Rhodes, Thelma: 1946
On December 21, 1946, Thelma Leona Rhodes was shot and killed by her husband, Herman Rhodes, age 32, a farmer who lived four miles north of Martinsburg on Piney Creek.
The couple had five children; four were home at the time of the murder. The oldest, Carl, eleven, was afraid of his father and was living with his uncle, Melvin Edwards. Donna Jean, age ten at the time of her mother’s murder, was in bed with her siblings. The four children could hear their parents arguing about the wallpaper in the kitchen, their mother scream, and then a shot. Mrs. Rhodes had tried to dodge the shot, but the 20 gauge gun hit the back of her head and sprayed the kitchen, breaking the window. They stayed in their beds, afraid to move, hearing their father sob and weep throughout the night. Early in the morning, they heard a second shot; the house was then silent. Donna Jean got her siblings out of bed and dressed them about nine in the morning. The children saw their dead mother, but not their father. John, 8; Dick, 7; Robert, 5, and Darlene, less than two, walked to Cal Baker’s farm between Smithfield and Beavertown. They arrived there at 9:45 a.m. James Baker took them to their grandparents’ home. Mr. and Mrs. Sanford Rhodes also lived on Piney Creek. They listened to the story and repeated it to Heaster Smith and Leroy Dilling. Mr. Dilling called the State Police at Ant Hill.
Meanwhile, Chester Burket stopped at the Rhodes farm to pick Herman Rhodes up a for scheduled shopping trip to Martinsburg. No one answered, but through the shattered kitchen window, he saw his sister-in-law’s body.
The police arrived. The wallpaper in the kitchen was completed, but the border was not. They found Rhodes on the cellar steps, slumped against the washing machine, shot in the side of the head. The authorities noted that he and his wife had been good managers; there was a lot of canned goods in the cellar. Two funerals were held at the Smithfield Church of the Brethren, with Reverends D. Popple and E. Frederick. The rhodes were buried in Fairview Cemetery, Martinsburg.
Thelma Rhodes was born in Williamsburg on February 27, 1916; the daughter of James and Levina Edwards. Herman Lykens Rhodes was born in Martinsburg on April 15, 1915. The two were married on July 21, 1934 and worked at farming until that fatal day.
Although earlier reports differ in details, the summary above appears to be the most complete. Competing stories stated the children had gone to stay the night with a neighbor. Other reports note that of the couple’s six children, ages from one to nine, five had been hiding in a bedroom upstairs at the time of the crime. They heard the shots, but were too frightened to investigate. After the second shot, the nine-year daughter dressed and ran for help early Saturday morning. Jack Dilling, a neighbor, went to the house after hearing the children’s story and not seeing anyone moving about the Rhodes farm.
