Detective in Harley Dilly case: 'At a certain point, you have to come back to the beginning'

PORT CLINTON - As police began scouring a vacation home on Jan. 13, the night they would ultimately find the body of Harley Dilly, a passerby spotted the missing teen’s purple jacket through a window and shared the information online, spurring rampant speculation on social media.

Investigators first found the teen's puffy maroon jacket zipped up and inside out on the floor in the hallway of the home at 507 Fulton St., according to the Port Clinton Police Department.

In order to properly identify the jacket as the one that belonged to Dilly, an officer unzipped it, turned it right-side out and photographed it — treating the jacket as evidence, police said.

At that point, police had still not found the missing 14-year-old’s body, discovered later that night in the chimney of that home.

After photographing the coat, the officer hung the jacket up to avoid getting additional debris on it in what was a very dusty scene inside that home, which was undergoing renovations.

Detective Ron Timmons of the Port Clinton Police Department said there was a lot of dust and other debris on the floor and throughout the house.

Described as a summer home, the house was in the process of being remodeled.

According to police, rumors that the jacket was hanging in the window before investigators searched inside that home are not true.

Timmons also said that rumors claiming there was a tip that led investigators to that house nearly a month after Dilly went missing are completely false.

But one of the biggest questions still lingering regarding the high-profile case is what led investigators to the vacant vacation home, which was just across the street from the Dilly's residence at 517 E. Fifth St.

“At a certain point in an investigation, you get completely spread out,” Timmons said. “And at a certain point, you have to come back to the beginning.”

As the search stretched on from days into weeks, investigators had explored tips as far as Los Angeles, Fort Worth, Orlando, and many other locations across the country.

With the various agencies assisting local law enforcement in the search, Timmons explained that they were getting officers in to help that were able to recanvass the neighborhood with a “fresh set of eyes.”

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Within days of the teen having been reported missing on Dec. 21, local police requested assistance from state and federal agencies in the search. By Dec. 26, officers from those outside departments were on the ground in Port Clinton and the assistance continued for weeks.

Timmons said the house and the area around it had been checked earlier in the search by both officers and police K-9s.

“There were bloodhounds, there were cadaver dogs, there were live-find dogs,” Timmons said.

But there were no signs of forced entry, all of the windows and doors were secured, and there was no indication from the search dogs. Investigators moved on at that point, just days after Dilly had last been seen, working with the goal of finding the missing teen alive and returning him home safely.

However, when the search later circled back to the beginning, the interior of the vacation home was one place that had not yet been searched.

With a lockbox on one of the doors to that home, which allowed access to workers doing the remodeling, police decided to seek entry and were able to do so on Monday, Jan. 13.

Once inside, investigators found the missing teen’s purple jacket and glasses on the ground in a hallway of the second floor.

According to Port Clinton Police Chief Rob Hickman, it is believed that Dilly, who was four-foot-nine and weighed 100 pounds, climbed a TV antenna tower to the roof of the home and entered the chimney, which was 9-by-13 inches wide.

From the chimney, police believe Dilly pushed his jacket and glasses through a flue, where they then landed on the second floor inside the home.

The chimney was blocked between the second and first floor, trapping the teen inside the chimney. A preliminary autopsy ruled the cause of death to be compressive asphyxia.

It remains unknown why Dilly entered the chimney.

The homeowners, Eloise and James Schmitz, of Avon, had the chimney removed from the house last week out of respect for the Dilly family, according to Hickman. The city of Port Clinton assisted in the removal.

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