Killing Dan Ott - By Rob St. Clair

The long-awaited sequel to “Saving Stacy: The Untold Story of the Moody Massacre,” St. Clair’s new thriller is “Killing Dan Ott: Corruption and Murder in Small Town America.” It’s the tragic true-crime story of a case of mistaken identity that took detectives from Geauga County, Ohio, ten long years to solve. Why so long? Logan County corruption.

Dan Ott was a 31-year-old pug grower, an expert at planting seedlings to grow into blooms. He didn’t know what caused him to wake up early that Friday morning, May 26, 2006. With the car fully loaded, Dan was anxious to move, ready to leave the quiet northeastern town of Burton, Ohio, for a new, better-paying job in Michigan. He had been sleeping on an air mattress in the empty living room with his girlfriend, Maryann Ricker, when he heard someone moving nearby. Now fully alert, Dan saw an intruder standing by the front door dressed in a camouflage jacket and wearing a black ski mask. Worse, he had a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun in his hands. When the man noticed that Dan was awake, he was abrupt: “What’s your name?” Dan replied, hesitantly, “My name is Dan Ott.” The intruder paused, then pointed his shotgun at Dan’s chest, no more than six feet away, and pulled the trigger.