Job posting may have been murder lure

CALDWELL, Ohio – When a South Carolina man answered a Craigslist ad seeking a farmhand in Ohio, there was no job waiting for him. There was a freshly dug grave.

The man was shot and wounded in what investigators say was a murderous robbery scheme that used bogus help-wanted ads to lure victims. He escaped, but another job-seeker was later found dead in a shallow grave nearby. And two suspects – a man and a 16-year-old boy – are under arrest.

Neighbors living near the property where the graves were dug were shocked by the bloodshed. Some figured the arrests had closed the case, while others, like Angie Noll, put credence in rumors of more bodies to be found.

“We’re a rural community, maybe there’s 15 houses up here, and right in our backyard this stuff is going on,” said Noll, a 28-year-old maintenance production clerk who lives just a few houses away from the neighbor whose door the South Carolina man knocked on after escaping. “I feel kind of dumbfounded about it.”

The sheriff said it is unclear how long the ad had been online or whether there are other victims.

A judge issued a gag order in the case Friday, and the names of the two victims and the adult suspect were not released.

Before the order was imposed, Sheriff Stephen Hannum said that the South Carolina victim was taken Nov. 6 to the desolate area, where he managed to deflect a gun cocked at the back of his head and ran. Wounded in the arm, he hid in the woods for hours, then showed up covered in blood at the first well-lighted place he could see, a farmhouse outside Caldwell.

This week, cadaver dogs were brought in, and authorities found one hand-dug grave they believe was intended for the South Carolina man and a second grave that held the body of a Florida man.