Schuyler Thomas Mollett, a 21-year-old White male from Springfield, Ohio, was killed on the night of August 8, 2013, in a shooting near a church at Stanton Avenue and North Limestone Street. Mollett had been at his Stanton Street residence watching a movie with Tiffany Ogle. After she fell asleep, he briefly woke her and said he was going outside. A short time later, multiple gunshots rang out near the church parking lot and adjoining alleys. When Ogle later noticed police lights behind the residence and looked outside, she discovered that the person lying within the crime scene was Mollett. Officers found him deceased when they arrived. A deputy coroner determined that he had been shot six times, with several of the bullets entering his back, and that he died from the multiple gunshot wounds.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene unfolding around 9:47 p.m. One resident heard four or five shots and saw a dark figure firing a handgun near the church before noticing a pickup truck emerge from an alley. Another witness heard six or seven shots, saw someone lying on the ground, and observed a person running away with a shirt over his head. A nearby resident reported seeing a dark pickup truck with distinctive bright headlights and colored striping in the alley shortly before hearing four shots followed by two more. Police recovered five spent 9mm cartridge casings at the scene, and Mollett's mother discovered another casing the following day. Ballistics testing determined that all six had been fired from the same weapon. A police dog followed the suspected shooter's trail eastward for several blocks before losing the scent in a park.
The eventual prosecution centered on Tacota Fields and a history of hostility between Fields and a group of Mollett's friends. Months before the killing, Fields and his friends had been involved in a series of confrontations with Mollett's group, beginning at the Forest Lake campground and continuing at a Springfield Walmart and later outside the home of Mollett's cousin. During the final confrontation, Fields was knocked unconscious and taken to a hospital. Testimony later indicated that Fields remained angry about the incident. Prosecutors presented this history as evidence of the animosity that preceded Mollett's killing.
Hailey Wright, who was Fields's girlfriend at the time, became a crucial witness. She testified that she and Fields were driving together on August 8 when Fields spotted someone near the church and said he knew who the person was. According to Wright, Fields parked nearby, walked toward the church and told her to leave if she heard anything. She soon heard gunshots. When she drove toward the area, she saw Mollett's body and fled home. Wright testified that Fields returned shortly afterward without a shirt, sweating and out of breath, with a handgun visible in the back of his pants. Fields then wanted to leave town, and the two spent the night at his mother's home in Xenia. Wright further testified that about a week later Fields admitted shooting Mollett because of the earlier Forest Lake conflict and told her he had fired as Mollett ran away. She said Fields later changed the appearance of his truck. Another witness, Dustin Frey, testified that Fields gave him the handgun to hold after the shooting; the gun was later returned to Fields and was reportedly traded away in connection with the purchase of a motorcycle.
The investigation did not immediately produce an arrest and eventually became a cold case. Wright did not tell police what she knew in 2013. The case gained new momentum in November 2015, when she spoke with authorities and subsequently entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the Clark County Prosecutor's Office. Springfield Detective Ronald Jordan reopened key parts of the investigation. At police direction, Wright made recorded telephone calls to Fields, although Fields did not confess during those conversations. Investigators also compared evidence from Mollett's murder with bullets recovered after an August 2, 2013 shooting at another Springfield residence. State investigators concluded that evidence from that earlier shooting and the cartridge cases from Mollett's murder had been fired from the same gun. Fields was arrested in Xenia on December 2, 2015. Officers recovered other firearms from his residence, but the 9mm weapon used to kill Mollett was never recovered.
Fields ultimately went before a Clark County jury in consolidated criminal cases. Prosecutors called approximately 40 witnesses, including eyewitnesses, friends of both Mollett and Fields, investigators, and forensic experts. The defense challenged the credibility of Wright and emphasized inconsistencies in eyewitness accounts, including the fact that one witness who saw a fleeing man had selected other people from photographic arrays rather than Fields. There was also no recovered murder weapon physically linking Fields to the crime. The jury nevertheless found Fields guilty of murder with a firearm specification, felony murder with a firearm specification, felonious assault, and tampering with evidence in connection with Mollett's killing. He was also convicted of improperly discharging a firearm into a habitation in the separate August 2 shooting. After related counts were merged for sentencing, Fields received an aggregate prison term of 32 years to life.
Fields appealed, arguing in part that the murder convictions were unsupported by sufficient evidence and were against the weight of the evidence. The Ohio Second District Court of Appeals rejected those arguments in September 2017. The appellate court concluded that the testimony describing Fields returning home shirtless after the shooting, Wright's account of his admission, evidence of his prior hostility toward Mollett's group, and the forensic findings concerning the direction of the gunshots provided sufficient evidence for the jury's verdict. The court also upheld the tampering conviction based on testimony that Fields gave the handgun to Frey after the killing. His convictions and sentence were affirmed. Ohio prison records currently list Fields as incarcerated at Marion Correctional Institution, serving the murder, evidence-tampering and firearm-related sentences, with parole eligibility listed for November 2047.
Outside the courtroom record, Mollett was remembered by relatives and friends as someone who readily helped others. He had graduated from Springfield High School and a career-technical carpentry program in 2010, briefly served in the U.S. Army, and worked in fields including manufacturing, carpentry, masonry, auto repair and tree trimming. What began as an unsolved shooting that left his family without answers for more than two years eventually resulted in an arrest, a murder conviction and a life sentence for the man the jury found responsible for his death.
