# Ohio Fugitive Turns Self In After 17 Years



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*BRANDON ORTIZ*
_Herald-Leader Staff Writer via Knight Ridder_

At Bucholz Cafe in Dayton, Ohio, William C. Sawyer, 45, is known as Big Bill, a loyal friend, practical jokester and family man who takes his 16-year-old son hunting and fishing.

The burly 6-foot-6, 300-pound man also has a surprising soft side, friends say.

"A big sissy," says Fred Bucholz, the bar's owner and a friend of 13 years. "A big teddy bear basically."

None of Sawyer's friends or co-workers knew his secret past: Since 1989, Sawyer had been a fugitive, wanted for jumping bail in Lexington on charges of trafficking marijuana.

Bucholz says that even Sawyer's wife and family didn't know he was a fugitive.

After 17 years, Sawyer finally turned himself in to Fayette County authorities last month, saying he did not want to live with the threat of arrest anymore. Now, he's trying to get his case dismissed because the Lexington police department accidentally authorized the destruction of evidence against him five years ago.

He's facing 20 years in prison.

If Sawyer was hiding from the law, it doesn't appear he was trying very hard. He lived in Michigan, then Ohio, started a family, went to school to become a carpenter, joined a trade union and is still employed by Preferred Walls and Ceilings Inc. in Beavercreek, Ohio.

He worked and filed federal income taxes under his real name, his lawyer said in court pleadings. Court records show Sawyer had a Michigan driver's license, although it's not clear yet whether he had one in Ohio, where he has lived the last 10 years.

Sawyer and his attorney, Henry Hughes of Lexington, declined to comment Friday.

'For 17 years ... an angel'

Since jumping bail, Sawyer has had a clean criminal record. Lexington authorities don't know whether he even had a traffic ticket.

"For 17 years, he has been an angel," Bucholz said.

The Fayette County Sheriff's Office, one of the agencies responsible for finding Lexington fugitives, said last week that it put Sawyer's name into the National Crime Information Center database.

Police can run names through the database, even during traffic stops, to learn of outstanding warrants.

Sawyer was not discovered until about two months ago, when he underwent a background check for work at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, said Harold Combs, a project manager at Preferred Walls and Ceilings Inc. This tripped the national database.

The FBI then alerted the Fayette County Sheriff's Office of Sawyer's whereabouts, said Debbie Stevens, director of administration for the sheriff's office.

She said sheriff's deputies sent a teletype to Ohio authorities requesting Sawyer's arrest. That didn't happen, but Dayton police called Sawyer's employer, Combs said.

More than a month passed before Hughes escorted him into the sheriff's office.

"It appears to me he probably got spooked and turned himself in," Stevens said.

Was no-show at '89 hearing

It was a rainy night on Feb. 2, 1989, and the fog was thick on the rear window of Sawyer's 1978 Pontiac Grand Prix. Officer Drexell Burdette did not see the car's temporary tag when he pulled over the driver, Robbey Nelson, and Sawyer at an Interstate 64-75 interchange at Lexington.

After Sawyer, living in Dayton at the time, lied about his identity, Burdette thought something was fishy, according to court records. After obtaining a search warrant, police found 56 pounds of marijuana and a .357-caliber Magnum in the trunk, police said.

Sawyer, then 28, later posted a $10,000 cash bond and was released from the Fayette County Detention Center.

It wasn't his first encounter with the law. He had been convicted in 1981 of second-degree burglary in Missouri. Two years later, he was found guilty of receiving stolen property in Ohio.

In 1984, he was convicted of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, also in Ohio.

Sawyer did not show up for a June 1989 suppression hearing in Fayette Circuit Court, and he wasn't seen again by Kentucky authorities until last month. That led to charges of bail-jumping and contempt of court.

Now, Hughes is asking a judge to dismiss Sawyer's case because police destroyed the marijuana.

Prosecutors say they can still convict Sawyer because crime lab technicians can testify they took pictures of the marijuana and weighed it. They say the evidence was not purposefully destroyed; rather, Burdette inadvertently checked the wrong box on a form.

Wife and son write to judge

Letters to Judge Mary Noble from a dozen friends, family members and co-workers provide a glimpse into Sawyer's seemingly lawful life as an outlaw.

Prosecutors say the letters are irrelevant.

"Those things don't change what happened in 1989 that he still has to be accountable for," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn said.

Starting in 1989, Sawyer went to apprentice school for four years to study carpentry. A year later his wife gave birth to Jason. Rene Baker Sawyer gave birth to another son in 1991, but he died from spinal muscular atrophy.

The Sawyers owned a home in Michigan. In 1996 or 1997, the family moved to his native Ohio, where he took a job working on walls and ceilings.

"During these years he has not been in any trouble," Rene Baker Sawyer wrote to the judge. "He is a good provider, loving husband and father. He coached his son's baseball team, taught his son how to fish and hunt and is now teaching him how to be a carpenter; things a father should do with his children."

Rene Baker Sawyer is expecting to give birth to a son this week.

Jason Sawyer, big and burly like his dad, wrote that his father "is a good man. He has taken care of me from the beginning. He has kept a roof over my head, food on my plate, and clothes on my back. ... He keeps me out of trouble and showed me the difference between right and wrong."

Richard Beatty, a contractor in Beavercreek, said Sawyer was a dependable foreman with a laid-back, easygoing demeanor.

"From what little I know about this situation, this was a mistake he made a good number of years ago," Beatty said in a telephone interview. "It's unfortunate that a guy like Bill made a mistake like this and just didn't deal with it."

Bucholz, the bar owner and longtime friend, says Sawyer was known for his good deeds. He said Sawyer built a wheelchair ramp for Bucholz's 99-year-old aunt for free. When bar patrons get too drunk to drive, Sawyer tends bar so Bucholz can give them a ride home.

Everybody at the bar was shocked when they learned about Sawyer's past. "Nobody had a clue," Bucholz said.

Regular bar patrons have each been contributing $5 a week to the family. William Sawyer is on leave, and Rene is unable to work because she is having complications with the pregnancy.

Nonetheless, Bucholz said, friends and family did not hesitate to raise $20,000 to bail Sawyer out of jail.

On Friday, Sawyer was scheduled to have a hearing (which was postponed to March 30) in Fayette Circuit Court.

This time he showed up.

Lexington Herald Leader








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