Man convicted of 1990s murders of 2 women in Ohio
A man has been convicted of the strangulation murders of two women in Ohio in the 1990s after authorities said DNA evidence linked him to the cold-case crimes.
Jurors in Franklin County convicted Robert Edwards of the 1991 murder of Alma Renee Lake and the 1996 rape and murder of Michelle Dawson Pass in 1996, both in the Columbus area. He faces a mandatory life term when he is sentenced Aug. 9.
Prosecutors were unable to link the deaths until 2003 using DNA evidence, and the identification of a suspect remained undetermined until DNA from a relative became available and the state attorney general's office notified county prosecutors in 2021 that Edwards might be a suspect, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Jurors on Friday convicted Edwards, 68, of murder in the case of Lake, 30, and of aggravated murder, murder and rape in the case of 36-year-old Dawson-Pass. He was acquitted of aggravated murder in Lake's case. Prosecutors contended that the defendant also raped Lake but did not charge him with that crime because of a 30-year statute of limitations.
Defense attorneys argued that the DNA evidence cited by prosecutors and their arguments that he had sex with both women and their bodies were found near where he lived in each case were not enough to prove that he killed the victims.
Vincent Watkins of the county public defender's office said in closing arguments Thursday that he could have had sex with the victims days before they died. The prosecution's "entire case is what are the odds" this was a coincidence, Watkins said.
Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor David Zeyen called it "so inconceivable, so astronomically unlikely for this to happen once to (Edwards) and then happen again to (Edwards)."
Edwards did not testify, but in an August 2022 phone call played by prosecutors, jurors heard him accusing authorities of framing him and planting his DNA.
Regina Dawson, of Rochester, New York, told the newspaper that her mother, Michelle, was a loving person who was family-oriented and spiritual, and who loved to dance and braid hair. She said it was difficult for her to sit through the trial and see photographs of her mother's body.
"Now I feel like I can breathe," Dawson said. "I can walk down the street and not wonder, 'Am I walking past the person who killed her?'"