An Arizona man who was arraigned in an Ohio court on Thursday in connection with a cold case rape from 1997 has been indicted on charges for the death of a woman in 1992.
Samuel W. Legg III has been indicted in connection with the death of Sharon Lynn Kedzierski, according to court documents. Legg was charged with three counts of aggravated murder and one count of murder.
According to public records, Legg lived in southern Arizona for years, including multiple addresses in Tucson, Sierra Vista and Benson. Most recently, police records show Legg had been living in Chandler.
On April 9, 1992, a woman’s body was found at a truck stop on I-90 near Route 46 in Austintown, according to the Ohio Attorney General. The woman was listed as a Jane Doe for more than two decades after her body was found just west of Youngstown.
Authorities say the woman died from multiple blunt force injuries to the head, face and chest. Her official cause of death is listed as asphyxiation.
According to an article from The Vindicator in 2013, authorities said the woman appeared to have been killed at a different location and then dumped in the woods near the truck stop. She was found by a woman walking her dog. Police at the time told the paper that the woman’s body had been there for around a day, possibly two, before she had been found.
It wouldn’t be until February 2013, when authorities would positively identify the body as Kedzierski.
Austintown police confirm Samuel Legg has been indicted for 1992 murder of Sharon Kedzierski. Her body was found at a truck stop. Legg is also suspected in 3 other murders and a 1997 rape case out of Medina County. @WEWS pic.twitter.com/b1BDHfxBvp
— Bob Jones WEWS (@bobjonesTV) February 14, 2019
Legg is currently residing in the Medina County Jail on rape charges from the 1997 cold case. He is being held in lieu of a $1 million bond.
In that incident, authorities say Legg allegedly raped a 17-year-old hitchhiker who was heading to Lexington, Ohio after she visited her boyfriend in Cleveland, authorities said.
At the time, Legg was working as an independent truck driver for a company out of Hinckley. That case would go unsolved until he was connected by familial DNA used to identify possible suspects for unsolved crimes, authorities said.
Legg was located in the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona. Authorities took another DNA sample and extradited him back to Ohio to face prosecution.
Authorities said “no other human being on earth except Mr. Legg could have been the contributor of the DNA” found in the evidence they had involving the rape victim.
The DNA evidence also linked Legg to Kedzierski's death and other homicides outside Mahoning County, authorities said Thursday at a news conference about Kedzierski's death and Legg's indictment.
RELATED: DNA links Arizona man to 1997 Ohio cold case rape, 3 homicides< /span>
Kedzierski’s death is the only homicide in which Legg has been charged in connection with.
In 1990, a 21-year-old Legg was interviewed in the homicide case of his 14-year-old stepdaughter, Angela Hicks.
Angela disappeared in late July, and her partially mummified body was found in a wooded area in Elyria on Aug. 30 that same year. According to newspaper reports at the time from The Chronicle-Telegram, Angela was found lying naked in a fetal position with several articles of clothing nearby.
Legg was given a polygraph test. Charges were never filed.
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