True Crime in the Great Outdoors

The most shocking crimes from national parks, camping trips, backpacker murders, and hiking incidents

StrangeOutdoors.com 4/17/21 StrangeOutdoors.com 4/17/21

The chilling story of Thomas Lee Dillon - the Ohio Outdoorsmen killer

Thomas Lee Lillon Ohio Outdoorsmen killer

Revised July 2024

Southern Ohio’s rural counties, with their rocky and wide-open spaces, are perfect for outdoor recreation. Many residents and visitors take advantage of the wilderness during hunting and fishing seasons. These counties were at one time a place where residents would leave their doors unlocked at night, and violent crime was considered a problem in big cities. But all that began to change in the spring of 1989.

Beginning on 1 April 1989 and continuing until April 1992, serial killer Thomas “Tom” Lee Dillon killed at least five people and possibly as many as 11 victims, enjoying the outdoors in random, motiveless attacks. He would ruthlessly kill hunters, fishermen, and joggers with weapons like his high-velocity .308 Mauser rifle.

Investigators were bewildered by the senseless killings, and after interviewing and polygraphing friends, family members, and acquaintances, they were even more baffled.

Dillon was finally captured in 1992 when a friend recognized a behavioral profile compiled by the FBI. Like many serial killers, Dillon began with cruelty to animals and started setting fires. He would later admit to setting more than 100 fires and killing more than 1,000 pets and farm animals.

He remains one of Ohio’s most notorious murderers.

Who was Tom Lee Dillon?

Thomas “Tom” Lee Dillon was born in Canton, Stark County, northeastern Ohio, on July 9, 1950. His father succumbed to Hodgkin’s disease and died when he was just 15 months old. Psychologist Jeffrey Smalldon said that Dillon viewed his mother as a cold woman who never praised or punished him. "Dillon … has no memories of his mother ever hugging him, kissing him or telling him she loved him," he said.

During the murders, Dillon worked as a draftsman for a municipal water department in Canton for 22 years. He was the husband and father and lived a quiet life in a middle-class ranch house in southern Stark County's Pike Township. The Dillons were described as a very close-knit family.

Classmates remembered Dillon as extremely intelligent but a loner with few friends. His 1968 senior yearbook lists no extracurricular activities. "Tom was removed from the group," said classmate Ronald Skelton. "He was a person who marched to the beat of a different drummer - separated from the mainstream." Another classmate, Thomas Breit, said Dillon was quiet, especially in a group. "I always liked him," Breit said. "I got a kick out of him - he made me laugh."

Dillon would take trips into the backwoods of Ohio alone, stop on his way to buy beer, and often drive hundreds of miles immersed in his thoughts, dreaming he was a special forces soldier out hunting for enemy combatants. No one knew for three years during the late 1980s and early 1990s that his fantasy had become a reality.

In his teenage years, Dillon began keeping count of the animals he killed on a calendar in his bedroom of his family's home on 37th Street Northwest in Canton and also kept a calendar for all the girls he'd had sex with.

Following high school, Dillon attended Kent State University's Stark campus and later Ohio State University.

The animal killings continued after Dillon graduated from Ohio State in 1972, went to work for the Canton Water Department and married Catherine Elsass, a nurse from Alliance, in 1978. By the early 1980s, Dillon was boasting that the count on the death calendar had reached 500.

Dillon had a passion for weapons, and according to his friend and fellow hunter, Richard Fry, he "was always changing guns." While Dillon occasionally bought weapons at gun shows, most came from private sales through classified ads and mail orders from gun dealers. Fry said Dillon almost always carried weapons, "even when he rode a bike."

He didn't just collect guns; Dillon fired about 1,000 rounds a year in target practice, so much so that he damaged his hearing. He also used a crossbow.

Despite all the practice, Fry said, Dillon was only a mediocre marksman, especially when the target was living. He seemed to get a physical thrill out of killing, according to Fry, who recalled Dillon once used a knife to finish off a wounded groundhog, "He was shaking. He was in a frenzy - wild-eyed. Dillon didn't have any qualms about talking about killing animals.”

In the late '70s and early '80s, Dillon would sometimes take dead animals home. Fry said, "I can remember one pretty good-looking German shepherd. It still had arrows stuck in him." Dillon would talk about "grossing people out at work" with his tales of killing and didn't seem to understand why people would find the stories disturbing.

Nor did Dillon understand why anyone would object to how he teased Fry’s son. Once in the mid-1980s, when the boy was 5 or 6, Dillon shot a chipmunk under their backyard grill. The boy was nearby. "He was curious," said Fry. Dillon grabbed the dead animal and began chasing his son around the yard until he tripped and fell, and then "He ground that chipmunk in his face."

By the mid-1980s, Dillon's activities had attracted attention near home, and one man said he complained to police because Dillon had killed his dog.

Except for minor disciplinary action for tardiness and absenteeism in the '70s, Dillon's 22-year work record was good. In a letter to Dillon's attorney after his arrest, his supervisor at the municipal water department, J.D. Williams, said, "Tom is a dedicated and knowledgeable employee, and these qualities are reflected in his work. He gets along well with the other employees, and his attitude is always positive."

In 1969, while he was a student at Ohio State, Dillon was investigated for possessing an antique Russian mortar. Authorities decided not to press charges after determining that the mortar was more of a collector's item than a weapon.

Dillon was also knowledgeable about police procedures. In 1980, he attended Ohio Peace Officers Training in Lawrence Township in Stark County, doing well in the course and graduating with an expert rating in marksmanship.

In August 1991, Dillon was cited by a game warden for illegal target practicing near a state hunting area in southern Stark County. Target shooting is a misdemeanor, and he was fined $200 in Canton Municipal Court. Then, in a search of his pickup truck, the warden seized a .22-caliber pistol with a silencer, and he was then indicted on federal charges of possessing an illegal silencer.

Dillon's attorney, Synenberg, at the time, said he was optimistic that his client wouldn't serve any jail time because he had promised in the plea bargain to get rid of his weapons and not buy any more, "Mr Dillon has lived a law-abiding life," Synenberg wrote in a motion requesting leniency that portrayed Dillon as "an avid and lifelong gun enthusiast" who made a mistake but presented no threat to society. He was wrong, dead wrong.

The murders

Between April 1989 and April 1992, five people were killed, including joggers, campers, and outdoorsmen.

Donald Welling, 35, of Strasburg, Ohio, on April 1, 1989, while walking or jogging on Tuscarawas County Road 94.
Jamie Paxton, 21, of Bannock, Ohio, on November 10, 1990, while deer hunting in Belmont County.
Kevin Loring, 30, of Duxbury, Mass., on November 28, 1990, while deer hunting in Muskingum County.
Claude Hawkins, 48, of Mansfield, Ohio, on March 14, 1992, while fishing at Wills Creek dam in Coshocton County.
Gary Bradley, 44, of Williamstown, West Virginia, on April 5, 1992, while fishing in Caldwell, Ohio, in Noble County.

Donald Welling

Around 9.30 am on April 1, 1989, Donald Welling, 35, was jogging on a back road in Tuscarawas County near New Philadelphia, a quiet community about 100 miles south of Cleveland, Ohio. Suddenly, a vehicle approached him, and he was shot at point-blank range. Thomas Dillon was driving the car. He put a .30-caliber rifle bullet through Donald’s heart from approximately 10 feet away. At the time, the authorities could not find a motive or any evidence to help them solve the murder.

Dillon later said, “He said, ‘What’s up?’ just before I shot him. Just from me to you, just five feet away. This guy was just trying to be friendly, and he blew, you know, I killed him. It wasn’t premeditated. I told you guys that. Just, I was just driving along and came up on him and that’s it, Welling…And just, I heard, a voice in my head said, ‘Open fire on him.’ And I did. And in 10 seconds, from the, the time I heard that voice ’til I shot him and killed him.”

Jamie Paxton

Twenty-one-year-old Jamie Paxton was hunting outside St. Clairsville, an Ohio community near the state border with West Virginia, on Saturday, November 10, 1990.

Ohio’s annual bow hunting season was in full swing, and Jamie headed out into the cold morning to try and bag a deer. Jamie lived with his parents in Bannock County, Ohio. Following breakfast, just before seven o’clock, he headed out the door with his crossbow, said goodbye to his mother, Jean Paxton, 49, and father, Mickey, and was never seen alive again.

Jean had expected her son home by mid-afternoon, but then at 2.40 p.m., as Jean went about her household chores, a sheriff’s car pulled up at the house.

Jamie had been found by friends on a brushy hillside along Route 9, dead from apparent rifle-bullet wounds to his chest, right knee, and buttocks.

Sheriff Tom McCort knew that this was no accident. “When we saw more than one wound, we knew it could not be an accident … plus it was a bullet wound rather than an arrow, and the gun season was not in yet.”

But the killer, who turned out to be Dillon, had left no clues behind.

Kevin Loring

30-year-old Kevin Loring of Massachusetts hunted in Muskingum County, west of Belmont County and south of Coshocton County on November 28, 1990.

He was a refrigerator technician who was married, and a single gunshot wound to the face had murdered the father of three children. He had been hunting deer in a strip mine area.

The murder of Loring had been deemed a hunting accident at the time, but later, the death was linked to Dillon.

Claude Hawkins

On Saturday, March 14, 1992, Claude Hawkins, 49, a father of four children, decided to do some early morning fishing after finishing his midnight shift at Pittsburgh Plate and Glass Company. Hawkins loved fishing and had a favorite spot just below Will’s Creek Dam northwest of Belmont, Ohio, in Coshocton County. He was found dead, shot in the back at close range.

Since the murder was committed on federal land, the FBI was called in. Special Agent Harry Trumbitis, from the Columbus field office, was one of the officers assigned to the case. “Usually, you would find some type of shell casing in the area. I remember looking very hard, metal detectors, hands and knees, for any shell casings and that. None were ever found, and so that was something that you know if, in fact, we had somebody who was evidence conscience enough to pick up the shell casing after they shot and killed somebody, we were dealing with a different brand of person here.”

Dillon said after his arrest,“(I) drove by, and he waved at me. I heard a voice that day that said, “Go back and get him. I saw him fishing down there, I heard a voice in my head say, ‘Go back and get him.’ Went down there and killed him. Shot him right in the back.”

Gary Bradley

On April 5, 1992, West Virginia resident and father of three children Gary Bradley, 44, was fishing near the county seat of Noble County when Dillon shot him.

Dillon was also investigated in connection with the unsolved shooting death of John Joseph Harvat on November 28, 1984, at a hunting camp in Wetmore Township, McKean County, Pennsylvania.

"What you have is a hunter of humans," said a noted forensic psychiatrist who has been involved in such celebrated cases as Ted Bundy and Jack Ruby. Whoever killed the outdoorsmen "did it for his own satisfaction and pleasure," said Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Investigations and the Jean Paxton efforts

Police found little or no evidence at the murder scenes. The killer left no spent casings or other forensic evidence, and there were no witnesses.

A short time after Jamie’s murder, Jean Paxton began a letter-writing campaign, sending letters to the killer via the Martin’s Ferry Times Leader newspaper saying, "To the murderer(s) of my son, Jamie, Would it be easier for you if I wrote words of hate? I can't because I don't feel hate. I feel deep sorrow at losing my son. You took a light from my life on November 10 and left me with many days of darkness. Have you thought of your death? Unless you confess your sin and ask for God's forgiveness, you will face the fire and fury of hell. When you are caught, I will be sorry for your family. They will have to carry the burden of your guilt all their lives.”

Investigators told Jean that the killer would probably not be moved by her pleas. But she persisted, writing in October 1991, "It's been nearly a year since you killed my son. Has your life changed in the past 11 months? Our family hasn't lived since last November 10. We are surviving one day at a time. There is one question on our minds all day long and every time we wake up at night: we want to know why Jamie was killed."

Jean’s perseverance finally paid off when the killer, Dillon, sent an anonymous, typed letter addressed to the local newspaper, the Times Leader, Sheriff McCort and the Paxtons. It had been posted from outside the Martins Ferry post office.

After providing previously undisclosed details of the murder scene to prove it was legitimate, the letter said:

"I am the murderer of Jamie Paxton. Jamie Paxton was a stranger to me. I never saw him before in my life, and he never said a word to me that Saturday.

Paxton was killed because of an irresistible compulsion that has taken over my life. I knew when I left my house that day that someone would die by my hand. I just didn't know who or where. Technically I meet the definition of a serial killer, but I'm an average-looking person with a family, job and home just like yourself.

Something in my head causes me to turn into a merciless killer with no conscience. To the Paxtons, you deserve to know the details. I was very drunk and a voice inside my head said, ‘do it.’ I stopped my car behind Jamie's and got out. Jamie started walking very slowly down the hill toward the road. He appeared to be looking past me at something in the distance.

I raised my rifle to my shoulder and lined him up in the sights. It took at least five seconds to take careful aim. My first shot was off a little bit and hit him in the right chest. He groaned and went down. I wanted to make sure he was finished so I fired a second shot aimed half way between his hip and shoulder. He was crawling around on the ground. I jerked the shot, and hit him in the knee. He raised his head and groaned again. My third shot also missed and hit him in the butt. He never moved again.

Five minutes after I shot Paxton, I was drinking a beer and had blocked out all thoughts of what I had just done out of my mind. I thought no more of shooting Paxton than shooting a bottle at the dump. I know you hate my guts, and rightfully so. I think about Jamie every hour of the day, as I am sure you do.

Don't feel bad about not solving this case. You could interview till doomsday everyone that Jamie Paxton ever met in his life and you wouldn't have a clue to my identity. With no motive, no weapon, and no witnesses you could not possibly solve this crime. The murderer of Jamie Paxton.”

FBI profile of the killer

The letter didn’t provide any breaks in the case, but the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia, was asked to prepare a profile.

The so-called “Hannibal Lector Squad” was a group of three personality profilers who spearheaded the team.

The profile described the killer as an educated white male and as someone with a propensity for crimes, such as arson and killing pets and farm animals. The profile, however, was not perfect. It predicted that the killer lived within a short distance of all of the crimes (Dillon lived as far away as 150 miles) and that the murderer would be in his 20s. Dillon was 42 when he was arrested. He might be a normal family man but was likely a loner, the report continued. He had a drinking problem and a history of compulsive vandalism and arson. Stress would trigger the shootings, which usually would be committed while he was drunk.

First break

On August 26, 1992, a high school friend of Dillon’s, Richard Fry, 43, called a Tuscarawas County detective, Detective Sgt. Walter Wilson, after being disturbed by his preoccupation with serial killers and animal killings. This finally broke the cold case. Fry had read the August 11, 1992, report in the newspaper about the case and FBI profile.

Several days before, Fry had called the FBI number listed in the various newspaper stories about the murders. He left a message on an answering machine. When the FBI didn't return his call, he tried the Tuscarawas County Sheriff's Department.

"I'd like to meet with you," Fry told Detective Wilson. “I saw the reports about the task force that had been formed to solve the killings, and I just think I got a guy who should be investigated as a possible suspect.” The man was nervous about entering the station, so Detective Wilson agreed to meet with him at a private location outside of town later that day.

By then, the Southeastern Ohio Homicide Task Force had received many tips, and none had panned out. Wilson was initially skeptical, believing that Fry’s story about Dillon looked like another dead end.

Fry said in 1993, “He asked me if I thought he could, or had, killed somebody. The way he looked at me chilled my blood. I thought he had a secret to tell. It was the look on his face and in his eyes.”

Fry and Dillon met in a junior year at the former Glenwood High School in Plain Township. As teenagers, they would drive through the countryside, taking shots at road signs and animals as well as lighting random fires. Dillon began getting more violent and cruel by shooting family pets they came across.

Fry had read about the killings, and he knew that Dillon liked to drive around those same areas at weekends in his car. He knew Dillon had weapons and had shot and killed animals. He felt that Dillon was the type of person who could do something like this.

Fry recounted, "I used to go out hunting with him because we were gun enthusiasts. In the beginning, it was all pretty legitimate....But then we started hitting these dumps in southern Stark County. We'd go down there hunting rats and things. I remember we ran into a couple of scraggly dogs one time. They were all diseased - they were sick. I remember they had open sores. Tom said, 'Do you think I ought to kill them?' And I said, 'Well, you'd probably be doing them a favor.' I remember him shooting them. I didn't think too much about it - wild dogs can be vicious.”

"Then he started shooting dogs - just dogs along the road. I said, 'Tom, shooting a wild dog is one thing, but that dog doesn't look very wild to me.' He said, 'You can't let them damn things be running around.' I let it go by once or twice, but then I said, 'Tom, you got to quit it. Or I won't go out with you. Those are somebody's pets. Somebody loves them. It's just not right to do that.' "

Richard also said that while driving back from Atwood Lake in Carroll County, "Tom pulled off the side of the road and pulled out this gun and started shooting at this farmer. The farmer was a good way off - two, three hundred yards." One of the others in the car protested, "What the hell are you doing?" Dillon explained that he couldn't hit a target at that distance with a pistol. "So I'm just plinking at him," he said.

After their school days, Richard Fry ran into Dillon in Newcomerstown in southern Tuscarawas County in about 1986. "This was the first I'd spoken to him in a long time. I said, 'What in the world are you doing clear down here?' He said, 'Oh, just driving around - this and that.' " Richard didn't believe him, "When I saw him in Newcomerstown, I thought, 'He's moving farther south because he's still up to his old ways.' " Despite his suspicions, Fry renewed his friendship with Dillon in 1989, partly down to their shared interest in firearms.

Fry said, “They moved the Ohio Gun Collectors Association gun show up to Cleveland, and I wasn't a member.” Dillon invited him to be his guest. "He said he had stopped killing animals, so I said, 'I guess we can be friends again.' " The gun shows were held five or six times a year, and on the long drives together, Dillon and Richard would talk about guns, hunting and, in some cases, serial killers.

Dillon talked about how easy murder would be, "I remember one time...he and I were driving, and he said, "Do you realize you can go out into the country and find somebody and there are no witnesses? You can shoot them. There is no motive. Do you realize how easy murder would be to get away with? "I said, 'Yeah, but why would you do it?' "

On a trip to a gun show, Dillon asked a more disturbing question. Fry said, "We were talking about (Florida serial killer) Ted Bundy and how can a guy get away with all that. Tom said, 'Do you think I've ever killed somebody?' The question really caught me off guard. I said, 'No, I don't think so.' " Dillon repeated the question, "The way he said that to me was really scary," the informant remembered. "I'd never seen him like that before. I thought to myself, 'Has anybody been shot?' "

Other suspicious evidence

Members of the investigating task force interviewed Tom Dillon's co-workers and neighbors. One co-worker, who said he had known Dillon for 20 years, said Dillon's nickname was "Killer" because he often "bragged about shooting dogs and cats.” The co-worker and a second city employee described Dillon as a loner. They told investigators he did not have a good relationship with his wife.

The co-workers also provided a possible link between Dillon and the murders of the outdoorsmen: Dillon kept maps on his table and filing cabinets of many of the east-central Ohio counties where the killings occurred.

A second enticing link was established when Dillon's history of firearms purchases showed he had bought numerous weapons from a co-worker who had a federal firearms dealer's license. The dealer's records showed Dillon had bought 18 weapons in the last several years, including four .30-caliber-type rifles and two Mausers of the kind used to kill four of the five victims.

The link to Tom Dillon and surveillance begins

The first clue linking Dillon to the crimes was that his weekends and vacation time matched the dates of the killings.

On September 20, 1992, a neighbor saw a red Toyota pickup truck near the spot where a dog was killed in Tuscarawas County. A .25-caliber bullet was removed from the dog, and Richard Fry had told Detective Wilson that Dillon owned a similar gun.

Wilson had been trailing Dillon alone for several weeks and had enough to get the go-ahead for round-the-clock surveillance.

Tuscarawas County Sheriff Harold McKimmie said Wilson's preliminary work convinced the "other task force members that Dillon was a viable suspect." Wilson's biggest job was getting the task force interested in Dillon, McKimmie said. "From early on, I felt strongly about him. He appeared to be your everyday guy. But underneath the surface, he wasn't. Not even close." Wilson said.

Beginning in mid-October, the task force tailed Dillon from the air and on the ground to gun shows and on weekend trips to Belmont, Harrison, Tuscarawas, Holmes, Coshocton and Carroll counties. He was often seen drinking from early in the morning.

On November 8, aerial surveillance saw Dillon stop several times and point what appeared to be a gun at electric meters on oil well pumps and a stop sign. Dillon also stopped next to a car with a for-sale sign on it, picked up a large rock, and threw it through the windshield.

On November 11, task force members lost sight of Dillon on his way home from Belmont County. Later that day, they learned that two cows had been killed with a crossbow in Tuscarawas County. Richard Fry helped obtain several of Dillon's arrows and matched those found in the dead cows.

On November 21, the team followed Dillon to a gun show in New Philadelphia, where he bought a .22-caliber rifle. The purchase of that gun and a .25- caliber handgun at a gun show in Cleveland on November 7 was enough to arrest Dillon for violating his plea bargain on the silencer charge. But the FBI still had no direct evidence to link him to the killings of the five outdoorsmen.

Dillon was spotted visiting Kevin Loring’s grave in Massachusetts. Dillon told police after his arrest, “When I went to New England last year with my wife … I looked up on microfilm in the Plymouth Library where the guy lived and everything. He was from the Duxbury area. I just read, you know, to see what–who the hell he was. I didn’t know who he was.”

Despite the surveillance, Dillon attempted to kill Larry Oller in Tuscarawas County, but he missed him, and Oller escaped uninjured.

In November 1992, at around 9 am, on a remote Harrison County road, an FBI surveillance plane with Detective Sgt. Walter Wilson on board was following Dillon’s red Toyota pickup truck. Dillon was already drunk on beer. Ahead of the truck was a T-intersection, and near it, a female jogger turned right. Fortunately, Dillon turned left.

Dillon’s arrest

As hunting season approached, the surveillance team decided they had to move in to stop any further killings.

Dillon was finally arrested on November 27, 1992, after nearly six weeks of surveillance as he left a convenience store in Tuscarawas County.

They arrested Dillon on a federal weapons charge on November 27, 1992, as he was awaiting sentencing for possessing a silencer and announced that he was their suspect in the serial shootings. At a press conference, they asked anyone who had sold firearms to Dillon to come forward with any evidence.

On December 4, 1992, a gun dealer from Stark County brought in a Swedish Mauser rifle he said that Dillon had sold to him on April 6, 1992, at a Massillon gun show the day after Bradley was murdered. Ballistics tests indicated that it was the rifle used to kill Bradley and Hawkins.

On January 27, 1993, Dillon was indicted on capital charges in both cases.

Searches of Dillon's home and vehicles failed to turn up either firearms or other evidence linking him to the brutal murders.

The authorities also believed that Dillon could be responsible for many of the reported 108 arsons of barns and abandoned houses since 1988 in Tuscarawas, Harrison, Carroll and Coshocton counties.

Dillon’s family members were shocked by his arrest. His mother-in-law, Anne Elsass, a retired high school teacher and guidance counselor, refused to believe that her son-in-law was capable of murder. Dillon “is a witty, kind man who has always had a yen for guns,” she said. Even though she refused to believe initial allegations against him, she said, "If they're true, they're true. My stomach is churning. I have to keep my spirits up for Cathy (her daughter). Maybe part of me wants to deny this. Tom was always pleasant. He was always joking. He seemed like a son to me. We're a very close-knit family.”

Court

On February 9, 1993, Dillon arrived at the Noble County Courthouse. The proceeding was short, and Dillon pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of Gary Bradley and Claude Hawkins. A third murder charge was filed against Dillon on May 22, 1993. He was charged with aggravated murder in the death of Jamie Paxton.

On July 12, 1993, Tom Dillon entered his pleas before Judge John Nau in Noble County Common Pleas Court. He showed no emotion as he answered, “Guilty,” to each charge.

Dillon also admitted to setting 160 fires and committing other acts of vandalism in Eastern Ohio during the preceding five years. Noble County Sheriff Landon Smith estimated that Dillon’s fires caused more than $2 million in damages. The fires were set in Coshocton, Belmont, Guernsey, Carroll, Columbiana and Tuscarawas counties.

Noble County Prosecutor Lucien Young III said the plea agreement was the “most practical solution,” even though he preferred a sentence of death. “I kind of felt like he ought to die,” he said. Dillon’s lawyer, Roger Synenberg, countered claims that Dillon felt no remorse. “He has some regrets about this, but he’s also got to put it all behind him,” he said.

Sentencing

In return for the state dropping the death penalty specifications, Dillon pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and was sentenced to five consecutive life terms with no chance of parole for 165 years on July 12, 1993. Dillon said, “I have major problems. I’m crazy. I want to kill. I want to kill.” He blamed a turbulent childhood for his problems.

Dillon also said he was afraid to be sent to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, a max security facility and the site of a riot just a few years before he was caught. In response to his concerns, family members of his victims began a petition drive to have him sent there. More than 8,000 Ohioans signed the petitions, which the State of Ohio honored.

At seven o'clock the next night after the sentencing, the Paxtons' telephone rang. It was Thomas Dillon. He told Jean Paxton that her "pathetic coward" comment had hurt him. "That's what you are, Thomas," she replied. "And if you start with your cocky attitude, I will hang up. I've heard enough of that for the past several months. I'm not interested in what you have to say. But there are things I want you to know. Thomas, have you ever heard the expression 'Tears are the safety valve of the heart'?" He had not, so she talked about repentance and prayer. "Quit your profanity, stop the loopy simpering in front of the cameras and pick up the Bible before it's too late,” she said. Paxton continued speaking to him for an hour, finally concluding, "We have spoken long enough. I can't hate you, but I can never forgive you for what you've done to our lives."

Why did Tom Dillon kill the Ohio outdoorsmen?

The psychologist, Dr Jeffrey Smalldon, who examined Dillon at the request of his defense attorneys at the trial, said, “What you see … is someone who looks and presents in a way that seems frighteningly normal. In reality, most people who commit crimes like Dillon come across just that way.

You never would have picked him out of a crowd. He was married with a son, had a college education, and worked 22 years as a draftsman. Everyone knew that Dillon liked to hunt; they didn’t know what he was hunting.

Dillon would find his victims along the byways of rural Ohio. There was no rhyme or reason to how he selected his targets; he just climbed in his pickup truck on weekends and drove 100 miles or more until he found someone utterly alone, a hunter, fisherman, or jogger. When he came upon them, he would turn his truck around, pull out his rifle, take aim, and, as he later told the police, he would never miss.

In his confession, he said that he shot his first victim 13 years earlier, a man sitting at home watching TV. “So this guy with his back to the picture window of his house. He was sitting on the sofa. So, this thought came to me, he said, ‘Stop back up, and said shoot this guy.’ So, I shot at him through the picture window. This sort of voice in my head said, "go back and get him, go back and get him. I took my rifle, went down there, jumped the guard rail, went down through the pine trees, shot him in the back.”

But this voice was Dillon’s own, Smalldon said: “When I asked him about that, he finally admitted, well, like ‘It wasn’t another voice, I know it was me. It was my own voice. It was a voice in my head.’”

Smalldon said he was living in a fantasy world of his creation: “He talked on and on about the various fantasy roles that he had envisioned himself in over the years. They ran the gamut from being president of the United States to being lead singer for the Doors, or the Beatles, to being brought out of retirement by the Cleveland Browns to lead his team to the Super Bowl. But they were all linked by the theme of power, prestige, influence and grandiosity. Now, I also found that his fantasy life has a much darker component than the examples that I’ve cited. Certain of his fantasies involved himself as a combatant in a war situation.”

On the murder of Kevin Loring, “I don’t know, just something came to me, you know, I just, spur of the moment thing”. Describing his murder of Jamie Paxton, he said, “I heard a voice that just said, ‘Do it,’ you know. I just, I got out. I had a rifle with me. It was a 308. I got out. He came off the hill for me. I just, I opened fire on him.”. He told the officers he felt bad that Paxton was only 21, “I felt bad about the kid, you know, I didn't know he was that young. I couldn't see how old he was from a distance. I thought he was 30, 35. I didn't know he was that young…. blew that kid away you know, he had his whole life ahead of him and I blew him away, you know, I felt sorry for him.”

Smalldon thought there was another reason that Dillon wrote the letter: “He was drawn by the urge to insert himself into the investigation. To, in effect, say ‘Here I am,’ and he brags in that letter, not just ‘Here I am, but here I am, catch me if you can.’”

Then they ask why he killed, but Dillon never seems to have an answer. Asked if he had any feelings toward his victims, Dillon answered: “No feelings whatsoever. They were just there. The wrong place at the wrong time.” “I think he’s holding back because he wants to remain a puzzle,” Smalldon says. “He would ask me ‘, Have you ever met anyone as complicated as me? Can you understand this? Am I, is this behavior as perplexing to you as it is to me? There’s never been a crime like this in Ohio, has there? No motive. No contact with the victims. How could you figure that out?’ And then he would shrug and say, ‘I don’t know.’” “I really think that he felt he was something special,” says Miller. “And when he was arrested and the plea and so forth, he’s not a guy that used a jacket to cover his head, you know, he looked into the camera almost with a smirk on it. I mean he was proud of himself and proud of his period of fame. And I think he would have done it again.”

Aftermath

On October 21, 2011, Dillon died in the prison wing at Corrections Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio, aged 61, after being ill for nearly three weeks due to cancer.

StrangeOutdoors Exclusive Members Only Area

$15.99

One time

Exclusive articles for members of StrangeOutdoors that are not available elsewhere on the site.

✓ 64 articles as of December 2024

✓ One time fee

✓ Exclusive members-only multi-blog articles

See the full list of Exclusive members-only articles on StrangeOutdoors.com

Read other true crime stories

The Terrifying Case of Gary Michael Hilton, the National Forest Serial Killer: Part 1 Meredith Hope Emerson (Member only)

The Terrifying Case of Gary Michael Hilton, the National Forest Serial Killer: Part 2 Cheryl Dunlap

The Terrifying Case of Gary Michael Hilton, the National Forest Serial Killer: Part 3 Irene and John Bryant