He was arrested on Tuesday and is currently being held without bail at the Champaign County Tri-County Regional Jail where his first court appearance is pending.
According to a statement from the Ohio Attorney General’s office, which is handling the case in conjunction with the Urbana Police Division, Mathews is accused of breaking into the home of Louis Taylor on Oct. 24, 2011 and badly assaulting the 87-year-old man.
Taylor was found inside his home in the 500 block of Dorothy Moore Avenue the next morning. He was flown by medical helicopter to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton before his family later transferred him to Hospice in Dayton where he died as a result of his injuries on Nov. 17, 2011.
Despite collecting evidence from both Taylor’s home and locating his 2006 Jeep Liberty at the Long John Silver’s on South Limestone in Springfield shortly after his death, Taylor’s case ran cold.
At the time of Taylor’s death, Urbana Police Chief Matt Lingrell told the Springfield News-Sun he had “never had a case like this.”
“The scene – very pristine residence, very well-kept residence, very bloody residence,” Lingrell said in 2011. “Yes, there’s violence in Urbana. Do we have home invasion assaults in Urbana? No.”
In a statement, Lingrell said over the course of the last nine years, Taylor’s case, “has always remained on our minds and in our work efforts.”
“We have never lost sight of our duty to Mr. Taylor and his family to find justice for his killing. Monday’s criminal indictments and (Tuesday’s) arrest of Josiah Mathews moves us into the judicial portion of trying to answer that calling,” Lingrell said.
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