The rural counties of southern Ohio are hilly, rocky, and wide-open, a landscape of quiet farmland and dense woods that offers the perfect backdrop for outdoor recreation. It is a place where coal miners, factory workers, and farmers have built their lives, a region known for its calm and its strong sense of community. People here leave their doors unlocked, and violent crime is almost unheard of.
But in 1989, this tranquility was shattered when a sniper gunned down an outdoorsman without any apparent reason. It was only the first in a string of random and terrifying murders, each one committed by a hidden figure hiding in the distance behind a high-powered rifle. The madman was hunting humans along the county roads of this once peaceful part of the state.
Starting in the spring of 1989, a madman prowled the woods and fields of rural Ohio. He was a hunter, and a high-powered rifle was his weapon of choice. Joggers and fishermen were his quarry.
He roamed and fired at random, leaving no clues behind. He was as elusive as he was lethal, and investigators knew he had to be stopped, but no one knew how.
I’m Jim Kallstrom, former director of the FBI’s New York office. Most murderers have a connection to their victims and a motive for their crime, but not a serial killer. His victims are randomly chosen to fulfill an uncontrollable need to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁.
Often, he leads an ordinary life, and his family and friends are unaware of his homicidal passions. But serial killers establish profiles as distinct as fingerprints, and when a match is made, it is only a matter of time before they are caught.
On April 1st, 1989, 35-year-old Donald Welling did what he frequently did on Saturdays: he went jogging along the back roads of Tuscarawas County. His quiet morning run ended with a single shot. The rifle bullet ripped through Welling’s heart, killing him instantly.
Local authorities could find no motive and not a shred of evidence. The rifle was never found.
Then, on November 10th, 1990, another Saturday morning, 19 months later, 21-year-old Jamie Paxton of Barnesville, Ohio, rose early to go bowhunting. Leaving his crossbow in the car, he took a walk through the tall grass off State Route 9. Paxton was alone and unarmed, and he didn’t notice the red pickup truck that stopped a short distance away.
The gunman was quiet and careful. Jamie Paxton was shot three times by a high-powered rifle. There were no witnesses.
The killing horrified a quiet community that considered murder to be a problem for big cities. Hunting accidents are not uncommon in southern Ohio, but Belmont County Sheriff Tom McCourt knew right away that this wasn’t a hunting accident. When we saw more than one wound, we knew that it could not be an accident.
An accidental death in a hunting accident is called the one-shot. Plus, we saw there was a bullet wound instead of something from an arrow, and gun season was not in yet.
Sheriff McCourt’s jurisdiction is large geographically, but the community is closely knit. People work hard, and everyone seems to know everyone. McCourt even knew Jamie Paxton.
What he didn’t know was who killed him. The gunman had left no clues. We checked the area for spent empty cartridge cases, for tire tracks, for anything in that area where we thought the shot came from.
We also checked the area around the body looking for the spent projectiles that had passed through the body. We even took metal detectors in looking for the projectiles. At that time, we were unable to find anything.
After interviewing Jamie Paxton’s friends, family, and acquaintances, investigators were unable to find anyone with a motive to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 him. Everyone in the area knew Jamie Paxton. No one that we knew of, or was able even to this day, I’ve ever found anyone who disliked that young man.
Sheriff McCourt had an apparently random killing of a popular young man with no history of trouble. They interviewed neighbors, and it seemed like a seemingly unsolvable murder, with no physical evidence, no witnesses, and not even a plausible theory about what happened.
After her son’s death, Jean Paxton’s grief impelled her to action. She began composing letters to a local paper, the Martins Ferry Times Leader, designed to draw out the killer. Every time I would sit down to write a letter, I would say a prayer, and I would say, please God, just give me the words to get to the person that killed my son.
The letters were at once stern and passionate. To the murderer of my son Jamie, she wrote, would it be easier for you if I wrote words of hate? I can’t, because I don’t feel hate.
I feel deep sorrow. By losing my son, you took a light from my life last November and left me with many days of darkness. Have you thought of your own death?
It’ll happen. Unless you confess your sin and ask for God’s forgiveness, you will face the fire and fury of Hell at your own death.
If the killer were reading Jean Paxton’s letters, he seemed unaffected by them. On November 28th, 1990, just 18 days after Paxton’s murder, 30-year-old Kevin Loring was on a hunting trip in Muskingum County, Ohio, some 40 miles from where Jamie Paxton was killed. While his friends finished eating lunch, Kevin decided to get a head start.
Walking across a field in search of game, Loring himself became prey, unknowingly moving into the sights of the gunman. Loring was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head.
The killer had taken care to commit his murders in different counties to slow an investigation that would have to take place over hundreds of rural miles. The result was that investigators in Muskingum County were unaware of the other sniper victims in nearby counties. They decided that Loring’s death was probably a hunting accident.
Jean Paxton never gave up. She kept writing throughout 1991, determined to draw out Jamie’s killer. And I always felt if I could get my letters into the hands of the person that killed my son, I felt that I could get a response from them.
She turned out to be right.
I am the murderer of Jamie Paxton, a typewritten letter read. Jamie Paxton was a complete stranger to me. I never saw him before in my life, and he never said a word to me.
That Saturday, Paxton was killed because of an irresistible compulsion that has taken over my life. I knew when I left my house that day that someone would die by my hand. I just didn’t know who or where.
I’m an average looking person with a family, a job, and home, just like yourself. Something in my head causes me to turn into a merciless killer with no conscience.
The letter arrived at the Martins Ferry Times Leader a few days before the one-year anniversary of Jamie’s death. The letter described the Paxton murder in chilling detail. I was very drunk, and a voice in my head said do it.
I stopped my car behind Jamie’s and got out. Jamie started walking very slowly down the hill toward the road. I raised my rifle to my shoulder and lined him up in the sights.
I took at least five seconds to take careful aim. My first shot was off a little bit and hit him in the right chest. He groaned and went down.
I wanted to make sure he was finished, so I fired a second shot aimed halfway between his hip and shoulder while he was prone on the ground. I jerked the shot and hit him in the knee. He never moved again.
Five minutes after I shot Paxton, I was drinking a beer and blacked out all thoughts of what I had just done out of my mind. I thought no more of shooting Paxton than shooting a bottle at the dump. I know you hate my guts, and rightfully so.
I think about Jamie every hour of the day, as I’m sure you do.
For Sheriff McCourt, the letter was a beginning, evidence that might lead to a murder conviction, but he needed more. The typewriter used to write the letter would be damning evidence if they could find it. While investigators searched, the killer continued his own hunting.
On Saturday, March 14th, 1992, Claude Hawkins got off his midnight shift at the Pittsburgh Clayton Glass Company about sunup. It was a good time to fish, and Hawkins went straight to a favorite spot on the river, Wills Creek Dam. Hawkins had a wife and four children.
Another outdoorsman had been killed while alone, but this one took place on federal property, and the FBI stepped in. The FBI joined the hunt for the roadside sniper who had just killed his latest victim on federal property. Investigators from the three counties involved, along with the FBI and the Ohio Division of Wildlife, formed a task force.
It didn’t take long to realize how few clues they had. In each case, the killer had no contact with the victim, no rifling of pockets, no robbery. Shell casings had been carefully removed, and the victims’ cars were untouched.
Special Agent Harry Vance was stationed at the FBI’s Columbus, Ohio field office. What we did know is that Mr. Hawkins died from a gunshot, and usually you would find some type of a shell casing in the area.
And I remember looking very hard, with metal detectors and on hands and knees, for any shell casings in that area, and none were ever found. And so that was something that, you know, if in fact we had somebody who was evidence-conscious enough to pick up the shell casing after they shot and killed somebody, we were dealing with a different brand of person here.
The multi-jurisdictional task force concluded that the death of Kevin Loring, first ruled accidental, was actually a homicide. Reviewing the four murders, the investigative team saw plenty in common. The victims were outdoorsmen, hunters, fishermen, or joggers, alone in a rural setting, all shot with a high-powered rifle.
All but one of the murders occurred on a weekend, and the killer was careful enough to leave no evidence. It was clearer than ever that a single individual was responsible. The task force was on the trail of a serial killer, and as they began to mobilize, the killer struck again.
Ten days after the task force meeting, on April 5th, 1992, 44-year-old steelworker Gary Bradley left his home in neighboring West Virginia to go pond fishing in Noble County. Bradley’s wife and three children would never see him alive again. The task force had another murder, and the road sniper had to be stopped.
The task force wanted to learn more about the personality of the sniper, so they asked the FBI to draw up a psychological profile of the serial killer. Such an outline would be invaluable in tracking him down. Major Dan Ickes of the Coshocton County Sheriff’s Office headed the task force.
Right after we had initially made an assessment that maybe these things might be linked, the Columbus FBI office set up a meeting to have the behavioral science unit come to Columbus, Ohio, and actually sit down and talk with the investigators of these five counties about the homicides.
The FBI’s behavioral science unit in Quantico, Virginia, can accurately sketch personality profiles of individuals from sparse clues. Larry Ankrom is a member of the behavioral science unit who was assigned to the road sniper case. He studied all the available evidence, the investigative reports of the five murders, and especially the letter that the killer had written to Jean Paxton.
Then I came back to Quantico and reviewed these cases more in detail, and I came out with a formal profile. We were probably looking for a white male, someone that was intelligent, someone who was an outdoorsman himself, someone that wouldn’t look out of place in the woods, someone that was probably responding to some significant event in his life that was going wrong at that particular time. One of the things that was apparent was that it was a sniper-type mentality here, someone that didn’t want confrontation, someone that was doing things from afar.
And this is something that we see many times with our arsonists. We ought to be looking at some different types of activities that he might be involved in, such as nuisance types of shooting, shooting out windows, shooting out tires of cars, cruelty to animals, arson fires.
Ankrom believed that the violence was triggered by stress and fueled by alcohol. The task force now had a psychological sketch of the roadside sniper, and they had his letter. FBI forensic scientists studied the letter intensely.
They found distinguishing features in the typeface, and if they could find the typewriter it was written on, it would be easy to link the confessional letter to its owner and thus link the murderer to the murder. They had to hurry, because the sniper was still out there.
On July 21st, 1992, two hunters in a state park in Muskingum County came face-to-face with the killer. As they moved through the brush, one of them noticed something terrifying: a nearby figure with a gun pointed right at them. They called out to him, and the man scurried away to a red pickup truck.
It happened too quickly for the hunters to get a good look at the man or the vehicle’s tag numbers. Bewildered, they called local police, who alerted the task force.
Throughout 1992, desperate to catch a man still ready to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁, the task force investigated and cleared more than 100 suspects. By August 1992, after three years, the investigation had hit a dead end. The task force was badly in need of information and decided to go public.
They held a press conference and issued a press release detailing the FBI profile of the man they wanted, asking anyone with information to come forward. The FBI made a press release, and it was done at one time to mass media, everybody on the 6 o’clock news. I mean, everybody was showing this case, and the phone started ringing instantly.
One of those calls, received at Task Force Headquarters on August 26th, 1992, sparked a lead. The man on the phone was named Richard Frye. He said he thought the task force should know about a high school friend of his named Thomas Dillon.
Investigators had a name and someone willing to talk. A task force member arranged to meet Richard Frye at a rest stop on Route 77.
Frye talked about his old friend Tom Dillon. They used to drive around rural Ohio shooting at road signs and small animals. But Frye eventually found Dillon too eccentric and violent for his taste.
Obsessed with serial killers like Ted Bundy, Dillon had taken to killing family pets and cattle and setting random fires. Frye got married and, for most of the 1980s, forgot about his strange friend. But in 1989, Frye ran into Thomas Dillon at a gun show in Cleveland.
Dillon invited him to ride along again, just like in the old days. Old friendships die hard, and Richard Frye again found himself driving the back roads of rural Ohio, drinking beer and shooting road signs. But Dillon had deteriorated.
Frye discovered Dillon had asked whether Frye thought Dillon had ever killed anyone. You’ve known each other for a long time, 20-some years, I guess. Yeah.
Do you think I could ever 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 anybody? They discussed how to get away with random killings, including the tactic of killing in different counties to thwart investigators. If you’re connected and being at random, they’d have no clues whatsoever.
It’s not average, but to your average guy, but I think that when he read the press release, he immediately thought of Tom Dillon.
He gave a description of Dillon, including the vehicle he drove, a red pickup truck, just like the one spotted by the hunters. Lieutenant Walt Wilson of the Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office was a task force member. His job was to follow up on leads and tips, which were coming much more frequently as press coverage of the case increased.
He decided Tom Dillon fit the FBI profile and needed to be investigated. I began to follow up on the information that Mr. Frye had given us.
I went to Tom Dillon’s workplace in the City of Canton. Dillon had been employed for a dozen years as a draftsman at the Canton, Ohio, company.
Wilson obtained Thomas Dillon’s work schedule to compare Dillon’s days off with the dates and times of the murders. The purpose was to eliminate Dillon as a suspect, but he couldn’t. He found that Dillon didn’t work weekends, when most of the incidents occurred.
But two weekdays Dillon took off from work caught Wilson’s attention: July 21st, 1992, the day the hunters saw a man point a rifle at them, and November 28th, 1990, the day Kevin Loring was killed. If he pleased, Dillon could be the one.
As the other members of the task force followed up on hundreds of leads, Detective Wilson began surveillance on Thomas Dillon. Maybe Dillon would return to a crime scene or lead investigators to more clues. The surveillance began in October 1992.
Detective Wilson followed Tom Dillon on his weekend excursions driving the back roads of southern Ohio. Typically, a day would start around 7:00 in the morning on Tom’s days off, the weekends usually. He would leave his home, sometimes stop at a convenience store to buy some beer, and then he would go south of his home into other counties, just driving all the back remote roadways.
On October 10th, 1992, while tailing Dillon, Wilson briefly lost track of the suspect’s vehicle. As Wilson crept around a corner, he came face-to-face with Thomas Dillon. His cover was possibly blown, and his case was in jeopardy.
Wilson had to think fast. I waved at him, and he waved at me, and we kept on going. He stopped at the end of the drive to see if I was going to stay there or not.
Wilson couldn’t risk being identified, so he let Dillon drive away. My big concern was I hope he doesn’t stop and ask me what I’m doing on that property, because I had all of my gear laying in the car with me, and I didn’t want him to see my radios and my gear that I had with me.
A few days later, Larry Oller of Barnhill, Ohio, was hunting about 150 yards off a road in Tuscarawas County. He heard a car stop, and through the trees he saw a stocky white male. The man lifted a rifle.
Oller was unhurt and watched in terror as the truck sped away. Although Oller’s description of his assailant resembled Dillon, he was unable to make a positive identification. The task force realized that Thomas Dillon was their most likely suspect, and surveillance of him would have to be beefed up.
Throughout October and November of 1992, the FBI coordinated a massive air and ground surveillance. Dillon was observed shooting road signs and busting car windows with rocks, exactly the sort of petty vandalism outlined in the FBI profile. But if they arrested Dillon for vandalism, they might never gather enough evidence to arrest him for the murders.
It is difficult to tail someone on an empty rural road in broad daylight, and the stakes were high. If Dillon tried another shooting and the FBI weren’t in the right spot, they could have another murder on their hands. If they crowded Dillon too much, they might be found out, and Dillon would slip into hiding.
The ground surveillance had to be well off Dillon. Agents Titus and Kevin Shryock relied on the air surveillance as their eyes and ears, ready to move in if something happened.
One day, the surveillance team faced its worst fear. Vitus and Shryock were far behind Dillon when the air surveillance called out an alert. Ahead of Dillon, on the roadway, was the classic profile of a road sniper victim: a jogger, this time alone in a rural area.
If Thomas Dillon were indeed the gunman, this jogger might be irresistible. Vitus and Shryock got nervous, hoping for the best, and sped forward. Dillon continued to drive toward the jogger.
Driving at top speed, Vitus and Shryock frantically called to the agents in the plane, where is he, is he stopping? The airplane reported back that Dillon is approaching her, and there is no one nearby. The agents in the car braced for a call from the air that Dillon was pulling up alongside the jogger.
The agents held their breath. Dillon passed without incident.
The feeling of relief lasted only moments. The airplane radioed that Dillon had taken a right turn into a smaller road. The aerial unit stayed on him, instructing Vitus and Shryock where to turn.
Then a second right turn. Could he be circling back? They called to the airplane, is the jogger still there?
Dillon continued to make tight turns until he was back on the road the jogger had been on. His U-turn justified their fear; he was going back for him. Where is the jogger?
Vitus yelled into his radio. Cannot see the jogger came the reply. But the agents knew she had to be somewhere ahead of Dillon.
If he came upon her again, they were sure he would 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 her. The air unit called in that Dillon had stopped his truck and had gotten out. He had something shiny in his hands.
Would he 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 her right under their noses? The jogger couldn’t be seen from the air, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there. The agents in the car heard shots and feared that Dillon had struck again, while under their surveillance.
But the airplane radioed that Dillon was shooting at a stop sign. He turned off the road, and she was safe, unaware of her close encounter with Thomas Dillon.
The cat-and-mouse game with Thomas Dillon began to wear on the task force members. A lot of pressure. I mean, you’re wondering whether this guy today is going to go out and 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 somebody, and you’re not able to stop it.
And you know that he’s probably the one that is responsible for killing other people. You’re working 14, 16 hours a day, you’re living out of a car, and you’re drinking coffee like policemen do, and you aren’t eating right, and the stress is just tremendous. But the net continued to tighten around the suspect.
The murderer, in his letter to the newspaper, had admitted being bothered by the Paxton murder and visiting his grave. Investigators returned to video footage of Jamie Paxton’s grave recorded on November 10th, 1991, the first anniversary of Jamie’s murder. Many people paid their respects that day, but curiosity rather than respect was the agenda of one visitor photographed that day: Thomas Dillon.
Investigators immediately recognized the man they had been tailing. Surely, he was the sniper. But to earn a conviction, they needed direct incriminating evidence.
After the second anniversary of Jamie Paxton’s death in 1992, surveillance observed Dillon entering a Times Leader building. He bought a copy of the previous day’s paper, full of the details of the Paxton memorial service. The FBI had good circumstantial evidence on Thomas Dillon, but they still lacked physical evidence: a bullet, a gun, or a typewriter to link him with just one of the victims.
Hunting season was fast approaching, and Dillon was still out roaming the rural roads, drunk, armed, and deadly. The communities of southern Ohio had been terrorized for three years. The people feared going outside but tried to live normal lives.
Dillon had to be taken off the streets. The task force knew Dillon had been in trouble in the past for illegally owning a silencer and was forbidden to possess firearms, a stipulation he clearly violated during his vandalism sprees. The task force had little choice.
Before he could 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 again, they would arrest Thomas Dillon. But the plan wasn’t just to arrest him on a weapons violation; it was to convince him he was caught red-handed and get him to confess to murder.
Lacking ballistic evidence and holding only a relatively minor weapons charge on Dillon, the FBI badly needed to elicit a confession. Vitus had a plan. Since we knew what his routine was through the surveillances, in that he left his residence and he would go to this Dairy Mart every day before he left and went on his three- or four-hundred-mile drives, we would try to make the approach at the Dairy Mart.
And what we had was an office building right across from the Dairy Mart, which we occupied. We took over the basement of that building. Detective Wilson and I went down into the basement where we were going to conduct the interview, and we put up along the walls of the whole room maps of the areas that he drove in, crime scene photographs, and newspaper articles.
We wanted to make that setting just irresistible to him. Then we’re just laying this out in front of him and see what kind of reaction we get from him. It would be overwhelming, and you know, it would put him in the best frame of mind for us to be able to sit down and interview him and get a confession.
On November 27th, 1992, the plan went into effect. Their entire case so far rested on getting a confession. The idea was, when he came out of the Dairy Mart, we’d approach him, identify ourselves, and basically request that he follow us voluntarily over to this room, where we wanted to share some information with him and show him some things that we knew would interest him.
If Dillon refused, Vitus would raise his right hand to signal ATF agents, who are responsible for making arrests in weapons cases, to cuff Dillon. And I can just remember his reaction. I mean, his jaw just dropped for about five seconds, and then he composed himself, and he said, I want to talk to my attorney first.
That was the cue. Vitus gave the signal, and the ATF agent stepped in and arrested Thomas Dillon.
Dillon didn’t realize it, but it was a bitter defeat for the FBI. Vitus thought he’d blown it. Despite all the evidence they had gathered, despite his certainty that they had the right man, he feared that Dillon would see a five-time killer quickly released on the minor weapons charge.
At the very time of Dillon’s arrest, other task force members were executing a search warrant on Dillon’s house. The FBI felt they would finally come away with the physical evidence desperately needed to link him, once and for all, to the murders. But they didn’t.
To their surprise, the search turned up nothing more incriminating than some area maps marked with arson and vandalism sites.
Dillon was refusing to talk, and they were holding him, but there was nothing they could do. It was pretty much over when he said he wanted to talk to his attorney. So we went back to the restaurant and were going to have a cup of coffee, and all of a sudden we got the word that he wanted to talk to us.
So Walt and I jumped into our car and made a beeline to Stark County Jail. Vitus and Wilson confronted Dillon with one piece of evidence after another: photographs, videotapes, newspaper clippings showing his link to the murders. I would pull out one piece at a time and show him, and just as we had suspected, he was keenly interested in the information that we had: the surveillance pictures, the crime-scene photos, the shots of the animals along the roadways.
You could just see that he was fascinated by that.
Fascinated, but not talkative. Dillon said it would serve no purpose to admit anything. Another dead end for the FBI.
Dillon’s attorney was arguing that he should be spared jail time on the weapons charge. Now, unless something turned up on him very quickly, Thomas Dillon would have to be released.
The task force was mounting, desperate for physical evidence. They held another press conference, appealing to the public for any information about guns they may have bought or sold to Thomas Dillon. Meanwhile, a task force member, Jerry Wade of the Ohio Division of Wildlife, was following up on a tip.
A witness steered Wade to a spot where he’d seen Thomas Dillon firing his rifle a couple of years back. Wade hoped that would lead him to some ballistic evidence to link Dillon to one of the killings. This individual brought it to our attention that he’d seen Thomas Lee Dillon shoot this deer with a rifle.
Thought the rifle might be one of them that was used. And if we could locate some physical evidence, the shell casings per se, and if we could get those and match them to the murder weapon, we could put that rifle in Thomas Lee Dillon’s hand prior to the murders, which would really give us a lot stronger case as far as him possessing the rifle prior to the murders.
The chances of finding the small shells in such a wide area were slim, and it had been two years since the rifle had been fired. But determined, Wade patiently combed inch by inch through a grassy field where the anonymous witness said he saw Dillon shoot the deer. Beginning at the tree described by the witness, Wade searched the area in a circular pattern, by hand and with a metal detector, carefully marking off the territory.
Miraculously, Wade hit the jackpot. He found two rifle shell casings, later identified as coming from the same gun that killed Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins. Finally, a physical link to the murders.
I felt like celebrating. It was just unbelievable that I found them, because after the length of time that had been since the shooting and the incident, and the individual wasn’t sure of the location of the tree exactly, the scene had changed since he had been there. They had removed a fence row and pushed out the area.
So I felt very, very much fortunate to find them, and I felt like a celebration at the time. It was just like, you know, it was a gift handed to you.
Meanwhile, the publicity from the press conference asking the public for help was about to bear fruit. On December 4th, Captain Shryock was manning the phones at Task Force Headquarters. A man named Al Coke was on the phone.
He said he bought a weapon from someone who may have been Thomas Dillon at a gun show the previous spring. The date was April 5th, the same day Gary Bradley was murdered. The rifle was sent to the FBI laboratory in Washington for ballistics testing.
Special Agent Paul Shredder is a ballistics expert for the FBI. As the bullet passes down the barrel of the weapon, that bullet, by coming in direct contact with the interior of the barrel of the weapon, picks up the microscopic imperfections, the microscopic features of that barrel. So that bullet is marked with the fingerprint of that barrel.
Fragments of bullets taken from the bodies of victims Claude Hawkins and Gary Bradley were examined at FBI labs. A bullet fragment may still be of value for comparison, even though a bullet may fragment and break up as a result of striking a victim, and maybe only fragments are ever recovered. Those fragments are still marked; they still bear the impressions of the inside of the barrel of the weapon, and those fragments can still be used to make a positive association or an identification.
When the weapon was submitted to the laboratory, the weapon was test-fired, and the test-fired bullets from this weapon were then compared to the bullet fragments taken from the victims.
Coke’s gun was test-fired, and the bullets were examined for characteristics they may have in common with the bullet fragments taken from Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins. The conclusion was that the gun sold to Coke by Thomas Dillon matched the gun used to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 both Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins. The FBI finally had the goods on Thomas Dillon.
Agent Vitus visited Dillon in jail and confronted him with the evidence. He and his truck fit the descriptions of a few witnesses. He had been off work when each murder had occurred.
He had a history of random violence and gunplay. And the FBI could prove in court that a gun he once owned killed at least two of the victims. But even after all that, Vitus knew Dillon was guilty of all five murders, and he wanted closure for the victims’ families.
He offered Dillon a deal. As leverage, Vitus reminded Dillon that he faced Ohio’s electric chair. Dillon got nervous, and he began to negotiate.
I can’t believe you got that.
Thomas Dillon met with the prosecutors in June of 1993. He agreed to admit to five killings if the death penalty were dropped as a possible sentence. Terms were one life sentence for each of the acts committed.
On July 9th, Dillon confessed to prosecutors in order to save his life. On July 12th, 1993, a smirking Thomas Dillon walked into the Noble County Courthouse to make his plea. Mr.
Dillon, at this time, how do you plead to count one in the indictment in case number 93 CR for involving the death of the aggravated murder charge involving the death of Gary Bradley? How do you plead? Guilty.
With the families of the victims watching, the killer confessed to the murder of Donald Welling, Kevin Loring, Claude Hawkins, Gary Bradley, and Jamie Paxton. He was still smirking and unrepentant as he left court. Dillon’s incredibly cavalier attitude was detailed by a local reporter whom Dillon repeatedly called from prison, marveling at his own violence, reveling in his celebrity, and laughing off the murders except one.
Really, he would not discuss the murder of Jamie Paxton. Forget it. All right, just forget Jean Paxton.
Jamie’s mother was in court the day Dillon pleaded guilty. I just want to talk to him about Jamie, the kind of person Jamie was. Jamie was everything Thomas Dillon could never be.
Dillon is a coward. He hid behind a gun, and Jamie was not that way. Little did I know that on the evening news he was watching that, and it made him very angry that I had called him a pathetic coward.
We talked to him about remorse and how he felt after these homicides, and the only one that he said really bothered him was Jamie Paxton. He said, I didn’t realize the kid was so young.
Jean Paxton had looked forward to confronting Dillon in court, but his guilty plea cost her that opportunity. She asked Sheriff McCourt to arrange a conversation. McCord agreed.
That evening, Jean Paxton’s phone rang, and she found herself speaking with the murderer of her son. When I picked up the phone that evening, it was just like somebody calling up to sell me something. He said, Mrs.
Paxton, this is Tom Dillon. It was just almost more than I could comprehend. The tone of his voice, the way he came across, still the arrogance was there.
Dillon told Jean Paxton that when she called him a coward, she had hurt his feelings. I really don’t think he expected to get what he got from me. I think that Thomas Dillon could have handled the crying, the screaming, the calling of names, the cursing.
I think he could handle that. But I did not lower myself to that level. I talked to him as a mother, and I really felt, through this whole thing, that this is what God wanted me to do to Thomas Dillon.
After three years, Jean Paxton felt vindicated. I felt really good. I walked out on my front porch, and I just felt like, for the first time in three years, that I was free.
I was free of Thomas Dillon. I felt that I had defeated him by words, and I did it all for Jamie.
Thomas Dillon made it clear he did not want to go to Lucasville prison, the toughest in Ohio. So Jean Paxton saw to it, with a petition drive, that that was exactly where Dillon was sent. In August 1993, Jean Paxton won a 25 million dollar wrongful death judgment against any future money Dillon might make.
Dillon’s wife had been trying to sell a story to Hollywood, so Paxton and State Senator Bob Nye passed “Paxton’s Law,” barring killers or their relatives from profiting from the crime.
Thomas Dillon remains in Lucasville prison. He is eligible for parole in 165 years.
