Gerald Hand is a white inmate on death
row in the state of Ohio. He was born on 03/23/49. He was convicted
in Delaware County on 06/24/03..
Crime
Hand was convicted of two aggravated murder charges and sentenced to death for murdering his wife and a friend.
Address
Gerald Hand A449014
Chillicothe Correctional Institution
PO Box 5500
Chillicothe, OH 45601
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Notes
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I remember Gerald he owned the house I grew up in at 2401 sullivant ave. He played Santa every year for me and my brother. He owned what use to be a radiator shop right next door (now is a tire shop). I’ll never forget the smell of that place. He use to give me and my brother pop and candy (out of a box you could buy from while you waited). Lonnie saves my sister from a burning house. My dad Lonnie and Bobby were all close friends. The seats inside the radiator shop were giant plastic hands in different colors. He was a kind person. He had a red car it had a long front end and it talked if you got to close. I would set it off on purpose and Gerald would come out saying “Carolyn get away from my car” I would run away laughing. This story although I’ve followed it from 2002 still blows my mind.
ReplyDeleteGoes to show you never know a person. Our own hearts will fool us. The heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it?
DeleteI know Gerald (Bobby) Hand all too well, unfortunately. I was terrified of him, and he defiantly was not a fan of mine. Carolyn Sowards johnson mentioned a very familiar place that I will always remember. I dated Gerald's son, Robbie, during the late 90s and lived with him in the house that was directly next to the radiator shop she mentioned on Sullivant Ave. My experiences with Gerald were not as pleasant as the blog I read from Carolyn. I was very young and had no business living with Robby, and since Gerald (Robbie's dad) owned the house, he made sure to interfere with our relationship, hoping to end it and get rid of me. When Robby was at work, his dad would come to the house and let himself in with the spare key to see if I was in the house. I had myself trained to hear the sound of the front door being unlocked. While this does not sound that impressive, it was quite amazing. I would be asleep upstairs with the bedroom door shut and still hear him quietly sneaking in, and I would immediately get up and hide in the closet due to the fear of what he would do if he saw me in there. He would deny coming in when Robbie asked him about it, so there was little we could do to stop him. When he did come in, he would check every room for me. I would be terrified in the closet when he would enter the bedroom to look for any sign of my presence. I could hear him breathing heavily while standing in the middle of the bedroom, listening and looking for me. I could never explain how he made me feel whenever he was around. He never actually physically harmed me, but I still felt uneasy and scared of the father of the man I loved and lived with.
ReplyDeleteWe managed to stay together there on Sullivant (a two-story blue house with a basement and huge backyard) with three houses on the block, and then next to our house where the bar and radiator shop). Still, unfortunately, due to being young, immature, and the interference and hated Gerald had. we ended the relationship. I could never understand why he made me feel so scared, but I moved on in my life, and over time, the memory of Robbie and our life on the hilltop became mostly good memories. I was 15 (I was too young to be living with a 19-year-old) and had some family issues, which led to me leaving my home. When I ran into Robbie on the Westside, it was good to see a familiar face. See, I had gone to school with Robby at the Big Walnut schools in Sunbury, Ohio. I had sort of kind of dated Robby actually for a short time in middle/high school. We quickly became reacquainted, and Robby supported himself and me during a time in my life when I needed someone to help me and lead me to a better path than what I was on. I remember how much fun Robby and I had together. I was learning to become a woman and girlfriend, and he was more than happy to teach me these new skills. But Robby did have some anger issues, and he certainly had some issues with his father. Being the only parent that Robby could remember, he relied on his father and loved him greatly. But the scars of losing his mother had made him angry because he was robbed of having his mother in his life.
ReplyDeleteI remember as if it was yesterday when Robby would open up about what had happened to his mother. He has told me (because this was what Gerald had told him) that people had broken into Gerald's home to rob Gerald (and he did own some properties and seemed financially well off). Robby said that they were disappointed to see that Gerald was not at home when they broke in, so they could not fulfill their original intentions and could not find any money in the home. Robby said his mother had begged them to leave and not harm her or her new baby. Supposedly the intruders were so angry about not finding any money and Gerald not being home that they took their anger out on Lori Hand (Robbie's mother). They suffocated her and shot her, and she was found at the bottom of their basement stairs, where Gerald later found her shortly after arriving home. They did not harm Robbie, and he was found safely sleeping in his crib, still too young to be aware of what had happened. He struggled his entire life knowing his mother had been so violently murdered right next to him. He talked about her a lot and grew up with only his father until Gerald remarried his third wife, Jill Hand.
ReplyDeleteIn 2003, I was shocked to hear that Galena, Ohio had an aggravated murder case where a man's wife had been shot and killed and that the husband had shot the intruder after his wife had been shot. The intruder was found in a neighbor's driveway and was later identified as Lonnie Welch, a long-time friend of Gerald and was even employed at the Hand's Auto Shop on Sullivant and Oakley. I was shocked when I heard the victims' names and heard that Robbie's stepmother had lost her life. I was even more shocked when they later stated that Gerald had shot Jill and had planned with Ronnie to have Jill killed for the insurance money. He betrayed his friend by shooting him in the back and then in his face once he had killed Lori. He did this to ensure Ronnie would not be able to tell anyone their original plot. Gerald and Ronnie had been friends for so many years, and yet somehow, Bobby had no issues shooting his friend in the face and then in the back. It takes a special kind of person to commit such a heinous crime simply because they are financially strapped. He needed that insurance money and was willing to take two lives to receive it. The saddest thing is that he had collected the insurance money for his first two wives and was never charged with their murders. And then he lied to his son the whole time, allowing him to grow up without a mother because of his dad's financial struggles. I quickly understood why I had always felt too uneasy and scared of Gerald. My intuitions and gut feelings were subconsciously telling me I was in the presence of a very dangerous, murdering monster. The shock I felt must have been minimal compared to what Robbie felt when he discovered the real reason his mother had been so violently murdered. His father had taken the mother he had so desperately yearned for his entire life while Robbie laid in his crib next to where the crime was committed. During the trial (which was on tv), I saw Robbie testify for his father during the sentencing part of Gerald's trial. He was on the stand with tears flowing as he begged for his father's life and asked the judge to please not take his father. He begged for the death penalty to not be allowed saying that he only had one parent left. And even though they had issues getting along throughout his life, he still did not want to lose his dad. He knew and accepted what his father had done, but Robbie could not change the fact that he had lost one parent in a violent situation, and even though his father is the one that ended his mother's life, he still loved his dad and wanted him to live.
ReplyDeleteNo child should have to lose a parent in such a violent matter, and it broke my heart as he cried and asked the judge for mercy on the only parent he had left. But due to overwhelming evidence supporting the guilt of Gerald Hand, the judge still sentenced him and placed him on Ohio's death row. He has since used all of his appeals and was denied on all of them. His final appeal was rejected in 2018, yet he remains on death row, and it is starting to look like he will die in prison from natural causes instead of being euthanized by Ohio's death row system. He is close to 70 (of not already that age) and is now scheduled to be executed in May 2023. I now think back on how dangerous a situation I was in a while living there with Robbie.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness there was no insurance policy on me with him as the beneficiary, or this story may have had a different and more sinister ending. I still appreciate everything that Robbie attempted to do for me during a time of my life when I needed guidance, love, and help with getting my life back together. I have many good memories that help alleviate the pain of the bad ones I was dealing with back then. The '90s were terrific for me, and I will always be a 90's girl that loves Bone Thugs & Harmony, R Kelly, and the incredible and intelligent Tupac Shakur. I also will always miss the friend bologna sandwiched that the hood store sold across the street on Sullivant Ave. I'm not too fond of bologna, but there was excellent, and anyone that has had one from there would remember how good their food was. Thanks to Robbie Hand, I only wish you the best in life.