Cold Case: Murder of Bill Comeans

If you happened to pass at dusk through New Rome, Ohio, maybe on your way to check out the famed hippy site of Woodstock about 34 miles away, you might have picked up a speeding ticket, if you were unlucky enough to be exceeding the 35mph speed limit. And you probably were, because the little one-horse town of .02 square miles would have been quiet at that time and maybe you relaxed your guard a little. But with 14 policemen all waiting there just to catch you as you sped down the main drag of Broad Street with its neat array of white champher board buildings glowing under the street lamps, you’d have been a goner. But New Rome was not only notorious for speeding tickets. It had its very own mafia, the local police and council officials held the town to ransom. When one 14 year old boy was found strangled by the side of the road, his winter scarf deeply embedded in his neck, they declared it suicide. This despite the fact two men had tried to choke him in two separate incidents just 3 months before.