June 24—A Dayton man indicted Monday is accused of strangling his mother, whose body was found in her SUV in 2007 in the parking lot of the former Dayton Airport Inn.
Jeffrey Trent Young, 59, is being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $1 million bail. He will be arraigned Thursday in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court on charges of murder, assault and tampering with evidence.
Patricia Peck, 62, of Clayton was reported missing on Feb. 25, 2007, when she failed to show up for work at the hair salon she co-owned in Butler Twp. According to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office, she left work the day before to visit her son.
Her body was found on March 8, 2007 in the backseat of her SUV in a rear parking lot of the now-destroyed hotel at 3300 Terminal Drive in the city of Dayton.
“Her body showed signs of blunt force trauma to her face and torso. A plastic bag was wrapped around her face,” according to an affidavit filed in Dayton Municipal Court.
The coroner’s office determined the cause of death was strangulation, and the victim’s son was a suspect early in the investigation, the prosecutor’s office said.
Young previously told police that he last saw her after she dropped him off at his apartment the night of Feb. 24, 2007, according to the affidavit.
In 2023, evidence was submitted to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation for review, with an unknown man’s DNA found on the pants and socks Peck was wearing at the time of her murder.
In August 2023, a search warrant was obtained for Young’s DNA, which police said turned out to be a match.
During a June 13 interview with Dayton police, Young admitted that he had worked at the Dayton Airport Inn for more than three years. He also reportedly admitted to police that Peck had entered his apartment on the night of Feb. 24, 2007, and had not dropped him off alone, which he had never previously admitted to, the affidavit said.
Police said in 2007 that Young was the last person to see his mother alive, but he told the Dayton Daily News that he had nothing to do with her death. He said they went to a grocery store the night before she went missing and then went to Wendy’s drive-thru before his mother dropped him off at his Huber Heights apartment.
“I thought she just went home. I didn’t think anything was even wrong,” Young told this newspaper.
Previous stories:
March 12, 2007: Son of beautician talks about mother’s death
March 10, 2007: Missing Clayton woman found dead in SUV
