Rebecca Auborn Pleads Guilty to Four Columbus Overdose Murders
The Columbus woman admitted drugging four men to death and trying to overdose a fifth, in a case Ohio's attorney general called serial murder.
Published
Rebecca Auborn had been under indictment for more than two years. On December 19, 2025, she pleaded guilty in Franklin County to four counts of murder and one count of felonious assault, admitting that she caused the fatal overdoses of four men in Columbus and tried to overdose a fifth.
"Today's plea closes a tough case," Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a statement announcing it. "An overwhelming amount of convincing evidence and an airtight investigation conducted by BCI and Columbus Police left no doubt that a conviction was forthcoming. When law enforcement works together, there's hope for families to secure justice."
According to Yost, Auborn "was meeting men for sex in northeast Columbus and dosing them with drugs to steal their belongings." Detectives said they began investigating after hearing that a woman was doing exactly that. The crimes, investigators said, ran from December 13, 2022, to June 17, 2023. The man drugged in the first attack survived; the four men who died, identified when she was sentenced, were Joseph Crumpler, 30, Robert Snoke, 54, Wayne Akin, 64, and Guy Renda Jr., 42.
Auborn was indicted in October 2023. Yost's office has described the case as serial murder. Sentencing was set for February 20, 2026.
Auborn's plea admits the murders; the description of how the men were drugged is the authorities' account, as stated by the Ohio Attorney General's office. The victims' names were not used in the court documents at the time of the plea and were published later, at her sentencing.
Sources
- Rebecca Auborn pleads guilty in serial killings of Ohio men, Court TV (Lauren Silver)
- Woman who drugged men to rob them pleads guilty to 4 counts of murder, WSYX ABC 6 (via WCHS)
- Ohio sex worker guilty of killing 4 men is sentenced to 4 life terms in 'serial murder' case, NBC News