‘It seems unreal;’ Victim’s daughter speaks out after ‘Railroad spike murderer’ released from prison

XENIA — The daughter of a woman killed by a railroad spike is speaking out after the man convicted of the crime was released from prison.

As reported on News Center 7 at 5:00, after nearly 30 years, David Lee Myers had his conviction overturned and a judge let him go without bond.

Sarah Sparkman lost her mother, Amanda Maher, when she was just eight months old. She now has to face that Myers is not in prison, but set free in the community.

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“I try to say, I prepare myself, I wasn’t prepared for that, it seems unreal,” Sparkman said.

Sparkman knew the judge Jonathon Hein had already overturned Myers’s aggravated murder conviction and ordered he be re-tried, but she expected that the judge would install a high bond that might hold him in the Greene County Jail while that new trial is scheduled.

>> RELATED: Victim’s daughter speaks out after ‘Railroad spike murderer’ gets new trial

“You know they took his handcuffs off in court and I think that’s when it really hit me,” Sparkman said.

Sparkman read a letter in court as part of the state’s request for a $5 million bond. The defense asked that Myers be released on his own recognizance and the judge agreed, another decision that shocked Sparkman.

“If we are back in 1988, he’s still supposedly accused of murder in a possible death penalty case and he did not have a bond set,” Sparkman said.

Greene County court officials said they don’t remember a person accused of murder, in a capital case, ever being released without a monetary bond being paid. The judge pointed out Myers had a good disciplinary record in prison since his 1996 conviction.

The Greene County prosecutor made it clear he did not agree with the judge’s decision on bail or the decision to overturn Myers conviction and order a new trial.

The prosecutor’s office is planning to appeal that ruling.

We will continue following this story.

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