Guernsey County Sheriff’s Office closes 34-year-old murder case; a pool game started again

CAMBRIDGE – Guernsey County Prosecutor Lindsey Angler was careful to say that nothing can fix a family who has suffered the loss of a loved one at the hands of a killer.

“Nothing will mend the broken hearts of these family members,” she said when discussing the 1990 murder of Guernsey County resident James Bradley. “But if we can get closure and some understanding of what happened, then it will be a good day.”

Bradley was murdered 34 years ago in front of a bar that, at the time, was called Raven. His killer, Carl “Butch” Hoopingarner, 60, confessed to the crime earlier this year after being arrested by the Guernsey County Sheriff’s Office on suspicion of murder in Colorado. He pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated murder in Bradley’s death in court on June 14.

Hoopingarner was sentenced June 27 by Guernsey County Court of Common Pleas Judge Daniel G. Padden to life in prison with the possibility of parole after serving 20 years. The Guernsey County resident was also sentenced to a consecutive prison term of 5 to 7.5 years for aggravated trafficking in drugs, a second-degree felony, stemming from a Belmont County case.

“The earliest he will be eligible for parole will be 2049,” Angler said. He must also register as a violent offender. No restitution was ordered in this case, according to court records.

Angler said the sheriff’s office stayed on this case until they could take the suspect into custody.

“I am extremely proud of our law enforcement agencies. They never give up on these investigations,” Angler said of the cold cases. “We are fortunate to be in a community with police officers who care so deeply about holding the right people accountable.”

Just because a case is out of sight doesn’t mean it will never be forgotten by law enforcement, she said.

“The cases that don’t get resolved stay with them,” she said. “You never know when today is the day that you will get the information you need to get a result like this. They don’t give up.”

The 34-year hunt for a killer

In 1990, Bradley was found dead in his car after it was set on fire, according to Sgt. Bill Patterson of the sheriff’s office, who along with his team, Det. Ryan Patterson and Lt. Sam Williams were responsible for bringing in Hoopingarner.

How he died and what happened is a bit unclear. To begin with, there was very little physical evidence.

“No autopsy was performed,” Patterson said. When asked if exhuming the body was a possibility to obtain physical evidence that could better explain what happened to Bradley, Patterson was quick to point out, “He was cremated.”

Patterson said he doesn’t know why an autopsy wasn’t performed in 1990, but that “the documentation requirements weren’t the same as they are now.”

At the time of Bradley’s death, the sheriff’s office was not convinced that the victim’s car simply caught fire accidentally, so it remained open as a cold case since there was no physical evidence or eyewitness testimony to provide any clues. about the case. .

Thirty-one years later, they got the call that every cold case detective is desperate for – someone knew something.

“In 2021, we received a call that an inmate at the Monroe County Jail had information about our cold case,” Patterson said. “I went down and conducted an interview at the Monroe County Jail and this guy said he knows (Hoopingarner) and that (Hoopingarner) admitted he was involved in the death of James Bradley.”

Patterson said the informant gave them a substantial statement with details only the killer would know. At the time, Hoopingarner was in an Ohio prison with eight months left on his sentence.

“We just wait,” Patterson said. “He wasn’t going to talk to us willingly.”

At the same time, Patterson began working on a Hoopingarner drug case in conjunction with Belmont County, for which Hoopingarner is serving 5 to 7.5 years.

“We were trying to get enough evidence to put him in jail so we could talk to him,” said Sgt. Patterson. “We filed charges and issued a warrant for his arrest (after his release from prison). When it came time to arrest him, we executed the search warrant to take him into custody and he was gone.”

Fast forward to February 2024, the sheriff’s office is contacted by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation – they have issued arrest warrants for Hoopingarner. He is accused of murdering a resident of Guernsey County, Colorado, and they believe Hoopingarner fled in the victim’s car, back to Guernsey County.

“So we started tracking him via cell phone and other means, but with no luck,” said the sergeant. Patterson, adding that Hoopingarner later admitted to destroying his cell phone so it couldn’t be tracked. He later also admitted that he knew he had warrants out for his arrest in Guernsey County, which is why he fled to Colorado. “So we started checking addresses where he lived in Ohio.”

He said at that time, Det. Patterson checked one of the addresses in Buffalo. He drove by the house on Feb. 20 and saw the Colorado victim’s car parked outside, the sergeant said. Patterson.

“We surrounded the house and met with the owner, who confirms that Hoopingarner is inside,” said Sgt. Patterson. “Hoopingarner comes out and turns himself in to authorities.”

Holding Hoopingarner responsible 34 years later

When the sheriff’s office arrested Hoopingarner in February, Hoopingarner told them an absolutely “far-fetched and fabricated story that couldn’t have been true if he wanted to” about the Colorado homicide in which he is a suspect, said Sgt. Patterson.

“When we say, ‘That can’t be true,’ he confesses to the homicide in Colorado,” said Sgt. Patterson, who added that the Colorado case is still under investigation. Hoopingarner would only be extradited to Colorado if he was paroled in 2049. “But he denies his involvement in Bradley’s murder, so we stopped the interview and told him to let us know if he wanted to talk.”

The next morning, Hoopingarner asked the sergeant. Patterson and Det. Paterson to return.

“He apologized to us and said, ‘I lied to you,’” said Sgt. Patterson. “He then gives us pretty much verbatim the same statement that (the tipster gave us) in 2021.”

He said none of these details were publicly recorded or reported in the news.

“There was no way these two people had the same information.”

During Hoopingarner’s confession, a third witness was implicated. When the sheriff’s office located this person, they obtained a third statement that supported the first two.

So what really happened on August 19 and 20, 1990?

According to Sgt. Patterson, what they believed happened on August 19th and 20th, which led to Bradley’s death, all started in a game of pool.

“Hoopingarner said they were at a different bar in Cambridge before they all ended up at the Raven,” said Sgt. Patterson. “In the previous bar, they got into a fight over a game of pool and Hoopingarner and another person left the bar.”

Sergeant Patterson said it’s unclear whether they went back to the road or to someone’s house, but at some point they ended up in the Raven. And when they walked in, lo and behold, the same people they fought with at the previous bar were at the Raven. One of them was Bradley.

“The bartender tells Hoopingarner to leave because he is intoxicated, so he leaves and drives to his mother’s house,” the sergeant said. Patterson.

He said two witnesses corroborated that Hoopingarner siphoned gasoline from a motorcycle. Sergeant Patterson said that when witnesses asked Hoopingarner what he was doing, he told them: “Leave me alone and don’t worry about it.”

Hoopingarner returned to the Raven and waited for Bradley to leave, according to the sergeant. Patterson. Then, while Bradley was in his car, he and Hoopingarner got into an argument.

It is at this point that Sgt. Patterson must draw his own conclusions, since it’s not clear from witness statements, he said, or even from Hoopingarner’s confession, exactly what happened next. An autopsy could have resolved the problem, but this, again, was never performed.

“Some things indicate a knife was involved,” said the sergeant. Patterson. “Witnesses mention seeing stabbing movements.”

Sergeant Patterson said Hoopingarner only admitted to “pouring petrol on Bradley and the car, and some confessions about how the fire started”.

“(Hoopingarner) tried to implicate someone else in starting the fire,” said Sgt. Patterson. “And he tried to say that Bradley was intoxicated (which is why he didn’t try to escape the fire).”

But according to Sgt. Patterson, witnesses said Bradley made no noise and had no reaction to the fire, leading them to believe Bradley may have already been dead or close to death at the time the fire started.

When asked how to hold witnesses who stood by and did nothing accountable, Sgt. Patterson said many of the charges that would have been pursued in 1990 are no longer available for prosecution.

“We are past the statute of limitations on many of the (bystander and witness) charges,” he said. “We are still investigating all avenues. If we can hold anyone else accountable, we will.”

Cold cases are never really cold

One of the hardest parts of law enforcement is that there isn’t always a finished product, said Sgt. Patterson, who has been working cases for 15 years.

“It’s not like construction, where you build a house and stand back and look at the end product,” he said of job cases that often don’t get closed, or see less favorable closures when a judgment or charge is less than they want. “When you get closure on a cold case – in this case, waiting 34 years for justice – I don’t know if there’s a more satisfying feeling than sitting down with a family member and saying we have enough to bring closure, to bring justice to the lost family member.”

Sergeant Patterson said of the Hoopingarner case that the rush and wait process of the case was difficult.

“For me, I have very impatient tendencies, so sitting and waiting can be frustrating,” he said. “But I knew we were going the right way. It is necessary to work a case in its entirety and have the patience necessary for a long-term investigation.

“The most important thing is for families to have closure,” said Sgt. Patterson. “Justice, in this case, has been served.”

This article originally appeared in The Daily Jeffersonian: Guernsey County Sheriff’s Office closes 34-year-old murder case