If found guilty of murdering Johnson, it would be Pigge’s third such conviction.
RELATED: Patrol investigating Lebanon prisoner who may have killed a second inmate.
Until Monday, the case was under review in Pickaway County, based on one inmate’s recollection that they were traveling near Circleville in Pickaway County, according to Lt. Rob Sellers of the Ohio Highway Patrol.
“You have to explore all those avenues,” Sellers said Monday. “Based on everything we have now, the investigation will be presented back to the Ross County prosecutors.”
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Earlier Monday, Pickaway County Prosecutor Judy Wolford said Pigge had not been indicted in the county’s latest monthly grand jury session.
Wolford said it was unclear if the case would go forward in her county and that the case could be prosecuted “in a lot of places,” but declined to elaborate.
The van where Johnson’s body was found, in a compartment also holding Pigge, was transporting inmates who had been transported to Columbus for medical treatment, back to their prisons.
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“The fact that he was left alone with access to other inmates is beyond me. I’m completely amazed this was allowed to happen,” Ross County Prosecutor Matthew Schmidt said in February. “This is one of those… I’m still just amazed. After just being convicted in Warren County.”
Schmidt could not be reached Monday.
Pigge, 29, is incarcerated at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville where he is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole following the Warren County conviction.
Although killing an inmate is a capital offense, Pigge has previously been ruled ineligible for the death penalty because experts rated his IQ below 70.
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In September 2008, he was convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated arson and other charges after he cut his ex-girlfriend’s mother’s neck, watched her die, took her cash and set her house ablaze in Ross County.
While serving time for the murder of Rhonda Sommers at Lebanon Correctional Institution in Warren County, Pigge killed his cellmate, Luther Wade, of Springfield, by bashing Wade’s head in with a cinderblock in February 2016.
RELATED: 2-foot hole found in prison wall after Springfield man’s murder
Appearing in Warren County Common Pleas Court wearing a straitjacket on Jan. 30, 2017, Pigge pleaded guilty to Wade’s murder.
Two days later on a prison transport bus, he allegedly choked to death Johnson, 61, who had been serving an 8-year sentence for sexual battery.
