Recordpub.com - Deaths shock Windham

By Matt Fredmonsky

and Colin McEwen

Record-Courier staff writer

WINDHAM — The deaths of a mother and her 2-year-old daughter have shocked a quiet neighborhood in this small village of about 2,700 people.

Police continue investigating the deaths of 29-year-old Melisa Hall and her daughter, Naysa, in an apparent murder-suicide Wednesday.

Hall’s brother, Jason Rutter, of Garrettsville, said he remembers his sister as a “good person, who would do anything for anybody.”

“When she wasn’t working she was with her daughter,” Rutter said. “She worked and spent time with the family.”

He remembers having his sister and niece over to his home often, where his own six-year-old daughter would play with Naysa.

There are no doubts in the family, Rutter added, that his sister was devoted to and loved her daughter. He said the family is struggling to cope with their deaths.

“This is a difficult time,” Rutter said. “It doesn’t seem real. It seems like a bad dream.”

Hall did not let on that anything was wrong, he said, an unknown that leaves the family searching for answers.

“I don’t know how this happened,” he said. “She was always happy. If there was a reason for this, we haven’t found it yet.”

Hall’s neighbors are trying to uncover anything they can about a woman they barely knew.

“It’s a real shame for a small community like this,” said James Humberson, who lives four doors down from Hall’s home. “We never even really got to know her. Maybe if we did, it would have made a difference.”

Portage County Auditor’s Office records show Hall purchased the single-story, three bedroom house at 9930 Green Drive in February 2007. The bodies of herself and her daughter were found Wednesday evening in the backyard.

Humberson said he had only seen her once, recently out mowing the yard, in the 27 months she had been living a few doors from him. The neighbors he spoke to on the street also said they were shocked to hear Hall may have shot her daughter and then herself.

This neighborhood, east of the center of the village, is the quiet side of town, Humberson said. Many of the neighborhood’s homes, like Hall’s, were built within the past 35 years and are well kept.

“Nothing happens on this side of town. It always happens up in the projects,” he said referring to the Maple Grove area.

Joe Korosic’s backyard is one yard over from where the bodies of Hall and her daughter were found. Korosic, who has lived in his home for a year, said he had never talked with Hall.

“Nobody that I spoke to neighbor-wise has,” Korosic said. “No more than seeing her in her backyard playing with her kid. It was just a shock to everyone (Wednesday) night.”

Neighbors say they know each other well, but Hall kept to herself. A couple living almost directly behind Hall’s home said they were not even aware she had a child. Korosic and Humberson were sitting in their front yards Thursday morning talking to neighborhood friends about the deaths.

Visible from Korosic’s backyard, sheets were hung around the property to shield from view the blood-stained futon where neighbors say they saw Hall’s body just after her death.

Police responded to the home at 6:17 p.m. Wednesday for a welfare check on a distraught female, according to the Windham Police Department. Upon arrival, officers found Hall and her daughter in the backyard fatally wounded by apparent gun shots.

Police found a handgun near the bodies, but several neighbors who were home Wednesday evening said they did not hear gunshots.

Portage County Sheriff David Doak, whose department is assisting in the investigation, said he expects a medical examiner will rule the deaths as a murder-suicide.

“At first we were skeptical,” Doak said. “It was pretty clear cut at the scene after we discovered a journal there. She had left a note.”

Doak said Hall listed numerous reasons for her actions in the note, but he declined to elaborate.

“It was kind of a private thing more addressed to her family ... but she pretty much spelled out her intentions,” he said.

Two weeks ago, on May 14, Hall had been notified via certified letter of a civil suit filed against her in Portage County Common Pleas Court May 13. The filing party, HSBC Bank Nevada, stated in the lawsuit that Hall had owed the company more than $18,000 on a credit card account. The creditor sought repayment of the claimed debt.

Portage County court records also show Hall filed for, and received, a divorce in August 2005 from Jason L. Hall, whose last known address is listed as 325 Franklin Drive in Doylestown. Melisa Hall’s July 2005 dissolution from Jason Hall listed no children.

Cars drove down Green Drive Thursday morning and slowed as they passed the house. The street was lined with curious neighbors Wednesday night, Humberson said.

Humberson said most neighbors didn’t even know what Hall looked like and added it appeared her close friends were mostly her co-workers.

“I couldn’t even describe her,” he said.