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2003: Richard Edwin Fox, bogus job interviewer

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On this date in 2003, Richard Edwin Fox was put to death by lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility for murdering 18-year-old Bowling Green student Leslie Keckler in 1989.

Fox had plucked Keckler’s phone number from a job application she submitted to the Bob Evans restaurant where he worked as a short-order cook, then lured her to a phony job interview.

On the pretext of taking her on her prospective “sales route,” Fox drove Keckler to a rural area outside of Bowling Green where he stabbed and strangled her to death.

Creepily, the exact same modus operandi was linked to another woman whose meeting had been more fortunate than Keckler’s. Marla Ritchey met Fox — posing as “Jeff Bennett” — for a similar interview, and after she realized it was a hoax,

[Fox] asked her what she would do if someone pulled a knife on her and asked her for all of her money or asked her to do “other things” at which point Ritchey did jump out of the [parked] car. The man then attempted to grab Ritchie and told her to come back and as Ritchey ran for her car the man immediately pulled away. (Account from Death Penalty USA: 2003-2004)

Fox left an orphaned daughter (then aged 20) who had pled for her father’s life. Keckler’s brother spoke to the media for the victim’s family afterwards, remarking,

“The family feels justice has been served, that Leslie and my mother can now be at peace.”

On this day..