Town note
Before white settlement the area was home to the Shawnee, the Miami, and the prehistoric Hopewell and Adena peoples, who built earthworks around the city.
about 0:08:27Spoilers are covered until your reading preferences load.
FILE 191 / 1 October 2020 / 166 MIN / full
We're going to Fairfield, Ohio, the suburbs of Cincinnati, in both Butler and Hamilton counties, southwestern Ohio, 30 minutes outside Cincinnati about 0:05:31
Before white settlement the area was home to the Shawnee, the Miami, and the prehistoric Hopewell and Adena peoples, who built earthworks around the city.
about 0:08:27Most of the earthworks were ploughed over by early settlers making farm fields, without the settlers realising they were there.
about 0:08:50Battles with Native Americans kept people from settling permanently in the area.
about 0:09:53An early settler account said going onto Native American lands was almost certain death, and that settlers without employment were brought to the verge of starvation.
about 0:10:11Before white settlement the area was home to the Shawnee, the Miami, and the prehistoric Hopewell and Adena peoples, who built earthworks around the city.
about 0:08:27Most of the earthworks were ploughed over by early settlers making farm fields, without the settlers realising they were there.
about 0:08:50Battles with Native Americans kept people from settling permanently in the area.
about 0:09:53An early settler account said going onto Native American lands was almost certain death, and that settlers without employment were brought to the verge of starvation.
about 0:10:11Families whose lands were contiguous formed associations for mutual protection, and each party built a strong blockhouse with cabins and enclosed log pickets.
about 0:11:04A sentinel watched for attack during the day, and at sunset everything of value was brought inside the fence.
about 0:11:3038%
Biggest faith: Muslim residents, 6%
about 0:21:43White 73% · Black 14.4% · Asian 3.2% · Hispanic 7.5%
Ethnicity can overlap race.Property crime
right about average
Violent crime
▼ about half the national average
Four-bedroom, three-bath, 1,882 square foot house
about 0:24:19Three-bedroom, three-bath, 1,672 square foot house
about 0:24:37Five-bedroom, five-bath, 4,997 square foot house
about 0:25:03"right about average"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: about the same.
As told in 2020 about 0:29:07
"about half the national average"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2020 about 0:29:13
"42,589"
No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:20:23
"about 30,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:20:23
"up 7.2%"
Direction: above.
As told in 2020 about 0:20:30
"38"
Comparison: "close to the normal median age". Direction: about the same.
As told in 2020 about 0:20:30
"73%"
Comparison: "normally about 62%". No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:21:00
"14.4%"
Comparison: "normally about 12.3%". No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:21:00
"3.2%"
Comparison: "normally 5.3%". No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:21:00
"7.5%"
Comparison: "a little less than half the national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2020 about 0:21:33
"38%"
Comparison: "50-50 is normal". Direction: below.
As told in 2020 about 0:21:43
"0.1%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:21:50
"6%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:22:00
"about $62,000"
Comparison: "normally about $57,000". No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:23:04
"87"
Comparison: "100 is normal". Direction: below.
As told in 2020 about 0:23:11
"73"
No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:23:16
"$169,800"
No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:23:16
"between $100,000 and $200,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:23:25
"about $970"
Comparison: "under the national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2020 about 0:23:54
"$149,900"
No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:24:19
"$199,900"
No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:24:37
"$483,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2020 about 0:25:03
2.0 / 5 · average of 5
“Police take some time to respond and there are potholes everywhere that do not get fixed.”about 0:14:52
“Mostly safe and quiet, but the city government is corrupt and considers the city above the law, and the police are lazy and inept.”about 0:15:08
“The school system overlooks bullying; too many students are bullied and it turns a blind eye.”about 0:15:39
“Nobody in the apartment complex knows each other, there are no community events, and dog owners do not clean up or train their dogs.”about 0:16:43
“Most of the Asian restaurants have very little selection and what they do have is not very good.”about 0:19:21
“The reviewer loves the fair, its games, exhibits, animals and demolition derby, and has gone every year for over ten years.”about 0:26:23
Monica Lemon was 21 years old in the winter of 1987. She lived in an apartment in Cincinnati with her brother, worked as a waitress at the Buskin bakery at Eighth and Walnut Streets in the city centre and was taking classes at Cincinnati Technical College. Her mother said the two met on a visiting day when both were visiting relatives; other accounts said they became pen pals while he was inside. She visited him five times in 1983 and 1984, the only person outside his family to sign his visiting list.
On 16 November 1986 the pair walked off the job together in the middle of a shift and moved into a single-wide trailer at Sammy Drive in the Debbie Trailer Park in Fairfield.
Monica's friends and family later described a relationship that had frightened her. In December she argued with him in the trailer and he made the same threat; from then on she was afraid of him. An electrician who rewired her apartment that December found a two-foot statue of a greenish-black demon with wings and horns, along with books on witchcraft.
On 9 February 1987 Monica left work saying she was going to a job interview at a motel. According to several accounts, including her boyfriend Dennis Whit, the trip was to help her cash stolen cheques. While she was reading he shot her once in the back of the head with a .25 calibre handgun. She died there. He put the torso in the trunk of his Ford Pinto station wagon, took the legs to a separate place and dumped the torso in a dumpster.
Monica did not return home. She was in a coma for six weeks and later had no memory of the attack.
On 14 February 1987, Valentine's Day, a wedding was held at Little Cedar Baptist Church in Cedar Grove, Indiana, with the ceremony on the lawn beside the river. A guest saw what looked like a boot at the water's edge; it was a severed leg. Another leg was found about 30 feet away. The legs were wearing tight blue jeans cut off above the knee, red and white striped socks and tan size eight and a half boots. They were taken to the Connersville State Police post and then to Indiana University Medical Center. The coroner estimated that the woman was white, between 20 and 30, about five foot five and around 170 pounds. There were no scars, tattoos or other identifying marks. Police combed a six-mile stretch along U.S. 52 between Brookville and Cedar Grove and found nothing else; high winds stopped an air search. Monica's father identified the boots, which he had been with her when she bought, and the socks, which he had given her.
They seized a skull ring, a black-light poster, a magic book, a bust of King Tut, bells, candles, a butcher knife, parts of a shotgun, a pickaxe, a handsaw, a hacksaw, a ceramic goat's head, nine figurines, an animal jawbone and a stolen granite headstone set on a podium as an altar, with black candles around it and blood on the altar.
In 1988 Monica's family won a $1 million wrongful death judgment against him. Pike sent him letters describing her love of blood and pain, some written in her own blood.
February 1987 / the trailer at Sammy Drive, Debbie Trailer Park, Fairfield, Ohio
As told in the episode, on 1 October 2020.
Accused
Accused
Public places are marked on the map.
church
about 0:31:43body found
about 0:36:36crime scene
about 1:09:18business
about 1:07:40business
about 0:57:31school
about 0:58:47school
about 0:47:10home
about 1:10:41police
about 0:37:01hospital
about 0:37:55road
about 0:39:23business
about 1:14:33road
about 1:27:23other
about 1:33:54school
about 2:20:42school
about 2:20:42