Amish man's stunned mugshot as he's charged with murder that shocked notoriously private community
An Amish man appeared shocked after he was arrested for a murder that rocked his notoriously seclusive community.
Samuel Hochstetler, 18, originally from Kentucky, appeared in a mugshot after being detained on Monday for murder in the suspicious death of 28-year-old Rosanna Kinsinger, of Pomperoy, Ohio, the Scioto Post reports.
Hochstetler has since been arraigned and was given a $1 million bond, which he has not yet paid to secure his release, according to WTAP.
As a result, the suspect continues to be held at the Gallia County Jail in Ohio, where he was pictured wide-eyed with his hands handcuffed in front of him.
Hochstetler wore a simple button-down shirt, black pants with suspenders and a straw hat that appeared to be falling apart.
It remains unclear how deputies with the Meigs County Sheriff zeroed in on the 18 year old as the prime suspect in Kinsinger's death.
Authorities have only said they served numerous search warrants, conducted interviews and processed evidence collected at Kinsinger's home - where she was found dead on March 13.
They also said they followed up on tips and rumors, which they said helped identify Hochstetler as a person of interest.
Kinsinger was found dead inside her home on March 13
Additionally, deputies noted they sent Kinsinger's body to the Montgomery County Coroner's Office for an autopsy - but the preliminary results were inconclusive.
One community member, Mose Troyer, though, told WSAZ Hochstetler had been living with him for a few months - and Kinsinger lived right across the street.
Troyer recounted that on March 13, people in the community noticed they hadn't seen Kinsinger all day.
He then went to check on her at home that night, where Troyer said he found her dead - with a goat mysteriously inside the house.
At that point, Troyer said he called 911.
Looking back at the situation, Troyer said it was scary to find the body - and noted that it is disturbing to think he had been living for weeks afterwards with the main suspect.
Now, he said, he just wishes he could ask Hochstetler why he did it.
'This case was such a tragedy to those who knew Rosanna. She was a beloved individual in her community,' Sheriff Fitch said in a statement.
'Detectives have worked around the clock searching for answers and were able to get those answers,' he added.
'Hopefully this investigation helps bring some closure to the victim's family and on behalf of the sheriff's office, we offer our deepest condolences.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
35 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Alex Murdaugh's son Buster's 'bitter' life in isolation and the source of fury at his father that has nothing to do with the murders
Double murderer Alex Murdaugh 's only surviving son is bitter and struggling to escape the stain of his killer father's legacy, the Daily Mail can reveal. Four years after his mother Maggie, 52, and brother Paul, 22, were shot and killed by the disgraced legal scion, the 32-year-old still hasn't adapted to his bleak new reality. Buster Murdaugh grew up as a member of one of South Carolina's most distinguished families but the gruesome slayings carried out by his father and the publicity of the trial that followed have left him without many career opportunities. A source close to him has told the Daily Mail that, though he believes his father to be innocent of the murders, Buster is 'really angry' at the sweeping financial crimes that Murdaugh was subsequently convicted of. 'He's living his life but he doesn't really have too much going on,' a member of his inner circle said. 'He's pretty directionless, but he's figuring it out.' Buster and his family found themselves in the middle of a media firestorm in June 2021 when the elder Murdaugh, a high-profile attorney in South Carolina's Low Country, called 911 to report that he had found the bodies of his wife and son on their sprawling Moselle estate in rural Colleton County. Police arrived to find Maggie and Paul shot dead. Investigators determined that two firearms had been used. Although Murdaugh initially denied involvement, officers soon began to unravel a web of financial mismanagement, embezzlement, fraud and drug abuse. Three months later, Murdaugh - while under suspension for the alleged murders - was shot in the head as he changed a tire on his black Mercedes-Benz SUV. Authorities soon alleged that he had arranged the shooting himself by hiring distant relative Curtis Edward Smith in a failed suicide-for-hire plot so that Buster could receive a $10 million life insurance payout. 'That was a really stressful time for Buster,' the source said. 'He felt like things went from s*** to s***tier. And they keep getting worse.' The ensuing scandal ended one of South Carolina's most dominant family dynasties. A member of the Murdaugh family had served as solicitor of the 14th Judicial Circuit for 86 years, and most family members were prominent attorneys and judges. Murdaugh was ultimately charged with more than 90 financial crimes, ranging from embezzlement to money laundering - and two counts of murder. In March 2023, he was convicted after a highly publicized trial to two consecutive life terms without possibility of parole for killing his wife and son by the dog kennels of the family's hunting lodge in Islandton. He was also sentenced in federal court in April 2024 to 40 years for financial crimes involving millions stolen from clients and colleagues - a sentence that was to run concurrently with his state prison terms. He is being held in protective custody at McCormick Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison where it's likely that he will die. He continues to deny responsibility for the murders. The deaths have spawned multiple documentaries and a motion picture film is in production, with actor Jason Clarke playing Murdaugh. Buster has been trying to get back on his feet with his former long-term girlfriend and now new wife Brooklynn White, an attorney, after he dropped out of law school. The couple moved into a modest three-bedroom home in Bluffton, an hour away from the South Carolina low country estate where Buster was raised. The fallout in the two years since what local media called the 'trial of the century' has taken its toll on Buster, who is frequently confronted by angry members of the public whenever he goes near his hometown. 'You don't run into any of these people in public,' Buster once told his father on a jailhouse phone call. 'But I get stopped and yelled at all the time. I got cussed at in the gas station the other day.' Still, Buster stands by his father, insisting that he would never have murdered his wife and son. In his first and only interview since the murder trial, Buster told the Fox Nation documentary The Fall of the House of Murdaugh: 'I do not think that he could be affiliated with endangering my mother and brother. 'I think that I hold a very unique perspective that nobody else in that courtroom ever held. And I know the love that I have witnessed.' Despite this, the two rarely speak. When they do, the calls are always short and initiated by the elder Murdaugh, now 57, from behind bars. 'I don't think he's got a lot to say to his dad at the moment,' the source added. 'I mean, what's there to talk about'.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Erin Patterson: Australian accused in mushroom murders finishes giving evidence
SYDNEY, June 12 (Reuters) - An Australian woman accused of murder denied on Thursday she deliberately included poisonous mushrooms in a lunch she served to three elderly relatives of her estranged husband, as the prosecution wrapped up five days of cross-examination. Erin Patterson is charged with the murders of her mother-in-law Gail Patterson, father-in-law Donald Patterson and Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, along with the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather's husband, in July 2023. The prosecution accuses her of foraging for the death caps, before drying them and knowingly serving them in individual portions of Beef Wellington at her home in Leongatha, a town of about 6,000 people some 135 km (84 miles) from Melbourne. Patterson denies the charges, which carry a life sentence, with her defence calling the deaths a "terrible accident". On Thursday, prosecution barrister Nanette Rogers ended her cross-examination by accusing Patterson of deliberately sourcing the mushrooms for the lunch. "I suggest you deliberately included them in the Beef Wellington you served (the guests)... you did so intending to kill them." "Disagree," the accused replied. The lengthy cross-examination followed three days of questioning from the 50-year-old's own barrister, Colin Mandy. Erin Patterson was the only witness called by her defence, and her decision to take the stand reignited interest in the trial, now in its seventh week. Media have descended on the town of Morwell where the trial is being held, about two hours east of Melbourne. State broadcaster ABC's daily podcast on the trial is currently Australia's most popular, while many domestic newspapers have run live blogs. The jury is next expected to hear closing arguments from the prosecution and defence, before presiding judge Justice Christopher Beale gives his instructions to the jury. The trial is expected to conclude later this month.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Confessions of a Parent Killer review – a grisly tale of the murderer who lived with her mum and dad's corpses
Well, what do you think a 90-minute documentary entitled Confessions of a Parent Killer is going to be about? That's right, well done! It's the story of a murder by an (adult) child of her parents. Virginia – Ginny – McCullough killed her mother, Lois, and father, John, and confessed immediately to police when they raided her home in 2023 that she had done so four years previously. The twist was that she had been living with their bodies ever since. 'She was weird at school,' says a childhood friend. 'But not 'kill your parents and hide the bodies' weird.' You can probably tell from such unimpeachably phlegmatic commentary that this case occurred in England. Great Baddow, Essex, to be exact, and the film paints a portrait of quintessential small-town, almost-rural life in these sceptred isles that has gone unchanged for generations and, you suspect, will survive for many more. Everybody knew the family, yes. Grocer Paul; Alan, who rented John and Lois various bits of kit from his electronics shop on the high street; florists Rachel and Debbie and, of course, a number of thirtysomething women – 'Ella', Bethan, Kirsty, Lisa – knew Ginny from school. Everyone thought the family was a bit odd, yes. There were rumours that John, a university lecturer who liked a drink ('very curt, brusque', never said goodbye to Alan after he paid his monthly rent), was relentlessly strict with his daughters and that was why they all left home as soon as they could, though Ginny kept having to come back when her various jobs left her short of cash. And Lois was strange, quiet, unsmiling, 'subdued', 'withdrawn'. Ginny was more outgoing. She started coming in instead of her mum or dad to pay Alan. Spent a lot of time and money in the florist, too, since she came back to sort the house out four or five years ago. Always full of stories ('a bit of a fantasist', 'always some drama going on'), perhaps a little needy and annoying; you can see in the descriptions of her as an adult the shadow of the bullied, friendless child Bethan et al remembered. 'I don't like my mum at all,' young Ginny once told Bethan, on whom she lavished presents that 'she'd obviously just nicked from around the house' when they sat next to each other in year 2. But, well, every community has these people, don't they? It takes all sorts. You just accommodate them, make allowances, they don't hurt anyone. Until. Unless. Then you look back and, you wonder, don't you? Ginny returned the equipment to Alan in 2021 – she said her parents had moved to Clacton. People do. It was their GP who first contacted the police, after becoming concerned that John and Lois had missed numerous appointments. It turned out that no one had seen them for years. Investigations resulted in the raid. Bodycam footage shows an unfazed Ginny assuring officers of her cooperation and telling them that her father's body is in the sitting room. And mum? 'That's a little bit more complicated,' says Ginny, delicately. Mum is in a sleeping bag in a wardrobe upstairs, the doors taped against the flies and maggots that had been struggling to escape. 'Cheer up!' she cajoles the shocked officers. 'At least you caught the bad guy!' But why did she do it? Here, the programme becomes as manipulative as any psychopath. Numerous suggestions are trailed. 'Exclusive' letters (written, it seems, to one of the film-makers) from McCullough herself suggest an abused child of a mentally unwell mother and alcoholic father, who finally cracked. Some of the Great Baddowan testimonies appear to back this up. But a detective insists that she is a cold-blooded killer. A forensic psychiatrist – not the one on her case – does the intensely annoying thing of dressing up common sense as professional insight (she may have kept the bodies because she felt connected to them, or it may have been because it is so hard to dispose of corpses. Either way, it must have been 'psychologically taxing'). It is not until the final minutes that all the facts are laid before us. The new ones make it clear that psychopathy and a financial motive should have been given more weight, and that the viewer has been kept in a state of much greater uncertainty and intrigue than we would or could otherwise have been. A narrative must be shaped and an amount of storytelling leeway granted – but this goes far beyond that and taints the overall endeavour to an unpalatable extent. Confessions of a Parent Killer is on Paramount+ now
