James Carver has been charged with murder for the killing of a 33-year-old Wilmington woman, Highland County Sheriff Donnie Barrera said Friday afternoon.
Carver, 40, last known to be living in the New Vienna area, was arrested after a three-day manhunt that took investigators from Greenfield to Dayton, officials said.
He was taken into custody without incident at a Dayton residence at 7 p.m. Thursday night, according to Highland County Prosecuting Attorney Anneka Collins, and online records show he was booked into the Montgomery County Jail shortly after midnight Friday.
Barrera said in a news release that Carver has been charged in Hillsboro Municipal Court with murder and will be arraigned Monday, Feb. 25.
He is also charged with tampering with evidence in Madison Township County Court in Greenfield, Barrera said.
The sheriff also said Carver was on parole in Missouri at the time of the killing.
A booking mugshot shows a variety of tattoos on Carver’s head and neck, including tribal symbols on the sides of his face, numbers beneath his eyes often associated with white supremacist ideologies, and what appears to be the word “anger” across his throat.
Collins on Friday named Carver as a suspect in the shooting death of Heather Camp, 33, Wilmington, who died from a gunshot wound to the chest Tuesday morning at Adena Greenfield Medical Center in Greenfield.
Dr. Jim McKown, an investigator for the Highland County Coroner’s Office, said Camp was taken to the emergency room by an acquaintance at about 6 a.m. Tuesday. Officials said a resuscitation attempt was unsuccessful and she died from the wound.
According to McKown, Camp’s body had extensive facial bruising indicating repeated physical trauma in the days leading up to her death.
Numerous Facebook posts during the week indicated Camp and Carver were girlfriend and boyfriend.
Carver was arrested on a warrant for tampering with evidence from the Greenfield Police Department, Collins said. The prosecuting attorney declined to release further information on the charge.
Carver has a lengthy criminal record, having been convicted of more than 30 offenses in Clinton County and Highland County courts, including aggravated assault, attempted abduction, domestic violence, receiving stolen property, disorderly conduct, assault and endangering children.
As of Wednesday, a photo appearing on a Facebook account apparently belonging to Carver showed a logo containing a swastika, a skull and guns, as well as the text, “Aryan Strikeforce Combat 18.” That account is no longer available.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Aryan Strikeforce is a white supremacist group with a unit known as Combat 18.
Two tattoos on Carver’s face — the number 14 under one eye and 88 under the other — are often associated with white supremacist ideologies, according to an entry in the Anti-Defamation League’s online Hate Symbols Database.
The number 14 is a reference to a popular white supremacist slogan containing 14 words, and the number 88 is an alphanumeric code for HH, standing for “Heil Hitler,” according to the entry.
“Together, the numbers form a general endorsement of white supremacy and its beliefs,” the entry said.
On Friday, Collins said she will meet with investigators to review evidence in the homicide case and determine charges.
“In the coming days, we will sit down and go through the evidence in the case and go from there,” Collins said. “In any case, ethically, it’s required that we go through the evidence to determine what we can prove, and then we determine what we can charge.”
On Thursday night, Collins lauded local detectives for their work, saying they had been “conducting the investigation quietly” over the past few days in hopes of taking Carver in.
Anyone with information on the death is urged to contact the Highland County Sheriff’s Office at 937-393-1421, Greenfield Police Department at 937-981-7777 or the Highland County Coroner’s Office at 937-393-6633, or, for anonymous tips, call or text TIP411.
Reach David Wright at 937-402-2570.
