BY TANYA ALBERT and PHILLIP PINA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ralph Lynch is arraigned on murder charge.
(Ernest Coleman photo)
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COLERAIN TOWNSHIP -- Ralph L. Lynch -- a loner who neighbors said gave children stuffed animals and candy -- showed no emotion Saturday as he was arraigned on an aggravated murder charge in the death of 6-year-old Mary Jennifer Love.
Investigators told Judge Nadine Allen that Mr. Lynch, 48, abducted, sexually molested, strangled and killed his Arborwood Drive neighbor and then "threw her into the woods."
Judge Allen set a $100,000 cash bond. Mr. Lynch could face the death penalty if he is convicted.
Mary, who was headed into the first grade this fall at Taylor Elementary School, had been missing for nine days before police found her body three miles from her home.
Mary Love
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Police said Mr. Lynch led them to a wooded area owned by Rumpke Waste Collection and Disposal Systems off Breezy Acres Drive in Colerain Township. They discovered Mary there about 7:30 p.m. Friday.
While Mr. Lynch sat in the Hamilton County Justice Center, devastated residents of Springwood Village apartments recalled the man who lived in the building catty-corner from that of Mary and her family. Mr. Lynch was among the neighbors who combed the woods surrounding the complex the night Mary didn't come home for dinner.
"It disgusts me that he was outside offering flashlights to people, helping with the search," said James Doyle, 23, who lives in the apartment below Mr. Lynch. "He joined in the search immediately."
A view from the hallway next to Ralph Lynch's apartment shows Mary Love's family apartment at left.
(Tony Jones photo)
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Neighbor Tim Jackson, 23, said that he, another friend and Mr. Lynch walked through some of the woods surrounding the apartments and then searched the back of a rented Budget moving truck the night Mary disappeared.
At one point as they searched in the woods, he said, Mr. Lynch told them that Mary wasn't in that area because there weren't any footsteps in the wet ground.
"He was kind of nervous, but "I didn't think anything about it," said Mr. Jackson, who has lived in Springwood Village for two years and didn't know Mr. Lynch before that night. "At one point we were talking and he said, "I wouldn't never let my kids hang outside without me watching them.' "
Mr. Doyle remembered seeing the 6-foot-5-inch, 220-pound Mr. Lynch talking to the 3-foot-6-inch, 48-pound girl outside his second-floor apartment door the day before she disappeared. The conversation lasted about 45 to 50 minutes.
"It seemed odd that the conversation lasted that long," said Mr. Doyle, who saw the two while he was doing his laundry that day. "I heard one part where he asked her what she did that day, and she said she had been outside playing with friends."
Mr. Lynch has one prior misdemeanor conviction and no felony convictions, according to police records. But the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department would not elaborate on Mr. Lynch's previous conviction.
Mr. Lynch has worked for Rumpke Waste Disposal for the past 18 years as a tire mechanic, company spokeswoman Missy Rumpke said. In a press release, she said "he was a dedicated employee and gave no reason to suspect that he was capable of this type of behavior."
Neighbors described Mr. Lynch as a loner.
They said they would sometimes see him with teen girls, who he said were his nieces. But they said they rarely if ever saw him with adult friends or relatives. One neighbor said it was just in the past two weeks that he saw Mr. Lynch with a male adult friend for the first time.
Several neighbors said Mr. Lynch had lived in Springwood Village complex for about eight years, moving to his current apartment three or four years ago, after another apartment flooded. He worked third shift, they said, and he told people that he traveled frequently.
In the days after Mary disappeared, Mr. Lynch sat on Mr. Doyle's white truck with a few people, telling them about how he just got back from a fishing trip in Oregon. He talked about the pike and bass he caught.
In retrospect, some say, it may have been nervous chatter. But there is one thing almost all the neighbors noted: Mr. Lynch was kind to neighborhood children.
Just a couple days before Mary disappeared, he handed out stuffed animals to them, said Kim Withrow, who has lived across the hall from Mr. Lynch for more than two years.
"He always sat and talked to the kids in the hall," said Ms. Withrow, 23, who has children ages 7 and 2. "He spoke to my daughter regularly. . . . He was always really nice. But when people are too nice, you always wonder."
She called the sheriff's office after they searched Mr. Lynch's apartment to see if he was on the sexual predator list. She said the sheriff's department told her that he wasn't on that list but that she was told to "just keep your kids close."
Mr. Doyle wondered so much about Mr. Lynch's behavior before and after the disappearance that he called authorities about his suspicions shortly after Mary disappeared.
Investigators interviewed Mr. Lynch just days after Mary disappeared and searched his apartment. Mr. Doyle said he saw police carry out children's videos.
Neighbors said Mark and Carol Williams, Mary's parents, knew of Mr. Lynch but didn't know him well.
Mary's family members were still too upset to talk Saturday. Mary's mother collapsed from shock Friday night after she heard the news and was taken to the hospital.
Pink ribbons, drenched from rain, sagged from trees Saturday morning. The ribbons had become a sign for Mary's safe return.
Damp missing-person fliers and neon poster board with messages to Mary still hung on the outside brick apartment wall.
And a pile of hardened pink, white, red and blue candle wax sat in the middle of the complex's drive. It's what remained of an impromptu vigil of about 50 neighbors and friends, who gathered after they heard the news Friday night.
Tommy Gibson, 42, who helped in the volunteer searches that Mary's grandmother led day after day, summed up the feelings of many angry community members:
"This is just unbelievable."
