First Posted: 2/17/2015
LIMA — A jury convicted Hager Church on Tuesday after more than five hours of deliberations for setting a fire that killed two people in 2009 in a crime that may have gone unnoticed if not for Church talking about it in prison.
The jury of eight men and four women will return Wednesday morning to begin the second phase of the trial to decide whether Church should receive the death penalty. The jury also can choose the option of life in prison.
While Church’s team of lawyers presented no closing argument and did little to challenge the strong evidence by the prosecution, it’s expected his lawyers will mount a big fight to try to save his life.
Church, 30, showed no reaction as the verdicts were read.
During her closing argument Tuesday, Assistant Allen County Prosecutor Jana Emerick carefully walked the jury through the charges of two counts of aggravated murder and one count of aggravated arson with three specifications that carry the chance for the death penalty.
She told jurors the clear confession Church made to a police investigator admitting to killing Massie “Tina” Flint, 45, and Rex Hall, 54, on June 14, 2009, by setting a house fire at 262 S. Pine St., matched all the evidence.
“Hager Church indicated to Detective [Steve] Stechschulte that Hager Church needed to get something off his chest, which was the terrible crimes he committed in 2009,” Emerick said. “You heard the confession.”
A coroner testified Flint had head injuries that matched Church’s statement that he beat her in the head with a pipe wrench. Church also knew intimate details of the crime scene including the location of where the fire started in the home, and where the bodies were found, information only the killer would know, Emerick said.
“If he was just making that up, even if he knew there was a fire, of course like numerous people did, Hager Church would have no way of knowing where that fire was started,” Emerick said. “All the evidence from fire investigation supports Hager Church’s confession in every way.”
On top of that, he wrote a letter of confession before investigators knew about the crime and he drew a detailed map of the crime scene, Emerick said. Church wrote the letter and drew the map in November 2012, more than three years after a Lima fire investigator ruled the fire accidental.
Emerick carefully covered the death penalty specifications including how Church burned down the house to try to cover up the crime and that he killed two or more people in the course of conduct that was similar.
The jury found Church not guilty on one of the specifications on Hall’s death as it relates to a course of conduct of killing people. No reason was given but Hall’s death was somewhat different in the fact he was a man and Church did not beat him in the head. The jury still convicted Church of purposefully killing Hall.
The conduct for which the jury found Church guilty, as it relates to specifications necessary for a potential death sentence, included killing Deb Henderson just over a year later by beating her to death with a hammer. Church was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for release for that crime after pleading guilty to aggravated murder.
The final death penalty specification accuses Church of committed the crimes as the principal offender. Emerick said that was not disputed because he did not have an accomplice.
