BORDERLAND

Toledoan who killed 
girl in ’58 denied parole

10/3/2013

COLUMBUS — A Toledo man who raped and murdered a Scott High School sophomore in 1958 will remain in prison at least five more years, the Ohio Parole Board decided Wednesday.

Charles W. Leichty, 85, was denied parole by the board, which said it would not consider his release again until 2018. The board said Leichty presented “an undue risk to public safety” and said he’d been assessed as a “moderate-high risk to reoffend.”

Leichty, an inmate at the Corrections Medical Center in Columbus, was granted parole three times — in 1971, 1983, and 2006 — but each time was sent back to prison after committing a crime of a sexual nature. Both the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office and the victim’s advocacy group, Block Parole, Inc., had opposed his release.

In 1958, Leichty, who was then 30, was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Sonya Sue Long, 15. He was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.