Pastor: FBI traced Ohio Craigslist victim by email

ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS

AP Legal Affairs Writer

COLUMBUS — The FBI used an email sent by a man later found buried in a shal­low Ohio grave in a deadly Craigslist rob­bery scheme to trace his where­abouts, accord­ing to a Vir­ginia pas­tor who knew him well.

David Pauley was excited about the job he’d accepted in south­east­ern Ohio, even though the details seemed a lit­tle fishy, said Kenny Bryant, senior pas­tor at the Taber­na­cle Church in Nor­folk, Va.

The job, help­ing run a cat­tle farm, included a gen­er­ous salary, a place to live and a vehi­cle, said Bryant, who found it odd his friend was offered the posi­tion after one phone call.

“It just didn’t sound right to me, but I was happy for him, and he was glad,” Bryant said Wednes­day. “He was really pumped about it, and he was des­per­ate for a job.”

Author­i­ties say Pauley, 51, was killed Oct. 23 in Noble County, where his body was found on prop­erty owned by a coal com­pany and often leased to hunters. The cat­tle ranch adver­tised on Craigslist doesn’t exist.

Author­i­ties have linked two bod­ies and the shoot­ing of a man who sur­vived to the Craigslist scheme, which tar­geted sin­gle, out-of-work men in their late 40s or early 50s.

A 16-year-old boy, Bro­gan Raf­ferty, of Stow, in north­east Ohio, faces juve­nile charges of aggra­vated mur­der, com­plic­ity to aggra­vated mur­der, attempted mur­der and com­plic­ity to attempted mur­der in the death of one man and the shoot­ing of another.

The com­plaint against the teen says he par­tic­i­pated in the crimes with Richard Beasley, a 52-year-old Akron res­i­dent said to have acted as his mentor.

Beasley was await­ing trial on pros­ti­tu­tion and drug charges when author­i­ties took him into cus­tody this month, and police have said a halfway house he ran in Akron was a front for pros­ti­tu­tion. He has not been charged in the Craigslist case.

Raf­ferty made his first pub­lic court appear­ance in the case Tues­day, appear­ing dazed as a judge post­poned a hear­ing on whether he should be tried as an adult. He didn’t speak dur­ing the hear­ing or after­ward as police hus­tled him away. His mother, Yvette Raf­ferty, said she was “pray­ing for the fam­i­lies and the victims.”

Attor­ney Rhonda Kot­nik, rep­re­sent­ing Beasley on the drug and pros­ti­tu­tion charges, said Tues­day she wasn’t rep­re­sent­ing him in the Craigslist case, but she pointed out he hadn’t been charged in that.

Pauley had grown up in Nor­folk, where his son, brother and ex-wife still live, Bryant said. He’d left for Ohio sev­eral years ago, then returned in the spring look­ing for work.

When he couldn’t get a job, he lived with his brother and helped Bryant build a youth facil­ity on the church grounds. Even­tu­ally, he decided to return to Ohio.

“He didn’t want to go back to Ohio. He thought he could find some­thing here,” Bryant said. “When he couldn’t find any­thing here he was ready to go back home.”

In mid-October, Pauley packed up his truck with all his belong­ings, includ­ing the model trains he col­lected, and drove to Ohio. He sent his brother an email after he arrived, then the fam­ily heard noth­ing more. The fam­ily con­tacted police, who con­tacted the FBI.

The FBI used the email to find an apart­ment or house in Ohio where agents found some of Pauley’s belong­ings and began to sus­pect foul play, Bryant said. He didn’t know fur­ther details, and the FBI did not imme­di­ately return mes­sages Wednesday.

On Nov. 6, a South Car­olina man, Scott Davis, told police in Noble County he’d sur­vived a shoot­ing after answer­ing a Craigslist ad for work on a ranch.

On Nov. 11, Pauley’s twin sis­ter con­tacted the county sheriff’s office to say she feared her brother had answered the same ad. That tip led author­i­ties back to where Davis had been shot, and four days later they found Pauley’s body.

The fam­ily has been instructed not to talk about the case, Bryant said.

“They grieve. They’re very sad­dened by what has hap­pened to their brother, but they know that there’s hope,” he said. “They know that they’ll be reunited with him again one day, and they’re trust­ing God fully to bring about his justice.”

Posted by AP News on Nov 30 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.