A victim in the Ohio family massacre last week apparently had dollar bills littering his body below his knees, apparently as a message from the killer, according to a report.
However, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, said that couldn’t confirm the report.
“It does not sound correct to me, it does not sound correct to me, but I’m not going to get into knocking down every rumor because there’s no end to it,” he told 700WLW (via the Chillicothe Gazette).
Car repairman Donald Stone, 44, found the body of his cousin, Kenneth Rhoden lying in bed with a single gunshot wound to his head.
It’s not clear yet if the cannabis operation is tied to the shootings.
Authorities haven’t revealed a possible motive for the massacre.
“Pike County is perfect for a grow operation because you have a lot of notice whether someone’s there and not supposed to be there,” DeWine said, per the Daily Beast. “We have come across in the past in Pike County, on a couple different occasions, some sophisticated commercial grow operations. There was one that made the news [in 2010] where we came across an encampment where we had people in tents who were out there tending the marijuana.”
And meanwhile, authorities have kept a tight lid on the investigation.
“The essential fact when you kill eight people in one family at four separate locations, clearly this was planned out, particularly when they are in their bed,'' DeWine said this week, reported the Chillicothe Gazette.
DeWine said he believes several suspects were involved. "We are not assuming it is one person,'' he added.
DeWine said that he assumed the killer(s) were following news reports flowing from the media and he didn’t want to provide them with any indication about the investigation.
“As much as we would like to share information with you and the public, we have no intention in doing anything that will jeopardize this case,” DeWine said.
He said the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Pike County Sheriff’s Office have received hundreds of tips.
“It’s going to take however long it takes,” he added. “We are going to find who did this. There’s no time limit on it. We are going to do this the right way.
During a Wednesday news conference, Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said, “It’s absolutely shocking, some of these scenes. It’s not one you can simply go in, process and collect the evidence and call it a day.”
(H/T - IJReview)
