USA - Elwood Jones with members of his legal team. Photo courtesy of Ignite Peace

USA - Ohio. Elwood Jones, now 57, Black, exonerated

December 12, 2025:

December 12, 2025 - Ohio. Elwood Jones, now 57, Black, exonerated

Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich announced the dismissal of charges against Elwood Jones.

A jury convicted Elwood Jones in 1996 for the 1994 murder of 67-year-old Rhoda Nathan at a hotel in Blue Ash where he worked and where she was a guest. Evidence used to convict Jones included a bacterial infection in an injury on his hand — alleged to be from hitting Nathan in the mouth — and a necklace police said they found in his toolbox similar to one owned by Nathan. Jones was sentenced to death for the murder.

Jones filed a number of appeals, which were denied. But his attorneys filed for a new trial in 2019 based on new evidence and allegations that prosecutors suppressed evidence that could have cast doubt on his guilt. He was granted a new trial in December 2022, when Judge Wende Cross ruled that the withholding roughly 4,000 of pages of evidence from Mr. Jones’ trial counsel was a significant violation of his constitutional rights. The new evidence included revelations Nathan had Hepatitis B that would have very likely infected Jones when he got the bacterial infection in question, and information about another person’s alleged confession to involvement in Ms. Nathan’s murder and evidence regarding the pendant found in Mr. Jones’ vehicle. He was released on bond in January 2023.

“We’re not allowed to cheat,” Pillich said. “We have to follow the rules, just like the defense has to follow the rules, just like the police have to follow the rules. And because we have modern science, I can look at the evidence we have collected. And that tells me that Jones is excluded as a suspect.”

Previous prosecutor Melissa Powers appealed the retrial ruling made by Judge Cross. That appeal went all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, which directed Ohio’s appeals courts this year to reconsider the case. But Pillich said the evidence just isn’t there. The motion to dismiss was filed with prejudice, meaning charges can’t be refiled. “He’s a free man,” she said. “This case is over and won’t come back to bother him again.”

Pillich touted the prosecutor’s office current efforts to establish a Conviction Integrity Unit to prevent outcomes like Jones’. “Had such a unit existed years ago, this decision may have been reached much sooner,” she said.

Jones, spent 27 years on Ohio’s death row. Mr. Jones is the only person exonerated this year from death row, the 202^nd person exonerated from death row in the U.S. since 1973, and the 12^th in Ohio.

https://www.wvxu.org/local-news/2025-12-12/prosecutors-drop-elwood-jones-case
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/research/analysis/reports/year-end-reports/the-death-penalty-in-2025/innocence