Pike County massacre differs from most mass killings

The massacre of eight members of a Pike County family is the largest mass killing in the United States this year, and the time that has lapsed without authorities confirming whether they have identified a suspect or a motive is atypical compared to recent high-profile mass shootings.

But Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has noted that the Rhoden family killing is not a typical mass shooting.

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“Shortly after this occurred, I said this would be a very long investigation,” DeWine said this week, brushing off questions about whether his office has any solid leads on suspects or motives for the April 22 killings.

“It’s like putting a puzzle together,” he said.

Meanwhile, dozens of state, federal and local law enforcement officers continue poring over evidence from four rural crime scenes. The four mobile homes where the murders occurred and numerous vehicles were towed this week and taken for evidence.

“If you have four crime scenes and eight bodies, that’s a lot of evidence to process,” said Tim Shaw, a former FBI agent who investigated drug cartels and violent crime. “I would be willing to bet in 4-to-6 weeks you’ll start seeing different areas of this going.”

He said investigators were likely on their hands and knees, meticulously collecting and cataloguing fingerprints, fibers, hair, shoe prints. Everything is documented to show when and where it was found — then it’s taken to the crime scene for analysis, including comparing it to the hair, shoes and clothes on the victims and police.

“Anything that’s in that crime scene, you’re taking your time and making sure you go through them slowly and process it,” he said.

Killers most often kill selves

While mass shootings have become routine in America, a manhunt of this magnitude is uncommon because most often the killer commits suicide, is gunned down by police, or arrested within 24 hours, an analysis by this newspaper found.

Using media reports, this newspaper analyzed 121 high-profile homicides in which at least four people were killed, dating back to 2010. This includes public shootings, family shootings and single gang-related incidents. It doesn’t include drawn-out crimes such as gang wars or suspected serial killings.

The victims — men, women and children of all ages — totaled 622.

The number of victims doesn’t count the shooters; 51 of them died at their own hand, most often the same day as the killings. This was especially true of people who murdered their own families.

The analysis includes a case last year that bears eerie similarity to the Pike County killings.

In February 2015, a teenage girl in rural Texas County, Missouri, fled to a neighbor’s house and called 911 after hearing gunshots in her home. In the following hours deputies would find seven people murdered at four locations. An eighth woman was shot but survived, and was able to identify the shooter as 36-year-old Joseph Jesse Aldridge. Teenage children in two homes were unharmed.

Aldridge was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his pickup truck about 15 miles away. The victims were his neighbors and family members. The perpetrator’s mother was found dead of natural causes at his home, leading some to initially speculate he flew into a rage at her death. But evidence suggested he had long planned the attacks, and no real motive was ever determined.

Eight or more killed in 11 cases

Among the mass shootings analyzed were 11 in which eight or more people were killed. The largest was the Sandy Hook massacre that left 27 people — many of them children — dead. Killer Adam Lanza shot himself in the head as police arrived on scene.

In San Bernadino in 2015 and the Washington Navy Yard shootings in 2013 — 14 and 12 killed, respectively — suspects were gunned down by police. That also was true in 10 cases analyzed out of the total 121.

In five of the cases with at least eight victims, the suspects were arrested — all within 24 hours. Most were at or near the crime scene when police arrived. Police made arrests in 48 of the 121 cases analyzed.

One of the few killers who briefly eluded capture was Dylan Roof, who gunned down nine churchgoers in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, last year. He was apprehended the next day after video images of him taken at the church were released to the media and he was spotted by members of the public about 245 miles from the crime scene.

In another 11 cases, no suspect has been brought to justice. Those cases each had four victims, except for a shooting near Pittsburgh in March that left five people and an unborn child dead.

That killing was described as a calculated ambush in which one man approached a backyard party with a handgun, and another man fired at people with an assault rifle as they fled. Though no one has been charged, police within a couple weeks of the crime indicated they had suspects, who have since been identified as two men who were arrested after the murders and are currently incarcerated on unrelated drug charges.

The oldest unsolved killing in the analysis involved four men found shot to death on a backyard patio in Los Angeles in 2011 in a slaying police said appeared to be gang-related.

Another anomoly was a shootout in May 2015 between biker gangs in Waco, Texas, that left nine people dead. Months later, a total of 154 bikers have been indicted on felony charges of engaging in organized criminal activity.

‘It will be solved’

Brad Garrett, another former FBI agent who investigated violent crime, said the Pike County murders aren’t a textbook mass killing. While first details suggested something similar to a family killing, he said details that later emerged about a marijuana growing operation at some of the properties could suggest something different.

“It would appear that this is some sort of organized killing,” he said. “This isn’t somebody that got mad over a bad poker game or something … It was clearly done, I think on some level, to make a statement.”

He said agents are likely matching ballistics to identify weapons and the number of shooters. And they would delve into all forms of communication — cellphones, text messages, emails — to find out who the victims were communicating with.

“Who did they deal with, who did they sell to? All of these things, with some work, are findable,” he said.

Such killings aren’t typical in the United States, he said, though they happen often in central and South America.

Dan Tierney, spokesman for DeWine, said his office cautions people against comparing the Rhoden slayings to other mass killings.

“This is not what people think of when they think of mass shooting,” he said. “We had the execution-style murder of eight individuals. It was done in the night and it was done in a manner where someone tried to hide their tracks.”

And while current and former investigators say it’s still early for an investigation of this magnitude, the lack of information beyond those basic details has led some in Pike County to worry the trail could go cold.

“Hopefully they solve it. But stuff goes unsolved all the time,” said Gene Brown, bartender at Beril’s Bar on the edge of Piketon along the Scioto River. “I used to take out the trash here at 3 a.m. and open the back door and think nothing of it. Now I put the trash at the back door and wait till morning to take it out.”

DeWine understands the growing frustration over the case.

“If I lived in Pike County, I’d feel like it’s been a long time,” he said, adding that dozens of investigators are on the case, in addition to local and federal law enforcement.

“They’re going to stay down there until we figure this thing out. In my opinion, it will be solved.”

Staff writer Steve Bennish contributed to this report.

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