Remembering Kevin Green

 

Note: We would like to thank the Cuyahoga County Ohio Prosecutor’s office for heavily contributing to the story below. They are strong advocates for victims and their hard work is much appreciated.

A Trail of Terror

On November 3, 1974, Richard Lawler, 21, abducted a 13-year old boy from the Temple Square area of Akron, Ohio. Lawler took the boy to Barnett’s motel in Salem, Ohio. There, Lawler told the victim to take his clothes off. The boy refused. Lawler then showed him that he had a knife. The victim, seeing the knife, complied. Lawler then repeatedly raped the boy and forced him to perform oral sex on him.

Lawler took the boy to Millcreek Park in Youngstown, tied him naked to a tree, and began to stab and cut him with a knife. Lawler cut the boy in the chest, right arm and left leg. At that point, a jogger happened to pass by, startling Lawler and scaring him off.

Less than a year later, on September 15, 1975, Lawler abducted a seven-year-old boy from the Kenmore area of the south side of Akron, Ohio. Lawler said he was looking for his lost puppy and led the young child to some woods behind Akron Baptist Temple on Manchester Road. Lawler then beat him, stripped him naked and forced him to sleep naked in the woods with him. Lawler shouted that this was the victim’s fault and that Lawler was going to kill him. Lawler then choked the boy to the point of unconsciousness. Lawler left the scene,likely believing the boy was dead. The boy survived and made his way home the next morning.

Lawler was eventually arrested and charged with both crimes. He pleaded guilty to rape for the attack on the 13-year-old boy and child stealing for kidnapping the seven-year-old victim.

As a result of the plea deal, Lawler was sentenced to 8-40 years in prison for his crimes. He was found mentally ill and ordered by the court to be sent to Lima, Ohio State Hospital. Due to a clerical error, however, Lawler was sent to Mansfield Reformatory instead of the mental rehabilitation facility at Lima.

A Serial Child Rapist Walks Free

After serving only four years of his 40-year sentence, Lawler was furloughed to a halfway house called Harbor Light in Cleveland on August 22, 1979. The Harbor Light facility is run by the Salvation Army. According to The Cleveland Plain Dealer from 1979, John W. Shoemaker, Chief of the Adult Parole Authority, objected to Lawler’s release based on the nature and circumstances of his offenses and the high risk of recidivism. Nevertheless, the Parole Board overruled Shoemaker and opted to release Lawler. The Parole Board Chair at the time, Clarence Clark, was quoted in the Plain Dealer as saying, “From the facts, we had we felt we had a safe release.”

Lawler later told police that, after about a week at Harbor Light, he began to search for sexual encounters with boys and men. He told police that he had a number of sexual encounters, but refused to say whether he hurt anyone during any of those encounters.

The Murder of Kevin Green

Kevin Green, 11, was a sixth grade student at St. Leo the Great Catholic School in Old Brooklyn on Broadview Road on the west side of Cleveland. He was an altar boy, and he played Little League baseball. He was not outgoing, and he had about four close friends among his class of 35. He liked to build model trucks as a hobby. He lived with his parents and his younger sister two blocks north of St. Leo’s on Fairdale Avenue. It was a five-minute walk, and even shorter on a bicycle.

On the afternoon of Thursday, October 18, 1979, six of Kevin’s female classmates at St. Leo’s saw Lawler loitering near the school, watching them as they left school for the day. Lawler, 26 at the time, was wearing a faded orange sweatshirt with a hood and blue jeans. 

After school let out, Kevin and his friend were riding their bicycles along Broadview Road near the railroad tracks, doing wheelies and talking about what they were going to be for Halloween. After a while, Kevin pedaled away down a dirt road. It was getting dark by this time, so his friend decided to go home instead of following Kevin.

Kevin did not return home as it grew dark that night. Kevin parents did not allow him out alone after dark, so they and several neighbors began to search the area. Around 8:00 p.m., Kevin’s mother called police and reported Kevin missing. They continued to search for him all through the night.

The next morning, at around 7:30 a.m., Kevin’s mother found his mostly nude body lying in the heavy brush along the railroad tracks near St. Leo’s. He had been stabbed 95 times with an ice pick. His blue jeans were inside out and around his knees, as if his killer had tried to hastily put them back on. His underwear was lying 15 feet away. His shirt was draped over his groin area. Nine of the stab wounds to Kevin’s chest, and eight of the wounds to his neck, had gone completely through his body. At the scene, police discovered a wristwatch that Kevin’s family said did not belong to him.

A Child Rapist/Killer Speaks

Lawler pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. In support of that defense, Lawler’s attorneys arranged for him to be interviewed by psychiatric experts prior to trial.

Lawler told the experts that sometime between October 9 and 11, 1979, he got into a “state.” He said that he felt like he was being pursued by an “indistinct human-like black blob.” The “blob” stayed with Lawler all the time, watched him and followed him. Lawler was afraid that the “blob” was going to harm him. To escape from the “blob,” he left Harbor Light and planned to head to southern Ohio, although he did not know where. On October 16, two days before the murder, he purchased an ice pick for protection.

Lawler claimed that on the way to southern Ohio, he stopped in Old Brooklyn to buy some beer, cookies and candy. As he walked across a bridge, he could see kids walking to school. He became sexually aroused. He had an intense feeling that the “blob” was following him, so he went around the path in the woods leading to the school playground.

Around 4:00, Lawler said that he was searching for his watch, which he had lost somehow. He heard a commotion in the foliage and looked up to see Kevin Green. He struck up a conversation with Kevin and became sexually aroused by him. He decided to give up on his plan of leaving the area, and led Kevin down the railroad tracks to a more secluded area. Lawler told Kevin to take off his shoes to slow Kevin down if he tried to run away. He could tell by this point that Kevin was becoming scared.

Lawler claimed that he suddenly heard a loud crashing noise. He was concerned he would be seen by someone. He picked up Kevin and ran away down the path, carrying Kevin as he went. He could tell by looking in Kevin’s eyes that Kevin was now very frightened. He told Kevin to take off his clothes, intending to perform fellatio. He claimed that after he forced Kevin to undress, he saw about 10 faces in the bushes nearby staring at him. The faces shouted, “Kill him! Kill him!” Lawler claimed that he screamed, “No, no no!” and took out the ice pick, striking out randomly at the faces in the bushes. The next thing he knew, he had blood all over himself and all over Kevin. He realized that he had hurt Kevin, and said he was sorry, and that he did not mean for it to happen. He then left the scene.

Lawler told his experts that after killing Kevin, he went back to Harbor Light and played pool for three hours. He admitted that he threw his bloody clothes into a canal to avoid detection.

Lawler’s own expert at trial, Dr. Robert Goldberg, acknowledged that Lawler had purposely exaggerated his responses to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). The State’s expert, Dr. Philip Resnick, found that Lawler was malingering, and that he was not being forthcoming in response to questions. Specifically, Dr. Resnick noted that Lawler had no prior history of hallucinations (despite at least two prior incidents of sexual attacks against young boys), and that the hallucinations Lawler described were not consistent with that of a person who was actually insane. All experts agreed, however, that Lawler was in some form mentally ill, and several of them diagnosed him as schizophrenic.

Lawler convicted at trial of aggravated murder and kidnapping

Lawler’s case proceeded to a jury trial on February 12, 1980. At the conclusion of all of the evidence, the jury rejected Lawler’s insanity plea and found him guilty of aggravated murder in the commission of a kidnapping and kidnapping. Judge Robert Lawther sentenced Lawler to 15 years to life imprisonment for the aggravated murder, consecutive to 7-25 years in prison for the kidnapping.

It should be noted that at the time, Ohio did not have the death penalty. The Supreme Court had struck down Ohio’s death penalty statute in Lockett v. Ohio in 1978. Ohio’s General Assembly did not reinstate the death penalty in 1981. As a result, Lawler was not eligible for the death penalty for an offense committed in 1979.

Lawler told police that he had killed six other people, including five children

One of the most disturbing aspects of this case is the possibility that Lawler may have committed other sexual assaults or murders before his arrest on October 20, 1979. Following his conviction at trial, Lawler met several times with detectives from the Cleveland Homicide Unit. During those meetings, Lawler told the detectives that he had killed six other people, including five children. One of those boys was Timothy Metcalf, 14, whose skeletal remains were found in a field near Detroit Avenue and West 160th Street in Cleveland on November 27, 1979. Metcalf had disappeared on August 29 – one week after Lawler was furloughed to Harbor Light.

Akron police also questioned Lawler in 1974 regarding the death of James Morgan, 14, whose skeleton was found in the woods in Stow.

No charges were filed against Lawler for any of these cases.