The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Decomposed bodies found in business
Two badly decomposed bodies found inside a Grafton business Oct. 16 have sparked an investigation by the Grafton Police Department, according to a news release from the department.
At 5:08 p.m., officers were conducting a welfare check at a truck repair business at 800 Barchard St. after receiving calls of concern from two individuals. The release said officers found the bodies of what appear to be one male and one female upon entering the business.
Police also found one firearm at the scene, the release said.
Positive identification of the bodies has yet to be made because of the state of decomposition, according to the release. The deaths appear suspicious, it said.
Donald E. Longwell Jr. is a managing member of 800 Barchard Street LLC, which is
the company that owns the property that the business occupied, according to the Lorain County Auditor’s website.
He said that the shop was run by a man and his girlfriend since February 2015. Police have asked him not to release the names of the operators until the two bodies have been identified, but he did share some details about them.
“The guy was a diesel mechanic and he and his girlfriend kind of did the business together,” he said. “He was way behind (on rent.) He was telling me he had issues with not being paid for work and such. So, I was trying to work with him and he was doing some work for me.”
Longwell said that he had received a text message from the man on Sept. 22 saying that he needed additional parts for the work he was doing for Longwell. Longwell messaged back on Oct. 3 telling the man that the parts were in. He received no reply.
“From that I stopped over his dad’s trying to find him because it was odd,” he said.
According to Longwell, he was contacted by the Grafton police Oct. 16.
The police said that the man and his girlfriends’ families had reported them missing for three weeks. Longwell was asked to come to the business and open the doors for investigators.
He said he purposely did not look inside the building when he let officers in and said that there was an awful smell around the building.
“The smell was bad enough that I wasn’t going inside that building,” he said.
Ryan Hinnard, 30, of Grafton, works in the building next to where the bodies were found. He said that the business seemed “fly by night,” and the man and his girlfriend didn’t even have a sign for the business.
Hinnard said that he and his coworkers were able to smell the bodies from a large gravel pile across the street for weeks, but in the past week neighbors and his coworkers have seen a man in an older gun metal gray Ford Explorer or Excursion go in and out of the business.
Both bodies will be examined by the Lorain County Coroner’s Office as identification will require the use of the medical identification process.
According to the release, agents from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office BCI evidence collection division assisted with processing the scene.
The investigation is ongoing.