Middlefield Police: Surveillance video led to transgender woman's homicide arrest
14th October 2008
Police said video camera footage of an apartment complex's pool led them to charge a 73-year-old Middlefield man's wife -- a 41-year-old woman who used to be a man -- with causing his death by repeatedly holding him underwater in the pool.
Police arrived on the scene June 2 to find James Mason lying unconscious beside the pool at the Middlefield Village Apartments on East High Street.
He had a heart attack and died the next day.
On Friday, the jury returned an indictment, issued an arrest warrant, and police arrested and charged Christine Mason with reckless homicide.
Christine Mason was born male in Kentucky in 1967 and was named John Leslie Vallandingham. In 1995, he underwent gender-reassignment surgery, then changed his name to Christine Newton-John, police said.
Christine Newton-John and Mason married in August, 2006. Ohio law does not allow people to change the gender on their birth certificate but Kentucky does and that's what John/Christine did.
Having changed her gender on her Kentucky birth certificate, the marriage was legal in Ohio because the birth certificate she presented to obtain a marriage license here stated that she was female, police said.
Police had worked on the case since June and early on had obtained the surveillance video. They gathered more evidence and had the Geauga County Prosecutor's office present their case to a grand jury.
Police said Middlefield police knew before the June 2 incident that their had been allegations of abuse of James leveled at Christine. Police also learned that James Mason had a huge fear of water.
Christine is now being held in the Geauga County Jail.
Source: WKYC