Three people were shot dead in Columbus over four days in January 2016: a 60-year-old woman walking near her Eastmoor home, a 51-year-old man found on a lawn in East Columbus, and a 15-year-old boy gunned down in front of his own house.
The department reported that ballistic evidence recently found links the homicides of Judith Frum, Leonid Kaplan and Aboubakary Diawara, though police have not elaborated on exactly what ties the three cases together, according to NBC4 WCMH-TV. Ballistic evidence can include shell casings, bullet fragments or gunshot residue, per the same report, though it remains unclear which of those elements investigators used to connect the killings.
Frum was shot and killed on January 2, 2016, near Fair Avenue and South Napoleon Avenue in the Eastmoor neighborhood, where she was found lying in the middle of the street and later pronounced dead from a gunshot wound, the station reported. Before her death, the 60-year-old lived around the corner from where she was found, residing with her mother, and was frequently seen walking through the neighborhood, according to WBNS 10TV. She was pronounced dead at a local hospital at 9:03 p.m. shortly after being found in the street.
A Second Shooting Near a Quiet East Columbus Street
The next night, January 3, police received a call at 8:26 p.m. reporting an unresponsive person near Hallridge Circle in the Livingston-McNaughten area of East Columbus, with gunfire reportedly heard about an hour before that call came in, per the NBC4 report. Leonid Kaplan, 51, was found on a lawn near a sidewalk and was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound.
Kaplan lived with his mother near the 5800 block of Riverton Road in East Columbus and was known to frequently jog in the area before he was killed, according to records maintained by the Ohio Attorney General. He died at Grant Hospital early on January 4, 2016, following the shooting, those records show.
Three days after that, on January 6, police arrived around 7:10 p.m. near Laurelwood and Vicki Court in the Northern Woods area of northwest Columbus to find 15-year-old Aboubakary Diawara suffering from a gunshot wound; he was pronounced dead shortly after officers arrived, the NBC4 report states. The Northland High School student was killed directly in front of his family's home, according to WBNS 10TV.
Same Night, Another Killing Across Town
That same evening Diawara was killed, a person was fatally shot on a sidewalk near 2323 Marcia Drive at approximately 8:33 p.m.
Columbus saw a record-setting spike of 205 killings in 2021, according to WOSU. Homicide counts dropped afterward in the post-pandemic years.
Reward Offered in Eddie Lovely's Killing
Part of the reason ballistic links in 2016 cases are only emerging now traces back to a 2023 upgrade in state forensic capability. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost expanded access that July to the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network across state Bureau of Criminal Investigation crime laboratories, giving local agencies free 3D automated scanning of shell casings and bullets. Those labs can now match cartridge case scans against a national ATF database within hours.
Cold cases like these fall to the Columbus Division of Police's dedicated Homicide Case Review Unit, based at Central Police Headquarters on Marconi Boulevard, which re-examines unsolved homicides when new forensic leads or technology develop. The department also produces an official podcast, The 5th Floor, featuring interviews with lead detectives and victims' families, as part of its effort to keep cold cases in public view.
Police have not named a suspect in connection with any of the three killings. Central Ohio Crime Stoppers is offering a cash reward for information in Eddie Lovely's death. Anyone with information about Lovely's case is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 614-461-TIPS (8477) or submit a tip at stopcrime.org.
