Submitted article/staff report
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Crawford County Prosecutor Matthew Crall filed a motion on Friday that would attempt dismiss the motion filed by defense attorney Adam Stone regarding the murder charges leveled against Fredrick Saunders Jr.
Crall provided the filing to Crawford County Now in which he argued that the defendant slept on his rights that would have preserved the body for an independent examination of the body.
Saunders’s father Fredrick Saunders Sr. was admitted to the Galion Community Hospital on Sept. 29, 2015. The elder Saunders was pronounced dead an hour after arrival, and was discharged from the Galion community hospital to Mark Schneider’s funeral home stating it was the Defendant’s request to have the elder Saunders cremated.
Lucas County Coroner Dr. Jeffery Hudson performed the autopsy after an investigation began surrounding the circumstances of the elder Saunders death. Dr. Hudson ruled that the cause of death was due to blunt force trauma.
On Oct. 5, the Crawford County Prosecutor’s Office charged Saunders Jr. with aggravated murder. Crall noted that on the same day an initial hearing was held in Crawford County Municipal Court with the defendant and his attorney, Adam Stone, present. Crall stated that at no time during the initial hearing, or the week of the hearing, did Stone file a motion to preserve the body.
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On Oct. 13 a Crawford County grand jury indicted Saunders Jr. and his wife Marla Saunders on numerous charges including aggravated murder, complicity to commit aggravated murder, and kidnapping. On Oct. 21, Stone filed his motion to preserve the body electronically. Crall alleges that at no point did Stone make an attempt to contact the Lucas County Coroner’s Office to preserve the physical evidence including the elder Saunders’ body.
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In Crall’s filing he argues that “if the defendant had a right to preserve the body as evidence, he slept on his rights thus directly causing the destruction of the body without his being able to independently examine the body.”
In his argument Crall points out to Ohio Revised Code 313.15:
“All dead bodies in the custody of the coroner shall be kept until such time as the coroner, after consultation with the prosecuting attorney, or with the police department of a municipal corporation… has decided that it is no longer necessary to hold such body to enable him to decide on a diagnosis giving a reasonable and true cause of death, or to decide that such body is no longer necessary to assist any such officials in his duties”
Crall also noted within his argument that “The State of Ohio did not act in bad faith in disposing potentially useful evidence, therefore, Defendant cannot prevail in his allegation of due process, violation in this matter.”
A hearing on both Stone and Crall’s motions is set to be held in April with the trial to follow in July depending the outcome of April’s hearing.