Karen Kern:1967, Perrysville, Ohio

 

   Karen Kern was driving home on October 29th, 1967. The 20 year old Secretary had been visiting friends in Charleston, Illinois. She turned off at a gas station in Beaverdam, Ohio when her car overheated. Karen left the station after it cooled down but was she followed and forced to pull over off the road. She was raped and murdered near Perrysburg, in Wood County, Ohio. Karen Kern had been brutally assaulted and shot. 

  Witnesses identified Mark David Hodges as the person who followed her. Ballistics evidence tied him to the crime. But, the jury felt that Hodges could not have done such a horrible crime despite the testimony of police, witnesses and ballistics evidence. The jury heard that he was a Green Beret and a husband and a father. He had a family to support. He was acquitted. 

  In 1968 Mark David Hodges was tried for the 1967 shooting of Denise Fortner of Napoleon. Hodges followed her from the gas station and forced her to pull over. She was on her motorcycle. She thought perhaps she had left something or the mechanic needed to tell her something vital about her motorcycle. Maybe something was wrong. Instead, Mark David Hodges shot her in the abdomen. Denise survived the shooting and positively identified Mark David Hodges. Her testimony and ballistics evidence was again dismissed by the jury. Mark David Hodges was again acquitted. 

  He gave an interview for the newspaper in which he smugly says that the police just gave up. He grins like the winner of a race or a ballgame. 

  On December 22nd 1972, Dawn Menerey, a social worker from Findlay, Ohio noticed a red light flashing behind her. She pulled over. She got out of her car to speak with the person she thought was a police officer. It was Mark David Hodges. He ordered her to turn around so he could handcuff her. She refused. He pulled a knife. As she was defending herself and struggling a farmer stopped to see what was going on. Mark David Hodges said “She’s on dope! Get the sheriff!” The farmer drove away to call the sheriff leaving Dawn alone with her assailant. Luckily for Dawn Menerey; Hodges also fled the scene then. 

  Hodges was charged and tried and convicted of assault with intent to kill. This time the trial was not a jury trial but a court of common pleas. A panel of three judges heard the evidence and the testimony of witnesses and found Hodges to be guilty. He was sentenced for assault with intent to kill: 1-15 years and consecutively 1-20 years for assault with intent to cut.

  Mark David Hodges ended up with more time added after an escape. He was free for only 24 hours before he was captured. I’m still looking for the date of that escape. 

  In 1980 Mark David Hodges was up for parole. The parole board denied this request. 

  His father died in 1983 and Mark David Hodges is listed in the obituary as living in Lucasville, Ohio.  That town is where a correctional facility is located. We can assume he was still incarcerated then. 

  Was he still in Lucasville when the prison riot happened in 1993 beginning on Easter Sunday? I’m still looking for the date of his release so I don’t know. 

  Mark David Hodges died in 2008. If you look at his obituary you might think a famous politician or a great general had died. He was indeed a veteran and so the patriotism is somewhat fitting. Thinking of his victims, though, the tone of the obituary seems like a final slap in their faces. 

   Hodges was living in Cincinnati for some years before his death.  He ran a repair business known as the Tinker. What years did he live in Cincinnati? It would have been sometime after 1983 and before his death in 2008. Where was that business? Did he go into people’s homes in the course of that work? Are there other crimes that can be linked to him there? 

   Karen Kern deserved a long life. Her life was taken by a killer and dismissed by a jury. Rest in Peace Karen Kern.