CINCINNATI – A grand jury has indicted a 20-year-old man on capital murder charges in a stabbing attack that killed one man and wounded four children, including 2-year-old twins, in a suburban Cincinnati apartment, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said Akihiko Clayton would face the death penalty if convicted of charges that include aggravated murder. There were two counts of aggravated murder with separate death penalty specifications, including allegedly attempting to kill "two or more persons." The 16-count indictment included four attempted murder counts, and charges of aggravated burglary, robbery and felonious assault.
"This is a terrible crime," Deters said in a statement. "To break into someone's home and stab him to death and stab four innocent children for absolutely no reason is horrific."
Capt. Thomas Wells of the Springdale police department said Clayton was recently arrested in northern Kentucky on unrelated charges. Wells declined to discuss a possible motive or other details of the Ohio case.
Kenton County (Kentucky) records show Clayton, of Covington, was jailed July 28 on robbery and kidnapping charges.
A Kenton-Campbell County public defender, Dan Schubert, said a judge entered a not guilty plea for Clayton in that case, pending grand jury action. He had no comment on the Hamilton County charges.
Police responding to 911 calls in the early morning hours of July 2 said they found Emilio M. Ramirez had been fatally stabbed, with four children ranging from toddler to teen seriously injured in the apartment. The children were treated at hospitals and recovered, police said.
The prosecutor's office said the children wounded were twin 2-year-old girls, a 7-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy.
Police had said Ramirez was the father of three of the four children who were hurt and also the father of a fifth child who escaped harm in the apartment.
Springdale Police worked with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and other agencies. They had appealed to the public for help in finding the person or persons responsible for the attack in the small suburban city about 20 miles north of Cincinnati.
Police used a hound to sniff through woods near the Willows of Springdale apartment complex and investigators marked off blood spots, some outside the apartment, in the aftermath of the attack.
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Associated Press writer Lisa Cornwell in Cincinnati contributed to this report.
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Contact the reporter at http://www.twitter.com/dansewell
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