The number of victims that Kenneth A. Roth had k!lled was a secret that he kept to himself. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Prison said on Friday, May 1, 2020, that Roth passed away on Monday, April, 27, 2020.
He is one of the eight Marion Correctional Prison inmates who pass away from COVID-19. For the 2009 slaying of Linda Van Voorhis Smith, a 61-year-old nurse and grandmother, the former resident of Osnaburg Township, Kenneth Roth received a life sentence.
Casey Langley asked for a welfare check in December 2009 at her mother Linda Smith’s home on Orchard View Road Southeast in Osnaburg Township, alleging that the latter hadn’t been answering her calls.
Authorities discovered the nurse’s pet dog Bunny barking when they arrived at her home. Smith was discovered dead in her home on Orchard View Drive Southeast, having been strangled and gagged and Roth was found the victim of her dea†h.
That was his second murd*r conviction when a Stark County jury found Roth guilty of k!lling Smith in 2017. Roth was raised in the East Canton area before deciding to move to Kansas when he was 18 years old. There, in 1968, he and two accomplices robbed and k!lled a cab driver.
After being granted parole by Kansas authorities in 1985, Roth went back to Ohio. The Stark County Sheriff’s Office questioned Roth about the dea†hs of three other women between that time and Smith’s homicide. Each victim was connected to Roth in some way:
- Kay Gulosh was k!lled in her Plain Township home in 1985 by being stabbed and strangled. A vehicle seen at the site was connected to Roth by investigators.
- Patricia Murphy who died in her Plain Township apartment in 1991 after being stabbed and strangled. Roth was the maintenance man for the apartment and might have been Murphy’s ex-boyfriend.
- Julia Harbourt who was fatally sh0t in 1993 while at home in Pike Township. Prior to Harbourt’s passing, Roth had an alarm system installed in her house.
The Sheriff’s Office reexamined Roth’s potential connection to the dea†hs of Gulosh, Murphy and Harbourt after Smith was k!lled but it was unable to file charges in any of the earlier cases. Stark County Sheriff George T. Maier said:
“I’m left with the fact that some of these things we’re never going to know, although I had very strong suspicions and a lot of evidence to point in that direction. Those are just going to be some unsolved cases, unfortunately.”
The links given below will take you to the posts where we cover more details about the many different k!llers:
- Who is the Killer of Sherry Black and What Punishment Did He Get?
- Who is the Smiley Face Killer in Chicago and Why Do We Call Them by That Name?
- Nipsey Hussle’s Killer Sentenced to Spend the Rest of His Life in Prison
Note: We examined all the details about the Kenneth Roth K!ller in this post. If you have any other information about him, please let us know in the comments area below. This post was created using the data we collected from our trusted sources. Nothing here should hurt anyone’s feelings.
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