Moms and Mysteries: A True Crime Podcast · Moms and Mysteries Podcast

The Piketon Massacre: New Trials, New Sentences—An Update on the Rhoden Family Murders

·49 min·3 clips

Bobby Joe Manley found Chris Roden Sr. and Gary dead, then discovered Frankie and Hannah had also been shot.

Mandi and Melissa come back to the Rodin family murders with a fresh update. They remind listeners that the case was still at the beginning when they last covered it, so this return is less a recap than a check-in on how the story has moved since then. The opening is plain: eight members of one family were killed, and the hosts stay focused on how shocking it remains that another family was accused of carrying it out. Then they turn to the properties. Days after the murders, three of the Rodin properties were found to have large amounts of marijuana growing on them, enough for the sheriff to call it commercial in scale. That startled the town. Friends and neighbors had not known the Rodins were involved in growing marijuana, and the episode lingers on how hard it was to square that hidden side with the family people thought they knew. The hosts widen the lens to Pike County. They point out that large grow operations were not unheard of there, including a 2012 bust involving about 1,200 plants and suspicions of cartel connections. That history mattered because it gave investigators a plausible path to follow, even if it was never a perfect fit for what happened that night. The children make it harder. Three children were left unharmed, and the episode explains why police thought that might point to a killer with some kind of moral line rather than the usual logic of a cartel hit. Security becomes the next question. The killer or killers got past the Rodin security, which made investigators wonder what that meant about how the crime was carried out. Mandi and Melissa keep the tone conversational. They move from the timeline to the practical details and back again, using everyday language to make the case easier to follow without softening how ugly it is. The result is steady. It gives listeners a clear, grounded update on a case that still feels strange, brutal, and hard to pin down.

As heard by us

A grim update delivered with the hosts' familiar back-and-forth.

Moms and Mysteries returns to the Rhoden family murders six years after the show first covered the case in July 2019, when the Wagner family had just been arrested for the murders of eight members of the Rhoden family.

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Why you'd press play

You want the Roden family murders brought up to date without losing the human mess.

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