Ohio Parole Board Renders Decision on Murderer Nathan Brooks
The double murderer who killed his mother and father a little more than 30 years ago has been denied parole following his first hearing with officials of Ohio’s Department of Corrections.
According to his Offender Details page on the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Corrections website, Brooks will not be eligible again until August 1, 2035. The hearing took place electronically on November 18th, and the amount of time between hearings was dictated by Senate Bill 326.
In January 2021, according to the Columbus Dispatch, SB 256 was signed by Governor DeWine after passing through the Ohio Senate and House of Representatives. SB 256 grants parole eligibility within five years to people who were under the age of 18 at the time of their offense and have been denied parole at least once.
The law also prohibits children from being sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Thirty states now either ban life without parole for children or have no one serving the sentence.
The legislation, which was sponsored by Republican Senators Nathan Manning and Peggy Lehner, has impacted hundreds of individuals in Ohio who were convicted of crimes they committed as children, including Brooks. Now that the Bellaire native has been denied parole following his first hearing, he will not be eligible again until 2035 because he committed two aggravated murders.
Brooks was just 17 years old when he was arrested near the Mount Zion Cemetery along Riggs Road in Belmont County soon after he murdered both his parents inside the family’s home on Sept. 30, 1995. He was charged with the murders after stabbing his mother and shooting and beheading his father as part of a Satanic ritual, and the 47-year-old is now 47 years old and has spent the last 30 years incarcerated.
Brooks has been an inmate at the London Correctional Institution since being first jailed in October 1996.
Belmont County Sheriff James Zusack was employed as a deputy jailer when Brooks committed his crimes, and he was assigned to escort Brooks during transports.
“I do remember the night it happened, and I remember most of the guys going on that call while I was stuck in the (county) jail as a young jailer,” Zusack recalled back in July. “I remember the deputies bringing him into the jail, and then to the Sargus (Juvenile) Center. But then I remember that Sheriff McCort assigned me to be with Nathan every time he was transported somewhere.
“He was a unique individual, and I remember his visitations. He worshipped Satan; that was obvious, but it was new to us around here,” he said. “He had some people from Columbus who came to visit him, and they said they were witches. They were dressed in a gothic style, and because of the position I was in then, I could hear their conversations. I’ve always explained them as weird to me; it was something I had never experienced.”
The Brooks home was located in a rural area of Bellaire, Ohio.
Zusack had never had his life threatened either. Until meeting Brooks, that is.
“I remember being in the back of the patrol car with him, and I had to be unarmed around him all the time. I remember he would speak English and then he’d speak fluent Latin, then go back to English,” the sheriff remembered. “One time we got Taco Bell, and out of nowhere, he looked at me and he said, ‘You know, I’d really like to kill you.’ He said that straight to my face.
“And I just said, ‘I know. Probably so, Nathan, but you’re not going to kill me,’ Zusack repeated. “Nathan said back, ‘Yeah, you’re bigger than me,’ and I said back, ‘Doesn’t matter. It’s not going to happen, so just calm down.’
Once it was decided he would be tried as an adult, he was lodged in the former Belmont County Jail and then moved to the former Barnesville City Jail.
Brooks was convicted in October 1996 of two counts of aggravated murder, and he’s been lodged in the London Correctional Institution since a jury of six men and six women found the teenager guilty on two charges of aggravated murder and of using a firearm in the commission of a felony. Deliberations in the double murder case took under three hours to complete, and he was then sentenced to a pair of 20-year life sentences plus an additional three years for the use of a firearm while committing the murders.
This jail cell is inside the Barnesville Police Department, and it's where the Belmont County Sheriff's Office held Brooks during his trial for double homicide.
“The whole situation was really off the wall," Zusack remembered. "Not only did he kill his parents, but he had a list. Don’t forget about the list. It was a long list of names because he had more plans locally, and even his brother (Ryan) was on that list. That’s why it was a good thing our guys located him as quickly as they did before anything else could happen.”
The life sentences, as per the late Belmont County Judge Charles Knapp, were to run consecutively. He has lived as Prisoner #A337726 since his arrival on October 27, 1996.
Belmont County Prosecutor Kevin Flanagan has communicated with the Parole Board because of the details of the case, and he did not believe the felon would be paroled.
Brooks has been one of approximately 2,500 inmates in the facility that rests within Union Township in Madison County, and the double murder has become known through the years as “The Devil of Bellaire” and “Dark Prince of Belmont County”.
According to the website for the Department of Rehabilitation & Correct, Brooks was eligible for parole in August 2025, but the hearing was delayed at that time. According to Ohio Revised Code Section 5149.10, the Parole Board was created as a section within the Adult Parole Authority and can consist of up to 12 members.
Law enforcement took this photo of the items used by Brooks while he brutally murdered his mother and father.
Brooks was arrested near the Mount Zion Cemetery along Riggs Road soon after his brother, then 16-year-old Ryan Brooks, called the police once he discovered his deceased parents in the early morning hours of Sept. 30, 1995.
