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Reynoldsburg cold case ruled homicide after 46 years

On Sept. 28, 1974, the body of Lori Nesson was found on Rosehill Road in Reynoldsburg.

Toni Hasting’s remembers the day earlier this year when she spoke with Reynoldsburg Patrol officer Craig Brafford by phone.

"The first thing he said was ‘I’m not trying to open an old wound, but I need to talk to you about your sister’, Hastings said from her home in North Carolina. “And I proceeded to say to him, ‘you can't open something that's never been closed.'"

On Sept. 28, 1974, the body of Lori Nesson was found on Rosehill Road in Reynoldsburg.

She was naked and police say her clothing was discarded along miles of roads stretching into Gahanna. Lori was 15 years old.

“She had been reported missing after attending an Eastmoor football game,” Reynoldsburg police Lt. Bill Early said. “She had attended some parties after the game. The only person that would have known who she was leaving the parties said they saw her 12:30 a.m. on the 28th.”

It is still a mystery what happened to Lori from that point to the next day when her body was found. Lt. Early says the case was reviewed twice in the past 46 years but no leads surfaced.  

In 2019, Officer Brafford asked to review the case on a hunch based on the coroner’s report in 1974 that stated the 15-year old’s death was “undetermined” and the cause of “asphyxia of undetermined origin.”

“He solicited the coroner’s office to review the case and look at the evidence and just in September this year, the ruled it as a homicide,” Lt. Early stated.

Franklin County Coroner Dr. Anahi Ortiz told 10TV in an email that homicide was the only plausible manner of death given the bruising and circumstances surrounding Lori's death.

Toni, who was 13 years old when her older sister was killed, says her family knew there was foul play from the start.

“Somebody somewhere knows something,” Hastings said through tears. “A 92 pound, 15-year-old girl does not lay down on the side of the road naked and die on her own.”

Hastings, and police, know that after 46 years, witnesses and possibly even the suspect(s) may no longer be alive. But they’re hoping DNA and new forensic technology will be able to reveal new clues. 

“I think whatever happened was potentially an accident and there were multiple people involved and they got scared,” Hasting’s surmised.  “That still does not mean they’re not responsible.  No one did anything to try to help her.”

If nothing else, the new coroner’s ruling of homicide brings more attention to the cold case.

“I am hopeful that there is someone who knows something would come forward given this many years later to give closure to the family,” says Lt. Early.

As the last surviving immediate family, Toni Hastings says she won’t give up.

“Not just for her, not just for my family, because there are more cases like this than I would care to think about, and that’s what haunts me.”

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