An Ohio State University student was found dead in his apartment building in 2000. Nearly 25 years later, a man is facing charges in connection with his death.
A Franklin County grand jury indicted Brian Swanson, 48, of Cincinnati, on Thursday on charges of aggravated murder and murder in connection with the Feb. 8, 2000, death of 22-year-old Charles “Chico” Ballard. Authorities filed a warrant for Swanson’s arrest, according to court records.
Ballard, a mechanical engineering student from Shaker Heights, was attending Ohio State on a full academic scholarship, The Dispatch, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, previously reported.
Around 6 p.m. Feb. 9, 2000, his body was found in the basement of a home. Ballard had lived in an apartment on the first floor of the building.
The Dispatch reported Ballard was last seen the day before. After missing a shift at his telemarketing job and a class, as well as not responding to multiple pages, friends became worried and ultimately called the police.
In 2010, The Dispatch spoke with the detective investigating Ballard’s case, Dana Farbacher, who said there had been confrontations between Ballard and a clerk who worked at a gas station less than a block away. About 90 minutes after Ballard was last seen alive, that same clerk, now believed to be Swanson, tried to use a debit card connected to Ballard. Detectives could not disprove Swanson’s explanation about finding the debit card on the steps of a nearby building.
The detective called Ballard’s killing a “Hollywood hit” because he believed the person who killed Ballard had lured him into the building’s basement by flipping off circuit breakers to cut the home’s electricity. Ballard had likely gotten a candle to help light his way to the basement, which caught some trash and other material on fire, partially burning his own body after he had been shot, The Dispatch previously reported.
Columbus police featured Ballard’s homicide on the Division of Police’s “The Fifth Floor” podcast in 2024.
Genealogical DNA, cigarette butts: Police go to lengths to solve cold cases
According to Project: Cold Case, of the 1.1 million homicides and non-negligent murder cases between 1980 and 2023, just 345,613 are unsolved. The nonprofit works with surviving families and law enforcement to share stories about victims and their unsolved cases.
Police departments see breakthroughs in the cold cases as advancements made in DNA technology help investigators crack the codes, according to the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice.
“As a result, crime scene samples once thought to be unsuitable for testing may now yield DNA profiles,” the department said. “Additionally, samples that previously generated inconclusive DNA results may now be successfully analyzed.”
That’s what happened in Michigan, where a suspect in the 1983 murder of Christina Castiglione was identified using genealogical DNA comparisons. The 19-year-old’s body was found in the Oak Grove State Game Area in Livingston County, nearly an hour away from her mom’s Redford Township home.
Detectives found Castiglione partially clothed and said she had been strangled to death and sexually assaulted. Private forensic lab Othram Inc. developed a genealogical profile from the DNA found on Castiglione, leading the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office to Charles David Shaw. Shaw died in November 1983 of accidental sexual asphyxiation.
“The work that was done back in 1983 to preserve the evidence, to process the scene, was an outstanding effort by everybody that was at the scene, detectives as well as the responding deputies,” County Sheriff Mike Murphy told the Livingston Daily Press and Argus, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.
In Vermont, DNA from a cigarette butt helped Burlington Police Department solve the 1971 murder of Rita Curran, 24. The butt was found next to Curran’s body and had DNA evidence that’s been preserved for more than 50 years, according to the Burlington Free Press, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK. The department sent the cigarette to a forensic lab in New York City, where the lab determined that a man’s DNA was detected.
CeCe Moore, a scientist and genealogy expert at Parabon Nanolabs, matched the DNA to William DeRoos after hours of research through genealogical and public records. Roos, however, died in 1986 of a drug overdose.
“The DNA evidence ended up being so incredibly key,” Moore said in a 2023 press conference. “They couldn’t have possibly imagined the power that we would have at this time to actually use that to narrow it down to one person.”
Contributing: Lilly St Angelo, Burlington Free Press; Patricia Alvord, Livingston Daily Press and Argus.
Reporter Bethany Bruner can be reached at [email protected] or on Bluesky at @bethanybruner.dispatch.com.
