with arson and vandalism sites. Dillon was refusing to talk. They were holding him, but there was nothing they could do.
âIt was pretty much over when he said he wanted to talk to his attorney,â from Vytas recalled. âSo we went back to the restaurant and weâre gonna have a cup of coffee, and all of a sudden we got the word that he wanted to talk to us. So Walt and I jumped into our car and we made a beeline to Stark County Jail.â
From Vytas and Wilson confronted Dillon with one piece of evidence after another: photographs, videotapes, newspaper clippings showing his link to the murders. âI would pull out one piece at a time and show him, and just as we had suspected, he just was keenly interested in the information that we had, the surveillance pictures, the crime-scene photos, you know, just the animal, the shots of the animals that we had along the roadways. And you could just see that he was just fascinated by that.â
Fascinated, but not talkative. Dillon said it would serve no purpose to admit anything. Another dead end for the FBI.
Dillonâs attorney was arguing that he should be spared jail time on the weapons charge. Unless something turned up on him very quickly, Thomas Dillon would have to be released.
The task force was mounting the park, desperate for physical evidence. They held another press conference, appealing to the public for any information about the guns they may have bought or sold from Thomas Dillon. Meanwhile, a task force member, Jerry Wade of the Ohio Division of Wildlife, was following up on a tip.
A witness steered Wade to a spot where heâd seen Thomas Dillon firing his rifle a couple of years back. Wade hoped that would lead him to some ballistic evidence to link Dillon to one of the killings. âThis individual brought it to our attention that heâd seen Thomas Lee Dillon shoot this deer with a rifle,â Wade said.
âThought the rifle might be one of them that was used. And if we could locate some physical evidence, the shell casings per se, and if we could get those and match them to the murder weapon, we could put that rifle in Thomas Lee Dillonâs hand prior to the murders, which would really give us a lot stronger case far as him possessing the rifle prior to the murders.â
The chances of finding the small shells in such a wide area were slim, and it had been two years since the rifle had been fired. Determined, Wade patiently combed inch by inch through a grassy field where the anonymous witness said he saw Dillon shoot the deer. Beginning at the tree described by the witness, Wade searched the area in a circular pattern by hand and with a metal detector, carefully marking off the territory.
Miraculously, Wade hit the jackpot. He found two rifle shell casings, later identified as coming from the same gun that killed Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins. Finally, a physical link to the murders.
âI felt like celebrating,â Wade said. âIt was just unbelievable that I found them, because after the time and the length of time that had been since the shooting and the incident, and the individual wasnât sure the location of the tree exactly. The scene had changed since he had been there.
They had done removed a fence row and pushed out the area. So I felt very, very much fortunate to find them, and I felt like a celebration at the time. It was just like, you know, it was a gift handed to you.â
Meanwhile, the publicity from the press conference asking the public for help was about to bear fruit. On December 4, Captain Shryock was manning the phones at Task Force Headquarters. A man named Al Cokon on the phone said he bought a weapon from someone who may have been Thomas Dillon at a gun show the previous spring.
The date was April 5, the same day Gary Bradley was murdered. The rifle was sent to the FBI laboratory in Washington for ballistics testing. Special Agent Paul Shredder is a ballistics expert for the FBI.
âAs the bullet passes down the barrel of the weapon, that bullet by coming in direct contact with the interior of the barrel of the weapon picks up the microscopic imperfections, the microscopic features of that barrel, so that bullet is marked with the fingerprint of that barrel,â he explained. Fragments of bullets taken from the bodies of victims Claude Hawkins and Gary Bradley were examined at FBI labs. âA bullet fragment may still be of value for comparison, even though a bullet may fragment, may break up as a result of striking a victim, and maybe only fragments are ever recovered.
Those fragments are still marked. They still bear the impressions of the inside of the barrel of the weapon, and those fragments can still be used to make a positive association or an identification. When the weapon was submitted to our laboratory, the weapon was test-fired, and the test-fired bullets from this weapon were then compared to the bullet fragments taken from the victims.â
Al Cokonâs gun was test-fired, and the bullets examined for characteristics they may have in common with the bullet fragments taken from Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins. The conclusion was definitive: the gun sold to him by Thomas Dillon matched the gun used to đđžđđ both Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins. The FBI finally had the goods on Thomas Dillon.
Agents from Vitus visited Dillon in jail and confronted him with the evidence. He and his truck fit the descriptions of a few witnesses. He had been off work when each murder had occurred.
He had a history of random violence and gunplay. And the FBI could prove in court that a gun he once owned killed at least two of the victims. But after all, from Vytas knew Dillon was guilty of all five murders, and he wanted closure for the victimsâ families.
He offered Dillon a deal. From Vytas reminded Dillon that he faced Ohioâs electric chair. Dillon got nervous and began to negotiate.
âI canât believe you got that,â Dillon said.
Thomas Dillon met with the prosecutors in June of 1993. He agreed to admit to five killings if the death penalty were dropped as a possible sentence, with terms one each for each of the acts committed. On July 9, Dillon confessed to prosecutors in order to save his life.
On July 12, 1993, a smirking Thomas Dillon walked into the Noble County Courthouse to make his plea. âMr. Dillon, at this time how do you plea to count one in the indictment in case number 93 CR for involving the death of the aggravated murder charge involving the death of Gary Bradley?
How do you plead?â âGuilty.â With the families of the victims watching, Dillon confessed to the murder of Donald Welling, Kevin Loring, Claude Hawkins, Gary Bradley, and Jamie Paxton.
He was still smirking and unrepentant as he left court.
Dillonâs incredibly cavalier attitude was detailed by a local reporter whom Dillon repeatedly called from prison, marveling at his own violence, reveling in his celebrity, and laughing off the murders, except one. He would not discuss the murder of Jamie Paxton. âForget it, all right, just forget,â he said.
Jean Paxton, Jamieâs mother, was in court the day Dillon pleaded guilty. âI just want to talk to him about Jamie, the kind of person Jamie was,â she said. âJamie was everything Thomas Dillon could never be.
He is Dillon is a coward. He hid behind a gun and Jamie was Jamie was not that way.â Little did she know that on the evening news, he was watching, and it made him very angry that she had called him a pathetic coward.
âWe talked to him about remorse and how did you feel after these homicides,â an investigator recalled. âAnd the only one that he said that it really bothered him about was Jamie Paxton. He said, âI didnât realize the kid was so young.ââ
Jean Paxton had looked forward to confronting Dillon in court, but his guilty plea cost her that opportunity. She asked Sheriff McCourt to arrange a conversation. McCourt agreed.
That evening, Jean Paxtonâs phone rang. She found herself speaking with the murderer of her son. âWhen I picked up the phone that evening, it was just like somebody calling up to sell me something,â she said.
âHe said, âMrs. Paxton, this is Tom Dillon.â It was just almost more than I could comprehend.
The tone of his voice, the way he came across, still the arrogance was there.â Dillon told Jean Paxton that when she called him a coward, she had hurt his feelings. âI really donât think he expected to get what he got from me,â she said.
âI think that Thomas Dillon could have handled the crying, the screaming, the saying of calling names, the cursing. I think he could handle that. But I did not lower myself to that level.
I talked to him as a mother, and I really felt through this whole thing that is what God gave Thomas Dillon.â After three years, Jean Paxton felt vindicated. âI felt really good,â she said.
âI walked out on my front porch and I just felt like for the first time in three years that I was free. I was free of Thomas Dillon. I felt that I had defeated him by words, and I did it all for Jamie.â
Thomas Dillon made it clear he did not want to go to Lucasville Prison, the toughest in Ohio. So Jean Paxton saw to it with a petition drive that that was exactly where Dillon was sent. In August 1993, Jean Paxton won a 25 million dollar wrongful death judgment against any future money Dillon might make.
Dillonâs wife had been trying to sell a story to Hollywood. Paxton and State Senator Bob Nye passed the Paxton Law, barring killers or their relatives from profiting from the crime. Thomas Dillon remains in Lucasville Prison.
He is eligible for parole in 165 years. The terror that gripped rural Ohio for three years is over, but the scars remain. The quiet communities, where people once left their doors unlocked, will never forget the predator who hunted humans along their county roads.
The case of the road sniper stands as a chilling testament to the depths of human depravity and the relentless pursuit of justice that finally brought a madman to ground.
