Officials say the killer or killers tried to cover their tracks and urged other residents to arm themselves for protection

Investigators found three marijuana farming operations at some of the crime scenes where eight family members will killed in a “sophisticated” and “pre-planned execution”, Ohio authorities have announced.





“This was a pre-planned execution of eight individuals,” Attorney General Mike DeWine said late Sunday. Authorities remained tight-lipped Sunday about details of the investigation, any suspects or motives for the crime, though DeWine called it a “sophisticated operation”. Autopsies were expected to be completed Monday.

Seven adults and one teenage boy were found shot in the head. Three young children, one only four days old on the day of the killing, were not harmed.

Charles Reader, Pike county sheriff, and Mike DeWine, Ohio attorney general, said on Sunday it was clear the victims, ranging in age from 16 to 44, were deliberately singled out for attack, most of them while they slept, rather than killed at random or in a crime of passion.

Reader said he didn’t believe safety was an issue for others, but he said “If you are fearful, arm yourself.”

Investigators have interviewed between 50 and 60 people in hopes of finding leads, and a team of 38 people is combing wooded areas around the shooting scenes to ensure no evidence was missed, authorities said.

Readers and DeWine said t was unclear what, if any, role the marijuana operations had played in the killings. Marijuana, both recreational and medicinal, is illegal in the state.

“This was very methodical. This was well planned. This was not something that just happened,” said Reader, noting most victims were targeted while they were sleeping.

The officials declined to comment on any possible motive or say whether they had identified any suspects. DeWine said it was not clear whether they were seeking one or more perpetrators.

“I don’t know if it’s a bad guy or bad guys – it could be one, two, three, four,” he said in a televised news conference. He said 18 pieces of evidence had been sent to a state crime laboratory for analysis and that 50 to 60 people had been interviewed in the case, with more expected to be questioned.

“This was a pre-planned execution of eight individuals. It was a sophisticated operation. And those who carried it out were trying to do everything they could do to hinder the investigation and their prosecution,” DeWine said.

“We would anticipate that this could be a lengthy investigation,” he added. “This is not your case where someone got mad at somebody else, and shot them, (and) there’s a witness, two witnesses. It is a very, very different type of case.“

The sheriff, who said that in his 20 years in law enforcement he never interacted with the Rhoden family “in a criminal nature”, urged surviving members to arm themselves for protection.

DeWine said the state’s crime lab was looking at 18 pieces of evidence from a DNA and ballistic standpoint, and five search warrants have been executed.

The victims, all previously identified as members of the Rhoden family, were found shot in the head in four separate homes on Friday in or near Piketon, a town of some 2,000 people about 95 miles east of Cincinnati in south-central Ohio.

The victims included a mother who was murdered in bed with her four-day-old infant in her arms. That baby and two other small children present during the killings – a six-month-old and a three-year-old – all survived, officials said.

The victims were identified as 37-year-old Dana Rhoden, 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr, his 16-year-old son, Christopher Rhoden Jr, 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden, 38-year-old Gary Rhoden, 20-year-old Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 20-year-old Hannah Gilley and 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden.

The sheriff also said he had sent additional investigators to scour the wooded areas surrounding all four crime scenes in search of any additional evidence.

Two of the crime scenes are within walking distance of each other along a sparsely populated, winding road that leads into wooded hills from a rural highway. The third residence is more than a mile away, and the fourth home is on a different road, at least a 10-minute drive away.

A local restaurateur, Jeff Ruby, offered a $25,000 reward for any information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.