Bond records sealed in Kettering cold case homicide

Yahoo

31-01-2025

Jan. 31—Court records were sealed this week for three documents concerning bail for a Centerville man accused of killing his girlfriend nearly 25 years ago in Kettering.
Jonathan Eric Link, 60, is charged with two counts of murder in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court in the July 2001 death of 29-year-old Shannon Noel Anderson.
Judge Steven Dankof on Tuesday ordered the prosecution's Jan. 13 request for high bond and Jan. 24 request to hold Link without bond in addition to Dankof's Tuesday order denying bail all sealed with no direct or public access.
The judge set Link's bond at $5 million and ordered him to surrender his passport during his Jan. 16 arraignment hearing.
Link's attorney Dennis Lieberman said Thursday he was not permitted to discuss the judge's order because of the seal. However, Lieberman said it was unlikely he would file a motion for a bond review.
"In murder cases bonds are generally very high, if (there is one) at all, because of the charge itself," he said.
Lieberman said the defense is maintaining that while Link certainly knew Anderson, he had nothing to do with her death.
Link reported to the Kettering Police Department on July 30, 2001, that Anderson had not been seen since July 28, 2001, and that her red 1997 Oldsmobile Silhouette also was missing from their shared home in the 4500 block of Far Hills Avenue in Kettering, just south of David Road.
Anderson's two daughters, ages 7 and 9, remained home and police records show that Link told officers he would continue to care for the girls during the investigation into her disappearance.
The missing persons case evolved into a homicide investigation when a badly burned body was discovered Aug. 16, 2001, in rural Ross County in south central Ohio, about an hour and a half from Dayton. DNA testing confirmed the body was Anderson, Kettering police said.
A few months later, on Oct. 23, 2001, Atlanta police found Anderson's minivan abandoned in their airport parking lot, Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr. said during a media briefing earlier this month announcing Link's indictment.
Anderson's cause of death was ruled multiple blunt force trauma to the head.
In the years after Anderson's death, Link has led a stable life as a father and husband who worked for an insurance company, Lieberman has said. A background search only found a few traffic violations and one for fishing without a license.
Link has been held in the Montgomery County Jail since his Jan. 13 arrest at his home.