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LIBERTY -- A federal complaint filed against township officials, alleging the investigation surrounding a woman's death was botched, has been dismissed, according to court records.
Corrine A Lynn and Samantha R. Lynn filed the lawsuit July 31, 2019, naming the township, two of the township trustees, the former police chief, the police chief and a captain.
Loraine S. Lynn, the mother of Corrine and Samantha Lynn, was found dead Aug. 2, 2017, on her mother's farm in the township.
The family still is seeking answers about the "needless death," said their attorney, J. Eric Holloway of Dublin.
The cause of Lynn's death initially was ruled accidental, but six months after she was found in a pond at the Shannon Road home, the Trumbull County Coroner's office changed the ruling to homicide. She was 60.
While it initially was thought the woman died in a tractor accident -- a tractor was overturned in the pond -- no water was in her lungs, her neck was heavily bruised, she was involved in a tense dispute with a family member and there were other suspicious signs, the suit stated. Lynn made her living operating heavy machinery and so was familiar with using a tractor, the suit states.
The investigation still is open, Toby Meloro, Liberty police chief, said.
The complaint raises an August 2018 report from former police Chief Richard Tisone to township trustees.
The report "concluded then-Capt. Meloro did not properly investigate Ms. Lynn's death. He recommended to the Liberty Township, Ohio Board of Trustees, that Capt. Meloro receive discipline. Upon information and belief, none was given. After Chief Tisone retired, the (trustees) promoted then Capt. Meloro to police chief," the complaint states.
All of the defendants denied the allegations in their answers, stated the men acted within the parameters of state law and stated they were protected under principles of qualified immunity.
Federal Judge Benita Y. Pearson in Youngstown found the plaintiffs "failed to demonstrate they were denied a right secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States," an "essential element" for the type of suit filed, according to U.S. District Court Northern District of Ohio records.
"The Lynn family respects the review that the District Court gave to this lawsuit. They find some comfort that the court did not praise the defendants' law enforcement actions when investigating their loved one's death. Instead, the court only determined that the defendants' conduct did not violate a recognized constitutionally protected right," Holloway said. "Still, the Lynn family remains resolute. They know that Loraine Lynn's killer is out there."