We went into the Dayton Daily News archives to find more details about the slayings.
The crime
Knapke and Ferraro, who was the father of the bar’s owner, were employees of Sloopy’s.
Each man was struck in the head more than 18 times by a claw hammer taken from the bar’s tool box.
Also, a safe containing about $800 was stolen. And a cigarette machine was found pried open, with $97 taken.
There were no witnesses of the murder, and the killer didn’t leave fingerprints.
About 6 p.m. on March 19, 1994, Grace Ferraro, Frank’s wife, frantically flagged down a police cruiser near Sloopy’s after she couldn’t reach her husband and drove to the bar to look for him. She found a side door open but was afraid to go in herself.
The suspect
Two days after the murders, police received the first of two Crime Stoppers tips suggesting that Edmund Earl Emerick III had done the crime.
A former Marine, Emerick had a criminal record for non-violent offenses in the 1980s and spent 13 months in prison for a breaking-and-entering case in Greene County.
At the time of the Sloopy’s murders, he was unemployed and broke. He had managed the nearby bar, T.B. Hopkins, until it went out of business a few months earlier.
There were other reasons to suspect Emerick of the murders.
He knew the bar business and the layout of Sloopy’s. He’d been in the office where the safe was kept and once even stole the bar’s dolly as a prank. Police also found two witnesses who placed Emerick outside of Sloopy’s the morning of the murders. Both testified for the prosecution and identified the defendant in court.
Emerick was arrested on June 4, about 10 weeks after the slayings.
The trial
During Emerick’s 1996 trial, the prosecution piled on layers of eyewitness and forensic expert testimony.
A tire iron found in Emerick’s car was linked to the damage on the cigarette machine.
The defense tried to poke holes in the witness accounts and forensic experts, pointing out conflicts in testimony.
The defense also pointed out that although blood was sprayed throughout the bar, witnesses never saw a speck on the person they said was Emerick. There was also no blood found inside or on Emerick’s car.
In the end, Sloopy’s manager Dave Camplin provided testimony damaging to Emerick. He testified that Emerick called him about 2 a.m. the Monday before the murders and tried to talk him into meeting right away at Sloopy’s. Prosecutors said Emerick was trying to lure Camplin to the bar so he could rob the safe when it was still full of cash from that Saturday night.
The jury deliberated for 11 hours, spending two nights in a hotel before returning the guilty verdict on two counts of aggravated murder.
Mysterious letter
In an odd twist in the case, WHIO-TV received a letter from “the devil” in “hell” that contained details of the murders.
After comparing the letter to a sample from Emerick, an FBI handwriting expert testified it was “extremely likely” that Emerick wrote the letter.
Maintaining his innocence
Emerick maintains that he did not commit the crimes.
He claimed that prosecutors ignored other potential suspects, including several suspicious characters that witnesses reported seeing around Sloopy’s that day.
In 2007, DNA tests were ordered to determine if Emerick, serving a life sentence for the murders, committed the crimes.
Prosecutors in Montgomery County said DNA tests would not be enough to clear Emerick of the murders.
Bar history
Sloopy’s closed in 2010. The nightclub had a 22-year run in the Oregon District.
The nightclub’s owner remodeled the space and reopening it as Bar Tiki. Later it housed Pulse dance club, and it is currently The Corner Kitchen.
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