Ohio man indicted in 1985 hotel killing after three earlier suspects cleared

Randy McAllister was indicted last week on aggravated murder and murder charges in the 1985 death of John Warren, Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell said. New York Post reported that the charges stem from Warren’s killing inside a Holiday Inn off I-75 in Middletown, Ohio, on Oct. 16, 1985.

Warren, an employee of an auto parts company, had traveled to the area for sales meetings. His body was found the next morning in his hotel room, with some belongings including his 1985 Oldsmobile missing from the scene. Middletown lies 40 miles north of Cincinnati.

Some of the stolen items were later recovered behind a Cracker Barrel in Dalton, Georgia, roughly 400 miles away, while the missing Oldsmobile turned up in Redington Beach, Florida, according to Fornshell. Three men from South Carolina were initially named as suspects, but charges against them were dropped after lie detector tests confirmed their alibis, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

The Warren County Sheriff’s Office reopened the investigation in 2019.

Detectives have actively pursued the case since 2021, sending recovered items to crime labs for analysis. That work identified McAllister and an unidentified deceased accomplice as suspects, Fornshell said. McAllister is currently held at the Warren County Jail.

He is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday, according to jail records viewed by New York Post. Fornshell noted that cold case probes often stall due to limited evidence, but added that sheriff’s office detectives remained tenacious over the past five years until sufficient proof was assembled for the grand jury.