A Teenage Murder-Suicide Sparks Racist Fliers In West Chester, Ohio

Kareem Elgazzar/Staff photographer Amy Hosier, 35, of Deerfield Twp., shows one of the many fliers she picked up off of cars in her neighborhood, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011. "If I saw (the fliers), I threw them away, " she said. There's never a reason any of it should happen." 
 
By Denise Callahan and Gin Ando, Staff Writers 6:21 PM Tuesday, August 9, 2011

DEERFIELD TWP. — A national organization has targeted a neighborhood here to pass out raciest fliers pertaining to the Aug. 3 shooting deaths of two teenagers.

The National Alliance placed the racist letters on car windshields, telephone poles and on doors in the area of the Four Paws Grooming and Kennel on Landen Road.

Four Paws is where Troy Penn, an 18-year-old black Kings High School senior, and shot and killed his ex-girlfriend, 17-year-old Amanda Borsos, with a shotgun. He then fled the scene and staged a brief standoff in his nearby home before killing himself with the same gun.

The letter is addressed to “White Parents” and warns “Don’t let your daughter date blacks, it might be a matter of life and death.” The two-page diatribe attacks blacks and those of Jewish faith and refers specifically to the murder-suicide.

Warren County Sheriff Larry Sims said nothing in the fledgling investigation into the murder-suicide points to a racial motivation. He said it looks as if the incident was over a breakup.

Sims’ office is investigating who is passing out the fliers.

“On the surface we don’t know that there is anything criminally wrong, but they certainly are inciting,” he said. “The language in there is certainly very disturbing, we’d like to know the motivation behind it. There is no indication at all this homicide-suicide was racially driven.”

Sims said the flyers began appearing on cars and telephone poles, and one was even posted on the day care sometime after midnight on Tuesday.

The National Alliance is located in Hillsboro, W. Va., according to the group’s website. The group is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks such organizations. The National Alliance was for decades the most dangerous and best organized neo-Nazi formation in America, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A neighbor who lives near Penn’s home, Amy Hosier, has been collecting and disposing of the “offensive” messages.

“If I saw (the fliers), I threw them away. There’s never a reason any of it should happen,” she said.

“Anytime they can get their pedestal and soapbox, they do.”

The owner of Four Paws, Rob Ashe, who was Borsos’ boss, said his staff was upset when they arrived to work.

“The staff came in this morning and they were disgusted,” Ashe said.

Sims said it will be a couple weeks before they are finished with the shooting investigation, including where Penn got the shotgun.

Borsos was buried on Saturday and funeral arrangements for Penn have been kept private.