Cold Case Files - REOPENED: A Killer Named Korn

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

A 74 year-old woman was assaulted and stabbed in her home. The case goes cold. Until another woman is attacked. And another. And this time, there’s an eyewitness. Check out our great sponsors! 1-800 Contacts: Order online at 1800contacts.com - download their free app - OR call 1-800 Contacts (that’s 1-800-266-8228) Progressive: Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 27 million drivers who trust Progressive!

This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Use your best judgment. Ruth Dench married her husband Paul in 1936. The couple bought a home in Hamilton County, Ohio, where Ruth worked as a teacher at the local elementary school. In 1937, the couple had a son, Robert. 18 months after he was born, Robert saved his entire family. The wiring in the dench house was faulty, causing a fire on the second floor of their home, where the family was sleeping. The screams of a terrified toddler woke his parents,

allowing everyone to escape their burning home. The top of their house had been destroyed, and they lost most of their furniture and clothes. But the family was safe. The house could be repaired. Ruth, better known as Mrs. Dench to her students, was made acting principal in 1968. She retired from a 40-year-long career in education in 1969. Her husband, Paul, died in 1973. He was 74 years old at the time. In 1974, Ruth lived in the same two-story house that she'd raised her son in, the one that had caught fire when he was just a toddler.

On July 13th, at around 4 p.m., she called her now-grown son, Robert, who lived in Chicago. That was the last time they would ever speak. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. Ruth was a regular at church. It was just a few miles from her home. But on July 14th, she didn't make it to the service. Her neighbor, Catherine Hutzelman, became concerned and decided to check on her friend. This is Ruth's son, Robert. I think she just noticed the paper hadn't been taken in,

and it was, you know, like noon or 1 o'clock in the afternoon, which was unusual. Catherine also noticed that the garage door had been left open, as well as the storm door on the front porch. And so she then went in and knocked on the door and then went into the room right off our breezeway and found my mother's body. Ruth's body was just inside the front door. She was only partially dressed,

and there was a gardening axe embedded in her forehead. The scene was gruesome, but there seemed to be a lack of blood, suggesting that the killer had used the axe after Ruth was already dead. Tom Deaton was the lead investigator on the case. It's one thing to kill a person, but to mutilate a body after it's dead, I mean, that takes somebody that's just a pretty terrible person, in my opinion. Ruth's body was sent to the medical examiner for an autopsy. The cause of death was determined to be multiple stab wounds to the chest.

The autopsy also recovered semen from Ruth's body. The investigators couldn't imagine who would have had a motive to rape and stab a 72-year-old retired educator, and then put an axe in her head. The investigators believed that Ruth's murder could have been a random act of violence, a crime with no motive at all. They talked to Ruth's friends, community members, and even delivery people. While looking for information in Ruth's home, the investigators found a receipt book. Ruth had rented out a small home on the back of their 18-acre property. Here's investigator Deaton again. Found the names and began actually looking for those folks to determine where they lived.

Were they still in the area? Were they still in the neighborhood? One of the renters was a local man named Donald Korn. He had lived in the small house for over a year. Deaton decided to pay Korn a visit. He interviewed very well. He had me convinced that he was not a person that would do something of this nature. And he had alibis at the time, as I recall. Deaton wrote Donald Korn off as a suspect, at first. A month after Ruth's murder, though, Korn, who was 29, was charged with exposing himself to a minor.

It makes you start, you know, your view of him starts to slip a little bit. Deaton decided to question Korn again. And again, he denied killing Ruth Dent. Even though they were suspicious of Korn, the investigators didn't have any evidence connecting him to the murder. The case started to go cold. That is, until another attack took place five months later. It was evening in Jeffersonville, Indiana,

and 54-year-old Dorothy Hendren was sitting in her recliner. She was watching an old sitcom called Chico and the Man when someone pulled her head back and put a knife to her throat. She begged for her life. And at that moment, he cut her throat. And she was begging him, please tell me what you want me to do. I'll do anything, just don't kill me. That was Detective Ron Kemp. The attacker didn't listen to Dorothy's plea, and he cut her throat.

And while she was still alive, he dragged her into the laundry room. He sat up on the washing machine, and he told her to do what he wanted her to do. Dorothy was weak from all the blood she'd lost and fell to the floor. The attacker cut her again. She decided to play dead. Dorothy was completely still while the attacker ransacked her house looking for valuables. After he finally left, Dorothy dragged herself to the phone and called 911. An ambulance came and rushed Dorothy to the hospital before the investigators even arrived. The forensics team collected blood and hair samples throughout the house, while Dorothy was at the hospital fighting for her life.

We only had Mrs. Hendren waiting for her, hoping that she would survive to give us more information. Dorothy survived her attack and was able to give the detectives a description of the man who had attacked her. They weren't able to identify him immediately, but one of Dorothy's neighbors came forward with useful information. Three days after Dorothy was assaulted, her neighbor, Kathy Allen, called the police. She shared information about a man she saw on the night Dorothy was attacked. I saw him when he pulled up, and then I saw him get out of the El Camino, and I never dreamed that anything like what happened would happen. Detective Kemp took Kathy's statement.

She actually watched him go to the rear of the house. And some 20 minutes later, as I recall, she saw him exit the rear of the house and walk between the houses and back out to his car and left. The man wasn't a stranger to Kathy. A month before Dorothy was attacked, the same man had lured Kathy onto his houseboat, where he attacked her. He knocked me down. He was on top of me. And he was trying to get my clothes off. He did get some of my clothes off. And then I started biting, and he bit me back. And then I bit his hand, and when he let go, I flew. Kathy hadn't told anyone about the man who had tried to rape her. After what happened to Dorothy, Kathy not only shared her story,

she also gave Detective Kemp the man's name, Donald Korn. That was obviously the tremendous piece of information missing that we needed. We had a name, we had a car, we had an Ohio license plate, and we knew where this individual worked. The investigators tracked the car back to Butler County, Ohio, and were able to get a picture of Donald Korn. When Dorothy saw the photo, she immediately identified him as the man who had attacked her. Detectives in Indiana working on Dorothy's case contacted the investigators from Ohio that had been working Ruth's case.

Detective Deaton was eager to talk to Korn, his main suspect. And right away, he called me and said, we'll be there in 45 minutes by airplane. Do you have him in custody? I said, not yet. Detective Kemp believed that Dorothy's positive ID was reason enough to arrest Korn. It was the strongest thing that we had to make an arrest because we still hadn't put together all of the information, the lineup photos, and you can only do one thing at a time. Donald Korn was arrested, and while he was in custody, his houseboat was searched.

The investigators found a pair of bloody shoes that matched the footprints found at Dorothy's home. They also found her purse. It had been tossed into the river next to Korn's boat. Detective Kemp decided to question Donald Korn using the good cop technique. Any good investigator will try to establish a bond with a suspect because you're not going to get the information you need and want by using some of the old tactics that the movies show in the 40s and 50s. Kemp got Korn some coffee and something to eat.

They talked about families and hobbies. Then Kemp told Korn that he was going to have to turn the interrogation over to the detectives from Ohio who wanted to question him about Ruth Dench. And I said, before I do this, Donald, I need to know something. Did you kill Mrs. Dench in Ohio? He said, yes, I stabbed her in the heart. Did you attack Mrs. Hendren? Yes, I did that also.

And he said, I want to get those things off my chest. It seemed that Kemp had closed his case in Indiana and provided the detectives from Ohio with a gift-wrapped confession. In 1976, Donald Korn was found guilty of the rape and robbery of Dorothy Hendren and sentenced to life in an Indiana prison. He was then taken to Ohio to stand trial for the rape and murder of Ruth Dench. He faced a death sentence. Robert Dench was the first witness to take the stand.

He almost had kind of a smirk on his face, and his eyes were just, he showed no remorse, like he didn't care that he had done such a thing. The only physical evidence tying Korn to Ruth's murder was the receipt book showing that he had rented a house from the victim. The more compelling evidence, however, was Korn's confession, admitting that he had committed the crime. He was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Detective Deaton had no sympathy. That's why they make penitentiaries, and that's why they make, at the time, that's why they made electric chairs, you know. But he's a very brutal individual. Donald Korn appealed both convictions. His appeal claimed that his Miranda rights were violated because he had asked for an attorney, but he wasn't allowed one. The detective denied that Korn had asked for an attorney. The appeal was immediately denied in Indiana. But in Ohio, the Court of Appeals took Korn's claim very seriously.

This is attorney Robin Piper. The Court of Appeals looked at the law and said, you know, we don't have an appetite for what we're about to do, but we feel that the law requires us to throw out the confession because he asked for an attorney. And that's what we're required to do. We're required to follow the law. Three years after Korn had been sentenced to death for Ruth's murder,

his conviction was overturned, and his confession was ruled inadmissible. When that was done, it kind of gutted the case. I mean, that was, at that time, the core of the case was his confession. And without that confession, the prosecutor at the time felt that he couldn't prosecute. Robert Dench was devastated by the Court of Appeals decision. To think that he was going to get off scot-free on this heinous crime and was sentenced to death to die in the electric chair, I was just shattered that he had gotten off scot-free. Even though Korn's conviction was overturned, he still had to serve a minimum of 20 years in Indiana

before he'd be eligible for parole. Knowing Korn wasn't a risk for 20 years was somewhat comforting. But Detective Deaton couldn't help imagining what would happen if he ended up back on the streets. All you got to do is look at this guy and look into his eyes and you can tell that he's a killer in the way he committed both of these crimes in Indiana and Ohio. All you got to do is look at this guy and look into his eyes and you can tell that he's a killer. And the way he committed both of these crimes in Indiana and Ohio, I wouldn't want this guy back out on the street. 20 years after Korn was sentenced, in January of the year 2000,

an Ohio cold case detective decided to look into Ruth Dench's case. This is Detective Frank Smith. She was murdered in the most brutal fashion that I've ever seen. And that case right there deserves some answers that obviously had not been provided for the family of Mrs. Dench. Detective Smith knew that Donald Korn murdered Ruth, but he needed to find a way to prove it without using Korn's confession. He looked through the box of evidence from 1974 and found the semen that was collected from Ruth's body. When we opened the first packet up and we seen the slides, we knew that they were sealed. And basically we knew we had a very good chance of obtaining DNA because the evidence had

been properly maintained over a period of almost 30 years. Smith sent the sample to the State crime lab in London, Ohio, where it was received by Jennifer Duvall. She was only able to extract a partial DNA profile, able to be matched to one-third of the population. This is Jennifer Duvall. I mean, out of a jury alone, four people could have that profile. So out of the 12 sitting on a jury, so the stat's not very conclusive at all.

Detective Smith was determined to find something that would connect Korn to Ruth's murder. He visited the area where Ruth Dench had been murdered more than 20 years later. Less than a mile from Ruth's house was a farm that could be seen from the dench property. Charles Jordan, who was 16 when Ruth was killed, still lived on the farm just down the road. He knew Ruth well and he recognized Donald Corn as the man who had pulled up at her house that night. This is Charles Jordan. I saw him pull in there, and my dad said, well, watch and see, you know, if he pulls back out or not.

And I watched for three, four, five minutes, something like that. He never did come out. No one had thought to talk with Jordan during the original investigation. Frank Smith had found a new lead. He had never been talked to before, and we actually had a witness that was still living after the first trial that actually could attest to the fact

that he had seen the killer actually pull into the Dench driveway on that fateful day. Having Charles Jordan as a witness definitely made the case stronger. But without the confession or any physical evidence, a murder conviction would still be difficult. Smith looked at the original investigation file to see if there were any details that stood out. He found the contact information for a woman named

Louise Ambergy, who happened to be Donald Korn's sister. Smith decided to pay Louise a visit. When I knocked on the door and I introduced myself and I explained to her that I was there because of her brother, she told me that it had been a long time coming, that there was something that she needed to tell us.

Louise had never spoken with the police about her brother, and it seemed to be weighing on her conscience. She shared the information with the detective and then repeated the story for a tape deposition. Here's a clip He said yes. All I know is I said, Donnie, how could you do that? And he said, don't worry about it, sis.

What's done is done. The confession that Donald Korn made to his family would be admissible in a future trial and just as compelling as the one he had made to the detective. Detective Smith made the arrangements for Korn to once again be indicted for the murder of Ruth Dench. In June of 2004, Donald Korn was tried for murder in Ohio for a second time, almost 30 years later. Robert Dench was present for the trial.

Nothing's changed. He still had that cold, evil look. He still had a smirk on his face. And it was very difficult for me to even look at this person. Attorney Robin Piper prosecuted the case. The evidence, a weak forensic connection, and Korn's sister's testimony, wasn't as strong as Piper would have liked. We had to take a swing at it. Whether we failed, whether we were successful or not, wasn't as important as the fact that we had to be committed to try to get a conviction

so we could keep him in prison for the rest of his life, so the rest of us could be safe. Piper's case was spread out over three weeks of testimony, explaining every connection in detail. On June 17th, the jury returned with the verdict. Korn was found guilty of aggravated murder. Ohio law changed, and Donald Korn was no longer eligible to receive the death penalty. Instead, 59-year-old Donald Korn was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years before being considered for parole. Robert Dench was able to breathe a little easier because of the sentence. Our fear was really a real fear that he would come after us and try to harm us or my daughters. And that was a real fear we had over our heads all these years. and try to harm us or my daughters.

And that was a real fear we had over our heads all these years. Smith was glad that Korn was no longer a danger to society, but believed that he likely had more skeletons in his closet that hadn't been discovered. This is Detective Smith. There is no doubt in my mind, as being an experienced lawman, that Donald Korn is a cold and a calculated serial killer. I think that we've probably just touched the very tip of his criminal behavior. Frank Smith believed that he might have witnessed a crime committed by Korn firsthand.

Smith had been 14 in 1964 when he happened upon a crime committed by Korn firsthand. Smith had been 14 in 1964 when he happened upon a crime scene. A local woman named Esther Strayer had been murdered in her home. Even though Smith was a teenager at the time, he remembered it clearly. As they brought her body out of the, onto the curb, off the curb, onto the street,

her little hand actually dropped out underneath the sheet. I had never seen a dead person at the age of 14 before. The investigators, in 1964, believed that there was only one possible suspect, Esther's son, Charlie Strayer. I was the closest one to my mother. I had the most to gain. I had everything to gain. I needed money at the time. There was a big thing.

I was about two steps ahead of bankruptcy, or maybe half a step. The detectives weren't able to tie Charlie to the murder of his mother, so the case went cold. In a small town, though, a person doesn't always need to be convicted in court to be considered guilty. You get tired of fighting for your existence. You get tired of trying to make friends with people who, in the back of their mind, say, Oh, that's the son of a bitch who killed his mother. Frank Smith saw the similarities between the cases Korn had been convicted of and the cold case from his childhood.

It's a memory that haunted me forever. I had no idea that 40 years later that I would be one of the key investigators to assist and break that case finally after all those years. Korn was living in the area at the time of Esther Strayer's murder and had even rented a property from the elderly Mrs. Strayer. It's far from coincidence when you take an individual who rents from elderly women and they both end up dead.

It's far from coincidence. Detective Smith looked through the evidence collected from the Strayer case and found semen samples, which he sent out for DNA testing, against Donald Korn. Charlie Strayer was hopeful that someday he would no longer be seen as the man

who murdered his mother. When I can stand up in a Butler County court of pleas and make a victim impact statement, that'll be my satisfaction. Or to put it bluntly, when I can look that son of a bitch in the eye and say what I want to say.

Okay? In the year 2004, before the DNA results were processed, Donald Korn died in prison from a heart attack. The samples came back as a match. And though Korn would never be tried for Esther Strayer's murder, Charlie was thankful that Detective Smith had closed the case. Frank Smith, my hero. When Frank gets his teeth in, he doesn't let up.

And thank God for the Frank Smiths of the world. Frank Smith was glad that he was able to close the case that had stuck with him since he was 14 years old. The force that has drove me is just simply justice and hopefully that Mrs. Strayer can rest in peace. And hopefully that her son and her immediate family can have some peace. And hopefully that her son and her immediate family can have some peace finally. is Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Baples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis.

You can find me at Brooke Giddings on Twitter and at Brooke the Podcaster on Instagram. I'm also active in the Facebook group Podcast for Justice. Check out more Cold Case Files at aetv.com or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the A&E Real Crime blog at AETV.com slash real crime.