Man to be tried 3rd time in Willowick man’s murder

A former Willoughby Hills man is set to be tried a third time for his alleged role in the 2011 murder of a Willowick resident.

Nathaniel Brown, now 27, was convicted by two different juries in 21-year-old William Andrew Fayne Putzbach’s death.

His third trial is scheduled for Jan. 17 in Lake County Common Pleas Court.

Putzbach was choked with a chain and beaten with a claw hammer on April 10, 2011, in the parking lot of the Willoughby Hills Towers apartment complex during a marijuana deal gone bad. The victim’s body was found bound and stuffed in the trunk of his car.

Brown lived in the complex at the time and was inside the car when Putzbach was killed, but has always maintained his innocence.

Brown was first convicted of aggravated murder and 13 other counts in November 2011 following a jury trial in Lake County Common Pleas Court. In 2013, the charges were overturned after the 11th District Court of Appeals found he suffered prejudice that unfairly affected the outcome of the trial.

During a February 2014 retrial, Brown was convicted on one count each of murder and gross abuse of a corpse and acquitted on another 11 counts. After the 11th District later reversed the murder conviction in the second case and vacated the abuse of corpse conviction, prosecutors appealed to the state’s highest court.

The Ohio Supreme Court recently declined to hear the case, so it was sent back to Lake County again.

This time, Brown will be retried on just one count — murder. If convicted, Brown faces an automatic sentence of 15 years to life in prison, Lake County Prosecutor Charles Coulson said.

Coulson declined further comment.

Matthew Bangerter, Brown’s trial attorney, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

Brown remains incarcerated at the Trumbull County Correctional Institution in Leavittsburg.

He was originally sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole by Judge Richard L. Collins Jr. At his 2014 resentencing, Collins sentenced Brown to the new maximum penalty of life in prison with parole eligibility in 16 years.

Co-defendants Kyle Basinger and Ron Shirer pleaded guilty and are serving life sentences. Shirer is eligible for parole after serving 20 years.

It is undisputed that the three defendants sat waiting in Brown’s car for Putzbach to make the drug transaction. When the victim arrived, the co-defendants all got into Putzbach’s car — Shirer sat in the front passenger seat, Basinger in the backseat driver’s side and Brown in the backseat passenger side.

Brown told police Basinger unexpectedly looped a chain around the victim’s neck and beat Putzbach’s head with a hammer.

However, prosecutors argued other evidence placed the hammer in Brown’s hands and that a hammer found in Brown’s hallway closet contained DNA belonging to both Brown and the victim.

Prosecutors called an expert to the stand who testified it was more likely than not that Brown was the person in the car who swung the hammer that killed Putzbach. However, the appellate court determined the expert’s opinion was not reliable.

Brown was 22 when the case began and had no prior criminal record.

“The sole remaining charge out of 14 initial charges, murder, remains unproven,” Brown’s appellate attorney, Aaron T. Baker, said previously. “Thus, the innocent young man remains in custody, significantly less young at 27.”

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