| Ohio Broker Executed Over $400
Life sentence for murderer of Chad Re August 15, 2005 By PATRICK CROWLEY |
| When police in southwest Ohio found the bloodied mortgage broker in the passenger seat of his car, something didn’t add up.Chad Re, 25, of Butler County near Cincinnati, told police he had been attacked at a nearby convenience store on the night of May 11, 2004. He died the next day.
But as police investigated, court records show, they determined that Re wasn’t shot at the store. Instead, they discovered he had been shot execution style in the back of the head while pleading for his life in the basement of a nearby home. Earlier this summer a Butler County jury convicted Craig Anderson, 37, of aggravated murder in the shooting death of Re. Anderson was also found guilty of kidnapping, complicity to tampering with evidence and unlawful possession of dangerous ordinance. Court records show that Anderson believed Re had stolen $400 from him, and shot him because of the alleged theft. Anderson’s defense was that the gun went off accidentally while he was threatening Re and attempting to strike him in the shoulder with the sawed-off shotgun. The jury spared Anderson’s life and did not sentence him to death. But he was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole. Re had worked as a mortgage broker at Midwest Financial and Mortgage near Cincinnati for about four months prior to his death. It was his first job in the mortgage industry. He was apparently working on a loan for Toni Kessinger, 52, who was Anderson’s girlfriend. Kessinger and Anderson lived in the home where Re was allegedly killed. But Re also knew Kessinger and had, on occasion, stayed at the house. He was there that night to apparently work on refinancing Kessinger’s mortgage. Anderson had a criminal past. He had several previous convictions and had only been released from prison eight months earlier. After learning that Re was in the home that night, Anderson told other people who were at the house to keep him there. After Re was shot the others — including Kessinger — hid evidence, cleaned the house and washed the blood off Re in a shower. Then another man allegedly drove Re to the convenience store, called 911 on a cell phone and took off before police and emergency personnel arrived. Four other people — among them Kessinger and the man who drove Re to the store — were also charged with various crimes, including tampering with evidence, failure to report a crime and drug possession. |
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Patrick Crowley is a MortgageDaily.com feature journalist and blogger, and a reporter and columnist for The Cincinnati Enquirer. e-mail Patrick at: [email protected] |
