NEWS

Months later, surviving Rhodens to get vehicles back

Chris Graves
cgraves@enquirer.com
  • Cost of towing, storage more than $110,000
  • Investigators seeking tips
  • Reward offered

Authorities investigating the slayings of eight members of a rural Ohio family have completed their work with dozens of cars, trucks and farming equipment towed from the homicide scenes last spring, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said Tuesday.

DeWine said all of the vehicles will be returned to various family members through Pike County Probate Court procedures. However, authorities will continue to store the crime scenes – three trailers and a camper that were also towed from the site – at a nearby warehouse.

"As far as we are concerned, we are done with the cars and have been for a while,'' DeWine said in a 15-minute phone interview with the Enquirer.

The vehicles were towed in May as part of the investigation into the Rhoden family mass killing. Authorities have declined to discuss how many vehicles were towed or how they factored into the largest investigation in the state's history.

The case remains unsolved as it enters its eighth month with no known motive nor suspects.

Seven members of the Rhoden family and a fiancee were shot to death April 22, many while they slept in the trailers on Union Hill Road and in a camper on Left Fork Road.

Cost of towing, storage

The cost of towing the cars, preserving the evidence and transporting the crime scenes amounted to $110,692, according to a line-item accounting provided to The Enquirer through a public records request. The cost of storing the trailers and camper at the warehouse was listed as an annual flat fee of $15,000, with additional costs for bed bug treatment and a camera system totaling another $21,800.

Family members had grown frustrated this fall as probate proceedings stalled because law enforcement had moved and secured so much of the family's property. The family members, who are named executors, needed the cars and other property in order to do a full accounting of the property – a vital step to continue legal estate work.

Family and friends have said many of the cars had been on the property for years. Much of the other equipment was used by victim Christopher Rhoden Sr. and his brothers to do landscaping work; some other vehicles were the property of non-family members.

DeWine said members of his office have contacted the family's probate lawyers to provide titles to the vehicles. But, he did not know when the items would be returned to the family.

"That's up to the probate judge,'' he said.

Reward offered

Anyone with information related to the case is asked to call Southern Ohio Crime Stoppers at 740-773-TIPS. Anonymous tips are still being taken at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation at 855-BCI-OHIO (224-6446) or the Pike County Sheriff's Office at 740-947-2111. A $10,000 Crime Stoppers reward would be paid for any information that leads to apprehension of suspects and a conviction in the case.

Chris Graves is the Enquirer's local columnist. She has covered the Rhoden family massacre since April 22. Reach her at cgraves@enquirer.com or on Twitter@chrisgraves.