Jazmine Trotter, Cleveland, Ohio: The 2013 Murder and Failed Arrest

Jazmine Trotter was a 20-year-old Cleveland mother who was beaten, strangled, and sexually assaulted in March 2013. Her body was found under the porch of an abandoned house on East 93rd Street. Police arrested a suspect within two weeks based on a DNA match, but the charges were later dropped, and the Jazmine Trotter Cleveland murder remains unsolved.

What Happened in March 2013

Trotter was last seen alive around 5 a.m. on Friday, March 22, 2013, leaving her boyfriend’s home to walk her usual route to work. She never clocked in.¹ Her family reported her missing the next day and began searching along that route.

On the afternoon of March 24, her mother, Monique Williams, along with her brother and a cousin, found Trotter’s purse and makeup bag near an abandoned home at 3980 East 93rd Street. Her partially clothed body was underneath the porch.²

The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office found that Trotter had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and had been strangled.³ Police said she had also been sexually assaulted.⁴

The Arrest That Fell Apart

DNA recovered from Trotter’s body was run through the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and matched Jerome Ogletree, a 42-year-old Cleveland man with a felony record that included drug trafficking, robbery, and car theft. Police said Ogletree and Trotter knew each other.⁴

Ogletree was arrested on April 2, 2013, and charged with aggravated murder. He pleaded not guilty at an initial court appearance on April 5, with bond set at $1 million. Prosecutors said additional charges would be presented to a grand jury.⁵

The case never went to trial. Reports from 2019 and later confirmed that the charges against Ogletree were dropped. The available sources do not explain why.⁶ With the charges dismissed, Trotter’s murder reverted to unsolved and has stayed that way.

Where the Case Stands Now

As of 2023, Cleveland police said they had “no leads in any of these cases,” referring to Trotter and three other women killed in the same area. Family members have said police told them there was no DNA evidence in several of the cases.³ A March 2026 report confirmed the cluster of killings remains open.⁷

The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office runs a G.O.L.D. Unit, launched in 2020, that applies forensic genetic genealogy to cold cases.⁸ One of the four East 93rd Street cases, the Ashley Leszyeski killing, has been referred to that unit.⁹ It has not been publicly confirmed whether Trotter’s case has been referred to the G.O.L.D. Unit.

Anyone with information about Trotter’s death can contact the Cleveland Police homicide unit at 216-623-5464 or submit a tip by calling 216-25-CRIME.

The Other East 93rd Street Killings

Trotter’s death was one of four murders of women found on or near East 93rd Street on Cleveland’s east side between December 2012 and May 2013:

Jameela Hasan, 37, was found stabbed to death in her upstairs apartment on the 9400 block of Manor Avenue on December 17, 2012. The medical examiner determined she had been stabbed 11 times in the neck.¹⁰
Jazmine Trotter, 20, was found March 24, 2013, beaten and strangled, on the 3900 block of East 93rd Street.
Christine Malone, 45, a mother of eight, was last seen walking toward East 93rd Street on March 18, 2013. Her body was found March 28 in a field on the 9300 block of Bessemer Avenue. She had also been beaten and strangled.¹¹
Ashley Leszyeski, 21, a mother of two, went missing in early May 2013. Her body was found May 28 in a vacant lot at East 93rd Street and Anderson Avenue. The medical examiner attributed her death to several sharp force injuries.⁹

Police have shifted on whether the killings are connected. In April 2013, they said there was “no evidence at this time linking” the Trotter and Malone cases, despite the similar cause of death.¹¹ Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath said in 2013 that Trotter’s death was “not related to several other attacks on women in the area.”⁴ By 2017, police acknowledged they could not rule out a serial killer but said they lacked evidence to support the theory.³

The families themselves are split. Relatives of Malone and Leszyeski have said they do not believe their loved one’s death is linked to the others. Trotter’s family and community activists have pushed for the cases to be investigated together.¹²⁹

Who Jazmine Trotter Was

Trotter was a young mother with a four-year-old son, Juelz. She had a twin sister, Yazmine, along with an older brother and a younger sister.¹ After her death, her mother organized a memorial service and established the Jazmine Trotter Memorial Fund at KeyBank.²

Monique Williams and Trotter’s aunt, Phenon Williams, have held annual balloon releases in her memory and continued to press publicly for the case to be solved, urging anyone with information to come forward.⁶

1
Cleveland19. 20-Year-Old Dead in Abandoned House
2
Cleveland.com. Jazmine Trotter, 20, of Cleveland Found Dead
3
Cleveland19. Families of 4 Women Murdered a Decade Ago Continue Push for Justice
4
Cleveland.com. Man Charged With Aggravated Murder in Death of Jazmine Trotter
5
Cleveland19. Charges in Jazmine Trotter Murder Expected Soon
6
Cleveland19. Family of Slain Cleveland Mother Still Seeking Justice
7
Cleveland19. Daughters Seek Answers in Their Mother’s Unsolved Murder 13 Years Later
8
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office. G.O.L.D. Unit Identifies 3 Cold Cases With Genealogy
9
Cleveland19. Seeking Justice: Murder of Cleveland Mother of 2 Remains Unsolved
10
Cleveland.com. Cleveland Woman Fatally Stabbed
11
Cleveland.com. 2 Women Found Dead Last Week
12
Cleveland19. Daughters Seek Answers in Mother’s Unsolved Murder 12 Years Later