5 murder cases that sent chills through the region

At 7:53 a.m. on Friday, April 22, rural Pike County was shaken to its core when a 9-1-1 call was placed.

The police responded, and by the end of the day, it was learned that eight people had been shot and killed execution style (for the latest on the Pike County shootings, you can click here).

This isn’t the first time a case involving multiple murders has plagued the region.

Here are five of the most infamous murder cases to ever come from or through the Dayton area:

James Ruppert

On Easter Sunday in 1975, James Ruppert woke up from a nap in his mother’s home in Hamilton. He then loaded multiple guns and killed 11 members of his family within about five minutes.

Ruppert killed his mother, brother, sister-in-law, and his brother's and sister-in-law's eight children.

In 1982, Ruppert was only charged on two counts of murder (verdicts of not guilty by reason of insanity were handed down for the other incidents).

Ruppert, now 82, was denied parole last year.

Eugene Gall

Eugene Gall is a convicted serial murderer and child rapist that recently almost had the chance to walk free.

Gall drove around Dayton, Beavercreek, and Cincinnati preying on young school girls.

He was almost able to use 16 years of credited jail time toward his sentence, which would have earned him an earlier release.

In 2014, the Court of Appeals agreed that the defendant was entitled to zero days of jail time credit.

Gall is now in his late 60's and has been incarcerated since 1978, serving a 47 to 165 year life sentence.

Donald Harvey

Donald Harvey, the self-proclaimed "Angel of Death" from Butler County, became one of America’s most notorious serial killers when he claimed the lives of an estimated 36 to 57 people. He might have killed even more.

Harvey worked at Cincinnati’s Daniel Drake Memorial Hospital as an orderly.

He killed his victims by smothering them with a pillow or using poison, such as cyanide.

Currently, Harvey is at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility serving four consecutive life sentences.

Marvallous Keene

Marvallous Keene has was the leader of the group dubbed the “Christmas killers” in 1992.

The 24th to 26th of December in 1992 is known as the worst murder spree in Dayton’s history.

Keene was the self-proclaimed head of a downtown posse of juveniles that was responsible for killing six people. He was convicted of murder for five of the six killings.

He was sentenced to death and received lethal injection on July 21, 2009.

His last meal consisted of porterhouse steak cooked medium with A-1 sauce, a pound of deep-fried jumbo shrimp, fries, onion rings, dinner rolls with strawberry preserves, two plums, a mango, a pound of white seedless grapes, two bottles of Pepsi, two bottles of A&W cream soda and German chocolate cake.

Layton Hines

Layton Hines was arrested in the death of Anna Markowitz and her friend Abraham Cohan in 1907. Markowitz, her sister, and Cohan were resting in a local park when gun shots rang out. Markowitz' sister was the only one to survive.

Markowitz was ultimately raped and strangled to death.

Hines was convicted for the deaths of Cohan and Markowitz and sentenced to life in prison.

It is theorized that these deaths and four others were really the work of the serial killer called “Jack the Strangler.”

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