COLUMBUS, Ohio — Four days after the calculated killings of eight people in rural Ohio, authorities have yet to announce a motive, let alone any suspects, but the local prosecutor revealed Monday that authorities found marijuana at some of the crime scenes, including a grow-house where hundreds of plants were being cultivated.
The victims — all members of an extended family — were fatally shot in the head, including the young mother of a newborn baby sleeping beside her early Friday morning. That baby, another infant and a toddler were spared.
"It wasn't just somebody sitting pots in the window," Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk told The Columbus Dispatch.
The prosecutor did not immediately respond to multiple requests from The Associated Press for comment.
All eight autopsies have been completed, the attorney general's office said Monday. Authorities have released no details about a motive, but the office did confirm Monday that one of the victims had received a threat via Facebook.
At a news conference Sunday, Attorney General Mike DeWine called the killings "a sophisticated operation," and Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said citizens should assume that those responsible are armed and dangerous.
Authorities have yet to describe a motive, but extensive marijuana-growing operations are not uncommon in sparsely rural southern Ohio, an economically distressed corner of Appalachia where secluded properties aren't far from major population centers. Two of the victims' homes are within walking distance of each other along a remote, winding road leading into wooded hills from a rural highway.
Read Tuesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.