The court documents offered the first glimpse into the “diabolical” plan Gmoser says French hatched that ended with Howe being brutally murdered and stuffed into the truck of her red Cadillac. Gmoser said French has admitted to killing Howe and using “three modalities to incapacitate her and take her life.”
French, a 56-year-old former Middletown resident who worked at Mount Pleasant from 2003-2011, was arraigned Tuesday afternoon in Butler County Common Pleas Judge Jennifer McElfresh’s courtroom. The judge set French’s bond at $5 million and his next court date for Thursday at 9 a.m.
French, who was dressed in a lime green jail outfit (signifying that he is on suicide watch), told the judge that he could not afford legal representation. McElfresh appointed Melynda Cook and Lawrence Hawkins III as his attorneys. Cook subsequently entered a plea of not guilty on French’s behalf.
Howe’s daughter, Donna Wesselman, and son-in-law were both in the courtroom for the hearing.
French faces charges of aggravated murder with death penalty specifications, aggravated burglary and robbery, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. If convicted of killing Howe, he could face the death penalty.
French was extradited from Kentucky on Monday after appearing in Rockcastle County Kentucky District Court. When police arrived Wednesday at his home just outside of Berea to arrest him, detectives found French asleep in his bedroom with a gun and a suicide note close by, according to his sister Wanda Allen.
Allen, who spoke exclusively with this news outlet Monday at her home on Flat Gap Road, said police have visited her home numerous times over the past two years to question French and other family members. She said she and other family members were called to testify last week before a Butler County grand jury.
Gmoser confirmed Monday with this newspaper that the grand jury heard evidence in the Howe case for about three months. He said it was under police questioning that French admitted to the crime.
“There were many evidentiary issues that were developed like a Polaroid camera in that grand jury,” he said.
Gmoser filed the motions detailing French’s confession and motive Tuesday in order to take a deposition of a material witness in the case who received one of the fake phone calls he placed.
“Approximately one half hour after the deponent was called … the decedent Barbara Howe, also a resident of said facility, received a call listed as coming from the in-house phone system. (Howe) did not did not survive to explain said call, but the examination of her home shortly after Oct. 28, 2012, revealed that her alert system was placed on the ‘away’ mode contrary to her habit when she was at home,” the court document states.
The document says, “French has confessed to the murder of the said decedent and states the decedent was one of three calls made with the ruse of a defective alert system for the purpose of gaining entry in the commission of robbery.”
Gmoser said in court this morning that French used “three modalities to incapacitate her and take her (Howe’s) life.” He declined to comment further. Howe’s cause of death has not been released by the investigators, the prosecutor or the county coroner’s office.
Allen, 60, said her younger brother has been living with her for the past three years and she “will always believe they have the wrong man” when it comes to Howe’s death. She described him as a “very loving and kind person” who loved to collect movies and books and shop at flea markets.
But Gmoser has used very different words to describe French and his alleged actions such as “diabolical,” “brutality,” and “horrific.”
“The shear brutality and diabolical nature of this case really is unparalleled in the history of this county,” Gmoser has said. “In my 40-some years of being an attorney here, I’ve never seen anything as horrific as this, in the planning and the diabolical nature. It really is an unusual case.”
Howe, who lived alone in a cottage on Paxton Circle in Mount Pleasant, went missing after she had dinner with a friend and sent a funny political email. Her car was found by Middletown police at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 1, 2012, in the parking lot of Woodridge Park East Apartments on Woodridge Drive, near Roosevelt Avenue, just 5.2 miles from her home.
Part of Thursday’s court hearing will be to determine if there are any objections to McElfresh presiding over the case. McElfresh was not involved in the investigation of French, but did work in the county prosecutor’s office at the time of the probe. Cook said she might also try to address bond for French again on Thursday.
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