By Marie McCain
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Lomax

GREENHILLS - If he hadn't read a news account Monday of the killing on Andover Road over the weekend, Rick Walkenhorst says he would never have known it happened.

"I was coming home from church Sunday and drove right by the scene. I didn't know anything had gone on. The streets were like they always are," he said Monday. "Violence is everywhere, but in this community it's so unusual."

Sunday's stabbing death of a 24-year-old Woodlawn man shattered a 40-year record in this quiet, quaint town. The last homicide here took place in 1963.

On Monday, police were still searching for the alleged killer, Keith L. Lomax, 37, whose last known address was in Roselawn.

A caller's tip to Crimestoppers Monday reported a sighting of a man believed to be Lomax leaving a Thornton's gas station along Colerain Avenue in Mount Airy. Lomax remained at large Monday.

Early Sunday, shortly after 1 a.m., authorities were called to an apartment to find the remnants of a fight. The victim, Robert Christian, had already been taken to Mercy Hospital-Fairfield, where he was later pronounced dead of multiple stab wounds.

Officials said Christian and Lomax had attended a birthday party. Some kind of "domestic dispute" prompted the two men to go outside, officials said, where the assault took place.

A small bedroom community, Greenhills sits in the middle of Winton Woods in western Hamilton County. It has a population of about 4,100.

It is unlike any other Cincinnati suburb. Founded in the 1930s, it is a community planned by the federal government, one of three Great Depression-era, self-contained "greenbelt communities." The others are in Wisconsin and Maryland.

The first settlers moved to the area in 1938. That's the same year the apartment building where Christian was stabbed was built, according to the Hamilton County auditor's records.

Walkenhorst, who has lived in Greenhills since 1977, said residents along his street, Brompton Lane, didn't seem concerned about the incident Monday.

"Everyone is pretty much doing what they would normally do on a typical holiday weekend - barbecuing, having fun," he said.

"If this had alarmed people I'm sure someone would have spread the word, but it doesn't appear to be a big concern. This is a nice, quiet neighborhood.''

E-mail mmccain@enquirer.com