The wheels of justice turned slowly, but on Wednesday, they yielded to a new opportunity of closure for family members of the victims, after over a year of chaotic upheaval.

The jury started deliberation late Monday afternoon, breaking at the end of each day until Wednesday. They deliberated for about 14 hours.

“We got justice,” Penny Sankey whispered to her daughter, Brionna Sankey — El Dominic Rhodes’ fiancee — as they sobbed in an emotional embrace.

It was the first time she could utter those words with confidence in nearly 14 months since the Rhodes brothers’ bodies were found in an alley behind King’s apartment building near Second Avenue North and Ninth Street in Fort Dodge.

-Messenger photo by Elijah Decious
Family members of the murder victims and victim advocates nervously wait for the court to read the jury’s verdict. Fiancee Brionna Sankey’s hand, second from the right, still wears the engagement ring she received from victim El Dominic Rhodes. The verdict comes four days before what would have been the couple’s first anniversary — their wedding date was set for Dec. 8, 2018.

King stared straight forward with no emotion as the verdict was read.

Early in deliberation, the jury asked to re-listen to the state’s eye witness, Margaret Seiler, in her first call to police in which she described seeing King running down the street moments after the shots were fired with a gun in his left hand.

The jury had the option to convict King of second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter, if they felt there was no element of premeditation in the killings.

King’s sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled. The 28-year-old faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. He may also face additional penalties for multiple violations of his parole, some of which he openly admitted to on the witness stand at trial, like dealing drugs and handling firearms.

In January 2014, King pleaded guilty to his role in a fire and burglary at Bemrich Electric & Telephone Inc. in Fort Dodge. He was ultimately sentenced to 30 years in prison for burglary, arson and theft.

King was placed on work release and eventually paroled earlier last year on a number of charges, including the charges stemming from that case.

“The State is certainly satisfied with this outcome, not only to get such a violent, repeat criminal offender off the streets of Fort Dodge and Webster County, but more importantly for the families of Marion and El Dominic’s to have some form of finality and justice,” a statement from the Webster County Attorney’s Office read.

The blood started to return to Brionna Sankey’s fingers after her white-knuckled hands gripped the ones next to her, calming her nerves as she waited for the jury foreman to hand over the verdict. Her ring finger still sports the engagement ring El Dominic Rhodes gave her.

The verdict came four days before what would have been their first anniversary — they were set to get married on Dec. 8 last year.

To them, justice means being able to move on with their lives.

“I’m not letting their deaths define the rest of my life,” Penny Sankey said. “It’s what he would’ve wanted.”

But as King faces a life sentence without the possibility of parole, a victim advocate said that the families will, too.

“No matter what the verdict is, they still have to live with this for the rest of their lives,” said Marie Harvey, an advocate for victims of homicide and violent crimes with the Domestic / Sexual Assault Outreach Center in Fort Dodge.

They’re in a club nobody wants to be in, Brionna Sankey chuckled.

No matter the verdict, the Sankeys had to see it all the way through.

“Somebody had to be there for Twin and Dom,” Penny Sankey said, calling Marion and El Dominic by their nicknames.

The brothers’ younger sister and Marion Rhodes’ fiancee had to leave before the verdict due to the extended length of the trial.

“When I say they found him guilty … Lord it feels so good,” said the Rhodes brothers’ younger sister, Carolyn Rhodes, on social media after the verdict. “Lord, justice has been served. That was a long three days, I was getting nervous.”

Brionna Sankey and El Dominic Rhodes’ daughter, Ariyah, will carry on the striking resemblance to and last name of her father. Brionna Sankey said she has peace knowing her 2-year-old will someday be able to read about what happened — that her father’s killer was brought to justice.

The trial, originally scheduled for September, moved to Story County after exhaustion of a jury pool. Many Webster County residents were familiar with the 100 plus names on the list of witnesses or names mentioned throughout the investigation, as well as The Messenger’s extensive coverage of King’s notable criminal history.

But reports of jury tampering were perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back, delaying the trial until Nov. 12.

“The communications that were made to the two jurors that were revealed to us were shocking,” District Court Judge Kurt Stoebe, of the Second District, said.

Jurors were told they would be finished before Thanksgiving, two weeks after the start of the trial. Delays and disruptions with evidence and witnesses dragged out much of the defense team’s presentation to be longer than originally scheduled. The jury endured listening to many hours of audio recordings of detective interviews.

The defense’s introduction of interviews between Hedlund and Cletio Clark, whom the defense posed as the real killer, could only be given to the jury through a reading of the transcript. In lieu of allowing Clark to take the witness stand, where a minefield of Fifth Amendment protections against incrimination awaited the court, King’s attorneys starred as voice actors for a day or two to read the interviews.

Much of the evidence was new to the family, who pieced together what the state believes happened after a year of nothing but rumors.

Calls to 911 and pictures of the Rhodes brothers’ bodies on the ground brought them back to the day they stood there in the chaotic aftermath of the shooting. The Sankeys got there before the bodies were covered up.

“I hate reliving this,” Penny Sankey said during deliberation, her voice breaking on the third word as she tried to hold back tears. “I’ve been trying to keep it back so long.”

She could no longer keep the floodgates shut as the emotions of the fraught trial inundated her.

“This grief is so different than if somebody died of even an accident or illness,” the registered nurse said, “because Dominic and Twin were taken from us in anger, and that’s so hard. It’s caused us so much pain – more so than I ever thought was possible.”

“Maybe I didn’t realize how much I loved Dominic and Twin before this,” she said of her son-in-law to be and his brother.

Before El Dominic Rhodes was murdered, he came to call her “mom,” too.

They’re thankful for the efforts of the victim advocates, the Fort Dodge Police Department, the Division of Criminal Investigation, First Assistant County Attorney Ryan Baldridge and Assistant Attorney General Susan Krisko, all of whom invested countless hours in the investigation and prosecution.

Even one of the villains of the defense team’s narrative, Detective Larry Hedlund of the FDPD, made them proud.

“Hedlund made us very proud when he was up there,” Penny Sankey said, referring to a shouting match between Hedlund and Tanner at one moment of a recorded interview. “Yelling at Tanner — that was a moment for me.”

The statement from the Webster County Attorney’s office called the extensive criticism of Hedlund, who lead defense attorney Paul Rounds accused of “ramrodding” King as the suspect with a confirmation bias, “unfounded and without merit.”

A 500-page report on Hedlund’s employment at the DCI was dropped in the court’s lap at one point, in which Rounds explosively accused the state of withholding evidence that might have proved King’s innocence. It was one of several items that prolonged the length of the trial.

While the verdict won’t bring the victims back, their family says it will give them the strength to start anew.

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