TOLEDO, Ohio — Editor's note: The video in the above player is from a previous report in July 2022.
A sentence was handed down Friday in a 2001 north Toledo cold case involving an 82-year-old woman who was found dead in her home.
Robert Flanigan was sentenced to six years in prison after entering an Alford plea to involuntary manslaughter, a first-degree felony, and was found guilty in the death of Dorothy Rejiester.
On Nov. 19, 2001, Rejiester's home in the 300 block of Stanley Court was burglarized. Two days later, her son and daughter-in-law found her body in her bedroom.
The cause of death was asphyxia. Among the items missing from the home were a television and a new credit card.
The credit card was found in Flanigan's possession and he was indicted for her murder. However, charges were dropped in early 2002 due to potential issues with evidence.
Flanigan was reindicted on murder charges in July 2022. At the time, he had been incarcerated at the North Central Correctional Institution in Marion, Ohio since 2018 on a robbery and kidnapping conviction.
Flanigan was also sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2012 for a string of robberies in south Toledo.
He is subject to five years of mandatory post-release control after serving his prison sentence.
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