The Piketon Massacre - Part 2

0:00 Hi. I am Rich and I'm Tina. And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage, some days you'll feel like killing your husband, and some days you'll feel like killing your wife. Welcome to love, Mary Kill Hey Tina, Hey Rich, How are you today? You know I've been better? Oh I'm sorry. Sorry, what's going on? Just some allergies, sore throat, out of congestion. That's a bummer. And I feel bad because I feel like the smell of the Skyline chili that I served you yesterday is still lingering in the air of our studio. I can't really smell it. Oh that's good. Is it really? It's good that you can't. Yeah, it might be my imagination. I think it's probably your imagination. Maybe it is. But I brought you some different snacks today, hopefully a little bit better. I brought you a veritable Morgas Board of International Snacks. Cool. Yes, he's a bit recent trip. So my colleague Fernando, he lives in Spain, and he brought me a couple of snacks here. I don't know how to pronounce this, but I think it's basically pork rinds. Oh is it chick ronis, I don't know, it's it's Theresno's. I'm I'm going to butcher this. So you are our Spanish expert. I'm gonna let you pronounce it. Well. Spanish is pretty

1:33 like fanatic. Yes, so Chresno's days zero. Yeah, it's brilliant. Yeah, it's definitely pork rinds. Yes, I think it's pork rinds. And then, as you know, I stopped in Iceland briefly. I was only there for like an hour, but I picked up some snacks from Iceland. I brought you lava cheese crisps is everything, and it's all about the lava. These are sour cream an onion flavor cheese crisps. So I brought you that. And then I brought you a candy bar an Omnam chocolate from Raykivic and this is a sea salt and chocolate. And then last weight had a huge lunch. I brought you these. They look kind of like malt like whoppers or multi milk balls, but they are toffee filled red. No idea how to pronounce the name. It's Joma Kulu or something like that.

2:28 So we also brought home some lava salt which we used on our popcorn last weekend, and that was really good. Yeah, all about the lava? All right, do you want to try it? Sure, we'll be back in an hour and a half. Could I eat all these snaps? How did you enjoy your smorgas sport of international snacks? That was a lot of snacks. That was a lot the pork rinds. So anyone who has done the kto diet like I did for a time, you can eat pork rinds on the diet because they're not many of your herbs. Yeah, and oh, I just I just really can't really eat them anymore. It's been years since I did that. The candy bar was good, but there is a little bit of a weird aftertaste, Like the chocolate was really creamy and nice.

3:17 But so what I learned, I wish I had known this before I bought it. But the candy bar is called lacris plus sea salt, and lacriss is apparently the Icelandic word for licorice. Oh, I put licorice in everything. It's really well. Remember a while back when we had a Danish case and we had licorice powder and we put it on apples, and I thought it was pretty good. Actually, it's not like black licorice. It's not Anna's flavor. It's licorice. So yeah, yeah, I don't know. I thought it was good, but there was a little I thought it was going to be I don't know, charcoal or something. Lava. The lava cheese was good, but it tastes just like the cheese wisps I think that we get once in a while from Costco yep. And what else?

4:02 Oh the other the little coffee those were amazing. I really liked them. They're like a milk dud, but really hard and sometimes you just don't know if it's not fresh. And is that why it was so hard because it took like a good ninety seconds to chew it. Yeah, I don't know. It was good though. Well, thank you very much. Those were good snacks. And thank you Fernando. Yeah, thanks for Fernando. And we need to go to the post office because I think we have some I know we have some boxes waiting for us there. Our friends at Severed, which we haven't talked about the Severed podcast, but we'll talk more about them later. If you haven't listened to them, they do a great job, very detailed cases, and they sent us a gift from New Jersey which I'm really excited to open. And yeah, yeah, we'll go pick it up after if we're done. Okay, should we get back into the piked in massacre? We definitely should? Yes, would you will? If you haven't listened to part one, you should definitely go and do that. But would you like to give us a short synopsis of part one? Well, you wrote it out for me, so sure. Eight members of the Roden family and the small town of Piketon, Ohio were all killed and one night at four different locations. The victims were all shot in cold blood, execution style.

5:15 There were three young children of the scenes who were left physically unharmed, including Hannah Mae Roden's five day year old daughter Kylie. A few days after the murder's Attorney General Mike DeWine revealed that there were significant marijuana growing operations at three of the crime scenes. This led to speculation that the murders were drug related. Over time, though the investigation focused on the Wagner family, Billy Angela and their two adult children, George and Jake. Billy Wagner had been close friends with Chris Rodin Senior, and allegedly the two had worked together to sell drugs. Billy and Angela's son, Jake Wagner, had dated Hannah May Roden and the two had a daughter together, Sophia, who was two and a half at the time of the murders. The Wagner's moved to Alaska, and while they were gone, investigators searched their former property and found a receipt for two pairs of shoes that match's shoe prins found at one of the crime scenes. Surveillance footage from Walmart showed the mom, Angela Wagner, buying the shoes shortly before the killings. Angela Wagner was very controlling and was convinced that Jake and Hannah May's daughter was being molested in the road and home. Do you think she really thought she was? To me? It's not clear whether she really believed that or whether that was just a way to manipulate her family.

6:32 The Wagners decided they needed to get custody and tried to trick Hannah Mae into signing over custody, as they'd previously done with their son, George's ex wife, Tabitha, and that child's name was Bolveen Bolling. Hannah may knew how they had tricked Tabitha before and messaged a friend that she would never sign any custody papers. In her words, quote, They'll have to kill me first. When we left off at the end of part one, the Wagners had just moved back to piked In from Alaska. Before I get back into the story, I have to say that one of the children in the story is named Brentlee, and I called Brentley Bramptlee in all of part one, and I feel very embarrassed about that because I try to get names right.

7:16 So my apologies for that. By the time the Wagners got back to Ohio, public sentiment had turned against them. Everyone in Pike County believed the Wagners had killed the road In family. People would hurl accusations, insults, and even soda bottles at Angela when she was out at the store. Angela decided she needed to make a statement on her Facebook page quote, Hannah was a daughter to me. I loved her dearly. Her loss still hurts to this day, especially when I see her every day and my granddaughter. We did not do anything to hurt Hannah's family. We want justice just like everyone else. It is real disturbing. If you really want to know what you guys are doing. Your accusations now will hurt Sophia later in life when she really understands what happened. Let's try to find the real monsters who done this unquote.

8:07 The Wagners were becoming more and more paranoid with good reason. When investigators found out that Jake and George were getting a job as truckers, they asked the trucking company for permission to include a recording device in their trucks so that they could hear every word they said to each other or on phone calls. Oh wow, and the trucking company agreed. Holy cow. The family was fairly cautious because they believed they were being listened to, but investigators did get a few interesting nuggets of information from the recordings. On May thirty first, twenty eighteen, Angela said to Jake, quote you, Jake, you made ninety percent of our plans. Okay, ninety percent of them. You guys made those. I followed your decisions, Jake. Don't make it look like I'm the bad guy. Unquote. You had said in the previous episode that Angelo was very controlling in the family, and it's hard to believe that she let them make ninety percent of the decisions. Yeah. I think so too.

9:03 I know Jake was also controlling, and he was the one that probably had the biggest motive because he was the one that would wanted to get custody of Sophia. But angel to Yeah, because Angela kind of thought she was Sophia's mom. Yeah. I think we'll get more into it, but I think the question of who was the mastermind who went along with this, I think those are all really good questions. On June ninth, twenty eighteen, the Wiretap picked up a conversation with Angela where she said, quote, we got to figure something because I'm just going to tell you something. We're running on borrowed time. I have the feeling that we are absolutely running on borrowed time. Unquote. Jake responded, Mom, you're paranoid. On June thirteenth, Angela said to George, quote, if they arrest you, don't sign nothing, don't say nothing. Unquote. George responded, quote, I love you, but I don't think it's me. They're going to arrest mom.

9:54 Everything they're trying to point out is all on Jake, so they're probably going to arrest fun mess. It is a mess. So it remind me of their ages, Like the parents are both like in their forties and Jake is he's pretty young where he's like twenty one maybe Yeah, at the time of the killings, George was twenty four and Jake was twenty three, So at this point a couple of years after that. Finally, two and a half years after seven road In family members, along with Hannah Gilly, were killed in cold blood, the investigative team was ready to show its hand. In November twenty eighteen, they made not one arrest, but six six. Billy Wagner was pulled over and arrested while driving a horse trailer near Lexington, Kentucky, where he was taking a horse for treatment. Angela Wagner was arrested at her home in Pike County. George and Jake Wagner were working together on their long haul trucking route when they were pulled over and arrested. And then Billy's mom, Frederica Wagner, was arrested at the Flying w Farm, and angela mom, Rita Joe Newcombe, who we haven't mentioned yet was arrested at her home. The arrests were well planned and orchestrated, occurring at separate locations, but all within minutes of each other. Holy cow. So they did it quickly so the family members wouldn't have an opportunity to communicate. Yeah, warn each other, and yeah, it was really well well orchestrated, like I said, Billy Angela, George, and Jake were each charged with eight counts

11:26 of aggravated murder, conspiracy, and engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity. Frederica was charged with obstruction of justice and perjury. They claimed that she had lied to a grand jury about two bulletproof vests that were found in her home. Investigators believed that the Wagners, who had done the actual shooting had warned bulletproof vests while committing the murders, and Frederica had lied about where she had bought them from, but it was later determined that she in fact bought them after the killings because she was worried that someone would come after her family, and that she had most likely just been mistaken when she told the grand jury she bought them on Amazon when she actually got them on eBay. So in June of twenty nineteen, all the charges against Frederica were dropped. Angela's mom, Rita Joe Newcomb was charged with forgery, perjury, and obstruction of justice.

12:18 Rita was a notary and it was determined that she had helped to forge custody documents which appointed guardianship of Sophia to Jake in the event of Hannahme's death. At the arraignment, prosecutors said they believed the Wagners started planning the murders of the Rodent family four months in advance. Even before that, they had started conducting what basically amounted to surveillance on the Rodent family. They had passwords to hack into the Rodent's personal computers, phones, and social media accounts. They use cameras to spy on the Rodents. They were obsessed with the idea that Sophia was being abused and they needed to get custody of her. When they were in jail, were they jailed together, No, they were all in separate locations. In early April, they made homemade silencers and purchased ammunition, a magazine clip, a bug detector, and materials to make brass catchers, which are basically bags that attached to the side of a firearm to catch spent cartridges. These must not have worked very well though, because there were spent cartridges found at the crime scenes from all three guns. But I didn't know that was a thing. I didn't either, I'd never heard of that before. So there's a piece of equipment that I can detect bugs. Yeah, I think it basically is looking for like the ra signals that listening devices emit. I would like to get one. Yeah, it's probably not an we stay at an ARABNBA. I'm always afraid that there's a camera, but I guess that that's probably different than a bug detector. Well, if the

13:48 camera is transmitting video somewhere, then it would probably work. But yeah, not a bad idea. But it just goes to show you how like careful, how carefully planned this whole thing was the fact that they're they thought about that like maybe there's a listening device at one of the crime scenes, and they wanted to make sure there wasn't. I mean, they were really cautious about everything. Well, what is kind of surprised? There were no surprising at four different locations, and there were no surveillance cameras, Yes, it is a little bit surprising. Also, a day before the murders, the Wagners drove two and a half hours to a Walmart and bought a particular type of boots that were known to be worn by James Manley, Chris Roden, Senior's former brother in law. It's not clear exactly what they did with these boots, but it seems like their plan was to lead investigators astray and get them to look at James, which is exactly what happened in the beginning.

14:39 James was the one who found Kenneth's body, and he was the one they gave a lie detector test to and all this. So I'm not sure exactly what the deal with the boots was, but it seemed like they were even trying to plan to point the finger at someone else. When there was surveillance video of Angela purchasing boots from Walmart, w she was purchasing shoes. Those were different, different shoes. Yeah. While the Wagners were now all under arrest and being held in four separate county jails without bail, the prosecution still couldn't say exactly which member or members of the family pulled the trigger. To get a conviction on aggravated murder in Ohio, you just have to be able to convince a jury that the defendant was actively involved in the planning of the crime. But the cases would be much stronger with more detail. So the prosecution was hoping they could get at least one of the Wagners to take some type of a deal. But before we get to that, a slight rabbit hole on two scandals that might impact the ability to get convictions. First, we mentioned earlier that all of the trailers and campers where the Rodents lived were taken to a warehouse on a fenced in property, not only the trailers in Camper, but also a bunch of vehicles that had belonged to the Rodents and other potential evidence. Someone tipped off a reporter with Fox nineteen News out of Cincinnati that there was very little security at this warehouse, which is really a violation of policing one oh one. You have to maintain a chain of custody and tightly control access to any evidence. A reporter went to the site and

16:11 confirmed that, yes, it would have been easy for anyone to jump the fence and tamper with any of the evidence contained inside. Not only that, but the warehouse at the site was home base for two local companies, meaning there were employees going in and out of the building on a daily basis, that is DUTs. The reporter sat down with Sheriff Charlie Reader to ask him about this. He claimed that there was a camera system inside the building monitoring the trailers and other evidence, but otherwise he refused to provide any more specifics. Worse yet, Sheriff Reader tried to get the story buried by offering exclusive access once the case was resolved. The reporter was outraged. This wasn't the type of deal that reputable journalists would agree to, and he had never even been approached with an offer of this type. This story ran in September twenty sixteen and led to speculation that this would be used by the defense to cast out on any evidence that was presented in the case. As former Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen said, quote, any evidence that they would pull out of that thing would be virtually useless. You can walk straight through the gate there and over the fence. Any old man like me can get over that thing in twenty seconds. Did anyone tamper with the evidence that you know about, not that we're aware of. Another scandal involving Sheriff Reader came to light several months after the Wagner's arrests. In June twenty nineteen, Reader was indicted on eight felonies and eight misdemeanors. He was accused of conflicts of interest, stealing

17:45 cash seized during arrests, and tampering with evidence. Reader allegedly had a gambling problem and was embezzling to feed his habit. The indictments claimed that he had taken fifteen thousand dollars in seized funds on one occasion and seven thousand on another, in addition to borrowing six thousand from employees working at the sheriff's department. You imagine asking your employees, Hey, could you loan me a few thousand dollars, I'll pay you right back. Well, and when cash is seized from a drug raid or whatever, it is just put into evidence, right just sitting there. I mean, I think so. And if it's a small county sheriff's department, I'm sure it wouldn't be that difficult for the sheriff to, you know, dip into that a little bit me take it.

18:30 A couple of twenties out of them? Yeah, who's going to know. Reader's arrest came after an anonymous tip, followed by a year long internal affairs investigation. Reader denied the accusations, posting on social media quote, this is nothing more than a political witch hunt where the prosecutor is attempting to do everything in his power to sink my boat. Always a witch hunt, isn't it. It took some time, but Reader was eventually suspended, and finally, in September of twenty twenty, he struck a de where he pleaded guilty to five of eighteen criminal charges in exchange for the other thirteen being dropped. That's a lot of dropped charges. As part of the deal, he was terminated from his position as sheriff and barred from ever holding public office again in Ohio.

19:17 At his sentencing hearing in March twenty twenty one, Reader broke down crying as he begged the judge for mercy. He said he wanted to see his son graduate high school, attend his daughter's wedding, and become the husband he had never been to his wife, Ramona. Poor guy, poor guy, He apologized, for shaming the badge, hurting his family, and abusing the trust of the community. He said, quote, your honor, please don't send me to prison. I have wronged, but I am not ruined. I still have a lot of good left in me. End quote. So being a sheriff, you know, he probably sent a few people to prison, So I can imagine going to prison. Yeah, not a pleasant experience for sure. The judge asked him why he took the money, and Reader claimed that it wasn't actually for gambling. He said he used the money for charity, likely start right, to plant memorial trees, to pay to have his cruisers washed at school fundraisers, and so on. I needed that twenty thousand dollars to give to the band's car works, right, he said.

20:18 He always planned to replace the money eventually, Oh my gosh. In the end, he was sentenced to a total of six years on the felony charges and six months on the misdemeanor, but because some of the sentences would be served concurrently, the real sentence was about three years. While none of Charlie Reider's wrongdoings were directly related to the Rodent murder investigation, it was another thing the Wagner's defense team might use to instill some reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors. The prosecution tried to downplay the scandal, saying that Reader hadn't had much direct involvement an investigation. He was only there as the local face of the investigation, which was managed and driven by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations, so there shouldn't be any impact on the prosecution. Legal experts disagreed, however, saying that Reader's indictment and subsequent conviction could pose a serious obstacle to the Wagner's prosecution. I mean, I agree, anything that you can point to, Oh yeah, I mean for reasonable doubt, and for sure it's a pretty big one. It seemed like the best possibility for understanding exactly why and how the Rodent family was killed, and the best possibility of getting convictions would be to get at least one of the Wagners to talk. As the saying goes, there is no honor among thieves and in this case, murderers.

21:40 Unfortunately, although they were a tight knit family, the Wagner's unity eventually broke down. Would you turn on me, well, if he did something really bad? Maybe, well, if we were in it, if we were in cahoots. If we were in cahoots, I would totally stand by your side. The first of aold was Angela's mom, read A Joe Newcombe, in December twenty nineteen. She wasn't directly involved with the killings, so she couldn't offer any information on that front, but she did agree to cooperate with investigators. In place of the original charges a forgery, perjury, and obstruction of justice, she agreed to plead guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge of obstructing official business. She said, quote, I just feel that it's not a good Christian thing to lie, and I couldn't live with it no more.

22:26 End quote. Kind of makes me wonder though maybe she should have thought that when she actually did the forgery, that that wasn't a good Christian thing to do. But do you think she knew about the plans to murder eight people? I doubt it. I mean, I suppose it's possible, but I sure would hope not. I hate to think that other people would know about that and rightly say anything. Yeah, it's pretty horrible. Jake was the next to fault. Oh, I'm surprised. He was certainly facing the death penalty if convicted, as were the other members of the family, so he took a plea deal in exchange for his cooperation and a guilty plea on the twenty three charges he was facing. That death penalty would be taken off the table. Not only that, if the prosecution was satisfied that he testified truthfully in the trials of his other family members, the death penalty would be off the table for them as well. Jake may have felt like he was saving the lives of his family by taking the deal that he did. It was unusual to have a plea deal that would take the death penalty off the table for all of the accused, but it wasn't admission of sorts that the prosecution's case wasn't actually very strong. They may have needed this to ensure that all four of the Wagoners would be punished for what they had done. It is pretty surprising, I'm for a crime of that sort where eight people are eight people were gunned down with malicious intents. Yeah, but I think without making a deal like this, I think it would have been I mean, I'm not going to say what actually happened we'll get to that, but I think it would have been really hard to get a conviction. There wasn't enough

23:56 evidence, you think. I think it would have been pretty weak. If Jake followed the guidelines of his plea deal, he would be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But his sentencing won't happen until all the cases are adjudicated, which is still not the case at the time we're recording this really really, Holy Moly. In April twenty twenty one, at the hearing where Jake entered his guilty plea, prosecutors stunned the courtroom when they revealed that Jake had been cooperating for some time. Anne had revealed how the family had disposed of the guns used in the killings, leading to their recovery. The guns had been encased in concrete, poured into five gallon buckets, and then given to an unsuspecting family member as boat anchors. Holy cow, these people are they thought this through. The anchors were later cut from the rope they were attached to and dropped into a pond at the Flying w Farm owned by Frederica Wagner, where they were retrieved by divers. Investigators chipped away the concrete and were able to match the weapons to the markings found on the shell casings at the crime scenes. Well that's some good police work. So remember in the Scott and Lacy Peterson case, like he allegedly had made boat anchors with concrete. But then I think I thought that the anchors disintegrated in the saltwater. Oh that case, maybe that was the case that like in saltwater, maybe they would probably more likely to disintegrate in saltwater. It was

25:27 also revealed at this hearing that Jake confessed to personally killing five of the eight victims himself, while his dad, Billy, was responsible for the other three murders. We'll learn more about the details about who did what on the night in question in a little bit. At the end of the hearing, Jake was given the opportunity to speak. He simply said, quote, I am deeply and very sorry. Jake was not the last of the Wagoners to take a deal. Next was Angela in September twenty twenty one, five months later after Jake entered his guilty plea. While it could be argued that Jake's deal was not great, life without parole instead of the death penalty. Angela, in our opinion, got a way better deal than she deserved. Angela claimed, and it was corroborated by Jake, that although she was involved in the planning of the killings, she didn't go along the night to actually carry out the murders. She said that she stayed at home with the kids, Bulvine and Sophia while Billy, George, and Jake went out to shoot the Rodents in cold blood. She kept her husbands and sons phones with her, even texting some friends of her sons on their behalf to make it seem like they were home. But she didn't actually pull the trigger on any of the shootings.

26:40 But isn't that like if you hire a hit man, you know you're yeah. And like we said earlier, to be convicted of aggravated murder in Ohio, you don't have to have pulled the trigger. You just have to have been involved in the planning, which she clearly was. Because of that, prosecutors were willing to remove the aggravated murder charges against her and agreed to a deal in exchange for pleading guilty to lesser crimes, cooperating with authorities, and testifying against her husband and sons. Angela would get a sentence of thirty years without the possibility of parole or early release. It's still thirty years in prison. But for Angela there is at least a possibility of seeing her grandchildren again someday, although I cannot imagine that her grandchildren would have any interest in seeing her once they find out what she did. Yeah, she will be in her mid seventies if she gets out of prison. So did George pull the trigger? According to Jake, No, George did not pull the trigger.

27:34 But we will get into George very quickly here because he is going to be the first one to actually go to trial. Okay. Angela claimed that she suggested that Billy turn Chris Roden Senior into authorities for drug trafficking instead of killing the family. Billy scoffed at that suggestion, though the Wagners had a deep distress for law enforcement, so turning someone in like that was unthinkable. So Angela said, fine, you figured out. Then the two Rodents who didn't take a deal were the father, Billy and George, the oldest son. We're not sure about Billy, but George may have believed he could convince a jury that he was much less involved than his brother or father. He decided to take his chances at a trial, and we will get to that right after a break. George's trial finally took place in September twenty twenty two.

28:33 George was facing eight counts of aggravated murder, and as we mentioned earlier, to be convicted of aggravated murder under Ohio law, you don't have to have pulled the trigger. You just have to be complicit. The defense's strategy was clear from their opening statement. George's attorney said, quote, George didn't have a motive in this case. Jake and Angela have destroyed this man's life unquote. He claimed that the prosecution was relying on the fact that George was a wagoner and that the jury would find him guilty by association. The defense also argued that there was no evidence linking George to the crime scenes. The two shoe prints could have been Billy and Jake. They just didn't know.

29:14 There was no DNA, no fingerprints, or anything else that put George physically at the crime scenes, and there was no evidence that George was even aware of the plot. All they had was Jake's word, and Jake was an admitted killer trying to save his own life. George, they argued, was the good hearted black sheep of a bad family, So a white sheep, yes. George's ex wife, Tabitha testified, giving jurors a picture of the Wagner family's home life. Remember that she had lived with the Wagners and saw how controlling they were, not letting her go out or see her family, and forcing her to give them access to her online accounts. Elizabeth Armor, Jake's ex wife from when they lived in Alaska, also testified about the nightmare she experienced being married into the Wagner family. Tabitha and Elizabeth together helped establish the fact that the Wagners did almost everything together. They went to the store together, they ate dinner together, they went for walks together, they made decisions together as a family. They wanted to establish how unlikely it would have been for George to have been the one person left out of the loop in the planning and carrying out these killings. One key piece of evidence that tied George directly to the planning of the crimes was his credit card transaction history.

30:30 He had purchased a phone jammer a month before the homicides. This is a device that would jam one's ability to call nine one one or to make other calls. George's attorney argued that his mom, Angela, had access to all of the family credit cards, she paid the bills, and it was common for them to use each other's credit cards, so there was no way to be sure that it was actually George who made this purchase. This family is so weird, they really are. Jake's testimony was the first big moment in the case, testifying against brother. It had all the makings of high courtroom drama. Unfortunately, the judge gave witnesses the option of being recorded or not during their testimony, and Jake opted out, so we don't have any actual audio of his testimony. Jake testified that he truly believed that his and Hanname's daughter Sophia was at risk that the guys Hanname was dating were molesting Sophia.

31:26 He knew Hanname would never sign papers giving up custody. Angela actually had Hanna May's Facebook password and saw the message that she had sent saying she would never sign papers and that they'll have to kill me first. Jake decided there was no other choice but to kill Hannah May in order to protect his daughter. His first plan was to kill Hanname and her boyfriend Corey and try to make it look like a murder suicide. His father, Billy, convinced him that they needed to kill the entire Rodent family, though otherwise they would suspect the Wagoners and take revenge. Six people were the actual targets that night. Hannah May because she had to be killed in order for Jake to get custody of Sophia. Chris Senior because he was the patriarch of the family and would be likely to seek revenge if he believed the Wagners were responsible. Dana and Chris Junior were targeted because they had witnessed Jake's violence against Hannah May. Dana had actually confronted Jake after one particular incident where he had threatened to kill Hannah May.

32:29 Frankie was targeted because the Wagners believed he would have figured out it was them who did the killing and they couldn't take that chance. Chris Senior's brother, Kenneth was targeted because he had retaliated on Chris Senior's behalf in the past, he had to be killed otherwise the Wagners believed he would seek revenge. That's just horrible and irrational. And yeah, this whole plot is just it's just it's wanted to kill as many people as they could. It sounds like remind us of the evidence that Sophia was molested. There was little to no evidence. Well, Angela, there was no evidence that we know of. Angela made some claims. She said that her crotch was read and irritated and that she had behavioral issues when she would come back from the rodents. But that was just her word, right in custody agreements, kids always come home, you know, grumpy and tired. Yeah, you're going from house to house and you're gonna be grumpy and probably have behavioral issues. Small children, you know, get irritated easily, as she could have had too much juice or whatever. Right, the Wagners were aware that there would likely be collateral damage. They agreed upfront that anyone else who was at the scenes other than young children would have to be killed as well. So Frankie's fiance Hannah Gilly was killed only because she was there, and Chris Senior's brother Gary was killed only because he happened to be staying with Chris Senior that night. Jake said they actually expected there would be more collateral damage. Chris Junior often had friends

33:59 sleep over. The only reason he didn't that night was because he was grounded. Hannah May's boyfriend, Corey, would have also likely been with her that night, but he was at his sister's house helping her fix a pipe that burst. In the end, Hannah, Gilly and Gary Roden turned out to be the only two quote unquote collateral damage victims unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time that night. Said there's any good news out of this case, it's that they didn't kill the babies. Yeah, I thank thank Goodness for that. I'm now going to go through the details of what Jake testified happened on the night in question. Just a warning before I get into this, some of this may be disturbing. In the late evening hours of April twenty first, twenty sixteen, Billy, George, and Jake set off in their pickup truck toward Chris Roden Senior's property. Before getting there, Billy pulled off the road and said, last chance, guys, we could still back out of this, Jake said he wanted to go through with it. Then Jake said that he and George hid to get in the false bottom of their pickup truck. I haven't seen any pictures of this false bottom pickup truck, but I'm thinking they were like lying flat and there was like a false bottom truck bed like over on top of them. Wow. Billy drove with the first stop being Chris Senior's place. Their plan was that Billy would ask Chris Senior to come out so they could talk about an upcoming drug deal they were working on. Then Billy asked Chris to call his cell phone, saying he'd lost it. Chris called Billy's cell phone, which Angela answered

35:31 back at the Wagner house. The idea was that the cell towers would place Billy's phone at home at the time of the murders, giving Billy an alibi. You might have mentioned this in part one, but Billy and Chris they were friendly and they worked together on drug deals. Yeah, they were actually good friends, and allegedly they worked together on drug deals because Billy drove a truck and Chris grew marijuana, so they would work together to transport the marijuana and sell it in other places. So after Billy got Chris Senior to come out of his trailer, the plan was for George to use the SKS rifle with the makeshift silencer to shoot Chris just like a sniper. But George froze, so Jake took the gun from him and fired, hitting Chris Senior in the arm. Billy then shot Chris with the forty block pistol, and as we mentioned earlier, Chris Senior actually had nine gunshot wounds. Apparently it was Billy who shot him the seven additional times after these first two shots. After killing Chris, Billy went in and shot Chris's brother Gary three times in the head. Jake said that when Billy emerged from the house, he was very nervous and emotional, almost having a panic attack. Jake told his father to calm down because it was too late to freak out about it. Now they had gone this far, they had to keep going. The next stop was just up the road, at the house where Dana Rodin lived with nineteen year old Hannah May and sixteen years old Chris Junior. Jake said that he went

37:02 in and killed all three people at this location by himself. He entered through the front door and first shot Chris Junior, who was in bed sleeping. Then he went to Dana's room. She was lying in bed looking at her phone, and he shot her. Lastly, he walked into Hannah May's room, where she was sleeping while nursing her newborn baby, girl, Kylie. He said she woke up and saw him standing in the doorway, but didn't immediately recognize who it was. In the darkness, he fired, shooting her twice in the head. After he killed her, he said, he rearranged her body so that the baby could continue to nurse. A guy. Then he walked back into Dana's room and shot her three more times and placed a pillow over her head. I'm not sure they made homemade silencers, and I don't know how well silencers typically work, but it kind of surprised me that he was able to go into this trailer, which I'm sure is not a huge, you know, building, and shoot three different people without the others waking up or kind of hearing what was going on. That probably happened so quickly. Yeah, Yeah, And a lot of times you hear gunfire and you think it's fireworks or something else right. The third stop was the place that twenty year old Frankie shared with his twenty year old fiance Hannah Gilly, his three year old son Brentley, and the couple's six month old boy, Ruger. Jake entered their home through an open window, walked into their bedroom while they were sleeping side by side, and shot them both several times in the head. The final stop was Kenneth Roden's camper. At this location,

38:34 Billy went in alone and shot Kenneth once in the eye while he was sleeping. I never saw an explanation as to why Billy scattered dollar bills over Kenneth's body. I imagine it was to try and throw investigators off track, maybe to make it seem like the killings were drug related. A few other notes from Jake's testimony. Shortly before the night of the shootings, Jake and George dyed their hair darker, apparently to look more like Jake's idol actor Norman Ritis of the Walking Dead TV series and the movie Boondock Saints. They also watched a scene from the Boondock Saints movie where two brothers kill people to get themselves psyched up. Before committing the murders. Jake said his father was upset with him and George for dyeing their hair, saying, quote, when you want to hide from someone, hide in plain sight unquote. Jake said he decided to take the plea deal after his grandmother, Rita Joe Neukomb, took her plea deal and said that it was the Christian thing to do. Jake said, quote, it felt like the answer I was looking for at the time, an answer from God. It was weighing on me unquote. I'm sorry, I've just rolling my eyes so hard, I know. Jake testified that at some point after the killings, his dad asked him if he regretted it.

39:47 He told his dad he did not, but he only said that to make his dad feel better. If his dad felt like what they had done wasn't worth it, Jake was afraid that his dad would take his own life. Times during Jake's testimony, he looked right at his brother George, but George would not look Jake in the eye. He simply looked down at his notes anytime Jake looked over in his direction. The other highly anticipated witness in the trial was Angela. George and Jake's mom. She testified about the planning of the murders, which was really triggered by the Facebook message that Hannah May sent saying she would never sign custody papers. Angela had become almost obsessed with the idea that Sophia was being abused and they had to protect her by getting custody. It was almost like a group psychosis, with Angela taking the lead and getting her boys riled up and believing it as well. There was an Excel spreadsheet introduced into evidence that contained five hundred and nineteen entries related to child custody, things like messages and screenshots from Facebook. The Wagners were obsessively cataloging any information that might help them get custody. Angela said that she and the rest of the Wagners distrusted the justice system, so instead of telling authorities about their suspicions of abuse, they decided to take matters into their own hands.

41:06 We should know it, as we've talked about it before, but there's absolutely no evidence that Sophia was being molested. It is possible that Angela really believed it. She had suffered abuse when she was growing up, and she seemed to see abuse everywhere, even if it wasn't really happening. Or It's also possible that she may have used the accusation to get her boys to rally around and support the murders so that they could get custody, so we'll never know for sure which one is true. Angela said that Billy directed her to buy a cell phone, jammer, bug detector, and cheap shoes to wear the night of the killings. She also created, with help from her mom Rita, documents with forged signatures that would grant Jake custody of Sophia in the event of Hannahme's death, and a similar document to grant George's sole custody of his son Bulvin. A third forged document awarded her custody of both children in the event of her son's death, which I thought was an interesting little tidbit.

42:02 It almost makes me wonder if she was planning to offer sons so that she could have the kids for herself. But I wouldn't yeah anything anything at this point. Yeah. On the night of the murders, Angela stayed home with the kids. When Billy, George, and Jake left, she locked the door, texted a friend of her sons on their phones to try and establish an alibi for them. Then she went upstairs to sleep. She was relieved when her boys all came home later that night. I can't believe she slept. Yeah. She also testified that George had actually volunteered at one point to take full responsibility for the shootings to try and save the rest of the family, but because he didn't really have a motive, the family didn't think authorities would buy that story. She said. She decided to take the plea agreement in hopes of getting one last chance to see her kids and grandkids in thirty years. Unlike Jake, Angela didn't look at George while she was on the stand. In a surprise move, George decided to testify on his own behalf.

43:02 He basically denied knowing anything about the murders. He said it was never discussed with him and if he had known about the plans, he would have found a way to stop it one way or another. George shared his views on his other family members, saying that his dad, Billy, was a good guy, but irritable and prone to angry outbursts. Jake was a jealous person who was greedy and selfish. His mom, Angela was highly opinionated, arrogant, bossy, and manipulative. He said he didn't like being in the house with her, but he didn't move out because he didn't think he could support himself financially. Finally, at the end of November twenty twenty two, the case went to the jury. They deliberated for seven hours before coming back with a verdict. What do you think it was? I see the message here to me. It says stop scrolling. So I'm not supposed to like planning that. I mean, I can't imagine anything other than guilty. George was found guilty on all charges, including eight counts of aggravated murder, conspiracy, aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence, and obstruction of justice. Although there was no evidence that George was at any of the crime scenes, there was enough evidence that he was involved in the planning and the cover up. At the sentencing hearing, the judge heard victim impact statements. Tony Roden, Chris Senior, and Kenneth's brother talked about how shortly after the Wagners were arrested, the Roden family had a Christmas party. They invited Tabitha George's ex wife,

44:35 and she brought their son, Bolvin. When the family gathered for a family photo, Tony, Chris and Kenneth's mom, Geneva, included Bulvin, putting him on her lap and giving him a hug. Tony said he cried as he watched the scene, saying, quote, that was true love. Unquote. Geneva Rodin shared a brief written statement, quote, George Wagner, you are still breathing. My two sons are not. My grandchildren are not breathing. I would just like to see some justice done unquote. Brentley, the son of Frankie Rodin, who was three at the time of the murders and eleven by this point, wrote a short statement that was read in court by his mother. Quote, 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 unquoted. Because the death penalty was off the table due to Jake Steele, George was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the aggravated murder charges. He was also sentenced to one hundred and twenty one years for the other charges. He has since been transferred to a prison in Rhode Island and his lawyers are supposedly working on an appeal. Wow the case against Billy still has not gone to trial. It's been delayed several times for various reasons. The latest estimate is that his trial will take place in early twenty twenty five. After his case is adjudicated, Angela and Jake will receive their final sentencing and the case will

46:06 be put to bed. By the time all this happens, it will likely be close to ten years since the Rodent family were killed. In twenty twenty, the Roden family, led by Christopher Senior and Kenneth's surviving brother Tony, filed a wrongful death suit against the Wagoners. While Billy, Angela, George, and Jake didn't really have any money to speak of, Fredrika has a lot of money and land. As we talked about earlier, she is the owner of the Flying w Farm and and all has more than seventeen hundred acres of land worth four or five million dollars. Frederica is in her eighties now and she still runs the farm. Speaking through her lawyer, she says that she feels horrible about the deaths of the Rodents, but she had nothing to do with them, so she should be taken off the lawsuit. But wouldn't that be maybe their their inheritance someday too. Yeah, I mean, I guess it would become their inherit when she passes away. But for now, I can sort of understand her point. If she truly had nothing to do with the murders, she shouldn't be part of the lawsuit, right, But I guess she could leave her money to someone else, a charitable cause or yeah, a distant family member. Right. In September twenty twenty three, the Rodent family dropped the lawsuit, but only temporarily until all the criminal cases are wrapped up. Their attorney has said they definitely plan to refile the lawsuit.

47:28 These part of people like they've had to wait so long for justice, and really I don't think justice has been served, But we'll talk about that the Yeah. An update on the children involved in this case. Brunley rode In, the son of Frankie Roden, who was three at the time of the killings, is living with his mother in Portsmouth, Ohio. Bulvin Wagner, the son of George Wagner and his ex wife, Tabitha, is now eleven and living in with Portsmouth, Ohio. With Tabitha, she has remarried and has two other children. If there is any silver life in the case, it's that Tabitha again has custody of her son, after she'd previously been tricked into giving George full custody. Ruger Rodin, the son of Frankie Rodin and Hannah Gilly, was six months old at the time of the slayings.

48:13 He was found physically unharmed, lying between his mom and dad. His whereabouts have not been disclosed to maintain his privacy, but Hannah Gilly's mother has confirmed that Ruger is still in her life. Kylie, Hannah May's daughter, is only four days old and lying by her mother when she was killed. If you recall, Kylie's praternity was uncertain. Jake Wagner believed that Kylie was his, but she had also been seeing Charlie Gilly and Cory Holdren. Two months after the murders, Jake, Charlie, and Corey all took paternity test and it was determined that Charlie is the father who was raising Kylie, who is eight years old now, has not been disclosed. Sophia Wagner, the daughter of Jake Wagner and Hannah may Roden, was two and a half years old when her mom was murdered by her father. Her whereabouts and who has custody of her have also not been disclosed. Tony Rodin has said quote, she is very well taken care of breaking little kids who went through all this, And I'm sure they were traumatized by what they saw and experienced and losing their losing their parents and breaks my heart as you know that people don't think about the kids before they come at these crimes. What if we're caught, what happens to Sophia? Like, no one wins? Yeah, exactly. I have a few questions for you. First, we've talked a little bit about some of these, But do you think that the prosecution would have been able to get convictions without Jake and Angela flipping? I think I have just thinks

49:45 yes, I'm just so angry that Jake and Angela got a plea deal. I think, out of everyone involved in this case, Jake should not have gotten a plea deal. Yeah, he pulled the trigger on five of the eight murders, right, and it seems like he, I mean, even according to his own story, he was the main planner of the whole thing. Yeah, right, and it's I think that George and oh, what's the da name of Billy? Billy? I mean, they were definitely culpable, but it is sort of like backwards And this was actually my next question was are you surprised that Jake and Angela were the ones to take a deal and not Billy and George, because usually you think it's the it's the lower the lower people on the planning rung. Yeah, and so it was really surprising that the prosecution decided to take this course because well, as you pointed out many times, you did a great job in this case, which is super confusing by the way, that Angela and Jake were kind of selfish and they were controlling. So it's not surprising that they were the ones that would take the plea deal, right, But they wanted to take charge of their own fate and their own you know, yeah, trials and everything. So but they're all horrible. They're all horrible. They're all I mean, I don't think any of them are redeemable. Any one of them could have said, this is horrible, we should not be murdering eight people, and they were so arbitrary about it too. Well, if any if anyone is there

51:15 that shouldn't be they should die too. Yeah, exactly. It's almost shocking that they didn't kill the little ones. Yeah, a little bit. So. Jake and George are both going to get life in prison without parole. Billy has not gone to trial yet, but I would imagine he will be found guilty. We'll have to wait and see. Angela will get thirty years. Do you think do you think their sentences are just It's hard to say. We talk about this a lot, like I'm not really an advocate of the death penalty, but in cases like this, where it's like eight people, you wiped out a whole family, total, cold blood, planned, premeditative, what do you think? I think? Well, I think the death penalty question is a separate question altogether. I think life and prison without parole is certainly the minimum that Jake and George and Billy, in my opinion, should get. Angela I think got off easy. Thirty I mean thirty years is a lot. You know, she's going to be in her seventies if she gets out. But still, it's just that's not enough for what I think. She played a key role in it. She was the boss of the family. I can't believe she didn't play a pivotal role and she could have put a stop to it if nothing else. Yeah, it seems like they enjoy the planning and the murdering. It's just it's a horrible story.

52:34 It really is horrible. The one other thing I wanted to mention is a lot of people when they hear about this case, they think of it like a Hatfield and McCoy type of family feud, because it's definitely takes place in the appellation. But it's really not. I mean the fact these families were they got along great together, they were friends. There's photos of them at weddings together. Chris Senior and Billy were friends. They worked together on their drugs. Treat your friends, how do you treat your enemies? Well, I mean, yeah, but that is one of the bizarre things about the story, though, is that these people were allegedly friends with the Rodent family and they're like, let's kill them all just so we can. Well, you did a great job talking about the family and how they were very inclusive. They did everything together, they planned everything together. So makes it make a little more sense, like family before everyone else. Yeah, I guess so, but it still is just so incomprehensible. So do they talk to each other? Do they communicate at all? I do not know.

53:34 That is a very good question. I want to say. I read something about one of them writing letters and the other not responding, but I can't remember. I might be thinking of a different case. I would guess that George and Billy they have no reason not to talk, right right, And Angela and Jake they might also have a similar like oh we both Yeah, that would make sense. I think about this a lot. If you're in prison for a horrible crime like this, wake up every morning regretting what you did? Do you wake up every morning with the resolve like I did the right thing? What do you think? I'm sure it's different for different people, but I would sure hope that you wake up every morning regretting what you did and a chance to redo it. Yeah. I can't imagine if you are the wagoners, that you wake up thinking that was a great idea, worked out great, you know, I mean, nobody won in this case.

54:28 Rest in peace to all the victims of this horrible crime. Chris Rodin Senior, Dana Roden, their kids, Frankie, Hannah May and Chris Junior, Kenneth Roden, Gary Roden, and Hannah Gilly, and I really hope the surviving children Bolvine, Brentley, Sophia, Ruger and Kylie are all doing well and that they've got the love and the support that they need. All said, so, summer is. We're in the midst of it now, and as always, we're a little bit of procrastinators when it comes to planning family vacations and really bad at planning vacations. Not bad at planning, but I think it's just hard to nail down time. It is because we have two adult children who both have jobs and we're all busy people. So we are thinking about like probably end of August of taking a family vacation, but we haven't decided where yet, so I want to We're also I haven't nailed you down on this, but where you and I are also going to take a trip to I think in the early fall or midfall or yeah, So we have a couple of different trips that we're trying to map out and I think we should talk about ideas of where we can go. And honestly, if our listeners have ideas, I would love to hear ideas because I'm open.

55:46 I have had several or beautiful, wonderful, kind listeners like literally invite us to their homes. So I wasn't really asking for that, but you know, if you have ideas of great places we should go. Yeah, Now, our vacation that we're going to take with the kids is probably only it'll be a week because everybody's schedule is so busy, so it can't be like, you know, super far away. I don't think we can go to Australia and spend We're coming for you to someday Australia. Someday we will make it over there. But I don't know, what do you what do you think? I don't know. Well, our kids definitely said they don't want to go to They don't want a vacation in Michigan. One of my toxic traits is I always want to do the same vacation we did. I'm like, oh, we had such a nice time, let's just do that trip again. Because I really like to go to the same places. I totally understand that, because like if we go to a restaurant and I had something good there once, I always want to get the same thing, you know, you know there's probably other good things. Well in the vacation we took last fall when we went to Massachusetts and that was really nice. Yeah, so I would like to do that. Oh we didn't do it with our kids, though, but they would. I think they would enjoy that.

56:55 I think our kids both might want to go to Maine. Yeah, we've never been to Maine, and that sounds great. In Maine. Yeah, I had the thought that maybe we should go to Iceland because it's actually only a five hour flight. Me better go and start planning that now, because that's already a lot. All right, Well, let us know if you have any great ideas for us on where we should go. Let's go to Paris. We could go to Paris. Let's go see. I really would love to go to the Olympics someday. And I know you have another trip. I have a trip coming to Paris again, that's coinciding day and I told you to stay and go see some I'm still sports. I'm still thinking about it. I may try to do that, but I love the Olympics so much. It just makes me And it's just not like oh Usa go you say. It's just there's so many great stories of athletes who have overcome some horrible circumstances and they work so hard and it's it's amazing to me.

57:50 The will and the spirit. Yeah, I love it too. I definitely do, and I may stay. If I stay, I'll probably go see like table tennis or badminton or something like that. But I don't think there's a bad sport to see, say either. I think it would be cool whatever you end up seeing, but you probably will not be able to get a ticket to women's gymnastics. No, I don't believe we did. We're talking about this last night. But trampoline would be cool. I'll check into that. Yeah, I think you should definitely definitely stay for a little bit of the Olympics if you can. I'll see what I can do. Can We said we were going to rate our snacks and we really didn't do that. No, we did not do because I had too much. There was a lot of snacks. I don't want to do it much time.

58:32 What would you rate the the pork rinds, the Spanish pork rinds. I would give them six. I would give them two. And it's not just because I sorry, Fernando, just because of that. Over No, it's okay, all right. What would you rate the lava cheese? I like that a lot. I would give that a seven. I would give it a I would give it a seven. Took the chocolate bar. It was pretty good. I didn't like it a seven. I didn't like that weird flavor to it, so I would give it a four. Okay. And these hard milk dudy type things. I like to taste of those a lot, but I did not. They were just so hard. I didn't like to chew them, so I would give them a six. I give them an eight. All right, fascinating, fascinating. Well, Please rate, review, follow and subscribe, Find us on Instagram or Facebook, and send us an email at Lovemarykill at gmail dot com. And please consider supporting us on Patreon dot com slash Lovemrykill one tier five dollars a month for early ad free access and a monthly bonus episode. And if you want to send us a snack, or if you want to send us an old fashioned letter, like you know, write a letter You can then send it to LMK podcast po box one one one Dexter, Michigan four eight one three zero. Until next time, don't kill your wife and don't kill your husband to the compat