Love’s parents alerted police that she was missing. A search of the neighborhood was unsuccessful. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents canvassed the neighborhood, looking for persons who had seen Love. The agents interviewed Lynch. His demeanor and responses aroused their interest in him. He said that he had recently met Love and had spoken to her, but had no knowledge of her whereabouts.

The next day, Hamilton County sheriff’s deputies questioned Lynch to obtain additional information. Lynch was cooperative and went to a police station for more questioning. At the station, another officer, not involved in the search for Love, noticed Lynch and informed the investigators that he had previously arrested Lynch for exposing himself to a child.

Lynch was informed of his Miranda rights and signed a written waiver. He was interrogated and admitted touching young girls in his apartment in the past. He conceded that he had touched Love outside his apartment. Lynch was permitted to leave the station when the interrogation concluded.

On July 3, 1998, at the request of police, Lynch returned to the station. After he executed another waiver-of-rights form, police questioned Lynch about inconsistencies in his previous statements. During five hours of questioning, he admitted harboring sexual fantasies about children and offered, “She’s on Breezy Acres.” He led police to Love’s remains and admitted that he was responsible for killing Love. A recording of Lynch’s confession was made and was played for the jury in his trial.

Supreme Court of Ohio - Case Summaries

May 14, 2003

The Ohio Supreme Court today unanimously rejected 22 assignments of legal or procedural error by the trial court and upheld the convictions and death sentence of Ralph Lynch of Cincinnati for the 1998 kidnapping, rape and murder of 6-year-old Mary Jennifer Love.

Lynch admitted inviting Love into his apartment to eat popcorn and watch television, engaging in sexual contact with her and, when she screamed, placing his hands around her neck and squeezing for three minutes. Lynch alleged that his intent was to stop the girl from screaming, not to kill her. After several days, the FBI and local police identified Lynch as a suspect and interrogated him several times under different circumstances. He ultimately confessed to police that he had molested and strangled Love, and led them to her body. Lynch was charged with aggravated murder with death penalty specifications, based on the aggravating circumstances that the crime was committed during the commission of other felonies (rape and kidnapping), and that the victim was a child under 13 years of age. He was found guilty and sentenced to death in October 1999.

In asking the Supreme Court to reverse the trial court's verdict and/or set aside his death sentence, Lynch's attorneys included arguments that a change of venue should have been granted because of public outrage and heavy local publicity in Cincinnati about the child murder; that Lynch received ineffective assistance of trial counsel and that prosecutors made inflammatory and prejudicial statements about Lynch to the jury during the sentencing phase of the trial.

The court's opinion, written by Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, rejected these and all other assignments of error. The decision focused at some length on a claim that the trial court erred in not granting a defense request that Lynch, who has a reported IQ of 72, be allowed to be guided by his lawyer using a question-and-answer format when he made an unsworn statement to the jury during the sentencing phase.

Writing for the court, Chief Justice Moyer noted that, while "Ohio and several other states permit defendants to present an unsworn statement to the jury during the penalty phase of a capital trial, … the majority view does not support a holding that a defendant has a constitutional right even to make an unsworn statement, let alone an unsworn statement in a question-and-answer format," Moyer wrote.

He went on to hold that, while the trial court in Lynch's case did not abuse its discretion in denying the defense's request, "the trial court would have acted within its discretion by allowing the defendant to use a question and answer format in making an unsworn statement."