Marvin Lee Smith is behind bars for murdering Jessica Keen at a cemetery in West Jefferson, Ohio, after he kidnapped her from a bus stop.
In 1988, Jessica and her mother left Kettering and moved to Columbus, where she was a cheerleader and sophomore student at Westland High School.
According to the Dayton Daily News, Jessica was an A and B student at her previous school, but after the move, she started dating an 18-year-old boy when everything changed.
Her boyfriend was a high school dropout, had run-ins with the law, and had been kicked out of his home. He was hanging out with the wrong crowd.
Jessica began skipping school, which led to her grades dropping. That’s when her mother decided to seek help. She sent her to Huckleberry House, a group home for runaway and troubled teens in Columbus, Ohio.
On March 15, 1991, two weeks after Jessica moved into the Huckleberry House, she left the group home around 3 p.m. and was seen at a bus stop at Summits and Eighth streets.
When she didn’t return at 11 p.m. for check-in, her mother contacted the police department and reported Jessica missing.
Following a two-day search, on March 17, 1991, Jessica was found dead at the Foster Chapel Cemetery. She was found nude, except for a twisted bra and one sock.
Her footprints were found in the mud, and one of her socks was found near a gravestone, along with duct tape.
Jessica’s mother told the media that “everything I tried to prevent—her life from being ruined—happened anyway.”
Her grandfather said, “She wasn’t a troubled child. She was so well-liked. She was a talented girl—she could play musical instruments, she could sing.”
“Ever since she was a little girl, she would sit around and talk to adults. She was a little more advanced than the normal 15-year-old.”
An autopsy revealed that Jessica had been sexually assaulted, and she died from blunt force trauma to her head and body.
DNA evidence collected from the victim’s body was submitted for testing, but investigators were unable to find a match.
Investigators initially considered Jessica’s boyfriend a person of interest when they uncovered that at the time Jessica went missing, she was wearing the necklace he had given her, but the necklace was missing when her body was found.
The Chronicle reported that he was in Florida with his friends at the time Jessica was murdered, and his DNA did not match the DNA evidence collected at the crime scene.
Jessica’s case went unsolved for 17 years.
Detectives got a break in the case in 2008 when DNA evidence matched the Smith’s DNA.
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Marc Dann, who oversees the state’s Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, which analyzes DNA evidence, stated that Smith was living in Columbus at the time Jessica was killed.
Between 1991 and 1995, he submitted a sample of his DNA while incarcerated on robbery, kidnapping, and rape charges in an unrelated case. He served nine years.
Jim Sabin, a detective with the Madison County Sheriff, said: “His [Smith] name never came up in the 17 years of the investigation as a person of interest” until February 2008.
Smith was arrested in North Carolina and extradited to the Madison County Jail on charges of aggravated murder, kidnapping, and rape. He was held on a $1 million bond.
In a Madison County courtroom, Smith admitted to abducting Jessica at a Weinland Park bus stop across the street from Huckleberry House and raping her, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Smith stated that after abducting Jessica from the bus stop and sexually assaulting her, he took her to the Foster Chapel Cemetery, where she managed to slip away and hide behind a tombstone.
When she saw a light at a nearby farmhouse, she started to run towards it, but it was dark at the time, and she ultimately ran into a fence.
Smith caught up with her.
He told authorities that he picked up a 70-pound headstone and began beating her with it—so hard that the headstone split in two.
Before fleeing the scene, Smith said he threw the headstone over the fence.
To avoid the death penalty, Smith took a plea deal, according to 10TV.
He pleaded guilty to the murder of Jessica and was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.