Ohio manhunt after family of eight slain

PIKETON, OHIO • Eight members of a family, including a mother sleeping in a bed with her four- day- old baby next to her, were fatally shot in the head on Friday, leaving their rural town terrified while a manhunt was launched for whoever killed them.

Three children, including the newborn, survived the grisly killings that left seven adults and a 16-year-old boy dead in Pike County, said Attorney General Mike DeW- ine and Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader at an afternoon news conference.

The economically distressed county in the Appalachian Mountain region, which has about 28,000 residents, is located 130 kilometres east of Cincinnati.

DeWine and Reader said they were in the early stages of their investigations covering four crime scenes.

The first three homes where bodies were found are within a few kilometres of one another on a stretch of Union Hill Road, while the eighth body was found in a house within 50 kilometres, the sheriff said.

DeWine said there were no indications that any of the victims, identified as members of the Rhoden family, had died by suicide.

The whereabouts of the shooter or shooters weren’t clear, and authorities were warning relatives and area residents to take precautions.

“There may be more than one, there may be three. We just don’t know at this point,” DeWine said.

Some of the victims were in bed, indicating they were shot while they were sleep- ing, police said. Authorities said some, but not all, were killed in bed.

“It’s heartbreaking,” DeWine said. “The one mom was killed in her bed with the four-day-old right there.”

Neighbours and relatives said the Rhoden family lived in a large area now closed off by investigators, with various members scattered among three different trailer homes, including the mother, Dana Rhoden, her former husband, several children and grandchildren.

“It was a mother, her former husband, their grown children and some grandchildren, too. They all used to attend our church,” said Phil Fulton, pastor of the nearby Union Hill Community Church.

Dana Rhoden worked at a nursing home for the elderly, he said. She had just bought a new mobile home near the two existing trailers occupied by her former husband and her son, Fulton said. All three trailers are less than two kilometres apart.

Neighbours and relatives said the former husband was one of those killed.

“They were very good people,” said a relative of Dana Rhoden, who did not want to be identified. “She was so good with her kids and her grandbaby. We’re just brokenhearted.”