The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1398862
The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, August 4, 2021 A-5 TRIAL Continued from page 4 again. He started crying deeply. Fox asked for water and was given some. Odom told him they wanted to spend the time it took to get everything out. "You are feel- ing a little more relief here, ar- en't you? " asked Odom. "Not really," said Fox. Fox was then questioned about why he didn't call po- lice. Fox told police it was about midnight. "I was going to see if she was okay." "Did you go in? " asked Baumgart. "I can't! " explained Fox. "I don't care if you can't," Baumgart stated. "No, I didn't. I should have called then," said Fox. Baumgart then asked, "Did you think about calling? " "I don't know what I thought. . . I couldn't call be- cause of the protective order," Fox stated. Later, Odom asks, "So the only thing that is different is you saw her on Friday. You came this far," said Odom." "No argument or nothing," said Fox. Odom then asked, "Did you try and see if you could go in and help her? " "The basement door was locked," Fox said. Police then started to ques- tion Fox about how Sharon was laying. He said he saw her cane on the landing, but said, "I didn't pay any attention" to which way she was laying. He said she had on a pink nightgown. He added he thought her legs were still on the steps. "Did you think she was alive or dead? " "It looked like she had blood around her head. I wanted to get out of there," said Fox. "All I can remember is she is down there, looked like a pool of blood around her," said Fox. He then started cry- ing again. When the interview ended, McDonald, talking to Odom, said, "Significant revelation is that he saw her at the bottom of steps and he did not go in the house." "The very next day, you talked to Fox's son, Robert, and Faron McLaughlin. What is going on? " asked McDon- ald. "We are starting to draft search warrants," replied Odom. Odom said they talked to Pike County Deputy Sheriff Jared Simmons, who discov- ered Sharon's body after the requested welfare check. "What did he relay to you? " "He said he could see her head, but not her legs and arms." Odom said this re- sponse caused them to do a third interview with Fox. THURSDAY Thursday highlights in the Fox murder trial include De- tective Tobias Odom talking about Sharon's last will and testament; an FBI Agent specializing in tracking cell- phones location; and inter- net searches and purchases of lock pick sets. Detective Odom told the court he was able to obtain a copy of Sharon's last will and testament. He said it was ex- ecuted on April 22, 2014, and Sharon and Ed's daughter, Elizabeth Smith, was made the executor. It was filed in Pike Circuit Court. "Have you gone through Sharon's will? " asked Mc- Donald. "I have," said Odom. McDonald, referencing a statement by Fox during his second interview, said, "He told you he got nothing but living rights. Is that true? " "No it isn't," said Odom. Odom said Elizabeth Smith gets 40 acres for the rest of her life. Sharon's grandchil- dren, Hannah, Bell and Cain get the remainder after she dies. Odom explained Eliza- beth can't sell it, but she can use it during her life. He said Robert and Edward get the house. Robert is Ed and Sharon's son. He said it is a living trust, meaning Rob- ert would get it after Ed dies. Odom said Ed would get one-third of what is left over from the house and farm, money and personal proper- ty, "Edward is the trustee and he controls it." Mark Schmidt, of Velpen, was called as a witness. He farms Sharon's farm. He said Sharon's mother died, and she and her sister had a dis- pute over the ground. He pur- chased the farm from Sha- ron's sister and then sold part of it back to Sharon. Schmidt told the court he had taken a picture with his cellphone of Ed's pickup truck being hung up in a ditch on the farm ground about a quar- ter-mile from Sharon's house. It was time stamped 10 :09 a.m. on July 2. He said Fox had called his brother to pull him out of the ditch, but his brother wasn't in the area. So his brother called Mark and he went to pull the truck out. Schmidt said Ed was not around when he pulled the truck out. He said he thought Ed had walked out to the road and gotten a ride. McDonald asked Schmidt about a red dot on a Google map. "How close is that to where Ed was hung up? asked McDonald. "Almost exactly," said Schmidt. McDonald asked Schmidt if Sharon was ever advised Ed had gotten hung up near her house. "I didn't tell her. Don't know if she was ever told," re- plied Schmidt. Schmidt said Fox had re- quested permission to cut some firewood in the area about a year earlier. So he had permission to be there, but he had not told Schmidt he was going to be there. Detective Odom returned to the stand and talked about a search of Fox's camper, lo- cated at an RV park on High- way 57, just south of US 50, near Washington. The search took place on July 28, 2020. Odom said they wanted to see what items or documents Fox had. Some of things found in Fox's camper were a gas re- ceipt from Circle K in Wash- ington. It was dated July 18, 2020, at 1:04 a.m. and was for 2.84 gallons of gas. "Does that correspond to visits to Sharon's house Ed told you about and that he drove Robert's car? " asked McDonald. "Yes. I wanted a sequence of where he was during this time frame," said Odom. Documents were also found about the three timeshares Ed owned. They also found he had a life insurance policy on Sha- ron through AFBA that he was paying $142 for each month. Also found in the camper was a lock pick set that had one empty pouch. Other documents included Publishers Clearing House documents. Fox had been scammed into thinking he had won Publisher's Clear- inghouse. He just needed to send money in to pay his tax- es. They found receipts for a $29,500 money order he sent to a Stephen Clooney in Flor- ida. He had filed a complaint with the Daviess County Sheriff's department. Odom said they also found a handwritten list that appeared to be a list of items Fox want- ed to get from Sharon's house. Indiana State Police Detec- tive Toni Walden also took the stand. She was involved in re- trieving information from Fox's phone. She said she has a little more training on recovering information from cellphones than Odom and was asked to help him. "Google can provide a plethora of information. . . It is creepy," said Walden about in- formation that can be gleaned. She was able to recover searches he did for lock picks. They played YouTube vid- eos Fox watched showing how to pick a lock using their brand of lock pick. She also showed an order he placed on July 2, 2020, for a lock pick set. It was a second order from an- other company. The first or- der had not arrived. Fox sent them an angry email stating, "It shouldn't take a month and a half to get here. YOU better put a rush on it!!! " This was on a set he had ordered on June 2. The second set was ordered on July 2 and confirmed deliv- ery receipt of July 10. Walden said they also found an email that showed he re- set his password with CUNA Mutual Insurance Company on July 15. FBI CELLPHONE SPECIALIST FEATURED THURSDAY AFTERNOON FBI agent Kevin Horan, an original member of the FBI's Cellular Analysis Sur- vey Team (CAST) formed in 2010 with 25 years experi- ence, testified on Thursday. He also served as a prosecut- ing attorney in Dayton, Ohio. "I'm assigned to headquar- ters in Washington, D.C., but I live in Dayton." "I can actually map out a cell site," said Horan. Horan said law enforce- ment realized pretty much after cellphones were cre- ated they could be used to track people. "It wasn't un- til we started to understand there is a whole wealth of info we could use to solve crimes we started using them. Now they (service providers) have a unit hired solely to handle our requests," said Horan. He said the CAST team is involved in nearly every ma- jor crime now. Horan said investigators learned quickly phones do a lot more than make contact with cell towers. "They(Goo- gle) do a lot of things with their phones the average per- son doesn't know about." Horan said he and Walden got a search warrant for Fox's phone. "If I get on my cellphone in the courthouse and do a search for Toyota vehicles, Google is going to know that, and lo and behold, later to- night when I get on my lap- top, I will start seeing adver- tisements for Toyotas on my laptop. In doing so, they cre- ate data for us," said Horan. "If you took the time to read it (users agreement), you would be astounded by what you are agreeing to," said Horan. "Most people have WiFi. Are those communicating with your phone? " asked Mc- Donald. "Yes your phone is probing WiFi systems as you drive down the road. Your phone is constantly making these probes. It recognizes and sees it and gets signal strength," replied Horan. "Google takes all of that. A fter a while, million and millions of cars drive by the courthouse. The WiFi talk- ed to all of those. Eventual- ly, their (Google's) system knows where this WiFi is," said Horan. "It allows Google to see where millions and mil- lions of WiFi systems are and cellphones are." "Is Google the gold stan- dard? " asked McDonald. "When you start looking at the apps, it is astounding what it is telling us," said Horan. Horan said they can al- so track some from routers in businesses and people's homes that your phone is com- municating with. He said Goo- gle has algorithms they use on signal strengths and can precisely tell where a phone was located. "It is like a bread crumb trail. Very good at telling us where he is going and even the speed of travel," said Mc- Donald. Horan said they took Sha- ron's address and put it in the system. They tracked Fox's phone and prepared a PowerPoint il- lustration on the location of Fox's phone. A chart in the PowerPoint was displayed on a projector on where Fox's phone was on July 17. It was at Ed's residence near Washington on July 17 at 12:35 a.m., then from 12:37 a.m. to 12:43 a.m., it began moving toward Sharon's res- idence. Horan said, on July 17, from 1:06 a.m. to 3:05 a.m., multi- ple hits were at Sharon Fox's residence. Horan showed a red circle and said, "This is the smallest radius that en- compasses the entire resi- dence." "What variables are there? Does it appear there was an- other WiFi signal? " asked Mc- Donald. Horan said it didn't appear there was another WiFi signal interacting with Ed's phone. "This is the only WiFi Ed's phone saw during this time." McDonald asked, "On Ju- ly 17, from 3:07 a.m. to 3:21 a.m., Ed's phone is migrating up the road back to his resi- dence? " "Yes," said Horan. Then chart then showed lat- er on July 17, from 11:13 p.m. to 11:28 p.m., which begins the second night, various hits in a trailer park near James- town apartments, where Fox's son, Robert, lives. "For a period of six min- utes, this phone was in the ar- ea of the Jamestown Square apartments," said Horan. McDonald said the phone didn't get signal out near the road, so it had to be inside Jamestown Square Apts. Horan said from 11:30 to 11:56 p.m., Fox's phone starts to move, but after 26 minutes, there is no more data. "We don't have any more data af- ter 11:56 p.m." Horan said for a two-minute period of time on July 18, from 12:40 to 12:42 a.m. "It looks like the phone is trying to de- termine where it is." McDonald asked, "Is that related to the phone being turned back on? " Horan said typically when a phone "drops off the face of the earth, it is turned off." He said a phone turned off can't be tracked. "So if Fox had turned his phone off the previous night, you wouldn't have been able to track him? " asked McDonald. "If Mr. Fox's phone had been off the previous night, none of the that date would have been available," stated Horan. Horan said from 1:01 a.m. to 1:17 a.m. July 18, Fox's phone was back in the Wash- ington area at Jamestown Square Apts. "Same pattern as the night before," said McDonald. It then migrates back to Ed's residence from 1:19 a.m. to 1:25 a.m. Fox's attorney Doug Walton asked Horan about Google. "I found it very interest- ing you said Google lied to the FBI about their pact on the ability to locate phones around a specific area," said Walton. "Yes, that is exactly what happened. Until one of their own had a problem. Then they said they could help," replied Horan. "So they essentially lied to a federal agent, which is a fe- lonious act? " asked Walton. "They want to be coopera- tive, but they don't want the world to know what they are doing. That probably does need to be regulated," said Horan. Horan said an employee of Google disappeared and then they agreed to help the FBI. Walton asked Horan about the red circle that was over Sharon's residence on the Powerpoint. "We have this red circle. Did you refer to this as a radius? That radius, what does it tell us? " "It tells us the phone is within that radius," answered Horan. "Lets take that exam- ple based on signal strength. Google takes that through an algorithm, they do an es- timate of the where they de- cide it is. This is the center of the radius." "Doesn't mean that is the lo- cation of the phone. So if I un- derstand you, that radius is an approximation. It doesn't defi- nitely say it is inside or outside the house," said Walton. "It covers the house. When the radius is small enough, it doesn't go much beyond the house. It my opinion, that would be in the house. Some area encompasses the out- building and out to the road area," said Horan. Horan said he didn't do a site investigation. Walton said, "Data is very useful and very helpful. It can show where their cell- phone is." "It can tell us if Ed Fox's phone was in this place, but you have no idea what took place at that location," said Walton. "Only thing it knows is the locations," said Horan. McDonald countered, "You said you are comfortable with he (Fox) was in the circle. Is it possible, if he left after 10 minutes, his phone could have been giving signal from the house WiFi? " "No, there is no latency. It would be hitting routers in other places. As soon as the device leaves, it is doing its thing," said Horan. FRIDAY CHILI Roast Beef Manhattan $ 8.99 Roast Beef Smothered in Gravy on Mashed Potatoes and Bread with Green Beans or Corn and Drink * Whitefish Sandwich $ 8.99 Dressed the way you like! 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Specials and menu items are subject to food availability from suppliers. /RandysAmericanaCafe Like us on Facebook! 7TH & MAIN STREETS • PETERSBURG AUGUST 4 - 10 MONDAY CHILI Spaghetti $ 7.99 Cheesy Mozzarella Toast, Side Salad and Drink * Chicken Salad Sandwich $ 8.99 On croissant served with Chips, Side and Drink * French Toast $ 8.99 Choice of Two Sides and Drink * CHILI Biscuits and Gravy $ 8.99 Served With Your Choice of Two Sides and a Drink * SATURDAY Stromboli $ 8.99 Our Own Special Stromboli Served with Grippos (Plain or BBQ), Side Salad and a Drink * daily Dine-in & Carry-Out THURSDAY Ham Steak $ 8.99 Thick-Sliced Ham Served with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Green Beans or Buttered Peas and Carrots, Roll and a Drink * Meatloaf $ 8.99 Green Beans or Buttered Peas and Carrots, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Roll and Drink * TUESDAY Turkey Manhattan $ 8.99 Turkey Breast Smothered in Gravy on Mashed Potatoes and Bread with Green Beans and Drink * Taco Salad $ 8.99 Served with Sour Cream, Salsa and a Drink * HAM & BEANS WITH CORNBREAD OR CHILI CHEESY POTATO OR CHILI Mon-Fri 7am-8pm Saturday 7am-2pm 812-354-2004 RUSSELL NAMED PROJECT ASSOCIATES ENGINEERING SCHOLARSHIP WINNER Hunter Russell, son of Mi- chele White, has been award- ed the Project Associates En- gineering Scholarship. This scholarship is worth $1500 and is awarded to a worthy student who will be attend- ing the University of Evans- ville or the University of Southern Indiana. Hunter will attend the University of Southern Indiana. He will study engineering and ulti- mately become a mechani- cal engineer. During his high school years, Hunter was in- volved in German Club, So- cial Studies Academic Club and Student Government. Student Spotlight Hunter Russell Area Birthdays STEPHENS CELEBRATES 80TH BIRTHDAY WITH CARD SHOWER Ruby Stephens will cele- brate her 80th birthday on August 15 with family and friends. Cards may be sent to: 5125 S. State Road 61, Winslow, IN 47598.