Donna J. Robb reports for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Excerpt:
Akron
– A Summit County inmate admitted yesterday that his headline-grabbing claim of being a serial killer was an elaborate lie.
Jason Roland West apologized to the public and to sheriff’s detectives for sending authorities on a sweeping but fruitless investigation that has dragged on for more than three months.
“Everything I have said to everybody over the last four months is false,” West said in a telephone interview from the Summit County Jail.
…
Officials will also ask a judge to order West to repay the county for the cost of the investigation: two lie detector tests, psychological evaluation, a five-day trip to Arizona and 3,000 hours of detective work. Detectives and a university archaeologist spent Tuesday digging for a woman’s hand that West said he had buried in the woods behind Roswell Kent Middle School, near Ina Ave.
West passed the lie detector tests, but detectives found no evidence to substantiate his claims.