Speaker 1: The cheerleaders at a gym in Buffalo have been recording
Speaker 1: themselves to make a new documentary where the news reporters
Speaker 1: because one year ago a mass shooting changed their lives.
Speaker 1: He just walked around shot all the black people. The
Speaker 1: cheer squad, most of whom are black, had to figure
Speaker 1: out how to go on and how to compete. I
Speaker 1: wanted to win for them more than anything this season.
Speaker 1: Listen to the embedded podcast from NPR within the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carol Fisher and
Speaker 1: I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends. It's Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: it's the nineteen nineties, and it is time to find
Speaker 1: a husband. There were four Jewish doctors who were felt
Speaker 1: to be eligible bachelors. One of them was of the
Speaker 1: Baron bat On paper he was perfect, but in reality,
Speaker 1: this guy's a wacko. He shouted to the point went unconscious.
Speaker 1: I would call him and I would say, I know
Speaker 1: you killed my sister. You can listen to The girl
Speaker 1: Friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. So how does a half American, half
Speaker 1: Nicaraguan party girl from New Orleans there's absolutely no journalism
Speaker 1: experience right the biggest story of the eighties, That's what
Speaker 1: journalista is all about. I'm a woman, wife beater or
Speaker 1: T shirt, not wearing a brawl curses like a sailer.
Speaker 1: I got balls bigger than any man. Dan Rather used
Speaker 1: to call me his secret weapon. Listen to Journalist to
Speaker 1: every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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Speaker 1: PGE dot com. Welcome to the Piked and Massacre, a
Speaker 1: production of Katie Studios and iHeartRadio. This special episode will
Speaker 1: recap our previous seasons to get you up to date
Speaker 1: on the case and mark your calendars because Season three
Speaker 1: premiers May twenty fifth. Multiple people found dead in more
Speaker 1: than one location along Union Hill Road in piked In
Speaker 1: this morning. My two PM investigators say they found eight
Speaker 1: people dead, seven adult victims and a sixteen year old boy,
Speaker 1: all from the Rodent family. Just a nightmare scenario, all
Speaker 1: of them shot in the head, execution style. They were
Speaker 1: trying to possibly wipe out this entire family. It's absolutely shocking.
Speaker 1: I hope that the afortune in this area apprehend eaching everyone.
Speaker 1: These are peoples, these are monsters. This has been by
Speaker 1: far the long US most complex and labor intensive investigation
Speaker 1: the Ohio Attorney General's Office has ever undertaken. Go down
Speaker 1: your knee, mind your back, Mind your back. Yesterday, a
Speaker 1: Pike County grand jury and died four individuals for aggravated
Speaker 1: murder with death penalty specifications for allegedly committing this heartless,
Speaker 1: ruthless murder. One family targeted, murdered in their sleep, and
Speaker 1: the killers vanished. It's personal. Somebody was trying to send
Speaker 1: a message. Everyone was talking about who could have done
Speaker 1: it and why they would have done it. I want
Speaker 1: to know exactly what happened that night. Thirty two gunshot wounds,
Speaker 1: eight people dead, two families destroyed, one grizzly crime. What
Speaker 1: will happen is any guests? This is the Piked and
Speaker 1: Massacre Seasons one and two recap How we got here.
Speaker 1: I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at Katie Studios with
Speaker 1: Stephanie Leidecker and Jeff Shane. Our journey started back in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen when we made a documentary about the crime,
Speaker 1: and we've been covering the story ever since. I think
Speaker 1: I speak for all of us. Would I say that
Speaker 1: from then until now we have not been able to
Speaker 1: shake it or get it out of our heads. I
Speaker 1: think for me personally, the part of this case that
Speaker 1: continues to haunt me is the fact that there were
Speaker 1: mothers brutally murdered in front of their babies. What kind
Speaker 1: of a monster would do that. We've had the benefit
Speaker 1: of going to Pike County many times and have interviewed
Speaker 1: to date probably hundreds of people, whether that's local townspeople
Speaker 1: or experts, or family members to the victims and family
Speaker 1: members of the accused. And one thing we can say
Speaker 1: a small town like this, there's not a single person
Speaker 1: that hasn't been affected by this hideous story, and there's
Speaker 1: not a single person you can talk to on the
Speaker 1: street that doesn't know somebody connected to it in a
Speaker 1: meaningful way. Through all these conversations, we began to piece
Speaker 1: together what happened on that fateful night. As you'll learn
Speaker 1: in the upcoming season three, there is still so much
Speaker 1: left to unravel in the community. Here's piked a native barb.
Speaker 1: Piked In's considered a village, and it is just a
Speaker 1: small little town that has a grocery store and a
Speaker 1: pizza shop and gas stations, and there's a tire shop.
Speaker 1: People sit and talk to the gas station. Wherever they go.
Speaker 1: People know each other and they just sit and talk.
Speaker 1: You know, at the tire shop you're waiting for an
Speaker 1: oil and oil change or whatever. You sit there and
Speaker 1: chat with your neighbor or whoever happens to come in.
Speaker 1: You know somebody anywhere you go. But at some point,
Speaker 1: out in the shadow of its green hill, the area
Speaker 1: has an erie passed. Everybody thinks all the bad stuff
Speaker 1: happens in the big cities, but the devil works at
Speaker 1: it everywhere. Pike County is beautiful. It's a beautiful place,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of dirty people here too. For
Speaker 1: the side of our town. There's been a lot of
Speaker 1: murders here that have not been solved. On April twenty first,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, evil reared its face in Pike County in
Speaker 1: the dead of night under cool, cloudy skies. Eight people
Speaker 1: were brutally shot and killed in four separate homes. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget that day. I'll never forget that day. I
Speaker 1: had gone into the office at the high school to
Speaker 1: pick Brittany up for an appointment, and when I walked in,
Speaker 1: they had a TV on and everyone in there was
Speaker 1: sitting with their mouths hanging open, and I was like,
Speaker 1: what's going on in here? And the secretaries said, my god,
Speaker 1: there's been a shooting. They said six people were killed,
Speaker 1: and she said, we are very worried because little Chris
Speaker 1: Roden didn't show up today and we think he might
Speaker 1: be one of them. Everyone was just in shock. So
Speaker 1: little Chris law enforcement because they couldn't find him. There
Speaker 1: was some speculation early on that he might have been involved.
Speaker 1: For the residence of Pikedon. There was little more than
Speaker 1: confusion at this point. People knew there was a shooting
Speaker 1: and that Chris Roden Jr. A sixteen year old freshman
Speaker 1: at Pikedon High was missing. Where was the team? It
Speaker 1: was at the home of Chris Roden Senior that the
Speaker 1: nightmare began. Chris Roden Senior was known to be a strong,
Speaker 1: hard working family man. He was, you know, a great father.
Speaker 1: He was a good man, just like the rest of
Speaker 1: the guys you know in that family. He would do
Speaker 1: anything for anybody. Chris sen Dana Rodin were married for
Speaker 1: twenty two years, and although they divorced, they remained close,
Speaker 1: so close that Chris Senior had recently bought Dana a
Speaker 1: home on the same road he lived on Union Hill Road.
Speaker 1: He did it so they could stay close to their children.
Speaker 1: Chris Senior's cousin, Gary Rodin, was more like a brother
Speaker 1: to him and often stayed at his place. Little Chris's aunt,
Speaker 1: Bobby Joe, who also lived nearby, was the first to
Speaker 1: make the gruesome discovery. At seven forty nine am when
Speaker 1: she came to feed the dogs. The patriarch of the family,
Speaker 1: Rodin was dead. He looked like he'd been beaten to death.
Speaker 1: Chris's cousin, Gary Rodin, who was staying with Chris, was
Speaker 1: also dead. Yeah, what's her saying? Chris Werenting, Harry right
Speaker 1: than Frank and Gary Roden? First times it look like
Speaker 1: the dead dead, I think the great and the I
Speaker 1: phone has been to talk out of Okay, there anybody
Speaker 1: else in the house. I don't know us. Okay, the
Speaker 1: door was awfull. We got here, but I hope I
Speaker 1: didn't hit her. Letting on the floor, Bobby and need
Speaker 1: to get out of the house and way done, okayen stime,
Speaker 1: right now, Okay, just watch this. Thoe year old Christopher
Speaker 1: Roden was the only one of the eight family members
Speaker 1: who was shot somewhere other than the head, and he
Speaker 1: had multiple gunshot wounds to the head. Torso and Extremities
Speaker 1: Coroner Distinguished Professor and criminal forensic expert Joseph Morgan tried
Speaker 1: to make sense of the Roden murders, starting with father
Speaker 1: and family patriarch, Chris Senior. Some of this will be
Speaker 1: hard to hear, particularly if you're personally connected to the tragedy,
Speaker 1: but it's important to understand the magnitude of what happened
Speaker 1: that night. He was shot nine times. Now, for me,
Speaker 1: as a forensic investigator, I would look at that and
Speaker 1: I would deem that as overkill, and you know, why
Speaker 1: would somebody need to be shot nine times? They're saying
Speaker 1: that there's evidence that he attempted or reacted at least
Speaker 1: to the point where he raised his arm his right
Speaker 1: form and it shattered one of the bones. When you've
Speaker 1: got an individual that has gotten defensive loans, that person
Speaker 1: has an awareness, so that goes to a level of
Speaker 1: callousness that that's roses to victim. Gary D Chris Your's cousin,
Speaker 1: was a beloved member of the family. By all accounts,
Speaker 1: Gary and Chris Sr. Were very close. Gary just happened
Speaker 1: to be at Chris's home that night. He was actually
Speaker 1: from Kentucky, so you know, he didn't even live in
Speaker 1: the area or the neighborhood, but you know, lived close
Speaker 1: enough to where he was staying with Chris that evening.
Speaker 1: We do know that the shooter was very close to
Speaker 1: Gary when they fired, because they talked about what is
Speaker 1: referred to as a press contact bench at wanted and
Speaker 1: if our listeners will essentially take your index finger, okay,
Speaker 1: and point it toward the palm of your hand and
Speaker 1: extend the tip of your finger maybe I don't know,
Speaker 1: probably about half an inch away from the surface of
Speaker 1: your palm. That's kind of what we will refer to
Speaker 1: as a contact moon. And what that means is that
Speaker 1: you're going to have, you know, the bullets not the
Speaker 1: only thing coming out of the end of the weapon.
Speaker 1: You're going to have the fire that actually the ignition
Speaker 1: of the bullet, and around you'll of this burning of
Speaker 1: powder that's coming out. You'll have unburned powder that's coming out.
Speaker 1: So this is a very intimate event. I spoke with
Speaker 1: my Gallen, criminal defense attorney from Ohio. Are you able
Speaker 1: to talk about the scenes themselves? You know, if you
Speaker 1: look at it and it's all from the autopsy reports,
Speaker 1: those kind of injuries leaves no doubt that this was
Speaker 1: an intentional or these all were intentional killings, kind of
Speaker 1: designed to send a message to someone. The muscle mark
Speaker 1: sticks in my mind. You have to be obviously arms reach.
Speaker 1: I mean, you are locking eyes with the victim, it
Speaker 1: would seem. Does that paint any kind of picture to
Speaker 1: or indicate to officers or attorneys anything, Sure it does,
Speaker 1: and maybe even closer than arm's length, I mean maybe
Speaker 1: just inches. It indicates to me at least, especially when
Speaker 1: you have the number of shots like that here that
Speaker 1: somebody was trying to send a message out. I don't
Speaker 1: think there can be any doubt about that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was personal, and I think that's what that demonstrates.
Speaker 1: At this point, Bobby Josie's two people did by twelve
Speaker 1: gunshot wounds. While waiting desperately for police to arrive, she
Speaker 1: makes her way over to her nephew, Frankie's house. She
Speaker 1: wanted to get some help and to tell him what
Speaker 1: happened to his father and uncle, whose bodies she had
Speaker 1: just found. Frankie Rowden was Chris Senior and Dana's oldest son.
Speaker 1: The twenty year old was a father to two boys.
Speaker 1: Like his parents, Frankie was a hard worker. He loved fishing, hunting,
Speaker 1: and demolition Derby, but nothing so much as his family
Speaker 1: and his fiance, nineteen year old Hannah Gilly. Hannah Gilly
Speaker 1: was on the home coming court in high school, and
Speaker 1: at that time she told friends she planned to go
Speaker 1: to college, get a business degree, and open a daycare.
Speaker 1: Frankie and Hannah wanted a lot of kids. They had
Speaker 1: a bright future. The young family lived together just up
Speaker 1: the street from Chris Sr. Also on Union Hill Road.
Speaker 1: They were looking forward to getting married soon. So after
Speaker 1: Bobby Joe made the call to nine one one, she
Speaker 1: went to Frankie's house near right nearby, and the person
Speaker 1: who came to the door was frankie three year old son.
Speaker 1: As the police reports and newspaper reports showed, he was,
Speaker 1: you know, covered in blood, and he, like any three
Speaker 1: year old, sort of didn't fully understand what was going on.
Speaker 1: And he told his aunt that, you know, his father
Speaker 1: was playing zombie in the bedroom, and that's because the
Speaker 1: family were fans of the Walking Dead, so you know,
Speaker 1: he was in there with his father playing zombie, which
Speaker 1: is absolutely heartbreaking. Twenty year old Frankie Rodin was shot
Speaker 1: three times in the head as he lay in bed
Speaker 1: next to his fiance and they're six month old. We
Speaker 1: talked about Hannah Gillie Hayes shot five toms, she catches
Speaker 1: one in the eye. It poses this idea, why are
Speaker 1: you shooting these people in the face. What's the purpose
Speaker 1: of it? Because not only shooting him in the face,
Speaker 1: you're shoot him multiple times. What threat did she post?
Speaker 1: She's laying there, was her child in the bed meanwhile,
Speaker 1: and this is all happening around eight am on April
Speaker 1: twenty second, Bobby Joe calls their brother James. She's in hysterics.
Speaker 1: There's now two murder scenes, four people dead, twenty gunshot wounds,
Speaker 1: two children left alive. At the scenes, James immediately goes
Speaker 1: over to his sister Dana's house to check on her
Speaker 1: and the remaining kids. Danna Rudin was a nurse known
Speaker 1: for her gregarious nature and loving smile. She'd met Chris
Speaker 1: Rudden Senior when she was just in high school and
Speaker 1: it was love at first sight. Even though they divorced
Speaker 1: twenty two years later, they remained very close together. The
Speaker 1: pair had three beautiful children, twenty year old Frankie, Hannah May,
Speaker 1: and little Chris. She's goodhearted, a lot of fun, you know,
Speaker 1: always laughing, cracking up. She was a very very good person.
Speaker 1: She sent me a text she slaved my grand babies
Speaker 1: here and I said, well, congratulations, I said, she's beautiful.
Speaker 1: What did you What did Hannah May name her? She
Speaker 1: said Kylie May and I said that's so pretty. And
Speaker 1: that was the last, you know, the last thing I
Speaker 1: ever heard from Dana. She again, like Chris Senior, was
Speaker 1: shot multiple times, and only was she shot multiple times,
Speaker 1: but specifically reports have her having been shot five times,
Speaker 1: four times, four times in the head. Now, what in
Speaker 1: the hell would you shoot somebody four times in the head,
Speaker 1: because you know one should suffice. But the shooter took
Speaker 1: the time to take that muzzle of that weapon. Stick
Speaker 1: it beneath Dana's chin. Stick it beneath her chin. This
Speaker 1: is a common location for suicide, all right, This is
Speaker 1: atypical for homicide. This particular April seemed extra special because
Speaker 1: Hannahme had just given birth to her second daughter five
Speaker 1: days prior. Just weeks before that, Dana threw Hannahme a
Speaker 1: big baby shower at their new house. The pictures from
Speaker 1: the showers show what a happy celebration it was. Sadly, James,
Speaker 1: Dana's brother, was about to enter yet one more unimaginable scene.
Speaker 1: Dana and her nineteen year old daughter, Hannah May were
Speaker 1: both dead. Hannah road and she was shot twice in
Speaker 1: the head as their newborn laid beside her. Maybe they're
Speaker 1: curled in a fetal posture along with her baby, just
Speaker 1: curled in a fetal posture. Mom was slowly stroking the
Speaker 1: head of the baby. Try to, you know, calm sue
Speaker 1: the baby. During the night, Maybe she awakes and breastfeeds
Speaker 1: the baby during the night while she's sleeping. It's a
Speaker 1: position and people have slept in for thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of years. It's a position of comfort. You imagine you're
Speaker 1: laying there, You're there to protect your baby, and you're
Speaker 1: curled up on your side. There's an awareness. This brings
Speaker 1: us back to when Dana's son, the high school freshman,
Speaker 1: Chris Junior, was nowhere to be found. It took detectives
Speaker 1: several hours to locate him, but finally little Chris was
Speaker 1: found the home with his mother, Dana, and his sister Hannah.
Speaker 1: May sixteen year old Chris Junior was shot four tops,
Speaker 1: including twice in the top of his head. He was
Speaker 1: found wedged behind his bed, implying that he was trying
Speaker 1: to hide from the killer or killers. There's now seven
Speaker 1: people dead, thirty one gunshot wounds, and three children left alive.
Speaker 1: At the scenes, the once small and sleepy town became
Speaker 1: the epicenter for grizzly crime and the subsequent complex murder investigation.
Speaker 1: When it was all said and done, two families would
Speaker 1: be destroyed and the town would never be the same.
Speaker 1: For the quiet town, the scene was unreal. Nearly seven
Speaker 1: hours after the first bodies were found, at one twenty
Speaker 1: six pm on April twenty second, final fatal discovery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I need to Deny has been out to post a
Speaker 1: seven nine nine left for Okay, uh, it's all that stuff.
Speaker 1: It's on the news. I just sound just sound. My
Speaker 1: cousin was again shot wing. Okay, very right, So okay,
Speaker 1: I'll be staying out by the very way. It don
Speaker 1: whole thing, Donald Dond whole thing. Sound. Yeah, I'm gonna says,
Speaker 1: what do you mean it's Rody can it's rod Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: care honey, out of the house. I'm I'm out of
Speaker 1: the house right now. I just went in Laura name
Speaker 1: and check Laura and a little to say he had
Speaker 1: again shot wing. Okay, sure we're gonna get that. You
Speaker 1: do down thirty okay, all right. A few miles down
Speaker 1: Union Hill Road was Chris Roden Senior's brother Kenneth. The
Speaker 1: forty four year old was shot once through his right eye.
Speaker 1: Kenneth's cousin, Donald Stone, went to check on Kenneth after
Speaker 1: hearing about the murders of their six other family members.
Speaker 1: He'd failed to hear from Kenneth that day. What does
Speaker 1: it say that they would take the time and put
Speaker 1: themselves in a position where they could be face to
Speaker 1: face with Kenneth. He was found covered with dollar bills
Speaker 1: that were strewing about his body. He just god, I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't, you can't make this up. By the time
Speaker 1: officials released the names of the eight victims piked In,
Speaker 1: residents were reeling. You know, they had snuck in in
Speaker 1: the night and committed this, these murders, and nobody had
Speaker 1: a clue about you know who or why, and that's
Speaker 1: really scary. We're going to take a break. I'm Carol Fisher,
Speaker 1: and I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends. Back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties in Las Vegas, a few of us
Speaker 1: dated the most eligible bachelor in town, Bob. He spoke
Speaker 1: several languages, he did medical missionary work, and he was Jewish.
Speaker 1: He was perfect on paper. But he wasn't. He really wasn't.
Speaker 1: He shouted into the point she went unconscious. Bob could
Speaker 1: lie about anything, but only takes the one time when
Speaker 1: somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for Bob, us girlfriends know
Speaker 1: how to fight back. I wanted him to pay for
Speaker 1: his crime. He needed to be put to justice. I'll
Speaker 1: be honest with your five song him right now. I'd
Speaker 1: spit up them. I would call him and I would say,
Speaker 1: I know you killed my sister. I will always hound
Speaker 1: you and haunt you. You can listen to the Girlfriends
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Hi, I'm Delia Wild. Then I want to
Speaker 1: invite you to listen to my newest podcast, The Afters
Speaker 1: to make up our bodies already existed in the style.
Speaker 1: It's called the Oh My God Particles Show or OMGPS
Speaker 1: for short. How you like me always wondering about the universe,
Speaker 1: like what the universe is made of? What is in
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Speaker 1: I want to get some answers directly from researchers at
Speaker 1: the Large Hadron Collider. We're colliding particles with energies that
Speaker 1: naturally existed when the universe was about a trillions of
Speaker 1: a second old. I found scientists from all over the world.
Speaker 1: Everybody is working together to get that experiment working. Got
Speaker 1: to doctor Brilliant astrophysicist who collaborated with Brian May, the
Speaker 1: guitarist from Queen. Listen to the Oh My God Particle
Speaker 1: Show on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. This is the unbelievable but true
Speaker 1: story of George Remus. You might know him as a
Speaker 1: character from Boardwalk Empire or as the inspiration for Jay Gatsby.
Speaker 1: He was an eccentric and genius lawyer who figured out
Speaker 1: how to game the system during Prohibition. Remus is in
Speaker 1: the whiskey business, and Remus is the biggest man in
Speaker 1: the business, while living the life of luxury with his
Speaker 1: clamorous and ambitious wife Imogene. Daddy, I am so glad
Speaker 1: you're here. But George Remus's wild existence took a dark
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Speaker 1: And one of the most sensational murder trials in American history,
Speaker 1: Jury Find the Defendant. Join me Abbot Kaylor as we
Speaker 1: trace George Rimus's transformation from bootleg king to alleged madman.
Speaker 1: Listen to Remus the mad Bootleg King every Tuesday on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Bad Manners. This is the podcast
Speaker 1: that takes you inside Britain's stately homes and tells all
Speaker 1: the tales the guide books don't. My name is Tom
Speaker 1: Horton and I'll be your host. Britain is riddled with
Speaker 1: the big houses, from crumbling castles, massive mansions and stately
Speaker 1: piles bigger than Buckingham Palace. As a comedian, I'm not
Speaker 1: really bothered about the facts and figures. I just want
Speaker 1: the juicy stuff. So I'm on a mission to find
Speaker 1: out the frightening, filthy and downright jaw dropping stories of
Speaker 1: these stately homes and the people in them. This podcast
Speaker 1: ventures deep inside some of Britain's most incredible and outrageous
Speaker 1: buildings to spill the tea on the scandalous, scary, shocking
Speaker 1: and hilarious tales. So if you want to get historically horrid,
Speaker 1: royally raucous and down to dirty, look now. If listen
Speaker 1: to Bad Manners on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, We'll be back in a moment.
Speaker 1: There were rumors about who had done the crime everywhere online,
Speaker 1: in the coffee shops, amongst the police, I mean everyone
Speaker 1: was talking about who could have done it and why
Speaker 1: they would have done it. Investigators believed that the murders
Speaker 1: were clearly premeditated, but the killing spree was so staggering
Speaker 1: and merciless there were endless questions. One of the first
Speaker 1: things investigators studied where confrontations the roads had with locals
Speaker 1: in recent years. Could these conflicts have triggered of vendetta
Speaker 1: against the family. There was one concerning incident that had
Speaker 1: happened at a demolition derby. Based on what's been recorded
Speaker 1: in the court documents, I think it's fair to say
Speaker 1: that Frankie and Chris Junior, I mean definitely were hotheads.
Speaker 1: It definitely got into fights here and there. They had
Speaker 1: an incident with a fellow named Tommy Gorman who was
Speaker 1: a rival in the demolition derbys. They got into a
Speaker 1: bit of a sort of heated match and there was
Speaker 1: a believe a sort of incident on the track they
Speaker 1: got him. Stay with each other's bad blood and then
Speaker 1: again it's you know, kind of kicked up speed with
Speaker 1: Facebook posts about sort of consulting each other, and then,
Speaker 1: of course, Chris Junior Frankie drove over to Gorman's house
Speaker 1: and proceeded to really beat on Gorman and his father,
Speaker 1: And the fights and meetings were only really broken up
Speaker 1: after grandfather came out and pumped a few shotgun shells
Speaker 1: into the air. Chris Junior had also gotten into a
Speaker 1: scuffle with another local kid named Rusty Mongol. Mongold had
Speaker 1: posted on Facebook that Christ Junior hid him with a car,
Speaker 1: and in his message, you know, he uses some pretty
Speaker 1: tough language. I mean, Rusty was nineteen at the time,
Speaker 1: and you know he's talking about I'm gonna break his
Speaker 1: fucking legs and curb stop his ass and sort of
Speaker 1: nineteen year old bluster. Really, the Rusty Mongol thing happened
Speaker 1: just two weeks before the murders. But police scoured both
Speaker 1: of these leads, even taking DNA evidence of the suspects,
Speaker 1: they came up empty. An ominous feeling had spread throughout
Speaker 1: Pike County. Here's investigative reporter Jodi Barr. You got eight
Speaker 1: members of one family targeted, murdered in their sleep in
Speaker 1: their homes, and the killer seemingly vanished. We didn't know
Speaker 1: the pieces, we didn't know how to put it together.
Speaker 1: There was no information coming out about these murders, about motives.
Speaker 1: Even the family members who were in direct communication with
Speaker 1: law enforcement, even they weren't being told anything. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's called it good investigative work, and you hold your
Speaker 1: cards close to the chest as an investigator. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: what it was. But from the outside looking in, it
Speaker 1: was almost like law enforcement didn't have a clue at
Speaker 1: that point in time. Led by an ambitious sheriff, Charles Reader,
Speaker 1: the ensuing investigation soon became the largest in Ohio's history.
Speaker 1: I've got a message for the killers. We will find you.
Speaker 1: The family and the victims will have justice one day.
Speaker 1: There are so many pieces that have to be put
Speaker 1: into place with this, you're leap frogging from this blood
Speaker 1: bath to another blood bath. One of the first major
Speaker 1: developments in the case came when Mike d Line, then
Speaker 1: Ohio's Attorney General, announced that he believed the killings were
Speaker 1: planned and premeditated. He cited clear efforts taken by the
Speaker 1: shooter or shooters to remove any incriminating forensic evidence. The
Speaker 1: Attorney General Dwine at the time said it was a
Speaker 1: pretty sophisticated operation, and the people that carried it out
Speaker 1: were trying to do everything they could to make sure
Speaker 1: that they didn't get caught. Attorney General Dwine and Sheriff Reader,
Speaker 1: they both said that the investigation was going to be
Speaker 1: a long one and a lengthy process, and Boyd sure
Speaker 1: has played out that way. An investigative task force of
Speaker 1: massive scope kicked into gear, led by the Ohio Bureau
Speaker 1: of Criminal Investigation the BCI. More than two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty one law enforcement officials were mobilized, including sheriffs from
Speaker 1: twenty five offices across Ohio. The FBI and the DA
Speaker 1: stepped in to provide technical expertise to Dwine's office. Solemn
Speaker 1: funerals were held for all the victims. For two years,
Speaker 1: not a single arrest was made. You lived in that area, man,
Speaker 1: it was hush hush. You were just kind of walking
Speaker 1: around looking over your shoulder at seeing with some of
Speaker 1: these people, not knowing you know, who could be next.
Speaker 1: Who did it? There was one very curious lead that
Speaker 1: investigators had unhearthed. At three of the crime scenes on
Speaker 1: Union Hill Road, police found a substantial marijuana grow operation,
Speaker 1: including a grow house harboring hundreds of cannabis plants. This
Speaker 1: grow operation on the Rodents property was clearly being cultivated
Speaker 1: for sale. It was also worth almost half a million dollars.
Speaker 1: The Rodents had a pretty sizable crop of marijuana plants
Speaker 1: on their property. You know, there were indications that they
Speaker 1: were involved in fund drug deals and drug trade with marijuana.
Speaker 1: That obviously feeled even more speculation than these were outside operators.
Speaker 1: Possibly was as a drug deal gone bad, or was
Speaker 1: somebody trying to take over their turf. All kinds of
Speaker 1: rumors started to slow after that disclosure. As the months
Speaker 1: swore on. No one's been arrested, no one charged, no
Speaker 1: people named as persons of interest. You really started to wonder,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe this drug cartel thing there was something
Speaker 1: too that they definitely knew how to kill people. You know,
Speaker 1: you're looking for signs of the drug cartel, and then
Speaker 1: you find Kenneth Roden with what appeared to be a
Speaker 1: gunshot in the head, but that there were dollar bills
Speaker 1: or some sort of paper money spread around the body.
Speaker 1: Was that a sign? What did that mean? Could the
Speaker 1: Rodent's operation have motivated a cartel hit, a lethal battle
Speaker 1: over territory? It was a tenable idea. But over the
Speaker 1: next months, as the investigation dug deeper, an entire new
Speaker 1: set of possible culprits came into frame. The Wagner family
Speaker 1: Angela Wagner forty eight years old, her husband Billy Wagner
Speaker 1: forty seven, their two sons, George and Jake, both in
Speaker 1: their mid twenties, Angela's mother, Rita Newcombe, and the family matriarch,
Speaker 1: Frederica Wagner. Here's Jeff. The Wagners were a well known
Speaker 1: and well to do family in the Piketon area, and
Speaker 1: Frederica Wagner was at the helm of this. A self
Speaker 1: described entrepreneur, she owned properties Oliver Pike County that spanned
Speaker 1: over seventeen hundred acres and were valued at more than
Speaker 1: four million dollars. She had also founded two nonprofits, Lucasville Mission,
Speaker 1: a church that helps underprivileged children, and the Crystal Springs Home,
Speaker 1: a facility that provides services to developmentally disabled adults. As
Speaker 1: we've learned throughout the series, Frederica had her detractors as
Speaker 1: well as her supporters in the community. We probably need
Speaker 1: to clarify here. The Wagners seemed like a good, God
Speaker 1: fearing country family, but police were gathering heart evidence linking
Speaker 1: the Wagners to the crime, and the Wagners had had
Speaker 1: some tangles with law enforcement in the past. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, seemingly homespun mother Angela Wagner, along with
Speaker 1: Billy Wagner, were charged with improperly handling a firearm. In
Speaker 1: two and twelve, they were both charged with receiving stolen property,
Speaker 1: a felony. Investigators discovered that in the months prior to
Speaker 1: the killings, the Wagners began making their own gun silencers.
Speaker 1: Police believe silencers were necessary to pull these killings off
Speaker 1: because they happened in such close proximity. Investigators also found
Speaker 1: that the Wagner family had bought ammunition, a magazine clip,
Speaker 1: a bug detector, and materials to build brass catchers. The
Speaker 1: brass catcher is a bag that hooks on the side
Speaker 1: of a firearm. It will catch spent cartridges, so every
Speaker 1: time you pull the trigger, a cartridge is ejected. And
Speaker 1: if you were really interested in not leaving anything behind
Speaker 1: as far as holistic evidence, it sounds like a great story.
Speaker 1: This bag will collect the shell casing so there's no
Speaker 1: left behind. The bug detector so purely that helps someone
Speaker 1: find Listening devices will sometimes create white noiset to muffle
Speaker 1: sounds or discussion. Authority starts to seventy one acre farm
Speaker 1: in Peebles that was once owned by Jake Wagner. Jake
Speaker 1: was victim Hanname Roden's former boyfriend. The pair shared a
Speaker 1: three year old child together. Jake and Hanname Rodin had
Speaker 1: parted bitterly and were fighting over custody at the time
Speaker 1: of her murder. The vice was tightening around the Wagner family,
Speaker 1: and some speculate that the only way they felt they
Speaker 1: could escape it was to move four thousand miles away.
Speaker 1: They moved to Alaska, which raised even more suspicions. But
Speaker 1: then the very following month, law enforcement actually finally searches
Speaker 1: properties where the Wagners lived, So that was really the
Speaker 1: first public indication that the Wagners were possible suspects of
Speaker 1: not people of interest. The Wagners made keen I, Alaska,
Speaker 1: their new home. It's a tiny town south of Anchorage.
Speaker 1: All the while they vehemently denied any wrongdoing. Jake's mother,
Speaker 1: Angela Wagner, said her husband Billy Wagner, and victim Chris
Speaker 1: Roden senior were like brothers. She claimed that Billy would
Speaker 1: never harm Chris. Billy's mother, grandmother, Frederica Wagner, said the
Speaker 1: Wagners were quote a good Christian family and despite the
Speaker 1: speculation about the family, many in Pike County couldn't figure
Speaker 1: the Wagners from murderers. I read that and I had
Speaker 1: to laugh. I had to laugh so hard. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you have to remember that this was a very organized,
Speaker 1: brilliantly done execution. This is something that you wouldn't learn
Speaker 1: on a DVD, something with military background, Navy seals. I mean,
Speaker 1: whoever did it was was brilliant. They're professional. These people
Speaker 1: are not professional killers. I think that is the common
Speaker 1: theme of this entire story about Pike County and about
Speaker 1: this road and massacre, is it seems just too far
Speaker 1: fetched out when you try to connect the dots through
Speaker 1: the histories of you know, how the Waggoners conducted their business,
Speaker 1: how they live 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. In the spring of
Speaker 1: twenty and eighteen, the Wagner's returned to the piked In
Speaker 1: area to take care of Billy's aging father. The plan
Speaker 1: was to set him up with care and then returned
Speaker 1: to Alaska, but things did not go as planned. If
Speaker 1: you seek about it, the Wagners were scott free. They
Speaker 1: went to Alaska. It could have took off and nobody
Speaker 1: could have ever seen them again ever, But they came
Speaker 1: back here. They came back now the way that I am,
Speaker 1: I would never do that. But if I had pulled
Speaker 1: something off like that and got away with that loan
Speaker 1: and went to Alaska, you know, I'm packing my ship
Speaker 1: and I'm hitting the woods, and nobody's ever going to
Speaker 1: see me again, I'm sure the hell I'm not going
Speaker 1: to come back. It's the only way I would come
Speaker 1: back is if I thought my ass were covered. With
Speaker 1: their investigation reaching a fever pitch, then Bio Attorney General
Speaker 1: Mike Dwine and Pike County Sheriff Charlie Reader asked the
Speaker 1: public for information on the Wagner family. I hope that
Speaker 1: an unfortune in this area apprehend eaching everyone these are peoples,
Speaker 1: These are monsters. Dwine said he was quote laser focused
Speaker 1: on the Wagners their business dealings, vehicles, firearms, and ammunition.
Speaker 1: Investigators had solid ballistic evidence connecting firearms using the homicide
Speaker 1: with guns believed to be owned by the Wagners. These
Speaker 1: included a twenty two caliber long rifle, a forty caliber handgun,
Speaker 1: and a thirty caliber gun. They also recovered a homemade
Speaker 1: silencer at the bottom of a well on the Wagner's property. Well,
Speaker 1: good afternoon. We promised that the day would come when
Speaker 1: a rush would be made in the Pike County massacres
Speaker 1: today or is that today? In a series of arrests
Speaker 1: that sent shock waves through the insulated community, six members
Speaker 1: of a local family, the Wagners, were taken into custody.
Speaker 1: Hold up, keep your hands up, Oh up. Forty seven
Speaker 1: year old Billy Wagner is the patriarch of the Wagner
Speaker 1: family and was arrested near Lexington, Kentucky, and a horse
Speaker 1: trailer that was pulled over. Go down your name, I'm Wagner.
Speaker 1: I'm Wagner. Angela Wagner is Billy's wife and matriarch of
Speaker 1: the Wagner family. The forty eight year old, was arrested
Speaker 1: at their home near Pikedon, Ohio. Go Ahead. Angela Wagner
Speaker 1: in the car twenty one copy thirteen thirty one. Angela
Speaker 1: and Billy's two sons, George Wagner and Jake Wagner, were
Speaker 1: arrested together during a traffic stop. George's twenty seven and
Speaker 1: Jake was twenty six. Seventy six year old Fredrika Wagner,
Speaker 1: Billy Wagner's mother, was arested at the family's horse farm,
Speaker 1: The Flying w Angela Wagner's mother, sixty five year old
Speaker 1: Rita Joe Nukam, was arrested at her home, while six
Speaker 1: members of the Wagner family were arrested in connection with
Speaker 1: the crime. Billy, Angela, George, and Jake Wagner were charged
Speaker 1: with eight counts of aggravated murder. Details about the arrests
Speaker 1: of four people and the murders of eight members of
Speaker 1: the road In family. All the arrests happened within minutes
Speaker 1: of each other, and that tells me that the BCI,
Speaker 1: the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification, who was in charge
Speaker 1: of this investigation, they know what they're doing and they
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that they affected these arrests without
Speaker 1: any kind of problems or tipping anybody off, So they
Speaker 1: hit that thing down pretty tight. Six months later, four
Speaker 1: members of the Wagner family were indicted on charges of
Speaker 1: aggravated murder with death nalty specification for the murders. Yesterday
Speaker 1: a Pike County grand jury and died foreign individuals for
Speaker 1: aggravated murder with death pality specification for legilate committing this heartless, ruthless,
Speaker 1: cold blood murder. Did they do it? We want to
Speaker 1: know now, obviously everybody wants to know right now. And man,
Speaker 1: if they're cooperating, as this attorney says, they're giving over computers,
Speaker 1: a laptop, DNA, whatever it takes. You know, people who
Speaker 1: aren't experts of criminology. If we look at that and go, well, man,
Speaker 1: that sounds like an innocent person. An innocent person will
Speaker 1: be doing that. On the other hand, there were the
Speaker 1: ballistics discoveries. Here's Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent Ryan Scheiterer
Speaker 1: testifying in court that shell casings found in the Wagnus
Speaker 1: proper match the ones found at the Rodents crime scenes.
Speaker 1: We recovered twenty two caliber shell casings, and where we
Speaker 1: recovered those which at two sixty Peterson Road, which was
Speaker 1: a property that was owned by George Wacker and his
Speaker 1: brother Jake. And were those shell casings submitted to the
Speaker 1: lab for comparison to the shell casings that had been
Speaker 1: recovered from both Frankie's and Dana's residences. Yes, and what
Speaker 1: was the opinion of the The weapon that fired the
Speaker 1: shell casings at two sixty Pierson Road also fired the
Speaker 1: shell casings at Anna's and Dana's residents as well as
Speaker 1: Frankie and Hannah Gillis residents. So the same firearm had
Speaker 1: been suspired on the same properties. Okay. So the exact
Speaker 1: same gun, not just the same type of gun, the
Speaker 1: same firearms okay. The indictment also includes a reference to
Speaker 1: a specific pair of boots that the Wagner family purchased
Speaker 1: at Walmart and allegedly wore during the murders. The theory
Speaker 1: was that the Wagners were trying to frame Dana Roden's brother,
Speaker 1: James Faniley, who was known to wear this make of boot.
Speaker 1: Sheriff Frieder said the Wagner's plan these killings for months
Speaker 1: studying the Roden's habits. He alleged that they then covered
Speaker 1: up the killings, including stealing the Rodan security footage and
Speaker 1: tampering with their phones. It seems a single minded, cult
Speaker 1: like obsession drove these murders. So we've talked about the
Speaker 1: Wagners and how insulated that family was, and you know,
Speaker 1: the word cult has been thrown around in reference to
Speaker 1: the family. It's hard to imagine a nuclear family of
Speaker 1: a mother, father, and two adult sons who started doing
Speaker 1: reconnaissance on the Roden family, which by all accounts were
Speaker 1: as a family that they were close with, friendly with
Speaker 1: in some way, and months before the murders, allegedly the
Speaker 1: Wagners started to track their comings and goings. And the
Speaker 1: question is why would they do that? I mean, the
Speaker 1: only thing I can think of is that Angela Wagner
Speaker 1: was this obsessed mother who not only wanted to control
Speaker 1: her son Jake, but also all the people in his life.
Speaker 1: By all accounts, it appears that the Rodens were being
Speaker 1: hunted by the Wagner family, and that's unbelievable when you
Speaker 1: really put it into context. The idea of a killer
Speaker 1: family sitting around the kitchen table holding murder meetings is
Speaker 1: impossible to imagine. What came into focus is that there
Speaker 1: was a raging custody dispute between Jake Wagner and his
Speaker 1: former girlfriend, Hannah Mee Rodin over their three year old
Speaker 1: daughter that is speculated as the real motive behind these murders.
Speaker 1: They would travel back and forth between Hannah's mother's house
Speaker 1: and Jake's family's house, and they would live as a
Speaker 1: family a few weeks at a time in each home.
Speaker 1: And for everyone who knew them, they said that the
Speaker 1: couple was very happy. They were talking about marriage and
Speaker 1: building a life together until seemingly in March of twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: they broke up and that's when Hannah started dating a
Speaker 1: new guy, a man named Charlie Gilly, and Jake was devastated.
Speaker 1: Jake was pressuring Hannah to sign over full custody, something
Speaker 1: she adamantly did not want to do so. In the
Speaker 1: summer of twenty fifteen, when Hannah wrote in announced that
Speaker 1: she was pregnant with a new child, Jake Wagner was
Speaker 1: adamant that he was the dad of this kid, and
Speaker 1: he was desperate to prove it, so much so that
Speaker 1: he went to the hospital when the baby was born
Speaker 1: and checked for a Wagner family trait In the tow,
Speaker 1: and we know that just days after Hannah was murdered,
Speaker 1: the Wagner family filed for custody of not only Jake's
Speaker 1: three year old daughter, but also the newborn baby. So
Speaker 1: it's clear that this family had plans to raise both
Speaker 1: children as their own. As you'll hear in season three,
Speaker 1: there's a lot more contexts to Jake's relationship with Hannah
Speaker 1: and what his state of mind was around the murders
Speaker 1: and before the murders in terms of moving on and
Speaker 1: how he felt about her. The Wagners wanted custody over
Speaker 1: Jake and Hannah's child at all costs, but was that
Speaker 1: possibly enough to justify a wholescale slaughter of another family.
Speaker 1: It seemed Jake Wagner was highly distraught over having lost
Speaker 1: hannahme Roden here is an anonymous Wagner source. He was
Speaker 1: trying very hard to make sure that they got back together.
Speaker 1: He still wanted to be with her. He was trying
Speaker 1: to get get back with her just everything that he could.
Speaker 1: On top of the breakup, Hannah was also allegedly withholding
Speaker 1: their daughter from Jake. There was a custody battle. Hannah
Speaker 1: wasn't allowing Jake to see her or any of the
Speaker 1: family to see her, and so it kind of just
Speaker 1: got out of hand at that point. It just set
Speaker 1: him off to the point where Jake because he had
Speaker 1: made the comment a couple of times, I mean, and
Speaker 1: I had told a couple of people's about this. I mean,
Speaker 1: he had made the comments, you know that he was
Speaker 1: going to to kill her, and he told her that,
Speaker 1: you know, He's like, I'm going to I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to kill you. Like you're not going You're not
Speaker 1: gonna let me see the baby, then you know you're
Speaker 1: not gonna have her. And I'm like, Jake, you can't
Speaker 1: say those things. Please just chill out. And of course,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody ever really thinks like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: he's actually going to consider that. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: just completely out of his mind. It really really upset him.
Speaker 1: The Wagners had allegedly orchestrated another ruthless custody battle once before.
Speaker 1: Jake's brother, George Wagner, had a child with a woman
Speaker 1: named Tabitha, and when they split up, accusmaer George Wagner
Speaker 1: and his mother, Angela Wagner, blocked Tabitha from seeing her son.
Speaker 1: Here's Tabitha's sister, Christina Tabby, like whenever she would try
Speaker 1: to reach out to George, like hey, can I come
Speaker 1: visit my son? And Angela would get on there and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, he's not your son anymore. Would tell
Speaker 1: Tabby like, oh, you might have gave bertilin, but I'm
Speaker 1: his real mother because I take care of e and
Speaker 1: all these just nasty things. At one point, accused murderer
Speaker 1: Angela Wagner even threatened Tabitha and ran her out of town.
Speaker 1: Here's court testimony about the incident. Eventually there was a
Speaker 1: comment by Angela that she was going to kill Tabitha,
Speaker 1: so she fled to a gas station and ultimately never returned.
Speaker 1: And actually specifically, she first hit on the property until
Speaker 1: nightfall and then drove to a gas station and neither
Speaker 1: escape that way and never went back after that. Correct.
Speaker 1: And Yet the idea that the Wagoners would resolve a
Speaker 1: custody issue in such a ruthless fashion is confounding. I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody would believe that a family could have
Speaker 1: put together such a tactical hit on another family that
Speaker 1: they had created life with. It's still too difficult to accept, it,
Speaker 1: too hard to believe. I'm Carol Fisher and I'm hosting
Speaker 1: a podcast called The girl Friends. Back in the nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties in Las Vegas, a few of us dated the
Speaker 1: most eligible bachelor in town, Bob. He spoke several languages,
Speaker 1: he did medical missionary work, and he was Jewish. He
Speaker 1: was perfect on paper, but he wasn't. He really wasn't.
Speaker 1: He shouted and to the point that she went unconscious.
Speaker 1: Bob could lie about anything, but only takes the one
Speaker 1: time when somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for Bob, us
Speaker 1: girlfriends know how to fight back. I wanted him to
Speaker 1: pay for his crime. He needed to be put to justice.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you. If I saw him right now,
Speaker 1: I'd spit on him. I would call him and I
Speaker 1: would say, I know you killed my sister. I will
Speaker 1: always hound you and haunt you. You can listen to
Speaker 1: The Girlfriends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Delia Wild and I
Speaker 1: want to invite you to listen to my newest podcast,
Speaker 1: The ass to make up Our bodies have already existed
Speaker 1: in the true styles. It's called The Oh My God
Speaker 1: Particles Show or OMGPS for short. How you like me
Speaker 1: always wondering about the universe, like what the universe is
Speaker 1: made of? What is in the atmospheres of alien panics?
Speaker 1: And you know, how are we even here to even
Speaker 1: ask those questions? So road trip I want to get
Speaker 1: some answers directly from researchers at the Large Hadron Collider.
Speaker 1: We're colliding particles with energies that naturally existed in the universe.
Speaker 1: Was about a trillion of the second old. I found
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Speaker 1: to get their experiment working. I've got to darct, a
Speaker 1: brilliant astrophysicist who collaborated with Brian May, the guitarist from Queen.
Speaker 1: Listen to the Oh My God Particle Show on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to Bad Manners. This is
Speaker 1: the podcast that takes you inside Britain's stately homes and
Speaker 1: tells all the tales the guide books don't. My name
Speaker 1: is Tom Horton and I'll be your host. Britain is
Speaker 1: riddled with the big houses, from crumbling castles, massive mansions
Speaker 1: and stately piles bigger than Buckingham Palace. As a comedian,
Speaker 1: I'm not really bothered about the facts and figures. I
Speaker 1: just want the juicy stuff. So I'm on a mission
Speaker 1: to find out the frightening, filthy and downright jaw dropping
Speaker 1: stories of these stately homes and the people in them.
Speaker 1: This podcast ventures deep inside some of Britain's most incredible
Speaker 1: and outrageous buildings to spill the tea on the scandless, scary,
Speaker 1: shocking and hilarious tales. So if you want to get
Speaker 1: historically horrid, royally raucous and down to dirty, look now
Speaker 1: for listen to Bad Manners on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Everybody, we know
Speaker 1: there are a ton of podcasts out there. Well, we
Speaker 1: have one we would love for you to check out.
Speaker 1: It is called The pen Pals Podcast with Daniel Van
Speaker 1: Kirk and Rory Scoville. We are both stand up comedians
Speaker 1: where actors were writers, but now most of all, we
Speaker 1: are your pen pals. Every single episode we get two
Speaker 1: letters that we read from our listeners, our new pen pals.
Speaker 1: It can be about anything going on in their life
Speaker 1: and sometimes we're also joined by guests like Will Ferrell,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring you up in front of the group
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna punch you as hard as I can
Speaker 1: in the stomach. Rose Burn, Well, this is West Hollywood.
Speaker 1: We keep it clean. Jo considered, Brian, I'm just showing
Speaker 1: you that my mind is quick, if not that funny.
Speaker 1: And Mandy Moore, we're all crossing the line together. Listen
Speaker 1: to the pen Pals podcast on Will Ferrell's Big Money
Speaker 1: Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and crely your new pen Pals
Speaker 1: Daniel van Kirk and Rory Scobel. Let's stop here for
Speaker 1: another break. Before the killings, the Wagners were trying to
Speaker 1: coerce victim hannahme Roden into signing forged documents seating custody
Speaker 1: of her daughter to Angela Wagner in the event of
Speaker 1: Hannah's death. The forged custody documents that have been discussed
Speaker 1: in this case, they were declaration documents, and it was
Speaker 1: stated in Rita Newcomb's case, because she was the one
Speaker 1: accused of charged with forgery or obstruction, it said that
Speaker 1: it was declarations for the children of Hannah Roden. George
Speaker 1: the Fourth and Jake. And so basically these documents designated
Speaker 1: a guardian should any of them die, and these documents
Speaker 1: had been signed and notarized nineteen days before the murders,
Speaker 1: and it designated the children go to Angela should any
Speaker 1: of them die. That's just one of those puzzle pieces
Speaker 1: that I felt like showed that Angela she may have
Speaker 1: been the driving force here since she was the one
Speaker 1: that had the Facebook message that's been referenced in court
Speaker 1: that showed that Hannah said they'd have to kill me
Speaker 1: first before I gave up my child, and she showed
Speaker 1: that message to Jake. This paper says if Hannah is
Speaker 1: to meet her demise, then Sophia should go to Jake corrrect. Okay,
Speaker 1: But if Jake meets his demise and his child goes
Speaker 1: to his mom, correct, not to Hannah. Correct. Then. On
Speaker 1: April twenty first, twenty twenty one, on the five year
Speaker 1: anniversary of the murder, and in a case where nothing
Speaker 1: made sense, accused murderer Jake Wagner abruptly pled guilty to
Speaker 1: eight counts of aggravated murder, felony, conspiracy, unlawful possession of
Speaker 1: a dangerous ordinance, and tampering with evidence. The State of
Speaker 1: Ohio agreed as part of the guilty plea not to
Speaker 1: seek the death penalty for him or his father, mother,
Speaker 1: or older brother. Here's Stephanie speaking with reporter James Pilcher.
Speaker 1: Is it possible that Jacob could say I was in
Speaker 1: a very controlling environment, My mother, Angela Wagner, controlled us,
Speaker 1: My father was a bully and said I had to
Speaker 1: do these things, and we were coerced into it. Is
Speaker 1: there any value in that even? I mean, that's entirely possible,
Speaker 1: and some of the reporting, that's what we've heard Lee cow.
Speaker 1: The other thing I will say is that maybe they're
Speaker 1: going after bigger game than Jake, and they figured we'll
Speaker 1: cut this deal. Now, he'll give us what we want
Speaker 1: and then we can go get the mom and the dad.
Speaker 1: But clearly they were going after the people who auted it.
Speaker 1: This was not Jake's idea, right, or at least not
Speaker 1: according to prosecutors. This was a family coming together. That's
Speaker 1: what the prosecutors are after is that, Okay, we get
Speaker 1: Jake to help us, we get Jake to plead out.
Speaker 1: It shows that this really did happen. Now we can
Speaker 1: go after the people who are actually planned it. Jake,
Speaker 1: who admitted to shooting five of the eight victims, agreed
Speaker 1: to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against his family members.
Speaker 1: He knows he will die in prison. Do you think
Speaker 1: Jake is lying about being personally responsible for five of
Speaker 1: the eight? I don't know what his incentive to lie
Speaker 1: about that is. I mean, is he that afraid of
Speaker 1: the death penalty. The economics of that equation just does
Speaker 1: not make sense to me. Where he would openly confess
Speaker 1: to murdering five people. Probably the worst act you could
Speaker 1: commit as a human is taking the life of another,
Speaker 1: and he did that five times over. I think we
Speaker 1: got a good idea of what happened here. The charges
Speaker 1: against Frederico Wagner were dismissed. She maintained her faith throughout
Speaker 1: the ordeal, even as her son, accused murderer, Billy Wagner,
Speaker 1: and his family were charged with horrible crimes. Trust in
Speaker 1: the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your
Speaker 1: own understanding, in all your ways. Acknowledge Him and he
Speaker 1: will direct your path. And as my attorney will tell you,
Speaker 1: it was dismissed because I was innocent. They had no
Speaker 1: evidence against me. I never lied about anything. The investigation
Speaker 1: had a snag when Sheriff Frieder was arrested on felony
Speaker 1: charges not related to the case. There had been criticism
Speaker 1: about how Sheriff Frieder handled evidence in the road massacre,
Speaker 1: but these new charges conflict of interest, saft in office,
Speaker 1: and tampering with evidence stripped him of his badge and office.
Speaker 1: I stand here before you today to take accountability for
Speaker 1: my actions. Took that responsibility for my conduct, I said,
Speaker 1: Sheriff of Ohio. I should excuse me. Everything that I've
Speaker 1: worked for professionally and honorably for twenty five years was
Speaker 1: stripped to me, with nobody good blame but myself. If
Speaker 1: I could go back and change it, I would a
Speaker 1: million times. This is not who I am. Never ever
Speaker 1: did I imagine myself on the defense side of this
Speaker 1: court route that I've spent twenty five years of my
Speaker 1: life in this county in law enforcement. I am a
Speaker 1: good person, made bad decisions and choices I have, and
Speaker 1: I'm now pray that the will mercy on me. According
Speaker 1: to reports, Reader allegedly stole cash sees from drug arress
Speaker 1: to fund a gambling problem. He even blamed his gambling
Speaker 1: addiction on the stresses of investigating the Rodan killings. You know,
Speaker 1: now he's blaming gambling habits on because what he's seen
Speaker 1: in the Rodent crime scenes have haunted him so much
Speaker 1: he couldn't sleep, so he would go gamble one name
Speaker 1: Charlie for thirty years and he's been gambling waved before
Speaker 1: this happened. And that's just that, just to me, shows
Speaker 1: you his character. You know, I'm I'm gonna use the
Speaker 1: death of eight people to try to smooth over that
Speaker 1: I'm still a money off my county in gambling, and
Speaker 1: that is disgusting to me. You're talking about a guy
Speaker 1: who led the Sheriff's office and who for a time,
Speaker 1: a moment in time when this first happened, these murders
Speaker 1: first happened, who was also leading that investigation until the
Speaker 1: state came in and took it over. You just said
Speaker 1: back and go, man, let's see where this ends. I mean,
Speaker 1: Pike County has been a crazy ride. So ever since
Speaker 1: the end of April of twenty sixteen, it has been
Speaker 1: an absolutely crazy half a decade there. But despite Sheriffrid's downfall,
Speaker 1: the Wagner's Billie George Jake and Angela remain locked up.
Speaker 1: Jake's mother, Angela, father Billy, and brother George await their
Speaker 1: fate as Jake prepares to testify against them. The Wagners
Speaker 1: are facing three hundred and thirty two thousand files of
Speaker 1: evidence from the prosecution. Will the Wagners remain behind bars?
Speaker 1: And what will Jake reveal about what happened that harrowing
Speaker 1: night in April twenty sixteen. Based on the totality of
Speaker 1: information now known by the state, including the fourth right
Speaker 1: statements of the defendant, we have overwhelming evidence of the
Speaker 1: defendant and the three co defendant numbers of the Feeling
Speaker 1: Farm in fact responsible for planning and carrying out the homicide.
Speaker 1: Jake admitted it in the league evening hours of April
Speaker 1: twenty first, two sixteen into the early morning hours of
Speaker 1: Able twenty second, twenty sixteen, is when they admitted these homicides.
Speaker 1: You think about staring into the eyes of your kin
Speaker 1: folks across the room as you're sitting in the dock
Speaker 1: there and you're looking at them straight in the eyes,
Speaker 1: and people that you've spent Thanksgivings with Christmases. You know
Speaker 1: these moments throughout your life and you're looking at them,
Speaker 1: and you're potentially sending them to the proverbial gallows by
Speaker 1: virtue of what you're going to say. Will we figure
Speaker 1: out exactly what happened on the night of April twenty
Speaker 1: first in Piketon? I want to know exactly what happened
Speaker 1: that night? You know, how did they get in the homes?
Speaker 1: We know the end, We've got some idea what happened
Speaker 1: in the middle, But I think I want to know
Speaker 1: about the beginning. You know, was this truly about custody?
Speaker 1: You know, I would just like to know, you know,
Speaker 1: exactly why from Jake Wagner, When did the switch flip
Speaker 1: to where the only resolution to whatever was going on
Speaker 1: between him and the Roses at that point was to
Speaker 1: go and kill them all? It makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 1: And was Angela the mastermind behind it all? I think
Speaker 1: it was still Angela behind the scene, control of everything
Speaker 1: went in a little public master. What will happen in
Speaker 1: the meantime is anyone's guess. Will there be another Plea deal?
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to see where this case goes from here.
Speaker 1: It's the pike to massacre. Who knows. You never know
Speaker 1: where this is going next. This season, we have a
Speaker 1: much fuller picture of who the Wagner family was prior
Speaker 1: to this and how they became the monsters we now
Speaker 1: know them to be. We've really started to learn more
Speaker 1: about the Wagner family, not only the lives that they led,
Speaker 1: but also their motivations for the crimes they allegedly committed.
Speaker 1: Just when we thought it couldn't get any stranger or darker,
Speaker 1: it has. All will be revealed on Season three of
Speaker 1: The Piketon Massacre. For more information on case photos, follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. This special episode
Speaker 1: was produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves, Alan Wheater,
Speaker 1: and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Tui,
Speaker 1: music by Jared Aston, audio mixing by Ken Novak. The
Speaker 1: Piketon Massacre is a production of Katie Studios and iHeartRadio.
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