LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Louisville Metro Police Detective Aaron Tinelli spent seven years investigating Brice Rhodes' triple murder case. 

He interviewed Rhodes days after teenage brothers Maurice Gordon and Larry Ordway were murdered in 2016, attended every court case since then and hugged the boys' grandmother, Debbie Wren, earlier this month when Rhodes was found guilty of three murders.

"The hug that the grandmother gave me, that'll motivate you for years," Tinelli said.

Tinelli is the man who brought Rhodes to justice, but he said it was a team effort.

"I think that this case — in particular the horrific scenes and the just unbelievable ... evil that was involved in it — just truly honestly brought the best out and every single one of us," he said Friday.

Earlier this month, Rhodes was convicted of killing Christopher Jones as well as Gordon and Ordway in 2016. The charges included one count of tampering with physical evidence and two counts of abuse of a corpse in the brutal beating and stabbings of Gordon and Ordway. 

After less than an hour of deliberation earlier this month, a jury recommended Rhodes spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

"Me personally, I looked at it as those are kids, and that's a devastation not just to the family but to the community," Tinelli said.

Rhodes, according to prosecutors, heard that Gordon, 16, and Ordway, 14, were telling family members about the Jones murder, so he brought them to his home on May 22, 2016. After the brothers' burned bodies were discovered in the backyard of a home in the Shawnee neighborhood, Tinelli questioned Rhodes.

Brice Rhodes trial 12-15-23

Brice Rhodes during the fourth day of testimony in his murder trial on Friday, Dec. 15, 2023. (Photo via CourtTV video)

"In 18 years of doing this job, I know evil," he said. "And that man is evil."

Testimony during the trial showed police found very little in an original search of Rhodes' home and it took a second search later when they found splotches of blood on his carpet, attorney Tom Griffiths told jurors. There was no video of the scene for either search.

Rhodes forced other teens to help kill the brothers and clean up the crime, which is why there wasn’t a bloody murder scene, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Elizabeth Jones Brown said in her closing statements.

Two of those men involved with the murders, teenage cousins Anjuan Carter and Jacorey Taylor, cut deals for lesser sentences and testified during the trial that Rhodes was the mastermind, forcing them to take part in the killings. After a brief scuffle, Gordon was tied up and a toboggan placed over his head, while Ordway was moved into a bathroom where he listened to his brother scream and "beg for forgiveness," Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Critt Cunningham said in his opening.

Rhodes – and other men at the home – beat and stabbed Gordon, then rolled his body out of the way and brought Ordway in and "the process was started over," Cunningham told jurors.

The three then allegedly put the two brothers into a car and dumped them in the backyard of an abandoned house in the 400 block of River Park Drive, east of Shawnee Park, and burned the bodies. Carter has told police he stayed behind and cleaned up after the murders.

"Getting the justice that we deserve, the families deserve, this community deserves, is gonna make everybody sleep better," Tinelli said.

Rhodes had a history of outbursts in court, threatening at least one judge, accusing a prosecutor and another judge of having an affair, lashing out at several of his attorneys and calling several court officials racist. He was told by Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Julie Kaelin at the beginning of the trial that he would be removed from court or shocked by an ankle monitor if he is disruptive during his trial starting next week.

"Spitting on people, threatening judges' lives, that's violent," Tinelli said. "That's pure evil."

Tinelli said from 2016 to now, he's never seen any contrition from Rhodes.

"I've yet to see a single amount of remorse, and that's just a testament to the level of evil that we're dealing with," he said. "... I think there's probably more victims than that. I don't want to speculate."

Tinelli said he's happy with the outcome of the trial, but he had a message Friday for family members of the victims, some of whom were disappointed Kaelin took the death penalty off the table.

"I'm sorry it took so long," he said. "I'm sorry that you had to suffer through years and years of not knowing what we knew, that Brice Rhodes was guilty."

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