Guilty plea in 1992 death of Marietta teen
From staff reports
A former Marietta man pleaded guilty to manslaughter Wednesday in the cold case of a Marietta woman who disappeared in 1992.
According to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, Randy Joe Slider, 56, pleaded guilty Wednesday to first-degree involuntary manslaughter and first-degree kidnapping charges in Noble County Common Pleas Court in the death of Patsy Sparks of Marietta.
He is scheduled to be sentenced at 1 p.m. Jan. 28 before Noble County Common Pleas Judge John W. Nau, court personnel said. First-degree felony charges carry a possible sentence of three to 11 years in prison.
Sparks, 19, went missing in April 1992 after a night in Parkersburg. Her skeletal remains were found two years later in Noble County.
Slider was indicted in January after new evidence, new witnesses and previously identified witnesses deciding to share their accounts came forward to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit. In January, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office announced Slider had been arrested on three counts of aggravated murder and one count of murder.
He had been in prison for some of the time since Sparks’ death, including serving eight years for felonious assault and gross sexual imposition. He was also accused of rape, assault and kidnapping of women in multiple other cases.
Sparks was last seen leaving the Wheel Club, a former bar in Parkersburg, on April 22, 1992, with Slider. He had long been a person of interest as he was seen with her the night she went missing.
Part of the plea agreement Wednesday was that Slider has to be provide a truthful account of what happened with Sparks, according to a representative of the attorney general’s office.
Defense Attorney Jack A. Blakeslee did not return a message left at his office Wednesday.