Coming Sunday
We take a closer look at the Rhoden family and provide more details about last week’s massacre in Pike County.
The first of the eight victims in the Pike County massacres was laid to rest Thursday, another day of mourning in a sparsely populated patch of Appalachia that remains emotionally scarred as the mystery of what led to the murders seems no closer to being solved.
Outside the Crockett L. Reed Funeral Home in this small Ohio River town, Kenneth Rhoden measured his words as he talked about what happened to the youngest of his three sons, Gary Rhoden, who he said was “shot three times in the head” for reasons he doesn’t understand.
“I’d like to find out who done it,” he said.
When asked what he’d like to say about the killer or killers who took the lives of his son and seven others last Friday, the retired railroad worker and tobacco farmer said, “You might not want to hear it.”
“I’d like to take ’em and torture them for killing the whole family like this.”
Rhoden, 68, figures there were multiple killers and thinks they knew the family.
“Somebody had to know something,” he said. “There wasn’t no doors busted down.”
Rhoden, looking tired and worn, recalled his son in somber tones from a lifetime of memories. He said that when he retired as a railroad employee, his son helped him on his tobacco farm.
“He helped house tobacco and hang it,” Rhoden said.
He described his son as a hard worker who liked to fish and hunt and would “give you the shirt off his back.” As far as he knew, Gary had no enemies.
“He was just a hard worker,” his father said. “He worked odd jobs, stuff like that. He was working up at (Big) Bear Lake (Family Resort). Made good money there. Run a backhoe, laid concrete, built houses.”
Rhoden doesn’t think the marijuana grow operations found at three of the four properties where the killings occurred were a motive in the homicides.
When asked who might have committed the crime, he said “I don’t know … a very bad crime guy, I’d say. It was laid out, figured out.”
Law enforcement officials have released little information about the crimes since the shocking news reverberated throughout southern Ohio and beyond six days ago.
The eight dead are Gary Rhoden, 38; his cousin, Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40; Christopher’s brother, Kenneth Rhoden, 44; his ex-wife, Dana Rhoden, 37; and their three children: Hanna Rhoden, 19; Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16; and Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 20.
Gary Rhoden, dressed in camouflage, was lifted into a hearse after the service at the funeral home, which was attended by about 80 people. Among the songs played were “Amazing Grace” and “Go Rest High” by Vince Gill.
The coffin, adorned with flowers, was lifted into a hearse by pallbearers wearing blue jeans, two of them wearing ball caps. He was buried in nearby Miller Cemetery in South Shore, which is located on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, across from Portsmouth.
The funeral procession included a Kentucky state trooper, a deputy from the Pike County, Ohio, Sheriff’s Office, and a police officer from the town of Greenup, Ky.
It traversed a long, narrow farm road to the secluded cemetery, a patch of open field beside a creek. Mourners arrived at a red canopy, where the burial ceremony occurred.
Among the many media representatives was a newspaper reporter from Great Britain. They were kept some distance away.
The only non-Rhoden who died in the shootings was Hannah Gilley, 20. She was Clarence’s fiancee and the mother of a 6-month-old son. Her funeral is Saturday in Otway, Ohio.
The other six members of the Rhoden family will be buried Tuesday in a single service in West Portsmouth, Ohio. Visitation will be Monday.
There were no new developments announced in the case Thursday. A dive team from Franklin County reportedly was checking out a location on Union Hill Road, the long road on which the Rhoden properties is located. Jill Del Greco, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Attorney General, said the divers were not working the homicide investigation.
Also Thursday, Cincinnati restaurant owner Jeff Ruby said on Twitter that he has withdrawn his $25,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of anyone involved in the murders. He cited “recent complex criminal developments” in the case.
“It was generous of Mr. Ruby to offer the reward, and it is his choice to withdraw it,” Del Greco said.
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