CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — A Guardian analysis of Ross County Sheriff’s Office sex offense case records over the past 12 months reveals a pattern that advocates, victims, and now data say demands answers: of 78 sex offense cases handled by the sheriff’s office, only five resulted in a genuine resolution or arrest. That is a resolution rate of roughly 6%.
The rest — rape cases, gross sexual imposition cases, cases involving children as young as 11 — sit open, forwarded to supervisors, or were closed without action.
One family knows exactly what that looks like from the inside.
The family of a teenage girl told the Guardian that after filing a rape report with the Ross County Sheriff’s Office alleging their daughter had been sexually assaulted by an adult male, they never heard from investigators again. No detective ever called. No follow-up ever came. The case, as far as they know, simply disappeared.
Their experience is not unique. The Guardian’s analysis of the sheriff’s office’s own records shows that among the open sex offense cases in the system right now, the oldest has been sitting without resolution for nearly a year. Several cases involving rape allegations have been open for more than 300 days. Cases involving children — including victims under 13 — appear in the open case queue alongside cases that have been forwarded to supervisors and apparently gone no further. This was just in the last 12 months. Digging deeper, the Guardian found cases that remain open for over 5 years.
The numbers raise a question the community deserves an answer to: What is happening to sex crime investigations in Ross County?
The Rufus Lowman case
No case illustrates the problem more starkly than that of Rufus Lowman.
Lowman, a former Chillicothe physician assistant who operated Rose Medical Clinic, was arrested in March at his Ross County home on a nationwide warrant out of Florida charging him with child sexual abuse crimes — crimes that the Ross County Sheriff’s Office had evidence of for years and never acted on.
The abuse allegedly began when his former stepdaughter was 11 years old and continued until she was 18, spanning periods in Florida and after the family relocated to Ohio. Evidence presented to the Ross County Sheriff’s Office — including an audio recording in which Lowman allegedly confesses to the abuse — was not enough to move the agency to act. The sheriff’s office was also in possession of a detailed victim statement. Over a decade later, the case in Ross County remains open.
The Guardian shared the case two years ago with Florida law enforcement, providing investigators with the same alleged audio confession and connecting them with the victim’s family. Florida investigators — unlike their Ross County counterparts — viewed the evidence as sufficient to build a case. That work culminated in Lowman’s arrest in March.
Lowman is currently held in the Lee County, Florida jail on a $250,000 bond. If convicted, he faces life in prison.
Lowman’s Ohio medical license was permanently revoked by the State Medical Board in September 2024 for improperly prescribing opioids and other Schedule II controlled substances to patients without required supervision between 2022 and 2024. One family told the Guardian that Lowman gave their son controlled substances while operating what they described as a pill mill — and that their son later died.
What the data says
The Guardian’s analysis of over 78 sex offense cases filed with the Ross County Sheriff’s Office over the past 12 months shows the following: at least 22 cases are open and under active investigation, 9 cases have been forwarded to a supervisor with no further action on record, 8 cases are under prosecutor review, and 1 case is pending trial. Roughly 5 genuine sex offense cases were resolved or resulted in an arrest.
Sixteen cases were closed as unfounded. Three were declined by prosecutors. Two were closed because the victims refused to cooperate.
The sheriff’s office’s own records tell the story. In Ross County, if you report a sex crime, the odds are roughly 6% that it will result in a resolution. The odds are higher that it will sit open for the better part of a year — or simply disappear.
Editor’s note: A closer look at the data reveals another troubling disparity. Of the 10 sex offense cases handled by the Chillicothe Police Department over the same period, 8 were closed — a closure rate of 80%.
Data can be found by visiting the sheriff’s office public portal here: PUBLIC SAFETY SUITE PRO