They were men thrown hard against the rocks of bad fortune - out of work, their marriages broken, their youth, with its possibilities, behind them.
To their eyes, the advertisement on Craigslist, offering $300 a week, a free trailer and unlimited fishing to "watch over a 688 acre patch of hilly farmland and feed a few cows," may have seemed like a sign that their luck was finally turning.
Instead, in a scheme so macabre that residents here are already speculating on when it will be turned into a movie script, three of the four men, one from Virginia, one from the Akron area and one still unidentified, were lured to their deaths, their bodies buried in shallow graves. The fourth man, from South Carolina, who was hired and driven to the property in rural southern Ohio, was shot in the arm but escaped and alerted the authorities. The "farm" was in fact land owned by a coal company.
More bodies may still be found, as the bogus advertisement, which was picked up by online job aggregators, drew more than 100 responses from Ohio and other states.
In Ohio, hit hard by the recession, the abundance of eager applicants pulled in by the advertisement has surprised no one, stirring talk about the lengths that people will go these days to find employment. "People here are desperate for work," said a clerk at a motel in Akron, whose employer did not want him to give his name.
The police have suggested robbery as a motive, but other theories have also circulated, including identity theft and, perhaps more chilling, simply a desire to kill. The perpetrators appeared to be looking for loners who would not be missed.
Law enforcement officials have arrested two suspects, Richard J. Beasley, 52, of Akron and Brogan Rafferty, 16, a high school student from nearby Stow. Mr. Beasley, who has a long criminal record, has not been charged in connection with the killings yet but is being held on other charges, including 15 counts of promoting prostitution and also selling the painkiller OxyContin. On Thursday, sources said that the federal government had filed kidnapping and wire fraud charges in connection with the Craigslist case. (The F.B.I. would confirm only that it had issued a hold to keep Mr. Beasley incarcerated.)
Mr. Beasley appeared in court on the drug charge on Thursday, and on Friday he is to be arraigned on the prostitution charges.
Mr. Rafferty has been charged with the attempted murder of Scott Davis, 48, of South Carolina, the aggravated murder of David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Va., and two counts of complicity in those crimes. Prosecutors want the teenager, a tall youth who towered over the police officers escorting him from the courthouse in Caldwell this week, to be tried as an adult, something that is virtually routine in Ohio for crimes this serious. Judge John W. Nau of Noble County Common Pleas Court has issued a gag order in the case; he will take up the issue on Dec. 15.
Neither suspect has been charged in the murders of the other victims, Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio, whose body was found last week buried near a mall in Akron, and the unidentified man, whose body was found on the rural property in Noble County, where officials also found Mr. Pauley's body on Nov. 14.
In a phone interview, Carol Beasley, Mr. Beasley's mother, insisted that her son was innocent, and said that he had spent hundreds of hours in charitable work, like taking food to the poor, and had taken Mr. Rafferty - "a nice young man" - under his wing. "We never saw anything in Richard that was violent," said Ms. Beasley, a retired secretary at Buchtel High School in Akron. "I hope the courts will see the truth."
Yvette Rafferty, Mr. Rafferty's mother, has said that if he was involved, he must have been in thrall to Mr. Beasley, a family friend. Ms. Rafferty, a striking woman, tall and rail thin, paced in front of the courthouse in Caldwell on Tuesday, waiting for a chance to talk to her son.
"All I know is he would not hurt anyone in the world unless he was threatened," she said.
One applicant who was rejected, Ron Sanson, 58, a former construction worker, said he was interviewed by Mr. Beasley, who was dining on Chinese food, in the food court of a mall.
Mr. Sanson, who is divorced, said he had been in and out of work since fracturing his leg in 2006. He said potential employers balked at his age, even for jobs shoveling snow. "You're not going to be out there shoveling snow in the middle of the night," he was told.
He said he had good antennae for trouble, but picked up nothing strange about Mr. Beasley, who, he said, looked like a farmer, with "a scraggly beard" and a red, white and blue baseball cap.
"He seemed all right with me," Mr. Sanson said.
He did not get the job; the fact that he had gone to college and been in the Navy may have put Mr. Beasley off, he speculated.
Less fortunate were Mr. Pauley, who had driven from Virginia with all his belongings, and Mr. Kern, who was struggling to support his three children.
To their eyes, the advertisement on Craigslist, offering $300 a week, a free trailer and unlimited fishing to "watch over a 688 acre patch of hilly farmland and feed a few cows," may have seemed like a sign that their luck was finally turning.
Instead, in a scheme so macabre that residents here are already speculating on when it will be turned into a movie script, three of the four men, one from Virginia, one from the Akron area and one still unidentified, were lured to their deaths, their bodies buried in shallow graves. The fourth man, from South Carolina, who was hired and driven to the property in rural southern Ohio, was shot in the arm but escaped and alerted the authorities. The "farm" was in fact land owned by a coal company.
More bodies may still be found, as the bogus advertisement, which was picked up by online job aggregators, drew more than 100 responses from Ohio and other states.
In Ohio, hit hard by the recession, the abundance of eager applicants pulled in by the advertisement has surprised no one, stirring talk about the lengths that people will go these days to find employment. "People here are desperate for work," said a clerk at a motel in Akron, whose employer did not want him to give his name.
The police have suggested robbery as a motive, but other theories have also circulated, including identity theft and, perhaps more chilling, simply a desire to kill. The perpetrators appeared to be looking for loners who would not be missed.
Law enforcement officials have arrested two suspects, Richard J. Beasley, 52, of Akron and Brogan Rafferty, 16, a high school student from nearby Stow. Mr. Beasley, who has a long criminal record, has not been charged in connection with the killings yet but is being held on other charges, including 15 counts of promoting prostitution and also selling the painkiller OxyContin. On Thursday, sources said that the federal government had filed kidnapping and wire fraud charges in connection with the Craigslist case. (The F.B.I. would confirm only that it had issued a hold to keep Mr. Beasley incarcerated.)
Mr. Beasley appeared in court on the drug charge on Thursday, and on Friday he is to be arraigned on the prostitution charges.
Mr. Rafferty has been charged with the attempted murder of Scott Davis, 48, of South Carolina, the aggravated murder of David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Va., and two counts of complicity in those crimes. Prosecutors want the teenager, a tall youth who towered over the police officers escorting him from the courthouse in Caldwell this week, to be tried as an adult, something that is virtually routine in Ohio for crimes this serious. Judge John W. Nau of Noble County Common Pleas Court has issued a gag order in the case; he will take up the issue on Dec. 15.
Neither suspect has been charged in the murders of the other victims, Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio, whose body was found last week buried near a mall in Akron, and the unidentified man, whose body was found on the rural property in Noble County, where officials also found Mr. Pauley's body on Nov. 14.
In a phone interview, Carol Beasley, Mr. Beasley's mother, insisted that her son was innocent, and said that he had spent hundreds of hours in charitable work, like taking food to the poor, and had taken Mr. Rafferty - "a nice young man" - under his wing. "We never saw anything in Richard that was violent," said Ms. Beasley, a retired secretary at Buchtel High School in Akron. "I hope the courts will see the truth."
Yvette Rafferty, Mr. Rafferty's mother, has said that if he was involved, he must have been in thrall to Mr. Beasley, a family friend. Ms. Rafferty, a striking woman, tall and rail thin, paced in front of the courthouse in Caldwell on Tuesday, waiting for a chance to talk to her son.
"All I know is he would not hurt anyone in the world unless he was threatened," she said.
One applicant who was rejected, Ron Sanson, 58, a former construction worker, said he was interviewed by Mr. Beasley, who was dining on Chinese food, in the food court of a mall.
Mr. Sanson, who is divorced, said he had been in and out of work since fracturing his leg in 2006. He said potential employers balked at his age, even for jobs shoveling snow. "You're not going to be out there shoveling snow in the middle of the night," he was told.
He said he had good antennae for trouble, but picked up nothing strange about Mr. Beasley, who, he said, looked like a farmer, with "a scraggly beard" and a red, white and blue baseball cap.
"He seemed all right with me," Mr. Sanson said.
He did not get the job; the fact that he had gone to college and been in the Navy may have put Mr. Beasley off, he speculated.
Less fortunate were Mr. Pauley, who had driven from Virginia with all his belongings, and Mr. Kern, who was struggling to support his three children.
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