The Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office filed an objection with the Ohio Parole Board regarding the upcoming parole hearing of Defendant Jennifer Bainbridge, which is scheduled for January 2022. Bainbridge is serving a sentence of 23 years to life in prison for the Aggravated Murder and Kidnapping of Joseph Depp and the Theft of Joseph Depp’s vehicle.
On October 6, 1994, around 9:25 p.m., the body of Joseph Depp, 20 years old, was found in the bed of his pickup truck with gunshot wounds to the head and groin. Defendant Jennifer Bainbridge was dating Co-Defendant Nicholas Ginnis at the time of Mr. Depp’s murder.
Bainbridge and her CO-Defendant, Nicholas Ginnis, set Mr. Depp up and called him over to Bainbridge’s home to kill him. When Mr. Depp pulled into the driveway, Bainbridge walked outside with a weapon under her shirt and shot Mr. Depp in the head. Ginnis told Defendant to shoot again, but she refused. Ginnis put on gloves, drug Mr. Depp out of the truck and into the truck bed, and then shot him. Ginnis took the truck containing Mr. Depp’s body to dump it. When Ginnis returned, he and Defendant picked up shell casings and bloody towels, put them in a trash bag with Ginnis’s clothing and Mr. Depp’s pager, and placed them in a dumpster behind Denny’s
Defendant’s crimes are challenging to comprehend. For example, she shot a man in the head because he disagreed with her boyfriend over money and a gun. When she eventually confessed to police that she shot Mr. Depp in the head, Bainbridge did not claim that he presented any threat to her. Her explanation was simply that Ginnis gave her a gun and told her to shoot Mr. Depp, hardly a reason to shoot an unarmed man in the head.
For all these reasons, the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office objected to the release of Jennifer Bainbridge because of the cold-blooded and calculated murder of Joseph Depp. Bainbridge planned Depp’s murder and attempted to hide his body while taking all of his belongings; this demonstrates that there does not exist “reasonable ground to believe that * * *paroling [Jennifer Bainbridge] would further the interests of justice and be consistent with the welfare and security of society.” R.C. 2967.03