DNA Break Leads Ohio Man To Confess To 1998 Dismemberment Of Father

An Ohio man has confessed this week to dismembering his 93-year-old father after the elder's 1998 death, after DNA linked him to remains found along Interstate 77, police said.

Police say the remains had been stuffed in suitcases and dumped along I-77 in Tuscarawas County. The victim was identified as Lawrence A. Drotleff, and his son Larry admitted to cutting up the body and disposing of parts, police said. Authorities say the confession followed a forensic genetic genealogy match that reopened the cold case.

The episode traces back to 1998, when Lawrence died naturally in an apartment in Euclid at age 93. Fearing he could not manage without his father's pension and Social Security, Larry did not report the death. He dismembered the body over two days with a handsaw in a bathtub, tossed some pieces in a workplace dumpster, and dumped suitcases containing other remains along the interstate. He later told acquaintances his father had moved out west and that he kept collecting benefits amid long-running financial troubles and a 2003 bankruptcy filing.

Because Ohio classifies gross abuse of a corpse as a fifth-degree felony with a six-year statute of limitations, prosecutors may face limits pursuing that charge. Advances in forensic genetic genealogy have helped solve more than 1,300 cold cases since 2018, and audits show Social Security payments have occasionally continued to be sent to deceased beneficiaries.