Crime Weekly - S3 Ep188: Piketon Massacre: The Family That Kills Together (Part 3)

Episode Date: March 8, 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. Curology.com/CrimeWeekly - Get your first Curology skincare box for just $5! 2. DailyHarvest.com/CrimeWeekly - Get $30 off your first box and FREE shipping! 3. AloMoves.com - Use code WEEKLY for an exclusive 30-day free trial and 20% off an annual membership! 4. Prose.com/CrimeWeekly - Get your FREE consultation and 50% off!

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History's masterpieces wouldn't be the same without their most notable accents. Neither would the Kia Sportage without its multiple drive modes. The Kia Sorento without its expansive 12.3-inch panoramic display. Or the Kia Telluride without its three rows of spacious seating. The 2025 Kia SUVs. Kia. Movement that inspires. Call 800-333-4KIA for details. Always drive safely. Limited inventory available. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. three of the Pike County Massacre. And before we do, is there anything you want to mention? I know

you mentioned CrimeCon very quickly and Crime Weekly News this week. So would you want to kind of throw that out there again? Yeah, CrimeCon, head on over there, crimecon.com. We have a long episode, so I won't waste too much of our time. We'll get right into it. If you want to come and join us in Nashville, going to be a lot of people there, your favorite podcasters, TV personalities. There's also some people that we've discussed in prior cases. I mentioned on Crime Weekly News, Maya Kowalski is one of the people that we just covered in depth on Crime Weekly. She's going to be at the event with her attorneys and her father. So again, it's just an opportunity to meet a lot of people who have been affected by these issues, but also talk to your favorite podcasters and TV personalities about

the cases, maybe cases you want to see covered in the future. It's a great week. It's a weekend, I should say. And it's usually in a great place. This year is no exception. It's back in Nashville, which was awesome the last time we went. Well, we didn't have CrimeCon in Nashville. We had Podcast Movement. Oh, that's right. But Nashville's great. We still had a good time. Yeah, Nashville was great. It's awesome. It's awesome. And I'm thinking I just went down there for a bachelor party that had nothing to do with. Yeah, I bet that was fun. Yeah, I bet that was a great time too. Shout out Cody for the great bachelor party. That was really it. If you want

to check it out and you're looking to go, make sure you head over to the website and use our code crimeweekly and you'll get a discount on your ticket. I think most of the tickets are sold out to be honest, but head on over, go on the waiting list. If anything opens up, they'll let you know. All right, let's dive in. Well, the Wagner family was composed of several individuals, parents, Billy and Angela, and their sons, George and Jake Wagner. Although they were separate people, each with their own motives and desires, it appeared that they lived and moved as one. BCI forensic accountant Michael Kaysar performed an analysis on multiple Wagner financial accounts

and purchases made in the months leading up to the murders of seven members of the Rodin family and Frankie Rodin's fiancée, Hannah Gilley. He reviewed hundreds of pages of bank statements, dozens of purchases, and an enormous Amazon order history, and Kaysar noticed frequent transfers between different accounts owned by the Wagner family for over three years that totaled more than $100,000. Kaysar said that this kind of activity paralleled what he often sees in the financial movements of criminal organizations. All vehicles bought and used by the family were purchased with loans taken out in George and Jake's names, and the deed for the Wagner's farm on Peterson Road

was also in George and Jake's names. Household expenses and bills were paid by all members of the family through their joint or individual accounts, and frequent transfers of money and the sharing of funds and expenses illustrated that although the bank accounts may have been in separate names, the Wagners were functioning as a coordinated group. In fact, we spoke briefly about her last episode, but Jake Wagner's new wife, Beth Ann, she or Elizabeth Armour, I believe I referred to her in part two of this series, but she goes by Beth Ann or Beth. She said she's never seen anything like it, the way they made decisions as a group. If it was about whether one of them was going to get a certain job or one of them was going to go on a trip or they were going to make this move or make this purchase, they all got together as a group and decided and voted on whether or not that was

going to happen. George's ex-wife, Tabitha Claytor, would testify that the Wagners would occasionally have family meetings, but she had no idea what was discussed during those meetings because she was asked to leave. Now, at the time of the Pike County Massacre, the patriarch of the Wagner family and his wife, Angela, were estranged and living separately. He was staying with his mother, Frederica Wagner, and his sick father. And Angela was staying at the Peterson Road house with her two sons and their two children. And then obviously, sporadically, one of the son's wives would move in. So George brought Tabitha to live there. Jake brought Beth to live there. And these women would sort of go in and out of the picture. But who always stayed was Angela, George and Jake, and then their children, Jake's daughter, Sophia, and George's

son, Bullvine. The whole thing about this relationship, it's interesting because it reminds me of the family that we just covered. And for some reason reason i'm drawing a blank the one where the uh the one the former cop nick uh uh nick uh god why am i drawing a blank right now the one that we just covered where the woman was her vehicle was found down the road her father was was shot at a quote-unquote hunting accident oh um why why can't i know i'm talking about right yo you're right i completely forgot about that case it's a lot of cases with crazy families lately so people so many people are yelling in the comments right now like it's it's the it's the uh what was it it, the police interviews. You love the detective in that one. Yes. Um, it was an older guy.

She went missing and then their family had a big farm and the two sons were there. And then the son that was the cop called the other brother and was like, get out of there in the police interview. What was it? Yep. I can't, I'm completely blank on it. All right, Stephanie, you can say it. You just looked up,

we had to look up our own YouTube channel, not joking. So it was Crystal Rogers was the victim and Brooks Houck was her husband or boyfriend. Yeah. I think they were just like kind of common law married and then his brother was Nick Houck. That's right. So yes, it does.

But the parents were, you know, you had the family involved, they were hiding tapes. This is like a really close knit family and literally willing to help each other go down for murder. That's like. Yeah. They like arrested, they arrested the mom, the grandma. That's right.

Yeah. So this family, just as you're describing them, that's, that's initially where my mind went. So Angela and Billy Wagner, right, they're having some marital issues. They're not living together and he's being real whiny about it in texting conversations. They're still in touch, obviously, on a daily basis and their conversations would often revolve around their marital issues and their grandchildren. So at the end of January 2016, this is the same year that the

Rodin family is murdered, Billy Wagner texted his wife Angela and said, quote, you take care of the babies. They need you and they are the only thing that matters. I'll take care of myself. I'm good at it. End quote. Oh, like it just bugs me because he's such a whiny baby bitch boy in these texts. And he's not genuinely telling her like you take care of the babies. They're the only thing that matters. He's saying like you love these kids, your grandchildren so much, like you never have any time or attention for me. And who's going to take care of me and who's going to love me and lay next to me in bed and scratch my back and talk about the day. So, yeah, he's pretty despondent and he wants her back very badly. And Angela responded, quote, I can't help you with that.

I want to be with you, but Bullvine and Sophie need help. If you won't give and help me with the babies, I can't just stay away. I've never seen you like this before, end quote. Billy responded that he knew Angela was gone forever and he would be fine. He said he was getting used to being by himself, to which Angela replied, quote, yes, but you don't have a little boy hold you at night and say, I love you, mommy, end quote. She's psychopathic. Psychopathic. Those are not your kids, lady. You are not their mother. And there's actually a conversation. I would play it, but it was played in the courtroom, so obviously the quality is just terrible. But it's basically Angela talking to her son Jake on the phone about Jake's daughter, Sophia, and telling Jake she's mad at Jake because he was allowing his new wife, Beth, to act as Sophia's mother.

And Angela was like, oh, so Beth's her mother now, this, this, and that. And Jake started screaming at her on the phone. He was like, you're not her mother now this isn't that and Jake started screaming at her on the phone he was like you're not her mother so even he at some point is like okay lady this is like it's going too far but also he's the one that let's reel it back in here yeah he's the one that let her do this he she did to Hannah she did it to um George's ex-wife Tabitha she she's done it to all these young women that come in because they're usually teenagers and completely naive to the world when the Wagners bring them under their wing that Well, that's why they do it, right? They want to bring in people who are malleable, impressionable, and also easy to intimidate and coerce into doing what

they want them to do. That's why they're not going to bring someone who's older, a little wiser, more intelligent, because they're not as easy to control. That's not who they look for. They're preying on the individuals who they can easily influence. Yeah, that's why Jake started dating a girl who was 13 when he was five years older than her, right? And then brings her to live with him. And this family's over here like she doesn't know shit about the world. She's not going to know what we're doing to her until it's too late. And for the most part, that had been successful.

That had been a successful route of manipulation and control for them. But Hannah, I think, provided a stronger opponent than they had faced. And I don't think they realized that even at her young age, the strength and the mental fortitude and grit that she had. No, absolutely. Which is why it's similar to what we talked about with Dan Markell. Right? If you can't beat them, kill them. And I'm not saying that in a joking way, like they tried to do it the way they normally do it. And if that doesn't work for these small minded people, that they just go to the extreme. Oh, will not do what I say, must kill them. Like it's just a very primitive way of looking at things. But if they don't get what they want, then they'll just take that person out. Right. Dan Markell, Crystal Rogers. That's it. Shanann Watts.

You know, we've seen it play out. That's why a lot of these victims, male and female, that's the concern, right? Like you want them to step up and stand up for themselves. But a lot of the times when they do. They're putting themselves in danger. Their attacker will just, will kill them. Yeah. When they finally decide to say no, right. Would regardless of the situation, when they finally decide to stand up for themselves, it doesn't always end with a happy, a happy ending where it's like, Hey, listen, you know,

you just need to tell them how you really feel. You need to say, no, you need to stand up for yourself. That is the right thing to do, but it doesn't always play out like it does in the movies where it's everything turns around and the bully or the accuser or the abuser just says, oh, you know what? She or he has finally had enough. I'm going to back off now. No, it can actually get a lot worse. And it often does with these types of controlling individuals. That's the problem. That's why I normally recommend, I should say, always recommend, yes, you can stand up for yourself, but the best thing you can do is get out. Get out and completely remove yourself from the situation. As much as you can.

Yeah. As much as you can. The problem where it becomes complicated is when, just like in this case, there are children involved. That's the issue with this whole thing is when you marry someone or get into a relationship with someone, that's one thing. But the minute you bring children into the equation, it just complicates things a hundredfold. It's another level of control that this person has over you and it's an extension of you now that even that you're not together and you could go completely no contact with this person, but they still have their hooks into your children and they'll still use their children to control you to get a reaction out of you to still somehow disrupt your life. Exactly. It's so toxic. And a lot of the times you don't even realize somebody's like this until you're already married and you already have kids

and then they let the mask down. And then you are in a bad position where, and that's why it takes so long to leave. They say it takes seven times, seven times to successfully leave a narcissist or an abuser. And that's because they will make your life so hard if you try to leave and they'll make it just slightly easier if you stay. So most people will end up staying until they realize at this point, whatever comes, comes, but I can't do this anymore. Seven times. So yeah, if you're with somebody like, what's his name? Jake? Jake. Yeah. Jake Wagner. Yeah. Jake Wagner.

Hannah knew how controlling he was. And she got out. Yeah. She got out. Eventually. Yeah. Unfortunately, she still had the connection with the child. And it was two children, correct? But one wasn't his. Kylie, the youngest, who was only four or five days old when Hannah was killed. Yes, that was not- Not his. Although he believed at certain points-

Yes. He really, really wanted her to be. Yeah. And so you obviously have Sophia, I believe is the child in common. Yes. Hannah loves Sophia. Jake, I guess you can child in common. Hannah loves Sophia. Jake, I guess you can say whatever you want, loves her. It depends on how you want to look at it. But overall, this forces Hannah to still have conversations with Jake, which unfortunately, by being in a relationship in any way, shape or form with Jake, as you've been describing for the first part of this episode, you're not just in bed with Jake.

You're in bed with the entire Wagner family because they're one- The whole Wagner crime family? That's it. Because as it's being described by other partners, they are a unit. They make decisions together. And if you come after one of them,

you come after all of them. If you hurt or anger one of them, you have to deal with all of them. And so Hannah is not doing this one-on-one battle with Jake. She's doing this one-on-one battle indirectly with the entire Wagner clan, which is why we are here today covering this case, because that wasn't going to happen. That wasn't going to happen. The Wagners were not going to stand for it because Hannah finally had enough. She had been removed herself from the equation And you had a backbone and said, hey, listen, I'm not playing your games.

And that wasn't okay, according to the Wagners. Yeah, I mean, nothing's going to be okay for them unless it's exactly what they want. Let's take our first break and we'll be right back. So Angela and Billy, they're texting. They discussed issues between Jake and Hannah Mae Roden when it came to Sophia. And on February 25th, 2016, Billy Wagner texted Angela saying, quote, I got a plan. If you just take one damn minute and listen, end quote. When Angela asked what the plan was, Billy said he would tell her in person.

But he said it was the last time he was going to try. And if the three of them didn't take the time to listen, well, oh, well, then. It kind of seemed like Billy was feeling like the man on the outside at this point. And for quite a while, he kind of was seeming like it was Angela and her sons and they're kind of doing their own thing. And Billy was just sort of left to the wolves and he didn't feel included anymore. And maybe they kind of just treated him like he was a buffoon you know just stamping around knocking things over and no one to be taken seriously which from the descriptions of him that i hear from other people you know in this case people not too far off yeah exactly

like he was pretty much just a bozo i mean so you're so what you're telling me is they were spot on yeah i would say who who was the mastermind in this? Angela Wagner. I think Jake and George were the muscle and Billy was just sort of like there and kind of like whatever. You don't think Frederica was pulling the strings? I don't. No. Well, you know more of the story than me, so I'll reserve judgment. I wouldn't say that she was complete.

Like, I just, in my opinion, wouldn't say that she's completely ignorant to what was happening, but I don't think she was that involved. No. I mean, I don't think things go down without her blessing, right? Maybe. I don't know. I think that Angela, honestly, because Billy is Frederica's son, right? The Wagner money is what built this reputation in this town. But now you have Angela who comes in here. And I think, to be honest, she was kind of just far more intelligent. Like probably Frederica was like, I wish Angela had been my daughter because this guy that I gave birth to is an absolute moron. Angela's way more Wagner than Billy. But either way, I think Angela carried on that Wagner crime family legacy.

And if not for her, we wouldn't be here, if I'm going to be completely honest. Yeah. On May 10th and May 12th, after the Wagners had left Pike County to move to Alaska, BCI agents descended on their former property located at 260 Peterson Road in Adams County. This is where they collected the discarded shell casings to compare to the ones found at the multiple Roden family crime scenes. BCI ballistics and firearm technician Matthew White would later testify that all the shell casings recovered from all four crime scenes had been fired from the same three guns. 40 caliber casings had come from a second generation Glock pistol, 22 caliber shell casings had come from a Walther Colt 1911 pistol, and 30 caliber rounds had come from an SKS rifle. As we had mentioned last week,

shell casings from the Wagner property were exact matches for the bullets responsible for taking the lives of these eight people. BCI also executed a search warrant at the property of a man named Bernie Brown, located on State Route 41 in Peebles. Brown told police that Jake and George Wagner had needed a place to store some of their household goods for a few days after selling the Peterson Road home because the new owners were going to be moving in and the Wagners were going to be moving to Alaska and they had nowhere else to store this stuff. A week before the search warrant was executed, the Wagners showed up to Brown's place and dropped a container about the size of a semi-tractor trailer,

a horse trailer, and a small enclosed trailer. These were placed at the north side of Bernie Brown's barn, along with two pickup trucks, one belonging to Jake Wagner and one belonging to George Wagner. The trailers and trucks were jam-packed with items, including children's toys and plastic totes filled with documents and other odds and ends. And BCI agents divided the vehicles and trailers up into five at different scenes so that they could get through them easier. But overall, it still took them seven hours to unpack and search through everything. Scene one was a large trailer inside of which agents found a ghillie suit. For those who don't know, a ghillie suit is usually used by hunters.

It basically camouflages you like a bush. It camouflages you and makes you look like a bush. They also found a jacketed bullet on the inside door of the trailer and a box containing cartridge casings and other gun-related items. They recovered a laptop and a tote holding several different trail cameras as well as an Xbox console and a portfolio with George Wagner's name on it. Scene two was a black pickup truck belonging to George Wagner, and this truck contained two cell phones, and inside the truck's cab, investigators found a box of documents. Investigators also collected an envelope addressed to George and two Cabela's Club credit cards with George Wagner's name on them. In the truck's rear passenger seats, BCI agents found a receipt signed by George for the purchase of a Beretta 92FS bought on April

27, 2016, five days after the Roden family massacre. A ski mask was found on the floorboard of the truck. There was also a notebook with the name Edward Wagner handwritten on the cover. And if you don't remember, Edward is the first name of Jake. His middle name, I believe, is Jacob. Yeah. So but his first name is Edward. So this would have been Jake's notebook. And inside the notebook, there were several drawings. The first drawing was titled Secret Spy Case. And it was a sketch containing two Colt handguns, a tool kit, a cleaning kit, two flashlights, and two suppressors. Suppressors are silencers. Basically, people put these on guns to make them not sound as loud as they sound when they are shot. Yep.

Another sketch was titled Close Combat Gear, and it was a drawing of a stick person covered in weapons and tactical gear, such as two Colt pistols, two clips on each leg in holsters, and a 12-gauge fastened to the little stick person's back with two katanas. Although whoever drew this labeled them kantanas, so Jake's not very smart. There was also drawings that appeared to be the floor plan of a building with rooms and dimensions sketched out and a top down drawing of what appeared to be a property with the locations of buildings sketched out in a top-down drawing of what appeared to be a property with the locations of buildings sketched out and marked on them. Another notebook contained lists of household costs for the 2016 year, and this was also found in George's truck, and there were costs for passports for both adults and children factored into this 2016 household budget. Scene three was

a black trailer that was hitched to George's truck and inside they found another ski mask, which was stored inside a large plastic tote. Next, we have scene four. This is a gray pickup truck that's registered to Jake Wagner. When agents tried to get into the truck, they found it was locked. They had to have the local sheriff's department come and open it with a Slim Jim. Inside on the rear floorboard, they located a third ski mask. So we've got three ski masks all day. Now that's going to technically mean if these ski masks are involved with these murders, which I wouldn't be talking about them if they weren't, that we have three individuals

who were responsible for pulling the trigger during these rodent family massacres, or at least being on site, on scene. For most people, I would hope that we're writing our notes down. I'm thinking three gunmen initially, even because of the three different calibers. Now you could say, oh, one guy could have had two guns. Yeah, of course. But this isn't the movies. In most cases, each individual is going to have their own weapon. You see it in robberies all the time. It's not often that they got the shotgun on their back while they're using the pistol and then they're switching mid-shooting to a different caliber. So my initial thought was

three. And now, like you said, now you have the three masks, again, starting to put that puzzle together, right? Multiple pieces of information from different crime scenes, all leading to the same answer, which is at least three offenders. Yes. Yeah. Three offenders. And I mean, if you look at like Jake Scotches and this guy, this little stick figure, he's got like all this, these weapons and artillery, and he's got cantanas on his back. Maybe, you know, if anybody's going to go in with multiple different weapons, it would be the Wagners. But I think we can safely surmise that the people who went into those houses with guns in their hands were George Wagner, Jake Wagner, and their father, Billy Wagner. It's just so interesting to me.

And maybe you have more to go about ballistics. And I'm not trying to give anyone any ideas, but what's the phrase I always say, right? If criminals were smart, we wouldn't catch them, right? Because a lot of the times what you're doing as a detective is locating and identifying the mistakes, right? We're mostly there reacting to the crime scene. Whatever we're given, whatever pieces we have, we have to put them together. And those pieces are provided by the criminals, right? That's how we get them. So in this particular circumstance, I just scratched my head because by no means do I think these individuals are intelligent, but there's some planning that takes place. And there's obviously a familiarity with firearms within this family. And you would think that they would know that one of the main things that could

link back to them would be the shell casings, would be any type of forensic evidence regarding firearms. So why in your right mind would you use firearms that have been in your possession, maybe potentially registered to you, you haven't gotten there yet, but why would you do that? Why wouldn't you not get some unregistered illegal firearms off the street that have not, you know, serial numbers have been scratched. They call them ditch guns that you can basically take, use for the crime, and then dump them and there's no association with you whatsoever. It just, it's perplexing to me, but I guess that's, I need those types of things to be good at my job, I guess. And why would you leave thousands

of shell casings just littered around your property knowing that any one of those could potentially link you back. That's what I'm talking about. The stupidity. To a massacre. Yeah. That shows me. It's stupidity or is it like an ego thing?

Like. No, I think those shell casings are indicative and it might be a combination of the two, but I think especially out that way, they've probably had those firearms for years and they've been out in the yard shooting, having good nights, you know, drinking some beers, shooting cans, whatever they're doing, shooting squirrels. Yeah. Shooting innocent animals. I was just about to say that. Not knowing at the time when they were doing that, that these guns were eventually going to be used for multiple murders. But but even so, you know, I just think about like I think about even if they had gone through and been like, let's get these shells up.

Right. There were so many. Yeah, they would have missed a couple. They would have missed a couple. The police would have gone in with metal detectors and still found one, two, three, four, whatever. All you need is one. Yes, you're absolutely right. Why would they use the same guns that they'd been in their possession for an extended period of time? Clearly from all the shell casings, right? They've been there for a while. Why wouldn't you just, I wouldn't go buy legally a couple guns because now it's going to show

that you purchased these guns right before the shooting, the murders, but I'm sure they could have gotten access to a couple unregistered, unfiled guns that are not in the system where they could have been ditch guns, but I'm happy they did it. I'm happy they did it for the sake of the case. But some of these things, you look at the steps and the measures that are gone through to avoid apprehension. And it's some of the most egregious mistakes that ultimately result in their capture. But, hey, listen, I appreciate it. I think they probably thought, like, they had, like, set the stage prior to the murders so well that nobody would even suspect that they had

anything to do with it they were friends you know jake and hannah had a kid together billy and and chris senior were besties and business partners uh there was no technically bad blood you know like even if the custody issue thing came out then the wagner's could just say well you know that's between Hannah and Jake. It had nothing to do with these other seven people. Like, why would we kill them? You know, I don't think they literally just thought, like, why would anybody suspect us? We were friends with them.

So the assumption is we don't have to worry about the forensic evidence at our house or our homes or trailers because it's never going to link back to us. Police are not going to be able to put it two and two together. There's no reason for them to come visit us. And maybe they also thought that before law enforcement caught onto their trail, if they did, they would already be gone. They would already be in Alaska. I'm assuming the plan was to go to Alaska even before the killings, like to know that's why the passports were there.

So the Wagner family had vacationed in Alaska like for, I guess, a decade. And according to Angela and Billy, they'd always been planning to move to Alaska. But Alaska is still in the continental United States. It's not like they're free from extradition, I think they probably were going to go to Alaska. And then if shit got like real, then they could just hop a flight with their passports and go to another country. Yeah. Yeah. Overall, it just make the case a lot harder in general that they're in Alaska, right? You have this police department that's, their capabilities are probably limited. They know the law enforcement officers that work on that department probably don't have a lot of respect for their intelligence and figuring, hey, listen, they ain't never going to catch on to this.

And maybe they even thought, who knows? We'll probably never know. But maybe even their egos were so big they thought even if they did suspect us, they're not going to challenge us. Yes, I would. They're not going to come for us. I would. Yes, I would agree with that. And there's going to be some evidence of that coming up. All right. Interesting. All, I would. I would. Yes, I would agree with that. And there's going to be some evidence

of that. Oh, OK. All right. Interesting. All right. Yeah. Very interesting. Let's see. Let's take a second break and then we'll keep going on with this. In Jake's truck, they also found a plastic tote labeled important, and they sort of suggest that this tote, based on its contents, belonged to Angela Wagner. And inside of it, there was photocopies of private Facebook messages between George's ex-wife, Tabitha, and several other people, as well as copies of Facebook conversations between Tabitha's mother and others. Documents from the Pike County Job and Family Services showed an order to conduct a genetic paternity test for Hannah May's infant daughter, Kylie. The order had been filed on June 29th, 2016, after Hannah's death.

As we know, the test concluded that Jake Wagner was not Kylie's biological father, but even after Hannah died, he's still trying to prove that she's lying about this. Even after months, because it was April when the family was murdered, this is the end of June. Months after she's gone, Jake is still trying to get his claws into her other child that he has no actual rights to. Yeah, I think that might have played into this whole thing. He's going into this murder thinking that those children are both his. Yeah, and he's thinking like, I can't have it be where she tells me. Because he was probably thinking, Hannah's telling me Kylie's not mine because she doesn't want me to have this much control over another child of hers.

So she's lying to me and telling me Kylie's not mine, but I know she is. And I know Hannah's lying about it. And this is why she's lying, because even he knew how much control and force he exerted over Hannah and Sophia. So that's probably what he's thinking. And he's so sure of it. He's thinking to himself, before even going into this massacre, the only way I'm going to have my rights that I'm entitled to to this child is if Hannah's no longer around and I can force a paternity test,

prove she's mine and take her. Yeah, I completely agree. I think he thought that she was doing it to maybe hurt him. She was trying to keep the child from him. To protect her kid is, yeah, what she was doing. Not only is she impeding my ability to see Sophia, but she's also keeping my other child from me. She's lying to me intentionally because she doesn't want me to have to be in this child's life.

That could have been a major component in the motive of wanting to kill her. Well, Hannah never impeded his ability to see Sophia. If anything, Jake did that to her. But he most likely being the egotistical narcissist that he is, thought she was impeding his ability to see Sophia because she wasn't caving into him every time he demanded Sophia when it wasn't even his day or asked to keep her longer than he should have. Yeah. It's all about perception, right? Yeah. Now, there were other documents in both George and Jake's trucks. We're going to talk about those in a minute.

But moving on to scene five, it was a large open top trailer with a tarp covering it. And this took several hours for the agents to go through. They found a tote full of various electronic items like GPS tracking devices and cameras. They found a Glock gun case and a box containing ammo and other firearm related items. There was a Caldwell brass catcher. A brass catcher is designed to collect firearm cartridges as they're ejected so they just don't go all over the place. They probably should have used that when they were shooting on their property. They bought it a little bit too late.

There was a lockpick set. There was grips for a Glock pistol, a magazine loader, a drum magazine, a wooden stock for a gun, and a bug detector. Documents pertaining to custody of two minor children, Sophia Wagner stock for a gun, and a bug detector. Documents pertaining to custody of two minor children, Sophia Wagner and Bullvine Wagner, were also found. There was a declaration of custody paper, which was intended to decide custody of a child in the event of a parent's death. And this paper was for Jake's daughter, Sophia, and it gave him full custody if anything ever happened to Hannah Mae. Now, Hannah's signature was on this paper, and it was dated December 24th, 2014. However, the paper had not been printed until April 3rd of 2016, meaning the paper didn't even exist until that date. So Hannah could not have signed it

on December 24th, 2014. And when I say people could be like, oh, she could have signed it, it was just a copy. No, this was a printed out piece of paper and then a physical ink signature on the paper that was supposed to have been Hannah Mae's signature from December. But that specific paper had not been printed out until April of like two years later. So, yeah, that's, you know, once again, like you said, if criminals were smart, we wouldn't catch them. So I guess that's it. We got to find those mistakes.

Yeah. Another two documents were signed by Jake and George giving their mother custody of their children in the event of their deaths. And these were also printed out and signed on April 3rd, 2016. And the prosecution would theorize that the Wagner boys had filled out this paperwork in case they were arrested or killed during their attack on the Rodin family, which was to take place that same month. In Jake's truck, the police found copies of Tabitha's driver's license and Social Security cards. And remember, Tabitha is George Wagner's ex-wife. And you can see once again, this family is acting as a unit. In George's truck, there was paperwork about Hannah. In Jake's truck, there was paperwork and copies of TAP of the Social Security number and things like that.

Angela's papers are in Jake's truck. It's not like you would go in my car and you would find things pertaining to me. I wouldn't have stuff from a legal battle that my sister was engaged in. I would expect for her to have those things. But in these vehicles and in all of these sort of trailers and stuff, there's just a mixture of Wagner property. They all work together. They co-mingle finances. They make decisions together. And they act as one entity. It's very strange. Well, I think you're looking at a situation, and I'm not trying to be funny here, but it's a combination of the lack of intelligence. They need to all work together just to basically equate to one working brain. Foreheads are better than one. Honestly, in their case, it's like they're all working with a quarter of the brain capacity. So if they get together, the hope is that one of the four people in that particular occasion will

come up with a bright idea. And again, I'm not saying that to be funny. That's the situation where they're probably relying on each other to kind of cross reference and develop opinions on anything because they're not independent thinkers. Yeah. And I think once again, that it was almost like this thing where everybody had to know about everybody else's business as if it was a company and one department is here and one department is here, but all the departments have to be interlinked and know all the information that the other departments know so that they can move in the same direction and they know like, who's our enemy? Who are we going against today? What do we have against them?

It's very odd. And honestly, I feel bad for anybody who had to go up against these people because going up against one abusive narcissist is hard enough, but four all at the same time. And they're like, you know, having an orchestrated effort to like destroy you. That had to feel very terrifying and daunting love notes from Hannah Mae Roden. I think he was still hung up on her. But the most interesting thing that they found in Jake's truck was a Walmart receipt for the purchase of two pairs of men's shoes. Now, remember, there were two shoe prints found in the blood and drag marks of Chris Roden Sr.'s trailer. And the CSI team had decided that they were both left shoes. They were both the same type of shoe. And they were new shoes since the tread hadn't been worn down. But they were two different size shoes.

One was size 10 and a half. One was a size 11. So these prints had been collected by BCI agent Shane Henshaw in 2016. But a match for that shoe type was not found in the BCI database. So BCI shoe print expert Susanna Elliott went into the field to try and locate the shoe herself. She went to dozens and dozens of different stores. She looked at hundreds of pairs of shoes until she found the exact match at Walmart. They were a pair of gray Athletic Works brand shoes with Velcro straps. And in Jake Wagner's car, they

found a receipt for two of those exact shoes. When the receipt was recovered, BCI agent Julie Yves-Slage left the scene of the search immediately and went back to investigation headquarters because by that time, law enforcement had already gone to every Walmart within 50 miles of the crime scenes, and they pulled surveillance footage for the months leading up to the murders. It had been too much footage to get through, but now they had a date to narrow the search, April 7, 2016, just a week before the Roden family were killed. On surveillance footage from the Waverly Walmart,

BCI agents watched Angela Wagner purchase two pairs of these athletic shoes in a size 10.5 and a size 11, and then the security cameras watched her walk outside to her car where two people waited inside. Later, we'll find out these two people were George and Jake Wagner. When Angela Wagner was asked about these shoes, at first she said, no, she didn't buy them. She had no idea what they were talking about. She doesn't remember buying these shoes, et cetera, et cetera. Then the BCI agents showed her the receipt and she's like, huh, look at that. Gee, golly, gosh, I BCI agents showed her the receipt. And she's like, huh, look at that.

Gee, golly, gosh, I guess I did buy these shoes. And then she's like, oh, you know what? I do remember that. I was at Walmart. I knew my boys, my boys, Jake and George. They needed new shoes. So I grabbed them a pair of shoes in their size each. And then when I gave it to them, though, they were like, ew, these are ugly shoes.

Mom, we hate these shoes. So I threw them out. I just, you know, I was like, oh, they don't want them anymore. I threw them out. But you kept the receipt, which is weird. You kept the receipt. Once again, why would you not throw that receipt out? Set it on fire in the fire pit in your yard. Why are you keeping this receipt in a tote in Jake's truck and then leaving and going to Alaska? At least bring it with you and keep it on your person Alaska. At least bring it with you and keep it on your person if you need to keep it. Why do you need to keep it? I don't understand.

I don't understand. Maybe she didn't know she kept it. I don't know. I would venture to say she probably didn't know she had it, if I had to guess. I would think that it's one of those things where we were talking in Crime Weekly News about Michelle Draconis, and I'm starting to remember a point where there was some writings left on one of the desks in Fotis' home where it kind of explained what they were doing, financials. It was incriminating. And if I had to guess, that's also a situation where they just didn't know they left it there. Because if they knew that it was there and law enforcement was coming by, I can imagine that they would have removed it. So I think you're probably looking at a similar situation here where it wasn't until it was brought to her attention

that she realized she still had it. Oh, I almost wonder, once again, did they just not think anybody was going to look? Because the Wagners have tons of lackeys, you know, tons of people around town who work for Frederica, who know them. Angela could have sent any one of them into the store to buy these shoes, or she could have set up her new daughter-in-law, Beth Armour, and been like, hey, go to Walmart and buy these shoes. You know, she could have done a million things. She's on surveillance camera. It's on her credit card receipt, right? So it's like, you're not really trying to hide what you're doing. You probably just didn't think anybody was going to look your way ever. I agree. I think that's, it's also why we said

it earlier, right? Like they're just feeling like we got this so covered. We're covered on both angles here and all angles. There's no way they're going to link it back to us. We don't have to worry about cleaning up our home or our personal property because in order for us to need to do that, they would have to be able to link it back to us. And that's just not even in our mindset. There's no chance of that happening. Yeah. Who's afraid of the big bad Wagner family? Well, based on what was found during the execution of these search warrants, law enforcement subpoenaed phone and financial records for the Wagner family. Financial records reveal purchases made by the family beginning on February 26, 2016, leading up to the weeks

before the murders. They had purchased two mag light flashlights, drill bits, and freeze plugs. Now, I don't know if you probably have enough knowledge to know what those items can make. Mag light flashlights, freeze plugs, drill bits. What can you make with that that's illegal that you might use on a gun? A silencer. Yes. Yeah, a silencer. It's not going to be as good.

It's not going to be as good as an actual silencer, but it is a makeshift silencer, and it could do the job by muffling the noise that would come from the firearm. I had never heard of it being done like that with a maglite, but thinking about it, they also refer to silencers as cans because they're kind of like these metal, they look like cans. So I can see now in hindsight, the Maglite housing, which we used in law enforcement as well. The handle, yeah. Would be consistent with what I have, which would also be consistent with the material of a silencer. So kind of creative. Honestly, I'm a little impressed by that.

Not gonna lie to you. Well, you know how Jake learned to make this? YouTube? I don't know. The Walking Dead. Oh, Jesus. Back to Walking Dead. Okay, so I would probably have known that if I watched the show.

Yeah, it was like season one and Rick the Sheriff, and they were all talking like, oh, we got to make silencers because you can't shoot a zombie with a gun that's not silenced. Because why? Then the other zombies will come. They'll hear and they'll be drawn to that sound. And so you have to kill the zombies and you want to do it with guns sometimes, but you can't just be shooting a gun because then you just draw hordes and hordes of zombies and you're shit out of luck.

So they had to take these maglite flashlights that Sheriff Rick had and create silencers with them. And that is how he learned how to do that. And right before the massacres, George and Jake also dyed their hair like black to emulate Norman Reedus's character, Daryl, on The Walking Dead. They wanted to look like him. Actually, Jake thought he was a Norman Reedus lookalike. So he really to to be like daryl from the walking dead speaking of walking dead i actually got a little bit we had a couple comments i guess i was wrong i guess the character that i was referring to wasn't the character that you're

referring to i'm referring to the character who has the bat with the barbed wire around it yeah so that that was negan okay norman and and i think it was just a miscommunication because i said that jake was a huge walking dead, especially the character of Norman Reedus. And then I asked, had you ever seen it? And you said, no, but I know the bat you're talking about because we had just talked about Jake saying he was going to create a bat. So it was just two kind of different conversations. The Walking Dead people did not like my comment. They were like, no, you're wrong.

I was like, oh, all right. I mean, you weren't wrong. It was just that we kind of shifted gears in the conversation. That and the love is blind comment. Those are two things people were interested in. It's amazing what people watch on TV. They want to talk about love is blind. It's mixed.

It's mixed. Some people do. Some people don't. Anyways, that's all I had. Those who don't, don't know how entertaining it is. All right. So we are going to talk more about the stuff purchases made. But basically what you need to know is the Wagner family bought all of this stuff

that they could make a homemade silencer out of because they didn't want to go and purchase actual silencers. First of all, they're illegal for civilians to have. And second of all, that would be pretty obvious. So they thought, hey, if we just buy all of this stuff and they didn't buy them all on the same day, you know, they didn't buy the drill bits

on the same date that bought the mag lights and they didn't use the same credit card. So they thought they could just sort of sprinkle these purchases around and then just piece these silencers together. Law enforcement wouldn't put two and two together. But of course, you have a forensic accountant here. That's his job to put two and two together. He was specifically told by BCI to look out for any items that could potentially be made to create homemade weapons or homemade suppressors. And that's what he did. And that's what he found.

But before we move on, let's take a quick break. So we're back. Stephanie, I wanted to go back to something you just said. Are silencers illegal in Ohio? I thought they were legal in Ohio. Yeah. Yes, they are illegal in Ohio. They're illegal in Ohio.

Illegal. Yes. Okay. Okay. So that's because I will have to. Some states are legal. Some states they're not. I know in Rhode Island, they're not legal.

I thought in Ohio they were legal. You could be right on that. I'll have to look it up after the fact. But either way. In the evidence gathering, like when they were talking about the evidence, they said a homemade silencer and then it says, which is illegal, illegal homemade silencer. Okay. So homemade silencers are illegal. To make a silencer, not buy one, purchase one that's registered, that's illegal is what you're saying? Yes. Okay. So because I will say there's another angle to this. If you're in Rhode Island and you're

going to commit a murder, you can't purchase a silencer. So that would be a perfect reason to make your own because you can't buy it here. But I get what you're saying. They decided to make their own and being in possession of homemade silencers, that in and of itself is illegal. Not the ownership of a silencer. Gotcha. I'm with you now. Yeah, but they can't buy legit silencers because then it's going to look like they purchased silencers. Exactly.

That's what I'm saying. That makes more sense to me. So silencers are legal in Ohio. However, they didn't want to have any record, which again, this just goes back to what I was saying earlier about not wanting a paper trail about silencers. And yet the silencers are going to be attached to firearms that you've had in your possession for an extended period of time. Make that one make sense. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, it's not going to. Hey, can't buy a silencer. We don't want it to come back to us. But let's use the firearms that have been in our possession and we've shot on our property before.

I don't even know if those firearms were all registered to them. Maybe not, but they've been shot on their property. Yes. And also they're going to, well, we'll talk about in a second. But overall, it's like those guns could be linked back to your property. You're going, you're making silencers out of flashlights. You're going to all this trouble. Why wouldn't you go get a couple firearms to attach it to those silencers so that everything you're using, nothing has been in your possession before or after the crimes occurred? You just got them, you use them, you dump them. There were also purchases made for parts that would fit.22 caliber,.40 caliber, and.30 caliber weapons. Two ski masks were bought on April 9th, 2016, and Jake's reward card was used to purchase ammunition and a magazine for

an SKS in April of 2016. He also purchased a brass catcher and two bait nets on April 3rd from Bass Pro Shops. On April 9th, George Wagner purchased a Captain America 2 Winter Soldier latex mask. In March, Angela also purchased a phone jammer and a bug detector. And on April 18th, George had purchased fuel filters at OK Auto Parts. And those fuel filters would be used in a silencer. In Jake Wagner's phone records, they found a list in his Notes app, a list Jake had created in 2015 of all the guns the Wagners owned and who they belonged to. Just to give you an indication of what kind of people these were, two-year-old Sophia had a gun.

Two-year-old Sophia had a gun. Two-year-old Sophia had a gun. I mean, I'm sure she didn't shoot it, but it was listed in his list and Sophia's name was after it. Bullvine had a gun. Sophia had a gun. They start them early. Well, that just, I mean,

it tells the type of people you're dealing with. Like, were they given two-year-olds? Not that, you know, she's going to be shooting at any time soon, but that's where their head's at. That just gives you a perfect picture of the type of people we're dealing with here. Yeah. Like it's not your first priority when your kids two to like, you know, start a savings account for them. It's like they need that gun immediately. OK, because we're going to we're going to get them started on the hunting and massacring game early. Out of the 21 guns that Jake listed, only 17 were recovered, and at least two of the unrecovered guns from the list were a match for the ones used in the Rodin family massacre.

They also had recovered that laptop from the search warrants, and it looked as if this computer was a communal computer used by everyone in the Wagner family, just like everything else that they did. And there were videos on this computer that Jake had taken with his cell phone whenever he would pick up his daughter Sophia from Hannah. And it was clear that these videos had been taken without Hannah's knowledge. It was just a case of Jake trying to get dirt on her, make her look bad, make her look like an unfit mother. So for instance, he picks up Sophia from Hannah while Hannah's at Corey's house. And Jake immediately, as soon as Sophia walks out, he's like, is Corey smoking in there? And Hannah was like, no, she's not. Have a nice day, Jake. And she shut the door in his face, which you can tell she's done with his bullshit. She knows I'm

not engaging with this person. He's just trying to engage in an argument with me. I'm not doing it. Shuts the door in his face. And he's still recording. He gets Sophia in the car and he starts sniffing. And he's like, you smell like smoke, like these people are disgusting. Another time he picked Sophia up from Hannah's mother's Dana's house, and he gets her in the car, and he's like, why are you so filthy? Do these people not know how to give you a bath? Do they not know how to put clean clothes on you? So it's parental alienation. What he's doing is he's trying to plant the seeds in Sophia's mind that her mother and her mother's family don't take good care of her.

They don't keep her clean. They don't keep her cared for. And he's also doing this specifically to get his narrative on video because he knows there's going to be a custody battle for Hannah and he's building a case against her. Which, by the way, this is pretty common. I hate to admit it. This is a common thing where you have a custody battle going on. They're going to villainize each other, not saying we agree with it, not saying it's good for the children or good for the adults, escalate it to a level where we are today. And that's the unfortunate thing about these custody battles. Again, I don't want to keep going back to Dan Markell,

but also involving children. When it comes to the kids, these individuals, they look at it a different way. And when it comes to their kids, it's win or death, but it's win at all costs. And so when you have the motive behind it being the children, not saying it's justifiable reason, but what people will do for their kids. I mean, I think we could anyone as a parent can empathize with that, but there's a right and a wrong way to do it. And obviously going this route is the wrong way. I don't think that even really needs to be said. But when one person can't get what they want and can't accept what the courts or what outside public decides to determine is appropriate for the children, they decide to take things into their own hands, which is why we are discussing this case in the way that we are. Because Jake was doing what he thought was going to get him what he wanted. And then when it didn't result in the outcomes that he was hoping for, you know, he's out there buying ski masks and purchasing and making homemade silencers. Yeah. And I mean, it's, it's unfortunate because there is a level of control that Jake and people

like him possess. They have to have it. They have to have it. And instead of looking at Hannah, like, okay, well, I'm not going to get everything I want, but at least I'll make sure my daughter is healthy and happy. And I'll look at the mother of my child as a partner and an ally. He looks at her as an enemy so he can feel like fine with destroying her. Right. He has to make her seem like a bad person, not just to others, but also in his own head. He has to convince himself that she is a negligent mother and that Sophia would be better off with him or he cannot move forward. And this is what narcissists do. They don't just gaslight others. They gaslight themselves because this is how they're allowed. Because most narcissists think that these moral people, they think they are like the top tier

of morals and values and everyone else is stupid, not as smart as them, not as upstanding, not as good of a person. So to keep that narrative in his head and to be able to continue looking at himself as the superior person in this dynamic, he has to convince himself that Hannah is a negligent mother and Sophia may not be getting the best care from her. Otherwise, he's not going to be able to go out into the world and say that stuff with a straight face. And that is the true danger of people like this, is they're very manipulative and they're very convincing because they've convinced themselves. But he was clearly trying to do that. And once again, that's not a great technique to use. That's not a great tactic to use. It's manipulative. It's horrible. It's bad for the kids. But it was the step he took before murder. And I mean, who knows what else kind of tactics he would have tried? Who knows

what other kind of tactics he did try that we just didn't find out about? Yeah, I would think this is the end game. I would think all those other tactics that maybe Hannah didn't relate to other people or just weren't made public before her death. He did try everything. This was the final straw. This was, hey, it's not going to work. I can't get it through intimidation or manipulation. So if I can't control this person, then I have to kill them. Yeah. It's real bad and it's scary because you got real life demons walking around out there and you don't know what they're capable of. You can have real life demons living in your house. Oh yeah. Yes. And you don't know it until the mask is pulled off. You don't know it until you just refuse to continue going along

with what they want. And then their true colors. And they will try to hide it for as long as they can. But when they realize there's no other alternative, they'll reveal themselves. They, they always do. They always do. And this laptop also showed evidence that Angela Wagner, like I said, had been monitoring the Facebook accounts and communications of George's ex-wife Tabitha and Tabitha's mother. And it looked like the Wagner family had also created a fake Facebook profile for Tabitha. They set up a fake Facebook account and it was Tabitha Wagner and all the friends that were following that account were Wagner family members or associates.

So basically, who knows what they were even doing with that Facebook account? Probably saying things or doing things or posting things to try to make it look like it was Tabitha's actual account. And, you know, she was doing things that were uncouth as far as custody of her own child. And, I mean, they kept custody of Tabitha's son, Bolvine, for a long time. She didn't see or talk to him on the phone for over a year. That's how powerful these people were. And that's how malicious and completely without boundaries they were. A year that Tabitha didn't see or talk to her own son. People were really having problems with that in our comments about Bovine too.

They did not like that name. Yeah, it is. I've never heard it before. That was a hard one for people to accept. It's funny what you guys latch onto sometimes and you were just not having Bovine. It is what he is. It is what it is. I feel bad for that kid.

I feel bad for all of these kids. So another thing found in the laptop was a photo, a photo of a hand holding a.22 Colt 911. Now, not only did BCI have foam impressions of the feet of the Wagner men, but they it was compared to the Wagner's prints. And three different labs agreed the hand belonged to Jake Wagner. And it's funny because by this time they're in Alaska. And well, I think I'm going to get there. But they're in Alaska when they're doing all of this. And the agent in charge had texted Billy Wagner, not Billy Wagner, George Wagner, Jake's brother. And he sent him the picture. And he was like, George, when do you think we could talk about this picture? And the Wagners just start freaking out at this point. So let's take our last break and we'll be right back for the rest of the episode.

So May of 2017, the Wagner family packed up and moved over 4000 miles to Kena, Alaska, which is three hours south of Anchorage. And they settled into a double wide trailer on Melody Lane. Now, once again, they've got Sophia and Bullvine with them. And George took Bullvine and left the state and moved to Alaska and did not even inform Bullvine's mother, Tabitha, did not even tell her. And during the trial, George's attorneys asked Tabitha, they're like, well, didn't George offer to fly you to Alaska so you could see your son? And she was like, yeah, but these people are crazy. I'm not going to let them fly me out to the wilderness, the Alaskan wilderness. There'll be a hunting accident or a missing person.

There'll be a hunting accident or they'll say I never showed up or, you know, who knows. But either way, they'll try to get their claws into me again. Like, absolutely not. Not today. No, smart move. Right. And it's just it's funny because these lawyers, you know, will pull these things out. And the people who are victimized by the Wagners will be like, have you met your clients? No, no. So when asked by reporters why they had left Ohio,

Jake Wagner claimed it was to give his daughter, Sophia, a better life away from the suspicions that her father had killed her mother. And he said, but, you know, it followed us here. And basically, Angela and Jay came out and said that their family was being targeted by local law enforcement. They were being harassed for a crime they didn't commit. And that same month, BCI agents learned that the family was planning to visit Ohio. And so these agents had the United States Air Force fly them to the Montana border so that they could intercept the Wagners. Now, at that time, law enforcement interviewed all four members of the Wagner family. They also placed listening devices in their vehicles while these interviews were going on, and they had received the green

light to wiretap their phones. Now, during her two-hour interview, BCI agent Rick Ward asked Angela if she or her family had been involved with what had happened to the Rodents. And of course, she said no, none of them were involved. But she also took this opportunity to lay out her own narrative about Hannah and her family. I want to get into your relationship with the Rodent family. Could you discuss that? Again, I'm coming into this. I'm coming to this. act like you've had to I know this is dragging up a bunch of stuff, but just act like Because I don't know you don't know me. Okay? Okay? Here's the thing

Relationship I had with the rodents was through Hannah Hannah and my son Jake were together for five years. Were they married? No. Okay. Did they intend on getting married? Yes. Okay. They had a wedding planned. Everything was planned out for that August.

And I don't know, she wanted a break. When you say break, who did she relate that to? To my son. To your son Jake? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. How did he take it? Well, hurt of course you know jake she

was the love of his life right i mean my son doesn't take anything lightly everything is just like with sophie you know he's the best dad you know that he could be i mean he does the best he can but he was hurt um he was devastated for a while you you know, but they, gosh, they stayed best friends. Right. She talked to him all the time, he talked to her. That's nice for Sophie. It is. And that's the one thing that they did.

Everything was for Sophie. She breastfed for the longest time. Which is good. For Sophie, she did. She didn't take anything, didn't do anything out of the ordinary she wasn't supposed to, you know. So your relationship with Hannah was good? It was. Now I'm just going to tell you, I will take, I kept trying to explain this to Ryan and Jonathan.

We had a typical mother-daughter relationship. You know, she was a teenager. I mean, we had... Some frustration. Well, when she first started hanging out, I thought she was a teenager. I mean we had some frustration. Well when she first started hanging out I thought she was a sport rat. I mean not that I have sons and I thought she wasn't good enough. I mean you know but I thought she was a sport rat because she really was. I mean no offense but she was. She was 13. Her dad let her get away with everything and oh my gosh she would and she would just if you'd say you know like it'd be raining and she'd go outside and she would, she'd always bring her friends over. And they'd run out, we lived on a farm.

She'd run out there and get mud from head to toe. And then she just wouldn't come in the house and plop down. And I'd type, you know, we live on a farm, but, you know, get your butt outside and, you know, get in the mud. And she would give me looks and she would snarl and she would tell Jake I was being mean. And, you know, but that's typical teenage stuff. Yeah, all typical, sometimes mother-in-laws can talk like that. Mother-in-laws are the worst. Right, as easy as it goes.

Yep, that's my poor mother-in-law. Now I think, oh my gosh, her husband's horrible. So this is the insight I want from you. So now, and I'm trying to get as much knowledge about the Roden family as I possibly can. Anytime you have people that have been, you know, if you want to call them victims of a keep really close together, it's kind of difficult to get into that circle and basically flesh out what's going on. So, I mean, we obviously know Hannah, when she separated from Jake, had some other relationships, had another child. So, how did that go? I mean, I know I'm asking obvious questions. Did my son get mad? Yeah, did he get mad? What was your reaction? What was his reaction? No, Jake, by that point when he found out, okay, that there was a long time he didn't even know that she had boyfriends.

He didn't because, I mean, she would call him up or text him or talk to him or something and want, you know, she did talk about Sophie and they would talk about getting back together, you know, and he worked and went on and Sophie on his week and you know, Jake had Sophie. When they, before they broke up and she moved out. Okay. She started going places with her mom. And like, she would leave Sophie. Because, you know, Jake wasn't working. So they had made the arrangement that when Jake was home, you know, he wasn't saying, hey, you can't take Sophie, you know,

she's my daughter, not yours. It was just when he was home and not out on the road, he wanted to spend time with Sophie. Which is understandable. So if she went somewhere with her mom or something like that, he would say, you know, they see her all this week over here, I want to see her. So if you have to go do something or you want to go do something, just leave her here with me. Because she was already not breastfeeding by that time. Well, that makes sense. Well, she started going. I mean, she would go with her mom and stay going all day. She would leave early the morning and sophie would be with with well with us yeah right and um but then you know later on this time passed he found out that apparently she wasn't with her mom because a couple times just that he got sick and we tried to find her and you thought she was with Dana. And Dana's home without her. And Dana's like, I know nothing about that. So I mean, she must have been somewhere. Right.

She got home just fine, nothing was wrong. But nothing ever came of it. And of course, I don't think that incident there. I think Dana later said that she was over at her cousin's house or something like that, but um, you know, by the time he found out that she really had all these other boyfriends along the way and stuff, you know, after they broke up and stuff, it just, they had already decided not to get back together. So would you say he wasn't, he wasn't as phased, he wasn't as phased as he would have been if they were still, you know. So was his reaction what you would expect from anybody? Pretty, pretty, uh...

Yes. Yes, it was. But I'm not just taking that from my son. No, listen, I want to know everybody's reaction. He wasn't mad enough or ever would he get mad enough to do something like that because of one thing. And it's that thing that they need to explore after. He wouldn't do it. Because she loved her mommy. They had a super close relationship. He would never do that to her.

To this day, everything is about Sophie. That's just the way it is. And as far as Dana and Chris and little and little chris spent a ton of time at our house because in the beginning if hannah came go brisbane okay that was daddy's rule i don't know how it happened you know what daddy's rules hannah was going to be there chris little chris kind of which did that was the worst he's even younger than hannah right yeah so hannah was a spoiled brat hannah was willful hannah was a cheater constantly cheating on jake jake obviously upset because hannah was the love of his life jake only cares about you know being a father being a

good father he only cares about the well-being of his daughter. He loves his daughter more than anything. He would do anything for her. You know, Hannah just wasn't ready to grow up. Yeah, poor Jake. You know, he just, you know, married a child or got involved with a child who wasn't ready to grow up or settle down. And that's all he ever wanted because he loved her so much. And then he just had to make the best of it.

And he wasn't that upset. You know, he wasn't he wouldn't do anything violent or anything. And this is things that Angela is all saying with a straight face, which kills me. Yeah. I mean, that's the enabling of the child as well. And it's probably been going on his entire life. Yeah. That's where he learned it from.

I mean, listen, this doesn't happen overnight. This is something where the conversations that you're hearing in this moment, the excuses that you're hearing, this is just par for the course. Where anything that Jake has ever done in his life, where he's in the wrong, there's been another guilty party. There's been a justification for it. And that's what happens with a lot of these kids that end up growing up to be criminals themselves they've they've had someone coddling them the whole time um justifying their actions instead of holding them accountable and so when you constantly have someone defending your actions even when it's clear that you're in the wrong all the way up till murder i i'm sure this part of jake honestly that feels like what he did was the right thing to do like it's justified it's just like i don't think he's

going into this thinking, this is wrong. I shouldn't do it, but I'm going to do it. They're thinking means to an end. We've tried to do everything the right way. We wanted to make this work. She's being difficult. She's the bad person. She's leaving us no other choice.

She doesn't care about that child as much as Jake does. Where does that rationale come from? Your parents or the people that you're surrounded by. And that's the thing, because Jake is a narcissist and his mother is a narcissist. And that's where he learned it from. And just like Jake had to convince himself that Hannah was an unfit parent so that he could go on and convince everybody else, Angela has to convince herself that what they did was justified. And you'll hear more. We'll talk more about this later. And we talk about what Angela says once she gets caught. But Angela is basically going to

assert that the reason they had to do this was because Sophia was being sexually abused at the Rodin household. And so they had to save her. And they couldn't do the legal route because nobody was listening. So they had to do this and they did it to save her. And I genuinely think, once again, that these narcissists have to convince themselves of their lies before they're able to convince anybody else of their lies. And it's very dangerous and it's very insidious. And that's exactly what's going on here. And that's why you hear her talking about this. She's, oh, Hannah, well, yeah, she breastfed.

She was a good mother. But then you hear her really nag on Hannah's character, who she was as a person, as a parent, as a daughter-in-law, et cetera. Agreed. Now, the wiretap recordings of the Wagner family began in May of 2018 and went on until August of 2018. And the CBI sought these warrants for the wiretaps only after exhausting all other investigative techniques. Special Agent Ryan Scheiderter testified that it was necessary to hear their conversations because of how tight-knit the family was and how they kept everything very much in-house. He also said it was a way for law enforcement to find out about new or known associates of the Wagners who could be interviewed. Now, some things that would be heard on these wiretaps were George and Jake. They would be in their work truck together driving around and they'd be talking and fighting mostly. And George would ask Jake if he'd want his new

wife, Bethann, to get custody of Sophia if the brothers got arrested. At one point, George asked Jake, quote, if we all go to the electric chair, would you want Beth to tell Sophia about it? End quote. On June 2nd, 2018, Angela told her son George on the phone that they needed to have a family meeting about the BCI investigation. George told his mother that every time she or his father got into trouble with the law, it was because someone had caved. And he followed this up by saying, quote, I'm not going to cave and I'm not going to crumble. End quote. But it seemed that the Wagners knew they were being recorded from the second they left their BCI interview in Montana. After they left, the investigators, the whole family, got into the car and didn't say a word, with Billy Wagner cautioning them that someone could be listening. In another

audio recording taken while George and Jake were driving their company truck together, George said, quote, Yes, Ryan, I know you're listening to this, end quote. And he's referencing BCI Special Agent Ryan Scheiderter, who was the lead investigator on the case. Back in Pike County, Attorney General Mike DeWine and Sheriff Charles Reeder issued a press release asking for anyone with information about the Roden family to come forward. But this press release contained pictures of Billy Wagner, Angela Wagner, Jake Wagner, and George Wagner. A lawyer for the family being investigated in the Pike County massacre says they're being harassed.

Earlier this month, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine asked for information about four members of the Wagner family. Authorities searched two properties owned by the Wagners last month in connection with the investigation into the murders of eight members of the Roden family. The attorney for the Wagners says the family has provided laptops, phones and DNA samples to investigators, and they've anyone who may have had conversations or interactions with the Wagner family or knew about any guns or things like that that they owned to come forward with that information. Attorney John Kirsten Clark announced that his clients, the Wagner family, were being harassed by AG Mike DeWine, and instead of law enforcement and the Attorney General's

Office looking for the actual person who had committed this massacre. They were focusing on the Wagner family simply because it had been a few years, there'd been no arrests, and there was political pressure to make one or more. On June 9th, Angela spoke to Jake and George together on the phone, and she said, quote, I feel like we're running on borrowed time, end quote. They also discussed Jake's wife, Beth, and a diary she kept, which apparently Angela had been reading. Jake and George were on the road working together a lot, and this left Angela and Beth at home with Sophia and Balvine. And of course, they butted heads constantly, as Angela does with any of her son's girlfriends or wives. They basically hated each other. Well,

I mean, mainly Angela hated Beth, and Beth just reacted to that. In her journal, Beth wrote that even the most private of all human doings are open to discussion and comment in this family. Apparently, Angela Wagner didn't like closed doors in her house, not even bathroom doors when you were showering or using the bathroom. The family spoke very openly about sexual relationships, and this made an inexperienced Beth very uncomfortable. Beth wrote that she hated her mother-in-law, and she knew that Angela was responsible for the Roden murders. Now, the Wagners made Beth burn her diary and flush it down the toilet, and then they had a family meeting that did not involve Beth, where they decided that she was just too dangerous to keep around. With law enforcement hot on their trail,

the family told Beth she would be staying somewhere else temporarily, somewhere far away and isolated. And that was when Beth Armour ran, afraid they were going to kill her, right? So basically they told her, listen, you're not allowed to make family decisions yet. So all of these decisions will be made for you by popular vote. And one day, once you put more time into this family, you may be included in this family vote.

But right now you're not. And we've decided that we need to ship you away. So you're going to go someplace isolated, someplace no one can find you and use you against us. And when things cool down, we'll bring you back. And Beth was like, hell no, because that's somewhere isolated is going to be a hole in the middle of the woods somewhere, probably in Alaska. She knew, she knew she had seen behind the curtain. Yeah. She knew how they operated. She had probably been, although you said earlier, she wasn't allowed to be present for some of their conversations. I'm sure there were a couple that slipped through the cracks. She got a glimpse.

Or you hear, you know, you're in the same house. You hear things. You hear stuff and there's the, you know, you learn the family dynamic. And so she was fully aware of who she was dealing with and what they were capable of and the thoughts and conversations that they had amongst each other. Yeah. She wasn't, she wasn't going up to the woods with those guys. Not happening. Luckily for her, she had an insight. Yeah, she's like, I'll go

somewhere isolated that you don't know about. Yeah, exactly. However, something on the wiretaps did point law enforcement in the right direction. Angela Wagner seemed to be paying a lot of attention to the news coverage of the investigation happening in Ohio, and she seemed very concerned with what areas the cops were searching. She was heard on the wiretaps questioning her sons about which barn on the Peterson Road property the BCI seemed to be focusing on, and this fixation sparked BCI to return to that location to search again. Now, there were two barns on that Peterson Road property, a newer barn that Jake and George had built shortly before they sold the house,

and an older barn that was pretty much abandoned, and it had like this covered 15-foot well or cistern inside of it. Now, the police thought that the family may have hidden the murder weapon or other evidence in the concrete foundation of that newer barn since George had purchased 25 bags of concrete on his credit card. And so they were actually set to demolish the barn and dig up the foundation. However, the BCI would have been responsible for rebuilding the barn for the new owners, and it was too time-consuming and costly an endeavor to undertake. So instead, they turned their attention to the old barn, specifically that abandoned well inside, because someone had taken great measures to fill that well up with bricks. In October of 2018, law enforcement removed more than 200 bricks from the

well, and then they called in a dive team to search. A device was recovered that resembled a homemade firearm silencer. The silencer was made out of all the items the Wagners had purchased. A mag light handle, drill bits, a solvent trap, and not only that, the silencer appeared to have baffle strike on it, which basically means it damages the canister when the baffling items inside the tube aren't properly lined up for the bullet to clean the exit through. Now, additionally, it looked like the silencer had also been burnt and charred before being thrown 15 feet down into that watery well. At this point, BCI and local

law enforcement believed they had enough to make some arrests. And that was exactly what they did, starting a domino effect that would topple each of the Wagners one by one. It's so interesting to me because throughout this episode, they've been very concerned with the silencers, the Wagners, that is. And yet at this point, we still haven't found the firearms. And so it's interesting to me that the firearms wouldn't be where the silencer is if they thought that was a good spot to hide it. So I'm a little perplexed by it. I guess I'm trying to get into the mind of a murderer, and that's hard to do if you're not a murderer yourself. A dumb murderer, too.

A dumb murderer. It just doesn't make a lot of sense. But they were really concerned about the silencer. And I will say just on the surface, and I think you explained it perfectly, but it's not only a silencer that they found, but silencer that had been used. And there is a difference. You silencers, they do get damaged over time, even if they're properly created because they just, they don't work as well as they're continuously used. It's hard to explain it up, but the baffling inside there basically muffles the noise before the round exits the silencer, which is attached to the end of the barrel of the gun. And over time, that baffling will become degraded. It won't work as good. It won't

silence the gunshot as well. So if you're making it at home and to be completely transparent, I've never heard of it being done in this manner with a drill bit and all that. Although the drill bit, the swirls of a drill bit kind of resemble the baffling a little bit. So I'm thinking that's what they did. I'd have to see it visually. But overall,

they're just really concerned about the silencer. And I'm hoping that you're going to tell me down the road they found the firearms. So they do recover the murder weapons, but they would not, I don't believe they would have been able to do that without help of one of the Wagners. Oh, okay. So they had to, so obviously they start, this is the, you know, the start of the tip of the iceberg here. You bring a couple in, you get them to roll on them. You find people who don't have

as much to lose as the others, maybe weren't as involved as much, who knows? And obviously- Or maybe who are just willing to make a deal first. Yep, make the deal first, get the best deal out of the group because they're willing to cooperate initially. Yeah, no, I'm interested. I wish we were recording part four right now because now I want to know.

I want to know who rolled and I want to know who it led to and I want to know what it led to. Well, we already sort of know because I touched on it, but Jake rolls. Jake freaking rolls. You did say earlier- The one responsible for all of this. Yeah. led to well we know we already sort of know because i touched it but jake rolls jake freaking rolls you did say earlier one responsible for all of this yeah this douche and his parents are

probably like what we did this for you probably how i and the donna sue adelson is feeling right the similarities between this case and the markel case is insane. But both both dumb, though. We we always talk about, good mother, good grandmother. But behind the scenes, they're devious, man. Sinister. Yeah, you don't know because to the naked eye and even people who knew them forever were surprised that Angela had anything to do with it. But she absolutely did. In fact, I would say she probably was the driving force behind it. And that is scary. So that when you

have these female Machiavelli types who are pulling the strings behind the scenes, it's just sometimes a little bit more insidious than, you know, an outright just male killer out there leaving evidence and making it easy to find him. They're operating under the cover of darkness. They're operating like with a mask on. It's very, yeah, you're right, sinister. Got to watch out for those women. Yeah, these women who love their grandchildren so much.

It's all justified, right? They had no other choice. For the kids. Had no other choice. And in a lot of situations, I think they feel like law enforcement won't assume it's them because they're just, you know, the grandmother who's just trying to look after her grandchildren, just walking her dogs, having an oatmeal cookie on the porch. I'm a grandma.

I go to church every Sunday. I made blueberry muffins today. Officer, would you like one? Chocolate chip muffins and I'm walking away. If she's making chocolate chip muffins, she's clearly innocent. Blueberry. We got to look into her. Guilty.

We got to look into her. Derek's going to take the chocolate chip muffin and walk out. Angela Wagner's the nicest lady I've ever met. I'm stuffing my face with the crumbs falling out. Nope. What if it's double chocolate, even more so? I might hire her. I might bring her on as a private investigator work an informant hey listen angela just make sure you bring another batch of those muffins

when you get there okay we see you on sunday i need these muffins every day quickly before we wrap it up did you see my social media post yesterday this is a little off on time because obviously this episode won't come out till friday we're recording this on monday so it would be sunday did you see my instagram post last night criminal coffee instagram post no you gotta go look at it okay i got my hats in i got my hats in i'm gonna have you look at me a picture of those hats i did but i got you gotta see how many i got well anyways oh my god so many i ordered i got one for you i got one for you i got you bought for you. Wait, you bought all of these? Yep. Bought them all. There's like 50, dude. Yeah.

Well, some of them, they had to remake them because they didn't like how they came out, but they're still pretty perfect. But overall, yeah. There's so many. There are. Like the pretty colors, right? Yeah. I'll be nice enough.

I'm looking. You kind of own the company, so. I'm trying to figure out which one I want. Okay. I have a present for you too, but I want to give it to you in person. I'll have to wait. I had. Okay. I have a present for you too, but I want to give it to you in person. I'll have to wait. I had put on, so for anyone who hasn't seen that, basically, the trucker hats don't sell as well. The baseball hats don't sell as well for criminal coffee.

We had hats on criminal coffee. They didn't do that well. I love my criminal coffee hat, by the way. I do too. I wear hats all the time. The gray one, it's got like bronze stitching. It's got the bronze like fingerprint coffee bean. It's my favorite hat to wear.

And so we, I bought them because I really like them. My friend had a hat similar to it with a leather patch and I was wearing his. You probably saw me wearing it all the time. It was a brewery. I'm like, you know what? I should make some criminal coffee one. So I made them. Go check them out.

Maybe I got a lot of DMs from people like, oh man, now we want them. But I know as soon as I order them, cause they're expensive, people are going to say, nope, no, I don't want them, but we'll see maybe down the road. But it has been a while since we've done everything, anything with criminal coffee on here. So give me a discount code and I'm going to apply it to criminal coffee right now. If you made it to the end of this episode, this is going to benefit you right now because you're going to get 10% off your order. So what do you want the code to be, Stephanie? Should it be bullvine? Are people going to mistype? Yeah, you're probably right. They're going to spell that wrong. It was just the one word. Since you said bullvine and the people were making comments

about it, the name has been stuck in my head now. It's B-U-L, B-U-L-V-I-N-E. I think we should make it muffin. Muffin. Muffin 10. Muffin 10 for 10% off. Muffin 10. If you made it to the end and you heard our dumb, you know, some people,

they usually check out when we start talking like this, like, ah, it's not the episode. I don't want to listen. Well, if you stayed to the end today, you just saved yourself some money. How about that? 10% of your money. Go over to criminal coffee

co.com 10% off your order. We'll do it for a couple of weeks. Code is muffin 10. Any final words from you, Stephanie Harlow? Muffin has two F's, right? Yep. M U F F I N. Muffin 10. Muffin 10. No, that's it. That's it. All right. Well, we appreciate you guys being here. We'll be back next week. Everyone stay safe out there. Have a good night. Bye.