Stark County woman sentenced to probation, community service in body-dumping case
NEW PHILADELPHIA – A Stark County woman who helped dump a body in northern Tuscarawas County in 2023 will not spend time in prison if she follows the conditions of her probation.
Ashlie Morris, 36, was sentenced this week to two years of probation and 200 hours of community service for one count of gross abuse of a corpse, a fifth-degree felony. A misdemeanor charge of failure to report a death was dismissed following Morris’s guilty plea to an amended indictment back in February.
She will serve one year in prison if she violates the imposed sanctions. Some of the conditions include random drug screenings, completion of a community-based correctional facility program, out-patient treatment and counseling, completion of her GED, maintaining employment, and having no contact with the victim’s family.
A second defendant in the case, 38-year-old Victor McCoy, is scheduled to be sentenced May 19th after pleading guilty to similar charges on April 1.
According to sheriff officials, the two took the body of 27-year-old Katie Ann Fuller, a mother of two, from a residence in Stark County and dumped it in a wooded area in Sandy Township about eight weeks prior to its discovery on November 4, 2023. An autopsy could not determine a cause of death, but police and prosecutors said evidence pointed to a drug overdose.