Witnesses detail screams in Ohio septic tank case

LOGAN, Ohio - A woman on the ground was screaming "like somebody dying" while a stun gun was being used on her, witnesses told a jury Tuesday in the southeast Ohio trial of a man accused of killing his estranged wife.

William Inman II, 27, and his parents are charged in the death of Inman's 25-year-old wife, Summer. Authorities say she was abducted in Logan on March 22, 2011, strangled and dumped in an underground septic tank behind a church in nearby Athens County.

Inman and his parents have pleaded not guilty to murder and are being tried separately. Inman's trial is the first of the three.

Inman and his father face the death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder, while Inman's mother faces 15 years to life if convicted of murder.

Kylee Helman and Emily Hedges said they were out walking that night in March when they heard screaming and the sound of a stun gun from an alley next to Century National Bank, where Summer Inman had worked as an after-hours cleaning woman.

"Tzzt, tzzt, tzzt," Helman said, describing the stun-gun sound that she heard, the Columbus Dispatch reported Tuesday ( http:// bit.ly/NFnByY). The screams were "horrible, like somebody dying," she told jurors.

Hedges said she saw two men in dark clothing standing, and a woman on the ground in a ball, her knees drawn up. She said she could hear, but not see, a stun gun.

The two men threw the woman into the back seat of the car, and the car took off, Hedges said.

Richard "Joey" Leake, who also was walking in the area, told jurors he heard a woman screaming "bloody murder."

Leake said he walked into the alley where he saw a white car, a woman on the ground and the light of a stun gun that was pressed against the woman as two men stood over her. "They didn't let up," he said.

As he got close, Leake said, he heard a woman yell, "There's someone behind you!" and the next thing he knew he'd been sprayed with something that blurred his vision. He stumbled from the scene and went to find police, he told jurors.