Noble, Summit county officials find two bodies
ZANESVILLE -- Two more bodies were discovered Friday morning -- one in Noble County and the other in Summit County -- that might be linked to the murder and attempted murder from a Craigslist ad.
Early Friday morning, the Noble County Sheriff's Office along with agents from the Ohio Bureau of Identification and Investigation discovered what appears to be a white male in a shallow grave in Stock Township, Noble County. No identification was found, and the body was sent to the Licking County Coroner's Office, where an autopsy is scheduled.
A second body also was found Friday morning in a shallow grave near Rolling Acres shopping mall in Akron.
Special Agent Vicki Anderson with the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that body was discovered after investigators were given information where to look.
Anderson said she could not say if the body was that of Timothy Kern, of Massillion.
Kern hasn't been seen in more than a week and might have been another victim of the Craigslist ad asking for a worker to help with a farm in Noble County. That body has been sent to the Summit County Coroner's Office, and an autopsy is scheduled for today.
Anderson said the body was decomposed and could not say if it was a male or female. The body was covered in the grave, Anderson said, and cadaver dogs discovered it.
This past week, authorities were asking for help to find Kern, 47, who had gone missing from his Plain Township home Nov. 13.
Harry Trombitas, special agent with the FBI in Columbus, said Kern apparently had been offered a job that morning and had made arrangements to meet the prospective employer.
Kern's disappearance is similar to that of David Pauley, of Norfolk, Va. His body was found in a shallow grave Nov. 15 in Noble County. Noble County authorities discovered Pauley after another man reported he had been shot in the arm while trying to escape two men whom he had met after answering a Craigslist ad.
Kern, Pauley and the gunshot victim all told authorities they had answered ads on the website to work on a farm in Noble County.
Authorities have been under a gag order issued this past week by Noble County Common Pleas Judge John W. Nau.
What has been released is 16-year-old Brogan Rafferty is being detained in the Muskingum County Juvenile Detention Center, charged with one count of attempted murder and one count of complicity to attempted murder. If or when Rafferty will have a hearing in Noble County or in Summit County or if he will be tried as an adult has not been released.
A 52-year-old Summit County man is being detained in the Summit County Jail on prostitution charges along with a variety of other charges that might be connected to the crimes, but no formal charges in this case have been filed at this time.
Officials first became aware of the scheme when the 48-year-old gunshot victim called the Noble County Sheriff's Office on Nov. 6. He told deputies he had met two suspects in Marietta, ate breakfast and then drove his car to Caldwell and got into the suspect's vehicle. The three drove to Don Warner Road in Stock Township. As the victim and a suspect started walking down the road, the victim said he heard what he thought was a gun being cocked. Turning, the victim said he saw the suspect pointing a gun to the back of his head. The victim slapped the gun away and started running, he told investigators.
Shots were fired and the victim was hit once in the right arm, but he managed to hide for seven hours in the dense woods until he was able to get to a home in the area and call for help.
Then on Nov. 11, Debra Bruce called Noble County Sheriff Stephen Hannum and filed a missing person's report on her twin brother, Pauley. Bruce said Pauley had spent the night in a Parkersburg, W.Va., motel, checking in on Oct. 22 and then checking out the next day.
Pauley, too, was headed to Noble County to answer the ad he saw on Craigslist.
Wood County Sheriff's Lt. J.K. Hamric said a U-haul trailer Pauley had rented was turned in to an Akron office Oct. 24, but there was no sign of Pauley.
Anyone with information on Kern is asked to call the FBI at or the Noble County Sheriff's Office at.
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