The scheduled March 5 retrial of Denny Ross is likely to be delayed for months after a judge approved a defense request for sophisticated DNA testing of 20 samples of forensic evidence from the 1999 slaying of Hannah Hill.
In a court order issued this week, Summit County Common Pleas Judge Judy Hunter directed prosecutors to cooperate in submitting the samples to an independent clinical laboratory, LabCorp in Burlington, N.C., for mitochondrial DNA testing.
Prosecutors objected in earlier court filings, saying the tests could take as long as four to six months.
Hunter’s ruling also required the cost of the tests, estimated at $45,000, to be split evenly by the defense and the state.
Court records show most of the 20 samples are hair fragments and hair follicles Akron police detectives obtained from:
• Hill’s left shoulder, right elbow, inner thigh and pubic area.
• Her necklace, underwear and a white sock she was wearing when her body was found.
• Broken glass in her purse.
• The sheet and blanket used to lift her body.
Former Summit County Medical Examiner Marvin Platt, who performed Hill’s autopsy and is likely to testify in the retrial, ruled the cause of death as “asphyxia by manual compression” of the neck.
Platt testified in the first trial that Hill most likely was strangled by her assailant “pulling on her necklace.”
Hill, who was 18, disappeared in May 1999 after leaving her parents’ home in Kenmore for a late-night visit with Ross at his Springfield Township apartment. Her body was found one week later in the trunk of her car in the Ellet area.
The first trial of Ross, in October 2000, ended abruptly in a mistrial after the jury already had signed verdict forms acquitting him of aggravated murder, murder and rape. A lengthy series of appeals by both sides finally ended in December 2010, when the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Ross must stand trial again.
Defense lawyer Larry Whitney declined to comment on whether the retrial definitely will be delayed, but he did say it would be “very difficult” to adhere to the scheduled date given the time required to complete the DNA tests.
Mitochondrial DNA is maternal genetic material passed on to both male and female children. It can be extremely valuable in forensic evidence, according to reports by the DNA Diagnostics Center, because it exists in high volume even in degraded samples, such as hair fragments.
Hunter stated in her ruling that the samples will be tested against 13 individuals identified in court records as having personal connections to the case.
Ross, 32, is serving a 25-year prison sentence for the 2004 attempted murder and rape of another Akron woman while he was free on bond during appeals in the Hill case.
Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or at emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com.