Stark County pair accused of dumping body in Tuscarawas County last year
NEW PHILADELPHIA – Two suspects accused of dumping a body in northern Tuscarawas County last year are in police custody.
Ashlie Morris, 36, of Massillon is in the Tuscarawas County jail after a grand jury indictment on charges of gross abuse of a corpse, a fifth-degree felony, and failure to report a death, a misdemeanor.
ASHLIE MORRIS
Tuscarawas County Sheriff Sgt. Ryan Hamilton says a second suspect, 38-year-old Victor McCoy of Stark County, will face similar charges. He is incarcerated in the Toledo Correctional Institution on unrelated charges and had not been served with an indictment as of Wednesday morning.
Hamilton says the charges follow a months-long investigation after a hunter found the skeletal remains of 27-year-old Katie Ann Fuller along North Orchard Road in Sandy Township on Nov. 4 of last year. Hamilton says investigators believe Morris and McCoy removed Fuller’s body from a residence where Morris lived in Stark County and discarded the body in Tuscarawas County.
Hamilton says the body had been there about eight weeks prior to being found. DNA testing identified the remains, but investigators could not determine a cause of death. Hamilton says there were “no traumatic injuries to the deceased, so we would suspect a cause of substance abuse.”
Morris was booked into the county jail on Nov. 5. She is scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 20.