Boyd Rhodes helped Mark and Dianne Adams build the home of their dreams in Henry County. Then Rhodes paid someone to shoot at it with armor-piercing bullets.
He built a log home for Tom Silveous and his wife in Fulton County. Then he had his nephew burn down their old house.
He is accused of having someone burn down a Monroe County business - before realizing it wasn't the place he meant to torch. Then he had the arsonists burn the original target, police say.
Victims of the Swanton contractor said his easygoing manner was part of what persuaded them to use him to build their dream homes. Authorities said for variations on the same theme - revenge - Rhodes terrorized those same clients by having his nephew commit criminal acts against them.
It's still all a little too much for Mrs. Adams. Her house was shot at six times - the bullets are lodged in the wooden beams in the house - and she still can't believe the friendly, small-town builder she hired is the same man who made her feel like a prisoner in her own home.
“You can't imagine how horrible that is, living like you're being stalked,” she said. “People didn't come to visit us. We didn't leave. We left our house once in a year and it was shot up.”
Rhodes, 51, did not respond to a letter seeking comment. His attorney in the criminal cases, John Duffin of Toledo, said he and his client had no comment because some of the cases are pending.
Rhodes pleaded guilty in Henry County this month to four counts of improperly discharging a firearm at or into a habitation. He was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay $20,000 in fines and restitution. In Fulton County, he pleaded guilty to complicity to arson and was sentenced to four years, which is concurrent with the Henry County sentence. Charges of arson of real property and conspiracy to commit arson of real property are pending against Rhodes in Monroe County.
Rhodes had an excavating business in Swanton, his hometown. He also built log homes.
Mrs. Adams saw his model house on Main Street in Swanton and fell in love.
“I convinced my husband to go from the contemporary style to the log home,” she said. “We met people he built houses for. Little did we know they were his relatives.”
The couple said they had a few problems with Rhodes when he was building their house near Liberty Center, but nothing too unusual. They moved into the house in 1996, happy to be living their dream.
Then the shooting started.
The first time was Jan. 12, 1998. The couple awoke to gunfire at 4 a.m. and found bullets lodged in their front door. A bullet pierced a wedding photo on the wall. Another was stuck in the trim near the ceiling.
Five more times the shooter returned. Once, he used a hunting rifle with armor-piercing ammunition, Henry County sheriff's Lt. Rich Alvord said. Boards were put up where bullets pierced windows. One wrecked the washer and dryer.
Someone kept calling the Adamses and hanging up. Mr. and Mrs. Adams moved everything away from the windows and stayed home almost all the time, afraid of what would happen if they left.
Lieutenant Alvord feared for the couple's safety and wondered why someone would target them.
Mr. and Mrs. Adams suspected Rhodes.
Mrs. Adams had been subpoenaed in a lawsuit between Rhodes and a man who had one of his log homes built in Adrian. She testified briefly before a judge ruled that she had nothing to do with the log home in question. But she feared Rhodes might be retaliating anyway.
“We were the only ones who didn't sue him. We didn't do anything to make his life miserable. Our only misfortune was that we were close by and the other people weren't. When we got the subpoena I think he knew we could do some damage,” she said.
When Rhodes was interviewed after the second shooting on Jan. 18, he knew the caliber of the weapons, which hadn't been discussed anywhere, according to court records. But that wasn't enough to charge him. The shootings lasted the entire year and suddenly stopped with the last shooting on Dec. 9, 1998.
Mrs. Adams said she hired Rhodes under the assumption that he had a franchise of Tennessee Log Homes, a company out of Athens, Tenn.
“I researched the company. I did not research him,” she said.
Burton Webb, president of Tennessee Log Homes, said Rhodes was never a representative of the company, but did some sales work for the company's best salesman, Ralph Adams of Perrysburg.
“Boyd would actually build some of the houses. But not only did he not work for us, he really didn't work for Mr. Adams,” Mr. Webb said.
Ralph Adams said he would sometimes let Rhodes sell the log homes in his area, working under Mr. Adams. He said as soon as he heard about the shooting, he broke off any business relations with Rhodes.
“I kicked him out years ago. I have probably the best reputation of anyone around. Why would I want to mess with that?” Mr. Adams said. “He had me halfway believing sometimes the customer was wrong. Until he had problems with everyone. Not every customer could be wrong.”
Tom Silveous saw the model home too.
He said he was surprised to hear that Rhodes was the builder. He knew Rhodes from more than 25 years earlier, when the two were in the National Guard.
Construction on the log home, across the road from the Silveous' old house near Metamora, started in June, 1994.
Problems arose almost immediately, Mr. Silveous said. Two skylights that were supposed to be in the dining room were placed in the kitchen and the bedroom. Bathroom fixtures were ordered wrong: the sink is off-white, the Jacuzzi is white, and the toilet is blue. Rafters in the roof were too short. The floor was varnished before it was sanded and had to be redone, costing the couple $600 more.
Mr. Silveous said he withheld money from Rhodes because he was not happy with the work. He considered suing, but in the end he decided against it. The couple said they learned a lesson and would pay for it with their own money.
“We agreed on things verbally that we should have gotten in writing,” Mr. Silveous said.
They didn't move into the home until February, 1995.
On Dec. 3, 1998, a Fulton County sheriff's deputy woke Mr. and Mrs. Silveous. Their old house, right behind the red barn on their property, was on fire. The antiques and old photos inside were destroyed.
“The family assumed it was electrical,” Fulton County sheriff's Detective Roy Miller said. “They didn't have any suspicions, nor did we.”
It wasn't until late last year that everyone realized the fire was arson, and that Rhodes had paid his nephew $500 to start it.
“He was trying to teach us a lesson,” Mr. Silveous said.
Like the Adamses, Mr. and Mrs. Silveous were subpoenaed to testify in the case in Adrian. They did not speak in court because their testimony was dismissed before they were called.
Rhodes has faced other court action in Fulton County.
A client, Carl Baldwin, sued Rhodes saying he did not finish work that he agreed to perform. The case is pending. Several businesses sued because they said Rhodes owed them money - those cases were settled - and Federal Savings & Loan filed in court over a defaulted promissory note. That was settled in January, 1998.
Rhodes' old neighbors in Swanton, Robert and Karen Meyers, sued in 1996 because Rhodes had an excavating business on his property, which is against the rules spelled out in the deed. The parties reached an agreement that included the provision that Rhodes would not operate diesel-powered generators or store commercial vehicles on the property. Rhodes also agreed to pay the couple $1,500.
Richard Perkins of the former Perkins Realty was listed as a witness in the case.
“I was really surprised when I heard” about his arrest, he said. “I think most people were. He was always mild-mannered, and his whole family was nice. Of course, he never shot at me. Maybe then I'd feel differently.”
Like Rhodes, Tony Keeler works in real estate.
He owns Keeler Realty in Temperance, just north of Toledo in Monroe County. But authorities say the grudge Rhodes had with him wasn't about business. It was personal.
Mr. Keeler said Rhodes dated a relative. He said the relative told him disturbing things about Rhodes. Mr. Keeler didn't have many dealings with him after that.
Then five years later, in the summer of 1999, firefighters responded to a fire at Collins & Associates on Dean Road, across the street from the Lambertville fire station. Monroe County sheriff's Detective Tom Redmond said it was clear from the start it was arson. The motive was unclear.
At 3 a.m. on Nov. 17, Detective Redmond was called to a fire at Keeler Realty, also on Dean. Again, fire investigators knew the fire was intentionally set.
Soon, Detective Redmond said he learned that the same person ordered both fires: Boyd Rhodes. He said Rhodes set the fire at Mr. Keeler's business for revenge. The first fire at Collins & Associates was started because it was believed Keeler Realty was still there, police said. The business had moved five years earlier.
Mr. Keeler said he has worried people will think the dispute with Rhodes was over business, which it wasn't.
“He's hurt our business enough. It took a year to rebuild,” he said. “He just did it because he's a nut.”
The case against Boyd Rhodes started with his nephew.
Steven Pryba, 24, robbed three banks in Monroe and Lenawee counties. After the last robbery, he led more than two dozen officers on a chase, at times exceeding 120 mph. Detective Redmond came within inches of catching Pryba at Luna Pier and Telegraph roads, but he slipped away on his motorcycle.
On Nov. 16, 1998, Detective Redmond had information about Pryba's whereabouts. He made arrangements to meet with federal authorities the next day to make a plan on how to arrest him.
About 3 a.m. on Nov. 17, Detective Redmond was called to the fire at Keeler Realty. He told fire investigators he'd have to leave; the meeting on the bank robbery was hours away. Detective Redmond said he didn't know at the time that Pryba, the man he was going to talk about, would be the prime suspect in that very fire.
On Nov. 18, after 11/2 days of surveillance, police arrested Pryba.
He refused to talk about the robberies. Then a cellmate told detectives that Pryba confessed the bank robberies to him - and much more - while the two were in jail. Detective Redmond pressed Pryba some more. He told police about the banks and about Rhodes.
Rhodes, his nephew said, paid him to shoot at a couple in Henry County and burn a house in Fulton County, and had him torch two buildings in Monroe County, according to police. The motive seemed always to be the same: retaliation.
In a plea agreement, Pryba admitted to all the offenses and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for the bank robberies. He would serve any sentences for the other crimes concurrently with the federal term.
Investigators started to look back on Rhodes and his log houses. Lieutenant Alvord talked to the Adams couple, and Detective Miller leafed through fire logs in Fulton County until he found the fire Pryba had discussed, and the burned house was exactly as he described.
Rhodes was charged in October in the cases in Fulton, Henry, and Monroe counties. He pleaded guilty to the shooting charges on April 20 and the Fulton County arson charges on May 1. He is being held in the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio until all his charges are resolved.
Two other men still face charges for helping in the shooting at the Adams house, and authorities said charges might be pending against other people in the Michigan arsons.
Mrs. Adams and Mr. Silveous said they wished Rhodes would have gotten stiffer sentences, but they're glad they didn't have to go through a trial.
“People still ask us about it, and we talk about it. But it took a long time to get over it,” Mrs. Adams said. “I don't know if I could go through that trial and watch him. Just the sentencing was very emotional for me.”
First Published May 27, 2001, 2:39 p.m.