A 22-month-old child and his two grandparents have been identified as the three people found fatally shot inside an Ohio home after a haunting 911 call in which a dispatcher reportedly heard someone quietly say, “help.”

The victims were named Thursday as Melissa E. Campbell, 51, Gale F. Sanders, 67, and toddler Kozzar J. Lotut. Deputies found their bodies Wednesday at a residence in Gnadenhutten, a small village south of Canton.

The Tuscarawas County Coroner’s Office said all three victims had sustained gunshot wounds.

Authorities are working to reconstruct the events that unfolded inside the home before the deadly discovery.

The investigation began after an unusual emergency call placed shortly after 4 a.m. The connection ended before dispatchers could determine the caller’s location.

When operators called the number back, they reportedly heard what sounded like a quiet request for help.

The Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office said one dispatcher heard a “voice softly saying the word ‘help.’”

That disturbing detail triggered an urgent search for the caller and ultimately directed deputies to the Ohio residence, where they found the three victims.

Investigators are considering the possibility that the case was a murder-suicide, but officials have not said who fired the shots or what may have led to the violence.

A firearm was found next to one of the bodies. The sheriff told Cleveland 19 that the evidence collected so far was consistent with a murder-suicide.

Even so, the circumstances surrounding the deaths remain unclear, and authorities have not publicly named a suspected shooter.

The tragedy has deeply shaken the close-knit rural community of Gnadenhutten.

The sheriff’s office said the first warning came just after 4 a.m. Wednesday, when emergency dispatchers received the troubling call.

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The 911 connection was severed almost as soon as it began.

Because the caller never gave an address, dispatchers initially had no clear way to identify where assistance was needed.

Investigators later reached the person listed as the phone’s owner, who said he had loaned the device to someone else.

That information led deputies to examine several possible addresses as they worked to narrow down the phone’s location with their search ultimately bringing them to the property in Gnadenhutten.

A family member was already at the scene when law enforcement arrived and allowed deputies to enter the home, according to the sheriff’s office. 

Once inside, officers discovered the bodies of two adults and a young child.

The coroner’s office confirmed their identities as little Kozzar, who was just 22 months while Campbell and Sanders were his grandparents, who had played an important role in looking after the little boy. 

The pair frequently helped care for Kozzar because he had medical disabilities.

It also remains unclear exactly when the shootings occurred in relation to the initial 911 call, or whether the faint plea for assistance came from one of the three people subsequently discovered dead.

The sheriff has indicated that investigators are examining the possibility that one of the deaths was self-inflicted and the others were homicides. 

For millions of viewers, the hit American crime drama Dexter has long been an absorbing way to unwind after a demanding day.

Yet for a disturbing minority, the series has crossed the line from entertainment into something far more dangerous: an apparent influence on real-world violence.

In the space of just three months, two British men who modelled themselves on the show’s serial killer, Dexter Morgan, were convicted of brutal murders. A 16-year-old fascinated by the series was also convicted of attempting to kill a girl he did not know at school.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was 15 when he confronted his victim in a corridor at Thorpe St Andrew School. Wearing a balaclava, he stabbed her in the back before running away.

During his two-week trial, jurors heard that he had developed a “dangerous interest in killers and killing”. He made video compilations featuring real and fictional murderers, including Dexter, and wanted the kind of “admiration” he believed criminals received for their crimes.

Just two weeks earlier, forensics student Benjamin Day, 20, admitted murdering 24-year-old Maria Saceanu after luring her to a plastic-lined “kill room” at an Airbnb in the West Midlands. His actions were linked to his fixation with the television series.

Day’s confession came only weeks after another man described as inspired by Dexter, 40-year-old James Desborough, was convicted of murdering and dismembering two men at his remote woodland cabin in Cornwall.

Since 2009, five other men have also been convicted of killings linked to an obsession with the show: Britons Steven Miles and Mark Howe, Canadian filmmaker Mark Twitchell, American teenager Andrew Conley and Norwegian Havard Nyflot.

First broadcast 20 years ago, Dexter centres on Dexter Morgan, a blood-splatter analyst by day who becomes a vigilante serial killer at night and is highly skilled at concealing his crimes.

Criminologists have warned that the series, which has since spawned three spin-offs, may offer copycat killers and would-be murderers a potential “how-to script”.

Alex Iszatt, a behavioural criminologist, told the Daily Mail: “Dexter gives them a ritual. They can fully become him: follow the same code and principles, wear the same clothes, and use the same methods of killing and disposing of bodies.”

“Dexter provides a usable identity. They are ready to perform to an imagined audience. They are Dexter.”

In the series, Morgan works as a blood-splatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department before secretly becoming a vigilante killer after dark.

His actions are controlled by a twisted quasi-ethical framework taught by his adoptive father, known as “The Code”. Under its rules, Dexter is supposed to kill only proven murderers who have escaped justice—and must never be caught.

Morgan describes his supposedly uncontrollable urge to kill as his “Dark Passenger”. He follows a meticulous process, using contacts within the police department to investigate potential targets before carrying out his attacks.

His modus operandi is to prepare a ‘kill room’, wrapped completely in plastic sheets, to catch all evidence and blood. He tapes photos of the victim’s crimes to the walls, forcing them to look at what they have done.

Finally, he murders them and dismembers their bodies before dumping them deep in the ocean.

‘What makes Dexter particularly useful to a violent personality is that he provides a justification for killing,’ Ms Iszatt adds.

‘You’re not a monster with uncontrollable urges; you’re a vigilante, with standards, and the people you kill deserve it. It doesn’t matter if they happen to be your mother, brother or girlfriend.

‘There’s something inherently appealing about Dexter’s dual identity; he is a dark version of the superhero fantasy, respectable and ordinary by day, secretly powerful and dangerous by night. He is Batman.

‘For someone fascinated by control, violence and getting away with things, the fantasy is not simply being a killer, it’s doing what everyone else can’t, while remaining invisible.’

This week, the series was thrust back into the spotlight after a 16-year-old boy was convicted of attempted murder after stabbing a girl he did not know in the back with a kitchen knife in a horrifying unprovoked attack on March 11.

He was arrested by armed police shortly after fleeing Thorpe St Andrew School, near Norwich. His victim, who was also 15 at the time, miraculously escaped with only minor injuries to her back and was discharged from hospital the next day.

He was convicted of attempted murder after prosecutors successfully argued that he had intended to kill the girl – backed up by a cache of evidence police found at the boy’s home that showcased an obsession with serial killers including Dexter.

Prosecutors said he was obsessed with serial killers and had written in a note to himself that he had ‘seen serial killers being admired… I want admiration, gratification. I’ve wanted this for years. I don’t care who I hurt. Not anymore.’

King’s Lynn Crown Court was shown video compilations the teenager had made at home of both real and fictional serial killers, including Dexter. 

A video, thought to be made using the AI video editor Viggle.AI, showed the character dancing over a map of the show’s setting, Florida, and a ‘list of names of the victims’.

He made a similar video of actor Jamie Dornan as Paul Spector, a serial killer in the BBC2 series The Fall who, like Dexter, leads a double life: by day he is a bereavement counsellor but by night operates as a sadistic, sexually motivated murderer.

The teen also produced a ‘fancam edit’ of Dornan in character – a slick compilation  of clips usually made by fans of actors and pop stars to share with fellow admirers – which he captioned ‘me btw (by the way).’

It featured Dornan removing a mask he fashioned out of a neck gaiter and a beanie hat – giving him an appearance not dissimilar to the balaclava the teenager wore on the day he attacked his victim.

He also created a bizarre AI-generated video of US multiple killers Edmund Kemper and Ted Bundy dancing on top of a picture of the Earth alongside a third unidentified individual.

Other notes found by police expressed ‘hatred for women’ following the ‘failure of a relationship’, and hinted at a possible motive with thoughts on ‘misanthropy, misogyny, suicide, bullying’. 

He is also said to have made a ‘victims list’, and wrote an essay on arming himself with a knife and stabbing a man to death in the street.

Some of the material was found in a shoebox that appeared to have been stabbed. 

In his opening speech, prosecutor Christopher Paxton KC said the boy had an ‘obsessive and dangerous interest in killers and killing’ and a ‘hatred for women’.

He added: ‘[He] went to school not to learn but to kill, taking with him a kitchen knife.’

The teenager was convicted unanimously of attempted murder, and faces sentencing on December 18.

It is the third time in recent weeks that Dexter has been linked to horrific crimes of violence in Britain.

Earlier this month, University of Worcester student Ben Day violently stabbed Maria Saceanu 78 times to death before attempting to dismember her in an act directly inspired by the TV series. 

He changed into a khaki top similar to that worn by the character and prepared a copycat ‘kill room’ in what was planned to be a ‘tribute’ to the show he planned to share online.

The murderer, who changed his university course from journalism to study forensics and applied biology, also had a ‘shopping list’ of items required for the killing, including plastic sheeting, a staple gun, cleaning chemicals and microscopic slides.

Police said Day ‘had an obsessive personality and had become obsessed with the character Dexter’.

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Listing ‘similarities’ between the death and the TV series, prosecutor Rachel Brand KC told jurors: ‘Dexter Morgan works as a forensic scientist in a police department – and the broad premise of the programme is that he is a serial killer who knows how to cover his tracks.

‘As you know the defendant changed his university course… to study applied biology and forensics.

‘He had changed into ‘Dexter’ clothing before Maria Saceanu arrived at the house.

‘In the TV series Dexter prepares a ‘kill room’ when carrying out his attacks, lined with plastic sheeting which he fixes using a staple gun or duct/gaffer tape.

‘And this is exactly how the defendant had prepared the room.

‘Dexter wears an apron, a plastic visor and gloves when killing his victims – all such items were found in the bedroom.’

Other similarities with the TV series included a canvas roll containing knives found in the bedroom, the dismemberment attempts and microscope slides thought to be a ‘trophy’ from the killing, Ms Brand said.

Ms Iszatt, a former crime scene investigator, said the ‘kill room’ is particularly significant because it turns murder into a ritual of control.

‘On the show it’s clean, sterile and methodical; the plastic sheeting and protective clothing are presented as solutions to practical problems,’ she added.

‘For someone interested in forensics, it also feeds a fantasy of competence: not simply being capable of killing, but being clever enough to outsmart the police afterwards.’

The University of Worcester, where Day studied, boasts of ‘state-of-the-art research labs and dedicated crime scene simulation house provides immersive settings for working through real-world scenarios’.

They tell prospective students: ‘You’ll get to use industry-standard geophysical equipment for detecting concealed burials, crime scene investigation kits and specialist fingerprint-enhancing tools.’

A spokesman for the university said it was ‘deeply shocked and saddened by this terrible crime’. 

Ms Iszatt said the clothing Day was wearing was ‘not merely practical, but a uniform’.

‘Putting them on marks the transition from the ordinary person into ‘the other’ – the forensic-genius killer – creating a psychological distance from the act and making the fantasy feel more real’.

Day’s guilty plea came just 70 days after another Dexter fanatic James Desborough was convicted of murdering homeless men Claudio Aquilino, 57, and Daniel Coleman, 43, followed by his prison cellmate, Steven Kempster, 65, while awaiting trial.

The former builder befriended the two vulnerable men at a homeless shelter, before killing and dismembering them at his woodland cabin near Sticker, Cornwall. He used their bank cards and made journeys to create an illusion they were still alive.

Desborough was present at various points during police searches for the bodies and mentioned casually to a forensic biologist on the scene that he ‘particularly enjoyed the dismemberment scenes’ in Dexter.

Prosecutor Ahmed Hossain KC told jurors: ‘That is a series which involves scenes of dismemberment and disposal of bodies.

‘There are many, many people who are fans of the television programme Dexter but… when you consider that comment by Mr Desborough together with the fact that two dismembered bodies were found on his land, that the comment takes on a particular significance.’

This is at least one of seven Dexter-inspired killings in the last 17 years.

In 2014, British teenager Steven Miles, who was obsessed with the TV serial killer, was jailed for at least 25 years for murdering and dismembering his 17-year-old girlfriend Elizabeth Thomas.

Miles’s trial heard that he had a fixation with horror movies and wanted to copy the actions of Dexter Morgan.

The same year, Mark Howe, then 21, was jailed for at least 21-and-a-half years for murdering his mother, Katrina Wardle, at their home in Leicester.

He stabbed her more than 53 times in the face, mouth, neck, chest and arms after a row over his cannabis smoking. The judge described the attack as ‘akin to torture’.

It later emerged that Howe had been secretly sending his friends text messages about hating his mother and began stabbing the punch bag in his bedroom while also becoming obsessed with Dexter.

‘He was a fanatic for the programme,’ the victim’s husband, Kris Wardle, later revealed. ‘I mean, Dexter is a serial killer.’

Howe had used a photo of Dexter with a blood-splattered face as his own Facebook profile picture and had searched ‘Dexter’s kill knife’ before carrying out the murder.

In 2008, two years after the series first aired, Canadian film-maker Mark Twitchell murdered Johnny Altinger, 38, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and dismembered him after luring him to his death on a dating website, Plenty of Fish.

Twitchell was dubbed the ‘Dexter Killer’ due to his obsession with the show and its lead character.

At the time, Michael C Hall, the actor who played Dexter, denied the show glamourised killers.

‘I would hope that people’s appreciation was more than some sort of fetishization with the kill scenes,’ he said.

Referencing Twitchell, he said: ‘I wouldn’t stop making Dexter because someone was fascinated by it only in that way. I try to tell myself that their fixated nature would have done it one way or the other, but it seems that Dexter had something to do with it. It’s horrifying.’

In May 2013, it was reported that Twitchell had bought a TV for his prison cell, where he would catch up on every Dexter episode he had missed.

In 2010, American teenager Andrew Conley was handed a life sentence for strangling his ten-year-old brother to death in Indianapolis. He strangled him for 20 minutes in the kitchen before wrapping his brother’s head in two plastic bags and dumping the body.

Conley told police he had fantasised about killing and a few weeks before, he told his girlfriend that he wanted to be just like Dexter.

Also in 2010, 26-year-old Faiza Ashraf was kidnapped, murdered and buried in a shallow grave in Asker.

During the investigation, one of the killers – Havard Nyflot – claimed he had been inspired by Dexter and had decided the victim was a ‘bad person’ who deserved punishment.

Nyflot and his co-defendant were jailed for 18 and 19 years respectively.

Ms Iszatt said Dexter ‘gives vulnerable individuals a language for explaining their own violence’.

‘The narrative of the ‘Dark Passenger’ presents the violent part of Dexter as something that exists within him and demands expression.

‘For someone already experiencing violent impulses, that can become a convenient way of understanding and separating themselves: the violent part of me is not really me; it is something that happens to me.

‘The show doesn’t explain why these people wanted to kill – they have pre-existing psychology, fantasies and circumstances – but it provides a language, an identity and a practical template through which those existing impulses are expressed.’

Paramount, which owns Dexter series producer Showtime Networks, did not respond to a request for comment.

The childhood friend of Beau Lamarre-Condon, identified in court as Elizabeth Kennedy for legal reasons, finished giving evidence on Wednesday.

Ms Kennedy, pictured with Lamarre-Condon, told the court he drove her from Sydney to Goulburn on February 21, 2024—two days after he allegedly killed Jesse Baird and Luke Davies.

She said she had not been told they were heading to Goulburn and became “annoyed” after realising the journey would take them roughly two hours from Sydney.

According to Ms Kennedy, Lamarre-Condon instructed her to switch off her phone. His iPhone was also turned off, although he used an Android handset to access maps during the drive.

Asked by Crown prosecutors whether she could identify the destination on the map, Ms Kennedy replied: “I can’t read a map, I don’t drive, and I’ve never had a licence.”

She said Lamarre-Condon spoke very little about Baird during the trip, a change she found unusual.

Ms Kennedy recalled him saying: “Guess what? Jesse’s seeing someone new.”

She said she could see that he was upset, but described him as “very bubbly and very talkative”, leading her to believe the news had not affected him deeply.

That struck her as “odd”, she told the court, because conversations between them would usually focus almost entirely on Baird.

After arriving at Cella Farm in Bungonia, Ms Kennedy said she watched Lamarre-Condon cut through the lock on the main gate. She also said he told her to conceal the rental van’s number plate with a garbage bag.

He then walked towards the rear of the property, disappearing from her view, while she remained near the gate for about 40 minutes, she said.

Left alone, Ms Kennedy said she began to panic.

“I was hyperventilating and crying,” she told the court.

She described crouching down during a panic attack and wanting to switch her phone back on. When Lamarre-Condon returned, she said, he told her to be quiet, asked whether she had contacted anyone and was told that she had not.

Ms Kennedy said he then promised to take her home immediately, which helped her begin to settle.

She described the return journey as “awful”, saying she was still distressed and uncomfortably cold from the air conditioning.

“He told me not to speak, even though I was freezing cold,” she said. “He let me turn my air vent off but I wasn’t allowed to close the windows.”

Ms Kennedy also testified that Lamarre-Condon asked about her anxiety medication and whether she had “thought about ending it all”.

The next day, after seeing media reports about Baird’s disappearance, Ms Kennedy said she tried to contact Lamarre-Condon approximately 12 times.

He eventually returned her call through the encrypted messaging service Signal.

She told the court: ‘I saw the news the night before that Jesse was missing and I had some questions.

‘He said he couldn’t answer them on the phone, he said he was seeing police on Friday morning because he had a meeting with them.’

During the call, the court heard Ms Kennedy said to Lamarre-Condon: ‘Have you seen the news?’

The court heard he replied: ‘Yeah, it’s crazy. I have to go to Bondi Police Station to talk to detectives tomorrow.’

She asked: ‘Do you know where Jesse is?’

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He replied: ‘No, it’s just crazy.’

The pair had planned to go to Europe together later that year. On the call, Lamarre-Condon allegedly said: ‘If I can’t go to Europe with you, I’m so sorry, I love you.’

She said, ‘It felt like a final call … He sounded apologetic, a bit stressed, and then he hung up and tried to call him back after that but the phone was off.’

Ms Kennedy said she told her partner about the situation that evening and they decided to talk to a lawyer.

She went to Bondi Police Station the following day, made a statement and drove with detectives to Goulburn to find the Bungonia farm.

During cross-examination by defence lawyer John Stratton SC, Ms Kennedy told the court the only thing she could smell in the van was air freshener.

‘To be fair, I don’t know what a dead body smells like,’ she said.

Mr Stratton asked her if she could see into the back of the van.

She said the back area of the van was obscured by a mesh cage, which meant she could only see a blue tarp that appeared to be flat on the floor.

He asked: ‘Did it look like there were two dead bodies under it?’

Ms Kennedy replied: ‘That was the last thing I was thinking.’

He said: ‘It didn’t look to you like the tarp was hiding a wheelbarrow, a spade or bags of cement?’

She said: ‘No.’

He asked: ‘Did [Lamarre-Condon] say to you, “Hey, before you get in the van, I need you to know it’s serious and I’m not joking, if you don’t want to help, I understand”.’

Ms Kennedy replied: ‘No, he never mentioned anything about helping him with anything.’

Mr Stratton asked: ‘Did [Lamarre-Condon] lift the tarp and show you the head of a deceased Jesse Baird?’

She replied: ‘No, he definitely didn’t want me to know there was anything in the back.’

He asked: ‘Did you say, “Oh my God, I saw his head, you weren’t joking”?’

Ms Kennedy said that never happened. She also denied that Lamarre-Condon started crying.

She told the court: ‘He never showed any remorse or shed a tear, even when he called me from jail.’

Mr Stratton asked Ms Kennedy if she convinced him to hide the bodies rather than go to the police.

He asked her: ‘Did you say, “No, no, no, you can’t go to the police, they won’t believe you, this is like the Taylor Swift song, No Body, No Crime”?’

Ms Kennedy denied saying anything like that.

She told the court Lamarre-Condon played the song during their trip to Goulburn: ‘It’s a really niche song … I tried to play a few more songs from that album and he didn’t know any of them.’

President Donald Trump has continued to defend a hard-hitting campaign advertisement from Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that features the estranged mother of Democratic rival Amy Acton.

Although Trump insisted he knew little about the spot, he argued that Ramaswamy’s campaign was within its rights to broadcast it.

The president suggested reporters would have shown the same level of interest if his own mother had publicly criticized him.

“I’m defending it because I know that if that ad were about my mother, you would love it,” Trump told reporters, saying the media would have embraced every detail.

Ramaswamy has faced criticism from both Republicans and Democrats over the advertisement, which features Donna Arthur, Acton’s mother. Arthur remained married to Acton’s stepfather even after he was charged with sexually abusing Acton during her childhood.

Acton and her brother were taken out of Arthur’s custody, and Acton has said she has been estranged from her mother since she was 12 years old.

Trump was confronted with those details by reporters during a discussion on the South Lawn.

In the campaign commercial, Arthur labels her daughter a “liar” and accuses her of misrepresenting her background, including claims that she “grew up living in a tent.”

Arthur also urged Ohio voters to reject Acton at the ballot box.

Reporters asked Trump why voters should rely on the testimony of a mother who has reportedly had no contact with her daughter for almost five decades.

Trump replied that Arthur had made serious accusations against Acton, who is challenging Ramaswamy for governor, before adding that he considered Vivek “great.” He said a similar attack from his own mother would become a major news story.

He added that voters should consider the allegations significant because they came from Acton’s mother.

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When asked whether political campaigns should observe any boundaries, Trump again referred to his late mother, Mary MacLeod Trump.

“If my mother had said that about me, you would have been very happy about it,” Trump told the reporters, suggesting the story would have generated substantial attention.

Trump said he knew little beyond Arthur’s public criticism of a candidate seeking to lead Ohio. If even part of the claims were accurate, he argued, voters should not elect Acton governor.

He also accused the news media of coordinating with Acton’s campaign, saying that alliance was behind the backlash against Ramaswamy’s advertisement.

“The only problem is that the press has decided to unite and portray it as something terrible,” Trump said.

He had made a similar argument in a Truth Social post earlier Thursday afternoon. 

There he complained about Ohio’s current Republican Governor Mike DeWine, who had told the Associated Press that he found the spot ‘deeply, deeply troubling.’ 

‘He probably wants a Dumocrat to win, and certainly doesn’t want someone who will do a much better job than he is capable of doing,’ Trump grumbled about DeWine, who has previously broken with the President on several issues.  

Ohio has been firmly in the Republican column since Trump first won in 2016, but Democrats this cycle appear to be getting it closer to bringing it back to swing state status. 

The Real Clear Politics polling average shows Acton 3.6 percent ahead of Ramaswamy, who ran against Trump for President in the 2024 primary, before swiftly endorsing him after the Iowa caucuses. 

In the Senate race, former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown – who lost his seat 2024 – has pulled ahead of Republican Senator Jon Husted in most polls. 

The President will return to the state on Wednesday for another rally in Chillicothe.