11 Investigates: Shadow of a doubt

At 3:15 p.m., on Dec. 15, 2004, the daily temperature was peaking at 34 degrees as Jamie and Nicole Riebe made their way home on a bus from Arbor Hills Junior High.

As the thermometer edged above freezing, the remaining snow from the dusting that had fallen two days before was turning to slush.

But it was still a December day in northwest Ohio, and the heater on the school bus struggled to warm the young passengers.

“I recall how cold it was," Nicole said in a recent interview with 11 Investigates. "It was one of those bone-chilling winter days and I was eager to get off the school bus and into the house."

When the bus dropped off 13-year-old Jamie and 12-year-old Nicole near their Talmadge Road home, their thoughts turned to plans for the night ahead. Their father, John, had earlier promised a trip to pick out a Christmas tree.

“Christmas tree hunting with my dad was one of my favorite days of the year. We would drive to multiple tree farms in Michigan to assess stock. My dad always needed to find the perfect one. He’d cut the tree and we would ‘help’ load it onto the car. Then we would go home, where my dad would blare holiday music while we got the tree set up,” Nicole said. “We didn’t have much and Christmas tree day always made me realize you don’t need much to share in high spirits, joy and family.”

Feeling in her pocket, Jamie realized she had left her key at home.

“But my dad's cars were in the driveway, so I’m thinking, ‘OK, good.’ It was normal forgetting my key on the table,” Jamie said. “We tried to get in the front door, but it was locked. Back door? Locked. I'm like, ‘OK, I guess I’ve gotta climb through the window.’ That was a normal occurrence too.”

But Nicole saw something that wasn't normal.

“I peered between the blinds of our front door window and saw my dad lying face down," Nicole said. "I screamed, ‘Jamie, dad is on the floor."

Jamie thought Nicole was just kidding around.

“Funny, but not a funny joke,” Jamie said. “But she said she was serious, and I was able to push up the window and climb in.”

Riebe was lying face down, beside the living room couch. Seeing a glint of steel under their father’s hand, Jamie told a dispatcher in a 3:22 p.m. 911 call that she thought John may have stabbed himself with a knife.

“I felt frozen,” Nicole said. “It was no longer from the cold, but from standing so close to my motionless father. The energy that was in the room is hard to describe. It felt haunting.”

The dispatcher told the girls to turn their father over to see if he was breathing.

He was not.

Unbeknownst to his daughters, John Riebe, 39, had been shot seven times minutes before they got home from school.

“The fleeting thought that everything was going to be okay vanished instantly when we turned over my dad’s body and could see his face,” Nicole said. “I paused, for too long, and stared. His half-open, rolled-back eyes were surrounded by discolored skin - tones of green and purple. He no longer had rosy cheeks. He looked so frightened. I knew looking at my dad’s face that he was dead.”

When paramedics from the Sylvania Fire Department arrived, they noticed a silver-colored lighter near his hands. There was no knife. But there was a visible hole in the center of his chest. A cardiac monitor was attached, but there was no sign of a cardiac rhythm.

John Riebe was pronounced dead at 3:29 p.m.

Nearly 20 years after her father’s murder, Jamie Riebe is now Jamie Alessandrini. She married her husband, Zachariah, in 2012.

The couple has four children. As she spoke, a daughter vied for her mother’s attention, while a 3-month-old son swayed contentedly in a nearby baby swing. Her two other children would walk through the door from school an hour later.

“My dad’s missed birthdays and Christmases. I got married. My sister got married. He couldn't walk us down the aisle," Jamie said. "My sister buying her homes, me buying our homes. You know, he didn't get to teach me to drive. None of those things a father does for their kids.”

After the murder, the sisters moved in with their mother and stepfather and moved to Berkey.

In the years since, they’ve thrived, despite the childhood trauma.

“He’d be so proud,” Jamie said. Her uncle jokingly told her that her kids would have been so spoiled with John as their grandpa.

Her sister, Nicole, is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where she majored in international relations with a focus on human rights. She was married to her husband Nick in 2018. She recently returned from the Bahamas. She has been to 41 national parks, 48 states and 21 countries.

“I think losing my dad in that way really made me understand the fragility of life,” Nicole said. “I decided that every moment I have is meaningful and should be lived with intention and joy. Most weekends I’m road-tripping and camping.”

As the sisters make new memories, they still have fond memories from the past about their father.

“We had a big couch, and he'd lay on it, and I'd sit at the end of his feet all curled up. I’d watch different TV shows with him. He really liked ‘The Simpsons.’ I love ‘The Simpsons,’ and actually, my oldest son loves ‘The Simpsons’ too. He's got the backpack,” she said, before adding proudly: “He picked it out himself too.”

Pulling stories from a distant memory bank, Jamie smiles.

“When he was little, he was afraid of the Easter Bunny. I guess it was scary back in the 1970s," Jamie said. "But his brothers would call out, ‘John, the Easter Bunny is coming,’ and he would go hide.”

And then the time “that he decided we needed a back door. He went and got his tools and cut a hole in the wall to make a back door. And then he’s like, ‘I guess we need to go to Home Depot and buy a door.’”

And the stories continue to roll.

“My dad taught me to throw a football and we would spend hours in our yard throwing back and forth to one another. It’s funny, actually, he taught Jamie first and was becoming really impressed with her ability, then one day when he asked her to go throw, she said she couldn’t because she had just painted her nails,” Nicole said. “I vividly remember his deep sigh, probably thinking, 'that’s right, I have daughters.'”

THE CRIME SCENE

Within minutes of Jamie Riebe’s call to 911, officers swarmed to the Talmadge Road home. Though the home has a Toledo address, the property falls under the jurisdiction of the Sylvania Township police department and city rescue squads.

After Riebe was declared dead and a bullet hole was found in the center of his chest, an EMS crew told dispatch that a command officer was needed at the scene. Sgt. Robert Austin arrived and searched the house with the rescue squad.

Nicole Riebe said she’ll never forget Austin’s warmth and kindness.

Detective Sgt. Robert Colwell secured the scene, while Detective Todd Slaman later joined to process the scene and to conduct interviews.

Eighteen pieces of evidence were taken from the scene, including seven shell casings, a Wendy’s cup, a guitar, liquor bottles, a crack pipe, and bedding from the couch where detectives believe he was sitting. A phone and cigarette butts were found but were never submitted for DNA testing.

An autopsy showed that Riebe was shot seven times and that one of the first shots caused extensive damage to his heart. There was not a lot of blood at the scene because the shot stopped his heart.

The autopsy also showed that he was legally drunk and had cocaine in his system.

He was likely sitting on the couch, playing his guitar, when he was shot. At least one of the shots went through the guitar, into Riebe.

There was no sign of forced entry. There were also no burn marks on his skin, meaning the gun wasn’t placed against him. Police believe the shots were likely fired the distance of the couch. Each of the seven shots fired hit Riebe.

Photos of the outside of the home show some footprints, but, according to reports and testimony, those likely belonged to responding EMS, not the killer.

The home behind the Riebe home was vacant, but none of the nearby neighbors saw anyone coming or going to the house in the morning or early afternoon.

At 4:07 p.m., as Detective Cowell stood next to her, Jamie Riebe received a phone call from Eric Babos, who she described as her father’s helper on HVAC projects. The men had recently completed a project for A-1 Heating and Babos was owed $150.

“He said, ‘I want my money. Your dad needs to give me my money.’ And I said, ‘My dad's sick. He can't come to the phone,’” she said. “I told him that he’s yelling at a 13-year-old and I don’t have his money.”

Several hours later, Babos showed up to the house and the police had their first suspect.

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