Ohio Supreme Court allows inspection of autopsy records in Pike County case
Journalists are allowed to review results from the unsolved murders.
The Ohio Supreme Court upheld a journalist’s ability to examine preliminary autopsy records and investigative notes made by a coroner, effectively granting media access to never-before-seen records in the 2016 murders of eight people in Pike County.
The records reveal one of the victims, Christopher Rhoden Sr., had been shot through a door, according to the Columbus Dispatch, which first reviewed the records after the court’s decision Wednesday.
The report says Rhoden, 40, was shot nine times and notes his body was decomposed “more than all the others.” The bodies were all found the morning of April 22, 2016, with the shootings believed to have taken place hours before. Seven other victims were shot in the head.
The state’s highest court ruled in favor of the Cincinnati Enquirer and against the Pike County coroner and health district.
“This is a case that is now over 2 years old, unsolved, and I think the investigators deserve to be scrutinized,” said Jack Greiner, the Enquirer’s attorney and an expert in public records law.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office represented the Pike County offices in the case. DeWine declined to comment. His office’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation is leading the investigation into the murders.
No suspects have been identified in the case, considered Ohio’s largest investigation.
Several media outlets — including Cox Media Group Ohio, which owns the Dayton Daily News, Journal-News of Butler County, Springfield News-Sun, News Center 7 and WHIO Radio — previously sought access to certain coroner records and were denied.
In a 4-3 decision against the Enquirer and Dispatch in December, the court ruled autopsy records in the murders may be withheld from the public until the homicide investigation is closed.
Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, writing the majority opinion in the December case, said the coroner records fell under an exemption in the public records law that allowed governments to withhold confidential law enforcement investigatory records.
But Wednesday, the court con-
continued from B1 sidered a new question: “not whether the preliminary autopsy reports are public records (they are not), but whether journalists are entitled to see them nonetheless.”
The court ruled they can, writing “the coroner shall grant a journalist’s proper request to review preliminary autopsy and investigative notes made by the coroner.”
O’Connor and Justices Terrence O’Donnell, Patrick Fischer and Mary DeGenaro concurred in Wednesday’s decision, while Justice Sharon Kennedy concurred in judgment only. Justices Judith French and Patrick DeWine did not participate.
The court said the case involved “a matter of great public importance: whether journalists may review, and presumably report on, preliminary autopsy reports in open homicide cases.”
Reporters began inspecting the single-page reports Wednesday. No photos were released. Under Ohio law, reporters can only view the information and are prohibited even from taking notes.
Authorities suspect there were multiple attackers who were familiar with the vic- tims’ homes and the surrounding area, about 100 miles southeast of Dayton. DeWine’s office has said Christopher Rhoden Sr. had “a large-scale marijuana growing operation,” leading some to speculate the killings were drug-related.
Also killed were Christopher Rhoden Sr.’s 37-year-old ex-wife Dana Rhoden; their three children, 20-year-old Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 16-year-old Christopher Rhoden Jr. and 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden; Frankie Rhoden’s fiancee, 20-year-old Hannah Gilley; and relatives Kenneth Rhoden, 44, and Gary Rhoden, 38. Three children were found unharmed.