Pike County Massacre Unsettled
Were the wrong people convicted for committing the worst mass murder in the history of Ohio? This true crime series re-examines the notorious Pike County Massacre and calls into question everything you think you know about it.
Pike County Massacre Unsettled
2. crookedest county
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An informant reveals that Chris Rhoden's alleged business partners likely had the motive and means to massacre him and his family. So why does the official investigation go in the opposite direction?
On the morning of April 22nd, 2016, Bobby Joe Manley and her brother James find their sister, Dana Roden, their brother-in-law, Chris Roden Sr., their niece Hannah May, their two nephews, Frankie and Chris Jr., Frankie's fiance, Hannah Gilly, and two of Chris Roden Sr.'s cousins, Gary and Kenneth, all murdered in their homes. After he takes control of the crime scenes, Pike County Sheriff Charles Reeder orders deputies to take Bobby Joe and her brother James down to police headquarters for questioning. Bobby Joe isn't surprised that police take her bloodstained shirt, pants, and shoes for testing. She isn't surprised that they take cheek swabs. She isn't surprised that Pike County's lead investigator Brian Reader, who is Sheriff Charles Reader's brother, separates and questions her and her brother. But Bobby Joe is shocked when Brian Reader accuses her of committing the murders. According to Bobby Joe, Brian Reader screams at her, How much do they pay you to kill your family? Bobby Joe, of course, had nothing to do with the murders. Brian Reader eventually lets her and her brother James go home. The next day, Bobby Joe is at home with her father, Leonard, who is, of course, devastated over the loss of his daughter Dana, his three grandchildren, and their extended family. Leonard and Bobby Joe are also scared. Whoever killed their family members is still out there. In the afternoon, agents from BCI, that's the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, visit Bobby Joe and Leonard at their house. These agents are far more experienced and professional than Brian and Charles Reeder and the deputies at the Pike County Sheriff's Office. The BCI agents question Bobby Joe and Leonard. They ask about Chris Roden Sr.'s marijuana grow operation, and Bobby Joe tells all she knows, which isn't much. She describes her brother-in-law Chris Rodin Sr. as resourceful, kind of a hustler in the very best sense of that word. Chris, like just about everyone else in this story, didn't get much formal education, but he found ways to make money, even when everyone else around him was struggling. Bobby Joe says Chris carried a large amount of cash on him, and he would generously give money to anyone in the family who needed it. Chris was paying Bobby Joe to take care of the animals on his property, not because he really needed her help, but because she needed his. The BCI agents grill Bobby Joe and Leonard for hours and then leave. For Bobby Joe and Leonard, the last 36 hours have been a waking nightmare. They settle in for the evening and try to get some rest. But deep in the night, at about 3:40 a.m., they're awoken by loud banging on their front door. It's Pike County Sheriff Charles Reeder and his brother, county investigator Brian Reeder, in the middle of the night. They barge in and they're aggressive and accusatory. They say Bobby Joe is lying about the timing of when she found the bodies. By the time the Reeder brothers finish berating Bobby Joe and leave, she and Leonard are, of course, wrecks. They've suffered an unimaginable tragedy, and their local sheriff has taken to banging on their door in the middle of the night, screaming accusations at them. Meanwhile, BCI agents continue finding out more about Bobby Joe's brother-in-law, victim Chris Roden Sr. Chris is born in 1975, and he has eight brothers and sisters and a boatload of first cousins. He grows up in a little house just up the road from where he's killed in 2016. Chris grows up in the 1980s, but in some ways his life is more like the 1880s. For much of Chris's childhood, the family house doesn't have indoor plumbing or electricity. The rodents have to work hard. They live off their land, and if Chris and his siblings don't hunt enough food in the summer, they go hungry in the winter. Chris grows up determined to work his way out of poverty, so he drops out of high school and gets multiple jobs, trying to pull in as much pay as he can. When he's a teenager, he meets Dana Manley. Dana's family is a little better off. Her dad, Leonard, delights in spoiling Dana, Bobby Joe, and James with little presents. Chris marries Dana in 1994 when he's 19 and Dana is 16 years old. Ten months later, they have their first kid, Frankie Roden. Chris works with his hands doing maintenance jobs. Dana gets a job at a nursing home where the staff and clients love her. She's warm and sunny with purple streaks in her hair and a big laugh. Chris and Dana save up money and buy the property next to Chris's parents' house. They build their own house, and Chris does most of the construction himself. They have two more children, Hannah May in 1997 and Chris Jr. in 2000. Chris and Dana raise their three kids to be resilient and resourceful. Frankie, their oldest, grows into a hard worker who helps his dad. Hannah May, their middle child, grows to be strong-minded and able to stand up for herself. Chris Jr., their youngest, inherits his dad's love of hunting and fishing. Chris Sr. takes it upon himself to provide not just for his three kids, but also for as much of his extended family as possible. Given that he has eight brothers and sisters, that's going to require a lot of money. And given that Pike County, Ohio is one of the poorest places in America, it's not going to be easy. But by the mid-2000s, Chris is the kind of breadwinner he'd set out to become. He buys stuff for his three kids that he only dreamed of having when he was growing up. They get ATVs, all kinds of hunting gear, nice clothes. Chris begins regularly carrying thousands of dollars of cash in his pockets and giving it away to any family member in need. He's always generous. When Dana's sister, Bobby Joe, loses her job, he not only pays her to take care of his animals, he also pays her rent. When Chris's cousin Gary Roden falls on hard times due to drug addiction, Chris pays to support him and takes him into his home. Chris and Dana Roden's marriage fizzles out and they get divorced. But it's amicable, and Chris brings a trailer onto his property and moves into it so the family can stay close together. Chris buys more property around his parents' house, and then he builds a house for his oldest child Frankie and Frankie's fiance, Hannah Gilly. And here's where we need to talk about how Chris Roden Sr. is making all of this money. And I'm gonna try to be really careful about how I say this because it's nearly impossible to corroborate what people say about Chris Sr.'s sources of income. So there are a few things we can say for sure. For one, Chris Sr. obviously has a lot more money than he can make if he's only doing legal maintenance work, clearly. And of course, we know for sure that Chris Sr. runs at least three large marijuana grow operations. We also know that Chris's cousin, Kenneth Roden, he's the eighth victim, the one who lives more than 10 miles away, is involved in Chris's marijuana operation. We know this because Kenneth lives alone at one of Chris's grow sites in a trailer that's hidden so deep in the woods that it doesn't even have an address. But more specific information about Chris's operations is basically hearsay. A lot of the info that I'm about to give you comes only from an interview that investigators conducted with Chris's best friend, Billy Wagner, after the murders.
SPEAKER_08Billy, we don't want to take up too much of your time, and I appreciate you you meet with me. I just want to talk with you about the road murders, okay? We need everything that we can get to. So we hear that there was different business ventures that he was involved in. You know, you've heard the news and stuff like that about the growth and all that stuff. Okay, Chris. Well, we've heard that what somebody else likes. Okay. I don't care what he does. He's my friend because he does everything for me. Okay. You just need to understand that all we're trying to do is solve and kill Chris and his family. It's our promise to you. I'll help you and he wanted to. I don't know. Well, I appreciate it. I'll tell you something. I ain't no fucking snitch. No, but Chris is gone, so it don't really matter.
SPEAKER_18For reasons we'll get to, I can't corroborate much of what Billy Wagner says here, so take it all with a grain of salt. But basically, he tells investigators that Chris's marijuana grow rooms are a side hustle to his main business. He says that Chris makes most of his money through a long-standing partnership that he has with a powerful regional drug trafficking organization.
SPEAKER_08Them motherfuckers, they all the damn, I mean, all the damn dope Kentucky, West Virginia, and that's part of Ohio Council basis.
SPEAKER_18This drug organization that Chris Roden Sr. does business with is based in a nearby small town called Latham, Ohio. The organization in Latham controls this region.
SPEAKER_08Everything around me fucking state, West Virginia, Kentucky, and this great big circle. It all comes from the same fucking place.
SPEAKER_18The man at the very top of the Latham organization is very wealthy and very well known because he also owns a lot of big legitimate businesses. We're talking about owning a coal mine, a bank, that kind of wealthy, powerful, and connected. I'm not gonna say this guy's name though, because he's never been caught. Over the years, his lieutenants have been busted, but apparently he's been above the law. People around Pike County refer to this man and to his drug organization simply as Latham. Now, Latham gets its weed from the American Southwest. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, there's this pipeline that smuggles thousands of pounds of marijuana each week from Mexico to an organization based in Arizona. The Arizona organization then sells hundreds of pounds per week to its regional partners across the US, like Latham. Latham receives the weed, and then they raise the price, and they sell dozens of pounds of it per week to a few trusted local partners. According to Billy, Chris Roden Sr. is one of Latham's trusted local partners.
SPEAKER_08So he was dealing with people up there. Yeah, that's where he got his, you know, his shit stuff at. So you're saying all that you know about really is the the the Latham boy, the boys. That's why I know that's where he got his commercial at.
SPEAKER_18Billy says that for at least 15 years before the murders, Chris has been regularly buying large amounts of commercial grade weed from Latham, raising the price again, and then selling it at a profit.
SPEAKER_08Talking about these guys out here and the you know, kind of the the bad weed that he had, how much are we talking about? What was the weight that he was dealing with? They bring in, I mean, at one point he brings in fuckloads.
SPEAKER_18But according to Billy, at the beginning of 2016, just a couple months before the massacre, Chris Sr. makes a huge move. He hatches a plan to basically move up to elbow Latham out of the way and become the regional supplier himself. Billy says that Chris Sr. goes around Latham and makes his own connection to a supplier bringing in huge amounts of weed from the southern border.
SPEAKER_08I guess he's gonna have a pretty good bit, you know, was on its it was on its way. Okay, but from what I know, it was on its way here. And it was a pretty good chunk from what I could gather.
SPEAKER_18Billy says that Chris arranges to start with an absolutely massive amount of weed coming directly from this supplier.
SPEAKER_08How much is a good chunk? Well, I you know, I don't know. I'd say probably around a ton. You know, a couple thousand pounds.
SPEAKER_18Thousands of pounds, or literally a ton of weed.
SPEAKER_08That two thousand pounds. I don't know it was that much, but the way Chris talked, it was a big damn chunk. Right. Where was it coming from? Uh yeah, it's coming out of the west somewhere.
SPEAKER_18And by going directly to this supplier rather than through Latham, Chris can get it at a much lower price than Latham charges him.
SPEAKER_08Those motherfuckers would sell for like 11, 50, 1200. And Chris is gonna be able to pay, you know, two or three hundred dollars a thing.
SPEAKER_18He's then going to sell that weed at a much lower price and attract Latham's customers to him.
SPEAKER_08That's a big hit in a financial fucking pocket for some pound. Yeah, pound, yeah, and you know, that's a big damn hit. Right. For somebody, you know, especially when you're dealing with you, you take an actual time. Yeah, that's a lot of fucking money. But he said he was gonna be able to do that, and uh, you know, pretty much like, you're fucking lying.
SPEAKER_18You don't need me to tell you that if what Billy says is true, then in the weeks leading up to the murders, Chris Sr. makes an extremely risky move that directly threatens to siphon millions of dollars away from a powerful drug organization.
SPEAKER_08I told him not to, you know, don't fuck around with that kind of shit, you know, just people but you know out there, you have no fucking clue.
SPEAKER_18And one other very important thing to know about the Latham organization. By 2016, it's been in the drug trafficking business for decades, and it hasn't stayed in business all this time by being soft. It's a ruthless organization.
SPEAKER_08Chris wouldn't like like him, motherfuckers, okay.
SPEAKER_18Over the years, anyone who crosses Latham, and we're talking about people who did a lot less than what Chris is planning, these people tend to just disappear.
SPEAKER_08So as Latham got pissed off of people. You hear about the fucking shit. A lot of motherfuckers ain't around anymore when you see them. I'll guess they're on vacation. But uh, you know, you can just go back through the fucking records and look at that shit.
SPEAKER_18Now Billy tells investigators that he doesn't know when or even if Chris receives this big shipment that he's gonna need to pull off his plan to undermine Latham. But Billy says that in the last few days before the massacre, Chris's behavior changes drastically. Normally even keeled and unflappable, Chris becomes very stressed out and edgy.
SPEAKER_08I was like, man, what the hell is going on? You're acting like, you know, what the fuck's up with you? Right. And he's like, Ain't nothing fucking wrong with me. Okay. He's like, Everybody thinks something's wrong with me. And he was acting weird all that week, but uh he never said what.
SPEAKER_18And then, of course, just days later, somebody murders Chris. Along with Dana, Frankie, Hannah Gilly, Hannah Mae, Chris Jr., Gary, and Kenneth. You might hear this and think, well, that's it. That's what happened. If in early 2016 Chris makes a move that threatens to completely wipe out a dangerous drug organization's profits, then you can imagine that organization doing something extreme to either stop Chris or punish him, or both. Again, this is coming from Chris's best friend, and it's extremely difficult to corroborate. But if what he says is true, then lots of pieces start to fall into place. Like the so-called professionalism of these assassination-style killings, the Latham organization would certainly have access to people with that kind of evil expertise. It would also explain the overkill. That's the presumably painful and slower violence that's directed only at Chris and none of the other seven victims. It would also explain the killers' knowledge of Chris's gross sites and how to disable their security systems. It would also explain why the killers go far out of their way to kill Kenneth Roden, who's all by himself at the hidden gross site more than 10 miles away from Chris and the others. But we don't have enough solid information to say for sure that's what happened because the official investigation doesn't seem to go in that direction. And on that note, there's something else Bailey Wagner tells these agents from BCI.
SPEAKER_08Let me ask you something real quick. Are you from around here? Are you from like Columbus? No, we work for BCI. So you're not affiliated with the Sheriff's Department around here? No, we are not affiliated with the Sheriff's Office around here. We work for the state. We work for the Attorney General. We work for the attorney general, we don't work for the street. We don't work for Sheriff Reader and anybody.
SPEAKER_18He warns them over and over that they should not trust Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader.
SPEAKER_08Listen, I'm telling you, this is the crookest fucking county in the state of Ohio, all right? Listen, I'm I'm telling you, you're not the first one to tell us that they don't trust the people here locally.
SPEAKER_18Billy Wagner tells these BCI agents that the reason they shouldn't trust Sheriff Charles Reader or his brother, county investigator Brian Reader, is that the Readers work for Latham.
SPEAKER_08I just wish we knew more about the association with Latham and the Sheriff's Office. Top dog down there, him and his brother work. I'm a little kid for like him and his brother.
SPEAKER_18Now, I can't corroborate Billy Wagner's claim that Sheriff Charles Reeder takes money and orders from Latham.
SPEAKER_08I'm gonna tell you something. You show any shit. I'm not any of shit, these motherfuckers down here. It'll be in Latham before you get to your fucking car. I'm not we know that. If it gets there, if it gets there, I know who fucking done it. Well, let me ask, let me just say, why do you think we're meeting here and not meeting at the sheriff's okay?
SPEAKER_18But there are a couple things I can say with absolute certainty about Sheriff Reader because of information that comes out much later. First, Sheriff Reader is corrupt. He engages in illegal activity for money. This takes a while to come out, but it's true. Also, at the time of the massacre, Sheriff Reader is absolutely desperate for cash because he is deep in the throes of an out-of-control gambling addiction. Later, I'll tell you how all of this information about Charles Reader comes out. But yeah, the guy who's supposed to be leading the effort to solve the Pike County massacre is definitely corrupt and desperate. And he allegedly takes money and orders from the drug organization that had the motive and means to commit these crimes.
SPEAKER_08Okay, well um just our guarantee to you is we want to catch killers. Well you boys don't do it. You don't get like you know get the phones or whoever in here, you know, if y'all don't do it, it ain't gonna get done.
SPEAKER_18Of course, people watching news coverage of the Pike County massacre in spring of 2016 couldn't possibly know any of this.
SPEAKER_07We're coming. When this investigation is complete, it's gonna point us in the direction that we need to go, and we'll find who did this.
SPEAKER_04Strong words tonight from Pike County Sheriff Charles Reeder, who says he's never seen anything as horrific as this.
SPEAKER_18They see a sheriff standing shoulder to shoulder with Attorney General Mike DeWine.
SPEAKER_06Let me just say I'm so very, very impressed with the sheriff and his department.
SPEAKER_18Promising to catch and punish whoever killed Chris Rodin Sr. and his family.
SPEAKER_07We are working around the clock, other than the short time that we take to get some rest so that we can continue this investigation and see it to a close.
SPEAKER_14Nearly a week into the investigation, and there are not a lot of answers, including who it was that killed eight members of one family.
SPEAKER_18More than 90 BCI staff work on the case in the early weeks. That's nearly a quarter of the agency's total staff.
SPEAKER_14Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine tells nine on your side the Pike County massacre is the most important case in the state of Ohio.
SPEAKER_18But police make no arrests. And the truth is that they don't really have any good leads.
SPEAKER_03David, you've been following this investigation since the beginning. What is the latest here? Investigators really don't have anything solid. There's not one thing that they're chasing. They're kind of just knocking things off and going through everything that anybody's bringing to them. And I really, I, I really went at investigators to say to them, can you give us anything? Can you tell us about a vehicle that was spotted leaving the scene? Can you tell us about something you found in the woods that may give you an indication or a profile on a suspect? Nothing. Zilch. We cannot get anything from them. That's either because they just don't want to play ball and release anything, or they don't have much of anything.
SPEAKER_18Meanwhile, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine goes on TV almost every day. Are there any new developments to report tonight?
SPEAKER_06You know, we continue to make progress.
SPEAKER_18Even though he doesn't have news to share.
SPEAKER_04When you lie down at night, does it ever cross your mind that there is a possibility that this case may never be solved?
SPEAKER_06I still believe we're going to solve this case.
SPEAKER_18Thirteen days after the murders, the Cincinnati Inquirer runs a story that gently questions DeWine's motivations for appearing in so much media. Does DeWine, the Inquirer's story asks, have political motivation to be in front of the cameras in Pike County? Absolutely not, his spokeswoman says. This is his job. The inquirer quotes several people who say that, as Attorney General, there's nothing improper about Mike DeWine making himself the public face of the investigation. At the same time, the inquirer notes, quote, he is a media savvy politician who recognizes the value of being in the headlines and in front of television cameras.
SPEAKER_06My commitment to the people of Pike County is that from the Attorney General's point of view and BCI point of view, um, nothing is more important that's going on in the state. Uh we will be with this investigation and with the sheriff until we find out who did this. Thank you all very much. Thank you.
SPEAKER_18There's one more point that's not in the Cincinnati Inquirer's story. By making himself the public face of the investigation, DeWine's career and his ambition to become governor will live or die with this investigation.
SPEAKER_06Have you been doing any talking with folks about a possible run for governor? Well, I think it's probably too early to publicly talk about that.
SPEAKER_18If it goes well, he'll be a hero. If it goes badly, though, he's going to get the blame.
SPEAKER_00In the meantime, DeWine continues to sidestep speculation he is officially a candidate for governor. At this point, DeWine won't say when he'll make his decision.
SPEAKER_18The days turn into weeks with no visible signs of progress in the investigation.
SPEAKER_09Investigators have reported no new developments.
SPEAKER_18The national news media attention dies down, and even the local press starts to move on a little. Then the families see something that they never could have expected.
SPEAKER_02Breaking news out of Pike County. Right now, authorities have been moving the mobile homes where eight members of the Roden family were murdered last month.
SPEAKER_18Chris Roden, Frankie Roden, and Kenneth Roden's houses rolling down the street. Sheriff Charles Reeder has hired construction companies to lift the entire homes off their foundations and onto flatbed trucks.
SPEAKER_10And as you're looking now at this aerial footage of the scene, you will note where a couple of these trailers once were.
SPEAKER_14Three mobile homes are gone from that scene, and right now crews are trying to figure out how to move a house.
SPEAKER_18Now, if you're thinking maybe this is some investigation technique you just haven't heard of, it's not. Nobody in law enforcement circles can think of any other example of an investigative agency picking up and moving three entire crime scenes. The risk of destroying evidence with diggers and cranes and trucks and an 18-mile journey is just obvious.
SPEAKER_17No arrests, no suspects. And now worries that some of the crime scene evidence may be useless.
SPEAKER_16Any evidence that they would pull out of that thing would be virtually useless. If they're able to identify and charge and indict who committed this horrible crime, yeah, the whole thing could be jeopardized because of this.
SPEAKER_18Why on earth would the Pike County Sheriff lift and move the rodent's houses? Sheriff Reeder says it's to save money. Instead of paying deputies to post up at the rodent's houses and guard them 24 hours a day, he can just put the houses behind a locked fence near police headquarters and keep an eye on them.
SPEAKER_04Investigators would not allow us inside the warehouse to see how the four trailers were protected. Who's guarding that evidence right now?
SPEAKER_07I'm not going to comment on who's guarding the evidence. Do I have deputies there? Absolutely. Am I there? Yes. Every day. Every day I'm there.
SPEAKER_18More weeks go by with no public signs of progress. Attorney General Mike DeWine makes fewer and fewer trips from the capital in Columbus to Pike County. Fewer and fewer BCI agents come to Pike County. And by week 10, they're nowhere to be seen. 13 weeks after the murders, a reporter is talking to the sheriff of another county in Southern Ohio, Ross County. This sheriff of Ross County happens to be the administrator of the Southern Ohio Crime Stoppers Fund, which organizes reward money for cases across the region. The reporter asks the Ross County Sheriff why no reward money has been offered for information leading to arrests in the Pye County Massacre case. The Ross County Sheriff is shocked. He did authorize a reward.$10,000 just two weeks after the murders. But the rules are that the agency that has jurisdiction over a case has to be the agency that announces a reward. So the fund gives$10,000 to Pike County, expecting for Sheriff Charles Reader to then go and announce it. But he never does. In fact, if you remember, he specifically tells the victims' families that the county doesn't have any money for a reward. Sheriff Reader says that messages from the fund about the$10,000 must have gone to one of his old email addresses.
SPEAKER_13We have.
SPEAKER_09It was press conference after press conference. He was like leading the pack here. So what happened to him?
SPEAKER_04Now we tracked DeWine down just this morning. He tells us he's not worried at all about what we found here.
SPEAKER_06Well, I can't really speak to how the property is protected 24-7. Uh Sheriff Reeder is in charge of that. Any updates on the case that you can give us? It's been quite some time now and still no rest. We have some leads, but I'm not going to go any further.
SPEAKER_18At the six-month mark, the Cincinnati Inquirer reports that relatives of the Piked Massacre victims are now planning to picket the sheriff's office. In that story, the family members say they haven't heard from Attorney General Mike DeWine in months. If you remember, it's been Mike DeWine's lifelong ambition to become Governor of Ohio, and he's gearing up to announce his run. It probably goes without saying, but if he's seen as bungling the most important case he oversees as Attorney General, he's going to have a tough time convincing voters to give him the promotion that he's always wanted.
SPEAKER_15Relatives hope new posters distributed this week will lead to new information on the execution-style murders of an Ohio family.
SPEAKER_18The family members print and hang posters all over Pike County asking for information about who killed their loved ones. They pay for and hang those posters themselves. Meanwhile, Bobby Joe Manley, Dana Roden's sister and Chris Roden Sr.'s sister-in-law, the first person to discover the murders. Remember Sheriff Reeder had barged into her house in the middle of the night and yelled at her? She tells reporters that almost a year into the investigation, the sheriff is still accusing her of being involved in the murders and treating her family as if they're suspects.
SPEAKER_11Leonard Manley hasn't been shy about his feelings that law enforcement has unfairly targeted his children. He said investigators have repeatedly questioned James and his sister Bobby Joe and given them lie detector tests.
SPEAKER_05The system sucks.
SPEAKER_18At the one year mark, Attorney General DeWine and Sheriff Reeder hold a joint press conference.
SPEAKER_06As we approach the uh first anniversary of the tragic murders in Pike County, this case remains uh the top priority of the Attorney General's office and BCI as far as all the investigations that we have going on.
SPEAKER_07As a sheriff of Pike County, every morning when I enter my office, the first thing I do is go to the computer and check our tip line to see if there's something new.
SPEAKER_18They say they're making great progress.
SPEAKER_06I remain confident that we will find the killers. But then they open up for reporters' questions. Any questions? Anyone?
SPEAKER_18And it's pretty obvious to everyone there that after a year of this, they've got nothing. No.
SPEAKER_08Do you have any persons of interest in hell?
SPEAKER_06I'm not gonna comment on that.
SPEAKER_08But it's fair to say they're harder under the picture and you have a better understanding of what may have led to killing themselves.
SPEAKER_06Well, I'm not sure I would totally agree with that. What we do is we look at the possibilities. What's a possibility? One, two, three. Different possibilities. And so it's a moving target. But there certainly are different different scenarios out there that we look at that are that are plausible. You know, as we sit around and we put things up on the wall, you know, you you have different scenarios that make some sense.
SPEAKER_07This is something that that we never table, that we constantly think about. Sometimes I sit and I write out a list of questions on a page or two, and and those questions are asked.
SPEAKER_04The information we're getting from you is exactly what we got almost a year to the day after these killings. The public's going to look at this and say, you know, they've got nothing. What can you tell the public that you have materially that you've made progress in this case and the killers will in fact being hot? And secondly, that you may be hot.
SPEAKER_06I fully understand uh the residents of my county's frustration uh that we're a year into this investigation and we do not have an arrest. I can only tell you that we are absolutely doing everything that we can within our power to figure out who committed these horrible, horrible crimes. Okay, thank you all very much.
SPEAKER_18News coverage of the one-year anniversary is decisively negative for Mike DeWine.
SPEAKER_17Ohio's attorney general and the Pike County Sheriff updated the investigation, but if you're a member of the Roden family, it's not good news.
SPEAKER_04Neither DeWine nor Reader would say whether they have any suspects or at least a person of interest, leaving the Roden family and the rest of the world to wonder if this case will ever be solved.
SPEAKER_18It's at this moment, more than a year after the murders, as the news media is saying that Mike DeWine will never solve the biggest case of his tenure. As Mike DeWine is watching his childhood dream slip from his fingers, that DeWine's office gives the media the names and pictures of Billy, Angela, George, and Jake Wagner. That's coming up in the next episode. Keep listening.
