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MISSING BOY'S BODY FOUND IN VACANT HOUSE

The Cincinnati Post
May 12, 1992
Author: GEORGE LECKY, POST STAFF REPORTER

A body believed to be that of a missing 10-year-old Lower Price Hill boy was found early today in the basement of a vacant and condemned building within blocks of his home.

Cincinnati police found the body about 6:30 a.m. in a corner of a basement at 2139 W. Eighth St. Authorities believe the dead child is Aaron Raines of the 700 block of Neave Street.

Police Lt. Greg Snider, commander of homicide squad, called the death suspicious.

Police have not ruled out the possibility that the youngster fell through a hole in the first floor of the building to the basement.

However, police today had not established a cause of death and the child's body had not been removed from the basement as investigators continued to search for clues.

Aaron, a fourth-grader at Oyler Elementary School in Price Hill, was reported missing by his mother, Barbara Raines, at 11:30 p.m. Monday night after he failed to come home.

The rotting 112-year-old building in which the boy's body was found is owned by the city-funded Lower Price Hill Urban Redevelopment Corp. The building has been abandoned since 1988 and condemned since 1989.

The building was boarded up except for a rear window which was covered with a screen. Children in the neighborhood said today that they regularly play in the building.

A distraught Barbara Raines, waiting for final word this morning that the body was that of her son, was comforted by relatives and neighbors. Aaron was the youngest of her six children.

"I checked with relatives and friends before I called the cops," she said. "It wasn't like him not to show up."

She said Aaron was playing in the neighborhood with other children near his house and was last seen about 9 p.m.

"I went out looking for him. I couldn't find him and I knew something was wrong," Ms. Raines said.

Aaron's sister, Nancy Ball, 20, of Covington, said her brother was scared of going into the vacant building and had told her he never went there.

An aunt who was comforting Ms. Raines, Nancy Drees of Woodlawn, described Aaron as a "sweet, very trusting, child."

Other neighbors said Aaron rarely left his immediate neighborhood.

Last August, Aaron was hospitalized in critical condition after he was struck by a van while riding on his skateboard. According to Cincinnati Police, the boy was skating down Beech Avenue and failed to yield at a stop sign at West Liberty Street.

Aaron suffered another injury recently when he was lifting weights and dropped one on his foot. He was wearing a cast on his left foot at the time he disappeared.

At Aaron's school, Oyler Elementary, students will get help from counselors in coping with the tragedy, said Principal Miriam Kinard.

She said a counselor from a mental health crisis team at Cincinnati Public Schools would come to the school to talk with students. Oyler also has a full- time counselor and the school is one of those assigned to a school psychologist.

Police said the building is a hazard to the children who play it in but attempts to get it torn down have been unsuccessful.

The redevelopment corporation was forced to move low-income tenants out of the building in 1988 after city housing inspectors found it was unfit for human habitation and ordered it repaired or boarded up.

According to city inspections, the building had rotted support joists, a leaky roof, defective electrical wiring, sewage seeping into the basement and more than 20 other building code violations.

"We board those buildings up on an almost monthly basis and kids keep breaking into them. They can be boarded up on a Friday and by Monday, they're broken into," said Bud Hoffman, property management director.

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10-YEAR-OLD BOY WAS BEATEN TO DEATH

The Cincinnati Post
May 14, 1992
Author: AL ANDRY, POST STAFF REPORTER

The life of Aaron Raines ended when someone hit him repeatedly in the head, the Hamilton County coroner says.

But how the 10-year-old boy's body came to be in a vacant building in Lower Price Hill still remains a mystery.

The Cincinnati police homicide squad late Wednesday positively identified the body found Tuesday in the boarded-up building at 2139 W. Eighth St. as Aaron, of 713 Neave St.

Police say they suspected all along that the boy was a homicide victim but hesitated saying so until the coroner's office could perform an autopsy.

Police would not say if they have a motive or a suspect in the killing.

The homicide squad also said Wednesday that the coroner's office has determined that blunt blows to the head killed the boy. The boy, a fourth- grader at Oyler Elementary School in Price Hill, was reported missing by his mother, Barbara Raines, about 11:30 p.m. Monday.

Aaron is the youngest of Mrs. Raines' six children.

She said he was last seen about 9 p.m. Monday playing with other children near his house. "I went out looking for him. I couldn't find him and I knew something was wrong," she said.

Mrs. Raines declined to talk to reporters Wednesday, but Aaron's brother, Dallas Hayes, said the family was taking the latest news "rough, rough."

"I was the one babysitting him at the time. I'm tore up inside out," Hayes said.

Aaron's sister, Nancy Ball, 20, of Covington, said earlier that her brother was afraid of going into the vacant building and had told her he never went there.

The boy's body was found about 6:30 a.m. Monday in the corner of the basement of the condemned, 112-year-old building. The building has been abandoned since 1988 and condemned since 1989.

Children in the neighborhood said they regularly played in the building, which is owned by the city-funded Lower Price Hill Urban Redevelopment Corp.

The boy's murder has angered Lower Price Hill residents, who blame delays in demolishing the building for his death.

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ARREST IN BOY'S SLAYING
VICTIM'S FAMILY KNEW SUSPECT

The Cincinnati Post
July 28, 1992
Author: DENISE WILSON, POST STAFF REPORTER

An itinerant worker described by relatives as a drug abuser and alcoholic was arrested Monday in the killing of 10-year-old Aaron Raines of Lower Price Hill.

Darryl Gumm, 26, known to friends and relatives in Lower Price Hill as "Junior," was charged with aggravated murder in the death of Aaron, who police earlier said had been beaten to death.

Aaron's body was found May 12 in the basement of a vacant building at 2139 W. Eighth St., Lower Price Hill, just blocks from his home in the 700 block of Neave Street. Raines was a fourth grader at Oyler Elementary School.

Gumm, who most often stayed in a trailer at a Germantown, Ky., farm, near Maysville, frequented Lower Price Hill and knew the Raines family for about 15 years, family members said.

Gumm is being held in the Hamilton County Justice Center.

Gumm's stepsister, Betty Gumm, said her brother was a drug abuser and alcoholic who had been left on her family's doorstep when he was 6 weeks old. Her family adopted Gumm, she said.

"He was a good person when he was sober," she said. "But when he was drunk, you had to watch him."

Police said Gumm's arrest record is "extensive" but they would not comment further.

Ms. Gumm said Gumm was well known in Lower Price Hill and had previously lived with her at an apartment in the 2100 block of Staebler Street in Lower Price Hill.

Gumm knew every inch of the vacant building in which Aaron's body was found, Ms. Gumm said, because he stripped copper pieces from it to raise money to buy beer.

Gumm never held a job very long, she said. "He would collect a paycheck from one job, and move on to another one," she said. She said he worked most frequently on the Germantown farm.

Jesse Burton, who owns the 300-acre farm where Gumm worked, said the 26- year-old did menial work such as cleaning barns and cutting grass off and on at the farm for the past two years. "It's a shock," Burton said of Gumm's arrest. "He was very nice around us. He would drift in and stay two or three weeks, and then leave."

Burton said he last saw Gumm Saturday night when he stopped at the farm to pick up a $45 paycheck.

Burton said Cincinnati police visited Gumm at the farm last week to ask him to take a lie detector test. He said Gumm agreed and police told him they would pick him up Monday.

"If he had wanted to run he could have," said Burton's wife. "He had a little money in his pocket."

On Monday afternoon, several police investigators escorted a handcuffed man with a raincoat draped over his head through the vacant building where Aaron's body was found. Neighbors said the red-haired man looked like Gumm.

"I don't know who the guy was, but he looks like somebody I know," said Tonya Joshons, who was outside her Hatmaker Street apartment when police arrived with the man.

Cincinnati police wouldn't confirm if Gumm was the man they escorted through the building.

Ms. Gumm said she last saw her brother after leaving Hazard, Ky., in February. She tried to call him on Memorial Day, two weeks after Aaron's body was found, but friends told her he had been dropped off at a park next to the vacant building where the body was found.

"It wasn't like him not to contact me when he was so close," she said. "I felt like my hands were tied and I couldn't do a thing."

Ms. Gumm said she called police on Memorial Day to tell them she thought her brother might have been involved in Aaron's death, but said no one ever contacted her about her call.

"I felt sorry for (Aaron's mother), because he (Junior) will never go through what Aaron did," she said.

As Lower Price Hill residents learned of Gumm's arrest Monday night, neighborhood children were glad to hear the news and Aaron's relatives breathed a sigh of relief.

Barbara Raines, Aaron's mother, said she was relieved the police had arrested a suspect.

"I'm happy they caught a person," said Ms. Raines. "But there still is a trial and all the stuff I have to go through."

June Raines, Aaron's aunt, said she was still shaken. "I'm still in shock, but I feel a whole lot of relief," she said. "Now my babies can come out and play and go to the park without being afraid."

Lower Price Hill Community Council activist Eileen Gallagher agreed. "I feel enormously relieved," she said. "Because there was a strong conviction in Lower Price Hill residents that it was someone among us."

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POLICE: PAIR 'LURED' AARON
SECOND MAN ARRESTED IN YOUNGSTER'S MURDER

The Cincinnati Post
July 30, 1992
Author: AL SALVATO, POST STAFF REPORTER

Accused murderers Darryl Gumm and Michael Alvin Bies lured young Aaron Raines into an abandoned building in Lower Price Hill, where they kicked and beat him to death after an attempted rape, Cincinnati Police Chief Lawrence Whalen says.

At a press conference Wednesday announcing the arrest of Bies, Whalen said Bies and Gumm attacked the 10-year-old boy in several rooms in the gutted building in mid-May, then left Aaron's battered body in the basement.

Whalen said the two viciously attacked Aaron and killed him "before his family missed him" that night. Aaron, who lived just blocks from the building, was found May 12 after an exhaustive search by police and residents.

Cincinnati Homicide Unit Commander Lt. Gregory Snider said police recovered several weapons in the slaying: shoes, a board, a concrete block and a metal pipe.

Gumm, 26, of Germantown, Ky., and Bies, 20, who was arrested in southern Kentucky, have been charged with aggravated murder. Gumm, who was arrested Monday, remains in jail here.

Bies Wednesday waived extradition at a hearing in Perry County, Ky., where he was arrested Tuesday. Police said they expect to make no more arrests.

Bies pleaded innocent to the aggravated murder charge today in Hamilton County Municipal Court. Judge Joseph Luebbers set bond for Bies at $100,000, the same amount set for Gumm at his arraignment Tuesday.

Police said Bies is originally from Chicago. He told Luebbers he was staying in Kentucky and living on supplementary Social Security income because of a disability.

Bies is being held under special watch at the Hamilton County Justice Center because authorities said they were told he had suicidal tendencies.

Betty Gumm, Gumm's stepsister, said she was relieved they arrested someone else. She said her two children remember seeing Michael Bies at their trailer home in Hazard, Ky, and at a friend's home.

Whalen said police turned their sights on Bies shortly after Gumm's arrest.

But Snider said Gumm and Bies had been suspects for some time. He said another 145 people - many of them neighborhood residents and some family members - had been questioned by police before being led first to Gumm, then to Bies.

Bies offered no resistance when apprehended Tuesday.

[Admin]

JURY GETS DETAILS OF BOY'S DEATH

The Cincinnati Post
October 7, 1992
Author: DEBRA DENNIS, POST STAFF REPORTER

Trapped inside an dark, abandoned building, Aaron Raines tried to fight off two men who were trying to rape him.

Hampered by intense fear and a partial cast on his right foot, the 10-year- old youth lost his life as two men beat him with their fists, a block of cement and a board, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said today.

Deters' statement came as part of opening arguments in the trial of Michael Bies, one of two men charged with murder in the beating death of Aaron last May.

Jurors shifted nervously in their seats and some family members cried during Deters' arguments against Bies, 20, a drifter from of Hazard, Ky.

Bies, his face resting in the palm of his left hand, showed little emotion as Deters described for a jury the final moments of Aaron's life.

"This crime is not simply about kidnapping Aaron Raines to rape him and kill him to escape detection," the prosecutor said. "After Aaron was laying in that basement dead or near dead, they (defendants) were not satisfied. Michael Bies beat him with his ferocity. With blood still on their hands, they then performed oral sex on each other."

Aaron, of Lower Price Hill, had been playing tag with neighborhood children last May when Bies and another man, Darryl Gumm, lured him inside the boarded up building at 2139 W. Eighth St. Deters said.

Bies is facing charges of aggravated murder, attempted rape and kidnapping. If convicted, he could receive a death sentence.

Gumm, 26, of Germantown, Ky., goes on trial on the same charges next month.

Bies' attorney, Timothy Deardorff, said the state will have difficulty tying his client to the crime. He told jurors that Bies will testify.

Dallas Hayes, Aaron's older brother, testified today that he had been baby sitting Aaron when the Oyler Elementary School fourth-grader disappeared. Hayes, 19, said Aaron was afraid of the dark and got around slowly because of a cast he wore after dropping a weight on his foot.

He said Aaron had been playing in the vacant lot across from their house. As night began to set, Hayes said he looked for the boy but couldn't find him.

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PROSECUTOR: BOY DIED IN FEAR, PAIN

The Cincinnati Post
October 13, 1992
Author: DEBRA DENNIS, POST STAFF REPORTER

Aaron Raines was physically restrained by one assailant while another tried to engage him in oral sex. When he screamed and tried to fight off the two men, he was beaten to death, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said today.

Deters is prosecuting Michael Bies, one of two men accused of fatally beating the 10-year-old Lower Price Hill boy. Bies, 20, of Hazard, Ky., is on trial in common pleas court, facing charges of aggravated murder, kidnapping and attempted rape.

But Bies' lawyer argued that prosecutors failed to link their client to the boy's death.

If convicted, Bies could be sentenced to death.

Deters said evidence shows that the youth was being held down by someone during the attempted rape.

"He was probably fighting as hard as a 10-year-old, 85-pound boy can fight against two grown men," Deters said.

Using explicit photographs, Deters told jurors that twine was placed around the boy's neck and used to drag him around the abandoned, two-story building in Lower Price Hill in which his body was found.

"Think of the absolute terror this boy must have gone through to cause these injuries," he said.

Raines was beaten with a block of cement, a metal pipe and repeatedly kicked, he said.

Bies' lawyer, Joe Dixon, told the jury that prosecutors brought in numerous exhibits but none of them linked his client to the boy's death.

He also derided prosecutors for presenting Bies' unrecorded statement in which he allegedly acknowledges his role in the slaying. Dixon said there was no evidence of an attempted rape, saying the autopsy showed no anal penetration and indicated the boy's genitals were normal.

He asked the jury to decide the case only on facts.

"There is no doubt that the sympathy for Aaron Raines is great. We all feel very, very sorry for his death. But you've got to put that aside."

Text of fax box follows:

The Raines case

Aaron Raines, 10, a fourth-grader at Oyler Elementary School, was found dead May 12 in the basement of an abandoned building at 2139 W. Eighth St., just blocks from his home in Lower Price Hill.

Darryl Gumm, 26, of Germantown, Ky., has also been charged with aggravated murder in the killing. He is scheduled to go on trial next month.

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BIES GUILTY IN DEATH
BRUTAL BEATING OF 10-YEAR-OLD

The Cincinnati Post
October 15, 1992
Author: DEBRA DENNIS, POST STAFF REPORTER

Michael Bies was found guilty Wednesday of all counts stemming from the brutal beating death and attempted rape of a Lower Price Hill boy.

As the verdict was read, some family members of 10-year-old Aaron Raines wept while Bies sat rigidly at the defense table.

"I have nothing to say," Bies said as he was escorted from the Hamilton County courtroom by sheriff's deputies.

The jury deliberated about seven hours over a two-day period.

The punishment phase of Bies' case was to begin today before Common Pleas Judge J. Howard Sundermann.

Bies, one of two men accused of fatally beating the boy, could be sentenced to die.

For a week, jurors had heard that the last moments of Aaron's life were filled with torture and terror.

All the while, they saw Bies, 20, sit solemnly, sometimes doodling on a pad, other times resting his face in the palm of his left hand.

Prosecutor Joe Deters told jurors Tuesday during closing arguments that the boy was physically restrained in a vacant building by one assailant while another tried to engage him in oral sex. When he screamed and tried to fight off the two men, he was beaten to death, Deters said.

Co-defendant Darryl Gumm, 26, of Germantown, Ky., is to go on trial next month on identical charges of aggravated murder, kidnapping and attempted rape. If convicted, he also faces a possible death sentence.

Prosecutors said Aaron was lured into the building by Bies and Gumm with the promise of money.

Once inside the building at 2139 W. Eighth St., the two attempted to rape Aaron, then killed him when he resisted, Deters said.

"He was probably fighting as hard as a 10-year-old, 85-pound boy can fight against two grown men," Deters said.

Aaron, a fourth-grader at Oyler Elementary School, was found dead May 12 in the building's basement.

When his body was found, a partial footprint was visible on his forehead. Another print was embedded on Aaron's shoulder.

Bies' lawyer, Joe Dixon, asked jurors to consider whether Bies was the principal offender and took aim at Darryl Gumm.

Dixon told jurors that Gumm was a heavy drinker who has nine convictions for disorderly conduct.

It was Gumm, Dixon said, who tricked the boy into entering the dilapidated building to hunt for scrap metal that could be sold for money.

Dixon said prosecutors had used numerous exhibits during the trial but none of them linked Bies to Aaron's death.

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KILLER ASKS FOR MERCY: 'I'M NOT BAD'
BIES PLEADS FOR LIFE; JURY STILL DECIDING

The Cincinnati Post
October 16, 1992
Author: DEBRA DENNIS, POST STAFF REPORTER

Convicted killer Michael Bies, a father of three children, has the emotional and psychological maturity of a 3-year-old, his lawyer argued Thursday.

Bies, 20, of Hazard, Ky., is hoping to persuade a jury to punish him with a life sentence rather than death by electrocution for the May 12 slaying of 10- year-old Aaron Raines.

The panel deliberated four hours Thursday without reaching a decision. They resumed work today.

"The question is what are you achieving if you give Michael Bies the death penalty?" said Bies' lawyer Timothy Deardorff. "He's a sick 3-year-old man. He's a 3-year-old, and we cannot execute a child."

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters called Bies' "a parent's worst nightmare." He told jurors not to buy into suggestions that Bies should not be held fully accountable for his actions.

"He's a powder keg. This isn't one incident. This is how he's acted his entire life."

Bies, convicted Wednesday of aggravated murder, attempted rape and kidnapping, told jurors that he doesn't remember much about May 11 - the day the fourth-grader was fatally beaten and left in an abandoned house.

Bies said he could not grasp the complexity of the courtroom proceedings that have been going on for more than a week and instead took to drawing "just a bunch of faces" on a legal pad.

He asked jurors not to misinterpret his actions as uncaring: "I did not understand what was going on."

Using language that was at time unintelligible, Bies said he was "sorry for what happened." He then stopped reading his unsworn statement and tearfully asked Deardorff to assist him.

Deardorff warned jurors that the statement was difficult to read because Bies is barely literate.

"I am not a bad person," Deardorff said, reading from Bies' statement. "I (was) beaten as a kid by my mom and her boyfriend.

"I was honest to police. I've even (never) been in court before. I wants to get mercy on me here. I will stay in jail for the rest of my life if you let me."

Bies, a ninth-grade dropout, told jurors that he has three children.

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DEATH PENALTY RECOMMENDED FOR BIES

The Cincinnati Post
October 17, 1992
Author: DEBRA DENNIS, POST STAFF REPORTER

Michael Bies bowed his head Friday as a jury's recommendation was read that said he should be sentenced to die for killing a 10-year-old Lower Price Hill.

The lawyer for the 20-year-old Hazard, Ky., man said a death sentence for the mildly retarded Bies is tantamount to killing another child.

But the prosecutor said Bies knew right from wrong and that his sympathy goes only to the family of Aaron Raines, whose beaten body was found May 12 in the basement of an abandoned building just blocks from his home.

"I'd have to say that I'm disappointed," said defense lawyer Timothy Deardorff. "They've sentenced a child to die in the electric chair."

Deardorff claims that Bies is mildly retarded and has an IQ of 63 to 73. He was convicted earlier this week of fatally beating the fourth-grader and attempting to rape him.

Bies' co-defendant, Darryl Gumm, goes on trial next month facing identical charges.

Deardorff had pleaded for a life sentence likening his client's emotional and psychological maturity to that of a 3-year-old child.

He said that Bies did not understand the courtroom proceedings and could not assist him in his defense.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters called Deardorff's contentions "ridiculous" saying Bies is an adult who should be held accountable for his actions.

"He was reviewed by three psychologists and he was found sane. ... Michael Bies is the reason for the death penalty in Ohio. My sympathy goes to Aaron Raines and his family."

The same jury that convicted Bies deliberated about 8 1/2 hours over two days before reaching a decision. One member of the panel cried as the verdict was read.

Bies declined comment as he was escorted from the courtroom.

Common Pleas Judge J. Howard Sundermann set sentencing for Oct. 30, when he will either impose the death sentence or life imprisonment.

[Admin]

BOY'S KILLER SENTENCED TO DEATH

The Cincinnati Post
October 30, 1992
Author: DEBRA DENNIS, POST STAFF REPORTER

Michael Bies, convicted of killing a 10-year-old Aaron Raines in an abandoned Lower Price Hill building, was sentenced to death today.

The sentence for Bies, a ninth-grade drop-out with three children, will automatically be appealed, delaying the March 15, 1993, execution date set today by a Hamilton County Common Pleas Court judge.

Barbara Raines, whose son Aaron was brutally beaten by Bies and another man when he refused their demands for sex, welcomed the judge's decision. However, her sense of justice was greeted with caution because of the appeals afforded in death-penalty cases.

"It makes you feel better, but it's only half over," she said.

Bies, 20, of Hazard, Ky., did not react when Common Pleas Judge J. Howard Sundermann announced the sentence, which followed the recommendation of the jury that convicted him of the killing earlier this month.

Bies was convicted of aggravated murder, attempted rape and kidnapping.

Bies' lawyer Timothy Deardorff, seeking a sentence of life in prison, asked Sundermann to consider Bies's mild retardation and the physical abuse he suffered as a child. He also said that other criminals who had committed more heinous acts were spared death penalties.

"Nothing's going to be achieved by putting Michael to death," said Deardorff.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters disagreed and said that Bies' acts warranted the ultimate punishment.

"Michael Bies is a rotten excuse for humanity for what he did to Aaron Raines," Deters said.

Aaron's badly beaten body was found in the basement of an abandoned building just blocks from his home. He had been assaulted with a cinder block, a metal pipe and repeatedly kicked and beaten.

Co-defendant Darryl "Junior" Gumm, 26, goes on trial Monday.

[Admin]

DOCTOR DOUBTS ACCUSED KILLER'S STORY

The Cincinnati Post
November 7, 1992
Author: DEBRA DENNIS, POST STAFF REPORTER

Darryl "Junior" Gumm's defense is that he didn't take part in the fatal beating and attempted rape of a 10-year-old.

But an expert witness testified Friday that the boy was held down by one assailant while a second one beat and stomped him.

Dr. Amy Martin, a former Hamilton County deputy coroner, testified that Aaron Raines showed no defensive wounds to indicate he was trying to ward off an attacker. That means the boy was being held by one person while another struck him, she said.

Gumm, 26, of Germantown, Ky., is on trial in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court on charges of aggravated murder for the brutal beating death of the Lower Price Hill boy. Aaron was killed May 11. His body was found the next day in the basement of a dilapidated building three blocks from his home.

In a taped statement given police, Gumm claimed that he might have stepped on the boy's chest as he existed the building. However, Ms. Martin testified that the boy's wounds were so severe that they were made with significantly more force than someone stepping on the child.

"The cheek bones were all broken, and the left side of his face was crushed," said Ms. Martin, now a deputy coroner in Denver.

Patterns that are consistent with shoe prints were left on the front of the boy's chest and shoulder, she said.

Gumm blamed his friend Michael Bies for the death, saying he saw Bies strike the child but that he was too frightened to stop him.

Gumm also said he was afraid to report to police that the boy's body was inside a gutted building at 2139 W. Eighth Street.

Bies, 20, of Hazard, Ky., has been sentenced to death for killing Raines.

Prosecutors contend Gumm and Bies lured the boy into the building and tried to rape him.

Aaron, a fourth-grader at Oyler Elementary School, suffered severe trauma and died from a combination of blows to his head, neck, chest and abdomen, Ms. Martin said.

Gumm's lawyers Robert Sachs and Herbert Freeman will present Gumm's defense on Monday.

The jury of seven men and five women are expected to begin deliberations by Tuesday.

If convicted, Gumm could be sentenced to die.

[Admin]

PROSECUTOR: GUMM'S PAST FULL OF CRUELTY
The Cincinnati Post
November 10, 1992
Author: DEBRA DENNIS, POST STAFF REPORTER
Estimated printed pages: 2

Darryl Gumm is a violent, deceitful sociopath whose "hobby" allows him to engage in sex with women, men, animals and children. When one child, 10-year- old Aaron Raines, resisted being raped, Gumm and another man beat him to death, a prosecutor said today.

Gumm, 26, sat silently as Chief Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Longano painted him as a sexual deviant and principal offender in last May's fatal beating of the Lower Price Hill boy.

Aaron was beaten with a metal pipe, a concrete block and repeatedly kicked and stomped. His body was found in an abandoned building near his home.

Prosecutors said Gumm is cruel to animals and children and once killed his niece's dog by tossing it into a space heater. Longano said Gumm also burned a child with a heated spoon.

Longano conceded that Gumm has a mental defect but said that deficiency does not prevent him from conforming to social norms.

"Gumm knows right from wrong," Longano said.

Gumm, of Germantown, Ky., admitted to police that he lured the boy into the building under the pretext of helping his search for copper. Gumm told police that Michael Bies, who was sentenced to death for his role in the slaying, pummeled Aaron with his fists and struck him with a board.

Gumm, a friend of Aaron's family, denied striking the boy.

Defense lawyers Herman Freeman and Robert Sachs said their client was incapable of telling the same story twice and suggested that police wrangled a confession out of him following eight hours of interrogation.

"By the time they were done with him, he would have confessed to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln," Sachs said.

"Somebody should pay for this but it shouldn't be him," Sachs said.

Freeman asked the jury not to rush to judgment because of the severity of the crime.

"Nothing that happened in that building can be traced to my client."

The jury was to begin deliberations today.

A conviction would make Gumm eligible for a death sentence.

[Admin]

GUMM GETS DEATH SENTENCE IN MURDER OF 10-YEAR-OLD

The Cincinnati Post
November 25, 1992
Author: DEBRA DENNIS, POST STAFF REPORTER

Still insisting that he is innocent, Darryl Gumm was sentenced today to death by electrocution for the beating death of 10-year-old Aaron Raines.

Gumm, 26, was the second of two Kentucky men ordered to pay with their lives for Aaron's killing last May in Lower Price Hill. Gumm, a drifter who also lived in Lower Price Hill, was a friend of Aaron's family.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Robert Ruehlman set a May 11, 1993 execution date - the same day Aaron was reported missing. However, the date will change because of automatic appeals.

"This defendant was involved in a cold-blooded, calculated plan to kidnap, rape and kill a defenseless 10-year-old boy," said Ruehlman. "This child knew you Mr. Gumm and you lured him to his death."

Aaron's family members wept as Ruehlman announced Gumm's punishment.

Ruehlman followed the recommendation of the 12-member jury that convicted Gumm of aggravated murder early this month. That jury recommended the death sentence.

As he was escorted from the courtroom, the Germantown, Ky., man insisted that the wrong person had been convicted.

He denied being in the abandoned, dilapidated building in which Aaron's badly beaten body was found.

Aaron, a fourth grader at Oyler Elementary School, suffered 21 tears in the skin of the back of his head from having been beaten with a cinder block, a piece of metal and pieces of wood.

The boy's first four ribs were pushed into the chest cavity, puncturing the right lung. A bone in his skull was exposed and his teeth were either chipped or broken.

Gumm blamed Michael Bies for Aaron's death, saying the Hazard, Ky., man went mad after the boy resisted their attempts to rape him. Bies, 20, also was sentenced to death in October for killing the boy.

Dallas Hayes, 19, Aaron's brother, said the sentence brings little comfort to the family.

"It won't bring my brother back," he said. "It won't be over until both of them pay with their lives."

[Admin]

TEEN SAYS HE'S WITNESS TO BOY'S BEATING DEATH

Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)
February 7, 1999
Author: ASSOCIATED PRESS

A teen who says he witnessed the fatal beating of a 10-year-old boy in a vacant building in 1992 has come forward to support the death-penalty convictions of two men in the case, a prosecutor said Friday.

"This boy confirms the guilt of both of them beyond any doubt," Hamilton County Prosecutor Michael Allen said.

The two men convicted of fatally beating Aaron Raines are awaiting execution. Darryl Gumm and Michael Bies, both from Hazard, Ky., are appealing their convictions and trying to win new trials.

The two men lured the fourth-grade student into the vacant building on May 11, 1992, then stomped and beat him with sticks, a pipe and a slab of concrete after he refused their demands for sex, prosecutors said.

Lawrence Greger, a lawyer representing Gumm in his appeal, said he was stunned to hear that a purported witness had surfaced. Greger said that as far as he knew, the prosecutors had not disclosed that to defense lawyers. That could raise constitutional problems with the convictions, he said.

"There's nothing in there that says anything about the presence of another person in the building," Greger said of the case record.

"If you had an eyewitness to the crime, why wouldn't you have put him on the stand?" Greger asked. "It's unbelievable."

Allen said the witness was 12 at the time of Aaron's fatal beating and is now 18. Allen declined to identify the witness and said he will ask a court for a protective order to keep his identity secret.

Allen said his office will use the teen's testimony as new evidence to be filed in courts as soon as next week to fight defense efforts to overturn the convictions.

The teen was traumatized for years by what he had seen and only recently told his mother, who directed him to Cincinnati police in recent weeks, Allen said. The witness knew Aaron and followed him and the two men into the building. He hid in the shadows while Aaron was beaten, Allen said.

[Admin]

Some killers face an Uncertain death
Strickland may be sympathetic to claims of mental retardation

The Cincinnati Enquirer
January 29, 2007
Author: Sharon Coolidge and Jon Craig

Barbara Raines' anger has festered 15 years and now she's turning that anger toward Gov. Ted Strickland.

Darryl Gumm and Michael Bies, the men sentenced to die for abducting and beating her 10-year-old son to death in 1992, have sat on Ohio's death row during appeal after appeal.

Each killer claims he is mentally retarded. If the courts agree, that means they can't be executed under a 2002 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that says executing the mentally retarded is unconstitutional.

Raines wants Gumm and Bies dead, but she worries the new governor is slowing the process down even more.

Strickland needs to think about the victims' families, she said. "He needs to walk a day, live a month in my shoes," said Raines, 51, of Lower Price Hill. "It's hard to do unless you've lost a son or a child."

She spoke from a memorial garden planted in honor of her son Aaron Raines at West 8th and Depot streets in Lower Price Hill, across the street from where Aaron died.

A mural above the garden shows Aaron as an angel watching over the neighborhood.

"You can't put it behind you until it's over," she said. "And it's not over as long as they're still alive."

Strickland, a former prison psychologist and Methodist minister, told The Enquirer last week he has "serious questions" about capital punishment.

While campaigning, Strickland said he supported capital punishment but was troubled by cases in which inmates were exonerated after long stays on death row.

On his 12th day in office, Strickland granted temporary reprieves to three death-row inmates scheduled to die in the next month.

Strickland said he's not considering a moratorium on all executions, but has signaled that changes are coming in the way Ohio handles its worst criminals.

He's particularly cautious in regard to the mentally retarded. "I don't believe that a person who is mentally retarded, a person who has a documented, serious mental illness, should be subject to this penalty," he said. "I think there are those circumstances where it is inappropriate."

He said the purpose of executive review and clemency hearings is to look at the circumstances at the time of the crime, including a suspect's mental state.

"Just simply the presence of a mental illness may not be a kind of circumstance that would justify clemency," Strickland said. "But I also think that people who suffer from serious mental illness sometimes become psychotic and unable to distinguish reality from non-reality and I think those kind of circumstances should be certainly considered when a punishment is being administered."

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann said he is reviewing all available information related to the mental retardation claims.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said claims of mental retardation are delaying tactics.

"They are using it as an excuse to escape their punishment," Deters said. "It's just one more way to stretch out the time before their execution is carried out."

Deters said whether a defendant is mentally retarded at the time of a crime is an assessment determined by a jury and judge at the trial level - finders of fact who are able to hear firsthand the experts on both sides and the facts of the case.

"His concerns will have been addressed by dozens of experts and judges multiple times before it gets to him," Deters said. "He raises these issues as if they haven't been fully dealt with over and over again."

Aaron was kidnapped from a park in Lower Price Hill in May 1992.

When he didn't call after school, Raines, who was working, knew something was wrong. Still, she thought, he must be with her sister.

When she got home at 10 p.m. nobody had seen Aaron.

Police searched through the night, finally finding the boy's body in the basement of an abandoned building.

Bies and Gumm tried to force Aaron to perform oral sex on them, but he fought his attackers, Deters said. They used a pipe to beat Aaron to death.

As he died, the men performed sex acts on each other, Deters said.

"These are two horrible killers and they have a level of depravity that most people don't understand," Deters said.

The men weren't caught immediately, but a fingerprint eventually led authorities to the Hazard, Ky., men.

They even confessed - sort of.

Both said they witnessed the death, but accused the other of inflicting the deadly wounds.

A jury found them guilty on charges of aggravated murder and kidnapping.

Gumm was also found guilty of attempted rape and Bies was also found guilty of rape. Judges sentenced the men to death.

"Aaron was just an average little boy in an average neighborhood," Raines said. "These men should pay the penalties they got."

An appellate court and the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the convictions and sentences for Bies, now 34, and Gumm, now 40.

In June 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the execution of any individual with mental retardation violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

That December, the Ohio Supreme Court established what procedures should be used to make the determination.

There is a presumption if a person has an IQ of 70 or above they are not mentally retarded, said Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Ron Springman.

For those who score below a 70, other standards such as how they function in society, what is their hygiene and have they ever held a job are considered.

In death penalty cases since 2002, a defendant must make a mental retardation claim in a hearing before trial.

The Ohio Supreme Court gave pre-2002 death row inmates 180 days to file a mental retardation claim.

Thirty-nine men, including 11 from Hamilton County and one from Clermont County, have filed claims, according to the Ohio Public Defender's Office, which often represents death row inmates in appeals. Seven are pending, including Bies' and Gumm's claims.

Bies' claim of mental retardation is pending in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court.

Two courts have found Gumm mentally retarded.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Dennis Helmick presided over a hearing in which Gumm's sisters and two teachers testified that Gumm was mentally retarded.

In his decision, Helmick agreed and said Gumm must be moved off death row.

Helmick noted Gumm was in special education classes, functioned at a second- and third-grade level when he was in eighth grade and was always more of a follower than a leader.

"Gumm committed an unforgivable act," Helmick wrote in his ruling. "Aaron Raines and his death are not lost on this court. But above all, this court must follow the law. Darryl Gumm has proved he is legally mentally retarded."

In a 2-1 decision, the 1st District Court of Appeals last month upheld Helmick's ruling. The Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office has appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court. The court has not decided whether to take the case.

Sister Alice Gerdeman, coordinator of the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center in Over-the-Rhine and president of Ohioans to Stop Executions, said she is encouraged by Strickland's pledge to treat the review process carefully.

That's important when it comes to a person's mental capacity, she said.

"We're certainly hopeful that Gov. Strickland - because he does have the background, he has worked in Lucasville with prisoners - would be very sensitive to the possibility of injustices that are rampant in every case," she said.

Deters suggested Strickland needs someone around him that understands the issues.

"These statements by him demonstrate he will use this 'process' to stop executions in Ohio," Deters said. "If he doesn't want the death penalty, he should have the courage to say it and stick to his guns.

"But raising factors already laboriously litigated is a load of nonsense," Deters said.