'Ain't got no revenge in our hearts,' Ohio family says after killings

Luke Skywalker · Apr 26, 2016

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8 people are dead in what police are calling 'execution-style' shootings in 4 separate rural Ohio homes. Three young children survived the shootings. VPC

Leonard Manley is father of shooting victim Dana Rhoden and grandfather to three other shooting victims who were Dana Rhoden's children -- Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20, Hanna Rhoden, 19, and Chris Rhoden Jr., 16.(Photo: The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann)

ON THE PIKE/ADAMS*COUNTY LINE, Ohio —*Tears well in Leonard Manley’s eyes with nearly every mention of his slain daughter and her three murdered children.
But they never spill onto his cheek.
Manley, a proud man who doesn’t have much but his family, is too proud for that.
In all the talk around town following the acts of violence that decimated his family, Manley sees a guilt by association forming in speculation about the case.*He is fierce in his defense of his daughter, Dana Rhoden, who was 37,*and wants to clear the air.
USA TODAY
Motive still unknown in Ohio mass shooting

“They are trying to drag my daughter through the mud and I don’t appreciate that,’’ Manley, 64, said Monday surrounded by family members and stacks of photo albums outside the trailer he shares with his wife Judy.
Manley spoke to The Cincinnati Enquirer in a nearly hour-long interview*just a half-mile down the road from the mass slaying and the cordoned-off crime scenes. Sheriff's cars continually drove past and helicopters whirred above as he, his wife and their*relatives struggled to understand who would want his family dead.
And why.
Still, he*also*voiced anger and frustration with authorities trying to solve the unfathomable crime.
"If they tell me she was mixed up in this,"*he said, "I would call them a liar and escort them off."
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'I think they should all just leave us alone'
Dana*was the third of his four children. His youngest, Bobby Jo Manley, 36, found her sister dead when she went to feed the family’s dogs and chickens around 7 a.m. Friday.*Bobby Jo, who stood by*her father during much of the interview,*is having the toughest time with the deaths: "She don't sleep, she don't eat. She's pretty busted up,"*he said.
According to Leonard*Manley, when Bobby Jo showed up last Friday morning, the front door was locked and the dogs were nowhere to be found.*There were at least two pit bulls and a "wolf-dog"*and "coon dogs"*that lived with his family members. Manley questioned why the killer or killers didn't shoot the dogs, which he described as fierce.
"Why wouldn't they do that?"*Leonard Manley said. "Somebody had to know them dogs."
Bobby Jo declined to discuss the crime scenes or talk very much Monday, but did say*she and several of her family members had talked to investigators repeatedly. The last time, investigators*came and woke up her and five other people at 3:41 a.m. Sunday, she said.
USA TODAY
911 call in Ohio: 'There's blood all over the house'

"The Pike County Sheriff's wanted to ask me the same questions the BCI did,"*she said, adding that investigators seem to be fixated on when she found the bodies. They said it was earlier, Bobby Jo says. But she said, she went there around 7 a.m.
"I think they should all just leave us alone,"*she said in a moment between tears.
Leonard*Manley looked up as his daughter*sighed.
"Look, we are just hillbillies,"*he said. "We ain't got no revenge in our hearts."
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Eight relatives dead, three children spared
Dana Rhoden, 37, her ex-husband, Christopher Rhoden, Sr., 40; and their three children, Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20, Hanna Rhoden, 19, and Chris Rhoden Jr., 16, were among eight people each found shot in the head Sunday morning.
Also killed were Frankie's*girlfriend, Hannah Gilley, 20; Christopher Rhoden’s brother, Kenneth Rhoden, 44; and Christopher's cousin, Gary Rhoden, 38.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has called the crime*"a pre-planned execution"*and “a*sophisticated operation."*Authorities say they*anticipate*a long, methodical and difficult probe into the deadliest mass killing so far in 2016 in the United States.
Investigators*found three marijuana growing operations*at three locations at the crime scenes, which included three trailers just down the road from Manley’s home on Union Hill Road. A fourth scene, and the last body, was discovered a few miles away on Left Fork Road.
DeWine and Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader have declined to say if drugs are a possible motive in the killings.
Leonard Manley said he learned about the marijuana grow sites in news reports*Sunday and described himself as*stunned.
"I don’t know nothing about that,"*he said.
But of this he is sure, his daughter —*who moved into the trailer just a few weeks ago —*could not have been involved in anything illegal.
Dana Rhoden worked full-time as a nursing assistant at the Hillside Skilled Nursing and Rehab Center in Peebles, which is about 10 miles*west of her home.
Matthew Smith, the center’s administrator, said she had worked at the 49-bed facility*since October and called her “a kind and caring worker"*who was loved by patients and co-workers alike. She worked Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and an every-other-weekend rotation.
USA TODAY
Pike County: 'Nothing around here has been normal'

On Thursday, she worked a double-shift after a co-worker was unable to work. She overslept and arrived at 8 a.m. and worked until about 11 p.m., Hillside manager*Heather Frost-Young said.
Frost-Young, who also went to high school with Dana, described her as bubbly, hard-working and had a huge heart who loved her children.
"She was just so proud of them,"*she said.
Her father said that description*doesn’t surprise*him one little bit.
"My daughter is a loving person, a loving mother,"*he said, using the present tense. "You go anywhere, you ask anyone about my daughter … they will tell you the same.
"You go down and ask about Dana; they will all tell you: I spoiled my girl,"*he said. "They would tell you her dad would do anything for her."

Leonard Manley is father of shooting victim Dana Rhoden and grandfather to three other shooting victims who were Dana Rhoden's children -- Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20, Hanna Rhoden, 19, and Chris Rhoden Jr., 16.*(Photo: The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann)

Two children with protective services, one with mother
Three children were found alive last Friday:
•*Kylie Rhoden, who was 5*days old on Friday and is the daughter of Hanna Rhoden;*
•*Ruger Rhoden, 6 months old; and
•*Ruger's*half-brother, 3-year-old Brentley.
Ruger and Brentley*are both Frankie Rhoden's sons.
Kylie and Ruger remain in the custody of child protective services; Brentley is in the care of his mother, Manley said.
Hannah Rhoden was also the mother to a 2-year-old daughter, Sophia. That child was with a relative the morning of the murders, where she remains, Manley said.
Manley said bodies*will be released to the funeral home Tuesday*morning. A motorcycle club will escort them the roughly 60 miles*home back to Pike County, where they will be laid out each in a casket side-by-side for the funeral service.
Chris and Dana and their three children will be buried together.
"One funeral,"*Manley said. "is enough."
Follow Chris Graves on*Twitter: @chrisgraves

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'Ain't got no revenge in our hearts,' Ohio family says after killings

Luke Skywalker

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