Kaylee Sue Freitag, a 17-year-old White female from Deerfield, Ohio, was a daughter, sister, and granddaughter. Born on September 26, 2003, in Ravenna to Elizabeth Patton and Samuel Freitag, she was remembered by her family, including her sisters Marissa Freitag and Serafina Spencer.
On the afternoon of March 12, 2021, Kaylee was at a home in the 9000 block of Knowlton Road in Nelson Township. She and her 18-year-old boyfriend, Zachary David Blosser, had been living at the residence, which was owned by Kaylee's uncle, for about a month and a half. Around 4 p.m., authorities were called to the home, where they found Kaylee in the basement. She had been shot once in the mouth and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Initial reports were conflicting. A 911 dispatcher was told that Kaylee had accidentally shot herself. However, the Portage County Sheriff’s Office arrested Blosser in connection with her death.
It was later reported that the gun used in the shooting had been kept unloaded in a locked safe within the home and that Blosser had attempted to perform CPR on Kaylee immediately after she was shot.
A grand jury later indicted Zachary David Blosser on two counts of unclassified felony murder, two counts of second-degree felony assault, one count of third-degree felony tampering with evidence, and one count of fourth-degree felony safecracking. The murder and assault charges all included firearms specifications. One of the murder charges alleged that Kaylee was killed during the commission of an assault. Blosser pleaded not guilty and has been held in the Portage County Jail on a $2 million bond since his arrest in March 2021.
The case has seen multiple continuances. Blosser’s defense attorneys filed a motion to delay the trial to allow the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation to conduct a forensic examination of a cell phone, stating that photos and text messages on the device could support the contention that he is not guilty. As of April 2022, the jury trial was rescheduled to begin on June 7, 2022, with the case remaining in pending litigation.
