Dumping of body by bin brings 30-month sentence
A Columbus man who admitted that he helped dispose of a murder victim’s body by a dumpster outside a crime-ridden West Side apartment complex has been sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Roderick Lee Richards, 39, of the West Side, had pleaded guilty in July to felony counts of tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse for his involvement in the dumping of what Columbus police described as a bullet-riddled body wrapped in a mattress.
The sentence was imposed Thursday by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Kim Brown.
The body of the victim, 38-year-old Jesse D. Shields, was discovered Feb. 3 behind a dumpster at the Wedgewood Village Apartments.
Richards was arrested within days after investigators identified him as one of two men seen on surveillance-camera video removing the rolled-up mattress from the back of a pickup truck and placing it by an apartment complex dumpster off the 3600 block of Briggs Road, Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Dan Cable said.
Police conducted a search of Richards’ nearby apartment on Eakin Road and found evidence that Shields’ death occurred there, Cable said.
Richards denied witnessing the murder or knowing who was responsible, but admitted to police that he helped remove and dump the body.
Cable told the judge that prosecutors reserve the right to indict Richards on more serious charges if an ongoing investigation turns up evidence that he was involved in Shields’ death.
No one else has been charged in the case.
The Wedgewood Village complex – consisting of nearly 700 units stretching along Wedgewood Drive between Sullivant Avenue and Briggs Road – has been plagued by violence for years.
Three homicides have occurred there this year. In 2017, it was the scene of seven homicides.
In December 2018, another shooting victim’s body was discovered beside a trash bin at the complex. The man charged with murder in that case was acquitted in March by a Franklin County jury. jfutty@dispatch.com @johnfutty