CHARDON — Geauga County Assistant Prosecutor Chris Joyce told a panel of 12 jurors the case they were about to hear was a tragic one.
“It’s about a murder-for-hire. It’s about how … Mr. Joseph Rosebrook offered money so that someone would kill a previous business partner of his,” Joyce told the eight men and four women seated in the jury box inside Geauga County Common Pleas Court Judge David Fuhry’s courtroom Monday afternoon.
Joe Rosebrook, front, reads through documents Monday as the first day of his murder-for-hire trial begins in Geauga County Common Pleas Court. (PHOTO | GEAUGA COUNTY MAPLE LEAF)
“It’s also about how that murder-for-hire went wrong, how an innocent and completely unrelated man who had nothing to with the enterprise, an unintended target who happened to unfortunately share the same name, fell victim to this contract, this murder for hire,” he said.
So began the prosecutions case against Rosebrook, the Logan County native accused of masterminding a botched murder-for-hire plot in 2006 that left Daniel E. Ott dead.
Joyce told jurors they would hear evidence that sometime before 2006, Rosebrook and two other men, Curtis Frazier and Daniel C. Ott, were involved in an illegal chop-shop operation in southern Ohio. At some point, Joyce said Rosebrook wanted Frazier gone and asked Daniel C. Ott to kill Frazier.
“Daniel C. Ott, however, did not take him up on that offer. Instead, he went to the police and, with his cooperation, that plan was, in fact, thwarted,” Joyce said.
After the plan was stopped, Joyce said the evidence would show Rosebrook shifted his focus from Frazier to Daniel C. Ott and would often speak about how he needed to have this “snitch killed.”
“In fact, the defendant spoke about it so often that eventually somebody did take him up on his offer,” Joyce told jurors, adding Rosebrook was introduced to Chad South, a Dayton-area man willing to carry out the contract.
Click here to read the complete story.