BUCYRUS — A lawsuit against the City of Bucyrus by convicted triple-murderer Kevin Keith has been dismissed.

According to Bucyrus City Law Director Rob Ratliff, on Sept. 28, the Hon. Solomon Oliver, Jr., issued an order dismissing all claims against the City of Bucyrus and its officers and agents in Keith v. Yezzo.

Oliver is the United States District Court Judge for the Northern District of Ohio.

Keith was convicted after a two-week trial in 1994 of shooting to death Marichell Chatman, her seven-year-old daughter, Marchae Chatman and Linda Chatman, as well as shooting and wounding an adult, Richard Warren, and two young children, sister and brother Quanita Reeves and Quinton Reeves, at a Bucyrus Estates apartment.

Keith, following years of post-conviction litigation attacking his conviction, filed a civil rights complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the City of Bucyrus and various law enforcement officers at the state and local levels had violated Keith’s civil rights in the investigation, prosecution and conviction of him for the murders.

Ratliff said Oliver, in a 14-page opinion, thoroughly reviewed Keith’s civil rights claims and found that Keith had “failed to state a claim for which relief could be granted.”

“The court reasoned that a civil rights action under § 1983 was not the appropriate procedural vehicle to raise challenges to an underlying conviction,” Ratliff said in a press release. “The court went on to note that Keith’s alleged claims of constitutional violations by the City and State occurring after his conviction were contrary to the ‘legal and factual assertions made in Keith’s complaints’ and that the civil rights claims were merely a ‘disguise for what is, at essence’ a failure to disclose evidence claim which is prohibited under § 1983.”

Ratliff said if he chose to do so, Keith may appeal this ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati.

“While the City of Bucyrus agrees wholeheartedly with Judge Oliver’s holdings and welcomes this result, it should be noted that more than two decades after these murders, the families of Kevin Keith’s victims have once again been forced to relive the pain and terror caused by Keith’s actions,” Ratliff said. “Our sympathies go to those families.”

Keith has maintained his innocence since the murders occurred in 1994.