Slain Woman Hanging From Fence Mistaken For Halloween Prank

Police say the killing doesn't appear to be linked to the deaths of other young women from the same town.

A woman beaten to death was found hanging from her shirt sleeve on a fence in Chillicothe, Ohio, this week.

The body of 31-year-old Rebecca Cade was found by a man walking his dog around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Chillicothe Gazette reports. Neighbors Sasha Taylor and Tammy Dixon also saw the body, but didn’t believe it was a real human being.

Taylor told local news station WBNS the body looked like something a person might buy for a Halloween prank. Dixon said she is still letting her 8-year-old daughter believe the gruesome scene was just someone playing a sick joke.

An autopsy found Cade died of blunt force trauma, and investigators discovered a large rock, covered in blood, near her body.

Donnie Cochenour, 27, allegedly admitted that he had gotten into an altercation with Cade, though the cause of the conflict is unclear and police have not indicated he has confessed to the killing. Cochenour and Cade were "some type of acquaintances," police said Wednesday at a press conference.

Cochenour has been charged with murder and is being held on $2 million bond.

Cade’s death does not appear to be related to the disappearances of six women from the Chillicothe area over the past year and a half, authorities say. Four of those women have been found dead, and two are still missing.

In June, Ross County Sheriff George Lavender vowed to "get justice" for the missing and deceased women, saying, "I don’t want my family to be scared to be in the community and I don’t want your family to be scared to be in the community."

Although police say they haven't found a link between Cade and the other women, people in the area are nonetheless disturbed by the series of violent deaths in their community.

"I don’t know how many more women from these streets have to die," Chillicothe resident Chrissy Young told The Columbus Dispatch.

Contact the author at Hilary.Hanson@huffingtonpost.com

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot