2012 is just about over and, looking back, there were several significant stories involving the police and courts beats this year across the Dayton area. We can be thankful that no local police officers died in the line of duty and we can remain amazed at the depravity of certain folks. But here is the Top 10, in no particular order.

12. Top Cops in Trouble
Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly and Miami Twp. Police Maj. John DiPietro have long been two of the most visible law enforcement leaders in the region. Though both have actively cultivated media attention during their careers, both found themselves under unwanted spotlights this year.

11. Legal Victories
One year after his prison release, Roger Dean Gillispie racks up more legal victories. Freed just before Christmas 2011 after serving 20 years for rapes he says he didn’t commit, Gillispie first won in the federal courts. But this year the state courts responded as well, when the Ohio 2^nd District Court of Appeals ruled he should get a new trial. By declining to hear an appeal from that decision, the Ohio Supreme Court effectively threw out his convictions in November.

10. Locked up at home
Brian and Rivae Hart, who admitted keeping Mrs. Hart’s granddaughter locked in an apartment bathroom for more than four years, were both sentenced to 36 months in prison. The girl was 9 in January 2010 when she told a teacher that her custodial parents were keeping her locked up in the bathroom except when she went to school.

9. The Trial of Raleigh Trammell
The Rev. Raleigh Trammell has always courted controversy, long before the Dayton Daily News investigation that led to his latest indictment. After hearing nearly two weeks of testimony, a jury convicted Trammell June 1 on 51 felony counts related to a home-delivered meals service run from the headquarters of the SCLC Dayton chapter.

8. Eva Christian goes to prison
Eva Christian made a name for herself as one of the region’s best known restaurateurs. The former owner of Dayton’s Boulevard Haus and Miami Twp.’s Cena, Christian was accused of insurance fraud and prosecutors alleged that she conspired to burn down Cena and staged a break-in at her home to collect settlement money.

7. Matt Kavanaugh suspended from UD
University of Dayton basketball player Matt Kavanaugh’s one-year suspension from school remains shrouded in mystery, much of it resulting from Kavanaugh attending a private university. In fact, university officials have only said that the suspension was for violating the university’s standards of behavior and code of conduct. What is known is that Kavanaugh, 21, was the suspect in a sexual assault investigation this fall that did not yield criminal charges, according to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office.

6. The Slaying of Dante Price
Price, 25, was shot March 1 at Summit Square Apartments on Hoover Avenue by two armed security guards. The Dayton Daily News investigated, learning that the guards had been patrolling the parking lot when they saw Price, who was on a trespass list and had been ordered to stay off the property. A grand jury indicted those guards, Justin Wissinger and Christopher Tarbert in July, on murder charges, finding evidence that the guards had overstepped their authority in trying to detain Price and by using deadly force to try to make him comply with them.

5. Undercover officer shot in Trotwood
It could be a police officer’s worst nightmare: accidently shooting a fellow officer. On April 15, a Trotwood police sergeant and a Dayton undercover detective chased an armed suspect through the dimly lit parking lot of the Salem Avenue nightspot known as Leo’s II. The chase ended with both officers firing. According to a police report obtained by the Daily News, the sergeant believed he shot the undercover officer, who was firing at the suspect.

4. The Trading of Children
In a case that horrified even the most jaded criminal justice veterans, Kenneth Brandt, 40, of Troy was accused this year of raping his adopted children, and loaning one of them out to two other men he met online.

3. Horror in Colorado
It was a tragedy that horrified the nation and beyond: a mass shooting July 20 at an Aurora Colorado movie theater, leaving 12 dead and 58 more wounded. But it also had a decidedly heartbreaking local twist: three local people were in the theater to watch the latest Batman movie.

2. Five Convicted in Urbana Woman’s Dismemberment Death
Jessica Rae Sacco, 21, was found dead in her West Light Street apartment in March. At least parts of her were. According to authorities, her ex-boyfriend Matthew Puccio stabbed her in the abdomen, then suffocated her with a plastic bag. Next, he enlisted the help of four friends to dismember her body and dispose of limbs in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. All five are now serving prison sentences.

1. Justice for Makayla
Makayla Norman, who suffered from cerebral palsy, could neither speak, move, nor feed herself. She weighed 28 pounds when she was starved to death March 1, 2011. Her body was covered with filth and open bedsores, her hair and eyebrows were infested with lice, and her diaper and colon filled with feces, according to Dayton police.