After more than three weeks of gathering evidence in the April 22 killings that left seven family members and a fiancee dead, authorities have released the Rhoden properties on Union Hill and Union roads to surviving relatives.
That took place late Monday, said Dan Tierney, spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General’s office, on Tuesday.
“We are talking about the real property," he said. "The property remains private property."
Authorities also lifted most driving restrictions to the roads around the Rhoden property Monday, leaving barriers up but no deputies stationed at entrances. Deputies did remain on several sites along Union Hill and Union roads.
For weeks, crime scene tape, roadblocks and a rotating cast of sheriff's deputies have restricted access to the structures and roads near more than 30 acres of property owned by Christopher Rhoden Sr.
It was not clear who now has legal rights to the properties; Rhoden's ex-wife and all three of his children were among those killed. That decision will likely end up in probate court.
Investigators last week moved three trailers and a camper where the killings occurred from the Rhoden property to a Waverly warehouse serving as the investigation's command center. A large addition that was attached to Dana Manley Rhoden's trailer was hauled on Sunday evening on a flatbed, said her father Leonard Manley, who also lives on Union Hill Road.
Authorities also have been towing vehicles from the properties since May 3.
"The whole idea is to preserve them for evidence in the case, and also we want to make sure we are preserving them for the family members," Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has said of transporting the mobile homes. "There are pictures in there, there are other things that are very important to the family members."
DeWine said the moves were in the interest of security and "so the sheriff doesn't have to have people out there all the time."
Tierney said the trailers, camper and other items transported from the property remain secured at the command center.
Authorities have told the families that the trailers will be moved back to the properties after the case is concluded at no cost to the families.
Manley said he can't quite imagine that.
"I wouldn't want to live in them. Who would want to live in a trailer where three people got murdered?" he said. "In my book, they could have burned them all to the ground."
Christopher Rhoden bought the property at 4077 Union Hill Road on March 21, property records show. That is where Dana Manley Rhoden, his ex-wife, lived with their two children, Hannah, 19 and Chris, 16.
Leonard Manley said numerous chickens and a 300- to 500-pound hog remain on the property. Authorities had been watering and feeding the animals since the investigation launched April 22, when the eight bodies were discovered.
Family members started feeding the animals on Monday night.
Killed April 22 were Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40, and his ex-wife Dana Rhoden, 37 with whom he had reconciled; the couple's three children, Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20, Hanna Rhoden, 19, and Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16; Frankie's fiancee, Hannah Gilley, 20; Christopher Rhoden Sr.'s brother Kenneth Rhoden, 44, and his cousin Gary Rhoden, 38.
The search for a motive and suspects continues.
DeWine has repeatedly told reporters that investigators are not approaching the case “with a grand theory” about what might have happened. Instead, he said, they are looking at each piece of evidence "without any preconceived notions.”
