CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio— The man accused of fatally stabbing a 40-year-old mother after years of abusing her served time in federal prison and in a New York jail for the statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl.
Jeffrey J. Conrad, 43, faces an aggravated murder charge in Stow Municipal Court, accused of killing ex-girlfriend Amanda Russell in the backyard of her 8th Street. Police said she was stabbed several times in the neck and the back.
Russell's body was discovered by her 14-year-old daughter.
Court officials have not scheduled Conrad's first court appearance.
Cuyahoga Falls police say they believe Conrad targeted Russell in the Thursday attack. Russell's daughter returned home from school and found the front door of their home open.
The girl told 9-1-1 dispatchers she saw her mother lying face down and bleeding in the backyard of their home in the 3200 block of 8th Street.
Conrad was arrested later that day by Cleveland MetroParks Rangers. He faces three counts of felonious assault filed in Cleveland Municipal Court and has since been held in jail on $150,000 bond in that case.
A violent history
Conrad has served more than five years in federal prison for possessing a gun despite being a felon.
A security guard at the University Hospital Bolwell Family Medicine Building in Cleveland found Conrad with a loaded .380-caliber pistol tucked in his waistband on Feb. 2, 2006. He also had 13 more bullets in his pocket.
He eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 57 months, or five years and three months in federal prison.
Conrad was convicted in 1998 in Albany of possessing a weapon as a felon, and was sentenced to between 18 months and three years in prison in 1995 for unlawful imprisonment.
Conrad in 1995 was sentenced to six months in the Albany County Jail in New York for rape. Court records say Conrad, at 21 years old, had sex with a 14 year old girl at her Albany home.
Abuse allegations
Conrad beat Russell for several years, prompting her 2012 request for a protection order. The order extended through 2017.
Russell wrote that in early November 2012 Conrad punched her in the back in front of neighbors, kicked and punched "her genital areas" and dragged her towards his car by her hair.
Police broke up the incident, according to court records. Russell wrote that she declined to press charges in the case for fear of more violence.
The violence continued, according to her account. Russell wrote that Conrad slapped, choked or hit her at least once per week leading up to her filing for the protection order, according to filings. He also choked her to the point of unconsciousness, according to the court records.
Conrad chased her with a rock Dec. 3, 2012. He took her car keys and cellphone and choked her to the point the blood vessels in her eyes popped on Dec. 10, records say.
"I am scared of more violence, if (I) did report," Russell wrote. "But now violence is escalating and I am scared he will kill me if (I) don't start this process."
The protection order failed to stop Conrad from attacking Russell in ensuing years.
On March 26, 2013, Conrad was accused of breaking into Russell's Akron home, stealing her gun and firing three gunshots from the balcony. The bullets ripped through a neighbor's home and narrowly missed a sleeping 17-year-old boy, police reports say.
Conrad beat Russell again on Feb. 6, 2014. Police reports say Russell let him inside so they could talk and knocked her to the ground, jumped on top of her and punched her repeatedly in the face.
Russell's 14-year-old daughter told police she heard screaming, saw Conrad punching her mother and ran out of the apartment. Russell suffered two black eyes and cuts on her lip and eyes that required stitches at Akron General Medical Center.
Conrad was sentenced to 90 days in jail for the attack.