Criminology - The Rhoden Family Murders

Episode Date: August 20, 2023

In 2016, eight members of the Rhoden family were murdered at multiple residences. The crime scenes were all discovered on the same day, April 22nd, 2016. These murders shocked the residents of Pike County, which is in a rural part of Ohio. They also drew the attention of online sleuths who poured over the details of the murders while awaiting the murders to be solved. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the Rhoden family murders. The press gave several monikers to these murders, including The Rhoden Family Massacre, The Piketon Massacre, and the Pike County Massacre. The police initially thought the murders could be drug-related because some members of the family were growing marijuana. But, in the end, it turned out the murders were committed by people known to the Rhodens who were trying to get rid of a very specific problem. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to episode 270 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford. How are you doing, buddy? I'm doing good.

I was a little depressed this morning. I was watching some of this Maui news coverage. What happened is just awful. And, you know, I just, my heart goes out to the people that are out there. and hopefully anyone listening that's able to help with maybe a donation to Red Cross or any of the other organizations that can help the people in Maui. I hope they're able to do it. Yeah, I'm with you, man. It's heartbreaking to see the pictures and the video and your heart goes out to everyone involved.

But Morp, let's transition. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Anita Dunn, Shayla Hecht, Z. Zach S and Tonya. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much to everyone that supports the show. It means a lot to us and really helps us out.

For anyone that would like to sport criminology, you can go to Patreon.com slash criminology to sign up. All right. It's time to jump into this episode. And we're talking about an infamous case that unfolded in my home state of Ohio. In fact, it's a case that resulted in the largest murder investigation in Ohio. history. We're diving into the murders of the Rodin family, a case that has a few different monikers, the Rodin family massacre, the Pytton massacre, or the Pike County massacre. No matter what

you call it, it's a high profile case in which eight members of the Rodin family were murdered on their property in 2016. The case shocked residents of that community due to the high victim count and when police finally figured out who was responsible and just why the murders happened, that left the community even more shocked. The mystery of the Pike County massacre started with a frantic phone call to 911 at 749 a.m. on April 22nd, 2016. 9.1.1. Yes, I need to have, get the at 40. Let's go.

I need to tell me your draft. What's your name? Let me just second. We walk to the mailbox. I take my brother's all dead. Okay. What's your dress? Give me just a second.

Forty-77. Eaddle breath. Forty-77. Okay. 4077 Eaddle, correct? Yes, 477. Yeah. Ma'am.

What's going on? Okay. My brother-in-law's in the bedroom in my classroom. Okay. Tell me what county that's in, is it? My county. It's my county? Yes, and they drive them in the back room. Okay, okay.

I need you to get out of the house. Did you drive over there? Yes, I did. What's your brother-in-law's name? Huh? What's your brother-in-law's name? I brought you. Yeah.

Ma'am? Hey, yeah. What's his name? Chris Rodin and Gary Rodin. Chris and Gary Rodin? First and they're dead. You think they're both dead? I think they're both dead.

It looks like someone has feet to pluck out of them. Okay. Is there anybody else in the house? Not that I know of. Okay. The doors was locked when we got here, but I never read the TV was hot. And I went in and there and everything on the floor. I'm down, okay?

I'm standing outside right now. Okay. Just stay out of the house. Don't want. Anybody go in there, okay? Yeah, all right. We got that getting home away, okay? All right, thank you. All right.

That call you just heard was made from Bobby Joe Manley. It's hard to understand her in that call, but she said, I think my brother-in-law is dead. There's blood all over the house. She went on to say, my brother-in-law is in the bedroom, and it's like someone had beat the hell out of him. Bobby Joe had gone to the property with her older brother, James, and used her key to let herself into the trailer,

located at 419-99 Union Hill Road. in the village of Pighton and Pike County. This is a community of just over 2,000 people in south central Ohio. She was going there to feed the animals on the property, but it was immediately obvious to her that something was wrong. Her former brother-in-law, Chris Rodin, and his cousin, 38-year-old Gary Rodin, were both dead inside his trailer. And as she described, there was blood all over.

It was a gruesome scene. A trail of blood leading from the living room through the kitchen, down the hall, and back to the bedroom, gave clues to what happened. Chris had been shot nine times, including in the face and torso. Gary had three contact gunshot wounds on his head. While Bobby Joe waited for police, she went next door to another trailer on the adjoining property at 4077 Union Hill Road,

one that belonged to Chris Sr.'s son, 20-year-old Clarence Road, known to everyone as Frankie and his fiancé, Hannah Hazel Gilli. who was also just 20 years old. That's when Bobby Joe made another gruesome discovery. Inside, Frankie and Hannah were both dead. It was obvious that they had been shot. Frankie had two contact gunshot wounds and a third bullet wound in his head. And Hannah had been shot in the head five times.

Two young children in the house during the murders were left physically unharmed. Frankie's three-year-old son was still alive. and so was the baby boy. He and Hannah had just six months earlier, though he was covered in blood. Authorities believe that Hannah was nursing the infant at the time she was ambushed and murdered. These two properties were so close.

They were linked by a grass path. You could walk from one to the other on. So Morph, let's just talk about what Bobby Joe has seen so far. I mean, these are two very, very, very gruesome crime scenes, family members, dead, two young children alive, one left covered in blood. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it sounds like something out of horror movie. In fact, there's a scene that's very similar that's out of the TV show Dexter in which

a baby witnesses a murder and covered in blood and, you know, that has lifelong effects on him. I mean, it's actually the main character, Dexter. So you have to wonder, although this baby's young, is that going to leave some mark on them mentally? And are they going to remember bits and pieces of what happened to his mom? Yeah, you don't know. At six months. But obviously, this is not a good thing. Bobby Joe's brother, James, checked a third trailer near the others.

This trailer was located at 312 Union. Hill Road. There he found a third crime scene. Inside were Dana Rodin, who was Chris Rodin's senior's ex-wife, and her two children, 19-year-old Hannah May Rodin, not to be confused with Hannah Gilley, and 16-year-old Chris Rodin Jr., the siblings of Frankie who they had already found dead. They had all been murdered. Dana had been shot in the head five times, Christopher Jr. four times, and Hannah twice. Hannah's four-day-old infant was found unharmed, and her two-year-old daughter Sophia, who had a different father than the infant, was not with her mother that night and wasn't harmed. The police investigators would have their hands full with multiple victims and multiple homes,

but these seven victims weren't the only ones. Police believe that the murders had happened in the early morning hours. Later that afternoon, after hearing about the murders, Donald Stone, went to check on his cousin, Kenneth Rodden, the brother of Chris Roden, Sr. Kenneth lived alone in a camper on left fork road, about six miles from where the other victims were found in their mobile homes on Union Hill Road, Donald approached the camper cautiously, worried about what he may find. He later told WLWT5 News, I hollered at Kenneth. Kenneth, can you hear me? Following his instincts, he told a family member that was with him, not to follow him, knowing that there would be something awful waiting for them.

He said I walked up to the foot of the bed. I raised my head up and I looked. I saw blood in his eyes. And I knew then he was dead. It was at 126 p.m. when Donald called 911. 911. 911.

There's Pike County, sir. Go ahead. Yeah. This is 911. Can I help you? Yeah, I need a deputy. He's come out to close to 799, left forward.

Okay. All this stuff, it's on the news. I just found my cousin with a gunshot wound. Okay. Is he alive? No, no. Okay. Were you 799 left?

It's close to 799. I don't know what his address is. He don't have a box. You don't have a box. Okay. I'll be standing out by the very way going on it. Is it a stone? Yeah, I'm in seven.

What's his name? Kenneth Rodden. Kenneth Rodden? Yeah. Okay, sir, right out of the house? I'm out of the house right now. I just went in at a hauler name and checked. He was all right now.

And I'll say he had a gunshot wind. Okay, sir. We're going to get that video about 13, okay? All right. Okay. Kenneth had been shot once in the head through his eye. Police now had a total of 8. murder victims in four different homes at three different addresses.

All of them were related to each other. And I think you would have to say more that the phrase, the police had their hands full. In this instance was an understatement. I mean, this is not a New York City homicide division, right? This is south central Ohio, fairly rural. I can't imagine that, you know, the detectives, the law enforcement officers had seen something to this magnitude before or worked something like this. Yeah, we're talking a community of 2,000 people, basically. So I think it's safe to say they hadn't seen anything like this.

And whether this was there or even a big city like L.A., as you mentioned, New York City, I think. think this would be a major case for any of those jurisdictions, no matter how big their police force was. Yeah, I would agree with you. It would be a major case. I guess what was going through my mind was, okay, New York City mob activity. Could you, you know, have seen something along these lines? And I would say, yeah, probably. Police officers, detectives, maybe have seen some. something like this where a lot of people were killed, maybe in the same location or in different locations, but pretty close together. I think what has drawn a lot of people to this case or what drew a lot of people to this case in the beginning, right, when it was unsolved, because it went

unsolved for quite a long time, was the fact, number one, that all these people were related. and that is definitely a big component to the case. And then number two, that, you know, they kind of live so close together or were found so close together. So kind of hard to think that this is a random serial killer when all of the people who are murdered are related. And instead of trying to protect multiple crime scenes after the initial walkthroughs and evidence collection was done, the authorities actually towed each trailer to a warehouse to store them together and preserve them. According to WCPO.com Cincinnati, the Ohio State Attorney General at the time, Mike DeWine, who is now Ohio's governor, said that three of the four trailers that had been attacked

at sophisticated marijuana grow operations on the property. He added, they weren't doing this in their garden. They were doing this to sell. This statement by DeWine, combined with the execution-style killings, made many error residents it's wonder if the murders were related to drug deals gone wrong, or if a drug cartel had been sending a big message. And I think this is just another thing that added to the draw of this case to many who were following it.

And I don't think a cartel hit on this family was too much of a reach. I mean, do you naturally think drug cartel in the rural part of South Central Ohio? no, not really, but we know their reach does extend up through the country. And when you think about eight murders in multiple locations, it's a big undertaking and the level of violence that was involved. So I think it's pretty easy to see why some people jumped to an organization known for violence, especially when you factor in the marijuana grow operations. But there have been a lot of people who have said, or at least asked the question,

would a ruthless cartel have left young children behind a lot? Thories quickly began spreading like wildfire. If the rodents hadn't ripped anyone off for product, maybe they had fired someone who helped them or maybe the cartel felt that the rodents were encroaching on their operations in the area. And again, another reason why so many people kind of latched on to this case and were fascinated by it, you know, amateur sluice, people like that, you can see just from the information that we've given, right?

There are a lot of different paths to go down to investigate. I'm sure the police had to quell some of the fears that they're most. might be ongoing danger that this killer killers might still be looking for other victims. Yeah, I mean, if you think that there's a serial killer or you think that, you know, a drug cartel has sent hitman into your kind of small town, there's a lot of fear there about what is possible, what could happen next? It seems police felt from the evidence and crime scenes that most of the victims had been killed while they were asleep in a sneak attack.

This was quick and quiet. To many, this was also a bit more than execution-style killings. Most of the victims had been shot multiple times. It could indicate a struggle of some kind or bad aim on the part of the killers. It could also indicate a personal relationship to the victims, anger, hatred, jealousy. The facts at the scene just didn't line up with the cartel or gang theories, and police began to think that someone had a serious grudge with the family. In October 2016, Pike County Sheriff Charles Reeder stated he didn't believe the cartel or any other criminal gang was responsible for the murders.

He also didn't think that any of the killings were even drug-related at all. Unknown to the public, police were zeroing in on potential suspects. In May 2017, authorities, including a SWAT team, raided a property in Adams County, Ohio, about 10 miles from the crime scenes. they removed a trailer belonging to the Wagners, a local family. They also searched a property on Peterson Road in Peebles, Ohio, that brothers Jake and George Wagner had recently sold. Authorities also searched the Flying W. Farm in Pike County, owned by Jake Wagner's grandmother, Frederica Wagner. The searches connected to the Wagner family led to a lot of questions.

How were any of the Wagner's connection? How were any of the Wagner's connection? to the Rodin family, was this really a two-family feud that ended in the rodents being massacred? What could have gone so wrong between the two families than it came to this? So when you think about a lot of these questions, it almost kind of brings up like a Hatfield and McCoy. Yeah, in a case like the Hatfields and McCoys, that's a feud that lasted decades, maybe the better part of a century, and who knows what it even started over. But I think we've talked about cases in the past where families were at odds with each other for whatever reason. And sometimes we know that does lead to violence.

Yeah, yeah, no doubt that it can and does. But when you think about this scenario, two families, let's say a war with each other or bickering with each other, not very often does it lead to eight members of one family being massacred at the same time. But again, it goes back to what I said earlier, right? You know, as this case unfolded from the beginning to now to this part in the story where they're talking about the Wagner's, there was so much for people to latch onto when it came to theories, possibilities, paths to go down to explore. With the RAM Declaration of Deals,

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We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do but had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio and 2020. Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. It turns out that there was a connection between the two families. Jake Wagner is the father of Sophia, Hannah May Rodin's toddler that wasn't home the night of the murders.

As we'll get to, Sophia's absence from the home that night may have been a clue, part of the plan, not just luck. Jake and Hannah had been involved in a bitter custody dispute since Hannah became serious with another partner, Frankie, and things got even worse when she got pregnant. So there seemed to be a potential motive, custody dispute. But was it serious enough to slaughter eight members of family over? It seemed that nothing was found to solidly connect the Wagner family because there was no movement in the case. No arrest, no more searches.

No news, nothing. Community anxiously awaited for answers. In June 2017, the Office of Attorney General, the Wine, asked the public for information. on four specific people related to the rodent murders, though it was not disclosed exactly how they were involved or what role they played. At the time of the eight murders,

these four people lived on Peterson Road in Peoples, Ohio, about 10 miles away from Union Hill Road. They had all since moved to Alaska together. According to the Cincinnati Inquirer, authorities wanted information regarding any interactions, conversations, dealings, or transactions that the public may have had with these individuals, which could be personal, business, or otherwise. More specifically, information regarding vehicles, firearms, and ammunition.

The four individuals were married couple, George Wagner III, also known as Billy and Angela Wagner, and their sons, George Wagner, the fourth, and Edward Wagner, also known as Jay. 17 months later in mid-November 2018, the four members of the Wagner family listed in the Attorney General's press release were arrested and charged with either planning or committing the eight murders. A tip must have panned out. The Wagner family had been linked to the killings. Billy was found in Lexington, Kentucky,

where he had pulled his horse trailer over on Georgetown Road. Jake and George were arrested in Ross County after traffic stop, and Angela was arrested at home in Sayoto County, just south of Pike County. More arrests came. Angela's mother, 65-year-old Rita Newcomb, was arrested in charge with perjury, obstructing justice, and forgery. Related to custody documents,

Frederica Wagner was also charged with perjury and obstructing justice, though the charges would later be dropped. She was accused of lying. About two bulletproof vests founded her residence during the search of her property. She claimed she bought them on Amazon. after the murders due to fear of retaliation,

but investigators found no such transaction. She later claimed she had actually purchased them on eBay, not Amazon. Since she had already been charged, a thorough investigation into her internet usage and eBay transactions would not have been complete before the speedy trial limit was up. Rita Newcomb took a plea deal and pleaded guilty to obstructing official business and the obstruction and perjury charges were dropped in exchange for her cooperation in the investigation. So I think there's a couple of things we have to break down here.

The first thing that jumps out to me is just how many people in the kind of Wagner family, we'll call it, were thought to have been involved in some way or another in these murders. I mean, there's a lot of people. But is that surprising? You know, as we'll probably talk about later on in the episode, what does it take to pull off eight murders at multiple locations at essentially the same time? You're going to need quite a few people to pull that off. And then the second thing that jumped out at me was, you know, the purchase of these bulletproof vests. I don't know how big of a deal it was in the grand scheme of things, but it jumped out at me that she said Amazon.

Now, I know you can buy a lot of things on Amazon, but can you really buy a bulletproof vest on Amazon? I would be surprised. Maybe I shouldn't be. Now, eBay's a different story. Yeah, either way, though, you think they'd be able to track her purchases at some point, and she'd get caught if she was lying about that. But my takeaway from all this is with so many people of this family, involved in these murders, any one of them at some point could have said, hey, stop, you're not making sense here. We cannot do this. There were, you know, several people that could have

spoke up and put the brakes on this and said, we need to come to our senses here. This is not something we can do. You know, my family, they call me up and say, hey, I need help moving this weekend. Can you, can you give me a hand? Sure, absolutely. I'll bring my truck. But calling me up to do some murders, I draw the line. And it's just, it's very crazy. to me that none of these family members said, hey, we can't do this. This is way over the top. Yeah, I think it's a great point you're making. You know, in a lot of the cases that we do, it doesn't surprise me. Maybe it should that a lone person, let's say a serial killer, is able to justify to themselves what they're doing. But when you start talking about, you know,

three, four, five, six, seven, eight different people being involved in a murder or a series of murders. Well, that adds a different layer to it. That means that a lot of people had to agree with an idea that most of us can't even fathom going through with, let alone sitting around discussing it. planning it, thinking, yep, this is a good idea. This is what we should do. You know, that always strikes me as odd that a lot of people can agree to something like this. And here you have not just strangers, criminals, you have family members. On April 22nd, 2021, exactly five years

after the bodies of the eight victims were discovered, Jake Wagner pleaded guilty to all the murders. He also pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy, aggravated burglary, unlawful possession of a dangerous ordinance, tampering with evidence, forgery, unauthorized use of property, interception of wire and oral communications, and obstruction of justice. He was also charged with engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity and unlawful sexual conduct with the minor. These final charges were because Hannah Mae wrote and was just 13 years old when their relationship began. She gave birth to their daughter when she was still a minor at age 15.

And I think we see this a lot, right? They're tacking on on top of murder a whole bunch of other charges. And that's very normal. We see that all the time. But then when you look at this unlawful sexual conduct charge

and the age of Hannah Mae Rotin, oh man, that just makes me sick. George Wagner, the force attorney, John Parker said to Fox 19 News, the state made a deal with the devil, basically referring to a plea deal between Jake Wagner, George's brother, and the prosecution. Parker went on to say, he's the person that is most responsible for this. He's the actual killer. He's the actual shooter. He's the one that snuck into these homes in the middle of the night and shot the victims in the head, all right? But the plea deal actually looked

out for the whole Wagner family. If Jake testified truthfully and disclosed what happened that night, none of them would be sentenced to death. Special prosecutor Angela Kineepa told Fox 19, unfortunately, there's more than one devil in this case, and that is all four of the individuals who are charged in this matter. Defense attorney John Parker wanted Judge Randy Daring to dismissed the eight charges of murder George was facing since George's brother had confessed to all the killings. Parker added, our client didn't shoot anybody. Judge Daring denied the motion and the charges stood. So I think it's clear what George's defense attorney is trying to do, right? He's saying Jake is the one that actually killed everyone. He's the shooter. He's the one that snuck into these

people's homes and shot them in the head. Why is my client, George, being charged with date murders? But the judge, you know, wasn't buying it. And as we'll, you know, get into later. And as we've talked about in many episodes, the mere fact that you're not the one who pulls the trigger does not mean that you can't be charged with murder, convicted of murder. We see that all the time.

You can be involved in the planning. You can be the mastermind. You can be the person that sets the whole thing up, but you don't actually pull the trigger. But you're still just as culpable. Yeah, there are countless cases like that where someone that actually didn't commit the murders, help plan them and was held equally responsible.

Charles Manson comes to mind. So we know that does happen. And I know the defense attorney's job is to get their client off on as many charges as they can. So he's trying to get these things thrown out. But he also has to know that the judge isn't just going to throw out these charges if there's clear evidence that the other family members are involved in the planning and execution.

Yeah, I think defense attorneys pretty much know that. But it doesn't mean that they're not going to try. Because at some point, wouldn't they be derelict in their duty if they didn't do this, this, and this, even if they don't necessarily believe it's going to work. They have to try it. The amount of planning that went into the murders makes it clear that the Wagner family had one mission and they worked for months to find the perfect way to accomplish it. The family had been stalking Hannah Rodman on Facebook, looking for ways to either

convince her to give up her custody or find some sort of behavior. they could use to get CPS involved with the custody. In one Facebook post, Hannah posted that she would absolutely never, under any circumstances, sign an agreement. The Wagner's had tried to force her to sign. The paperwork they had prepared gave Jake custody of Sophia. Hannah wrote of the paperwork, they'll have to kill me first. At some point, the Wagner's must have realized they'd have to do just that,

kill Hannah and the rest of the Rodin family because four months after that post, Hannah and seven other members of the Rodin family were killed. A forged document stated that in the event of Hannah's death, Jake would become Sophia's legal guardian and that if anything happened to him, the Wagner would take care of Sophia. The document dated just 19 days before the murders had Rita Newcomb's signature on it, but she never signed it. Someone had forged her signature, but to try and protect her family members,

She initially claimed that the signature was authentic. As of October 2022, Rita hadn't been sentenced for her role in obstructing official business. She was originally on house arrest and faced the maximum sentence of 90 days in jail. The Wagners had carefully planned out the murders and how to get away with them. They bought new shoes to wear, following the murders, throughout their old shoes, so that any shoe prints in the blood would not match any of their shoes. This was a good idea on their part, considering the shoe prints were indeed left behind at all four crime scenes. They also made homemade silencers so that they would be able to commit the murders without waking neighbors or anyone else in the trailers nearby.

The Wagner's property on Peterson Road showed evidence of planning and testing. Hundreds of gun shell casings fired by the same weapon used in some of the killings were found on the property and in trucks and trailers used by. by the family for storage. The trucks and trailers had been parked off state route 41 while the family was in Alaska. They had even purchased a brass catcher to try and prevent authorities from being able to link any casings to the murder weapon. One of the final touches were cell phone jammers bought by the Wagners. If any of the victims happened to wake up or be awake when the Wagners arrived or managed

to flee during the attack, they wouldn't be able to use their cell phones to call for help due to the jamming devices. He also bought ski mask at Walmart to hide their faces, just in case any of them were seen that night. Jake Wagner admitted that a Walter Colt 1911, 22-caliber pistol, an SKS rifle, and a 40-calibre Glock were used in the murders. Ian George used a grinding tool to cut the guns in half and melted the firing pins in serial numbers with a torch. The pieces were buried in a duffel bag under a barn on their property. To better hide the evidence, concrete anchors were made. The pieces of the weapons were dug back up and placed into five-gallon buckets filled with cement. One of Jake's hunting knives, which he used to try and pry open the door of one of the locked

trailers, was also placed into one of these homemade anchors. Jake and George gave these buckets to their grandfather, who used them on the lake at Flying W. Farms. Jake Wagner also admitted that they had burned a lot of the evidence from that night, including their clothes and shoes, the victim's cell phones, shell casings, and a DVR stolen from Chris Rodin's grow house. The items were placed into a fire in a metal trough and the ashes were then poured into the dumpster at their Peterson Roadhouse. As special prosecutor Angela Kniepa said, Hannah's crime was not returning the love of Jake Wagner. It might make sense to kill potential witnesses in the same trailer. But what's not clear is why the Wagners felt the need to kill members of the

Rodin family that were in other trailers, one of which was miles away. In the end, the Wagners killed Hannah May Rodin, as well as both of her parents, her fiance, both of her brothers, and two of her uncles. More details of the Wagner plan were revealed. Instead of sneaking to Chris Rodin's house, Billy set up a fake drug deal. Jake and George hidden. the car and later rushed in. They had beaten Chris, just like Bobby Joe described in a frantic 911 call. This is why there had been a trail of blood at that scene, but not at the others. At Jake Wagner's plea hearing, Mike DeWine said, I want to thank the family for staying with us. It's not easy when investigators can't tell you anything, and they just have to sort of trust you.

It took years, but investigators loved no stone unturned. They took no chances, and they built the strongest case they could before they moved in on the family that they believed that they had committed the murders. It seems like a case where authorities could have gone after one perpetrator sooner, but risked being unable to build a strong enough case against each of the other suspects. It was a long wait for both the road and family and investigators working the case. Arresting one suspect in the family may have allowed other family members to hide or get rid of evidence. And this case did take, you know, quite a number of years to solve.

I remember, you know, Gibby and I did this case on true crime all the time unsolved years ago. And even back then, the Wagner family was at the heart of it. Now, it wasn't known for sure that they were all involved in the killings. But I remember us talking about it, that, you know, they were even back at that time major persons of interest. and I think to many it was thought that they were involved. But I want to go back and kind of talk through some of the things that the family did. There was some real planning involved before these murders took place. And some of the things that were done were things that trip up a lot of killers,

throwing out their old shoes, buying new shoes, making sure that any shoe prints wouldn't match shoes that they had in their house, making homemade silencers. And then, you know, the one that really jumped out of me was the cell phone chambers. First of all, I didn't even know that was a thing that could be purchased by Joe Q public. I just thought that was things, you know, that you saw in movies or, or had to be something that only the government would have or something like that.

But just think about, you know, a lot of people keep their cell phones by their bed for good reason. In case something happens, they can quickly, you know, call. But if you had something that prevented those cell phones from being used,

well, then you minimize the risk. Yeah, their level of preparedness is clear to see here. Even earlier when we mentioned buying bulletproof vest, it seems like they wanted to protect themselves just in case the rodents defended themselves and maybe shot back at them. So they were prepared and they thought of a lot of different things that they'd need to be worried about. And then to go through the lengths of hiding it and getting rid of it and trying to distance themselves from that evidence, I think that's pretty clear here too. Going as far as to make cement anchors with parts of the weapons in them and burning stuff in the trough to get rid of.

of it, it's pretty clear they try to cover up as much as they could. Yeah, I truly believe that. I mean, you and I have covered enough cases where we see people do things that just don't make sense, right, that lead them to getting caught. They don't think things out. I don't think you can say that about the Waggners. Now, I'm not praising them, obviously. And it's a great thing that they ultimately did figure it out, but you would have to say they were fairly smart about some of the things that they did, which could have, thankfully didn't, but could have allowed them to get away with these really heinous murders. And I wonder part of that is because there was a group of them that sat around planning

the snail sort of brainstorm. Well, what about this? And one person might have said, well, you need to worry about that. and it sort of came together that way where instead of one or two people, you have a lot more thoughts going into this and a lot more of a process that were able to think of a lot of the things they'd need to be worried about in this case. Yeah, that absolutely could be. Fresh air, longer days, a chance to reset.

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slash book now to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash book now. Growtherapy.com slash book now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. In September 2021, Angela Wagner, who by that time was 50 years old, also took a plea deal. in exchange for pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, burglary, and evidence tampering, as well as cooperating by testifying against the other members of the family who were arrested, prosecutors dropped all eight aggravated murder charges against her. She admitted to buying the two pairs of shoes from Walmart for her sons to use when they committed the murders. Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents confirmed that Angela was on surveillance footage, buying the shoes a few days before the killings. The two pairs were nearly identical, just a half a size difference between them.

Maybe to an untrained eye, it would look like there was just one suspect walking around, but crime scene technicians measured and made replicas of the impressions or the prints a half-sized. is enough of a difference to notice, apparently for investigators. According to the Cincinnati inquiry, Sheriff Reader said they did this quickly, coldly, calmly, and very carefully, but not carefully enough. And I think this is a great statement from the sheriff, you know, going back to what we were just talking about. There was a lot of planning.

They were careful about a lot of different things. But like he said, just not careful. enough. And I think the one thing they couldn't count on was the family turning on each other to protect themselves, as Angela did here when she found that she could get off of these murder charges, she started spilling the beans on her role in the case. Well, and don't you see that so often, right? In the beginning, when you're coming up with the plan, whether it's two people, three people or more, everybody's in. And you think you've got this solidarity. You know, we're going to do this. Nobody's going to talk. You can just kind of imagine some of the conversations

that went down, but then when all hell breaks loose and people's feet are put to the fire, they often break down. And when that deal is put in front of them, family or no family, a lot of people kind of revert back to self-preservation. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in prison. I don't want to be given the death penalty. I got to look out for myself. And in this case, it was a mother turning on her own son. So, you know, that desperation is pretty clear here. Both Jake and Angela claimed that the murders didn't just happen because of a custody dispute, but because they felt it was the only way to protect Sophia from what Angela claimed was sexual abuse by the Rodin family. Angela Wagner testified. Nobody's heart was

in it. Nobody wanted to do it. Angela went on to accuse Jake's wife, Elizabeth Armour, of the same thing, inappropriately touching Sophia. She would also later accuse Elizabeth of trying to poison ice in her home. Multiple calls obtained via wiretap discuss these allegations, and it gets pretty weird. At one point, Angela is upset with Jake for telling Sophia that she wasn't her mom. She was her grandmother. This accusation by Angela, and Jake's refusal to blindly believe his mother over his wife,

caused an argument that spilled over to a conversation with his brother George. This argument was also caught by a wiretap and included George yelling at Jake about whether he would trust Beth to watch Sophia when they were all sent to the electric chair, meaning when they were caught and sentenced to death, would you want your daughter with her? In the wiretap, George also threatened to call the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and turn Jake in saying every time I try to do something, you wrap me out. Angela also spoke freely of her fear of being caught saying, I'm not taking a life sentence, Jake. I'm going to take the electric chair and die.

Despite Jake saying, I know they're listening. And George saying, yes, Ryan, I know you're listening to this. Referring to BCI agents who might be surveilling them, they just kept talking openly. So there's a lot going on. I mean, when you break down some of these things that were heard, you know, through the wiretap and some of it, like you said, more of it is fairly weird. Angela wanted Sophia to think that she was her mom when in fact she was her grandmother.

She also thought Jake's wife was trying to poison her and was sexually abusing Sophia. but you know to me it's this talking on the phone and saying things that are very incriminating while you believe you're being surveilled and possibly wiretapped we talked about all the planning they did to try to get away with this and this kind of seems to be at odds with all this. This is very carefree and that's not the right word. What am I thinking of? Reckless? Yeah, reckless. Not thought out. Yeah, it's definitely a clash with everything else we talked about because they did go through great lengths to plan it out and then they get rid of evidence. Yet here when they think they're on this recording, which actually turned out to be,

they're sort of carefree, as you said, and just talking openly and not taking those same precautions. So it is kind of an about face. It reminds me a little bit of something that comes up in many episodes. And it's when people get arrested. You know, they're in jail. They're talking on the phone. And there's a huge sign that says these phone calls are recorded. But yet they say a bunch of incriminating things.

I never understand that. George was also overheard on a wiretap call telling Angela that they needed to work on exposing the corruption in the Pike County Sheriff's Office and the BCI, the very agencies that were publicly investigating them. Proof of corruption and crimes by law enforcement agents there goes back at least to 2008, and in May 2021, the investigation into the road and merged was almost shaken up when Sheriff Reeder was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to theft in office, tampering with evidence, and conflict of interest for using his position to get a new car. He was one of multiple officers accused of corruption in Pike County.

Christopher Roden Sr.'s brother, Tony Rodin Sr., has filed a wrongful death suit against Billy Wagner, Angela Wagner, George Wagner, and Jake Wagner, Rita Newcomb, Frederica Wagner, and two unnamed individuals. Frederica has asked to be released from the lawsuit because she was not involved in the planning or commission of the murders and didn't know that the murder weapons were in buckets in her lake. In September 22, George Wagner IV became the first of the two family members who would stand trial.

His mother and brother had both taken plea deals, but he and his father, Billy, both maintained their innocence and pleaded not guilty. Over three long months of testimony, Attorney Richard Nash tried to use the plea agreements to George's advantage, telling the jury, they have nothing on George. Despite multiple messy crime scenes, Nash claimed that there was no forensic evidence linking George to the crime, saying, There's no physical evidence George was at any of those murder scenes. There's no DNA. There's no prints. Special prosecutor Angela Kniepa was clear that George had helped plan the murders, saying, This is not guilt by association.

This is guilt by participation. George also claimed that he was home asleep when his parents and his brother committed the murders, saying he only learned about what happened in a phone call after the fact. But Jake and Angela had both testified that he was with them at each of the crime scenes. Jake even testified that the plan was for George to shoot Chris Rodin's senior, but he couldn't do it and froze up, forcing Jake to be the one to kill Chris. A jury was not swayed by defense attorney Nash's insistence that there was no real evidence against George. After deliberating for a bit more than seven hours, less than one hour for each victim,

the jury found him guilty on 22 different charges, including aggravated murder, tampering with evidence, aggravated burglary, conspiracy, and forgery. Judge Deering handed down eight consecutive life sentences for the murders of the eight members of the Rodin family, as well as an additional 121 years for the other charges. Ohio is one of the states that holds a person who plans a murder just as responsible as a person who commits the murder, but not all states have this kind of sentence for the conspiracy charge,

though he would be behind bars for the rest of his life, the removal of the death penalty was just another cruel blow for the rest of the Rodin family. Apparently, they wanted the Wagoners put to death. Hannah Gillies' aunt said in her victim impact statement, they don't want the death penalty. They don't want to die. How ironic is that?

Hannah's mother, Andrea Schumacher, made it clear in her victim impact statement that there were more than eight victims in this massacre, saying, my grandson was made an orphan in one night, adding that her father mourned himself to death. The mother of Frankie's son was left to try to fill his father's shoes and try to make her child feel safe in the world, even though his own home was not a safe place. The 10-year-old, who was only three when the massacre happened, wrote, I've been scared since that night, knowing bad guys came into my house while I was sleeping.

I'm always scared now that I will lose my mommy. You did that to me. So I always think that victim impact statements are interesting. Now you have this one, though. This child is 10 years old. It was only three when the massacre happened. How impactful is for a 10-year-old to talk about how this has completely devastated his life? Not only did he lose a number of family members, but he's scared.

all the time that bad people are going to come in while he's sleeping and that they're going to, you know, take his mom away from him. Very powerful. Yeah, it's one thing to hear from family members of victims that weren't there, how they were affected, but here's a little boy who was there that night that could have lost his life and he's got to grow up with this fear that's probably going to be with him forever. Yeah, and that may be the thing that does. doesn't get talked about enough, there's grief over losing loved ones. And that grief can go on for a very long time. We can go on forever in some instances.

But then, you know, you have some individuals who are harmed in other ways. There's not just grief, but there could be, you know, PTSD. There could be just the fact that you almost can't function. You're so scared thinking that this could happen again. This is going to happen again. It can affect people negatively for the rest of their lives. And in some ways, I don't want to use the word ruin, but harm them in a very real way. Billy Wagner has been behind bars since his arrest in November 2018.

He will not go to trial until early 2024. and that would probably be the earliest motions and other unexpected things like COVID have pushed that date back over the years and there are things that could push it back even farther. Billy still faces the death penalty on the same 22 charges that George was convicted of despite the deals Jake and Angela made. He has asked for a change of venue. So it's currently unknown where the trial will be held. But I will say whenever that trial does happen, there will be a lot of people paying attention to it.

As we wrap this one up, Morph, it's hard for me to think that George is going to walk away from this thing, knowing that Billy was convicted, knowing that Jake and Andrews, are going to testify against him. I just can't imagine that he's not going to, at the very least, go to prison for a very, very long time. Yeah, it seems as though the odds are stacked against him that he gets off to this with, without being found guilty. And then it's just a question of what is the outcome? What is the sentence?

But I really want to go back to the motive for these eight murders. And, you know, really seems as though it came out, it was all around the custody of Sophia. So as we kind of talked about earlier, at some point in time, and maybe over an extended period of time, members of the Wagner family sat around talking about their problem and talking about possible solutions. And what they came up with was that in order to get Sophia, they had to murder eight members of the road and family. I mean, that just boggles my mind to think about a family sitting around and coming to that conclusion and so many different people saying, oh, yeah, that's it.

That's what we got to do. I agree. The ironic thing is this was all over custody of Sophia, but at the end of the day, not only do they not have custody of Sofia, but they're in prison probably for the rest of their lives, and they're going to die there, most likely so. So it makes no sense that the plan here. What were they thinking? Well, my thought is they were thinking they would get away with them, right?

Isn't that what most criminals think? You know, they don't go into it thinking, ah, well, we'll probably get caught. If they did, they wouldn't do it. But, you know, it's back to my theory that, people think they're smarter than what they are. They think they're smarter than the police. They think they can plan it well enough that the police will never put them together. Now, the strange thing about this one for me,

this is not the killing of people who are unconnected. The Wagner's and the rodents had a connection. And so I don't think it was that hard for them to at least be potential suspects. You have this custody issue. Now, like you said, it took them a long time to put everything together and they probably took their time to make sure that their cases were as airtight as they could make them. But for all the planning that the Wagners went through, I don't know how they couldn't have thought that they were at least going to be on the radar just due to the custody situation. Yeah, that tragic thing here is at the end of the day, you have two families that have been affected in such dramatic ways.

One family, they're all in prison, most likely for the rest of their lives. The other family lost their lives. So just a terrible situation all the way around. And this community saw two families just taken and not there anymore. But there's a couple of things that are for sure. You know, the first is that so many people are watching, keeping track of this case. And the other is that, you know, they'll continue to do so because Billy's yet to go on trial. It's just a case that has captured the attention of so many people.

And for good reason, there's a number of very, you know, just interesting facets to this case. It's tragic all the way around. But that's it for our episode on the Rodin family murders. If you love the show, you haven't done so yet, go out, give us a five-star rating, you can leave a review. Keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the podcast really goes to you. a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology podcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast, Discussion and Fans.

So that's it for another episode of Criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then for Mike and Morf. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.