Chapter 9

THE SATANIC THEORY

A man sitting quietly in the corridor outside the courtroom could have further determined the question of Johnston’s guilt or innocence. Tyack  and Suhr had  decided to present new evidence—evidence of a startling nature.

But at  the last minute  they decided not  to call Jeff  F. Hilson  III,  a  decision based  on their optimistic expectation of acquittal.

Hilson,  a  Columbus,  Ohio  high  school  history teacher  and  specialist  in  “forensic  history,” which  he   defined  as  the   study  of  criminal activities that  have set historical  trends, had been waiting to testify.

Based  partially  on  the  examination  of autopsy photographs and  reports, Tyack said  Hilson would have told the judges that he had made an extensive study of occult worship as part of his interest in forensic history.

Hilson said he believed  a worshiper of Satan shot the teenagers  to death, left their  bodies in the cornfield  and went  to gather  other cult members for a midnight ceremony to worship the devil.

“This beyond question was an operation carried out by  five  or   more  dedicated,  totally  perverse Satanists,” he said.

“Todd  and  Annette  were   in  the  cornfield  at approximately 5 or 5:30 p.m.  on Oct. 4. They were lying  closely together  on the  ground. They were discovered by one of the cult members who probably saw them and followed them into the cornfield.

“They probably  had nothing on,  because it is  in testimony that the bullets that entered the bodies had no clothing adhering,” he said.

Only  a  small  amount   of  blood  was  found  by investigators near where the body parts were found buried. Because of  this, the authorities believed the bodies were dismembered at another location.

Hilson believes  the cultists drank  the remaining blood during  the ritual. The  autopsy report said Todd had  a 17-inch wound  across his chest.  From this fact Hilson surmised that the wound was first made  on Schultz.  After that  the killer  plunged another cutting instrument through that wound into Schultz’s heart.

“This wasn’t a knife. This was a sword. This was a sword hack. The bone was severed like nothing I’ve ever seen  before,” he said.  “It was just  like a zipper had opened.”

 Hilson   also   said   Schultz’s   torso   had  an      eight-by-eight-inch  cross-shaped   wound  on  the      abdomen.    His   five-page    report   indicated, “Satanists make the cross symbol over the victim’s gut or genital area.”

The autopsy  report also referred  to smaller cuts on the  body. They, Hilson said,  were intended by the  killers as  “rays” emanating  from the cross. These rays  correspond to stations  of the satanic cross-dedicated to the satanic trinity of Lucifer, Beelzebub and Baal.

“It  was  obvious  to   me,  this  was  a  satanic killing.”  The  sexual  organs,  missing  from the victim’s  torsos,  probably  are  in  use  by  the killers as amulets, he said.

The autopsy  report indicated that  Annette’s womb had been cut open.  It also said seven fingernails were missing from her  hands. Hilson theorized the fingernails are also being used as amulets.

Todd and Annette’s severed heads were found buried face up;  the top of  the heads facing  east. They were blackened with a  substance, which Hilson says was human excrement.

An  affidavit  offered  into  evidence by Franklin County Deputy  Coroner Patrick Fardal  stated that he  observed, during  the autopsy,  only dirt  and sandy soil covering the heads.

Prosecutor   Veidt  noted,   “It  is   completely fallacious  to characterize  as ‘ritualistic’ the manner in  which the victims  were brutally shot, stabbed, slashed and dismembered.”

The slayings occurred during  the midnight of the New  Moon,  an   important  cultist  requirement, according to Hilson.

If the  bodies had not  been discovered, he  said, the murderers would have returned to the graves on October  31,  “All  Hallows  Eve,”  to conduct the second  part  of   their  mass—cannibalizing  the bodies.

Rural  Ohio is  not  an  unlikely place  for devil worshipers,  he said.  “Satanic worshipers, really all  occult  worshipers,  are  found  generally in heavily fundamentalist Christian areas. I think we have a situation here that potentially could rival or surpass [Charles] Manson.”

The same slayers will  strike again with even more bizarre  killings,  Hilson  insisted.  “Each  time Satan is to be summoned  forth, the offering up of a sacrifice must be  greater than before.” He said      the  groups  usually   start  with  small  animals      progressing   to  larger   animals,  from   finger amputations to human sacrifice. “When we refuse to look at Satanism, we practice self delusion.”

During  the summer  of  1976,  a series  of animal mutilations occurred  in Hocking County,  the most publicized of which was the death of a Logan man’s pet llama. Someone had penetrated and ripped apart the animal’s vagina with a wooden stake.

In  addition,  a  bull  was  found  castrated—its scrotum  missing,  chickens  had  been plucked and sliced open, a missing  dog had been tortured with cigarette  burns and  residents’ pet  rabbits were disemboweled—some  with  their  faces  cut  away. Rumors  spread  through   the  county  of  strange ceremonies  by people  in black  robes. A campsite was found containing a  circle of stones enclosing a cow’s head mounted on wooden stakes.

Interviewed  in  jail,   Johnston  claimed  to  be psychic and  knows who the killer  is, but refused to identify the person, saying he is well known in Logan.  Johnston   expected  his  wife   would  be arrested. He said she  had already been threatened with arrest several times.

“They’re  [the  sheriff’s   office]  going  to  do everything possible.  They’re out for  blood. They know  very  well  that  if  they  don’t completely destroy  me and  my wife,  we’re going  to destroy them [legally].”

When he  was taken from the  courtroom to the jail next  door, Johnston  said he  was not  afraid. “I felt completely at peace  because I had nothing to feel guilty about. I believe  our time on earth is already specified  and I will  not die one  minute before it is the Lord’s will.