Case dismissed against former death row inmate in Ohio who had been freed pending a new trial
Dec 12, 2025, 1:17 PM | Updated: 2:42 pm
CINCINNATI (AP) — The case was dismissed Friday against a man who spent a quarter-century on death row for the robbery and murder of a New Jersey woman at an Ohio hotel nearly three decades ago.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich said the dismissal of the case of Elwood Jones of Cincinnati followed a monthslong comprehensive review of evidence and court filings in his case.
“I did not take this extraordinary step lightly,” Pillich said in a statement. “But after reviewing the evidence, I am not convinced that Mr. Jones killed Rhoda Nathan.”
Elwood was convicted of aggravated murder, robbery and burglary in the 1994 beating death of the 67-year-old from Toms River, New Jersey, in Blue Ash, a Cincinnati suburb. He has been free since a judge granted him a new trial in December 2022, concluding that prosecutors had not turned over relevant evidence to his attorneys.
Pillich’s predecessor, Melissa Powers, had appealed the judge’s decision and her lawsuit was still moving through the courts.
Just last week, the Ohio Supreme Court had found the appellate court erred in blocking the challenge and returned it to the lower court for reconsideration. Supreme Court Justice Joe Deters, the former Hamilton County prosecutor who secured the original conviction against Jones, recused himself from that decision.
Police said Nathan, a grandmother in town over the Labor Day weekend to attend the bar mitzvah of her best friend’s grandson, was killed after she surprised a would-be robber in her room. Jones was a hotel employee and was on the job that day, police said.
Jones’ attorneys argued in court filings that what the trial court portrayed as a “win-at-all-cost mentality” at the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office had “stole over 28 years from Elwood Jones — and innocent man — and it very nearly cost him his life.”
