An arrest at a football game that looked as though it might turn into a legal challenge to COVID mask mandates – but finally fizzled out. A large pack of German Shepherds that were seized as part of an animal cruelty case, and then all found homes with caring people in the local community. A citizen uprising on a Logan street that convinced city officials to drop their plans for paving it. A gruesome murder case that put a father and his daughter on trial.
These are a few of the top local stories that The Logan Daily News reported on during the year that just came to an end. Join us now as we look back on some of the biggest local news of 2021.
Mask case starts with a bang, ends with a whimper
Alecia Kitts is from Marietta, but her name became almost a household word in Hocking County when she was arrested here in September 2020, after she violated school district policy by failing to mask up at a school football game. Her case whipped up a bit of fervor nationwide after a video got posted on social media, which showed the arresting Logan Police officer tasing Kitts, cuffing her and walking her out of the stadium.
Initially it looked as though Kitts’ trial for trespassing and resisting arrest might become some sort of test case on the constitutionality of requiring people to wear masks at public events. The Columbus-based 1851 Constitutional Law Center loudly took up her defense, indicating that they intended to challenge the legality of her arrest and the district’s mask policy.
After some rulings by the judge hearing the case in Hocking County Municipal Court made this approach less viable, however, 1851 Center Director Maurice Thompson announced he was withdrawing as Kitts’ attorney. Facing the prospect of a garden-variety misdemeanor trial with no wider constitutional implications, a tearful Kitts put an end to the drama a year after she was arrested, by pleading no contest to the charges against her and paying a fine. She vowed to “never be back in this town, ever.”
You’ve heard of 101 Dalmatians?
Starting in February of 2021, Hocking County began hearing the story of 42 German shepherds. When the Hocking County Sheriff’s Office, accompanied by the Hocking County Humane Society raided a Laurelville home in late January, officers found the animals – as well as assorted pigeons, cows and chickens – living in decidedly unpleasant conditions (one chicken was reportedly frozen to the ground while still alive). The couple who occupied the residence were charged with cruelty to companion animals, and the dogs were seized.
An influx of 42 dogs all at once threatened to overwhelm the space and resources of the humane society and the county dog shelter. The Logan Daily News pitched in by sponsoring a drive to collect food and other dog needs, and encouraging area residents to adopt the canines.
The related criminal case was moving along, meanwhile, with eventual implications for the dogs. In August the couple who had owned them saw the charges against them dropped; at the same hearing the judge in the case ruled that the animals should be forfeited to the humane society.
The story has a happy ending, as all the shepherds ended up in new forever homes.
Paver, spare that brick!
In September Logan city officials were getting ready to pave Orchard Street, a dead-end city street that’s made of historic bricks. After citizens learned of the plans, however, they raised a vigorous protest against paving over what one Orchard Street resident called “a clay landmark of what once was.”
Faced with a groundswell of public opposition, city officials announced first that they would postpone the paving. Before the month was out, however, and following a morning meeting of the city’s streets & alleys committee that was attended by about a dozen people, they had told The Logan Daily News that the plan to pave had been abandoned.
In another reflection of the unreasoning fondness many people in these parts seem to feel for old bricks, the Logan Daily News in November published an in-depth look at brick collectors throughout southeast Ohio.
Murder and deception in Benton Township
Many months of coverage were devoted to the criminal cases of Michael Dixon and his daughter Melody Sue Dixon, who were both charged in connection with the July 2020 slaying of James T. Whitaker, a man who had allowed the Dixons to stay in his cabin rent-free.
Michael Dixon, who ultimately was convicted of having fatally shot Whitaker and dismembered and burned his body, told police investigators different stories at different times about what happened. His final version of events, given in testimony at his trial, was that he had shot Whitaker to defend himself and his daughter, after Whitaker held a shotgun on him and threatened his life.
After Dixon was convicted, Melody Sue, who was accused of having helped her father try to cover up the murder, took a plea bargain. She pled guilty to three counts of evidence tampering and two counts of obstructing justice, and a special prosecutor agreed to drop four counts of evidence tampering, and one count each of gross abuse of a corpse and engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity.
Both Dixons are now serving prison terms; both are appealing the outcomes of their court cases to Ohio’s Fourth District Court of Appeals, so this story isn’t over yet.
The sad fate of a lonely bear
One story whose level of reader interest came as a surprise was that of a young male black bear, whose body was found in June on the median of U.S. Rt. 33 near the state Route 328 exit ramp. A spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources told The Logan Daily News that the 135-lb. animal was a male around two years old, and had probably been on a quest to find a mate when it was hit by a passing vehicle.
A brief story recounting these facts had attracted more than 6,000 reader views online within a few days of its publication.
Sheriff stays cool under fire
One story that created something of a stir locally was a public attack on Hocking County Sheriff Lanny North, by an Athens, Ohio-based citizen watchdog group. In March Athens County Copwatch called on North to resign, citing Facebook postings by the sheriff’s wife, Kathy North, that reportedly contained incitements to insurrectionist violence, suggestions that those to her political left are servants of the devil, and endorsements of “white pride.”
Group spokesperson Damon Krane told The Logan Daily News that the Facebook posts, mostly dating from 2019 and later, suggested that the sheriff shares his wife’s disturbing views, and that Kathy North has some influence over policy in her husband’s office.
The sheriff responded that he didn’t look at his wife’s Facebook page; that he supported her right to free speech; that she had no influence over his office’s personnel decisions or other policies; and that he had no intention of stepping down.
The curious case of the 8-year-old burglary
One of the odder cases to pass through Hocking County Common Pleas Court in 2021 was that of Gerald Dean Stevens, a former Benton Township trustee who was indicted in 2019 for allegedly having organized a “crew” of criminals to break into and rob his cousin’s home six years earlier.
One of the pieces of evidence that a special prosecutor presented as part of the case against Stevens was a recording obtained surreptitiously, by one of his alleged crew members who met with Stevens while wearing a hidden microphone. While Stevens at no point in the conversation admits to having a part in the burglary, the prosecutor made much of the fact that neither does Stevens deny it.
A jury found Stevens guilty of one count of burglary, one count of complicity to burglary, and one count of grand theft, but acquitted him of aggravated burglary and evidence tampering.
Stevens has begun serving a 6-1/2 year prison term, but is appealing his verdict. He has also hired a private investigator, who claims to have found new evidence suggesting that Stevens was framed.
Capital child murder case generates huge defense effort
The case of Destani Neel, who is charged with having murdered her boyfriend’s 2-year-old daughter in January, has provided an object lesson in the impact of Ohio’s death penalty on the workings of the judicial system.
The father, Austin Starkey, took a plea bargain in his criminal case, and has been sent to prison for 10-15 years. Neel, however, who is facing a possible death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder with a victim age specification, looks to be in the courts for many more months to come.
Her attorneys, under obligation to exhaust every possible stratagem in her defense because her life is at stake, have to date filed some 50 defense motions on her behalf, and have obtained public funding to hire experts including an expert on brain trauma, to help them prepare her defense.
Cruisers from Elon Musk
The city of Logan got some media attention not just locally, but in Columbus as well, after it announced that its new police cruisers would be Teslas. The clean electric-powered cars, it is hoped, will save the city money on maintenance and fuel costs. Logan is the first southeast Ohio city to get them.
Lawsuit claims city police violated local man’s civil rights
A local criminal case from 2018 generated a federal civil rights lawsuit against current and former Logan Police officers in late 2020, which continued to move forward throughout 2021, and is still awaiting rial as the new year begins.
Andrew M. Smigelski of Sugar Grove alleges in his legal complaint, filed in U.S. District Court, that he was subjected to unlawful search and seizure and excessive force when he was arrested, charged and jailed in connection with a dispute he had with his neighbors.
Smigelski, who is pursuing the litigation in forma pauperis – meaning he doesn’t have to pay its costs – has seen his original suit considerably pared down in size and scope due to decisions by the federal court. The defendants, three current Logan Police officers and one former officer, are being sued as private individuals, not in their official capacity as police officers.