In a recent development that adds a new twist to a decades-old murder case, the Hamilton County Coroner's Office has challenged the original autopsy finding that victim Rhoda Nathan had hepatitis B at the time of her death in 1994, FOX19 NOW reports that upon review of Nathan's records, it was found that she was, in fact, negative for the disease, a revelation that undermines a key piece of evidence that had kept Elwood Jones, the man previously convicted for her murder, on death row for nearly 30 years.
According to the FOX19 NOW article, the Hamilton County Coroner Lakshmi Sammarco expressed surprise that this discrepancy was missed "multiple times," stating "I would have thought at some point someone reviewing the information in court or out of court would have recognized that," the 1994 autopsy stated Nathan had the virus yet, test results within the same archival report indicated otherwise, an error attributed to human error in transcription, as confirmed by a modern review of the microscopic findings.
Despite the coroner's statement, Jay Clark, Jones’s attorney, has contested the office's conclusion, providing documents he believes prove that Nathan did have hepatitis B, as reported by Cincinnati.com. Clark asserts that Dr. Sammarco may have based her recent announcement on the wrong lab report, suggesting it was Jones' negative test result that was being referenced.
These countering claims have surfaced after a new trial was granted when evidence was presented by Jones's lawyers that the prosecution had withheld evidence during Jones’s initial trial, and also that Jones himself had tested negative for hepatitis B, calling into question how he could have suffered a hand injury during the assault if Nathan had been positive for the virus as per the initial autopsy, this narrative came into play especially since one of Nathan's teeth was knocked out during the assault, then again, Jones’s conviction was recently overturned based in part on this negative hepatitis test, and the subsequent dismissal of the case by Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich has been described as ensuring "he can never face the same murder charges again," per a critical viewpoint expressed by Rhoda Nathan's son, Valentine Nathan, in an interview with WLWT, who said, "I would have rather seen some more due diligence possibly done by the prosecutor's office, or at least given it more time — absolutely have fought the battle."
