The article re El Chapo strikes me as being directly on point. While I don't know enough to distnguish El Chapo from Zorro, I do strongly believe that the growers/producers in Pike County are simply links in a chain that begins with Mexican crime lords and ends with distribution by folks aligned with Crips and Bloods. And I think that these franchises are somewhat less clear than a legit business model would. Now, I don't know the nature of the beef, but this continues to look to me like a show of power. Whatever the transgression commited by the Rhodens--which could have been sharing info about competitors with LE, skimming profits, drawing the line at growing and refusing to engage in shattering or meth production, or dealing directly with distributors and cutting the Mexicans out.
Personally I am no Dewine fan, but I do believe there is truth in his rather inelegant statements. This killing is not like some rather random shoot-ups followed by suicide--as fits both some shootings by people beset by mental illness, as well as some relationship rages--where the killer presumes they will be caught and makes a suicide part of the event.
I do think Dewine is right in suggesting this one is going to take awhile. Columbus recently saw a legal take-down of one of the street-gangs involved in distribution. It was apparently years in the making. End of the day it would seem that a lot of cases rested on various arrestees agreeing to testify against one another. In this case, I would imagine that the shooter(s) are fairly small fish--and may have left the country (or certainly the county) by now.
Interesting comment in the article by the Sheriff who reported having received threats--from the Mexicans--against his children. Says he let them know if their children are hurt then LE will fight back. Just an ironic little message considering children in this case were left unharmed.
One more thought. LM--who I think must be taken with a grain of salt--said look at custody. Seems odd. Think however if he wasn't talking about custody of children, but chain of custody of evidence. LE recently intercepted a rather large shipment of weed from CA. Maybe it wasn't all destroyed (or there were rumors along those lines).