NEWS

'Nothing around here has been normal'

Keith BieryGolick
kbierygolick@enquirer.com
Amanda Fouch, 37, of Sunfish Township, gardens with her daughter at her home along Laurel Ridge Road, Saturday, April 23, 2016, in Piketon, Ohio. State and local officials are conducting investigations throughout the Ohio town. State and local officials are conducting investigations throughout the county in the aftermath of an "execution-style" killing that left eight dead.

PIKE COUNTY — Mike Osborne is Pike County.

The 31-year-old man is a recovering alcoholic who has battled an addiction to prescription pills. He is now a maintenance supervisor at a rest stop in the rural county about 70 miles east of Cincinnati.

He's worked hard to defeat his demons.

Perseverance. For Osborne, that defines Pike County.

For the rest of the world, Pike County and its small rural townships of Sunfish and Camp Creek will forever be known for something terrible. It happened on Friday, a few miles from Osborne’s work.

In four separate homes, seven adults and one teenager were shot in the head. Officials described the killings as execution in their style. One woman was shot to death while her 4-day-old baby lay next to her in bed.

This is carnage that will remain in the nation’s consciousness for years to come.

But that is not Pike County.

'Nothing around here has been normal'

Amanda Fouch is Pike County.

The 37-year-old woman spent Saturday afternoon gardening with two of her children. One of them picked out worms from dirt while the other planted flowers. They are too young to understand what happened, Fouch said.

But she thought about keeping them inside anyway. She lives with her husband in Sunfish Township, just a few miles from Friday's grisly events.

Instead, the only thing she left inside was her gun – even though she has a concealed-carry permit. It was a conscious decision not to be ruled by fear.

Her children played baseball on Saturday morning. At first, she thought the games would be canceled. But they played on, which she said helped return a small sense of normalcy. Even if there were more whispered conversations than usual.

“Nothing around here has been normal the last 24 hours,” said Fouch.

Fouch grew up in Pike County and has lived in Sunfish Township for 13 years. For her, normal is a county where Wal-Mart is the biggest store, and the closest shopping mall is an hour away.

She didn’t grow up on a farm but had three cows and several sheep for pets. Her oldest daughter now has two horses.

"I love it," she said.

Beautiful. Quiet. Good for fishing. 

That’s how TJ Stapleton, of nearby Piketon, describes the area. He points to the tree-covered hills surrounding him. In the fall, the leaves change color into shades of red and green, like Christmas, said Stapleton.

Stapleton, 29, spent most of his adult life near Cincinnati in Hamilton. He’d take Pike County over Butler County any day.

Why? The people.

One of those people is Osborne, who supervises Stapleton at the rest stop. Stapleton has a mild cognitive disability and is part of the county’s board of developmental disabilities.

TJ Stapleton works with Mike Osborne at a rest stop in Pike County, just a few miles from a mass shooting. The rest stop was closed on Friday due to the investigation.

Before introducing Osborne to a reporter, Stapleton calls him lazy for using a riding lawnmower. When Osborne approaches, the first thing out of his mouth is an insult about Stapleton’s work ethic. They laugh.

The two continued like that, trying to forget what happened Friday, which led police to close the rest stop.

When asked about it, Osborne complains about a lack of jobs in the area and says for every church in the county there is a bar.

Then, he pauses. There are drugs in every town across the country. But the people here, he said, can’t be found anywhere else.

“If you are hungry, you can go to your neighbor and they will feed you,” Osborne said. “Then, they will ask you if you need anything else.”

That’s Pike County.

ABOUT THE COUNTY

Year created: 1815, 12 years after Ohio became a state

Population: 28,709, roughly double the size of Hamilton County's Symmes Township

County seat: Waverly

Median age: 39.2, just above Ohio's statewide median of 39.1

Ethnic makeup: 96.6 percent white, compared to 82.6 percent statewide

Median household income: $39,989, or 18 percent below the state's.

Unemployment rate: 8.6 percent in March, compared to 5.4 percent statewide.

Poverty rate: 24.2 percent, compared to 15.9 percent statewide.

Health: The county ranked worst in Ohio for overall health, including length of life, according to Countyhealthrankings.org.

Main industries: Farming and timber cutting remain important, as they were in the decades before World War II. In 1953, the federal government chose Pike County as the location for a plant designed to enrich uranium. "The time around the construction of the facility is still referred to as the 'Boom,' as literally hundreds of new people flooded the county to construct, and later work, at the facility," according to a history on the county's Chamber of Commerce website. But the plant closed after the Cold War ended. Today, more people in the county work in health care than any other sector, Census data shows.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey estimates and County Business Patterns data; Ohio Department of Job and Family Services; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and Enquirer research