DOVER TOWNSHIP, Ohio — The Tuscarawas County Sheriff's Office is closing a cold case that has troubled the Dover Township community for decades.
In 1998, a group of children found a suitcase on Winkler Road that contained the pelvis and part of a leg of an unknown man. A week later, another suitcase containing a torso was found on Boltz Orchard Road in Jefferson Township.
Investigators took DNA samples from the remains and discovered fingerprints on the suitcases, but the identities of their owners remained a mystery.
Three years ago, Sheriff Orvis L. Campbell tasked Det. Sergeant Ryan Hamilton with determining whether advances in DNA technology would shed new light on the case.
The department worked closely with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and two criminal intel analysts, Lisa Savage and Jen Dillion, and discovered a possible living family member in Euclid.
That led investigators to 81-year-old Larry J. Drotleff, who the department said had previously been caught collecting Social Security and retirement funds from his dead father, Lawrence A. Drotleff.
DNA testing confirmed that the remains belonged to the elder Drotleff.
In 2024, Hamilton and Captain Adam Fisher interviewed Larry Drotleff, who told investigators that years ago, while still living with his father, he left for work one day and when he came home, he found his father dead.
The department said that Drotleff told investigators he then used a hand saw to cut up his father's body, put some of the remains in suitcases and others in plastic bags that he placed in dumpsters near where he worked.
The statute of limitations prevented investigators from charging the son with abuse of a corpse, the department said. However, investigators worked with the FBI and the United States Attorney's Office in Cleveland to file federal charges against the son for allegedly stealing $111,485 in Social Security benefits and $135,040 in pension funds from his father's General Electric pension.
