Crime Weekly - S3 Ep186: Piketon Massacre: The Wagner Family Secrets (Part 2)

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Piketon is a small town in Southern Ohio, 90 miles east of Cincinnati with a population of just over 2000 people. It’s a salt-of-the-earth type of place, nestled in the heart of Appalachia, where many families can trace their lineage back generations. Everyone knows everyone, no one is a stranger, and when someone is in need all they have to do is turn to their neighbor. Bad things happen everywhere, even in small, tight-knit towns, but in April of 2016 something happened that no one had ever seen before, and it shook them to their core. Eight members of one family, in four separate locations, all murdered execution-style at the same time; it was a crime that most people only experience through movies, but the members of this quiet, hardworking town would soon find themselves thrust into the national spotlight, unwillingly living through a real life murder mystery and mourning a family who had been a fixture in the community. Use code CRIMEWEEKLY at www.CrimeCon.com for a discount on your CrimeCon 2024 Nashville tickets! Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. TryFum.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off! 3. Curology.com/CrimeWeekly - Get your first Curology skincare box for just $5! 4. EarthBreeze.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 40% off your subscription!

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I am Derek Levasseur. to part two of the Piketon Massacre, where eight people were murdered at four different locations in Pike County, Ohio in 2016. And we went over kind of all the background in part one of this. So if you have not seen or listened to part one, you probably should do that, or a lot of this will not make sense. But unless Derek has anything to say, any announcements to make, anything he wants to chat about, we should dive right in. Nope. Only thing that I'll

say is about this episode. A lot of you in the comments were saying, hey, it'd be great if we had a diagram. Diagram's going up on the screen right now. Shannon's going to insert it right here. You can screenshot that, do what you will with it. We did not create that diagram as Stephanie filled me in. She actually sent it to me after the episode. So we'll have that in right now and it may come up again throughout the episode. But there you go. Now you have a picture of the diagram to show all the people who are involved in this case. And he was like, oh, this is great. And for some reason, he thought I made that myself as if I'm some talented tech person that somebody took the initiative to make that diagram, which is going to show on your screen right now and should hopefully help you piece things together and not have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out who we're talking about. But as I go through this video as well, if I see somebody's name, I will sort of try to remind you of how they're connected and who they're related to. Exactly. Yeah, let's get right into it. I'm ready.

So Hannah Mae Roden and Jake Wagner began dating in August of 2010 when Hannah was just 13 years old. Now, reportedly, Jake had asked Hannah's father, Chris Roden Sr., for permission to date his very young daughter, and Chris Sr. had given it. But whenever Hannah spent time with Jake, Chris Sr. would send along a chaperone, usually Chris Roden Jr., to make sure that everything was on the up and up. So once again, Hannah and Chris Jr. are the children of Chris Sr.

So Hannah and Chris Jr. are brother and sister. Chris Sr. was their father. At that time, Jake was living with his parents and his brother, George, on Bethel Hill Road. But they would relocate to 260 Peterson Road a few years later. And around this time, Hannah became pregnant, she moved in with the Wagners, and Jake then asked her father, Chris Roden Sr., for Hannah's hand in marriage. Hannah's father gave permission, but made it very clear that he did not want his daughter to be married until she was 18. And at the time, she was only 15.

Hannah and Jake moved ahead with their engagement, getting rings tattooed on their fingers. Now, after Hannah was murdered, Jake told the police that even though they'd split up, he and Hannah still had a good relationship and there were no issues. They were co-parenting their daughter Sophia, and everything seemed to be copacetic. But law enforcement would soon have access to Hannah's cell phone, which showed them that things had not been OK between herself and Jake. In fact, they hadn't been OK for quite a while. When Hannah was still pregnant with her first daughter, Sophia, she and Jake were arguing about custody of the child. And Jake made it very clear that he was not there to compromise. On November 4th, 2013, Jake texted Hannah saying, quote, I done told you she is living with me.

Now you can live with us or not. That's your choice. End quote. So at this time, Hannah is still pregnant with Sophia. This child hasn't even been born yet. And Jake is already exerting his will and his power and his control over what's going to happen with this child that is currently inside his fiance, Hannah. And he's telling Hannah, this is how it's going to be, right? No matter what happens, no matter what happens with us, our daughter is going to be with me. Now, you have a choice. You can be with us. But if you don't want to be with me, you're not going to be with her, which is, you know, textbook controlling abusive behavior. So Hannah informed Jake that if he tried to take

her child away from her, it would be the worst mistake he ever made, to which Jake replied, quote, Hannah, I'm telling you right now, make a choice and make it now. If you do this, it's over and I'll take Sophie. And if I have to, by force. I love you with all my heart. If you love me and Sophie, you will make the right choice. And I want you to live with me and Sophie. That don't mean we have to stay at my house all the time, but she will be wherever I am. End quote. Hannah did end up living with Jake and the Wagners for a time after Sophia was born. And in the same household lived Jake's brother, and George's wife Tabitha, who he had married in 2012. Remember that we are going to come back to Tabitha and her child, a son that

she shared with George Wagner, who was born in 2013. Now, during Hannah and Jake's tumultuous relationship, many people close to Hannah saw the red flags. April Manley was Dana Roden's sister-in-law. Now, Dana was Hannah's mother and Chris Roden Sr.'s wife, but then she became his ex-wife. They divorced, but they stayed very close. They still were a family, and there were no issues there. So April would have been Dana's sister, making her Hannah's aunt. And April was married to Dana Roden's brother, James Manley, who we talked about briefly last episode. So April had known Hannah since Hannah had been born, and they were very close. April loved Hannah very much. April did not like Jake, however, and she didn't like the way he treated Hannah. You indicated Jake Wagner was the one who would be around the most because

of Hannah, and that he would sometimes be up at that residence that Frankie and Hazel were found in when Dana and Hannah and little Chris lived there can you tell us what your interactions would have been with him we didn't interact I didn't like him he didn't like me okay why not because he thought I was nosy and needed to stay in my place because I would defend Hannah okay and how do you know that he felt that way because it was at my house one evening and they'd got into it and Hannah left she just got a driver's license she was a new driver and she called me he'd left after and she called me and said he was chasing her around at high speeds and I told her

to try to get away somewhere and she got finally got away from him and hid behind the church on Union Hill and I called her mom and her mom called her dad and then I called Hannah back and stayed on the phone with her until Chris got to her. So they had started at, they were both at your house? Yes. Both Jake and Hannah Mae? Yes. Okay.

And you said they got into it. Can you, do you recall at all? I don't recall what they was arguing about. Okay. I know he had said at one point there at the house that he had bought everything for the baby. She was pregnant. And that he would take it all and she'd have nothing. But what had started their argument, I don't know.

And she left in her vehicle? She left in her mom's car that she had. Okay. You said this was when she just started driving? Yes. And she was pregnant? Yes. Okay.

Did he ever communicate to you that you were nosy and needed to stay in your place? He told Hannah. Okay. Was there any other observations you had of Jake Wagner that caused you not to like him? He was very controlling over Hannah. We wasn't allowed to text Sophia, check or treat, and even know whether Hannah's weak. After Hannah had Sophia, Hannah was always a chunky little monkey. And she had got down so tiny because he would tell her that she was fat and tell her not to eat.

Did Hannah ever tell you that she was scared? Yes. Of Jake? Yes. And did she indicate that she was afraid of Jake and his family? Yes. Well, Jake sounds like a great guy. Yeah, I mean, I have, and I was jotting notes while April was talking there. I have experience with these kinds of men. And I mean, without even going into the, you know, emotional and physical abuse that we will discuss, controlling somebody to this extent or any extent, controlling somebody in any way and using threats in order to get what you want out of the situation or out of that other person is a form of abuse. It's psychological. It's constant. And when you have somebody like Jake Wagner and his family who in this area were, you know, very wealthy and by default very powerful,

that can be an intimidating situation to be in. And as we're going to come to find as we go through this video or this podcast episode, the Wagners did this with many people, not just Hannah. However, it appeared that Hannah was not the one to do it with. So she fought back. She pushed back. She stood up for herself, as she always had, as she'd been taught to do. And it is really no wonder that she ended up in the position that she ended up in, where all of these other women that were entered into the Wagner family made it out alive because in many cases they caved in or they allowed themselves to be bullied and pressured and controlled because they were so afraid. But Hannah said, absolutely not, not today. And I do believe at the end of the day, this is what got her killed because she had the audacity to stand up and say, you do not control me and you don't tell me what I do with myself or my child. And because the Wagners desperately wanted to both control Hannah and have access, unfettered access to her child this was a roadblock they couldn't let stand

and that's why specifically this this prosecutor who I will say not the best prosecutor in the world going through this b-roll footage was incredibly difficult because this woman says um every other word and since that is very obnoxious to me and I assume it would be obnoxious to most people who listen to it I had to do a lot of cutting and splicing, which is why you'll see a lot of cuts. I'm not cutting out anything important. I'm cutting out the hundreds and hundreds of ums that she threw in. It was very hard. I watched so much of this trial and it was just very hard to get through because she's doing the majority of the questioning. But you hear her say, did Hannah ever tell you that she was afraid of Jake and his family?

And April Manley says, yes. And that's very important because it's not just Hannah against one person. It's Hannah against a whole army of people who have money and time at their disposal to basically direct all of their resources towards ruining her and doing whatever they can to get what they need from her and dispose of her afterwards. Yeah, it's a tough situation. And as you said, they got money, they got power, they have the respect of the community, and they're probably accustomed to getting what they want, whether that's through force or indirect force, maybe just through their name.

So when you have someone who they view, and I'm doing this in air quotes for everybody who's watching, who's just listening, they see this young woman. Who does she think she is? She's going to push back. She's not going to do what we tell her to do. Is she crazy? Doesn't she know who we are? Doesn't exactly.

Everyone else is scared of us. Why isn't she? Yep. Why isn't she? How dare she, you know, buck with the system and what we have going here. And she's going to regret this. That's kind of how it looks at it. And it's funny because it's not funny, but after the first episode, you know, it's hard now not to know where this obviously is going, going into it. I didn't. But when you had mentioned that little kernel about the one daughter not being there,

that's the first thing you go to like, okay, that's either really lucky or there's something there. That's a clue. That's a piece of evidence. And now we're getting the context behind it, right? And it's creating a more clearer picture. And it's so funny because this trial was very unique compared to others that I watched. And I watched lots of trials. I enjoy it. I enjoy watching trials. But there was so many times and each time you go through, you know, it's like trial day one, trial day two. Each one of these days is broken down and it's like seven, eight hour after hour of this testimony is completely blacked out? Because people were so terrified of the Wagners that they didn't want to give their testimony publicly. They wanted to give it anonymously. They didn't want to have their faces would say that they kind of knew right from the get-go that the Wagners had something to do with what happened to the Rodens and to Hannah Gilley, and they never said anything because they were so scared. So that shows you not only the level of influence and power, but the level of intimidation that the Wagners did sort of put on everyone around them. They were this like

crime family in the area. Frederica Wagner, the grandmother of Jake and George, the mother of Billy, she was this church-going, Sunday school teaching, pillar of the community, this very wholesome golden angel. Everybody loved Freddie Wagneragner she did so much for pike county but as you go down to her son billy wagner and his sons george and jake they are using this good name this influence this power this money for for evil instead of good and people knew what they were doing and what they what they could do what they had the potential people knew what they were doing and what they could do, what they had the potential to do, and they were terrified. Yeah. And we see that in smaller communities where someone can have a few people where if they were in a big city, they would have no pull whatsoever. But in a small community like that,

where everyone knows everyone, it doesn't take a lot to kind of take over. And clearly, that's what's happening here. And that's why you have individuals who are saying, I don't want to testify publicly. I don't want to know who I am, because even if some of them are put in jail, the residual members of those family members are still out there and they can still get me. So unless you can lock up everyone, it still creates that level of concern for the remaining family members to come after and retaliate against anybody who testifies against them. Yeah. And let's say somebody, one of these people who knew what was going on, right? Because there was one guy, and we'll talk about it a little later, but he said, I think it was a week before the murders, he went to Billy Wagner's house and there was like guns and everywhere, just laying everywhere. And he was like, ah, what's going on here? I guess you're going to kill someone. He's like, well, if you want to kill these people, he says this to Billy Wagner, who's Jake's father. He says, if you have it in your head to kill someone, they ain't got a chance. They don't have any chance. And he never said anything because he was afraid. So even if somebody like that did go and report this to the police and the police go and investigate and none of these people end up behind bars, you're screwed. You and your family,

especially after what happened to the Rodens, because now the Wagners have shown they have no problem taking out not one, not two, not three, but eight people simply for being related to the one person that they wanted to target. Well, let's take our first break. We'll be right back. So as a reminder, Kenneth Rodin is the cousin of Chris Rodin Sr. And he was one of the victims of the massacre. He was the last person to be killed. He was alone in his trailer. And he was the one found with just one bullet into his eye and dollar bills basically scattered around him and on top of his body. Well, his daughter,

Kendra, she would also testify about her dislike of Jake Wagner, and it started pretty early on when Hannah was just 14. Yes, I told Hannah I did not like Jake. Okay. And can you tell us what led you to say that? He would constantly try to be controlling. He would follow her anywhere we went. She was never allowed to be alone. So give us some examples of that, never allowed to be alone, would follow you everywhere where she went. An example would be when we went to the Raritan Whitetail Deer Festival.

Hannah would like need to go to the bathroom or we would say that we were going to go to the bathroom and Jake had to tag along and then he would wait outside until we were done. And did anything happen at the, I believe you said the Scioto County Fair? Yes, ma'am. Okay. At the Scioto County Fair, Jake had made a demeaning remark to Hannah Roden and grabbed her by the arm, in which I turned and kicked him in the shin because I didn't like it, and then Hannah got in between the both of us. You said he got between the both of you?

Hannah had gotten between Jake and I. So when you expressed that you did not care for Jake, what was Hannah's reaction or what ended up happening? Hannah thought I just needed to get to know him better. Jake kind of didn't want Hannah to be around me though. Hannah then ends up pregnant with Sophia, correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Tell me about that. She had come to me.

She had arranged a little day for us to be together, and we had went to a man-made pond that my family had built out on Left Fork Road. We were swimming and fishing in the pond there when she stopped, and she told me that she was pregnant. I thought she was joking. I was hoping she was joking, but she told me she was really pregnant with his child and that everything was going to be okay. Did you support her through that process? As much as I could, I wasn't allowed to be around.

And when you say you weren't allowed, by whom? By Jake Wagner. So there you go, right? There's that outside manipulation as well, the control, not wanting friends or family members to be around because they, that little bubble that he's created where he's using physical force and also just trying to belittle her and create this insecurity where she feels like she's beholden to him and he's in the right. If she's exposed to outside people, just like the little thing with the kicking of the shin, then that breaks that wall. That breaks that barrier where she's taken out of that world

that he's created. And there's a little moment where she realized like, hey, maybe this isn't right. And so he wants to cut her off from any friends or family members who may talk to her and explain to her that what he's doing is wrong and that she deserves better, which may plant a little seed that would hurt his overall agenda. He doesn't want that. He wants to cut off all contact with anybody else so that he can control the narrative from start to finish. Yeah, exactly. This is textbook controlling behavior. It may be covert, but it is still very much controlling behavior. It is the desire to isolate your target from her support system so that she feels the only person she has is you. It is done in many different ways, but especially with Jake not liking Kendra specifically because Kendra didn't like him. He's not going to want Hannah around Kendra.

He only wants Hannah around people who are going to talk him up, be positive about him. He doesn't want anybody around Hannah who's going to be like, why are you with this dude, right? And even so, with Kendra telling Hannah, I don't really like this guy. Hannah is defending Jake. Why? Well, once again, that's a pattern of abuse because she's under his spell. Now she's pregnant with his child. She's a young girl. She's 15 years old when she's pregnant with his child. She's a young girl. She's in a place where, well, what else is she going to do? She's going to have to make excuses for him. She loves him. He's about to be the father of her daughter. And so she's going to tell her friends and family members who don't like him, no, he was just having a bad day or he's not

really like that, et cetera, et cetera. But we're going to see that as time goes on, Hannah becomes less likely to defend Jake and his behaviors as they continue. Yeah, that's his worst nightmare, right? There's starting to people that are creating cracks in the armor and she's starting to get exposed to an outside world where she's she understands or starting to put it together that what's happening here is not OK. Yeah, I also think it has a lot to do with actually having her child, right? So you can deal with a lot yourself because you're an adult. She wasn't an adult, but you know what I mean? You think you're grown, you can handle it. But when you bring a child into the world and then you start considering how this person affects you and could potentially affect

your child now, who you love more than anything in the world, who you have this just vehement instinct to protect with everything in you, now you're going to look at this person differently. He's not just a threat to you any longer. He's a threat to your child, and you can't have that. And so as Hannah kind of goes along and this behavior continues to repeat itself and she sees, he says he's going to change, but he's not going to because he's not changing. And you see this reflected on her Facebook, too. These little quotes that she keeps putting up, like people don't change for you. They change because they want to. So if they don't want to, they're not going to kind of thing.

She's realizing this is a pattern of behavior. And he said he's going to change and he's going to stop 50 times and he hasn't. And I need to start believing his actions instead of his words. So in March of 2015, Hannah Roden sent Jake Wagner a text message which read, quote, I don't want to be with you. You hurt me. End quote. senior and asked him to come and pick her up from the Wagners. She told her father that Jake had choked her and she was leaving him because she couldn't handle how controlling Jake and his entire family had become. And we are going to come back to this as well. Now, obviously, issues of what would happen with the child that Jake and Hannah shared increased in intensity when an actual split happened between the couple. But there were also arguments about the paternity of the child that Hannah would give birth to just days before she died. According to Hannah's cousin, Kendra, she had been present for phone conversations between Hannah and Jake after

Hannah had moved out and broken up with him. And during these conversations, Jake would argue with Hannah about being the father of her second daughter. Basically, Hannah told him she was pregnant. She didn't want to be with him. This was not his child. And Jake was like, it definitely is. It has to be. And Hannah would say, no, it's not. And he would argue with her and tell her without a doubt

that the child she was carrying, her second daughter, was his. There was an incident where Hannah was actually on the phone with Jake Wagner. And was this before or after Hannah had left Jake? It was after she had left Jake. Hannah had the phone on speakerphone. That way I could be witness to anything that was said. Okay. And that was an intentional act on her part? Yes, ma'am. Okay. And how do you know that it was Jake Wagner on the other end of the phone? I've met Jake before. I've talked to Jake before. I mean, I know his voice. The discussion was actually because Hannah had found out she was pregnant with Kylie, her youngest,

and Jake had believed that Kylie was his, and we were trying to point out to him that she absolutely was not his and that he couldn't be a part of her life. So both you and Hannah were telling him that this child was not his? Yes, ma'am. This child being Kylie? Yes, ma'am. And was there ever a time when you overheard a conversation in a similar manner regarding if Hannah would be allowed to parent if she left the Wagners? Yes, ma'am. Jake Wagner had told Hannah that if she wanted to continue to be Sophia's mother,

then they had to do it as a unit, as in she had to stay with him. If she left him, then she was leaving Sophia too. So once again, the control comes in the ways of threats. If you leave me, you're leaving of threats. If you leave me, you're leaving your daughter. If you leave me, I'll make sure that you don't have custody of her. It's a way to control people. It's a way to keep them where you want them, even though you know they don't want to be with you. You don't care what they want. You just care what you want and you don't care how

you get it. If you have to use threatening tactics, if you have to be violent, if you have to be aggressive, it doesn't matter as long as you get your way. And it's, you know, once again, abusive behavior. Hannah also played Kendra recordings of Jake admitting to hitting and choking her. Overall, it wasn't just Jake who was a menace to Hannah's life and her ability to parent her child. It was the entire Wagner family, and they didn't exert their toxic nature only on Hannah. It seemed that any new woman who entered the Wagner family would be subjected to the most bizarre and abusive control tactics I have ever seen. And enter Tabitha Claytor, ex-wife of Jake's brother, George Wagner. Tabitha met George because her mother worked for his grandmother,

Frederica Wagner, for over a decade. Tabitha and George became boyfriend and girlfriend when she was 12 and he was 15, but he broke up with her a year later. However, six years later, Hannah Roden found Tabitha on Facebook and reunited the couple. Hannah told Tabitha that she was Jake's girlfriend and she wanted Tabitha and George to get back together,

and so they became a couple again during Tabitha's senior year of high school. A year later in 2012, just a few months after Tabitha graduated, she and George tied the knot. Tabitha had already been living with the Wagners for a while. Her mother didn't care, since she knew the family so well. While Tabitha was in the Wagner home, Hannah Roden also moved in, and at that time, the people occupying the house were George and Tabitha, and Jake and his mother, Angela. Angela's husband, Billy, was not living there full time.

He mainly stayed with her mother, Frederica, at her place because Billy's father was elderly, he was sick, and Billy was helping Frederica take care of his father. But also there were rumors that Billy Wagner and his wife, Angela, were having some marital issues. So he wasn't always in the household. Eight months later, Tabitha was pregnant with a son that she would give birth to on July 17th, 2013. And that's when shit got weird. Tabitha mentioned that Hannah would sometimes leave the house and stay with her mother, Dana, but Tabitha did not receive the same freedom. She did not have a vehicle. And she was not only not allowed to see her family or have

her family over to the Wagners, but after her child was born, Tabitha's mother was not allowed to be at the hospital and didn't even see the baby for over a year. According to Tabitha, this was because Angela Wagner did not approve of Tabitha's family. She thought they were bad news. So what it seems happened is somebody in Tabitha's family had sexually molested her when she was a child. And Tabitha, when she got married to George, as couples do, she shared this with him. She shared this information with him, thinking that it was safe to be vulnerable with her husband. And George then shared this information with his mother, Angela. And Angela said, well, I think

your family are a bunch of abusers and they can't be trusted. And so therefore, I don't want them here. I don't want your child with them. And I don't really even want you affiliating with them either. And so therefore, Tabitha basically was cut off from her entire family. Now, was it because Tabitha had been abused when she was a child? Probably not, because we're going to see this is a pattern with the Wagner family. It doesn't really matter who, you know, who it is. They just don't want external influences affecting anybody, especially the children, especially the children who had Wagner DNA, right? Right. No, absolutely. It's obviously one, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but also it's passed down from generation to generation. So it's just a vicious circle of

Wagner men following what they've seen before them and understanding that it's about control and manipulation. And like you just said, cutting off all external elements that could impede whatever they're trying to accomplish, which in this case is having ultimate control over mostly the women in their life. I'm sure it applied to some men as well, but- The women and children, I would say, yeah. Women and children, correct. And so it's one of these situations where it's bred into the family members now, and it's just this lineage that just it's bred into the family members now. And it's just this lineage that just over and over, this is what they know.

And then on top of that, seeing how people respond to them from the community emboldens them and empowers them to continue this practice. Yeah. And I mean, it comes down to being a thing of where these men, the Wagner men, and then the matriarch, right, Angela, they looked at these women and these children as possessions. Mainly, they looked at the children as possessions, and the women were just a vessel to bring these children into the world. And Angela Wagner was actually described as being this very, like, you know, 1950s kind of housewife mom, like she kept her house spotless,

always cleaning, always baking, always cooking, very, I guess, maternal, very invested and interested in the lives of her family members. She homeschooled her kids. She wanted her grandkids homeschooled. Once again, I will say, and I have nothing against homeschooling. I completely approve of it. But in this case, once again, this is a method of control to keep the children away from the external forces in the world. The only education they're going to get is going to come from the family. The only morals and values that they're going to learn is going to come from the family. The only worldview they're going to hear is going to come from the family.

And this is a way to keep everything very insular and sort of pure in their eyes. But I'm going to talk more about Angela Wagner and the way that she ruled her household with an iron fist. But let's take our next break and we'll be right back. Angela Wagner controlled everything in her household. And when Tabitha's son, Bolvine, was born, it was Angela who was in the hospital room with arms outstretched, ready to hold her new grandson. Angela set the rules for everything. I mean everything, including the intimate affairs of those who resided under her roof. It was Angela's house, so it was her rules.

Did George go along with those choices? Yes. You said Angela's house, Angela's rules. Did that apply to anything other than just your family coming and going? It applied to basically everything. So tell us about that. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, it all had to be done the way that she wanted it or have to either redo it or she'll just do it herself. Can you tell us were there also rules that applied to the types of sexual relations you and George could engage in? You wasn't allowed to give blowjobs because you'd go to hell. And you had to only have sex to have children. And is that something that she said to you?

She said it to me and George both. Okay. When you were together? Yes. Where would you be when those conversations would occur? Usually at the kitchen table or in the bedroom. Whose bedroom? George's. Okay. And would you stay in George's bedroom?

As long as I was allowed to, yes. So when you say as long as you were allowed to, tell me what you're talking about. Well, towards the end of the night, she would usually have me leave so she could sit there and scratch his back and talk about the day. So Angela would come into the room that you shared with your husband? Yes. And she would ask you to leave and then she would scratch his back and talk about the day? Yes. How frequent of an occurrence was that? Every night.

And after she was done with that, would you return to the room? Yes. After you had your son, where would he sleep? Most of the time he would sleep with Angela and Billy. And again, was that your choice? No. Where did you want your son to sleep? With me in my bed, or at least in the crib that was bought for him. Okay. And where was that crib located? Next to my bed, or at least in the crib that was bought for him.

Okay, and where was that crib located? Next to my bed. And who made the decision that he would sleep with Angela and Billy instead of with you? George and Angela. Can you tell us, when Hannah was there, did you guys get along? No. Tell me about that. We both were basically competing for Angela's approval.

And can you tell us if you were ever accused of various bad acts, for instance, stealing? Yes. Okay. And who accused you of stealing? Angela. And specifically, what were you you of stealing? Angela. And specifically, what were you accused of stealing? $400.

Did you steal that money? No. Did you live up to Angela's, did you get her approval? Did you live up to her expectations? Okay. Tell me about that. I never really did much of anything right for her. And how did you know that? She would tell me.

So I just mentioned the Wagner man, but apparently applies to the Wagner woman as well, huh? Could you imagine being married to a man and his mother comes into your bedroom at night and she's like, get the hell out of here. I got to rub my son's back and talk about the day with him. He's a grown ass man. Oh my goodness. And listen, once again, I have a little experience with this kind of situation, not to this extent. I mean, I'm sure it would have gotten to that extent if I had allowed it to, but not to this extent, but to the point where the whole the kid's going to sleep. Because that was Tabitha Claytor you were talking, George's wife. So her child, her son, is going to sleep in the room with his grandparents instead of with his parents.

And this was dictated to her by Angela and her husband, George. And somebody's going to tell me my son's not sleeping with me. He's sleeping with these people. Why? Well, we're going to find out why in a little bit, because Angela didn't necessarily fancy herself to be the grandmother of these children. She really kind of thought she was their mother. You've seen that dynamic before too, as well, not just in the Wagner family. That whole scenario is a lot more common than I think some people care to admit. Oh, it sure is. It sure is. And I will admit it. It definitely is. And I don't know where it comes

from. I don't know what woman would want to take precedence in a child's life over their mother, but it happens. And like I said, from all reports, it didn't really feel like Angela wanted to be a grandmother as much as the mother figure to any children fathered by her sons. Angela parented Tabitha's son, Bolvine. And when Tabitha and George got in a fight and broke up, Tabitha announced she was leaving. She was going to leave George and she was going to take her son. And Angela, with this child in her arms, told Tabitha, you absolutely are not going to do that. I told them that I was not going to go back inside,

that I was going to leave. And so Angela threw a board at me and then told George that she was going to go inside and get a gun. When you say she threw a board at you, what kind of a board? A two-by-four. Both Angela and George were outside with you at that point? Yes. Okay. And then Angela said she's going to go get a gun? Yes.

At any point outside did George have physical contact with you? Before the argument got really worse, we were outside and we were arguing and he told me I needed to stop screaming or he was going to smack me. So I screamed louder and so he smacked me. And where did he smack you? In the face. So he tries to control her with threats. She doesn't comply. So it's escalated to physical force to gain compliance.

Pretty standard when it comes to domestic abusers. A hundred percent. And Tabitha obviously left the house without her child that night. She was scared because Angela was like, I'm going to go get my gun. So Tabitha was running from Angela and her gun. And the story is crazy because it was kind of like getting dark and it was nighttime. And Tabitha ran and she hid in the yard on the property of the Wagners because the Wagners were looking for her.

Like they were like hunting for her after she ran away. So she hid on the property for a little while. I think she said she hid under like a truck or something. And then when she thought they weren't looking, she grabbed a bicycle and rode to a nearby gas station to call her mother and have her mother come pick her up. But the Wagners did see her and thinking she was going to the police, they followed her to the gas station to prevent her from calling the police. And after that, George Wagner filed a restraining order on Tabitha, alleging domestic abuse on her part. And this is also very common, what we'll see,

because George would end up telling people close to him, like, oh, well, whoever calls the police first wins, so that's why I'm going to do it. Even though there was not any abuse on Tabitha's part towards George, he wanted to basically set the narrative before she had a chance to. And that's exactly what he did. He accused her of domestic violence. And because of this threat of legal action and because she was being pressured by the Wagners, Tabitha would end up being railroaded in a custody battle. She went to court without a lawyer while George had, you know, a highly well-paid lawyer.

And Tabitha ended up basically signing custody documents that essentially gave her no rights over her own child. George got full custody and Tabitha was only allowed a visitation when the Wagners said so and any visits would be supervised by them. The Wagner family initially did tell Tabitha that this was only temporary. They said, you know, once you get your own place, get a job, get on your feet, we will revisit this custody arrangement. But when Tabitha did all of these things, the Wagners still did not budge from the way that custody was set. And obviously that makes sense because they had no intention of ever relinquishing any control. They just used this as a stall tactic.

Just like George used calling the police and accusing Tabitha of domestic violence as a tactic to reframe the narrative in whatever way he wanted. Obviously, this was not something he wasn't afraid of Tabitha. He didn't think Tabitha could hurt him. He genuinely, you know, didn't think that she would do anything to him. But it's a way to use the law to his benefit. And it ended up working. By the way, something else that I saw a lot as a police officer and the system's designed to try and prevent this. But once it gets to the judicial level, it gets to the courts, it is kind of like a race to who gets there first. I will say on the law enforcement level, and we've talked about this before,

when we as police officers respond, 95% of the time, you're going to get there and the woman is going to say, he hit me. And then the man's going to say, no, she hit me first. And that's why we as police officers have, in most cases, have to listen to both sides, but observe what we're seeing as far as physical injuries, but also take into consideration size, you know, all these different factors that would come into any physical altercation. And we, before leaving, in most cases, we're forced to determine primary aggressor. They are really shying away, unless it's really obvious that this is the case, from arresting both parties with domestic disorderly. They don't want

you doing that. They really do frown upon that in the court system. And many times it just gets thrown out. But to go back to the court level with these judges, you can have situations where they're just going off what's in the affidavit or what's going in the signed affidavit of the person filing it. They're not really looking at the totality of circumstances. They're not taking the time to hear from the other party. For example, if it's you and I, and I go in there tomorrow and say, I'm in fear of Stephanie Harlow, if you're not there to defend yourself, that's your loss. I got there first. I'm going to say what I got to say. I'm going to do what I got to do. And if I put down the right things, those right words, those right phrases that that judge needs to hear in order to issue that order of protection, they will issue

it as a CYA. And that's really what it comes down to. So it's a system designed to protect the people that need it. But unfortunately, there are loopholes that allow other people to take advantage of it, specifically offenders who want to get in front of the narrative and create a he said, she said battle, where if, you know, if they're influential in the community already, they can always go back and say, yeah, of course she's going to say that now. I filed a restraining order against her. This is just her trying to make herself look like a victim. But I went first to the courts. Clearly I'm the victim when in reality, that's not the case. So once again, I have experience with this. I wish I

didn't, but I mean, I'm not, I'm not laughing. I'm not laughing, but I know, I know. But like, yo, I will tell you that I don't think it's a system that's designed to protect the victim. I think it's supposed to be. Yeah. Well, it's, it's, it's incredibly flawed. And what George, I said that I said, they gotta give me that. I said, I said it is flawed. It's not, it's not used the proper way. And if you're not, if you're not like educated or knowledgeable about what the process is and what you have to do, you could be completely blindsided when your boyfriend or husband is filing an order of protection against you and he's the one that beat you up. And you're like, and then, and then you have a judge giving him an order of protection. You got police over here

serving you with it. And you're like, no, that's not what happened. And they're like, well, he got there first. Like, are you kidding me right now? Right. So and as police officers, when we we got to go by the protection, of course. And I think that it's a very flawed system. And this should not be a first come first serve basis, especially when you're dealing with somebody like George, who was older than Tabitha. Tabitha was just a teenager. She'd never encountered this before. She wasn't educated on the process. She had no idea that that was even an option for her. And he was using it as not only a retaliatory tactic,

but once again, as is the Wagner family motto, a control tactic. Because now I have this legal action against you. You can't come near me and you can't come near your child. And if you want to come near your child, I can drop all of this. I can make this go away. But you have to do what I want you to do. You have to do what I'm telling you to do. It's a control tactic and abusers completely, no pun intended, abuse the system in order to further victimize their victims. It's disgusting. It's absolutely

disgusting. And, you know, fortunately, and hopefully, this doesn't happen too much, but I tend to believe, given my experience and given what I've seen, that it happens quite a bit. And it's very sad. It's very sad to think about yeah it happens all the time it happens all the time i i definitely have experienced where you show up and there's a figure in the situation who's clearly not intimidated by the other party but they're like hey here's my order of protection i'm in fear of my life and you look at them and you're like really come on really but at that point our hands are tied yeah i mean you walk in and you see like a 250 pound man and like a 110 pound woman. And he's like, she hurt me.

I'm afraid of her. And you have to serve this anyways. Like this is ludicrous. Yeah. And I just to qualify that that is a lot of the times. But I will say, you know, sometimes it's more digital or words or maybe the means that that person may have. They could be smaller in stature. But yeah, for the most part, you're right.

I just, you know, for anybody out there who's going to come at us in the comments and be like, oh, you don't know. Yes, there are occasions where the other individual who may be smaller in stature does have the capability of affecting the other person and therefore the order of protection is justified. But I'm just talking in a generality of what I normally experienced while on the job, especially the initial calls for domestic violence. That's always a pointing of the fingers the minute we show up. It's always fun to sit there and try to mediate that. I mean, obviously, if you have one person who's calling the police and saying, this hit me when the police get there, the other person's not going to be like, yep, you got me. I did it. They're they're they're automatic response can be like he said, she said situation and ends up being a whole

finish line thing. Who's going to get there first? Who's going to make the claims? Who's going to make the other person's life the hardest? And it's just very unfortunate. It's just very unfortunate. Don't get married. I would say that because if it's a boyfriend girlfriend situation, then at least, you know, you can leave and there's, there's no like legal thing keeping you there. This person can't continue to affect your life, your finances, etc. But if you're married, it's just that much harder to remove yourself from the situation. The claws are really dug in at that point. Yeah.

I say nobody ever needs to get married, honestly. Well, on that note, let's take another break. We will be right back. So December 9th, 2015, Tabitha Claytor's mother, Tess, messaged Hannah Mae Roden on Facebook with a dire warning. Tess knew that at this time, Hannah was also going through a nasty custody battle with a Wagner man, and she warned Hannah to not sign any of the papers that were presented to her by the Wagners. In fact, Hannah had been to see the Wagner's lawyer about the custody arrangement that the Wagners had outlined. And she was sort of playing along. So she'd

request certain changes to be made before signing it. And the changes would be made. And then they would present her with the documents again. But she never did sign anything. When Hannah got Tessa's message on Facebook, she responded like, yeah, duh, no duh, I'm not signing anything. She said, I will never sign anything. And then Hannah said something very interesting. She said, they would have to kill her first. And I find it interesting because Hannah didn't say,

he'll have to kill me first. She said, they'll have to kill me first, meaning the entire Wagner brood. Now, what no one knew at that time is that Angela Wagner, Jake's mother, she'd figured out a way to monitor Tabitha's communications on Facebook. She was initially using this as a way to get dirt on Tabitha to be used against her in court. And as the conversation between Tess and Hannah Mae went down, Angela was watching. Four months later, Hannah Mae would be dead. Now, Tabitha Klager would regain custody rights to her son when he was five years old,

after George and Jake and Angela and Billy were arrested for murder. Tabitha would finally get her child back. And when she got her son, Balvine, back, she claims the boy told her that the Wagner family had told him his mother had tried to poison them and that she had killed the Rodin family. So this is something called parental alienation, where you try to turn the child against one of the parents so that it goes in your favor in a custody battle. Should a lawyer or an advocate that's, you know, assigned to the child to represent them ask the child, hey, you hey, do you want to be with your mother or how do you feel about your mother? And he's going to now be afraid of his mother because he thinks she's a mass murderer and a poisoner. Parental alienation is not legal and not allowed and not looked upon well, but that's exactly what the Wagners were doing and who could be surprised? So after the Rodens were killed, the Wagner family relocated to Alaska. And there, Jake Wagner met a woman named Beth Ann Armour, who he would go on to marry. Now,

when the Wagners returned to Ohio, Beth Ann went with them. And she would also testify to the incredible lengths the Wagner family went to in order to control her. Firstly, Beth Ann was a virgin when she met Jake, and she had asked Jake to respect her wishes that she didn't want to consummate their marriage on their wedding night. She basically said, you know, I don't have experience with men, and we're getting married very quickly. We don't really know each other that well, and I would like to take the whole sex thing very slowly. Now, according to Beth Ann, Jake did not respect her wishes. And not only did he consummate their marriage on their wedding night, which it kind of makes it sound like he did this by force, but after they were married, Jake started asking Bethann for all of her personal

information, like her bank account numbers, her passwords, her social security number, and her phone pin. Bethann testified that Jake had found a way to replicate her phone onto his so that he would see what she was doing at all times. He and his mother, Angela, also made Bethann cut off contact with her family, and they made her sign papers stating that in the event of a divorce, she would not have any custodial rights to Jake's daughter, Sophia. Now, remember, Jake's daughter, Sophia, is his daughter with Hannah Mae who by this point is deceased. Now Beth Ann lived with the Wagners as well and at that time both Bullvine and Sophia lived there. Beth Ann said that the room where she and Jake and sometimes Sophia would sleep

was painted pink and the room where Angela and Bullvine slept was painted blue and if there was ever an inquiry made into the children's well-being, the family would say that Sophia slept alone solely in that pink room and Bullvine slept solely alone in the blue room. So this was his room and this was Sophia's room. And I'm not sure why they would do that, but maybe any kind of like CPS situation would make it seem kind of weird if they found out that these kids who at this time were, you know, old enough to be sleeping by themselves were still sleeping in beds with parents and grandparents. I'm not sure why that would be an issue, but what do you think about that as a police officer? Would that be something that would need to be addressed? No, I don't know. I mean, I know there's a lot of different family dynamics out there. So as

police officers, we try to stay impartial and objective in this. I mean, it is the fact that they're pointing it out. If you really want to make a stretch, it's like, okay, well, why are you,

why are you informing us of this? Is it, is it, are you trying to get ahead of something? We talked a little earlier about the restraining order, right? Like trying to be in front of something. So you can say,

Oh no, we, this is how it was. We, and they're setting the narrative so could you have a situation here where They're saying this because of a guilty conscience. I don't know or is there something more nefarious going on? But on the surface to answer your question directly

If someone said that to me, I may raise an eyebrow, but there's not too much you can go off of with that I mean my daughter is seven and she sleeps next to me in bed every night. And I think it just makes her feel better. And, you know, it's I, I come from like a very like European mindset of co-sleeping being perfectly healthy for the child. But that's what made me think, why would the Wagners be be having this like cover story in case anybody came asking about the well-being of the children, was it because they felt they had something to hide? And so they felt that what they were doing was wrong and that others might perceive what they were doing as being wrong. So they had like a story to cover it in case anyone asked. And we also have to point out the obvious,

which is we're talking about a family of criminals. And when we're talking about them in this context, it's possible or very likely that there is a reason behind it, that it's not just this innocent thing that they're pointing out. So in general, probably not a big deal, probably not a red flag. But when we're talking about the Wagners specifically, it does make you question a little bit more because it seems like everything they do has a purpose behind it. Yeah, they're very calculated, right? And that's why they're planning their moves like 10 steps ahead. Right. And so I think that's important to make that distinction that we are, you know, we're talking about this because of who we're talking about. Right. Well, when Jake and

Bethann were married, Jake actually told his daughter Sophia, his daughter with Hannah, Mae Roden, Sophia, that she should call his new wife Mommy. And reportedly, this really pissed off his mother Angela, who had been acting as Sophia's mother and Bullvine's mother, by the way, since Hannah Mae had been murdered. Angela seemed to be so threatened by Beth Ann that she told Jake Beth Ann had touched Sophia in an inappropriate way. And Jake reacted to this in a, I would say, surprisingly aggressive way. But here is Beth Ann, and she's going to tell you exactly what Jake said to her when he heard this from his mother. While living there, Armour testifies that Angela Wagner accused her of poisoning the two children's food and touching Sophia inappropriately.

Armour denies the accusations, but says Jake confronted her, saying if she had touched Sophia, he would... Create Lucille, the baseball bat, from The Walking Dead, and string me up in the barn, beat me to death with the baseball bat, bulldoze the barn, burn it down, and hunt down and kill my family. And then if he didn't do it, his mom would do it. If his mom didn't do it, his dad would do it or George would do it. So the whole Walking Dead thing, it's going to come into play because apparently Jake Wagner was just a huge Walking Dead fan, especially of Norman Reedus's character. Did you watch The Walking Dead?

I did not, but I know the bat because I've seen that character with the bat with the barbed wire around it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I've seen it. I think most people have seen it. What was his name? Negan. His name was Negan. I've seen that character with the bat with the like the barbed wire around it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen. I think most people. What was his name? Negan.

His name was Negan. I've never seen the show, but I'll. Well, you should absolutely watch the show. My free time. I'm going to hop right on. Exactly. Right. I'm watching Love is Blind.

That's as much as you're going to get. Oh, you're watching Love is Blind. I know we can't talk about it right now. I know you want to talk about it. We could talk. Maybe we'll do a crime week. Maybe we do a Patreon episode or something where we can. Derek, why? I just talked to you about Love is Blind. Like week. You didn't say you were watching it. I know you did. I just started watching it and I feel dumber for it.

That's all I'll say right now. Let's keep it on. I told Derek we should make a Love is Blind podcast and he said no, but everyone in the comments tell him that we need to have a Love is Blind podcast immediately because I've got thoughts i've got thoughts anyways the walking dead's great watch it if you have some time but norman reedus played daryl um in the walking dead and it looked it seemed like jake was kind of trying to emulate that character often and this is going to come back into play more than once but i also would like to say that this kind of reaction to just hearing something from his mother and him going to his new wife and saying this, that was shocking to me. I don't understand how any man who has an ounce of integrity or moral fiber in him could look at a woman and say that to her

with a straight face. And not only to say like, well, if I can't do it, my mom will do it. And if my mom doesn't do it, my dad will do it. If he doesn't do it, my brother's going to do it. Like what's wrong with these people? What's actually wrong with these people? Unbelievable. So obviously, when she hears this, Bethann is terrified. She's terrified. I can't imagine why. She was scared that the Wagners were going to kill her. So one day she told Angela, hey, I got to get a couple of things from Walmart. And, you know, they don't let these girls drive anywhere on their own. So Angela brought Bethann to Walmart and Bethann then changed her clothes in the Walmart bathroom. She slipped out through the tire section and then met her father who drove her

to the home of a friend that lived out of state. She basically went into witness protection to get away from these people. She was that terrified of them. Now, the Wagners would eventually have their phones tapped by the police. And in a phone conversation between Jake and Beth Ann, which happened in May of 2018, Beth Ann told him that she'd felt like she was living in Nazi Germany when she was with him and his family. Another phone conversation between Jake and his mother, Angela, revealed just how dysfunctional they were. Angela was angry with Jake about something. She had called him and she was like, oh, jake and he was like what did i do now and angela responded quote beth is her mommy i'm her grandmother beth didn't do anything wrong to her ever it was just sophia saying that and she loves beth more than me and she believes

beth over me because i'm just her grandmother end quote well where did this come from well this happened apparently because j Jake told his daughter Sophia that his mother Angela was her grandmother. So he told a fact. He told a true fact to his daughter. And Angela told Jake he'd done enough damage by telling Sophia that she and Bullvine were Angela's grandchildren, not her children. She was livid about this. She was like, good job, Jake. Good job telling these kids that I'm their grandmother. Wow. Toxic on a level that, I mean, this goes beyond Donna Sue Adelson. I never thought I'd say that. I mean, two back-to-back series where we have just a crazy mother-in-law.

I mean, who doesn't have a crazy mother-in-law? I feel like you're trying... Never mind. So not only did the Wagner family have a weird obsession with children, but they were also repeat arsonists burning down their own homes for insurance money. One of their homes, located at 845 Bethel Hill Road, was burned to the ground. And George's ex-wife, Tabitha, she claimed that before they burned it down, she helped the family move out several items that

they didn't want burned, things like furniture and clothing. The Wagners will be paid out $250,000 through the insurance company after they set their own home on fire. And as we will come to find it, the Wagners fancied themselves something of a crime family. And Jake Wagner said that he'd grown up learning to be a criminal from his father, and he had ended up being a very good criminal because of this early education. Billy Wagner taught Jake how to pick locks by the age of 10. And Jake was also taught very early how to steal trucks and cars. He said he was really proficient at it. When he was 10 or 11, he helped set the family farm on fire for the insurance money. He, on his own, solo at 10 or 11, ignited the garage. And this was the first of two times during his childhood that Jake would be made

accomplice to his family's arson and insurance fraud. The second time, Jake described the Wagners filling a crockpot with chicken, and then they put the crockpot on a propane stove, turned the stove up, and then allowed all the contents of the crockpot to spill over and ignite into flames, which then set the house on fire. Now, reportedly, Chris Roden Sr. was present at the time of this second childhood arson event. He was there as a witness, and he'd been the one to call 911. Jake also talked about how he had been homeschooled by his mother, Angela, but instead of making him take his own tests, Angela filled out the tests for him. Jake said he didn't need to know all that stuff, social studies, English, you know, all that stuff, because he was going to be a truck driver and a farmer like his father. He didn't have time to worry about like getting an education. Jake also referred to a time when his father, Billy, had sold a trailer full of stolen items in Mexico.

And when he came back, Billy had a suitcase filled with $100,000, which he gave to Jake to count. And from that money, Billy then used $60,000 to buy Jake a new custom pickup truck. What a good dad. Yeah. No, I mean, there's a lot in there, but the main premise that I take or the main theme that I take away is just what's inherited, you know, from generation to generation. It's not only the physical things like the elements of crime and how to commit these crimes in a certain manner. It's also the way they treat

other people, especially women. And we had said it earlier, and we're kind of coming full circle now where Jake is learning things from his father and his father is learning things from his father and yeah it's these things like this these physical things but it's also how to treat people how to how to manipulate people how to get control of individuals who may be considered weaker than you or not as confident as you as you and how to use the name, the Wagner name to intimidate and control the individuals that are that are under your thumb and how to keep them in check through fear and intimidation. And so, you know, these little

things like how to commit a crime weren't the only things that Jake learned from his from his parents. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I think like the criminal element does come from Billy Wagner, but the controlling, threatening kind of whole gaslighting thing comes from Angela. I agree. I'm with you. It is an interesting statement that you say,

you know, Billy probably learned it from his father because I'm going to have to look into that. Where did Billy Wagner learn this from? Because from all reports, Billy Wagner's father, Frederico Wagner's husband, seemed to be a respectable pillar of the community. He and Freddie were the ones who built this Wagner empire. They were the ones who acquired all this property, all this land. They opened all these businesses. They have like a home for people with disabilities that they run. They built a church. They have, you know, the Flying W Farm

and the horses and the dogs breeding there and things like that. They were the ones who kind of did all of this and they were considered to be just very, you know, respectable, contributory members of society in that area. So I'm not sure if it was Billy's father who taught him this, but if it wasn't, that is an interesting question. I will have to look into that.

Where did Billy get the stuff from? But before we continue on, let's take our last break. So after the murders, a command post was set up at the Pike County Police Department. And this is where all law enforcement personnel would meet in the morning, go over their game plan. Like, who are we going to question? What investigative paths are we going to take today? Break, team, let's go. So during the process of interviewing individuals, BCI agents became interested in interviewing Billy Wagner, father of Jake and George Wagner. Now, initially, they wanted to talk to him specifically because

they were just interviewing everybody who was close to the rodent's family, friends, anybody who had any idea about the rodent's daily activities, if they had feuds or arguments with anybody. That's why they wanted to talk to Billy Wagner, because he'd been a close friend of Chris Rodin Sr. He was about to be Hannah Rodin's father-in-law. He was Sophia's grandfather. He did have many connections to the family. The police

were trying to figure out more about each murder victim. Now, Billy Wagner was very difficult to get a hold of for an interview, and it seemed almost as if he was dodging any attempts that police made to speak to him. And that task became difficult due to the fact that when we stopped by the house, Billy wasn't always there. If we went to his mother's house at the Flying W, Billy wasn't always there, or if he was, he wasn't answering the phone. So it became quite a consuming task until finally we were able to track him down and get an interview with him. Not only did we want to talk to him because of the fact of his relationship withens and Hannah Gilley were murdered.

And they basically were like, hey, how was your relationship with Hannah? And he was like, everything was great. It was beautiful, et cetera, et cetera. But then they get Hannah May Roden's cell phone records and they find these messages between her and Jake, which showed that nothing was beautiful, not from the very beginning, not even before Sophia was born. And that's when they start to be a little suspicious, like, really, is everything really that good? And then they talk to Billy Wagner. So five months after the murders, BCI investigators grabbed Jake and George's father, Billy, outside of a Kroger grocery store so they could talk to him about the Rodin family. And I mean, he was very colorful and very descriptive during this interview. He said a lot of things. In September 2016, about five months after the mysterious deaths of eight members of the Rodin family in Pike County, BCI agents interviewed Billy Wagner.

I'm going to tell you something right off the bat. Okay. You didn't know Chris, right? Most of the **** you're talking about is a bunch of **** lies. Okay. I mean, Chris, he'd give you the shirt off his back. Chris is Chris Roden Sr., one of the Rodens' Billy Wagner, his wife Angela, and their sons, George and Jake, have since been charged with killing execution style in the middle of the night. Last time I talked to him and he seemed all right was the night before all this happened. And I said, hey man, I'll talk to you tomorrow.

And then next morning, you know, all hell broke loose. I mean, there ain't a bunch of hillbillies do something like that. And, you know, sorry. Right. You never convinced me. Right. You know, that's like some SEAL Team 6. You're looking in the wrong damn direction. You need to be going the other way.

So law enforcement officials who talked to Billy found it odd that he seemed to be trying to point them in every direction besides himself. Billy had mentioned that Chris Roden Sr. had some really good commercial weed coming in and he was planning to sell it to the whole town. Billy claimed that Chris didn't do anything half-assed and this deal was going to bring in a lot of money, $800,000 to be exact. And Billy felt that it was very probable that the cartels would have been threatened by a large drug deal such as this. Now, as it turns out, law enforcement would later discover that there was such a deal in the works. But Billy Wagner was basically an equal partner with Chris Roden Sr. in this deal. So he stood to gain quite a bit of money from it as well.

When police asked for Billy Wagner's phone, he gave a hard to believe answer about why he didn't have it. So he did have a phone, but he told the police he didn't have the same phone that he had when the murders happened. You were asking him about a phone, about his phone, and he indicated that the reason he no longer had his phone was because he smashed it. And then he offered you an explanation as that was because he kept calling Chris Sr., correct? That's correct, yes. So yeah, Billy Wagner said that after the murders, he missed his friend Chris Sr. so much That's correct. Yes. When police went through Billy Wagner's phone records, they discovered that he had not tried to call Chris Sr. once after the murders. But Chris Sr. had tried to call Billy Wagner almost directly before his life was violently ended. On the night of the murders, Chris Roden Sr. called Billy Wagner at 8.51 p.m. This call lasted for 27 seconds.

At 10.52 p.m., Chris Sr. called Billy again, and this call lasted for three seconds. Two calls to Billy Wagner from Chris Sr. went unanswered at 10.54 p.m. and 10.55 p.m. And as we know, it was around that 11 p.m. hour that officials believe Chris Roden Sr. and his cousin were murdered in his trailer. Sounds like that's why he probably wasn't picking up too, right? Everything was already in motion. And I believe that what happened is Billy also left his phone at home, so it wouldn't be traced. But between Billy Wagner's odd demeanor, as well as tips that they'd gotten during the investigation and their knowledge of custody issues between Jake Wagner and Hannah Roden, BCI and local law enforcement began to look more closely at members

of the Wagner family as potential suspects. A year after the murders, BCI agents went to 260 Peterson Road to speak to Jake Wagner again, hoping to get access to his cell phone, but he refused to hand it over. A few days later, BCI agents returned to talk to Jake again, and at this time, they noticed some suspicious things on the property. Did you have a second contact or an additional contact with Jake Wagner at the 260 Peterson Road address on May 3rd of 2017? Yes, I did. Okay. And at that time, who all was present for that conversation? Myself and Special Agent Jim Mulford were the two agents that went there. And when we arrived, there was trucks and trailers in the driveway. And Jake, Angela, and George were outside packing their belongings into those trailers.

Did you observe anything in the driveway that was of interest to you? Yes. While speaking with Angela and Jake, they were willing to speak with us. They didn't ask us to leave. I just casually observed there was numerous fired cartridge casings lying about the driveway all over the place. There was hundreds if not thousands of cartridges laying around, casings. Special Agent Scheider, were you able to pick those items up and examine them closely? No. Did any of them, based on, I believe you testified previously that you were actually an

armorer at some point? I've been a firearms instructor since 2007, and I'm also a Glock armorer, so I've been to firearms armor school as well. Okay. And were you able to tell from your vantage point, not bending over and picking them up or examining them closely, did any of them appear to be of interest? Yes.

So the crime scenes, we were aware that there was a.40 caliber used. A.40 caliber cartridge casing was found at one of the crime scenes you guys heard about that we also knew that there was potentially a 30 caliber rifle that was used and 22 long rifle what i observed that day i saw cartridge casings that appeared to be from a rifle they weren't like a 22 caliber rifle so they weren't 22 a.22 caliber rifle, so they weren't.22 rimfires, but they definitely weren't like.223s or.556s. I just couldn't tell what caliber they were. And then I also saw cartridge cases that were, or casings that were consistent with pistol calibers.

Specifically, to me, it looked like they were 9mm or.40 caliber. I couldn't tell from my vantage point. Obviously, I'm standing up, and I did not examine them yeah during that contact we were casually talking and one of the things that Jake was concerned about as if Brintley which would be Frankie's son had witnessed anything the night of the murders and asked if he'd ever been questioned about that. Was there also a conversation with Jake regarding various punishments for this kind of a crime? Yes. One of the things that I like to do when I'm talking to somebody that I suspect

is involved in a crime I'm investigating is oftentimes I will ask that person, what do you think the appropriate punishment is for somebody that's accused of this crime to elicit their response? So I did ask him that. And what was his response? It depended on whether or not they were a trigger person. Well, that's interesting. Huh? Yeah.

I mean, that's a I think this is a police tactic because I've seen other police officers ask. It usually doesn't work, though, to be honest with you. But it did now. It did in this one. That's why I made that noise. I'm like, usually, most of the time they'll say, oh, you know, I think they should be held accountable for what they did and they should go to prison forever. I would have, that's what I would do, you know, but. Well, I mean, it depends on whether they were the trigger person or not, right? Jake should have taken a pause on that one. As far as the

cartridges real quick, can we talk about that just so we don't skate over it? You know, that's pretty good because the cartridges that were used in the crimes are specific, right? It's an exact caliber. And to have similar casings found on the property, yeah, it could just be a coincidence that these individuals have similar firearms. But when you think about it, there's three different calibers that are used in this crime scene. So example, if it was just a nine millimeter that had been used, and amongst many different calibers,

you found nine millimeter caliber casings, you'd say, okay, it could be just a coincidence, but there's three different calibers in this case and it appears from what he was saying when he was describing the the casing that looked like something between a 22 rimfire and a 223 the the one that would be in between there could potentially be one of the rounds that were used and then obviously 40 caliber versus nine millimeter for anybody who doesn't know obviously a nine millimeter casing is much thinner than a 40 caliber 40 caliber round is about the same length but much wider or fatter whatever you want to refer to it as but um there's a distinct difference yeah so we are going to talk

about those shell casings in one second and you're going to get some answers but when the uh bci agents were there that day to try to get you're going to get some answers. But when the BCI agents were there that day to try to get, you know, try to talk to Jake again, the Wagners had already sold their farm and they were vacating the property on May 10th. The whole family at that point knew the heat was on them. They were moving to Alaska. Billy Wagner, Jake's father, he told BCI agents that, you know, he didn't he wasn't really happy about it. He didn't want to move to Alaska. His father was ill. He felt bad about like kind of dumping that on his mother.

But Jake and George had gotten really good jobs in Alaska. So that's where they were headed. And since Jake Wagner refused to hand his cell phone over, law enforcement had no other choice but to get a warrant for it, which was executed right before the family left for Alaska in May of 2017. They also got a search warrant for 260 Peterson Road, which like I said by that time had already been transferred over to the new owners. When Agent Schreider had been to that address earlier in the month and seen all of those shell casings in the driveway, it had occurred to him that some of those casings might match casings found at the

Roden family murder scenes, so police returned there to collect some of those casings to examine and compare them. They found a shell casing that matched the 22 caliber shell casings found at the homes of Frankie Rodin and Dana Rodin. They'd been fired from the same weapon. And when I say the same weapon, I don't mean the same gun as in like the same model. I mean the exact same weapon, which they can tell from certain you know, certain markings. That's how they do ballistics, things like that. You're going to have a firing pin indentation on the back of the shell casing, which is specific to that specific firearm. Every firing pin is slightly different and not only will hit or strike a different part of that casing, it also leaves a, it's not always just a dot.

Each little indentation under a microscope striations they call them right nope that's the firing pin indicate indentation on the back okay when it comes to the extraction of the casings you'll have striations so those are the scrapes along the side of the casing where there's a little extractor claw and what happens is when that round cycles when the gun cycles the claw will pull out the old casing by the back of the rim, throw it, and then a new round will be stripped off the top of the magazine and inserted into the chamber. So when that shell casing is being dragged out of the

barrel of the gun and then ejected by that claw, it'll leave markings that can be matched under a microscope to any control shell casing you have. And it'll be exact. They literally put them side by side under a microscope and the striations will match up perfectly. Wow. Well, that's pretty much what happened here because then law enforcement combed the area looking for more shell casings that may have matched weapons they believed had been used during the murders. shot guns at the Wagners' property, were the same people who were responsible for the murders. While they were executing these search warrants, they also located a charred DVR system that the Wagners had purchased on March 17, 2016, with a three-year warranty plan. This DVR system was found in a fire pit on the property. BCI agents were also approached by a neighbor who informed them

that they had witnessed the Wagners storing some of their belongings in some trailers located off of State Route 41. And so the police located those trailers and secured a search warrant for them. As evidence recovered through these search warrants began to pile up, the reality of what had happened to Hannah Mae Roden and her family started to become very clear. And it was more shocking than anybody could have imagined. And that's where we're going to end up today. Yeah. You're always looking in these cases for means, motive, opportunity. And we know the motive. We have a motive, right? And we know what the dynamic with the daughter, Sophia. And obviously, we're starting to peel back the layers and finds out the means in which it was

carried out. And as far as opportunity, just a window of time where the individuals who are suspected would have been able to be at that property during that timeframe. And I'm sure as we get into part three, we're going to dive into that as well. I mean, listen, the case is great. I mean, as far as what you have, you didn't have a bunch of rocket scientists carrying out this crime. So it doesn't appear based on just the limited conversations I've seen from them and how they conduct themselves in their own personal lives on a daily basis.

Again, they're doing things that are very primitive and not something that should be done. And it's really, it's barbaric what they're doing in a way. And I don't wanna be sensational sensational here but it's like what they're doing is just they can't get what they want then they physically beat it into their to their victims or they verbally abuse them into submission so it's just a very primitive approach by people who are probably not very smart and so when they're gonna conduct this this multi-operate area murder thing, they're not going to probably do it or execute it in a way that's going to be conducted to a level where law enforcement is able to pick it apart and identify the individuals involved. that these were the first murders this family had ever committed, which is crazy, right, to start your homicidal career

with a mass murder of eight people and do it in such a kind of organized way. But I think that if you look at the history of the Wagner family, they had successfully beaten all of these other women into submission just from verbal threats, just from control tactics. But when that didn't work with Hannah Mae Roden, killing her was their only other option, in their opinion, right? If they couldn't get their way through control tactics, through threats, then what else could they do? They couldn't just let Hannah, you know, parent her child or have any leverage on Jake. They had to make sure that she was dead.

And that's exactly what it looks like they did. So we are going to go deep into these search warrants and what was found in part three. And when I tell you, honestly, I don't even know why these people went to trial. They were caught dead to rights in my opinion, but they still wanted to go to trial. And I'm glad they did because then we got all the information and now we know exactly what happened. And we're going gonna talk about that Next time absolutely. We will be here guys if you stayed with us till the end Please like the video let us know that you're with us all the way to the end as you probably already know by this time

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you have a great night. You too. You guys have a great night as well take care bye