A man in Ohio has admitted to dismembering his father's body and hiding the remains in suitcases discarded along rural roads, which children discovered nearly three decades ago. The case, unsolved until recently, led to federal fraud charges against Larry Drotleff for collecting his deceased father's benefits. Authorities identified the victim through advanced DNA testing.
On February 1, 1998, children found a suitcase containing unidentified male body parts along Winkler Hill Road in Dover Township, Tuscarawas County, about 85 miles south of Cleveland. A second suitcase with remains from the same person appeared a week later on a road 15 miles away. The Tuscarawas County Sheriff's Office investigated but could not identify the victim at the time, despite DNA linking the parts to one individual. The victim remained anonymous for over two decades. The case reopened in 2023 with improved DNA methods, identifying the remains as those of Lawrence A. Drotleff, who was around 93 years old. In a January 2024 interview, Larry Drotleff, the victim's son, confessed to finding his father dead at their shared home. He said he cut up the body using a manual hand saw and disposed of parts in the suitcases and a dumpster near his workplace. DNA confirmed Larry as the biological son. Although no murder charges were filed due to Ohio's expired statute of limitations, Larry Drotleff faces federal charges in the Northern District of Ohio for stealing approximately $250,000 in benefits. Prosecutors allege he took $111,485 in Social Security payments and $135,040 from a General Electric pension between February 1998 and September 2010, as deposits continued unaware of the death. The sheriff's office described the treatment of the body as inexcusable, driven by greed, though it ruled out homicide.