Timothy Combs and the 1985 Raymond Fife Murder Case

Timothy Combs was one of two people convicted in the 1985 rape, torture, and murder of 12-year-old Raymond Fife in Warren, Ohio. A Portage County jury convicted Combs in 1987 of aggravated murder, rape, kidnapping, aggravated arson, and felonious sexual penetration. He was 17 at the time of the killing, a few months short of his eighteenth birthday, so Ohio law made him ineligible for the death penalty. He received multiple consecutive life sentences and died in prison on November 9, 2018, at the age of 50.¹

What Happened to Raymond Fife

Raymond Fife left his home on his bicycle around 5:15 p.m. on September 10, 1985, headed to a friend’s house. Witnesses saw him ride into the parking lot of a Valu-King store on Palmyra Road in Warren. Shortly afterward, people nearby heard a child scream from a wooded field with bicycle paths behind the store.²

According to trial evidence and statements made to police by co-defendant Danny Lee Hill, Combs knocked Fife off his bicycle, held him in a headlock, and then subjected the boy to a prolonged assault. Fife was beaten, sexually assaulted, choked, impaled with a broomstick-like object, and burned with lighter fluid. Witnesses saw Combs and Hill walking out of the field between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m.²

Raymond’s father found him in the field around 9:30 that night. The boy was naked, severely beaten, and burned. He was taken to a hospital and died two days later, on September 12, 1985. The coroner ruled the death a homicide caused by cardiorespiratory arrest secondary to asphyxiation, subdural hematoma, and multiple trauma.² The crime shocked residents of Warren, and authorities quickly offered a $5,000 reward for information.³

How Combs Was Identified and Charged

Two days after the murder, Danny Lee Hill, then 18, walked into the Warren Police Department asking about the reward. Over the next two days, Hill gave several statements to investigators, including an audiotaped and videotaped interrogation in which he admitted being present during the attack but said Combs “did everything to the victim.” Hill described watching Combs knock Fife off his bicycle, sexually assault him, jam an object into his rectum, choke him, and set him on fire. Hill said he stayed with the victim while Combs left to retrieve lighter fluid and the object used in the assault.²

Forensic evidence tied Hill to the body as well. A forensic odontologist testified that bite marks found on the victim matched Hill’s teeth. Both men were charged as principal offenders in the murder.²

The Trial and Sentence

Because of the intense media coverage and community anger in Trumbull County, Combs’s trial was moved to Portage County Common Pleas Court in Ravenna.¹ The proceedings lasted about a month, involved roughly 100 exhibits, and produced 22 verdict forms.⁴

In 1987, a Portage County jury convicted Combs of aggravated murder, rape, kidnapping, aggravated arson, and felonious sexual penetration. Deliberations were brief. Prosecutor W. Wyatt McKay said the jury began deliberating at 4:00 p.m. and returned a verdict fifteen minutes later. McKay later spoke with the jury foreman, who told him it took about five minutes to elect a foreman, the foreman asked whether anyone believed Combs was not guilty, no one spoke, and the remaining time was spent signing verdict forms.⁴

Because Combs was 17 when the crime occurred, Ohio law did not allow the death penalty. He was sentenced to multiple consecutive life terms.¹ Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction records list his admission date as May 16, 1986, and his net sentence as 70 years to life.⁵ Combs would not have been eligible for parole until 2049, when he would have been 82 years old.³

The Portage County Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction in an unreported decision issued December 2, 1988.²

Death in Prison

Combs died on November 9, 2018, at the age of 50. He had been held at the Grafton Correctional Institution in Lorain County for more than three decades.¹ The Franklin County Coroner’s Office said Combs was believed to have been suffering from a respiratory illness, though the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction initially said it could not identify an official cause of death.⁶

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost later pointed to the case to illustrate what he called a broken capital punishment system, writing in a 2025 report: “The man not sentenced to death died in prison before the one who was sentenced to be executed.”⁷

What Happened to the Co-Defendant

Danny Lee Hill, 18 at the time of the crime and therefore eligible for capital punishment, was tried separately before a three-judge panel in Trumbull County. He was convicted in 1986 of the same offenses as Combs and sentenced to death. The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence in 1992.²

Hill has since filed more than thirty appeals, arguing both that he is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution under Atkins v. Virginia, and that the bite-mark evidence used against him was scientifically invalid.³⁷ As of mid-2026, he remains on death row. Execution dates set for the summer of 2026 were postponed by Governor Mike DeWine to 2029, reportedly because of difficulties sourcing lethal injection drugs.⁸

Raymond’s father, Isaac Fife, who found his son in the field that night, died in 2006 without seeing the death sentence carried out.⁸ Raymond’s mother, Miriam Fife, has spent decades advocating for crime victims and pressing for Hill’s execution, and told a reporter in 2022: “I am more angry at the justice system than I am at Hill right now.”⁹

1
Tribune Chronicle. Timothy Combs, Co-Defendant in Raymond Fife Murder, Dies
2
Supreme Court of Ohio. State v. Hill, 64 Ohio St.3d 313
3
The Marshall Project. The Possibly Coerced Confession at the Heart of the Bite Mark Case
4
Tribune Chronicle. Journalists Recall 1986 Timothy Combs Trial
5
Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Offender Search – Timothy Anthony Combs
6
The Vindicator. Tim Combs, Co-Killer of Raymond Fife, Dies in Prison
7
WKBN. AG Highlights Local Child Murder Case in Capital Crimes Report
8
Tribune Chronicle. When Will the Family of Raymond Fife See Justice Done
9
The Vindicator. Raymond Fife’s Mom, 82, Still Awaits Justice