Chris Graves

cgraves@enquirer.com

Update 8:29 p.m.: The Franklin County Sheriff's Office spokesman said he was wrong when he said members of that office's SWAT team searched for suspects in the Rhoden homicides case on Saturday.

He said earlier Saturday evening that SWAT officers were, in fact, helping to look for property and not suspects as he had previously told The Enquirer.

"The Franklin County Sheriff’s spokesman got it wrong on this. I will acknowledge that,'' said Marc Gofstein. Gofstein said his SWAT commander texted him Saturday night with the correction. Gofstein immediately contacted The Enquirer to clarify.

The Enquirer asked Gofstein three different times if SWAT officers were looking for suspects instead of evidence in the case. Each time, he said they were. He did not take issue with The Enquirer's reporting.

Dan Tierney, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, would not confirm SWAT presence for suspects.

Gofstein corrected the following statement made to The Enquirer to say SWAT was there looking for evidence: “Our job was to search for suspects and none were (at the) house or property. Our role was to secure suspects … We were acting on their warrant.”

His comments would have marked the first time the word suspect has been used in this context in the 13-month investigation into the slaying of eight members of the Rhoden family.

Previous reporting: State investigators Saturday spent their second day of a “search operation” at an Adams County farm once owned by a former boyfriend of one of the Rhoden family victims, authorities said.

Dozens of state investigators and members of the Pike and Adams counties sheriff’s offices searched a farm at 260 Peterson Road, just off of Highway 32 for nearly 10 hours Friday. A team of investigators also combed through items that appeared to be stored in trailers parked at a car lot on Highway 41 in rural Peebles. Authorities did not search that property’s barn, home or land, but rather focused on horse trailers and trailers. Those trailers appeared packed with boxes and other household-type items.

Both locations were about 10 miles from where eight members of the Rhoden family were shot and killed in the early-morning hours of April 22, 2016, in four separate trailers. The case has proved to be the most complex and labor intensive in the state’s history, with no arrest, no stated motive and no known suspects.

The searches are the most public activity in the case for months. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has made repeated assurances over the past year that authorities were working the case and chasing leads. Just last month, DeWine and Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader, implored anyone with information to step forward. It was unknown if the searches were sparked by a recent tip or were born out of the ongoing probe.

It also was unclear, and authorities would not discuss, if the former owners of the 71-acre farm are possibly involved in the case. The property was in part owned by Edward “Jake” Wagner, who was the one-time boyfriend of Hanna Rhoden. On the morning of the killings, she was found shot to death next to her 5-day-old baby girl, Kylie. The infant was left unharmed.

Hanna Rhoden and Wagner are the parents of an older daughter, Sophia Wagner, who is now 4. Wagner won custody of the toddler last summer. He is not the father of Kylie, who had been in state custody after the slayings.

The family’s farm was sold on March 10, 2017, according to real estate listings.

The search concluded in Adams County around noon Saturday, authorities said. An area near a barn at the farm on Peterson Road was encircled with yellow crime scene tape.

A caravan of BCI and other law enforcement officials were seen driving through Piketon and headed down south on Highway 104 around 1 p.m. Saturday and arriving at or near Flying W Farms at 6851 Camp Creek Rd. That farm is owned by George Wagner and Fredericka Wagner, who are relatives of Jake Wagner.

A woman who identified herself as Mrs. Wagner and who answered the phone at the business Saturday afternoon declined to discuss the search at that farm. She also said she didn’t know anything about the earlier searches.

Dan Tierney, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s office, declined to discuss the location of any of the searches. He did say the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office had joined in the search operation.

Leonard Manley, the father of victim Dana Manley Rhoden and grandfather to three other victims, said he is now 90 percent confident that law enforcement will make an arrest in the case.

Crews from the Pike County Sheriff’s Office, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, the Ohio Criminal Bureau of Investigation and the Ohio Rehabilitation and Corrections Department were involved in a search operation Friday, Tierney said. Tierney declined to discuss the nature of the search and what authorities were looking for.

Authorities obtained a search warrant, but it remained open Saturday and as such would not be yet be filed in court. Even so, every search warrant and court order in the Rhoden investigation have been sealed. Search warrants often shed light on criminal investigations because officials have to articulate probable cause to obtain the warrant. Such documents might later also contain an inventory of items seized by authorities. That detail would likely provide some information about why authorities were focused on the farm and, even, perhaps what they were looking for.

Photos and video taken by news media show authorities using metal detectors at the farm, digging in what looked to be a garden area close to the home and walking through the property, looking at the ground much of the time.

Deputies from the Pike County Sheriff’s Office hauled two red four-wheelers from the farm scene just before 6 p.m. Friday. Dozens of agents, along with Reader, descended on Unlimited Motors at 28171 Ohio Hwy 41 in Peebles about 9 p.m., joining about a dozen agents who had been there since before noon Friday. State records show the principal owner of the business is Brian K. Brown.

Several family members were surprised to learn of the search and said they were eager to know more. Kendra Rhoden, the daughter of victim Kenneth Rhoden, arrived at the area Friday but left a short time later, after speaking to Adams County Sheriff Kimmy Rogers. She declined further comment when contacted Friday night.

Images taken by the media showed BCI evidence vans and multiple sheriff squad cars outside a red farmhouse and several outbuildings at 260 Peterson Road. The home and various outbuildings, as well as 71 acres, remained listed to Edward J. Wagner and George W. Wagner IV, according to the Adams County Auditor’s website.

However, a real estate website indicates the property sold on March 10, 2017, for $165,000.

The Enquirer interviewed Jake Wagner and his mother at the home in May 2016 for several hours. Jake Wagner won full custody of his daughter after the killings, he has said. He also said at that time associated legal bills were escalating to the point he set up a GoFund Me page that has since been deleted.

Wagner, 24, is a diesel mechanic and an over-the-road truck driver, along with his older brother George W. Wagner, he has said. Both brothers lived with their parents at the farm last spring, he said.

It could not be immediately determined where the Wagner family moved to or if they remain in the Adams/Pike county area.

The 71 acres of farm property includes one home, 11 tillable acres, 45 acres of pasture and 14.4 acres of woodland, according to the Adams County Auditor’s website. It is about 12 miles south and west of the crime scenes on Union Hill Road in Pike County.

Seven adults and a teenage boy from the Rhoden family were found shot to death at four homes near Piketon, in the foothills of Appalachia. In addition to Kenneth Rhoden, 44; and Hanna Rhoden, 19, the others killed were Hanna’s brothers Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 20, and Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16; her parents Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40, and Dana Manley Rhoden, 37; Frankie Rhoden’s girlfriend Hannah Gilley, 20; and a cousin, Gary Rhoden, 38.

In April, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said there had been “significant progress” in the investigation but authorities have made no arrests, making the Pike County case one of the largest unsolved homicide probes in the nation.

Authorities have said the killers were familiar with the homes, the surrounding area and most likely the family. Officials have said they found three “commercial-grade” marijuana grow operations at Kenneth Rhoden’s home and Christopher Rhoden Sr.’s property.

But they have never discussed publicly a motive.

Ohio Supreme Court wants to see full Rhoden autopsies

Anyone with information related to the case is asked to call the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation at 855-BCI-OHIO (224-6446) or the Pike County Sheriff's Office at 740-947-2111. There remains a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and a conviction in the case.