Ohio officials neglected to tell the public for 10 weeks about a $10,000 reward being offered for information about the killing of eight family members, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. Ross County Sheriff’s Deputy Dave Weber, who oversees the Southern Ohio Crime Stoppers fund, cited a “miscommunication and a misunderstanding” about notifying the public about the reward. “The reward was approved on May 10 but we didn’t have approval to put it out there,” said Weber. “We got a call from a TV station this week asking why there wasn’t a reward in the case. I said that wasn’t true.”
The information about the reward, which was authorized May 10, should have come from the Pike County Sheriff’s Office, Weber said. Pike County investigators and the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation are working to solve the April 22 slayings of eight members of the Rhoden family. Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said he was surprised to learn of the reward money Wednesday while watching a televised news report. He sent a member of his department to Ross County yesterday to meet with Weber in order to understand how the miscommunication happened. “It’s not the job of the sheriff to seek out reward money,” Reader said. “A reward was not on the top of my priority list” during the intense first days and weeks of the murder probe. Surviving members of the Rhoden family had felt frustrated no reward had been offered.