Plea deal made with one defendant in death of woman at Hocking Hills State Park last September

 

A September 16th plea agreement with one of the defendants in the death of Victoria Schafer at Hocking Hills State Park September 2^nd, 2019 will likely result in a several-year confinement of 17-year-old Jordan W. Churchheus.

However, Churchheus’s guilty plea of to a single count of involuntary manslaughter - a first-degree felony – spares him from the potential of either the more serious, original, charges of murder and reckless homicide. As part of the plea agreement both of those charges were dropped.

Under the plea agreement, Hocking County Common Pleas Court Judge John T. Wallace recommended that Churchhaus serve from three to 4.5 years in an Ohio juvenile detention facility.

Press reports say the case’s other co-defendant in the case, Jordan Buckley, also 17, is scheduled to appear Sept. 25th before Judge Wallace and say the youth also is expected to enter a plea under a similar agreement.

Some of alleged details of the September 2nd incident say the two youths caused a 74-pound, six-foot long log to strike and kill Shafer.

Shafer was said to be at the park in order to take graduation photographs of several area students, none of whom were injured during the alleged incident.

Investigators with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Hocking County Sheriffs Office previously stated that Schafer was standing about 75 feet below and on a staircase at Old Man’s Cave, located within the 2,356-acre Hocking Hills State Park, when she was killed instantly by the log.

Investigators said also the log was removed from a pile about 40 feet from the ledge, which was above a second ledge before the final drop to where Shafer is said to have been, a Hocking County assistant prosecutor later said.

The Hocking County assistant prosecutor also said later that a video of testimony taken by investigators said that Churchhouse flipped the log over a downed tree while Buckley is alleged to have pushed the log.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources declined to speak on the specifics of the Churchheus matter, noting that “With Jordan Buckley ’s case still pending, we are going to reserve comment at this time.”

The Hocking County Prosecutor did not respond to inquiries regarding this case, though Judge Wallace had issued a gag order earlier in the process.

By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com