Amy Hooper was killed in her west side apartment in Columbus, OH on March 9, 1992 when she was 20 years old.
Details
On Monday, March 9, 1992, the nude body of Amy Hooper was found face up on the floor of her Lincoln Village apartment in Columbus, Ohio in western Franklin County. Her hands had been loosely bound, she was bludgeoned and stabbed to death. Amy worked at Bermans Leather in the Westland Mall in Columbus. She did not report for work the day her body was discovered. Her family went to her apartment to check on her and she was found dead in her apartment. Investigators believe that Amy knew her attacker(s) and that she could have let the person in. There were no signs of forced entry to her apartment, there was also no indication of a struggle, although crime-scene photos show that the phone cord might have been ripped from the wall.
Incident location: Columbus, Ohio – Franklin County
Incident date: 3/9/1992
Homicide date: 3/9/1992
Date of birth: 11/2/1971
Gender: Female
Race/Ethnicity: White
Height: 5’3″
Weight: 105
Hair color: Blonde
Eye color: Hazel
Law enforcement agency: Franklin County Sheriff’s Office
Amy Hooper’s body was discovered nude, face up, in March of 1992 at her Lincoln Village apartment in the 4900 block of Medfield Way. Her parents discovered her body when they went to check on her after they couldn’t reach her at work or at home. Investigators said they believe she knew her attacker, but no one was charged for over 30 years.
Amy Hooper’s apartment was at left in the Lincoln Village apartments at 4942 Medfield Way. This is a photo taken soon after the murder.
Investigators said her hands were loosely bound, and she was bludgeoned and stabbed to death.
This wooden and leather medallion with a heart painted in the colors of the African flag was found loosely wrapped over Amy Hooper’s hands when her body was discovered in her west side apartment in 1992.
KEY FACTS
On the morning of Monday, March 9, 1992, the plastic, pink carryall that held her makeup and hairbrushes lay open on the bedroom floor, ready for use. The electric blanket on the pull-out sofa she used as a bed was still on. Her hair dryer was plugged in. She already had taken a shower.
Her killer laid Amy’s naked body face up on the hardwood floor of her Lincoln Village apartment, then left what might have been a message. The killer took a wood-and-leather medallion — a heart painted in the colors of the African flag and a symbol known to represent the Rastafarian and black cultures — and loosely bound her hands with it.
Chris Floyd with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department said “She was displayed. It wasn’t as if she fell that way. My first thought was, ‘This is to make a statement.’” Someone murdered Amy. Someone stabbed her and cracked her skull.
Amy was a young white girl who almost exclusively dated black men. It was 1992, a less-tolerant, less-forgiving time. Someone, detectives surmised, didn’t care for her choice in men.
“….But I want to know why they killed my daughter,” her father told WSYX a year after her death. He died in 2009, not having those answers. Below: Joy Long holds a portrait of her daughter Amy Hooper while standing next to her grave at Sunset Cemetery in Columbus
THE FULL STORY
The weekend before Amy was killed, she had borrowed her mom’s car to visit her boyfriend in Bowling Green. He gave her a diamond ring that weekend; it was on her left hand when she died.
Amy returned to Columbus and hung out with friends on Sunday night.
On Monday, Joy was getting ready for her job teaching third-graders at Harmon Elementary in the South-Western school district. Amy stopped by about 6:30 a.m. to return the car.
The two chatted as Joy applied her own makeup in the bathroom; Amy said she had a meeting at work later that morning. She told everyone goodbye, and then borrowed her sister’s car for the day. About 3:30 p.m., Joy was gathering mail at school when the secretary said there was a call. It was, Joy thinks, someone from Bermans.
“Amy hadn’t showed up for work,” Joy said. “I just knew there was something — that something serious had happened.”
She called Amy’s dad, whom she had recently divorced, and they agreed to meet at Amy’s apartment. Amy wasn’t answering her phone. They didn’t try the door.
Joy waited at the complex’s office while the maintenance man and Amy’s father went into the apartment. Hollis Hooper returned to tell Joy what he had found.
“There is this hole in your life and nothing left to fill it,” Joy said. “I couldn’t imagine that there was anybody in this world that hated Amy that much that they wanted to kill her. I just couldn’t.”
Her mother has her own theory, that Amy — always trusting, always friendly, young and naive — simply left her front door unlocked and became easy prey.
The detectives think differently. There was a lot of rage in the crime, a lot of brutality. It was, detective Clark says, personal.
SEVERAL POTENTIAL SUSPECTS
There were several potential suspects — former boyfriends, old friends, former co-workers, neighborhood sex offenders. None panned out. Amy’s boyfriend at the time, a Bowling Green State University student, was cleared. Her roommate passed a lie-detector test.
No one, it seemed, had a logical reason to hurt her.
She dated a lot of men, had a lot of friends and partied at a West Side bar called Coconuts. But she didn’t use drugs and didn’t run her mouth, said J.C. “Chuck” Clark, the cold-case detective at the Franklin County sheriff’s office.
MEDALLION
A wood-and-leather medallion — a heart painted in the colors of the African flag and a symbol known to represent the Rastafarian and black cultures — and loosely bound her hands with it.
It might have been the killer’s, or it could have been something Amy had lying around. It might mean nothing and simply could have been handy. Detectives don’t know, but they always have thought it could be a key to the case.
EVIDENCE COLLECTED
Deputies found the knife at the scene used in the killing. They also said they found a necklace that Amy’s roommate said she had never seen before. Also crime-scene photos show that the phone cord might have been ripped from the wall. DNA recovered from her body was collected. Tests ran indicate it belongs to an unidentified male.
BREAKTHROUGH
DNA evidence from the scene exists. Franklin County Sheriff’s Department needed only a name to match it. DNA from an unidentified male was recovered on her body.
A DNA breakthrough led to the Dec. 5 arrest of Bruce Edward Daniels, 58, from Tumwater, Washington. He’s charged with rape and murder in Amy Hooper’s death. Detectives charged him in December 2024 with documents saying Daniels was a person of interest until law enforcement in Washington recovered his trash with his DNA on it. That DNA reportedly matched the profile of male DNA found on Hooper’s body.
Jail records show he was taken into custody on December 5 for a gun charge and was being held on a murder charge for Franklin County. The Lacey Police Department, Thurston County Narcotics Task Force, and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office served a search warrant at his home, where they found a 9mm handgun he was not supposed to have, according to court documents provided by the Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
- His extradition hearing was set for January 8, 2025
- March 5, 2025, he was extradited back to Ohio to face rape and murder charges
- March 10, 2025, Bruce E. Daniels entered a plea of ‘Not Guilty’
- March 19, 2025, Defense Attorney, Mitchell A. Williams, filed for ‘Demand for Discovery’
- March 21, 2025, a case scheduling event took place setting a Trial/hearing for April 8, 2025, at 9:00am
- April 27, 2026, awaiting a hearing for a trial date to be set in this case.
Stay Tuned for more updates.
Courtesy of The Columbus Dispatch and ABC6 News Ohio
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