Merry Christmas to you all. Hope everyone has a great holiday.
I don't post often, but I read along to keep up. Thank you all for keeping it going. I pray all the children are feeling safe and loved now and the family feels some peace. I can't imagine the strength necessary to know who killed your family and not take revenge in the long 2.5 year wait. They are stronger than me. I couldn't have been that patient while my own family was being treated like criminals. LM makes my heart hurt. He must have a truly good soul.
Sad to say that in all probability the arrests brought some relief but the family has to be feeing the anticipated hearings and trials.
The evidence especially the photovevidence is going to be very stressful for them to see. Testimony, autopsy results,?toxicology results and discriptions of their deaths will be hard to hear. Most of the death we experience in our lives is natural, the result of illness or even shocking as an accident.
Death by gunshot is violent, and not normally expected in a rural area. Multiply that by 8 and it’s beyond my imagination how these people can cope. Of course the youngest at 16 was violently denied the right to begin his life. He, by all rights, should have had 60 years to live. Hell not graduate high school, may never have attended a dance or prom, will never be married, have the live if a wife or know how the live of a child is the most pure and innocent one can feel.
I can’t write anymore about what the 8 Rhodens will never have or experience.
But I can say it was not a decision the Waggies had a minute right to make. They might have felt entitled, but they are not God. God is the only entity tasked with life and death.
And as far as I’m concerned the decision that began this murderius rampage was wrong as well. They had no right to assume possession of SW. a judge has the legal right to make that determination. Not anyone with the last name Waggie.
As time goes on, I think t stimony may prove that the rumors are correct that they coerced the bio mom of BW to give up custody. I can’t recall where I read that, but it was early on.
DeWine was correct, the motive and most of this case is bizarre. It’s sad and excessively emotional. I think while most people understand the reason for the murders, none of us can justify killing one person let alone 8. And even unthinkable is the sheer absurdity of aiming a gun and pulling the trigger to kill 8 people is far beyond our reality.
If found guilty, the only suitable place to house them is death row. If found guilty, and death is the penalty, 12 people’s lives will be gone. Not one of which had to die.
I’m trying to imagine what local historians might write about this chapter in Pike County history. Will they be honest and ris the Waggies having to be as crazy and heinous as the crime itself? I don’t know. They may write about the life choices each family made. But can history adequately describe the innocent survivors?
I can only hope that each person who knew the Rhodens who feel the mental anguish of losing so may theyknew and loved, are able to invite mental health professionals into their lives to learn the best ways to cope.
As far as I know there is e nothing I have seen or found explaining a tragedy such as this. Other than the horrible murders on the commercial fishing boat THE INVESTOR IN Craig, Alaska, I haven’t read of anything close in numbers alone. Two children, their pregnant mother, theirvfather the Captain and owner and several deckhands died by gunshot in 1982. Shortly after the Kenai lying the vessel was moved to a cove close to town and burned with the bodies to the waterline
A man was arrested and due to prosecutorial error he was not convicted.
It left a mark in the community and all of Alaska for many years. People did not cope well with it and to this day brings intense negative emotions. I had hoped st the time for history never to repeat itself yet here we are trying to understand how a mind can think of such vengeful acts, carefully tend to each detail of murder and pull the trigger more than 3o times to kill 8 people. Then even hope let alone believe they were smart enough to get away with it.
