Youngstown Daily Legal News

Father-in-law in church septic tank murder case has his appeal rejected

JESSICA SHAMBAUGH
Special to the Legal News
Published: March 25, 2014

A southern Ohio man’s murder convictions were recently affirmed for his role in the death of his daughter-in-law and the disposal of her body in a church septic tank.

The 4th District Court of Appeals rejected William Inman’s claims that he was not given a fair trial and upheld his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Inman’s case came to light in early 2011 after his daughter-in-law, Summer Cook Inman, disappeared from a Century National Bank in Logan, Ohio.

Several witnesses reported seeing a white car, which resembled an old police cruiser, sitting in an alley near the bank shortly before Summer’s disappearance.

All three witnesses described a blond woman in the front of the vehicle and two men near the rear passenger door.

They stated that the men were holding a stun-gun on the white female victim, who was screaming from her fetal position on the ground.

One of the witnesses said he tried to help the victim but the men saw him approaching and pepper-sprayed him.

The remaining two witnesses said the two men threw the victim in the back seat and left the scene.

Two separate witnesses described a similar white car parked outside Faith Tabernacle Church in Nelsonville, Ohio on the same evening.

The first man said he thought the car was a police cruiser and he slowed down in an attempt to avoid a speeding ticket.

A second witness said she thought the car was a Crown Victoria and she saw two men outside the car and a blond woman in the front seat.

Police investigating Summer’s disappearance immediately identified the Inman family as suspects due to a pending divorce between Summer and Inman’s son, William Inman II.

The couple were in the middle of a “contentious divorce and custody dispute involving their children,” according to the factual history of the case.

Investigators also noted that the eyewitness accounts matched the Inmans because Inman’s wife, Sandra, had blond hair at the time and Inman had purchased a former police cruiser two days before Summer’s kidnapping.

They obtained a warrant and seized a Garmin GPS unit as well as multiple cell phones from the family’s home in Akron.

The GPS unit revealed that the Inmans were in Logan at the time Summer was abducted and then traveled to Nelsonville and northbound back to Akron.

The GPS showed the family had stopped at a car wash and surveillance footage showed them cleaning the car and removing a black spotlight that was affixed to the vehicle.

They also stopped at an auto parts store and traded reportedly “four almost new tires” that were on the car for four lesser quality replacements.

The investigation led police to the Faith Tabernacle Church where they found Summer’s body, head-first, in the septic tank.

They reported that “the only part of Summer’s body that protruded above the sewage was one of her shoeless feet.”

A deputy corner found that Summer’s hands were bound by zip-ties and she had been strangled by a zip-tie placed around her neck.

He determined that she was dead prior to being placed in the septic tank.

Both Inman and his son were charged with two counts of aggravated murder with death penalty specifications, murder, kidnapping, tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse.

Because of the publicity of the case, the trial was moved from Hocking County to the Ross County Court of Common Pleas.

Both men were indicted, tried and convicted of those identical charges.

Inman’s wife, Sandra, pleaded guilty to murder for her role in the events.

At trial, Inman attempted to introduce testimony from a member of the Hocking County Sheriff’s Department.

He claimed his wife had told the deputy that her son was solely responsible for strangling Summer.

He also argued that the prosecutor’s statement from his son’s trial should be admitted as evidence for the same reason.

The trial court denied those motions and found that they were improper.

It then sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

On direct appeal, Inman argued that he was denied a fair trial because the trial court would not permit his requested evidence.

He claimed the deputy should have been permitted to testify because his wife was unable to do so.

Upon review, however, the three-judge appellate panel found that Sandra never expressed her refusal or inability to testify.

“It is true that appellant’s trial counsel indicated that if called to the stand, Sandra would invoke spousal privilege/incompetence and her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Appellant, however, did not attempt to call Sandra as a witness,” Judge Marie Hoover wrote for the court.

The judges held that to invoke that right, a witness must do so under oath and on her own behalf.

They also dismissed Inman’s claims that the prosecutor’s opening statements from a separate case should have been admitted.

They ruled that a prosecutor’s statements to not constitute evidence, but rather explain a theory.

Further, even if the evidence was erroneously withheld, the judges ruled that it was not prejudicial to Inman.

They held that even if evidence showed he was not the principal offender, there was overwhelming evidence of his complicity to commit the murder.

“Accordingly, any error by the trial court in preventing appellant from introducing the statements was not prejudicial error, requiring reversal, because under the law of complicity it need not be established that appellant was the principal offender,” Judge Hoover continued.

Presiding Judge Peter Abele and Judge Matthew McFarland concurred.

The case is cited State v. Inman, 2014-Ohio-786.

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