Middletown police say 2 dumped body after overdose
Middletown MIDDLETOWN — police say they will be filing charges against people who allegedly moved Leslie Dalton’s body after the 20-yearold overdosed last week in a Wilbraham Road house.
Dalton’s body was found Sunday afternoon in a dry creek bed behind homes in the 2900 block of Wilbraham Road. Middletown police say her death is being investigated as an overdose, but other crimes were committed because her body was moved.
Two people interviewed by detectives said Dalton died at the residence and they moved her body in the dark of night, according to court documents obtained by this news outlet.
“Both individuals stated that they left her deceased until the next day and waited until night fall,” Detective Kristi Hughes wrote in the affidavit for a search warrant on the residence.
“Both individuals placed the deceased in a wheelbarrow, wrapped her body in bed sheets and pushed her body across the street into the woods,” she wrote.
Dalton had reportedly been missing since July 27.
After dumping the body, the bed sheets were burned to conceal the evidence, according to court documents.
Another person said Dalton had been hanging out using drugs “a couple weeks ago” and that was the last time he saw her alive.
Taken as evidence from the house were: four cell phones a marijuana pipe sheets and bedding blue gloves a green and yellow wheelbarrow
Detectives also obtained a search warrant for a cell phone from a man who may have had photos of Dalton’s dead body lying in the woods.
An autopsy was conducted Monday on Dalton’s body at the Butler County Coroner’s Office, according to administrator Martin Schneider. The cause of death is listed as “pending” by the coroner’s office.
“Laws were broken and we are going to seek justice,” Middletown police Lt. Scott Reeve told this news outlet. “We expect to charge them in the future.”
Rebecca Charlton, Dalton’s mother, told this newspaper that she does not want her daughter to have died in vain.
“We need people out there being the voice for these people who are addicted and these girls,” Charlton said. “Police need to go after people who are selling these drugs.”
Charlton said after losing her daughter, the middle of three children, her life never will be normal again.
“It’s going to be incomplete,” she said through tears. “I don’t know if I ever will be the same.”
Charlton said she and family and friends searched for five days, sometimes using flashlights to look in vacant homes until 4 a.m. She said many leads that were posted on social media were deadends, but eventually Dalton was found.
“My heart was broken,” Charlton said when she heard about her daughter’s decomposed body being found.
Dalton, who attended Middletown City Schools, had a drug problem, her mother said. She wanted to move her daughter away from Middletown, away from the bad influences in her life, her mother said. After Dalton was released from jail, she was “doing so good,” Charlton said.
Then she returned to drugs.
“She made a mistake and relapsed,” her mother said. “Once she got a taste of it, it was back on.”
Charlton has a message to drug dealers in the city: “Get a real job. Stop selling these drugs. We need to stand united.”