Orlando Sentinel

Ohio family members plead for tips to solve massacre of 8

- By Andrew Welsh-Huggins

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Tearful family members are pleading for informatio­n that could help solve the massacre of eight people in Ohio a year ago.

In a video released Friday, Geneva Rhoden, who lost two sons, three grandchild­ren and a nephew, said she is begging anyone with informatio­n to step up.

“If there’s someone out there that knows anything about what happened, would they please, please come forward and tell what happened,” Rhoden said in the video released at family members’ request by the Ohio attorney general’s office, which is leading the investigat­ion. “There has to be someone.”

Rhoden said she has trouble sleeping and finds it difficult to be in public, often leaving stores on shopping trips when memories of things she bought for her family members overwhelm her.

The reward in the case is $10,000, small compared to rewards offered in other high-profile killings in Ohio and elsewhere. Investigat­ors have suggested people are reluctant to make donations because of the alleged criminal activity by one of Rhoden’s sons, Christophe­r Rhoden Sr.

The attorney general’s office has said Christophe­r Rhoden was operating a large-scale marijuana operation on his property.

His sister, Teresa Grebing, appeared to address this issue in the video when she said her brothers were good people.

She said people afraid to come forward should just leave a tip. Southern Ohio Crime Stoppers, which offered the reward, uses an anonymous reporting system.

Saturday marks a year since of the discovery of the bodies of seven adults and a teenage boy from the Rhoden family found shot to death at four homes near Piketon, about 70 miles south of Columbus.

 ?? ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS/AP ?? Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader, discusses the unsolved 2016 killings of eight family members in southern Ohio.
ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS/AP Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader, discusses the unsolved 2016 killings of eight family members in southern Ohio.

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