Criminal record dogs Brooks
Past includes prison and felony charges

By Stacy St. Clair Dayton Daily News

Ernest Vernell Brooks called Deanna Watson's Knoxville, Tenn., home in early June and asked her if she had any odd jobs he could do.

``If you don't let me know by 6 o'clock, I'm going to go back to Ohio,'' said Brooks, an on-again, off-again employee of the Watson Painting Co.

Deanna Watson never called him back. And shortly after, Brooks moved into the run-down house on Webster Street that backed up to Therressa Jolynn Ritchie's home, bringing a lengthy record of criminal charges with him.

Ritchie and Brooks both face charges in the death of Ritchie's daughter, 4-year-old Samantha Ritchie. Brooks, 43, is charged with gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.

But Brooks, who is currently in the Montgomery County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bond, is also wanted in Tennessee on charges of kidnapping, robbery and theft.

Knoxville police say that on June 2, Brooks offered to take Ella Mae Reaganto cash a check. After she finished the errand, he drove her outside the city against her will and attempted to have sex with her.

According to an unserved arrest warrant, when Reagan refused his advances Brooks stole $421.98 from her billfold. The woman escaped and walked to a nearby town.

The Knox County Sheriff's Office in Knoxville said attempts will be made tobring Brooks back to Tennessee.

``Given that this is a felony, he probably will be extradited,'' said Dwight Vandevate, public information officer.

This is not the first time Brooks has l Brooks clashed with authoritiesin Knoxville, the city where he was born.

He was scheduled to appear in a Knox County Criminal Court Monday in connection with two thefts last summer. According to court records, Brooks is accused of stealing about $6,000 in tools - a felony -from his employer on Aug. 18, 1994 .

David Donahue said he paid Brooks to work on properties he owned in return for reductions in Brooks' rent. Brooks moved into one of Donahue's properties in the spring of 1994.

When the landlord confronted his tenant about allegedly pawning some wood-working equipment, Brooks said he needed the money to pay crack cocaine bills, Donahue said.

``He's a nice guy but he got into drugs,'' Donahue said. ``When I met him he was clean. He didn't have any money to do anything else.''

Although Brooks moved between Ohio and Tennessee during the last 12 months,he always appeared for hearings concerning the felony theft charges, said Julie Auer of the Knoxville Public Defender's office.

Auer last saw her client on May 1, when she asked the court to postpone thetrial and have a psychological evaluation performed on Brooks. The test was never completed.

Six days before Donahue and his wife, Mary , pressed charges against him, police arrested Brooks for stealing non-prescription medicine from a local grocery store, a misdemeanor.

His legal troubles followed him to Ohio. He was cited by Dayton police for driving without a license on June 15 and pleaded not guilty nine days later.

According to court records, he failed to appear on July 5. When police first questioned him about Samantha's disappearance, they arrested him, but heposted $270 bond himself.

In addition to his clashes with local and state authorities, Brooks has also spent time in federal prison. In November 1982, he was sentenced to five years in a Milan, Mich., prison for mailing threatening communication with weapons while in a federal reformatory.

Incomplete Federal Bureau of Prisons records do not list the correction facility in which the offense occurred or his original conviction.

In October 1991, Brooks was sent from the Milan prison to a halfway house, where he escaped a few days later. Authorities arrested Brooks four months later and he was reassigned to a prison in Ashland, Ky. He was paroled in December 1982.

After his release, Brooks told the Donahues and the Watsons that he made a living doing odd jobs because he could not handle full-time employment.

Deanna Watson and Mary Donahue said Brooks received $446 Social Security payments each month because he was declared mentally incompetent and suffered seizures.

``My husband and I felt sorry for him,'' Deanna Watson said. ``I think he was between a rock and a hard place.''