Judge drops murder charges in double fatal shooting involving Columbus motorcycle club
Bethany Bruner Columbus Dispatch October 22, 2025
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/courts/2025/10/22/ohio-judge-dismisses-murder-charges-avengers-motorcycle-club-killings/86831598007/
• Franklin County prosecutors dismissed murder charges against Brody Sieber for a 2022 bar shooting.
• Sieber claimed he acted in self-defense during the incident, which left two men dead and two others wounded.
• Prosecutors determined they could not disprove the self-defense claim, which is required under Ohio law.
Franklin County prosecutors will not pursue murder charges against a man who said he fired a gun in self-defense during an August 2022 shooting at a Far South Side bar involving a motorcycle club that ended with two people dead.
Brody Sieber, 41, of Columbus, was charged with murder and felonious assault in the Aug. 1, 2022, shooting at the Old Landmark Tavern, located at 176 Rumsey Road. The shooting left Nicholas Dowler, 34, and Glen Clark III, 50, dead and two other men wounded.
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Sieber said during the first day of a bench trial on Oct. 21 before Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Jeff Brown that he shot the men in self-defense.
On Oct. 22, Assistant Franklin County Prosecutors Jason Manning and Natalie Kahler agreed to a plea deal in which Sieber admitted to having a weapon under disability, along with an unrelated felony charge connected to non-payment of child support.
Sieber was not allowed to possess a weapon because of a 2012 drug possession conviction, according to court records.
Brown sentenced Sieber to three years of probation. As part of the plea, the judge dismissed two counts of murder and two counts of felonious assault and lifted the house arrest and GPS monitoring restrictions Sieber had been under while the case was pending.
Manning told Brown the decision came after prosecutors determined they would no longer be able to prove that the shooting wasn’t self-defense. In self-defense cases, Ohio law requires prosecutors to prove a shooting was not self-defense rather than defendants having to prove they were justified.
Video from the bar showed Sieber and Dowler getting into a fight in a fenced-in back area outside the bar’s patio. Sieber pulled a gun and fired at Dowler and two other men nearby, who were both wounded. Sieber ran to the front parking lot of the bar.
The angles of the videos played during the trial prevented viewing of the entire interaction.
Sieber and Clark had a shootout in the parking lot in front of the bar where both men were hurt, prosecutors said. A bullet struck Sieber in the neck, and Clark died from his injuries.
Clark, Dowler and the other two men who were injured were members of the Avengers Motorcycle Club, prosecutors said.
Kahler said the deadly fight stemmed from a shooting several nights before, where several motorcycles sustained damage while parked outside the bar. Sieber was not involved in that incident, Kahler said.
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