'We just want justice for our loved ones': Family grieves the deaths of brothers killed in Fort Dodge shooting

Luke Nozicka | The Des Moines Register

FORT DODGE, Ia. — Chad Nickerson stayed up all night, throwing up at times, when he heard his uncles had been fatally shot early Monday morning in Fort Dodge.

“This is all still surreal,” he said later in the day. “This was a crime to the community.”

Nickerson, 22, was among about a dozen family members and friends who gathered Monday afternoon in the parking space and alleyway where Marion Rhodes, 37, and Eldominic Rhodes, 34, both of Fort Dodge, were killed. They remembered the brothers’ love for music and their passion for helping young men.

“I probably would’ve been lost without those individuals,” said Jahleel Price, 29, who knew the brothers for 10 years, saying they came to Fort Dodge from Kansas City for a better life. “We didn’t come up here for them to get laid out on this f------ alley.”

Update: Man charged with murder in slaying of Fort Dodge brothers

The brothers were found lying unresponsive in an alleyway behind 910 2nd Ave. North when officers responded to reports of a shooting at 12:03 a.m. Monday. They were pronounced dead at the scene — the city's first double homicide in more than a decade, police said.

Police Capt. Ryan Gruenberg said it was evident the two suffered gunshot wounds. Authorities have not reported any arrests, something some of those gathered at the scene hours later worried would never come.

“This is where they laid them down at?” one man walking up asked the group.

“Right here, yeah,” one responded.

“Senseless, man.”

Later, a woman pulled a truck up near the group and asked if they needed anything. Jeremy Mack, who rapped with the brothers in a hip-hop group called 6 Gang, responded: “Jesus.”

Their music was gritty, but it didn't match their gentleman-like demeanor, said Chris Keplinger, who has worked on and off as the group’s publicist. Keplinger, the owner of Entirely PR, a Nashville-based company that provides promotion for musicians, expressed shock and sorrow when told the brothers had been killed.

“I’m really, really sorry to hear about that,” Keplinger, 33, who lives in Denver, said several times during a phone interview with the Register.

Authorities said they believed the double homicide was an isolated incident; they said there was no immediate threat to the general public. Gruenberg said any possible suspects likely knew the brothers, whose bodies were taken to the state medical examiner's office for autopsies.

“There is no reason to believe this was a random act by any means,” he said.

Police have not released any suspect information. Gruenberg said Monday morning detectives were unsure if they were pursuing one or multiple suspects.

Witnesses told police they'd heard an argument in the area before the shooting, although it was unclear if the two were connected. An officer heard the gunfire from a few blocks away.

The killings were the first this year in Fort Dodge, a Webster County city about 95 miles northwest of Des Moines. The city of 25,000 people recorded one homicide in 2017 and another in 2016; there were two in 2015, according to police data.

Gruenberg, who has been with Fort Dodge police for eight years, called a double homicide in the city rare. The last one was in 2005, when Richella Stark, 29, fatally shot her two young children before she killed herself in what police called a murder-suicide.

Investigators with Fort Dodge police and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation remained at Monday's crime scene more than nine hours after the shooting, searching for evidence and interviewing witnesses.

The family and friends gathered at the scene wondered why the brothers were killed. They took pictures and placed their hands on the area where they were found.

“Two good men are gone,” Mack said, sitting in the parking space where one of the men died and wearing 6 Gang necklaces. “We just want justice for our loved ones.”

Authorities asked anyone with information to call Fort Dodge police at 515-573-2323 or Webster County Crime Stoppers at 515-573-1444. Crime Stoppers is offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or people responsible for the killings.

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