A Fostoria murder case that went unsolved for 20 years produced an arrest on Thursday. Fostoria police and special agents from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation arrested Bradly Ray, 50, of Fostoria, on a murder indictment in the 2006 killing of Jeffrey Risner, according to a Fostoria Police Division press release dated October 29, 2026, and reported by The Fostoria Free Press.
Earlier Thursday, a Seneca County grand jury returned a secret indictment charging Ray with murder under Ohio Revised Code 2903.02, the release said, according to The Fostoria Free Press. Seneca County Common Pleas Court Judge Damon Alt signed the indictment, and after the warrant was issued, patrol officers, detectives, and special agents took Ray into custody without incident, police said in the release reported by The Fostoria Free Press.
Ray was taken to the Seneca County Jail, where he is being held without bail pending his initial court appearance, according to the release. An indictment is a formal charge, not a finding of guilt, and Ray is presumed innocent unless and until he is proven guilty in court.
The case began on March 2, 2006, when Risner’s body was found in a utility building behind his home in the 100 block of Palmer Street in Fostoria, police said in the release reported by The Fostoria Free Press. Risner was 50 years old when he died.
For two decades, that is where the public record largely stopped. Risner’s death has been listed as an unsolved homicide in the Ohio Attorney General’s cold case homicide database, investigated by Fostoria police and BCI, according to The Fostoria Free Press. Cold case listings keep a victim’s name and case in front of investigators and the public, but they do not by themselves produce an arrest — that takes new evidence, new witnesses, or new forensic work, none of which police described on Thursday.
Police said the investigation is ongoing, and they were explicit about how little more they will say for now. To protect the integrity of the investigation and to safeguard due process, no additional information will be released at this time, the release said, according to The Fostoria Free Press. That means the questions a 20-year-old case naturally raises — what changed, what evidence the grand jury heard, and whether anyone else is being investigated — remain unanswered in the public record.
Fostoria sits at the junction of Seneca, Hancock and Wood counties, and a case from Palmer Street has been part of the city’s unresolved history for a generation of residents — children who were in school in 2006 now have children of their own. A secret indictment is, by design, the quietest way a case like this can move: the grand jury hears evidence in private, the charge is filed under seal, and the first public sign is the arrest itself, which is the sequence police described on Thursday.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know comes from the Fostoria Police Division’s own release, as reported by The Fostoria Free Press: a secret indictment returned Thursday, a murder charge under Ohio Revised Code 2903.02, an arrest made without incident the same day, and a defendant held without bail in the Seneca County Jail. What we are still waiting on is everything the release withheld — the evidence behind the indictment, a motive if prosecutors allege one, and the court schedule beyond Ray’s initial appearance.
Cold cases moving again is a reminder of how northwest Ohio law enforcement work can span decades and agencies. This week alone, the region has seen the patrol’s work in cases like the Defiance County crash that sent a driver to a Toledo hospital and the continuing court fallout from the Toledo chemical release, which has drawn new class actions — different cases, but the same long arc of investigations and court proceedings playing out across the region.
Anyone with information about the Risner case can contact the Fostoria Police Department at (419) 435-8573 or the BCI tip line at 855-BCI-OHIO (855-224-6446), police said in the release reported by The Fostoria Free Press. In a case this old, investigators say such tips can still matter — memories, documents, and details that seemed minor in 2006 can read very differently in 2026.
What happens next is in Seneca County Common Pleas Court. Ray’s initial court appearance is the next concrete step, where the charge will be addressed in open court and the case will begin moving toward the pretrial and trial schedule that a murder indictment sets in motion. After 20 years of waiting, Jeffrey Risner’s case now has a defendant, a charge, and a courtroom — and a community watching to see what the evidence shows.
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