Ohio Craigslist Killer: Richard Beasley, Victims, and Sentences

The Ohio Craigslist Killer is Richard Beasley, an Akron ex-convict and self-styled street preacher who used fake job ads on Craigslist in 2011 to lure unemployed men to rural Ohio, where he shot three of them in the head. Beasley was convicted of aggravated murder in 2013, sentenced to death, and as of 2026 remains on Ohio’s death row at the Ross Correctional Institution.¹

How the Scheme Worked

Beasley posted Craigslist ads promising about $300 a week to watch over a 688-acre cattle farm in Noble County, in rural southeastern Ohio. The farm did not exist. The land he eventually drove victims to belonged to a coal company.²

When men responded, Beasley met them for in-person interviews, often at restaurants along Interstate 77. The Ohio Supreme Court, reviewing the case, described the interviews as a screening tool Beasley used to “eliminate those most likely to fight back or be missed.”³ The applicants he chose were unemployed, unattached, and traveling from out of state or from difficult circumstances. Men no one would call about for a while.

Beasley did not act alone. He was accompanied throughout by Brogan Rafferty, a sixteen-year-old from the Akron area whom Beasley had taken under his wing during a rough stretch in the teenager’s schooling. Rafferty’s father later said his son was “under the spell” of Beasley, who introduced the teen to others as his nephew.⁴ Rafferty drove victims to the kill sites and, prosecutors established, dug at least two of the graves.

The Three Men Who Were Killed

Between August and November 2011, three men who had answered the ad were shot and buried in shallow graves.

Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron. A former construction business owner who had fallen on hard times and was living in a homeless shelter. Beasley already knew Geiger through a motorcycle gang called the Brothers and targeted him in part to steal his identity. Prosecutors placed his killing on August 9, 2011. His body was found months later in the Noble County woods.⁵
David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Virginia. Unemployed for about two years, Pauley drove to Ohio around October 22, 2011, in a pickup truck towing a trailer of his belongings. He was never heard from again. His body was found in Noble County near where Geiger had been buried.²
Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio. A divorced father of three looking for work. Kern met Beasley for an interview at a Waffle House off I-77 on November 9, 2011, and disappeared days later after a final call with his son and ex-wife. His body, with five gunshot wounds to the head, was found on November 25, 2011, in a shallow pit near the vacant Rolling Acres Mall in Akron.⁶

The Survivor Who Broke the Case

Scott Davis, a 49-year-old self-employed landscaper from South Carolina, answered the same ad and relocated to the Canton area for the supposed job. On November 6, 2011, he had breakfast with Beasley and Rafferty, then rode with them to the site presented as the farm.⁷

Beasley led Davis into the woods, saying he wanted to show him where he had shot a deer. When Beasley pulled a handgun, Davis shoved it aside. He took a bullet in the elbow during the struggle and ran. He hid in a creek bed for roughly seven hours, waited for dark, climbed to a hilltop, and reached a house on Radio Ridge Road, where the resident called 911.⁵

Davis’s escape opened the investigation. FBI agents and local officers searched the woods where he had been shot and found the graves of Geiger and Pauley. Kern’s body turned up in Akron within two weeks. Prepaid cell phones linked Beasley to the victims, and on November 16, 2011, Beasley and Rafferty were arrested. Beasley had already posted a new Craigslist ad by the time officers took him in.³

Who Richard Beasley Was

Beasley was 52 when he was arrested and had spent about half of the previous 30 years in custody. His record included Texas convictions for burglary and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and Ohio charges for drug trafficking, aggravated menacing, and managing a prostitution ring.⁸

He presented himself around Akron as a street preacher and chaplain who prayed over the dying and led Bible studies. Two Akron-area churches, The Chapel and Akron Bible Church, denied he had any sanctioned role in their ministries.⁸ Prosecutors called him a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” and Davis used the same phrase at sentencing.⁶ At the time of the killings, Beasley was living in the basement of a friend, Joyce Grebelsky, whom he had asked to call him “Ralph Geiger” as part of an identity-theft scheme aimed at the real Geiger.⁵

Convictions and Sentences

Rafferty was tried first, as an adult in Summit County. Prosecutors called him a “willing participant” and a “quick student of violence.” His defense argued he feared for his life and his family’s if he defied Beasley. The jury rejected the coercion defense and, on October 30, 2012, convicted him of aggravated murder and attempted murder while acquitting him on an identity-theft charge.⁹ On November 9, 2012, Judge Lynne Callahan sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole; as a juvenile he could not receive the death penalty. Callahan told him, “You embraced the evil, you studied it,” and said she found nothing in the case that could be blamed on the “recklessness of youth.”¹⁰ Under Ohio Senate Bill 256, which revised parole eligibility for juvenile offenders, Rafferty is now scheduled for a first parole hearing around 2036 or 2037.¹¹

A Summit County grand jury indicted Beasley on January 20, 2012, on 28 counts, including nine counts of aggravated murder, four of kidnapping, four of aggravated robbery, and one of attempted murder, plus identity theft, grand theft, and weapon charges.¹² On March 12, 2013, a jury convicted him of aggravated murder with prior calculation and design for all three killings, along with the attempted murder and kidnapping of Davis and additional counts.¹³ At trial Beasley claimed Davis had been sent to kill him by a motorcycle gang he said he was “infiltrating for the police as a confidential informant.” The jury unanimously recommended death for each murder, and the court imposed three death sentences plus consecutive prison terms.

The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed all three death sentences on February 9, 2018, finding that the aggravating circumstance of murdering three people as a single course of conduct outweighed the mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt.³ The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari on January 7, 2019.¹⁴

Where the Case Stands Now

Beasley, now 67, is held at the Ross Correctional Institution and is one of seven death row inmates from Summit County. No execution date has been set. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has kept a moratorium on executions in place because the state has been unable to obtain lethal injection drugs, and that moratorium has held every Ohio death sentence in place for years.¹⁵ Rafferty, now serving his life sentence, is incarcerated at the NorthEast Ohio Correctional Center.¹⁶

1
Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Ohio Death Row Inmates
2
Cleveland.com. Craigslist Slayings Stun Authorities
3
Supreme Court of Ohio. State v. Beasley, 2018-Ohio-493
4
ABC News. Ohio Teen Brogan Rafferty Headed to Trial in Craigslist Killings
5
Supreme Court of Ohio. State v. Beasley, Slip Opinion 2018-Ohio-493
6
Akron Beacon Journal. Convicted Craigslist Killer Richard Beasley Sentenced
7
Bennington Banner. Lone Survivor Testifies at Ohio Craigslist Trial
8
ABC News. Craigslist Murders: Ohio Churches Deny Suspect Was Chaplain
9
BBC News. Ohio Teen Brogan Rafferty Guilty of Craigslist Murders
10
The Morning Call. Ohio Teen Gets Prison for Life in Craigslist Murders
11
Daily Jeffersonian. These Ohio Prisoners Getting Parole Hearings Sooner Under New Law
12
Cleveland.com. Death Penalty Sought for Richard Beasley
13
NBC News. Former Preacher Found Guilty in Ohio Craigslist Murder Case
14
U.S. Supreme Court. Beasley v. Ohio, Docket No. 18-6044
15
Akron Beacon Journal. Ohio Death Row Inmates From Summit County
16
Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Offender Search: Brogan W. Rafferty