On the evening of March 30th, 2012, Gary Zurkl unlocked the door of the duplex he rented next door to his own home. For two days, the bathroom door had been locked from the inside, and a strange, pungent smell had been seeping out from under it. Jessica Sako’s mother had come by looking for her daughter, frantic and worried, and Gary couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. He removed the doorknob mechanism and pushed the door open.
The odor hit him like a wall. He pulled back the shower curtain and saw what was left of Jessica lying in the tub. He didn’t stop to look twice. He ran out the front door, gasping for air, his mind blank except for one thought: her mother.
Jessica Ray Sako was born on August 28th, 1990, in Santa Clara, California. Her parents separated when she was young, and she spent part of her childhood with her father’s side of the family. As a teenager, she moved to Urbana, Ohio, where she attended Graham High School and later briefly enrolled at Urbana University. She was petite, with a bright smile, and her friends remembered her as sweet, quirky, and a little odd.
She loved to make people laugh and often played the class clown. Even when she was bullied, she didn’t let it bother her. But Jessica carried private struggles. She was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder and was prescribed medication.
During her late teens, her relationship with her mother, Sue Tainer, grew strained. Jessica sought acceptance online, especially in the Juggalo community, a subculture of fans of the band Insane Clown Posse, known for their face paint and a philosophy of family and freedom. In early 2011, Jessica moved to Florida to live with a boyfriend, but the relationship soured within a year. Feeling lost and unsure what to do next, she agreed to her mother’s invitation to come home to Ohio.
Sue promised she would do everything she could to help. Jessica returned in mid-2011, and with her mother’s support, she secured a small duplex apartment at 625 West Light Street in Urbana. Mother and daughter were rebuilding their bond. “We were just kind of doing well, building back the relationship that was torn apart for all those years,” Sue later said.
Jessica seemed hopeful. She was on the right medication, looking for work, and searching for friends and love online, where she felt most at ease. Being online, her mother said, she could be anyone she wanted. She could meet people.
But the next person to enter Jessica’s life was someone looking to exploit her trust. Matthew Puchio’s upbringing in California was unstable. He was raised by his grandparents and attended private Christian schools, where he first met Andrew Forny. Matthew claimed that his life had always involved some form of death.
At fifteen, he tried living with his biological father, but it ended in a physical fight. He spent the next few years drifting through state-run group homes, getting into fights and scrapes with the law. By adulthood, he had no official criminal record, but he carried a propensity for anger and violence. After turning eighteen, he wandered the country, never holding a job for long.
He traveled to Virginia, Utah, Montana, and finally Texas, where he fathered children. By 2011, he was an unemployed young man in Fort Worth, dealing with a failed engagement and a custody battle. Feeling alone and frustrated, he went online to meet new people. That was how he connected with Jessica, a friendly voice from Ohio who offered him sympathy and companionship over Facebook chat.
They became close quickly. Matthew later said Jessica was his star in life, that she gave him emotional support when he was at his lowest. After months of chatting daily, he traveled from Texas to Ohio to meet her in person. They hit it off and began a romantic relationship.
By the fall of 2011, he had moved into her small duplex. Sue noticed red flags immediately. “I knew there was something I didn’t like,” she said. “He always averted his eyes.
When people do that, then I know they are not who they say they are. ”
Matthew was not the only dangerous element to enter Jessica’s life. In early 2012, he invited friends to stay in her apartment, turning her tiny home into a crowded and volatile place. Andrew Forny, now twenty-six, and his wife Candace, twenty-five, moved down from Michigan.
They had served in the Army, shared the Juggalo lifestyle, and effectively squatted in the apartment without contributing rent. Not long after, two more of Matthew’s acquaintances moved in: thirty-seven-year-old Christopher Wright and twenty-five-year-old Sharon Cook. That meant five additional adults were crammed into Jessica’s apartment, creating a tense and hostile environment. In February 2012, a teenage girl from Texas ran away and stayed with Matthew in the apartment for about a week.
Police found her and returned her home. Matthew was charged with interfering with custody for harboring a minor. It wasn’t until much later that the girl disclosed Matthew had assaulted her during that stay. Jessica likely had no idea.
By March 2012, things came to a head. Jessica and Matthew argued often, and neighbors described their relationship as volatile. Jessica’s friends noticed distressing posts on Facebook and worried she had stopped taking her medication. Matthew had indeed persuaded her to quit.
“She will not be taking her medication because I don’t believe in medication and she doesn’t need medication,” he said. Jessica felt increasingly unwelcome in her own home. The others would sit in the same room texting Matthew nasty messages about her, taunting her indirectly. She confided in her mother and friends that the situation had become unbearable.
Her friend Amanda advised her, “You need to get him out of there. ” By mid-March, Jessica was telling friends she might ask Matthew to leave. On Thursday, March 22nd, 2012, Matthew later claimed that he discovered text messages on Jessica’s phone that upset him. He alleged she had texted someone saying she wanted him dead.
Friends doubted this, suspecting it was an excuse he made up to justify his actions. That fight escalated into something far worse. Investigators believe Jessica was brutally attacked inside her apartment over a span of several hours. Matthew stabbed her once in the abdomen.
Jessica was gravely wounded but not immediately killed. Matthew later recounted a chilling version of what happened next, claiming she begged him to finish her off and even pulled his knife hand into her stomach. This account came solely from Matthew and was viewed with skepticism, especially since he gave multiple false stories before confessing. What is certain is that Jessica did not die immediately.
Crime scene evidence indicated hours passed between the initial stab wound and her death. During that time, all four of Matthew’s friends were present in the apartment. They were in the living room while she was bleeding in another room with Matthew. He texted them to inform them she had been stabbed rather than calling for help.
None of them intervened or called 911. After some hours, Matthew decided to finish the job. He retrieved plastic bags and attempted to suffocate her. She clawed off the first bag, but he wrapped a second one tightly around her face, finally causing her to asphyxiate.
According to Matthew, Jessica’s last words were, “I still love you and I forgive you. ” That statement was uncorroborated and quite possibly untrue. With Jessica dead, Matthew’s crimes took an even darker turn. He enlisted his four friends to help dispose of the body.
They moved her into the bathroom and placed her in the bathtub. Using knives, a hacksaw, and pliers, Matthew and at least one of the other men methodically cut up her body over an extended period. Andrew later admitted in court that he actively helped mutilate her remains. Christopher was also charged with gross abuse of a corpse.
The two women stood by and later helped clean up and conceal evidence. At one point, the five perpetrators paused their work to go out to eat. In their words, they took a break at McDonald’s midway through chopping up Jessica’s body. After eating, they returned and finished cutting her body into pieces.
They placed parts into garbage bags and plastic storage bins. They loaded the remains into the Fornys’ green minivan and drove south toward the Butler County area, about seventy to eighty miles from Urbana. Over the next day or two, they discarded some limbs in rural locations in southern Ohio and across the river in northern Kentucky, including in Covington, Kentucky, and in Greene and Preble Counties in Ohio. They thought that by spreading the remains across different jurisdictions, it would be harder to trace the crime.
But not all of the remains left the apartment. In their haste, they left parts in the bathtub under a pile of clothes and towels, locking the bathroom door before fleeing. By late March, the five suspects had taken refuge in Hamilton, crashing at the home of a friend. They parked the van on the street.
According to court reports, Andrew and Candace slept in the van with the dismembered body parts still inside. Back in Urbana, Jessica’s disappearance had not gone unnoticed. By late March, her mother was extremely alarmed. She had been trying to contact her by phone and text for roughly a week with no answer.
On Thursday, March 29th, she went to the duplex to check in person. Matthew and his friends were gone. The bathroom door was locked, and Jessica was nowhere to be found. The next morning, around nine a.
m. , Gary used his keys to let himself in. He opened the bathroom door and found her partial remains, badly decomposed and dismembered. There were maggots and flies in the room.
Gary immediately called the police. The investigation moved quickly. Police confirmed a murder had taken place. Urbana Police Chief Matt Lingrell summoned the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
Forensic teams discovered blood evidence despite the attempted cleanup, and they found clues like discarded phone numbers. Investigators noted that limbs were missing from the body in the tub. One lead was Matthew’s cell phone number, which indicated a location around Hamilton, about eighty-five miles to the south. Hamilton police spotted a green minivan on a street that matched the description of the Fornys’ vehicle.
Through background checks and social media, investigators identified a nearby address where the group was hiding. In the early morning hours of March 31st, a multi-agency team descended on the house in Hamilton and took all five suspects into custody without incident. The entire group was arrested within roughly twenty-four to thirty hours of the crime scene being discovered. The story made national headlines due to its shocking nature.
Within days, all five suspects were formally charged. On April 2nd, 2012, Matthew was arraigned and charged with aggravated murder among other felonies. He told the judge he was receiving disability payments because, in his words, “I am clinically insane. ”
A court-ordered psychiatric evaluation found him competent to stand trial by mid-2012.
On June 12th, he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but this was short-lived. After being ruled fit for trial, he opted to negotiate a plea deal. On July 11th, 2012, Matthew and all four co-defendants pleaded guilty in Champaign County Common Pleas Court. The prosecution did not pursue the death penalty.
Andrew Forny pleaded guilty to nine counts and admitted he helped dismember and dispose of the body. Candace Forny pleaded guilty to three counts, acknowledging she knew about the murder and provided her van for transport without alerting authorities. Christopher Wright pleaded guilty to five counts, indicating he was aware during and after the murder and never tried to get help. Sharon Cook pleaded guilty to five counts, admitting she was present and assisted in cleaning or concealing evidence.
At the plea hearing, Jessica’s mother described her daughter as a funny, sweet woman who did not deserve her fate. She expressed gratitude for the community’s support. “This isn’t just about me and my family,” she said. “It’s about a community loss.
”
On August 20th, 2012, Judge Roger Wilson sentenced the perpetrators. Matthew faced a mandatory life sentence for aggravated murder. The judge ordered that he serve at least forty-two years before becoming eligible for parole. In court, Matthew addressed the judge and Jessica’s family, professing that he did love Jessica.
Judge Wilson asked how he could kill and butcher someone he claimed to love. Matthew’s reply was muted: “That’s what I’m still trying to figure out. ”
Jessica’s mom sat in the courtroom clutching a red velvet bag containing her ashes on her lap. Andrew Forny received ten years in prison.
Candace Forny received six years, and the court forfeited her green minivan to the Urbana Police. Christopher Wright received four years and a five-hundred-dollar fine. Sharon Cook received three years and a five-hundred-dollar fine. None of the defendants received probation.
In October 2013, while in prison, Matthew was convicted on separate assault charges involving the fourteen-year-old girl from February 2012. He pleaded guilty and received an additional five years, to be served consecutively. At that hearing, Matthew reportedly said he deserved to die for what he did to Jessica. Only Andrew Forny appealed his conviction, arguing his ten-year sentence was excessive.
In July 2013, Ohio’s Second District Court of Appeals upheld the sentence, noting the disturbing facts of his involvement, including how he helped dismember the body and slept in the van with the corpse. By the end of 2012, all five perpetrators were serving time in various Ohio prisons. Matthew was sent to the London Correctional Institution. As of 2025, the other four perpetrators are walking free.
The murder had a profound impact on the community of Urbana. On the evening of March 31st, 2012, about fifty people gathered outside Jessica’s home for a candlelight vigil. They left stuffed animals, wreaths, and crosses on the doorstep. One resident who showed up despite never having met her said, “It breaks your heart.
” Lifelong residents expressed disbelief. “I didn’t expect such a violent crime to occur in this neighborhood,” said Jim Asterino. “I just feel so bad for her. ”
On June 2nd, 2012, the family hosted a public memorial service and garden dedication in Conover Township, just outside Urbana.
They planted a memorial garden filled with Jessica’s favorite flowers, lavender and daylilies. Her mother described it as “not just a garden. It’s a memory for a lot of people and how this has affected a community. ”
In 2015, the Investigation Discovery series “Web of Lies” featured Jessica’s case in an episode titled “Crowded House.
” Jessica’s mother appeared, retelling what happened and warning others to be careful with online relationships. The episode has since been used in internet safety programs. The duplex did not remain a gruesome landmark. The landlord, Gary Zurkl, had the bathroom gutted and cleaned days after the body was found.
He saved only two items: Jessica’s birth certificate and her baby photo album, which he returned to her mother as mementos. That simple kindness meant the whole world to the family. Jessica’s online memorial has dozens of notes from strangers expressing sorrow and prayers. It states simply: “Jessica, 21 years old, was found dead in the small Ohio town of Urbana, about 50 miles northwest of Columbus.
Rest in peace, Jessica. ”
In the end, the murder of Jessica Ray Sako stands as a heartbreaking tale of a young woman whose kindness and openness were exploited by a cruel man. It is also the story of a community’s love overcoming horror.
Urbana will always remember her as a vibrant twenty-one-year-old with an infectious laugh, not just a victim of a terrible crime.
