Julie Popovich Case: Adam Saleh, Ohio Supreme Court Ruling, and Rumors

The Julie Popovich murder case ended with the 2007 conviction of Adam Saleh, a 20-year-old who was at the same Columbus bar as Popovich the night she disappeared in August 2005. A Franklin County jury found Saleh guilty of murder, kidnapping, attempted rape, and tampering with evidence, and Judge Daniel T. Hogan sentenced him to 38 years to life in prison. Years later, an Ohio Innocence Project attempt to review the investigative file produced a separate Ohio Supreme Court decision that reshaped public access to police records across the state.

The Night Julie Popovich Disappeared

Popovich was a 20-year-old Ohio State University student, waitress, and part-time model from Reynoldsburg. On the night of August 10, 2005, she went to Ledo’s Lounge on North High Street in the University District for a coworker’s birthday, arriving around 11 p.m. with her friend Teonna Brooks and another woman.¹

Brooks last saw her around 1 a.m. on August 11, when Popovich stepped outside to smoke. Brooks left the bar between 1:30 and 2 a.m. There was talk that Popovich had left with an unidentified man, but no one Brooks spoke with could confirm it. Columbus police said they did not believe she had left willingly, and homicide detectives were assigned within days.¹ Friends described her as extremely responsible; one noted she would never have voluntarily left her dog.²

Discovery of Her Body Near Hoover Reservoir

On September 1, 2005, roughly three weeks after she disappeared, Popovich’s body was found behind a shed in a field on Smothers Road in Franklin County, near the Hoover Reservoir. The remains were concealed by grass eight to ten inches high and were not visible from the road. An anthropologist was called to the scene to help recover the remains without contaminating evidence.³

Identification was made through dental records and DNA. Franklin County coroner Dr. Jan Gorniak ruled the death a homicide but could not determine an exact cause because of advanced decomposition. The body showed no blunt force trauma or penetrating injuries, and its position was consistent with strangulation or smothering. Popovich’s clothing was in disarray, with her skirt on backwards and pulled above her waist and her underwear torn, suggesting a sexual assault. The parties later stipulated that she died between August 8 and August 14, 2005.⁴

Days before the body was found, on August 15 or 16, an identification card belonging to Teonna Brooks, which Popovich had been carrying that night, was located near a guardrail on the same road.⁴

The Case Against Adam Saleh

Investigators focused on Adam Saleh, also 20, who had been at Ledo’s that night. Two witnesses reported seeing Popovich leave the bar with him.⁵

The most concrete evidence came from cell phone records. T-Mobile data and testimony from a cell tower engineer showed that at 3:42 a.m. Saleh’s phone registered off a tower at 901 Sunbury Road, near where the body was later found. Sixteen minutes later, at 3:58 a.m., his phone registered off a tower near his apartment on West Lane Avenue in the campus area. Police installed a GPS unit on Saleh’s Crown Victoria to monitor his movements. Searches of the car produced no physical evidence, and no DNA tied him to the scene. The case was almost entirely circumstantial.⁴

The Trial

Saleh’s trial began on April 18, 2007, in Franklin County Common Pleas Court. He was charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping, attempted rape, and tampering with evidence, and 31 witnesses testified over more than two weeks.⁶

The Prosecution’s Theory

Prosecutors Daniel Hawkins and James Lowe argued that Saleh strangled Popovich during an attempted rape. Assistant prosecutor Hawkins told jurors that when Popovich fought him off, Saleh realized she would report him and killed her.⁷

Several jail inmates testified that Saleh had confessed to them, saying he put Popovich’s body in his trunk and dumped it, and worrying aloud that his cell records placed him near the scene. Others said he had asked them to help plant evidence, get rid of witnesses, or phone Crime Stoppers to frame someone else.⁸ Inmate Leonard Roy testified that Saleh passed him notes in jail asking for help building a false alibi and offered money if Roy’s pregnant girlfriend would claim a one-night stand with Saleh on the night of the murder. An FBI handwriting expert confirmed the notes were in Saleh’s writing.⁹

The alibi scheme collapsed on itself. Saleh recruited another inmate, Kendall Mardis, to find a woman willing to play the part. Mardis put him in touch with “Brandy Alexander,” who was in fact Caroline Castro, an undercover Columbus police officer. Saleh called Castro twice from jail and mailed instructions through Mardis, telling her to show up at his defense attorney’s office just before trial and claim she had been with him the night Popovich disappeared. Castro never made that visit. She testified against him instead, corroborating five other inmates who said Saleh had confessed or sought help covering up the killing.¹⁰

The Defense

Defense attorney James Watson argued the prosecution had failed to provide “sure answers” and that there was “an abundance of reasonable doubt.” No physical evidence linked Saleh to the scene, and no eyewitness could confirm he left the bar with Popovich.¹¹ Five defense witnesses testified that Saleh left Ledo’s alone that night and went home, where his mother took his car keys because he was intoxicated. Watson offered an alternative account: Popovich may have died from a head injury after falling off the bar while dancing earlier, and someone who knew her panicked and disposed of her body.⁷

On the cell phone data, defense expert Ben Levitan testified that Saleh’s phone never left the campus area, saying networks routinely hand off calls to different towers without the phone moving. He calculated that to travel to the reservoir area and back to campus by 4 a.m., Saleh would have had to drive at least 85 miles per hour. Prosecutors called a detective who said surveillance officers had documented Saleh routinely driving 100 miles per hour on city streets.⁸

Verdict and Sentence

The jury began deliberating on the afternoon of May 1, 2007.⁶ Saleh was found guilty of murder, kidnapping, attempted rape, and tampering with evidence. He was acquitted of the top charge, aggravated murder, which would have carried life without parole. Judge Hogan sentenced him to 38 years to life.¹²

After the verdict, Popovich’s mother, Peggy White, told reporters, “Today we received justice for Julie because a very dangerous man is being removed from society.” Her father, Victor Popovich, acknowledged the case was circumstantial: “There was some doubt, I know, but our thoughts were reinforced by what the judge said about this man.”¹³

The Ohio Supreme Court Ruling the Case Produced

Saleh’s direct appeal ended when the Ohio Supreme Court declined jurisdiction on July 1, 2009.¹⁴ Years later, the Ohio Innocence Project at the University of Cincinnati took an interest in the case, not as Saleh’s counsel but to review the investigative file and evaluate his claim that jailhouse informant testimony had produced a wrongful conviction. In 2013, Innocence Project attorney Donald Caster asked the Columbus Division of Police for its records, including medical records, police reports, investigation notes, and evidence reports.¹⁵

The department refused. It cited Ohio’s exemption for “specific investigatory work product” and, since 2010, had stopped releasing records in closed murder cases altogether, relying on the 1994 decision State ex rel. Steckman v. Jackson. Under Steckman, agencies could withhold records as long as a defendant might still file an appeal, which for someone serving a life sentence meant indefinitely.¹⁶

Caster filed a writ of mandamus in September 2014.¹⁵ On December 28, 2016, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled for the Innocence Project in State ex rel. Caster v. City of Columbus, 2016-Ohio-8394. Writing for the majority, Justice Paul Pfeifer held that the investigatory work product exemption applies only until the trial for which the information was gathered concludes, not forever. The Court pointed to 2010 changes in Ohio’s criminal discovery rules, which gave defendants broader access to prosecution files, as having made the old Steckman standard obsolete. The city was ordered to release the records and pay Caster $1,000 in statutory damages plus court costs and reasonable attorney fees. Agencies were still permitted to redact information identifying uncharged suspects, witnesses, and confidential informants.¹⁷ Columbus later agreed to pay $19,000 in legal expenses on top of the statutory damages.¹⁶

The ruling opened investigative files in completed Ohio criminal cases to the public and to innocence organizations, a statewide precedent that grew directly out of the effort to review Saleh’s file.

Other Names Floated Online

Popovich’s name has surfaced in online speculation tying her killing to other unsolved Columbus cases, most notably the 2006 disappearance of Brian Shaffer. An anonymous Reddit user alleged that two Ohio brothers were connected to both cases and others. The brothers sued for defamation; their attorneys said they had “no involvement with any of the crimes mentioned” and “had no contact with the victims.” Neither has been charged, and no formal investigative link between the cases has been established. Adam Saleh remains the only person convicted in Julie Popovich’s murder.¹⁸

1
The Lantern. Woman Missing After Leaving Campus Area Bar
2
CBS News. Student Vanishes, Reward Upped
3
The Lantern. Missing Woman’s Body Identified
4
CaseMine. State v. Saleh
5
The Columbus Dispatch. Man Couldn’t Take Rejection
6
The Columbus Dispatch. Jury Works on Verdict
7
The Columbus Dispatch. Jury Begins Deliberating in Popovich
8
The Columbus Dispatch. Defendant Takes Stand, Denies Killing
9
The Lantern. Inmate, Undercover Cop Testify in Trial
10
The Columbus Dispatch. Undercover Officer Tells Alibi Plot
11
The Columbus Dispatch. Attorney: No Evidence Links Defendant
12
The Lantern. Saleh Found Guilty of Murder
13
The Columbus Dispatch. Man Convicted, Killing Model Gets 38 Years
14
Ohio Supreme Court. State ex rel. Caster v. City of Columbus, Docket Filing
15
The Columbus Dispatch. Ohio Innocence Project Sues Columbus
16
WOSU. Columbus Will Pay Ohio Innocence Project for Withholding Public Records
17
Court News Ohio. State ex rel. Caster v. City of Columbus
18
The Columbus Dispatch. Ohio Brothers Sue Reddit User for Accusing Them of Murder