Credit: Montgomery County Jail
Credit: Montgomery County Jail
He was previously indicted in October 2024 on two counts of tampering with evidence and one count of gross abuse of a corpse in this case.
Hancock is currently in the Montgomery County Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned on the new charges on March 4.
The charges stem from the death of 36-year-old Matthew Joseph Edward Thomas of Dayton.
Dayton police were dispatched around 6:45 a.m. on Nov. 1, 2023 to an apartment in the first block of Richmond Avenue after a 911 caller reported seeing two men appearing to put a body wrapped in a blue tarp in the back of a pickup truck, according to Montgomery County Regional Dispatch Center records.
Later that day, Harrison Twp. Fire and Rescue were called to Popeye’s Louisiana Chicken on Salem Avenue on a report of a person down. They found a body in the alley behind the restaurant, later identified as Thomas, wrapped in the tarp.
According to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office, Thomas died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head, and investigators believe Hancock was the shooter.
Hancock is also facing charges connected to a 2024 pursuit and standoff while he was wanted on the abuse of a corpse charges.
At around 1:30 p.m. Oct. 18, a detective saw Hancock and alerted other police units, Dayton police Lt. Mark Ponichtera said following the pursuit. Police said that he rammed the detective’s unmarked vehicle to get away.
Witnesses said a man was sitting in a vehicle at a BP gas station on Salem Avenue when police tried to block him in and told him to get out. The man’s car and a police vehicle crashed and the man kept going.
Police dash camera and body camera footage showed a uniformed officer approach Hancock with his gun drawn, ordering him to get out of the car. Instead, the video showed Hancock drove toward Wentworth Avenue.
Soon after that, he bailed out of the car and ran to the apartment building at 2765 Wentworth Ave. near the intersection of Salem and West Siebenthaler avenues.
This led to a large law enforcement response, including a SWAT response, before law enforcement found him in a fifth-floor apartment. They finally entered the apartment using a robot from the Dayton Bomb Squad and Hancock surrendered peacefully, police said.
In November 2024 he was indicted connected to the pursuit and standoff of failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer, obstructing official business and inducing panic. He is scheduled to be in court Feb. 27 connected to this case.
Staff writer Jen Balduf contributed to this report.
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