Canton police: Victim in kidnap/rape remains hospitalized
CANTON – Three housemates accused of killing one man and days later brutally beating another remained behind bars Monday.
The beating victim is recovering in a Cleveland hospital Monday as Canton Police, Stark County Sheriff's deputies and investigators with the Stark County Coroner's Office continue to investigate.
Investigators have not said whether the homicide and the beating are connected, although the incidents occurred only a few days apart and, police say, were conducted by people who lived together in the same northeast Canton house.
According to Stark County court records, investigators allege Jeremy Morlock, 43, of 616 Correll Ave. NE, killed Joseph A. Pomeroy "on or about May 8" with assistance from Clayton J. Smart, 24, and Maryann Soliday, 34.
An investigator with the Stark County Coroner's Office said Monday that a preliminary review shows Pomeroy appears to have suffered blunt trauma to the head and some cuts. The autopsy is being conducted at the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office, so a formal ruling in Pomeroy's death has not been issued.
A woman giving a friend a ride on Tuesday night found Pomeroy's body, which had been wrapped in a blanket, plastic, chains and a bungee cord on Hardington Avenue NE near 12th Street in Canton Township. Investigators believe he had been dead for a day or so before his body was found.
Court records show Morlock, Smart and Soliday lived together in a house in the 600 block of Correll Avenue NW.
That's where an Ohio Adult Parole Authority officer went to conduct a parole check on Morlock four days later.
Jail records show the parole violation stemmed from his 2020 conviction for failing to notify authorities of his change of address. Court records show he had been charged four times before that with failure to register his address. He went to prison in 2004 for gross sexual imposition and was classified a sex offender required to register his address with authorities.
Maj. C.J. Stantz of the Stark County Sheriff's Office said a parole officer went to check on Morlock on May 12, arriving to find a man tied up and locked in the basement. The man had been beaten and sexually assaulted.
He was taken to Cleveland Clinic Mercy Hospital and then, by emergency medical helicopter, to the MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland where he remained in serious condition on Monday.
Morlock was later arrested in the 700 block of McKinley Avenue NW, and Smart and Soliday were arrested at their home, according to jail records.
Morlock was booked into the jail on charges of aggravated murder, kidnapping, felonious assault and rape. Soliday and Smart were each booked into the jail on charges of kidnapping, felonious assault, rape and complicity to murder.
The court records allege Soliday and Smart "assisted in causing" Pomeroy's death. They also are accused of participating in the kidnapping, felonious assault and rape of the man reportedly locked in their basement, the records show.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Two victims, three arrests in homicide, rape/kidnapping
