“Helping them helps me,” Hope Dudley said when she unveiled the poster last year in the sheriff’s office.
Dudley’s son was killed in a drive-by shooting in Hamilton County 10 years ago.
National Crime Victims' Rights Week is April 8-14. It's meant to empower crime victims and their families, but it can also be a tough reminder.
Dudley decided to develop a poster featuring unsolved cases in Butler County after meeting some victims’ families at a memorial service.
Today, the posters remain hanging in the lobby of the sheriff’s office and in the jail area visible to visitors and prisoners.
“If there is one thing I know from running jails, it is prisoners like to talk. That is how we solve crimes — from people talking,” Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said this week.
It is important to keep the names and faces of victims front and center so that they are not forgotten, he said.
“Sometimes it takes a while, but we have solved case years later because someone came forward,” Jones said.
These Butler County cases are included on a poster of unsolved homicides:
| Name | Date | Location |
| Calvin Simmons Jr. | Sept. 16, 2016 | University Boulevard, Hamilton |
| Eric A. Givens II | July 5, 2016 | Walnut Street, Hamilton |
| Jaylon Knight | March 11, 2016 | 200 block of Charles Street, Hamilton |
| Christopher “CJ” Sandle | Jan. 13, 2016 | 400 block of Millville Ave., Hamilton |
| Anthony Broadus | June 3, 2015 | East side of Hamilton |
| Bryant Johnson | April 27, 2013 | 12th Street, Hamilton |
| Broderick McGee | March 16, 2013 | Central Avenue, Hamilton |
| Joseph W. Oakley | Aug. 30, 2012 | Pleasant Avenue, Fairfield |
| Damien T. Taylor | March 15, 2012 | Winton Road, Fairfield |
| Katelyn Markham | August 2011 | Disappeared from her Fairfield home. Her remains were found in April 2013 in Cedar Grove, Ind. |
| William “Billy” DiSilvestro | Feb. 7, 2011 | Last seen on Hamilton’s west side |
| Frenchman Minnifield | Jan. 8, 2004 | South Second Street, Hamilton |
| Alana “Laney” Gwinner | Dec. 10, 1997 | Disappeared from Gilmore Bowling Lanes in Fairfield. In January 1998, her body was found in the Ohio River near Warsaw, Ky. |
| Robert Fields | July 14, 1997 | Village Street, Hamilton |
| Eric “Josh” Bruce | April 22, 1997 | William and Neilan boulevards, Hamilton |
| Robert Leon Johnson | June 16, 1996 | South Monument Street, Hamilton |
| Christina L. Carnes | Jan. 20, 1994 | Mack Road, Fairfield |
| Richard Mincher | Aug. 20, 1993 | Dixie Highway, Hamilton |
| Nancy Abrams | March 10, 1985 | South Breiel Boulevard, Middletown |
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