Directed verdict motion denied after Rodhouse testimony wraps up; closing statements to begin Friday morning

WARNING: This story includes descriptions of explicit violence and graphic sexual content that may be considered profane, vulgar or offensive to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

PITTSFIELD, Ill. — The state rested, the defense offered no witnesses, closing statements will begin Friday morning and the jury is expected to begin deliberations on Friday afternoon in the ninth day of the Austin Rodhouse trial in Pike County Circuit Court.

Before the eight-woman, four-man jury was sent home early Thursday afternoon by Judge Charles H.W. Burch, defense attorney Casey Schnack asked for a directed verdict — a ruling by a judge that no legally sufficient evidentiary basis exists. Burch denied Schnack’s motion to dismiss all charges.

Rodhouse, who turns 31 next week, is being tried on 19 domestic violence and sex-related felonies.

• 3 counts of aggravated domestic battery, a Class 2 felony with a sentencing range of between three and seven years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. 
• 1 count of criminal sexual assault involving force, a Class 1 felony with a sentencing range of between four and 15 years in prison.
• 4 counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, a Class X felony with a sentencing range of six to 60 years in prison.
• 3 counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, a Class X felony with a sentencing range of six to 30 years in prison.
• 2 counts of child pornography, a Class X felony with a sentencing range of six to 30 years in prison.
• 3 counts of indecent solicitation of an adult, a Class 2 felony with a sentencing range of three to seven years in prison.
• 3 counts of aggravated battery to a child, a Class 3 felony with a sentencing range of two to five years in prison.

Rodhouse, a Pleasant Hill native, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

As she argued for her motion for the directed verdict, Schnack also hinted at what she will say in her closing argument. She said her motion focused on the issue of consent by Rodhouse’s wife, identified in court documents as “CC.” 

“There has been voluminous discovery, in my opinion, regarding (CC’s) acquiescence and consent to a lot of the acts that have been testified to,” Schnack said. “We have her consent in writing, with her signature on two different occasions that she consented to the things she has testified to. (CC) was a willing participant in all of this, and as such, the court should treat that as the same.”

Schnack also referred to earlier testimony by Dr. Robert Bridge, an emergency room physician at Pike County Memorial Hospital in Louisiana, Mo., who diagnosed her on May 4 as dehydrated with a urinary tract infection, and by Dr. Pierre Charles, a trauma surgeon at Blessing Hospital, who testified Thursday that his initial diagnosis of CC’s injury to her spleen was that it could have possibly been handled without surgery.

“(Bridge) stated in no uncertain terms that on May 4 there was no evidence of internal trauma,” Schnack said. “(Charles) indicated that the injury was an ‘old injury’ and could not say with any certainty when that injury was sustained other than it was ‘old.’

“We have the statements of both (CC) and Austin, over and over and over and over again, that she fell in a bathtub. We come to learn that this is an elevated bathtub of about two and a half to three feet, and we have additional evidence that she was involved in a car accident in March 2024. The people have not proven the injury was sustained on May 4.”

Schnack said Rodhouse did not threaten or force CC to perform the sex act on her oldest son — and record it — while her husband was working in Utah. It’s the same video that several witnesses said Rodhouse allegedly kept on an SD card and used to “blackmail” his wife.

“We haven’t even seen the video. The video doesn’t exist,” Schnack said. “The only videos that we have seen are (CC) in the bathtub with the toddler over and over again. The only pornographic images we have seen are (CC) and the children over and over again. The child pornography was found on (CC’s) phone over and over again. 

“It wasn’t found on Austin’s phone when this purported blackmail video was made. He was 1,000 miles away on a two-month work trip. All he did was tell her to do it, and anybody with any sound mind would not do that under the circumstances. It flies in the face of common sense and the law.”

Schnack said she wasn’t claiming Rodhouse was a good husband or a good partner, but some of the sexual acts performed by CC were of her own free will while he was away from the home for weeks at a time working. She also noted that CC and Austin both had Life 360, a GPS tracking device, so they knew where the other person was at all times.

“This idea that he had some sort of strong-arm pulled over her flies in the face of the circumstances, because he wasn’t home,” she said. “(CC) says she was scared, and she says she didn’t have an opportunity to help herself, but her mother gave her a phone, (and another woman who lived in their home) gave her a phone, gave her a car. She was in a hospital for four hours alone and didn’t say anything to anybody until police officers surrounded her hospital bed, and her first thought is, ‘They’re here for me.’ That was the first time that (CC) said Austin made her do any of this. It wasn’t until law enforcement was looking at her and her fears were coming to life that she said, ‘Austin made me do all of this,’ but you can’t ignore her own consent.

“As much as we don’t like this, as much as we have been disgusted and everything that we have heard in this courtroom, there has to be some accountability for her actions.”

Pike County Assistant State’s Attorney Leecia Carnes said she believed the state had met the burden of proof on all counts.

“Miss Schnack cannot sit here and say — and she hasn’t — that those two documents (BDSM ‘contracts’ that were signed by CC and discovered on Rodhouse’s’ phone) are legally binding because they’re not,” Carnes said. “These are illegal contracts forced upon a person where the defendant is trying to legalize domestic violence. (CC) has repeatedly told this court she was forced. We’ve had witness after witness who has corroborated a lot of what (CC) said.”