ASHTABULA, Ohio — There’s an ongoing investigation in Ashtabula that has the entire community in shock.
Police say it involves two women who went to a bank with a dead man inside before dropping his body off at a local hospital.
“It’s a very sad commentary on how desperate these two must have been for whatever reason they were doing this,” said Ashtabula City Solicitor Cecilia Cooper.
In a bizarre and unusual case, Cooper said she’d never seen or heard anything like this in her 30 years of practicing law when she learned from Ashtabula Police that two women allegedly drove a dead man in the front seat of his car to a bank where they withdrew an undisclosed amount of money from his account.
“I couldn’t believe it, and then I wondered how could somebody do that?” said Cooper.
Chief Robert Stell said the incident happened just after 5 p.m. on Monday when officers got a call from Ashtabula County Medical Center that the local hospital had received a man’s body.
It wasn’t until a few hours later that Stell said officers learned that the body belonged to 80-year-old Douglas Layman.
“Our officers and investigators proceeded to a location on Stark Avenue in Ashtabula,” said Stell.
When officers arrived at Layman’s home, Lieutenant Mike Palinkas said they met the two women who dropped Layman off at the medical center.
“Allegedly, one of the females was in a relationship with him for about 7 to 8 years and then moved in shortly after they entered into a relationship. The other female moved in a couple months ago and was just staying there,” said Palinkas.
Palinkas said when the two women found Layman dead, they called a friend to help them get Layman’s body in the passenger seat of his car before heading to the bank.
The women told officers it was normal for them to go to the bank to take out money from his account, so when News 5 asked Palinkas why the women went to the bank before dropping his dead body off at the hospital, Palinkas said they didn’t receive a full explanation besides this:
“Allegedly, they wanted to pay some bills but outside of that, there wasn’t a specific motivation provided,” said Palinkas.
Right now, the women are in custody and have been charged with gross abuse of a corpse.
Cooper said more charges could come before their preliminary hearing on March 12 at 9:30 a.m.
“He deserves to be remembered and honored as the person he was and not just the subject of this crazy incident,” said Cooper.
