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Speaker 1: dot com. Welcome to the Piketon Massacre, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. We are here today for the
Speaker 1: kase stand of Ohio versus Charles Reader. Case numbers twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen CR sixty eight The Coroner now Here from mister
Speaker 1: Reer I stand here before you today to take accountability
Speaker 1: for my actions. To accept responsibility for my conduct, I said,
Speaker 1: Sheriff of Ohio, I should excuse me. Everything that I'd
Speaker 1: worked for professionally, in honorably for twenty five years was
Speaker 1: stripped to me with nobody good pointing but myself. If
Speaker 1: I could go back and change it, I would a
Speaker 1: million times. This. This is not who I am. Never
Speaker 1: ever did I imagine myself on the defense side of
Speaker 1: this court route that I've spent twenty five years of
Speaker 1: my life in this county in law enforcement. I am
Speaker 1: a good person, make bad decisions and choices I have,
Speaker 1: and I'm out pray that the work will find mercy
Speaker 1: on me. This is the Piketon Massacre. Returned to Pike
Speaker 1: County season two, episode five, To Protect and Serve. I'm
Speaker 1: Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at Katie Studios with Stephanie
Speaker 1: Laidecker and Jeff Shane. On the morning of April twenty second,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, the Pike County Sheriff's Office responded to calls
Speaker 1: of multiple homicides in what would soon be considered Ohio's
Speaker 1: most notorious mass murder. The bodies of seven adults and
Speaker 1: one sixteen year old boy were found in four different
Speaker 1: locations along a country road in Pike County. We know
Speaker 1: all of these victims all members of the Rodent family.
Speaker 1: The shootings have left the town of Pike and numb
Speaker 1: a lot of unanswered questions as to how this unfolded
Speaker 1: and who is responsible for that. As news of the
Speaker 1: tragedy emerged, the nation turned to the area's top law
Speaker 1: enforcement official for answers, Pike County Sheriff Charlie Reader, to
Speaker 1: give a brief update on what we are doing at
Speaker 1: this time. I have deputies from my county and other
Speaker 1: counties that are keeping the scenes secured. Here's reporter James Pilcher.
Speaker 1: He's the one updating the media. He's the one who
Speaker 1: is available. He's the one when you wanted to ask
Speaker 1: how things are going. He was the one that you call,
Speaker 1: so he began the face of the investigation early on.
Speaker 1: This investigation is very large, one probably the largest in
Speaker 1: Pike County that we've ever had and been a part of.
Speaker 1: It's very tragic. I want everybody to be patient, but
Speaker 1: understand that we are working around the clock, twenty four
Speaker 1: hours a day. But this is going to be a
Speaker 1: very lengthy reporter. Angeinette Levy covered many of readers briefings
Speaker 1: during the course of the road and murder investigation. You know,
Speaker 1: he was out in front of us, standing next to
Speaker 1: the Attorney General at the time, doing press conferences with him,
Speaker 1: and he often became very emotional and people there were
Speaker 1: a lot of people in Pike County who really really
Speaker 1: liked him. You came in like thieves in the night
Speaker 1: and took eight lives, some being children. We are getting closer.
Speaker 1: The family and the victims will have justice one day.
Speaker 1: Charlie Reader, by all accounts, is somebody who grew up
Speaker 1: in Pike County. He did not come from a well
Speaker 1: to do family or anything like that. A lot of
Speaker 1: people out in Pike County or poor. He worked for
Speaker 1: many years for the Pike County Prosecutor, Rob Junk. He
Speaker 1: was his investigator, and at some point Charlie Reader was
Speaker 1: appointed the sheriff by the Democratic Party in Pike County.
Speaker 1: Criminal defense attorney Mike Allen remembered Readers twenty and sixteen
Speaker 1: flight election. He got seventy five percent. It probably got
Speaker 1: twenty five percent. It's pretty unheard of in any kind
Speaker 1: of election, so at one point he was pretty popular sheriff.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of people in the community who
Speaker 1: felt that he did some good things at the sheriff's
Speaker 1: office when he first took over. They felt like he
Speaker 1: was cleaned up crime in the streets. Southern Ohio has
Speaker 1: a very major rug problem with hopioids in methamphetamine and
Speaker 1: fenton al in all of it, and a couple members
Speaker 1: of the community claimed that Reader really was there for
Speaker 1: the family after one of their members that died from
Speaker 1: a drug over those and helped plan a memorial three
Speaker 1: in his honor. So he was very approachable. He was
Speaker 1: out and about in the community much more. Charlie Reader
Speaker 1: branded himself as the people's sheriff. During the height of
Speaker 1: the road and murder investigation, Sheriff Reader's passionate pleas for
Speaker 1: justice earned him the trust of his community as a
Speaker 1: sheriff of Pike County or A three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: six days into this investigation, I've got a message for
Speaker 1: the killers. We will find you, we will arrest you,
Speaker 1: and you will be prosecuted. As this case moved forward,
Speaker 1: the spotlight grew brighter and brighter in that area because
Speaker 1: of this case. And I think he enjoyed the spotlight
Speaker 1: to a degree, and I think he had greater political
Speaker 1: aspirations as well. Here's producer Chris Graves speaking with investigative
Speaker 1: reporter Jodi Barr. He covered the road and murder case
Speaker 1: for Fox News nineteen and Cincinnati. What kind of power
Speaker 1: does a sheriff wield in a community like Pike County.
Speaker 1: He was the closest to the people of Pike County,
Speaker 1: and you see that with a lot of elected officials
Speaker 1: in more rural areas that you know, the sheriff is
Speaker 1: literally the top dog in the county. He is the
Speaker 1: face of law enforcement. He controls what happens with law enforcement,
Speaker 1: where patrols happened. So as far as an elected official,
Speaker 1: as far as a person holding power, your sheriff in
Speaker 1: these areas, he is the man. Can something like that
Speaker 1: go to someone's head? You've worked in law enforcement yourself
Speaker 1: for quite a while. Oh yeah, you see it a
Speaker 1: lot police chiefs or sheriffs, or somebody who's recently promoted
Speaker 1: to a supervisory position. I mean, thank goodness, it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen to a lot of them, but some of them
Speaker 1: it does. Now, whether that happened here or not. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but yeah, that very much could happen. As
Speaker 1: the Road and investigation moved into its second years, some
Speaker 1: disquieting rumors about Sheriff Frieder began to surface. As we
Speaker 1: began to spend more time out there, we started hearing
Speaker 1: the rumblings that there was some corruption out there. We
Speaker 1: had heard rumors about him intimidating people and possibly taking
Speaker 1: money from people who were in the drug dealing business.
Speaker 1: I know, I for one, was told by some of
Speaker 1: my law enforcement sources in the Cincinnati area, Hey, you
Speaker 1: need to be careful around him. He's dirty. And these
Speaker 1: were just people that were my sources who said, you know, look,
Speaker 1: I just want you to be aware, be careful. Was
Speaker 1: it because they were afraid they didn't trust him? They
Speaker 1: did not trust Charlie Reader. There was a rumor that
Speaker 1: he was sexually harassing some female employees when he worked
Speaker 1: at the Ross County Juvenile Detention Center. Records from his
Speaker 1: personnel file said that he wasn't the right fit and
Speaker 1: there were too many questions. He had a lawsuit in
Speaker 1: small claims court in nineteen ninety five and Gallant Police
Speaker 1: for not paying a debt, and there was a warrant
Speaker 1: issued for him, but he ended up paying it. So
Speaker 1: I mean there were some things out there. There appears
Speaker 1: to be two sides of Charlie Reader. One that you know,
Speaker 1: the public sees, and they saw it in these naturally
Speaker 1: televised broadcast press conferences where a reader is very emotional
Speaker 1: talking about these Rodent murders very early on. And then
Speaker 1: there's something you see and Charlie or reader where when
Speaker 1: reader is challenged, you see another side of reader. So
Speaker 1: he's got a very public face and a very private face.
Speaker 1: Then oh yeah. Investigators recently towed vehicles that had been
Speaker 1: parked at the homes where eight members of the Rodent
Speaker 1: family were found shot to death in Pike County, Ohio
Speaker 1: last month. The four mobile homes themselves where the bodies
Speaker 1: were found will be removed from the scene to be
Speaker 1: stored at a location in nearby Waverley. We're going to
Speaker 1: get right out to investigative reporter Jodi Barr live in
Speaker 1: Pike County. While I was in Pike County, I started
Speaker 1: seeing things that I had the question what we found
Speaker 1: at that evidence ware a house where the trailers, the vehicles,
Speaker 1: the equipment that all belonged to the Rodens where the
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office in BCI took that. So we found problems
Speaker 1: with the security of that evidence and the security of
Speaker 1: that warehouse. I'm not an attorney. I've never prosecuted the case.
Speaker 1: I've never collected evidence. But what I do know is
Speaker 1: that evidence that is collected has to be secured. I've
Speaker 1: seen prosecutions lost in court rooms in the States I've
Speaker 1: covered because someone failed to secure one piece of evidence.
Speaker 1: And of course Charlie Reader was so central to what
Speaker 1: we were looking at. He is the man in charge
Speaker 1: that we had to go find him. We scheduled the
Speaker 1: interview and we sat down and we had this conversation
Speaker 1: with Charlie Reader. And I want to say it last
Speaker 1: it's maybe forty five minutes to an hour. And again
Speaker 1: back to watching the two sides of Charlie Reader. You
Speaker 1: had the emotional Charlie Reader early on in the interview
Speaker 1: where he's talking about you know, the Rodents and you
Speaker 1: know what this is done to Pike County. And then
Speaker 1: I broke out an iPad, and on that iPad I
Speaker 1: had visuals the images that I had taken from that
Speaker 1: warehouse of the gate standing wide open, another gate secured
Speaker 1: with a piece of thin wire. You know, days and
Speaker 1: nights of no law enforcement at that warehouse. And I
Speaker 1: think Reader knew during the middle of that interview that
Speaker 1: this was not going to look good when we reported it,
Speaker 1: that what we found there look terrible and it reflected
Speaker 1: on the job he did. So I solved Charlie Reader change,
Speaker 1: but he changed into very defensive and red face. But
Speaker 1: Reader finally admitted that they did not have a deputy
Speaker 1: posted at that warehouse. Watching that avidage twenty four to seven,
Speaker 1: what Schriff Reader did next struck seasoned reporter Jodi barrs troubling.
Speaker 1: Here is Jodie's first hand account of the interaction. So
Speaker 1: the interview ends, and my photographer and I are tearing
Speaker 1: down the equipment and Charlie Reader walks us out the
Speaker 1: front door of the old Sheriff's office in Waverley, and
Speaker 1: we're standing on the port of that Sheriff's office and
Speaker 1: Reader wants to make a deal, and he says, if
Speaker 1: we'll just hold off on airing the report of the
Speaker 1: evidence warehouse and wait until they could return property to
Speaker 1: the family, that Reader would let us in and give
Speaker 1: us full access to him and Charlie Reader's story of
Speaker 1: the first one hundred hours after the Road and murders,
Speaker 1: and I just told him, no, we don't make deals.
Speaker 1: Several months after that report aired, I got messages from
Speaker 1: people in Pike County, one after the other telling me
Speaker 1: that there was a raid underway at this Road and
Speaker 1: Evidence warehouse in Waverley. Well. I dropped everything I was
Speaker 1: doing at Cincinnati and drove the two hours east to
Speaker 1: this warehouse. And when I got there, there they were
Speaker 1: Sheriff Charlie Reader, deputy was with the Pike County Sheriff's
Speaker 1: Office carrying things in and out of this warehouse. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm standing there wondering what is going on here.
Speaker 1: This shouldn't be happening unless if something's happened, we don't
Speaker 1: know about evolving the murders. This was a great public concern,
Speaker 1: but that night Reader would not return my phone calls.
Speaker 1: It was very contentious trying to get information out of
Speaker 1: Pike County, out of the sheriffs office at that point.
Speaker 1: But after that we were never able to access him again.
Speaker 1: Despite Sheriff readers apparent handling of aspects of the Road
Speaker 1: and murder investigation, authorities were able to put the Wagner
Speaker 1: family behind bars in twenty eighteen. However, just weeks later,
Speaker 1: area journalists got word that a different investigation, unrelated to
Speaker 1: the road and murders was underway, one that placed Sheriff
Speaker 1: Charlie Reader on the other side of the law. The
Speaker 1: State Auditor's Office released a document to all of us
Speaker 1: that stated an anonymous tip had come into the Auditor's
Speaker 1: office in which someone stated that everyone was scared to
Speaker 1: death of Reader, that he was basically a monster, and
Speaker 1: investigators needed to look into a safe that was in
Speaker 1: his office that contained money seized in drug deals, and
Speaker 1: it also said something about him possibly gambling and is
Speaker 1: this really wore on? The investigation continued, and then words
Speaker 1: started spreading around Pike County. It really took what was
Speaker 1: going on with Charlie Reader to a whole new level.
Speaker 1: In June of twenty nineteen, a grand jury brought forth
Speaker 1: sixteen charges against Sheriff Charlie Reader. As a result, he
Speaker 1: was suspended from office, bringing his three year ten year
Speaker 1: a sheriff to a close. The indictment laid out details
Speaker 1: of the investigation and his crimes. Reader originally faced several
Speaker 1: counts of theft in office, which is a felony in Ohio,
Speaker 1: as well as tampering with evidence, which is also a
Speaker 1: felony in Ohio. So what happens is that Charlie Reader
Speaker 1: has a pretty sizeable amount of money that he's taken
Speaker 1: from alleged drug dealers in Pike County. Every sheriff, every
Speaker 1: law enforcement agency in the entire country, much less than
Speaker 1: including Ohio, is allowed to seize money from suspects if
Speaker 1: they think that that money or those goods are being
Speaker 1: used in the commission of a crime. Money that was
Speaker 1: seized in drug cases is supposed to be secured in
Speaker 1: a safe or in a bank account or something, and
Speaker 1: you can use him for education and purposes for the
Speaker 1: sheriff's department. You can contribute it to appropriate charities. But
Speaker 1: in these cases, at least on two occasions, the allegation
Speaker 1: was that he took cash and converted it to his
Speaker 1: own use. So the state auditor does their annual review
Speaker 1: of the book. On the first past, the state auditors
Speaker 1: find some money missing out of the seizure account, and
Speaker 1: then they go back the Reader, and apparently he tries
Speaker 1: to put it back, but these that leads to the
Speaker 1: state auditor's office, then diving into getting warrants and diving
Speaker 1: into his personal finance records, they find multiple expenses and
Speaker 1: multiple trips to casinos, both in the area and out
Speaker 1: of state, and tens of thousands of dollars spent to
Speaker 1: casinos impossible debts. The records are pretty clear that showed
Speaker 1: some pretty big losses at the racetrack, and also they
Speaker 1: found that he withdrew more than twenty eight hundred dollars
Speaker 1: from machines at the Atlantic Casino, so it was pretty
Speaker 1: clear it was from gambling. Some of the other allegations
Speaker 1: were that a lot of times in drug cases, cars
Speaker 1: are forfeited, and in a couple of the charges, the
Speaker 1: allegations are that at the auction he rigged it and
Speaker 1: engineered it that either he or friends of his would
Speaker 1: get those vehicles and then turn around and sell them,
Speaker 1: So they were very serious charges. On September twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Sheriff Charles Reader pled guilty to five charges
Speaker 1: filed against him. They included two counts of theft in office,
Speaker 1: two counts of tampering with evidence, and one count of
Speaker 1: conflict of interest. A few months later, he appeared in
Speaker 1: court for sentencing. It was a day that Anteinette Levy
Speaker 1: would not soon forget. What was the mood like through
Speaker 1: all of this? I couldn't believe it. When I got
Speaker 1: out there that morning, the street was blocked off. Are
Speaker 1: members of the US Marshal Service there. The US Marshalls
Speaker 1: Service bomb squad was there. There were sheriff's deputy there.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was quite the operation. There were sniper's
Speaker 1: own roofs. I actually have a photograph of a sniper
Speaker 1: on a roof. And there had been some rumblings online, apparently,
Speaker 1: people encouraging people to show up at the courthouse to
Speaker 1: protest this sentence. There was some fear that people who
Speaker 1: were really hardcore supporters of his might show up and
Speaker 1: try to do something dangerous in order to keep him
Speaker 1: from being sentenced to prison. It was crazy. It had
Speaker 1: never even been like that for a Wagner Court hearing.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break here, we'll be
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Speaker 1: mood was much different. We're here today for starting in
Speaker 1: the case State of Ohio versus Charles Reader, case numbers
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen CR. Sixty eight. Reader had his sentencing in
Speaker 1: front of a visiting judge, Patricia Cosgrove, who had actually
Speaker 1: sentenced three previous Ohio sheriffs on corruption charges. There were
Speaker 1: five charges, and all of those could have gotten him
Speaker 1: more than twelve years in prison. You see Charlie Reader.
Speaker 1: He's sitting in court, sitting beside his defense attorney at
Speaker 1: a table to the left, and at the table to
Speaker 1: the right, the prosecutor who went to the grand jury
Speaker 1: got the indictments against Reader, who got the guilty plea
Speaker 1: from Reader months before. And you see these two tables
Speaker 1: in opposition to one another, and the judges in the center,
Speaker 1: and there's an empty podium in the center, and then
Speaker 1: you see people walk up to that podium, and then
Speaker 1: they start telling these stories of the good deeds Charlie
Speaker 1: Reader did in certain instances around that county. He went
Speaker 1: through one of the most horrendous crimes ever committed in
Speaker 1: our counties. To my memory, what he went through, I
Speaker 1: can't take you, ma'am, the knights, that he went sleepless,
Speaker 1: what his family went through, what it done to his health.
Speaker 1: But I believe in his heart Charlie Reader is a
Speaker 1: good man. As Charlie made mistakes, yes, ma'am, he probably has,
Speaker 1: But in the Bible it says you who are without saying,
Speaker 1: cast the first stone. I couldn't throw many rocks at
Speaker 1: it because I've made mistakes. To the one fact, I know,
Speaker 1: Charlie was a man you could count on when you
Speaker 1: needed him, and I would vote for him today just
Speaker 1: as sure as I'm standing here as God is my witness.
Speaker 1: After these people have said what they said, you see
Speaker 1: a Reader walk up to the podium and including now
Speaker 1: here fon mister Reader. You know he's a emotional, he's
Speaker 1: in tears, and he's asking the judge for mercy to
Speaker 1: be lenient with him in finacy. This is where he
Speaker 1: is laying it all out and asking the State of
Speaker 1: Ohio for mercy. I said, bad light on the office
Speaker 1: of sheriff. I can only ask that my staff, their families,
Speaker 1: the community, and my family who is here today, we'll
Speaker 1: forgive me for the undooced dress I callstim I have
Speaker 1: and I'm out prayed that the quirk will lay mercy
Speaker 1: on me. I have no words for the shame that
Speaker 1: I have and that I feel in the regret that
Speaker 1: I have betrayed and just playing the trust if I
Speaker 1: had with my staff in the community. Please do not
Speaker 1: send me to prison. I have rolled, but I'm not runned.
Speaker 1: I still have a lot of good left, did me.
Speaker 1: During the proceedings, details of readers crimes were illuminated. The
Speaker 1: state would note that the defendant was an elected county
Speaker 1: sheriff who committed these crimes in his position as a
Speaker 1: county sheriff. He used his position to obtain control over
Speaker 1: the evidence bags and then use that control to remove
Speaker 1: the funds and use them for his own benefit. The
Speaker 1: majority of the funds involved were removed from the four
Speaker 1: evidence bags cut open by defendant fourteen thousand seven hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy five dollars was removed prior to the defendant
Speaker 1: and his attorney turning those bags over to investigators for
Speaker 1: the Auditor States Office. The different currency new in many
Speaker 1: cases uncirculated bills were put into the currency bags, so
Speaker 1: that restitution would have been taken care of at that point. Additionally,
Speaker 1: there's a total of four thousand, eight hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: dollars outstanding, three thousand, five hundred from the purchase of
Speaker 1: the Nissan Diversa, which was the profit made by the
Speaker 1: sheriff on that transaction, three hundred and fifty dollars owed
Speaker 1: to the purchase people who purchased the Chevy Silverado, and
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars which the state says never made it
Speaker 1: into the evidence bag. So Judge Patricia Cosgrove, she has
Speaker 1: a reputation for being very tough on sheriffs in Ohio
Speaker 1: who have been engaged in corruption, and she has no nonsense,
Speaker 1: and she questioned reader from the bench. During the judges questioning,
Speaker 1: Sheriff Rider did his best to explain his moral motivation
Speaker 1: behind his actions. Why did you cut open these evidence
Speaker 1: envelopes and take the money out? And then in some
Speaker 1: cases you put it back, although you were caught because
Speaker 1: the envelopes had been unsealed and sealed again improperly, and
Speaker 1: the denominations did not match what was taken at the
Speaker 1: crime scene or from those individuals. I guess why did
Speaker 1: you take the money. I took the money, and mind you,
Speaker 1: this does not excuse it, but from drug dealers that
Speaker 1: took it from parents, very poor people in this count.
Speaker 1: That money, regardless of what the state and what the
Speaker 1: media has claimed in the past years of a gambling problem,
Speaker 1: and that money being used for gambling, was used. When
Speaker 1: there was a tree planted in the name of the
Speaker 1: shopman Boy. It's at the entrance of Western High School
Speaker 1: to the left. As soon as you pull in. Nobody
Speaker 1: can pay for that tree. Nobody offered to pay for
Speaker 1: that tree. A drug diller did. When schools had cheerleading
Speaker 1: or peewee that had car washes and such, I would
Speaker 1: have our cruisers taken down there. My men and women
Speaker 1: did not make good money, so some of them would
Speaker 1: give them two dollars five dollars. I took money from
Speaker 1: that and I provided it to those people. In the PSI,
Speaker 1: the prec Ends Investigation, the PSI officer notes, there's no
Speaker 1: documentation that you used it for those things, right, I
Speaker 1: did not document those things. He didn't produce any receipts
Speaker 1: to back these claims up, and there's a really strict
Speaker 1: process by which those sements are tracked, and you have
Speaker 1: to produce an accounting of all of that money. So
Speaker 1: he claimed that he was essentially a robin hood. The
Speaker 1: judge certainly didn't believe it. But then the judge started
Speaker 1: asking and questions about gambling. There were a couple of
Speaker 1: times that Judge Cosgrove all the econom in a line,
Speaker 1: and she sounded very, very skeptical. Let's stop here for
Speaker 1: another quick break. We'll be back in a moment. At times,
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Speaker 1: the Hunday two. Soon it's your journey. Did you lose
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars gambling at the Sciota downs Rocino between
Speaker 1: June two thousand and seventeen in September two thousand and seventeen, Yes,
Speaker 1: not by myself. They have cards and of course, beginning
Speaker 1: your honor of guilty to this, but they have cards
Speaker 1: that you put in a machine. I can have a
Speaker 1: card in my name, and I can have a card
Speaker 1: in my name that my wife possesses, so I could
Speaker 1: be at one machine and she can be at the other,
Speaker 1: and the money that she spends and the money that
Speaker 1: I spend they count on the same card and calculating
Speaker 1: the money as one well, obviously, and that doesn't answer
Speaker 1: the question where did the money and the checking account
Speaker 1: come from. Okay. Also, I want to ask you, in
Speaker 1: late June two and seventeen, you took a trip to Reno,
Speaker 1: Nevada for the Sheriff's conference, and then you withdrew twenty
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars a ATM. The state believes that some
Speaker 1: of this shouldue to gambling. I mean you're talking like
Speaker 1: over or almost six thousand dollars and a couple months
Speaker 1: that you lost are expended on gambling. And at that
Speaker 1: point we were making almost eleven thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 1: And that again was from my checking account where it
Speaker 1: should show my direct deposits, my wife direct deposits, and
Speaker 1: that it came from our devot cards where I retrieved
Speaker 1: that money. I don't doubt it came from debit cards.
Speaker 1: The question is where did the money come when to
Speaker 1: your checking account? And that's I guess that's that's that's
Speaker 1: where that's where the media reported that I had marital
Speaker 1: problems because it came from our joint bank account. My
Speaker 1: wife made very good money at the time, and I
Speaker 1: took that money and I gambled. Okay, all right, um,
Speaker 1: that's all the questions of court. Has she really let
Speaker 1: him have it? She took no grief from him whatsoever.
Speaker 1: It cannot be underestimated the damage that you have paused
Speaker 1: to the citizens of Pike County, to law enforcement who
Speaker 1: every day get up face the same sort of stresses
Speaker 1: that you do. They go all home and night, they
Speaker 1: get up in the morning, they don't know if they're
Speaker 1: going to come home. The sacrifices that these men and
Speaker 1: women at make, I think you've made a mockery of them.
Speaker 1: I couldn't have imposed a much greater sentence than I have.
Speaker 1: As I said, I've taken a consideration some of the
Speaker 1: mitigating factors, but punishment is appropriate. To sentence you to
Speaker 1: I considered the minimum. However, to sentence you to anything
Speaker 1: less than three years in prison would demean the seriousness
Speaker 1: of the offense and not adequately protects society from future
Speaker 1: criminal conduct by yourself and honors. The judge handed him
Speaker 1: three years, and Reader walked out of that courtroom and
Speaker 1: into a jail cell to pay for throwing away his career,
Speaker 1: embarrassing himself, and embarrassing his family. Do you think he
Speaker 1: became a victim of his own power? He said, A
Speaker 1: sheriff in that county like that is top dog right,
Speaker 1: maybe he started feeling he was above the law. You know,
Speaker 1: in fifteen years of doing this job, looking at people
Speaker 1: like Charlie Reader in multiple states with multiple different schemes
Speaker 1: of crimes being committed, there's a trend with just sheriffs
Speaker 1: in general where a lot of them get in trouble.
Speaker 1: Is it because they feel so powerful and untouchable? I
Speaker 1: don't know, But man, when you look at it in
Speaker 1: the final analysis, what we have here is a guy
Speaker 1: in Pike County who had the county by a string,
Speaker 1: who had the trust of people who live in that county.
Speaker 1: So is it power? I don't know. All that I
Speaker 1: know at this point is you had an elected official
Speaker 1: who makes them pretty bad decisions and he's paying for it. Now,
Speaker 1: have you gotten a sense what the implications might be
Speaker 1: for the Wagner cases. That Reader is now going to
Speaker 1: jail their early facing the investigation is now in prison.
Speaker 1: For whether or not that had anything to do with
Speaker 1: the actual investigation, no one knows. But if I'm a
Speaker 1: defense attorney, all I gotta do is throw up that
Speaker 1: smokescreen at some point and see what happens. And if
Speaker 1: I'm a prosecutor, I'm thinking Okay, I need to have
Speaker 1: a contingency plan to how to answer this. If you're
Speaker 1: the defense, I'm assuming you will bring it up in court.
Speaker 1: You'll point to that if the judge allows it and say,
Speaker 1: you know, how can you trust this investigation. This man
Speaker 1: was out there on the scene that morning. I think
Speaker 1: it makes people in the county question what's really going
Speaker 1: on there? Well, we wait to see how Sheriff Freeder's
Speaker 1: conviction will impact the Wagner trials. One journalist continues to
Speaker 1: grapple with the legacy of the Rodent family murders, a
Speaker 1: story that forever changed her life more than five years ago.
Speaker 1: More on that next time. For more information on the
Speaker 1: case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kat
Speaker 1: Underscore Studios. The Pikedon Massacre Return to Pike County is
Speaker 1: executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing
Speaker 1: and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional producing
Speaker 1: by Jeff Shane, Andrew Becker and Chris Graves. The Pikedon
Speaker 1: Massacre Returned to Pike County is a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
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