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Speaker 1: at curiosity stream dot com. Welcome to the Piked and Massacre,
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. Episode seven four
Speaker 1: thousand miles away. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at
Speaker 1: Katie's Studios with Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane. After the
Speaker 1: Roden family was brutally gunned down in their homes, authorities
Speaker 1: embarked in what would become the largest homicide investigation in
Speaker 1: Ohio's history. Over the course of the cases first year,
Speaker 1: law enforcement officers began compiling a staggering amount of clues
Speaker 1: that they hoped would lead to the killers. Ohio Attorney
Speaker 1: General Mike Dwine giving an update in the Pike County murderers.
Speaker 1: You've received eight hundred and eighty three tips. We have
Speaker 1: conducted four hundred and sixty five interviews, Jewine says. There
Speaker 1: have also been thirty eight search warrants issued, but so
Speaker 1: far new arrest. I think that you know, we made
Speaker 1: significant progress. But by early twenty seventeen, the evidence that
Speaker 1: authorities had collected was pointing them to where it's one
Speaker 1: group of people, in particular the Wagner family. That spring,
Speaker 1: with the case heating up, the Wagners decided to leave
Speaker 1: the piked In area with Jake Wagner and Hannah Rodin's
Speaker 1: daughter Sophia until they sold their farm packed up their
Speaker 1: belongings and drove four thousand miles north to Kenaie, Alaska,
Speaker 1: a city of about eight thousand people southwest of Anchorage.
Speaker 1: It was a move that Wagner relative Deray not only encouraged,
Speaker 1: but conceived of. They had been wanting to move to
Speaker 1: Alaska for a while because the pastor of the church
Speaker 1: moved there. He's very important headstone and their family. I'm
Speaker 1: the one that told him go to Alaska. Number One,
Speaker 1: the state of Ohio can not afford to extradite you
Speaker 1: from Alaska back home. I just thought it was the
Speaker 1: greatest that they took off. I said, that's the best
Speaker 1: thing in the world for the kids, and it's the
Speaker 1: best thing in the world for you guys. The family
Speaker 1: quickly got settled in Keenei. They lived together in a
Speaker 1: double white trailer on a large piece of property. Billy
Speaker 1: and Angela even registered to vote. Jeff talked to one
Speaker 1: of the Wagner's family relatives who kept in touch with
Speaker 1: them while they were in Alaska. She asked us not
Speaker 1: to use her name, but told us about their life
Speaker 1: once they arrived. What was their life like in Alaska. Well,
Speaker 1: Jake has got a job. It was a construction type business.
Speaker 1: Angela didn't work. I think she might have done some
Speaker 1: things from like home over the internet or something like that.
Speaker 1: And Bill, I'm not sure what he did exactly, but
Speaker 1: they did have it very nice home in Alaska that
Speaker 1: they were in the process of trying to buy from
Speaker 1: what I understand anyways, and Jake he had Sophie at
Speaker 1: the time, and they just kind of work getting by.
Speaker 1: The Wagner's sudden departure left the whole town of piked
Speaker 1: and bewildered and suspicious. Dana Roden's friend Stefane remembers the
Speaker 1: day she heard the news. She shared her thoughts with
Speaker 1: Jeff Well, when they left for Alaska, I was like, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: they are gonna they are running, you know, they are running.
Speaker 1: And then I thought they all get away with it
Speaker 1: if they did this, if they did this, they will
Speaker 1: get away with it. Or people talking about the Wagoners, like,
Speaker 1: was the feeling that they might have been guilty or
Speaker 1: what were people thinking or speculating in town. M Yeah,
Speaker 1: they pretty much thought that, you know, that was the
Speaker 1: that was the deal. They were running from it. But
Speaker 1: the Wagoner's relocation didn't hinder the investigation. According to reporter
Speaker 1: James Pilcher, it only helped to move the case forward.
Speaker 1: They moved to Alaska, which raised even more suspicion. But
Speaker 1: then the very following month, law enforcement actually finally searches
Speaker 1: the properties where the Wagoners lived. So that was really
Speaker 1: the first public indication that the Wagoners were possible suspects,
Speaker 1: if not people of interest, So that started to tighten
Speaker 1: the noose in terms of the Wagoners. On June six,
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, as the investigation pressed on, Attorney General Mike
Speaker 1: Dwine appealed to the public for information connecting the Wagners
Speaker 1: to the crime. Investigators want any information about the family,
Speaker 1: including information about vehicles, guns, and ammunition. Anyone with information
Speaker 1: is asked to call the pieces. Investigative journalists Jodie Barr
Speaker 1: recalled to the Attorney General's announcement. Other than being on
Speaker 1: the ground in Pike County and hearing the Waggoner's names
Speaker 1: come up from time to time and you had no
Speaker 1: verifiable leads or you would exhaust all leads, that was
Speaker 1: the first time that anything was said in public from
Speaker 1: anybody with this investigation that they may have people that
Speaker 1: they were looking at and who potentially had something to
Speaker 1: do with this, and at that time, no one knew
Speaker 1: the extent of the involvement that the investigators believed the
Speaker 1: Waggoners may have had. It was just they were asking
Speaker 1: for help, and that seems really strange. But it also
Speaker 1: on the other end, it connected some of the pieces
Speaker 1: that we had heard in the beginning, you know, that
Speaker 1: maybe gave more weight to the custody issues that we
Speaker 1: were trying to dig into before. But it was still
Speaker 1: just it was still confusing that they would come out
Speaker 1: and say that and no arrest made, no indictments made,
Speaker 1: but yet they were asking for help to identify. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not unusual that they would just kind of like
Speaker 1: blatantly say a name and be like, does anyone know
Speaker 1: anything about this person who's not an official suspect or
Speaker 1: someone we've arrested. Even it's just confusing, and I would
Speaker 1: love to ask now, Governor Mike DeWine, you know why
Speaker 1: they played it the way they played it? You know,
Speaker 1: did they know what they needed to know? Then? Were
Speaker 1: they trying to have the Wagners make a misstep when
Speaker 1: they announced this to the world. Mike DeWine's press release
Speaker 1: prompted the Wagner's family attorney John K. Clark, to accuse
Speaker 1: law enforcement of harassing his clients. Here's Jeff, followed by Stephanie.
Speaker 1: In a statement to the Cincinnati Inquired, the lawyers said
Speaker 1: that the authorities were clueless and competent, or they themselves
Speaker 1: were involved in a cover up. In short, his clients
Speaker 1: were innocent. That's because, according to Clark, the Wagners were
Speaker 1: cooperating with officials and had provided authorities with everything they
Speaker 1: had asked for, including laptops, phones, and DNA willingly, and
Speaker 1: they also agreed to repeated interviews with the Ohio Bureau
Speaker 1: of Criminal Investigation. Clark even said that the Wagners told
Speaker 1: BCI agents that they were in fact moving. I spoke
Speaker 1: with former Ohio Prosecutor Mike Allen about the legal implications
Speaker 1: of the Wagner's cooperation. What about the Wagners and their
Speaker 1: compliance with authorities? I know their lawyer has said they've
Speaker 1: cooperated one hundred and ten percent. Can you talk through
Speaker 1: the details of that, sure? I mean, from what I understand,
Speaker 1: they did turn over some things laptops, phones that they
Speaker 1: submitted to DNA, giving examplars which it could be compelled
Speaker 1: to do anyway. Some of them at least were interviewed
Speaker 1: by Ohio BCI agents, and I guess they told those
Speaker 1: agents that they were traveling and about to move to Atlanska,
Speaker 1: and they claimed they had been thinking about that for
Speaker 1: a long time. So yeah, I mean, from what I
Speaker 1: can see, there was some cooperation. But whether it was
Speaker 1: one hundred and ten percent, I don't know. And frankly
Speaker 1: I doubt because that rarely happens. Does that do anything
Speaker 1: when it comes to juries, you know, does that hold sway?
Speaker 1: It can you know in closing argument that the defense
Speaker 1: lawyer could stand up and say to the jury, my client,
Speaker 1: you know, he cooperated one hundred and ten percent, you know,
Speaker 1: meaning that he has nothing to hide. The Cincinnati Inquirer
Speaker 1: even tracked the family down in Alaska in July of
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. In a published article, Jake Wagner said that
Speaker 1: he had moved to give Sophia a better life. This
Speaker 1: is Jodi Barr again. The Cincinnati Inquirer obviously went there
Speaker 1: and they found them. I mean, it was they didn't
Speaker 1: try to slip off in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: It didn't seem I mean, if a reporter could find
Speaker 1: them then obviously law enforcements knew very much where they
Speaker 1: were at that point in time. I mean, as far
Speaker 1: as a level of cooperation, we haven't heard anything yet
Speaker 1: that said the Waggoners weren't cooperating with the law enforcements.
Speaker 1: Did they do it? We want to know now. Obviously
Speaker 1: everybody wants to know right now, and you don't let
Speaker 1: the process play out. But man, if they're cooperating, as
Speaker 1: this attorney says, they're giving over computers, a laptop, you know, DNA,
Speaker 1: whatever it takes. You know, people who aren't experts of criminology,
Speaker 1: we look at that and go, well, man, that sounds
Speaker 1: like an innocent person. An innocent person will be doing that.
Speaker 1: Despite their involvement in a very large and very active
Speaker 1: murder investigation. The Wagners were trying to start a new
Speaker 1: life in Alaska and didn't seem to have any intention
Speaker 1: of returning. Here's our anonymous Wagner family source. When I
Speaker 1: would ask to answers, how thanks going, you know, when
Speaker 1: are you say come back and visit or and so forth,
Speaker 1: she was kind of just really backwards about it. She
Speaker 1: never would really tell me what they were doing. She
Speaker 1: never really said when she would be back home to visit,
Speaker 1: just that she misses us, you know, and that she
Speaker 1: would love to be able to come home, but right
Speaker 1: now she can't, and that she made the comment or
Speaker 1: and said that if she did get to come back,
Speaker 1: that she couldn't tell me over the phone, that she
Speaker 1: would just basically have to show up, and that once
Speaker 1: she made it here, then she would contacting me and
Speaker 1: letting me know, but that she didn't, you know, want
Speaker 1: to botch people to find out about it. In Alaska,
Speaker 1: the family went about life as normal. They tried to
Speaker 1: fit into the local community and became regular parishioners at
Speaker 1: the local church. Their pastor even described them to the
Speaker 1: Dayton Daily News as quote good country people. We reached
Speaker 1: out to the pastor, who declined to speak with us.
Speaker 1: It was at this same church that Jake Wagner was
Speaker 1: introduced to another churchgoer, Elizabeth Armor. The couple dated for
Speaker 1: several months, and then in March twenty eighteen, they got married.
Speaker 1: This is Jodi Barr. I've seen you know people I
Speaker 1: know lost his spouse. You know they're married again six months.
Speaker 1: If he's innocent and he got remarried, he wanted to
Speaker 1: carry on with his life, and you know, maybe that's it.
Speaker 1: But if he really is guilty of having a hand
Speaker 1: and killing eight people and one of those being the
Speaker 1: mother of his own child, and then he enters into
Speaker 1: valves with another woman within months of that, pooh, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know what kind of person you're
Speaker 1: dealing with. Here here's Stephanie talking about what she learned
Speaker 1: by looking at Elizabeth Armour's Facebook posts. She took to
Speaker 1: Facebook to let the world know just how dangerous being
Speaker 1: involved with the Wagners could be. Elizabeth said in one
Speaker 1: of her posts that God told her to come forward
Speaker 1: about her relationship with Jake Wagner. According to her posts,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth met Jake through the church and then was encouraged
Speaker 1: to get to know him by her pastor. But she
Speaker 1: maintained that she had no idea that the Wagners were
Speaker 1: involved in such a large murder investigation, and when that
Speaker 1: news of the Rodent massacre came up, the pastor had
Speaker 1: vouched for the Wagoners, telling her that the charges were
Speaker 1: just slander against the family. However, in another post, she
Speaker 1: said she wanted to just be a mother to Sophia,
Speaker 1: but that she ended up marrying her worst nightmare. All
Speaker 1: of those posts have since been taken down. We've tried
Speaker 1: to find her and contact her directly, and she's literally
Speaker 1: nowhere to be found. Then, in the spring of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: two years after the Rodents were killed, the Wagner shocked
Speaker 1: everyone again, this time by returning to the piked In area.
Speaker 1: Our Wagner family relative explained why they decided to come
Speaker 1: home from what I like, I said, I have understood
Speaker 1: just from a little bit of that I thought to
Speaker 1: Angela and then our family and jenneral talking. They had
Speaker 1: came back home because built family father got sick and
Speaker 1: they couldn't afford they were losing what's that home and
Speaker 1: everything they had there in Alaska. So basically just like
Speaker 1: it was a handful of that type of stuff. So
Speaker 1: they decided that they were going to come back down
Speaker 1: here and they were just gonna get everything basically situated here.
Speaker 1: Once that happened, and once they got back on their feet,
Speaker 1: basically then they were planning to go back. They wanted
Speaker 1: to go back. Angela wanted to go back there. She
Speaker 1: made that clear to her father multiple times that that
Speaker 1: was going to be in place that they were. They
Speaker 1: were really looking forward. She lived in and just wanted
Speaker 1: to be there, but they had a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: that they still had to take care of in order
Speaker 1: so that to happen. The move seemed to baffle everyone
Speaker 1: and piked in Here's local resident Auntie. If you think
Speaker 1: about it, the Wagners were scott free. They went to Alaska.
Speaker 1: They could have took off and nobody could have ever
Speaker 1: seen them again ever. But they came back here. Came
Speaker 1: back now the way that I am. I would never
Speaker 1: do that. But if I had pulled something off like
Speaker 1: that and got away into that long and went to Alaska,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm packing my ship and I'm hitting the woods,
Speaker 1: and nobody's ever going to see me again, I'm sure
Speaker 1: the hell not going to come back. The only way
Speaker 1: I would come back is if I thought my ass covered.
Speaker 1: Upon returning to Peyton, the Wagoners tried to fly under
Speaker 1: the radar and return to life as normal, but our
Speaker 1: Wagner family relative told Jeff that their homecoming was anything
Speaker 1: but welcome. When they came back, were people kind of
Speaker 1: like has the story died down? Or were people like, oh,
Speaker 1: the Wagoners are back. It was probably quiet for about
Speaker 1: I don't know two or three weeks at that, and
Speaker 1: then everybody toned out that they were back in town,
Speaker 1: and they just absolutely tortured daily. Everybody had started basically
Speaker 1: attacking then the community, accusing them of murdering those paul
Speaker 1: Like if they were in town and people identified um
Speaker 1: their vehicle, they would throw pot bottles at them. Angela
Speaker 1: had actually went into a store one day and some
Speaker 1: woman had actually flewed up behind Angela as she was
Speaker 1: coming back out of the store and through a glass
Speaker 1: key bottle after and it busted her in the back.
Speaker 1: She was constantly getting it was less than right, like
Speaker 1: anybody that knew them, or that knew our family, Like
Speaker 1: where we lived, and there was a handful of people
Speaker 1: that had drove by my house and then they were
Speaker 1: throwing stuff because I lived kind of right on the
Speaker 1: highway and my house is very easy to spot. I
Speaker 1: have no privacy, so when they I was getting trash,
Speaker 1: people were throwing their trash out in my yard, in
Speaker 1: my driveway. They were trying to hit us while we
Speaker 1: were me and my son at the time. You know,
Speaker 1: they were just doing my workplace. My vehicle was parked
Speaker 1: outside and my vehicle got keyed. They had, of course
Speaker 1: through ange on it all that type of stuff, wrote
Speaker 1: murderer on it. What I had absolutely nothing to do
Speaker 1: with any of that. As things began to unravel for
Speaker 1: the Wagner's law enforcement was tightening up the case against
Speaker 1: the family. It seemed like it was only a matter
Speaker 1: of time before they were arrested. Investigators now believe there
Speaker 1: were multiple attackers, as according to information from the Ohio
Speaker 1: Attorney General's office. The Ohio Attorney General says the investigation
Speaker 1: is progressing. Wine adds his office knows a lot more
Speaker 1: about what goes on in those Pike County hills. Now
Speaker 1: we know a lot more today. Have we cracked the phase?
Speaker 1: Have we come up with enough evidence to arrest someone
Speaker 1: and get them convicted? No, we have not, But we
Speaker 1: made the rogress. Oh yeah, we made a lot of progress.
Speaker 1: On Halloween of twenty eighteen, authorities conducted yet another search
Speaker 1: on a Wagner family property, this time a farm formerly
Speaker 1: owned by Jake and George Wagner. During that raid, investigators
Speaker 1: uncovered a homemade silencer at the bottom of a well.
Speaker 1: It would seem to be the final piece of the
Speaker 1: puzzle for investigators. As we discussed in great detail in
Speaker 1: episode two. On November thirteenth, Angela and Billy Wagner, and
Speaker 1: their two sons, Jake and George Wagner, were arrested for
Speaker 1: the murders of eight members of the Rodent family. Can
Speaker 1: hear one We had major developments tonight in a bazaar
Speaker 1: in tragic murder case. He took two and a half years,
Speaker 1: but arrests have finally been made in the Pike County massacre.
Speaker 1: George Billy Wagner the third, he's forty seven. Also forty
Speaker 1: eight year old Angela Wagner, twenty seven year old George
Speaker 1: Wagner the fourth, and twenty six year old Edward Jake
Speaker 1: Wagner are now facing charges. The Attorney General announced two
Speaker 1: more arrests of people accused of being involved in Angela's mother,
Speaker 1: Rita Nuga and Billy's mother Fredrika. We're also arrested today
Speaker 1: in conjunction with the cover up of these crops. We're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break here. We'll be back
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Speaker 1: Go to curiosity stream dot com to satisfy your curiosity
Speaker 1: and sign up today. Angela, Billy Jake, and George Wagner
Speaker 1: were charged with aggravated murder. Angela Wagner's mother Rita Joe
Speaker 1: Nukam and Billy Wagner's mother, Frederica were both charged with
Speaker 1: obstruction of justice and perjury. Nucombe was also charged with forgery.
Speaker 1: All six of them pled not guilty, and our justice
Speaker 1: system presumes innocence until guilt is proven at first blush,
Speaker 1: it seems far fetched to believe that these two grandmothers
Speaker 1: had a part in conspiring to pull off Ohio's largest
Speaker 1: mass murder. Jeff spoke with Mike Allen about the charges
Speaker 1: against Frederica Wagner. Frederica has been charged with the obstruction
Speaker 1: of justice and perjury, So how do you explain that
Speaker 1: to someone who, like me, who's never been to law
Speaker 1: school or doesn't know what it means. Well, perjury is
Speaker 1: pretty simple under Ohio law. It just basically says that
Speaker 1: you cannot knowingly make a false statement in an official
Speaker 1: proceeding while you are under oath. It's real simple. And
Speaker 1: the obstructing justice is pretty simple as well. Ohio law
Speaker 1: provides that you can't, with purpose to hinder the discovery, apprehension,
Speaker 1: or prosecution of a person, do anything that would assist
Speaker 1: someone in doing that, and that's one that that's charged
Speaker 1: pretty frequently. You don't see perjury charged a lot because
Speaker 1: it's so difficult to prove, but with convicted of both,
Speaker 1: she would be facing four years match. Plainly stated prosecutors
Speaker 1: think Frederica was lying to them and trying to hinder
Speaker 1: the investigation to cover up for her family. We'll get
Speaker 1: into the specifics of her charges later. For now here, Stephanie,
Speaker 1: followed by Jeff We wondered if there was anything in
Speaker 1: Frederica Wagner's past that could have indicated that she would
Speaker 1: be involved in something as gruesome as mass murder. As
Speaker 1: we know, the Wagners were a well known and well
Speaker 1: to do family in the Piketon area, and Frederica Wagner
Speaker 1: was at the helm of this. A self described entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: she owned properties Oliver Pike County that spanned over seventeen
Speaker 1: hundred acres and were valued at more than four million dollars.
Speaker 1: She had also founded two nonprofits, Lucasville Mission, a church
Speaker 1: that helps underprivileged children, and the Crystal Springs Home, a
Speaker 1: facility that provides services to developmentally disabled adults. As we've
Speaker 1: learned throughout the series, Frederica had her detractors as well
Speaker 1: as her supporters in the community. Growing up, Christina Howard
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time with Frederica. In fact, her
Speaker 1: mom worked at the Crystal Springs Home. She was pretty
Speaker 1: well known by everybody, and if she wasn't doing a
Speaker 1: charity or something outside of church since she was doing
Speaker 1: one in church. She owed over two hundred acres of
Speaker 1: land and a lot of people that lived on her
Speaker 1: property that she ranted out to. She would say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, if you come to church, then I won't
Speaker 1: charge you a diamond root. And all she ever asked
Speaker 1: of him was for them to go to church. She
Speaker 1: was always nice to me grown up. She's never yelled
Speaker 1: at me. She's never really told me no. There would
Speaker 1: be times that I would go to work with mom
Speaker 1: and I would just hang out at Freddy's all day
Speaker 1: long while my mom was working, you know, I would
Speaker 1: just hang out, feed the horses, giving masks, rush them.
Speaker 1: She was literally like a grandma to me grown up.
Speaker 1: The Ray paints a similar portrait of Frederica. She told
Speaker 1: us about the pastoral surroundings of her grandmother's Flying w
Speaker 1: farms and her family's legacy in the area. If you
Speaker 1: go to their house, you go eighty eight miles out
Speaker 1: of Cincinnati east on thirty three, and I'm telling you
Speaker 1: you were in the hills, the Appalachian Hills of Ohio
Speaker 1: at this time. Then all of a sudden, you'll see
Speaker 1: something to the right. It looks like a real nice entryway.
Speaker 1: It's flying w farms on it. And you look you
Speaker 1: see a trailer sitting right next to the entrance, a
Speaker 1: nice entrance with wrought iron gates. It's got flying w's
Speaker 1: on it. Then you look aways up you see all
Speaker 1: these little houses, some of them were catteries. And then
Speaker 1: she's got the pighouse, and then she's got the old
Speaker 1: walking horse barn, and then she's got the shop. Then
Speaker 1: you come to her her colonial style home, and it's
Speaker 1: a very homey feeling. When you walk into the home,
Speaker 1: you feel like you're going home. And I see all
Speaker 1: my grandmother's cat like little statues around and pictures of
Speaker 1: the kids on the horses, pictures of all their famous horses.
Speaker 1: She developed a breed of horse called the George and
Speaker 1: Grande that she named after my uncle, which she takes
Speaker 1: no credits for the horses. Is what the driving passion
Speaker 1: was for Frederick and Bold to be together, stay together,
Speaker 1: work together, because that's the problem I think with people
Speaker 1: who get married today. Okay, so it's natural to want
Speaker 1: to have relationships. It's naturally who want to have kids
Speaker 1: when you're young. All those hormones in your head. But
Speaker 1: to keep you together, you better have something solid in
Speaker 1: common that you have to work with together to keep
Speaker 1: your family, leaving them a legacy. And that's what Frederica
Speaker 1: Wagner did for her kids. Her and Bob developed a
Speaker 1: breed of horse. Over years, they have a two thousand
Speaker 1: acre farm. They had three kiads and they left them. See,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not talking about people who are trained murderers.
Speaker 1: We're talking about real people here. They had who had real,
Speaker 1: honest and goodness, godfearing lives. Frederica Wagner's attorney described her
Speaker 1: as a godfearing woman who taught Sunday school for nearly
Speaker 1: half a century and lived about as close to the
Speaker 1: cross as anyone can. We all struggled with this contradiction
Speaker 1: in Frederico Wagner. How could this sweet grandmother, who was
Speaker 1: charitable and kind be involved in any capacity with the
Speaker 1: murder of eight people. So we decided to look a
Speaker 1: little deeper into Pikedon's most giving resident, and what we
Speaker 1: found was not all virtuous. Jodi Barr filled us in
Speaker 1: after the world became familiar with the Wagner family. You know,
Speaker 1: of course, reporters start digging into their backgrounds, and it's
Speaker 1: just some of the things that come out. You learn
Speaker 1: about the business dealings, and you know what Frederica, you know,
Speaker 1: is accused of doing in the past. This is good
Speaker 1: background information to have when you're trying to understand who
Speaker 1: these people are. But I have to say, when I
Speaker 1: was on the ground in Pike County, Ohio, when I
Speaker 1: was hearing their names, when I went by Flying w Farm,
Speaker 1: I mean, it is a peaceful, quaint farm tucked into
Speaker 1: the rolling hills of eastern Ohio. When you drive by there,
Speaker 1: nothing on the surface points to anything that's been alledged
Speaker 1: now that any of the people involved in any of
Speaker 1: this could have been involved in the killing of eight people.
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of investigations, I guess, is that you
Speaker 1: just don't know the whole story until you know the
Speaker 1: whole story. Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll
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Speaker 1: start with Flying W Farms. The farm breeds horses as
Speaker 1: well as dogs and pigs typically found in New Zealand.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen nineties, Frederica got into legal trouble with
Speaker 1: a group of customers surrounding the sale of these pigs.
Speaker 1: Here's Mike Allen again. She was sued by a group
Speaker 1: of customers. I guess the allegation was that her place,
Speaker 1: I think it was the Flying w it didn't meet
Speaker 1: the standards promise for the sale of exotic animals, which
Speaker 1: is interesting. I guess the group said that she defrauded
Speaker 1: them in the sales. They gave them some animals that
Speaker 1: didn't match the advertised description. Dana Rodin's friend Becky told
Speaker 1: Jeff that Flying W Farms had been whispered about and
Speaker 1: piked in for years. At one point in time, you know,
Speaker 1: Frederica was a person to be feared in the county
Speaker 1: because there was always rumors. I don't know exactly what
Speaker 1: all the rumors was, but everybody's like, oh, you don't
Speaker 1: want to get back there by things happen to people
Speaker 1: that go back here. So you know, I stayed away
Speaker 1: from our area. Wait back, where's farm? Because I've always
Speaker 1: heard about things about it, So yeah, I said where
Speaker 1: I would never go piked in local Barbara told Jeff
Speaker 1: about one rumor in particular, they made their money in
Speaker 1: horses and miniature horses. And there's some shady dealings that
Speaker 1: I've heard about going on there, like them stuff and
Speaker 1: the horses with drugs and sending them back and forth
Speaker 1: to Mexico and you know, just awful things like that. Now,
Speaker 1: we obviously can't prove that, but it's worth mentioning because
Speaker 1: it's this type of thing that people in Pike didn't
Speaker 1: like to whisper about. One thing we should talk about
Speaker 1: is this quote unquote life changing rent to own operation
Speaker 1: Frederica Wagner, designed to help lower income residents. Over the decades,
Speaker 1: Frederica Wagner entered into at least one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: two land installment contracts. Now, these contracts basically allowed the
Speaker 1: Wagners to retain deeds on land as buyers attempted to
Speaker 1: pay off the principle and the interest. The idea was
Speaker 1: that if the buyers made all of their payments, they'd
Speaker 1: eventually become landowners, but it rarely played out that way.
Speaker 1: In fact, as it turns out, only twelve of those
Speaker 1: contracts were actually satisfied, twelve out of one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty two. And in looking into all of the deals,
Speaker 1: nearly eighty percent of them were ultimately terminated without a
Speaker 1: corresponding d transfer, and that basically indicates despite somebody making payments,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, the land stayed in
Speaker 1: Frederica Wagner's possession. There are countless examples of soured deals
Speaker 1: just like that, where people really did feel that Frederica
Speaker 1: Wagner took advantage of them. And again, does that mean
Speaker 1: that she was involved with a mass murder, of course not,
Speaker 1: but it does point to character, which I do think
Speaker 1: is valuable. Yeah, there was one tenant quoted in the
Speaker 1: story saying that Frederica had raised her rent by twenty
Speaker 1: five percent following the murders in twenty sixteen, and another
Speaker 1: described his rental property as a one room home with
Speaker 1: an exposed toilet standing just a few feet from the
Speaker 1: foot of his bed. Again, this doesn't prove their guilt,
Speaker 1: but it does speak to the type of woman Frederica was,
Speaker 1: or at least how the public perceived her at the time.
Speaker 1: I spoke to attorney my Gallon about Frederica's land deal
Speaker 1: contracts when I was in piped and I spoke to
Speaker 1: some people and these are just personal accounts, but saying,
Speaker 1: you know, my family rented land, ended it for years
Speaker 1: and years and years, and then had it pulled out,
Speaker 1: which I mean, the court seems to back that up.
Speaker 1: But yeah, land contracts are tough, and you know, for
Speaker 1: the person who is not the owner of the property
Speaker 1: but the person trying to buy it, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of pitfalls with it, and someone smart, which apparently
Speaker 1: Frederica was, they can take advantage of people in a
Speaker 1: land contract situation. Frederica also runs a nonprofit called Crystal Springs,
Speaker 1: a group home that provides housing and rehabilitation services to
Speaker 1: developmentally disabled adults, and according to some when her son
Speaker 1: Billy married Angela Nucom who we now know as Angela Wagner,
Speaker 1: Frederica wasn't happy about it. Christina Howard told us that
Speaker 1: the relationship between Frederica Wagner and her daughter in law
Speaker 1: always seemed contentious. She never really had much to do
Speaker 1: with Angela unless they come to Billy and it's grown
Speaker 1: up by her. Freddie called Angela like an evil woman
Speaker 1: or tom or two like a nasty woman. One time
Speaker 1: Angela tro to keep Freddy from seeing her grandkids, George
Speaker 1: and Jake because they was talking about moving away. In
Speaker 1: all this, and I never heard Freddie say that she
Speaker 1: hated anybody, but she said, you know, like, oh, I
Speaker 1: really disliked this woman. She's just a nasty woman. Perhaps
Speaker 1: Frederica Wagner has reason to be suspicious of Angela. Christina
Speaker 1: Howard gave Stephanie her thoughts on Angela Wagner. Angela, she
Speaker 1: does have a little bit of a shady for sad tour,
Speaker 1: Like you feel like there's more tour than meets the
Speaker 1: eye and stuff. Like on the outside she's all happy
Speaker 1: thoughts with anybody and everything else, But you just get
Speaker 1: a vibe from her, you know that there's more to it.
Speaker 1: It turns out that this seemingly devoted, hard working mother
Speaker 1: had a bit of a checkered past. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, Angela Wagner, along with Billy Wagner, were charged
Speaker 1: with improperly handling a fire, and in twenty twelve, they
Speaker 1: are both charged with receiving stolen property, which is a
Speaker 1: fifth grae felony. Jodi Barr put the Wagner family's criminal
Speaker 1: history into context for us. You're looking at improperly handling
Speaker 1: a firearm charges. When you look at those two charges,
Speaker 1: in even the details that were reported to support those charges,
Speaker 1: I'm back to where I was in the rest of
Speaker 1: the Waggoner's background when you look at this as a whole,
Speaker 1: across the course of their lives. The charges of improperly
Speaker 1: handling a firearm, I mean those charges came fifteen years
Speaker 1: before these murders. It was an alleged road rage. You know,
Speaker 1: there was a gun pulled out, but the charges are dismissed.
Speaker 1: No one got hurt. I mean that is something that
Speaker 1: I see multiple times a week, alleged police reports. The
Speaker 1: charge of receiving stolen property came four years before these murders.
Speaker 1: When you look at the criminal record, nothing in this
Speaker 1: says to me that got murderers in the hills of
Speaker 1: Pike County, Ohio. I mean, this could be your neighbor
Speaker 1: next door with these charges. Here again, is Frederica's niece Deray,
Speaker 1: reading a news article about her aunt's involvement in the
Speaker 1: Rodent murders. So let me summarize it for you. On
Speaker 1: November the thirteenth, twenty and eighteen, the Ohio Governor elect
Speaker 1: Mighty Wine held an internationally broadcast news conference and announced
Speaker 1: the arrest of Frederica Wagner and several of her family members.
Speaker 1: Governor Dwine accused Frederica's family members of the Rodents homicides,
Speaker 1: and he specifically accused Frederica of masterminding the cover up.
Speaker 1: When I heard that, I wanted to call him up
Speaker 1: and tell him that there was no way and that
Speaker 1: someday you will have to apologize to my aunt. I
Speaker 1: do not know who came up with that theory and
Speaker 1: tried to put it out there. That is someone with
Speaker 1: an evil mind. I think that that it's that it's
Speaker 1: the devil trying trying to test us, because there's no
Speaker 1: way possible that Frederick could ever do something like that. Ever,
Speaker 1: she is not that kind of person. She carries the
Speaker 1: life of Jesus with her everywhere she goes, and I
Speaker 1: am I am, I am convicted on that there's no
Speaker 1: way she would have ever done something like that. Ever,
Speaker 1: the idea that the entire Wagner family allegedly conspired to
Speaker 1: kill the Rodents and cold Blood still baffles Jodie Barr
Speaker 1: to this day. Now. I think that is the common
Speaker 1: theme of this entire story about Pike County and about
Speaker 1: this Rodent massacre. Is it things just too far fetched
Speaker 1: out when you try to connect the dots through the
Speaker 1: histories of you know, how the Wagoners conducted their business,
Speaker 1: how they lived their lives. I don't know that I
Speaker 1: have seen any reporting, any fact brought out about the
Speaker 1: Waggoners that would say, Yep, there you go, mass murderers.
Speaker 1: I think that is the draw that continues to keep
Speaker 1: people interested in this story, is that you would have
Speaker 1: never seen any of this coming. I don't know what
Speaker 1: a family capable of a mass murder would look like
Speaker 1: or how they would conduct their business. But this was
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. It's still just hard to believe. On
Speaker 1: June twenty six, twenty nineteen, Frederico Wagner headed into a
Speaker 1: Pike County courtroom for a pre child hearing, with Frederica
Speaker 1: sitting in the defendant's chair. There was a stunning courtroom revelation.
Speaker 1: Charges against the grandmother connected to the Rhodent family massacre
Speaker 1: have been dismissed. It was dismissed because I was innocent.
Speaker 1: They had no evidence against me. Well, grandmother Frederico Wagner
Speaker 1: might be out of the woods. The rest of her
Speaker 1: family await their day in court, where a stunning number
Speaker 1: of truths promised to be exposed. It searched for the truth.
Speaker 1: I believe that as it applies to this case, the
Speaker 1: mystery will be solved. The truth will eventually be discovered.
Speaker 1: Hannah was struggling to keep custody of Sobia Tavvy. Straight up,
Speaker 1: TOLDERI we a say presenting with papers, do not sign
Speaker 1: them because they will, sure you will. You've got to
Speaker 1: wonder who is this informant, because if it's a member
Speaker 1: of the Wagoner family. I think that's a twist no
Speaker 1: one saw coming. More on that next week. Reach out
Speaker 1: to us on our social media outlets with questions. We're
Speaker 1: on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at piked in Massacre. We
Speaker 1: look forward to answering your questions and upcoming bonus episodes.
Speaker 1: Piked In Massacre is executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker and
Speaker 1: me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by executive Sir
Speaker 1: Jared Aston. Additional producing by Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker.
Speaker 1: The pikedon. Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios.
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