Report delayed on Lee Naus' death

FREMONT – An investigation into the 1999 death of a 21-year-old Fremont man remains open after the county’s prosecutor says new information in the death may be available.

Sandusky County Prosecutor Tom Stierwalt said Monday that the investigation has been delayed because of reports that the Sandusky Register staff received a voice mail with more information regarding the death of Lee Naus.

Naus was crushed to death in 1999 after a dumpster he was in was unloaded into a garbage truck and the contents compacted.

“Hypothetically, if there is an eyewitness, you would want to talk to that person,” Stierwalt said, referring to the possibility of new information.

Fremont police reports from the original investigation show that police received a tip in 1999 that two men had thrown Naus into a dumpster behind a Fremont bar. The same two people named in the 1999 tip were also mentioned in an anonymous call received last April.

Police also checked on similar tips regarding other people alleged to have thrown Naus, whom the tipster said had passed out, into the dumpster.

The Register on Monday denied that it had new information on the case.

Matt Westerhold, managing editor of the Sandusky Register, said the newspaper was not withholding any new information regarding the investigation. In an email response sent to Stierwalt and copied to the News-Messenger and others, Westerhold said the voice mail the newspaper received in April had been sent to the Fremont Police Department.

“The only additional call we received after the voice mail was sent to police (in April) was a gentleman who simply stated that a person in the bar that night already provided information to police detailing what happened,” Westerhold said in the Monday email.

An earlier email sent from the Register to Fremont Police Det. Roger Oddo indicated that the Register would not share the information with Fremont Police. Stierwalt said the investigation will remain open until that information is reviewed.

Stierwalt did not say if or how the information would be obtained for the investigation. He said a 34-page report compiled by Oddo after interviewing 74 people over three months will not be released until the investigation concludes.

“Until this information can be reviewed and any additional witnesses interviewed by Detective Oddo, the investigation remains open and the report will not be made public,” Stierwalt said.

cshoup@gannett.com

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