ANOTHER SUSPECT
Dr. Daniel Cannone was the Hartigs personal physician and friend.
Dr. Cannone told police investigators that he talked with Mr. Hartig in the evening of April 4, 1990 and that Mr. Hartig expressed concern that his insurance agent was overdue in paying off a $10,000 loan. Dr. Cannone told investigators that Mr. Hartig remarked that "This whole thing is starting to smell".
Dr. Cannone indicated that Mr. Hartig had kept his life savings in a heating duct in his basement and paid for everything with cash.
Mr. Hartig had told him that he paid cash for everything, including his car, his tractor, his home, and even paid his insurance agent in cash. Dr. Cannone said he had advised Mr. Hartig he was foolish to keep all that cash in the house. Shortly before he was murdered Mr. Hartig informed Dr. Cannone that he had followed Dr. Cannone's advice and had put his money in a safety deposit box and he gave Dr. Cannone the key, which Dr. Cannone showed the investigators and handed over to Bonnie Treesh, the Hartigs' niece, who was named administrator in the Hartigs' recently revised will.
The police obtained information that Lewis Lehman did own a .25 automatic gun that he kept in the middle console of his car.
Detective Kaley then in an interview dated 4/28/92 interviewed insurance agent Lewis Lehman.
Kaley informed Lehman that he had reason to believe that Lehman owned a .25 automatic.
The report of the interview states that Lehman admitted he had owned a .25 caliber automatic pistol, the same caliber and one of only four possible makes as the murder weapon.
Although he remembered that he had purchased the gun at Hecks in Alliance some fifteen years earlier, Lehman told investigators that he sold the gun "years earlier" but could not remember where or to whom he sold it. In 1992, the Portage County Sheriff's department fingerprinted Lehman and his photo was taken. Lehman was also scheduled to take a polygraph at the same time, but when he got to the sheriff's department he refused.
None of this information was used in Tyrone's trial.
The report contains no indication that investigators pursued the whereabouts of Lehman's gun and no mention of Mr. Hartig's expressed concern about Lehman's delay in making the loan payoff to Mr. Hartig.
As will be discussed later, the crime scene reflects that the Hartigs were not murdered by strangers but by someone known to them, someone who then conducted a careful, extensive, time-consuming search of the house. The Hartigs were shot sitting down at the kitchen table by someone sitting across the table from them.
Lewis Lehman admitted that the Hartigs conducted business at their kitchen table. Evidence showed that one bullet went through Mrs. Hartig and then through the back of her chair as she was seated. The trajectory of the bullet was from across the kitchen table. A spent shell casing was found on top of the kitchen table where it was ejected from the gun of the murderer.
Since all of the obvious valuables were left untouched, whoever murdered the Hartigs was looking for something valuable that was not obvious. The murderer may have been aware that Mr. Hartig had been keeping a lot of cash at his home or perhaps he may have been looking for a document. The significance of the papers dumped out of the desk in the Hartigs' living room cannot be overemphasized. Tyrone Noling and his alleged accomplices are not the sort to look for anything valuable in a pile of papers. Tyrone and his alleged accomplices could not have known that Mr. Hartig had kept a lot of cash in his home. The finger of suspicion points clearly to Lewis Lehman and away from Tyrone Noling and his alleged accomplices.
Bearnhardt told Dr. Cannone in their phone call in the evening of April 4, 1990 that he was going to call his insurance agent as soon as they hung up to schedule a meeting to get a pay off the $10,000 loan.
Three days later, deputies found the couple's bullet-riddled bodies.
Dr. Cannone remarked that Bearnhardt Hartig had also lent him money at one point and they had an amortization schedule drawn up as proof of the loan. Dr. Cannone stated that he thought Mr. Hartig had also drawn up the same type of document with Mr. Lehman.
Dr. Cannone's amortization schedule was found at the Hartig residence.
No other amortization schedule was found.
CONTINUED:
TIMING
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