March 4, 2004

Rittenhouse’s grand jury hearing
not scheduled yet

The Greene County prosecutor’s office has not set a date for a grand jury hearing for local resident Michael Rittenhouse, the county assistant prosecutor said on Monday.

Suzanne Schmidt, the first assistant prosecutor, said that a hearing would be held in the “near future,” but she declined to further speculate when prosecutors would ask the grand jury to indict Rittenhouse on charges that he killed Tim Lopez, his former Yellow Springs High School classmate.

Rittenhouse’s attorneys, John H. Rion and Jon Paul Rion, waived their clients’ right to a preliminary hearing in the case to give the defense and prosecutors more time to investigate the case. Jon Paul Rion said on Tuesday that the move allows for a “full investigation” to ensure that Rittenhouse is not charged with something he is not responsible for or that he is not “overcharged.”

Prosecutors now have until the end of April to bring the case to the grand jury. Xenia Municipal Court Judge Susan Goldie sealed the files related to the search warrant used last month to gain entry to Rittenhouse’s Allen Street home, which he shares with his mother and brother. Schmidt said that it is customary to seal such evidence.

Rittenhouse, whose is 20, was arraigned last month in Xenia Municipal Court on charges of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. He is being held without bond in the Greene County jail. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

A 2002 graduate of YSHS, Rittenhouse turned himself in to Yellow Springs police on Feb. 19 after the Greene County sheriff’s office issued a warrant for his arrest earlier that day.

The day before, sheriff deputies and other law enforcement officials searched Rittenhouse’s home for Lopez’s remains.

After Rittenhouse was arrested, law enforcement officials returned the next night and in the early morning of Feb. 20 unearthed Lopez’s body in the backyard.

Investigators collected 16 pieces of evidence from Rittenhouse’s home during the initial search. Schmidt said that the Miami Valley Crime Lab is still analyzing the evidence. Schmidt and Major Eric Prindle of the sheriff’s department declined to discuss the nature of the evidence.

The Greene County coroner’s office determined that Lopez died from a blunt force trauma to the head.

Lopez was an 18-year-old senior at YSHS when he disappeared on Jan. 22, 2002. His car was found later that day near Grinnell Mill in the South Glen. Investigators searched for Lopez in the Glen, John Bryan State Park and Clifton Gorge for several days.

Citing an unnamed law enforcement source, the Dayton Daily News on Feb. 27 reported details on how Lopez was allegedly killed and reported the source said that “robbery of cash was the motive.”

Prindle would neither confirm nor deny the report, though he said that he was “disheartened” by the leak. Prindle and Schmidt also refused to comment on a motive. Both said that the investigation into Lopez’s murder is continuing.

“The investigating officers are looking into each and every lead and certainly nothing has been ruled out,” Schmidt said.

Prindle said that the sheriff’s office still wants to talk to some people about “what they may have heard or seen.”

He said that investigators are “not suspecting others were involved” in Lopez’s death, though he added that the department is “still keeping things open.”

Rion refuted the anonymous source’s allegations in the Daily News article.

“I think it’s improper for there to be a release of facts such as what was released in the paper by this faceless source,” Rion said. “It’s playing on rumors and it’s playing on inaccurate information.”

The same day that the article was published in the Daily News, Rittenhouse’s parents, William Rittenhouse and Gilah Pomeranz, appeared in an interview on WHIO channel 7 in which they said their son was incapable of committing murder. Rion said that Rittenhouse and Pomeranz went on the newscast to say that people should look at this case from both perspectives.

“There are many complex issues in this case and the majority of the facts are yet to be known and to see an article that attempts to polarize or state one position when the facts are not known is improper,” Rion said.

—Robert Mihalek