Vera's petition

This is for vera jo reigle and what has happened to her to get people to help stop the type of crimes she endured while alive.

Judge binds teen over to adult court
By JORDAN CRAVENS

staff writer

Vera Jo Reigle was sexually tortured and beaten in her own home, stripped of her clothes in frigid temperatures, and stabbed 21 times on a Findlay railroad bridge five weeks ago, according to court testimony Friday.

New details about the last hours of the 24-year-old's life emerged in Hancock County Juvenile Court, where one of her alleged killers, Nicole R. Peters, 17, of Fostoria, was ordered by Juvenile Judge Allan Davis to be tried on an aggravated murder charge as an adult.

Peters' case was sent to the grand jury and to Common Pleas Court, and the tearful girl was taken to the Hancock County jail. She is being held on a $1 million bond.

Peters' attorney, Christopher Travis, argued during the 3½-hour hearing that prosecutors had not established probable cause for the case to be transferred to adult court. Prosecutors urged otherwise.

Travis charged some witnesses against the girl are inconsistent and "self-serving" because they "should probably be incriminated in this matter."

Scottie Emmons, who lived with Reigle at 300 Center St., claimed he saw Peters and Daniel Bixler, 21, of Tiffin, torture, beat and stomp on Reigle at that house in the hours before she died.

Findlay police Det. Mathew Tuttle testified Reigle suffered abuse even before Peters and Bixler began staying at the Brooks house about a week before the March 26 slaying.

He testified Bixler has confessed to helping to kill Reigle. Like Peters, Bixler is charged with aggravated murder.

Bixler has pointed to Peters, his girlfriend, as the one who first stabbed Reigle after she was stripped of her clothing on the railroad tracks beneath the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. bridge, according to Tuttle.

"Show me your love," Peters then told Bixler, and gave him the knife, Tuttle testified.

Bixler then told police he stabbed Reigle several times before Peters took back the knife and stabbed her again, Tuttle said.

"Basically, she (Reigle) was crying," Tuttle said, "saying she couldn't breathe and was trying to yell."

Her hands and ankles shackled in court, Peters cried as graphic photographs of Reigle's body were shown in court. Her chin quivered at times.

Tuttle's testimony touched on a possible motive for the crime.

Reigle may have been slain because someone said she had caused a Brooks family member to miscarry by spraying Mace near her, Tuttle said.

Also, Peters may have been unhappy because she thought Reigle had looked at Bixler in a way that, Tuttle said, "was interpreted as she wanted to have sex with him or be his girlfriend."

Bixler also told police where to find the weapon, a 10-inch butcher knife, in the Blanchard River, Tuttle testified.

People at the Brooks home saw Peters, Bixler and Reigle leave the Center Street residence, he said.

A video from a surveillance camera at the Salvation Army building across the street shows the three walking toward the river, Tuttle said.

Emmons, an adult son of Cheri Brooks, who also lived at her Center Street home, was asked by Reigle to walk with them, Tuttle said.

But, "he went to get his shoes on and, when he came back, Daniel told him, with a knife, that he wasn't coming," Tuttle testified.

Defense attorney Travis asked Emmons at the hearing if he saw Reigle being tortured or beaten. He described in vivid detail what Reigle endured.

"I told them to stop, but they wouldn't listen," Emmons testified.

Later, after Bixler and Peters returned without Reigle, Emmons said he overheard Peters say "that she earned her first teardrop."

Emmons testified he thought that meant she had killed someone.

Travis asked him what he did after hearing the comment.

"I shook my head and went down to tell mom what I overheard," he testified.

Also Friday, a 17-year-old boy from Tiffin, who had been held in the Seneca County Juvenile Detention Center, testified he talked with Peters while she was being held there on a runaway charge.

He testified Peters said, "Did you hear about that murder with Danny. I am the one that helped kill."