Ohio truck driver accused of being serial killer

WKYC-TV, Cleveland

Show Caption Hide Caption Ohio truck driver accused of being a serial killer A grand jury indicted truck driver Robert Rembert Jr. on multiple counts of aggravated murder. He is being called a serial killer by prosecutors for killings dating back to 1997. Now they're investigating whether he's connected to other deaths.

CLEVELAND — A truck driver indicted Tuesday on multiple counts of aggravated murder is a serial killer who may have killed more people, Cuyahoga County prosecutors contend.

Nearly 20 years ago, Robert Rembert Jr., 45, of Cleveland was convicted of manslaughter in the Dec. 23, 1997, death of Dadren Lewis, 24, in a Cleveland parking lot, and Rembert served a six-year sentence for the homicide. But Rembert also killed four others — three this year and another in 1997 before Lewis' death, Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said.

"Robert Rembert is a serial killer," McGinty said. "So far, we know he's purposefully executed five people. An investigation of his activities as an over-the-road truck driver is currently under way."

On Tuesday, a Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted Rembert, who has been in jail on $1 million bond since Sept. 21, on 25 charges: 10 counts of aggravated murder, six counts of kidnapping, four counts of rape, two counts of aggravated robbery and one count each of having weapons as a felon, grand theft and gross abuse of a corpse.

Here are the crimes now tied to him, according to the indictment:

• May 15, 1997: A city bus driver discovered the body of Rena Payne, 47, of Cleveland who had been beaten, raped and strangled, in an employee restroom. Rembert was a Regional Transit Authority bus driver at the time and would have had the code to enter the facility.

Rembert left his RTA job a month later. His DNA now has been matched to Payne's, the indictment said.

• June 10, 2015: Workers found the body Kimberley D. Hall, 31, of Cleveland in a field. She had been beaten, raped and strangled similarly to Payne.

DNA found on her body also was traced to Rembert. In addition, the last calls made and received on Hall's cellphone were to Rembert.

• Sept. 20, 2015: Morgan Nietzel, 26, and Jerry Rembert, 52, of Cleveland were found dead with gunshot wounds to their heads in the house they shared with Robert Rembert, who was Jerry Rembert's cousin.

The following day, Robert Rembert was arrested in connection with Hall's death as he left the showers at a truck stop near Seville, Ohio, about 45 miles southwest of Cleveland. He had been driving Nietzel's missing red Saturn Vue.

The prosecutor's office has not decided whether to seek the death penalty, and it was not immediately known whether Robert Rembert had a lawyer.

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