WAVERLY – Nothing about what’s been happening in Pike County is normal.
READ MORE: In The Columbus Dispatch
It’s not normal to have law-enforcement officers from the shores of Lake Erie guarding the rural hills of southern Ohio. It’s not normal that the roar of Frankie Rhoden’s thundering truck is absent from Union Hill Road. And the killings of eight people of the same family certainly aren’t normal, even compared to many other mass shootings, Ohio Attorney General DeWine said.
After touring the four homes where eight Rhoden family members were shot to death, DeWine’s characterization of the crime—which he has already described as “sophisticated” and a “pre-planned execution,” took a harsher tone Wednesday afternoon..
“This is an old-fashioned, cold-blooded, calculated massacre of eight human beings,” DeWine said.
The killings in Pike County are fundamentally different than other mass shootings, in which a person walks into a public building or school and starts shooting, he said, when the suspect is often caught right away or commits suicide. The killings of the Rhoden family members don’t fit that box, he said.
Authorities say they’ve interviewed more than 50 people, but haven’t made any arrests or confirmed a motive for the slayings.
DeWine remains tight-lipped about the investigation.
“We have no intention, absolutely no intention, of doing anything that can jeopardize this case,” he said.
Grieving family members will gather for funeral services in the days ahead to remember the victims, whose bodies were found at four locations last Frida: Hanna Rhoden, who was 19; Hanna’s mother, Dana Rhoden, 37; Dana’s ex-husband, Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40; their sons, Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16, and Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 20; Frankie’s fiancee, Hannah Gilley, 20; Kenneth Rhoden, 44, who is Rhoden Sr.’s brother; and Gary Rhoden, 38, Rhoden Sr.’s cousin.
A visitation was held for Gary Rhoden Wednesday night at a funeral home in Kentucky, about 30 miles south of where he was shot. Mourners spent hours at the funeral home, while local police and sheriff’s deputies stood watch.
Three children — a 4-day-old girl and two boys, ages 6 months and 3 years — were found in the homes but had not been harmed.
Autopsy results showed all but one victim was shot multiple times: One person was shot nine times.
While law enforcement agencies work to unravel the mystery behind the killings, at least one person is trying to cash in on a community’s grief.
Pike County Sheriff Charles Read says his office received information from a resident who said he got a phone call from a man indicating he was with the sheriff’s office and was soliciting a donation to benefit the victims.
Reader says the calls are not from his office.
“If you receive a call from someone claiming to be with the Sheriff’s Office, please do not send money,” he said.
A memorial fund has been established through Fifth Third Bank and donations can be made at any branch location.