Recall, also when they determined that there was no link to the Ohio drug dealer who was involved in a shootout down near the Mexican border?
Ohio AG: Hatch Police officer death's suspect not connected to Pike County family killing
Ohio LE determined there was no connection to the Rhoden murders. After that DeWine asked Dept. of Homeland Security to see if there was any international criminal connection to the Rhoden murders and they found no link.
I remember, because that was my theory in the beginning. It turned out to be a dead end, of course. There had been a small amount of cartel activity in and around Pike County, but that was many years before the murders. The grow op the Mexicans had there was busted.
If Chris and Kenny had a significant grow op, it wasn't enough for the cartel to have an interest in. Some of us read through all those DEA Threat Assessment reports for 4 or 5 years and couldn't find any activity related to any cartel bringing in or trafficking in MJ in Pike or any surrounding counties.
2016 National Drug Threat Assessment
https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-07/DIR-040-17_2017-NDTA.pdf
No matter how much we tried to stretch and make that connection, there wasn't anything. Mexican MJ traffickers would have stood out in Pike County, people would have noticed them. There was plenty enough demand in the market around the region for CR1 and KR to sell there. I'm still not convinced they had all that many plants and obviously, they weren't sitting on a lot of money.