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A-4 Wednesday, August 4, 2021 The Press-Dispatch NEWS BRIEFS Winslow Elementary Open house set for Aug. 5 Winslow Elementa- ry School will be hav- ing an open house/meet the teacher night for kin- dergarten through fifth grade students from 5 to 6 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 5. Students have the op- portunity to meet their teacher, see their class- room and meet the new WES principal, Mr. Mey- er. 4-H Fair Evaluation meeting is Aug. 9 Pike County 4-H Fair Evaluation meeting will be Monday, August 9 from 5:30 -6:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend a post- fair evaluation meeting to review both the building and livestock 4-H proj- ect components, as well as community events during the 100th Annual Pike County 4-H Fair last week. This meeting will be at the Pike County 4-H Exhibit Building located in Hornady Park. Repre- sentatives from the Pike County Purdue Exten- sion office and the Pike County 4-H Council will be present. Public com- ments and suggestions are welcome, and will be heard and recorded at this meeting. VFW vendor fair and car show Aug. 14 The Petersburg Veter- ans of Foreign Wars Post 3587 is hosting a vendor fair and car/bike show on Saturday, August 14, from noon until 4 p.m. Food will be sold by the VFW Auxiliary during the fair. Vendor tables are $25, and $ 30 if electric ser- vice is needed. The car/ bike show entry is $20 per unit, with trophies for first and second place winners selected by peo- ple's choice. For more in- formation, call 812-354- 9653 after 1 p.m. Rain date is August 28. TRIAL Continued from page 1 " I take pictures all the way around a house, then I stand in one door and take pictures going into the house and then go to each room." He said somewhere between 300 and 400 photos were taken. While taking the initial pho- tos, he said he only had basic information about the scene and that a woman's body was found at the bottom of the steps. "Are you looking for signs of a struggle? " asked Mc- Donald about taking photos throughout the house. "Yes, didn't find any," said Green. He said in the master bedroom, a cellphone was plugged in, a Kindle was on the bed and on the night- stand, an iPad was plugged in. Another device was a CPAP machine that was plugged in. He said in the front porch area, the door was locked and there was a dog l ying on a couch. Another picture discussed was of two cubby holes above the staircase. The lowest one was easily reachable and had various household items. The one directly above it con- tained prescription pill bottles with Ed's name on them. Green said this was about six feet off the ground and the cubby appeared to have had someone's hand moving around in it, because the dust had been moved around. McDonald pointed out Sha- ron was 5'2" tall and weighed 240 pounds. "Were there pill bottles found under Sharon's body? " Green said two or three. They noted at least one was between Sharon's skin and her nightgown. Testimony said a rotten orange, a less rotten orange and a cane were found near her body. McDonald also asked Green if in his years as a CSI, if it was unusual for Ed to have a wrestling match with Detec- tive Tobias Odom and Peters- burg Officer Kyle Mills. "Yes." On Wednesday afternoon, State Police Detective Tobias Odom returned to the stand. McDonald asked Detective Odom about the devices found in Sharon's bedroom. Odom told the court he col- lected all three. A search war- rant was obtained and they began trying to get informa- tion from the devices. He said the Kindle and iPad both had locks on them, which makes it much more difficult to extract information. Odom said the state police had two people who worked on extracting information from devices. "Is it as easy as it is on T V? " asked McDonald "Absolutely not." "Is it possible? " " Yes, in theory," said Odom. He said their team was able to use an app to get informa- tion. Odom said they tried to find out when the cellphone had been plugged in, but were not able to do so. He said they tried to get that and the last phone call to help with time of death determination. McDonald asked Odom when he started viewing Ed Fox as a possible suspect. "For myself, when I inter- viewed him again the second time," said Odom. They then talked about the amount of search warrants is- sued. Odom said the first one was issued on July 20, one day after Sharon's body was found. The last one was is- sued on December 20, for in- formation about an insurance policy. The first warrant issued was for Ed's phone after Ed had wrestled with Detective Odom and Officer Mills be- cause he didn't want to give them his phone. McDonald went over some of the other search warrants issued. They included a swab of Ed's mouth for DNA. Odom said in murder cases, this is standard. They keep it on file in case DNA evidence turns up, they can compare it with the suspect's DNA. Odom said murder cases rarely are solved with DNA. He said it is more commonly used in rape cases. "I can't recall the DNA be- ing a major factor in any mur- der case," said Odom. Other warrants includ- ed: for Ed's truck, a camper he was living in, location in- fo through Ed's phone and a Google account warrant, Sha- ron's phone, and divorce re- cords from Sharon's divorce lawyer Bob Voss, which were looking for financial records. Others were to CUNA Mu- tual and CMFG, both insur- ance companies, Gerber Life Insurance, and for bank state- ments. McDonald played a tape of an interview of Ed by De- tective Odom and then Pe- tersburg Police Chief Chuck Baumgart. Odom said Jail Command- er Brian Maxwell contacted him and said Ed wanted to talk to him. "This is the day after your wrestling match with Ed? " asked McDonald. Odom said he had been in the autopsy and had limited information about Sharon's death. "I know what killed her. It was a broken neck." When they played the tape, Ed said he wanted to talk to them because, "I would like to go over what happened. I called to see what happened. Nobody had seen her for four days." Ed said through a series of communications he learned Sharon had fallen down the stairs and that was all he knew. Ed told investigators after he had called the sheriff's de- partment on Sunday at about 7 p.m. to tell them no one had heard from Sharon, "I never heard anything that night. I thought, 'well, I guess every- thing is okay.' Monday morn- ing I get a text for a call from my daughter that my sister texted her saying she was sor- ry what had happened. I said 'what do you mean? '" He explained Sharon and her sister had not talked for years after a dispute over their parents' estate. Ed said he got a text from his wife's cousin, Faron Mc- Laughlin, saying he was sor- ry. He added his son wouldn't return his phone calls and he was getting frustrated. Odom asked Fox what it was on his phone that he was trying to protect. Fox said he was trying to keep police from knowing he had violated his protective or- der. "No one is looking at charging you for violating the restraining order. I told you yesterday I have three dif- ferent reports of you violating the restraining order." "I want to know what you don't want police to know that is on that phone," said Odom. He added he was eventually going to find out. "It is going to take me about 30 days to do it." "I had violated the protec- tion order. Every once and a while I would go and check on her. She is my children's mother," said Fox. "Did you do that in last cou- ple of days? " asked Odom. "Last week I did, she was in bed playing on her tablet. I think it was last Wednesday," said Fox. McDonald interrupted the tape and asked Odom, "Did the day before he vehement- ly deny doing that? " "Yes," said Odom. Back to the recording, Odom asked Fox what day it was he had gone to Sharon's. Odom told Fox he wanted him to be exact on which day. "Middle of the week," said Fox, who told Odom he was retired and it was hard to re- member exact days. He said he thought it was Wednesday. "She was laying on the bed playing on her tab- let." Odom asked if Fox went in the house. "I can't go in the house." "How did you know that (she was on the bed using her tablet)? " asked Odom. "I looked in the window and saw she was okay," said Fox. He added a dog was on the bed with her. He then said he went to a shed because he wanted to see if she had gotten rid of his tools. Odom also asked if Sharon knew Fox was there. Baumgart asked if the dog barked at him. Fox said it didn't. They also asked him if he and Sharon got along with each other? "We did for 37 years. . . I mean until now." He said they got into an ar- gument over loaf pans Sharon couldn't find. They went out to a shed on their property, and she got upset and threw some items out of the shed and he, "gently as I could," got her out of the shed and soon after, a deputy sheriff arrived. A similar incident took place shortly after and po- lice came a second time. She then obtained a protective or- der against him. Police also asked Fox how much land they owned. "She owns it," said Fox. "Why won't she put your name on that? " asked Odom. "She is afraid I might take a loan out on it," said Fox. Questioning then switched to Fox's phone. He gave them his password. Odom then explained to Fox they would not only be able to read all of his texts and emails, but it would tell them where he had been because of location data. "The carrier will trian- gulate your locations," said Odom. "The next night, I went back to see if I could get into the small garage to check on my wood splitter and saws," said Fox. "So you are saying you were there on Thursday? " asked Odom. Fox said between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. "Did you see her through the windows on Thursday? " "There were so many lights on, I didn't want to be close to the house," said Fox. "I'm going to give you something I know, because I know what lights were on," said Odom. Odom asked Fox if when he looked in the window, he could see Sharon and that is why he called police. "No." Fox says it is strange Sha- ron was found on the steps because she was afraid of the steps. Odom asked Fox about the cubby hole. Fox said he kept his medi- cine there because they didn't have a medicine cabinet. He added he didn't know where Sharon kept her medicine. Odom also asked when Sha- ron started using a cane. "I don't know. She had it when we did mediation in De- cember," said Fox. "Detective Odom has to ex- plain everything. He has to write up a reason it happened and when it happened so we can understand what hap- pened. So when you first told us Wednesday was last time. Then you changed it to Thurs- day," said Baumgart. "I didn't see her," said Fox. "But why did you say Wednesday? Why did you leave out Thursday? " asked Baumgart. Odom and Baumgart then moved to asking Fox how long he was at her house on Thurs- day. He said he was only there about 10 minutes because of all the lights. He thought some family might be visit- ing. So he tried to check on items in an outbuilding and then left. He added he parked down a road and walked to her house. A fter leaving, he went to his son's apartment in Jamestown Square. They again asked him what he did at Sharon's. He said he walked up to the house. "I was going to try and get into the little garage. Like I said, the lights were on." "So you were able to go in- to the house and see her," said Odom. "No. I only went there about three times," said Fox. McDonald stopped the re- cording at that point and asked Odom, "Did you realize the significance of that when he said it? " "No, I didn't," said Odom McDonald said that was the night when Ed got stuck in a ditch and had to have his truck pulled out. The farmer who pulled him out took a pic- ture of it. McDonald turned in the re- corded interview back on. Odom, in the interview, asked Fox why he went there at 1 a.m. "It is good and dark," re- plied Fox. "Do you realize that seems odd. . . Do you still love her? " asked Odom. "I care for her. I'm not going to say I love her," stated Fox. Later he said, "I have$100,000 in that house." He told police they had sold a house and bought a differ- ent house that she did about $100,000 of improvements to. "She had me put all my mon- ey into that addition." Fox said his daughter and son get the profits on the farm and grandkids get the farm." "What happens now? " asked Baumgart. "Supposedly I have liv- ing rights, but my son would eventually get the house," said Fox. McDonald again stopped the recording and asked Odom, "Did you hear Fox say all he got were living rights? Is that true? " Odom replied, "No, it is not." McDonald then restart- ed the interview recording. Fox said they were supposed to have mediation in Decem- ber and March, but due to COVID, it got moved out to September. He said his attorney Tim Demotte and he decided to try to get $50,000. Investigators then went back to Thursday night. "Did you think something was up on Thursday when you didn't see any movement in the house? " Fox said the first day on- ly the bedroom light was on, but on Thursday all the lights were on. Fox said he wanted to see if she had sold some of his tools. Baumgart asked how much of his stuff Sharon had sold. "I don't know," replied Fox. Again investigators shifted back to what happened at the house when Fox was there. "Things happen all the time. This is your chance to explain this. I want to make sure there isn't a push or a shove. It was an accident. . . It makes a difference of wheth- er you are a cold-blooded mur- derer or it was an accident." Baumgart asked if they were arguing or he was talking to her. "No, I can't (talk to her)," said Fox. "No one cares about wheth- er or not you can't talk to her. We aren't trying to pin a pro- tective order on you," said Odom. "We are trying to deter- mine if you are in the time frame of her death. If you were the one who could have pushed her down the steps," said Odom. "I didn't get in the house. I didn't' talk to her," said Fox. A few minutes later, Baumgart asked, "Were you there when she fell? Fox replied, "I told you, I cannot go in the house." "Did she let you in? " asked Baumgart. "No," Fox stated. "When you called Sunday, you went through a long ex- planation of why you couldn't be there," said Odom. "It looks like you went home and worried about it and tried to figure it out." Fox admitted he saw Sha- ron dead. "If you did, let him know so he can write it up," said Baumgart. "I seen the lights on and I didn't want to stick around," replied Fox. "Did you see her," asked Odom. "Yes, I did. I'm sorry," said Fox. "What day was it was it, Fri- day or Saturday? " "It was the second day." "Was that Friday? " "Might have been Thurs- day or Friday. I know it wasn't Saturday or Sunday." "Look at me, you were do- ing really good. I need to know what happened," said Odom. "I don't' know what hap- pened," said Fox. At one point, Odom asked, "If you saw her, what did you see? " "She was in the basement." He then started crying loudly and uncontrollably for at least a minute. Odom and Baumgart left the room for about two min- utes, and then returned to the room and Fox started crying READER GUIDE Subscriptions: Change of address: subscrib- ers changing addresses will please give old address as well as new one along with phone number. We cannot guaran- tee prompt change unless this is done. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Press-Dis- patch., P.O. 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(USPS 205-620) Continued on page 5 Editor's note: This is part one of a two-part story. The second part, including Friday, Monday and Tuesday's tes- timony will appear in next week's edition of The Press-Dis- patch. Closing arguments in the trial are scheduled for Wednesday morning. It will include the third and fourth interviews with Ed Fox, testimony by a pathologist who ruled it an acciden- tal death, county coroner Gretchen Harris, who said she was uncomfortable with his accidental determination, and Sharon Fox's divorce attorney, Bob Voss. It will also include defense attorney Doug Walton's cross of Detective Tobias Odom and the closing arguments, which are a summary of the case.