Rhoden case: 'Hate seeing my daughter cry'
The father of a surviving Rhoden child started a Gofundme account to help with legal bills he acquired to gain custody of his toddler-aged daughter.
Jake Wagner still can't quite bring himself to tell his 2 1/2-year-old daughter that her mommy is dead.
It's the finality of that word that stops him. He worries about the tow-headed toddler's unpredictable reaction. There will be, he knows, so many questions. He is concerned, too, she may become frightened.
He knows there will come a day when he will tell Sophia that her mom, Hanna Rhoden, was shot and killed with seven of her extended family members on April 22. He knows another day will arrive when he and she will make the trip to the cemetery where her mom is buried alongside two of her uncles and her maternal grandparents.
"I've told her that mommy is with Jesus and we will see her again later,'' Wagner said. "I don't know if she knows Hanna isn't coming back.
"I don't know if she understands."
How could she?
In addition to her mom, also killed were: her grandparents, Christopher Rhoden, 40, and Dana Rhoden, 37; her uncles, Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20, and Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16; a great uncle, Kenneth Rhoden, 44; and a cousin, Gary Rhoden, 38. Also killed was Frankie Rhoden's fiancee Hannah Gilley, 20.
Two of her cousins, Ruger Rhoden, then 6 months, and Brentley Rhoden, 3, along with her newborn sister, Kylie, were found alive and physically unhurt in the trailers they shared with their parents.
The investigation is now in its fourth month with no stated motive nor suspects and no arrests. And as the criminal case is moving along, so is the business of custody and estates. Neither is easy.
Pike County coroner withholding final autopsy reports in killings
'Hate seeing my daughter cry'
This is Wagner's new reality: Full-time, single dad with mounting legal bills with a new job that pays half what he was making to ensure he is close to Sophia. But close still means the 23-year-old makes a daily commute from Peebles to Cincinnati, a 2 1/2-hour daily drive.
Wagner won custody of his little girl last month in Pike County, he said. And while the ruling was not unexpected, the legal bills were. This week Wagner set up a GoFundMe account in an effort to defray the legal bills and other unexpected but associated costs. He didn't know about the website until his mother mentioned it to him. He said he didn't want to draw attention to himself or to his daughter, but also didn't see a way out of the debt he has incurred since the homicide.
In Pike County, family clings to hope
"These were not expenses I was supposed to have. I was just supposed to be able to spend time with her and give her a happy childhood, she is only 2 1/2 years old,'' Wagner wrote on the page of the crowd-fundraising site. "Sophia and I are just asking for enough to settle the fees that we acquired due to the horrific tragedy to her mommy.
"We want to get our lives back,'' he wrote. "I hate seeing my daughter cry."
Wagner set a fundraising goal of $20,000, but said his legal bills were not quite that high. But, he added, his legal bills were four times more than what he expected. The former over-the-road truck driver and trained mechanic has maxed out his credit cards. He said he is paying his lawyer in what is left over after he pays his other bills every month. It hardly makes a dent.
Hanna Rhoden and Wagner shared custody of Sophia, who was supposed to be with her mom that fateful Friday evening, he said. But Wagner picked her up a day earlier than normal: "I reckon we missed it by just hours."
Sophia's 5-day-old baby sister, Kylie, was nuzzled next their mom when she was killed. The baby remains in the protective custody of the county as officials have been working to establish her paternity. Wagner declined to publicly discuss the paternity case on Thursday, but has said that he and at least one other young man could be her father.
Neither court nor county officials will discuss the custody issues surrounding Kylie and Ruger. The Pike County Children Services Board filed a motion asking the county's juvenile court to seal those records and related court proceedings in the case. The Enquirer believes the proceedings are public under Ohio law. A court hearing on the issue is set for Aug. 4.
It's unclear if any family members have been able to see either Ruger or Kylie. Wagner knows that Sophia hasn't seen them since April 21.
But he has taken her to play with her cousin Brentley at a playground. She was at a family wedding this past weekend. She recently visited her great-grandmother Geneva Rhoden, which put a rare smile on the 73-year-old's matriarch's face.
Dad and daughter are working to find a sense of normalcy and routine. There are the four-wheeler rides he takes her on, to a nearby creek. She helps him in the barn with the animals. There are tea parties, nail polishing sessions and Disney videos.
On the nights he makes it home before she drifts off to sleep, they read books together -- "Finding Nemo" is her current favorite.
When they are all done, she interlocks her little fingers and she prays.
"And I have her talk to her mom."
Chris Graves is the Enquirer's local columnist. She has been writing about the Rhoden family massacre since April. You can email her at cgraves@enquirer.com or follow her on Twitter @chrisgraves.
Reward offered
Anyone with information related to the case is asked to call Southern Ohio Crime Stoppers at 740-773-TIPS. Anonymous tips are still being taken at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation at 855-BCI-OHIO (224-6446) or the Pike County Sheriff's Office at 740-947-2111.
A $10,000 Crime Stoppers reward would be paid for any information that leads to apprehension of suspects and a conviction in the case.