Kriti Mehrotra
ID’s ‘On The Case With Paula Zahn: Hauntingly Familiar’ and ‘Cold Case Files: Murder in the Midwest’ dig deep into the horrific 1974 murder of teen Lori Nesson, a matter that went unsolved for four decades. After all, owing to a lack of evidence, cold leads, and improper handling, investigators first had to overturn a shocking conclusion before they could even begin solving this mystery. From dogged police work to public tips and from internal connections to advanced science, the Ohio case had it all, so now, if you wish to know the details concerning the same, we’ve got you covered.
Lori Nesson Died of Asphyxiation
At the age of 15, Lori Nesson of Columbus, Ohio, was a sophomore honors student at Eastmoor High School when she suddenly disappeared, never to be seen or heard from alive again. The youngster had dreams of becoming a lawyer one day – a desire to help those who can’t help themselves – but little did she know that she’d never even get close to such possibilities. She was actually living her life like a typical teen, attending Friday night high school football matches before hanging out at local parties, but alas, this is precisely what led to her demise following September 27, 1974.
Lori had joined her classmates at three or four different gatherings that evening, only to leave the last one alone shortly after midnight to walk home. According to official records, a few companions had offered her a ride, yet she innocently refused since her destination was less than a mile away. Instead of her cozy, loving home, though, the teen somehow wound up naked in a roadside ditch on the desolate Rosehill Road in Reynoldsburg the following morning, by which time her mother had already reported her missing.
Lori was not only entirely nude at the scene, with no personal belongings or tire/drag marks either on or around her, but she was also bruised and battered. She had abrasions on her left arm, traces of trauma to the head, and a deep cut inside her upper lip (suggesting that it could’ve been pushed into her braces from outside). Despite that, her initial autopsy ruled the cause of death as “asphyxia of undetermined origin,” that is, until an official request in the fall of 2020 led to the re-classification of the same as homicidal.
Lori Nesson Was Targeted by Predators
Even though it seemed rather evident, investigators could not confirm Lori Nesson had been smothered, sexually assaulted, and heinously killed at a different location in any manner. That’s because there were essentially no concrete pieces of evidence available — no dirt on her bare feet, no signs of her clothing, no tire tracks, nothing. Considering her young age and her last known whereabouts, they did interview several of her classmates, yet the only thing they uncovered was that a “red car” was likely connected/following her.
It was months before Lori’s clothes were recovered from a rural country road about three miles north of where her remains were found, but the technology at the time wasn’t advanced enough to pull out DNA evidence. Nevertheless, even with the little bit of information they had, the authorities followed every single tip as well as lead until they all dried up due to a lack of correlations. And when that got combined with the “undetermined” cause of death, they had no choice but to let the teenager’s case go cold — they couldn’t even request simple warrants in this situation.
The Reynoldsburg Division of Police took up Lori’s matter once again in August 2019, 45 years after the fact, yet it was only when WBNS-10 TV featured her murder in late 2020 that they got the breakthrough they needed. Karen Adams’ cousin had watched the special and immediately contacted the police to let them know that the circumstances surrounding the deaths of both girls were hauntingly similar. From there, DNA was collected from Lori’s jeans and compared to the ones available in Karen’s case, leading to the identification of Robert Meyer and Charles Webber in 2020.
Robert Meyer and Charles Webber Have Both Passed Away
Robert Meyer of Cincinnati and Charles Webber of Columbus were known sexual predators, as per the ID episode, who not only lived together at the time of the offense but also drove a red vehicle. That, along with the positive DNA matches, was enough to confirm that they were responsible for Lori Nesson’s homicide, but they couldn’t be convicted as they were both dead. Charles had died when he was about 52 in 1992, whereas Robert passed away behind bars at the age of 74 in 2015, three years after he was convicted of Karen Adams’ 1995 sexual assault plus brutal murder.
We should mention that the duo had actually met back in the 1960s in an Ohio Penitentiary, soon after Robert was found guilty of an unrelated 1963 homicide. They were both released in the early 1970s, following which they moved in together and began their hunt to receive forceful sexual gratification from teenagers. In fact, apart from Lori and Karen’s cases, they have been found responsible for the kidnapping, assault, and attempted murder of at least two more young women in the northwest Ohio region in the 1970s. They were convicted predators through and through.
Read More: How Did Karen Adams Die?
