Man found guilty of murder of friend whose body was found under debris in garage
A Dayton man was found guilty of the murder of his longtime friend whose badly decomposing body was found in August hidden under debris in a detached garage.
Jeremy Heath Van Voorhis, 48, was convicted late Friday afternoon following a jury trial that began Monday in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court.
He will be sent e nced on April 18 after he was found guilty as charged in his September indictment: two counts of murder, two counts of felonious assault and one count each of gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.
Van Voorhis was accused of shooting a nd k illing 44-year-old Clinton James “CJ” Pierce of Dayton on or around July 15.
“Van Voorhis then hid Pierce’s body under multiple layers of flooring materials and other items in a detached garage,” an affi- davit filed in Dayton Munic- ipal Court stated.
Dayton police responded Aug. 18 to a house in the 400 block of Burkhardt Avenue after Pierce’s fiancée reported a foul odor coming from the garage off an alley. Inside, officers found the body later identified as Pierce.
He had been reported missing in July and is survived by his parents, sister, fiancée, three children and one granddaughter, according to his obituary.
Dayton po l ice issued an arrest warrant for Van Voorhis, who fled in his vehicle when Allen County Sheriff ’s deputies tried to detain him near Lima. He was apprehended following a high-speed hourlong pursuit through Allen and Auglaize counties before he finally stopped and surrendered on a rural county road near Anna in Shelby County. Van Voorhis was indicted in Allen County for one felony count of failure to comply with an order or signal of police officer. He has pleaded not guilty and has a pretrial hearing scheduled for April 11, court records show.