Speaker 1: Welcome to the piked in Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Katie Studios. Four members of the Wagner family are
Speaker 1: in prison awaiting death penalty trials for the murder of
Speaker 1: eight members of the Rodent family.
Speaker 2: Four suspects are Billy and Angela Wagner and their sons
Speaker 2: George the Fourth n j.
Speaker 3: These four individuals are now in custody for legilate committing
Speaker 3: this heartless, ruthless, cold blooded murder.
Speaker 1: Two others have been charged with helping to cover up
Speaker 1: the grizzly crime.
Speaker 4: Rita Joe Nukam and Fridrika Kirol Wagner under house arrest
Speaker 4: connected to the killings of eight members of the Rodent family.
Speaker 4: The judges said bond at one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: But while Ohio's largest murder investigation brings the alleged killers
Speaker 1: to stand trial, it also raises some unsettling questions about
Speaker 1: the victims themselves.
Speaker 5: There had been reports of scuffles with other people in public.
Speaker 5: There were indications that they were involved in some drug
Speaker 5: deals and drug trade.
Speaker 6: Law enforcement yet.
Speaker 2: To say if the extensive Maria Wanna grow operation they
Speaker 2: found is connected to the death.
Speaker 1: And now two years after the arrests, the residents of
Speaker 1: Pikes in Ohio are conflicted about what really happened on
Speaker 1: the early morning of April twenty second, twenty sixteen.
Speaker 7: I think there's more to it, and I don't know
Speaker 7: if we'll ever get the truth about it, to be.
Speaker 1: Honest with you, this is the Pikeson Massacre, Episode four
Speaker 1: Alternate Theories. In the last episode, we examine the motive
Speaker 1: that authorities believe lie at the center of the brutal
Speaker 1: killings of eight members of the Rodent family, a feud
Speaker 1: between Jake Wagner and Hannah Roden over the custody of
Speaker 1: their two and a half year old daughter, Sophia. Though
Speaker 1: it is important to remember that the Wagners are all
Speaker 1: innocent until proven guilty, there is mounting evidence to support
Speaker 1: the custody theory. Still, nearly two years after the arrests,
Speaker 1: some residents of Pikes in Ohio are conflicted about their guilt.
Speaker 5: You know, the BCI, you know, in the state of Ohio,
Speaker 5: poor County.
Speaker 6: They're not really wanting to spend a lot of money
Speaker 6: on it. Somebody did it, but it wasn't them. It
Speaker 6: just doesn't make sense to me if they are innocent,
Speaker 6: because who else would do that.
Speaker 8: I wish we knew exactly what happened.
Speaker 7: I know people kill people over custody, but not that
Speaker 7: many people. I think there's more to it. It's bigger
Speaker 7: than what people think it is, and I don't know
Speaker 7: if we'll ever get the truth about it. To be
Speaker 7: honest with.
Speaker 1: You, that's exactly what we're going to explore in this episode.
Speaker 1: I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KAT Studios. With Stephanie
Speaker 1: Leidecker and Jeff Shane, we worked on a documentary about
Speaker 1: the case back in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4: One thing the three of us know for sure is
Speaker 4: that the Rodents did not deserve this by all accounts,
Speaker 4: they were just a loving and caring family, and their
Speaker 4: loss is felt throughout the entire community. And that's really
Speaker 4: why we want to bring not only them, but the
Speaker 4: entire town of Piked injustice and hopefully shed a light
Speaker 4: on the crime and help bring everyone in some sense
Speaker 4: of closure.
Speaker 1: Following the Roden murders, it was two and a half
Speaker 1: years before the Wagners were arrested. In that time, many
Speaker 1: other plausible theories were put forward, and there are those
Speaker 1: who believe that some of them are credible possibilities. When
Speaker 1: we began researching the story, we kept hearing rumblings about
Speaker 1: two of the victims we haven't discussed much yet, the
Speaker 1: Rodent sons, Chris Junior and Frankie. From all accounts, twenty
Speaker 1: year old Frankie was a wonderful man. He was a
Speaker 1: devoted father and excited about his upcoming marriage to his fiance,
Speaker 1: Hannah Gilly. Chris Junior was just a few years younger
Speaker 1: than Frankie. Brittany, one of Chris Junior's oldest friends, talked
Speaker 1: to Stephanie about her memories of him growing up.
Speaker 9: When did you and Chris Junior meet for the first time?
Speaker 1: How old were you? Guys?
Speaker 3: We were young.
Speaker 7: We were either in Kindergorton or first grade.
Speaker 9: And you were friends from that day forward.
Speaker 7: Yes, we actually dated first grade.
Speaker 1: He was the love of my life.
Speaker 9: What did the first grade version of you love about him?
Speaker 6: He's a little bad and that's how he always was,
Speaker 6: like he was the guy that he's like, I know,
Speaker 6: I have it all like.
Speaker 4: He was that type of boy growing up.
Speaker 1: One of the things that kept coming up when we
Speaker 1: talked to people around town was the Rodent boy's love
Speaker 1: of demolition Derby. Frankie and Chris Junior were very passionate
Speaker 1: about demolition Derby racing. They spent most of their time
Speaker 1: building and rebuilding these cars to race in Derby's all
Speaker 1: across Ohio. We spoke to journalist Jeff Winkler, who spent
Speaker 1: some time at Derby Races as part of his investigation
Speaker 1: into the Rodent murders.
Speaker 3: Demolition Derby is if you've seen it on TV, it's
Speaker 3: it looks like chaos, and a's to a degree it is,
Speaker 3: but it's you know, rainming into people. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of loud noises, and there's a lot of concrete flying,
Speaker 3: and there's fires and smoke and dirt and it's exciting
Speaker 3: and fun and people who love it love it. The
Speaker 3: Rodents were deeply involved in demolition derbies in the area.
Speaker 3: They were very much part of that culture. But demolition
Speaker 3: derbies are really intense. You're smashing each other, I mean,
Speaker 3: emotions get high.
Speaker 1: Jeff told us about one Derby that Chris Junior and
Speaker 1: Frankie participated in in May of twenty fifteen that ends
Speaker 1: it in a bloody altercation.
Speaker 3: Based on what's been reported in the court documents, I
Speaker 3: think it's fair to say that Frankie and Chris Junior,
Speaker 3: I mean, definitely were hot heads and definitely got into
Speaker 3: fights here and there. They had an incident with a
Speaker 3: fella named Tommy Gorman who was a rival in the
Speaker 3: demolition Derbies. They got into a bit of a sort
Speaker 3: of heated match, and there was a believe a sort
Speaker 3: of incident on the track. They got upset with each other.
Speaker 3: It's some bad blood and then again it's you know,
Speaker 3: kind of picked up speed with Facebook posts about sort
Speaker 3: of consulting each other. And then of course Chris Junior
Speaker 3: Frankie drove over to Gorman's house and proceeded to really
Speaker 3: beat on Gorman and his father, and the fights and
Speaker 3: beatings were only really broken up after the grandfather came
Speaker 3: out and pumped a few shotgun shells into the air.
Speaker 1: According to reports, the Rodents showed up with a dozen
Speaker 1: friends and proceeded to brutally assault Tommy Junior and even
Speaker 1: knocked out his father, Tommy Senior's front teeth in the
Speaker 1: aftermath of the fight. Frankie was arrested and sentenced to
Speaker 1: less than a year's probation for the attack. Chris Junior
Speaker 1: was a juvenile at the time of the attack, and
Speaker 1: no court records are available that charges made against him.
Speaker 1: Here's our producer Jeff Shane speaking to Jeff Winkler.
Speaker 4: And was Tommy and his family were they ever looked
Speaker 4: at as suspects? Do you know, like, did the sheriff
Speaker 4: ever interview them or see if they were involved?
Speaker 3: I mean, the press had talked to the Gorman family
Speaker 3: after hearing about these fights, you know, on Facebook, but
Speaker 3: as far as I know, the law enforcement never really
Speaker 3: approached them.
Speaker 1: Well, the Gormans admitted to reporters that there was some
Speaker 1: bad blood between them and the Rodent family, it was
Speaker 1: not enough to retaliate and certainly not enough to kill over.
Speaker 1: In fact, the Gorman family were never suspects in the investigation,
Speaker 1: but there were more people to look into as our
Speaker 1: investigation unfolded. So too to the list of people who
Speaker 1: could have wanted payback on the Rodents. Take Rusty Mongold,
Speaker 1: another local kid who had gotten into an altercation with
Speaker 1: Chris Junior just two weeks before the Rodents were murdered.
Speaker 3: Long Gold had posted on Facebook that Chris Junior hit
Speaker 3: him with a car and in his message, you know
Speaker 3: he uses some pretty tough language. I mean, Rusty was
Speaker 3: nineteen at the time, and you know he's talking about
Speaker 3: I'm gonna break his fucking legs and Curb stop his ass,
Speaker 3: and I mean just sort of sort of nineteen year
Speaker 3: old bluster. Really, the Rusty Mongol thing happened just two
Speaker 3: weeks before the murders, so I mean, I think this
Speaker 3: was pretty obvious that the investigators had to check that out.
Speaker 3: And of course he got pulled over and was detained
Speaker 3: and even did a DNA sample, but it was pretty
Speaker 3: clear that he had nothing to do with it. But
Speaker 3: you know, that kind of language is certainly going to
Speaker 3: grab the attention of authorities, especially after something like this.
Speaker 1: With authorities finding no clear link between Rusty Mongold, the
Speaker 1: Gorman family, and the Rodent murders, the feeling around Python
Speaker 1: was still ominous. No one knew who could be responsible
Speaker 1: for the mass murder, or even if the responsible parties
Speaker 1: lived next door. Jeff Winkler fills us in on yet
Speaker 1: another incident that happened leading up to the murders.
Speaker 3: According to court documents, on February twenty fourth, and this
Speaker 3: was two months before the murders, So two months before
Speaker 3: the murders In late February, Chris Junior was involved in
Speaker 3: a road rage incident with a thirty three year old
Speaker 3: woman named Rebecca Allen. Apparently, the court records, Rebecca had
Speaker 3: slapped Chris Junior in the face, and she also made
Speaker 3: threats against him and his mother, Dana, which were recorded
Speaker 3: on a cell phone.
Speaker 1: Here's what we know about this. Dana Roden, Chris Junior's mom,
Speaker 1: got involved as well, and Rebecca Allen ultimately got two
Speaker 1: years probation, forty hours of community service, and a restraining
Speaker 1: order against contacting Chris Junior and Dana Rodin. This was
Speaker 1: on April twentieth, twenty sixteen, one day before the murders
Speaker 1: took place.
Speaker 9: There were definitely some scrapes, some posting, and yeah, some
Speaker 9: social media threats. But is that really motive enough to
Speaker 9: murder eight people?
Speaker 4: Of course not, But the timing of it is interesting.
Speaker 4: You know, as we try to understand what's happened, it's
Speaker 4: important to know everything this family was going through up
Speaker 4: until the murders, because we don't know what's important until
Speaker 4: we know it's important. But going back to Rebecca Allen
Speaker 4: and the road ridge incident for just one second, Leonard
Speaker 4: Manley Dana's father, who at this point point was just
Speaker 4: trying to cope with the tragedy, was quoted in the
Speaker 4: news as saying that Rebecca Allen should be looked into
Speaker 4: with regards to the massacre.
Speaker 9: Danner Roden's family. The Manleys, were deeply entrenched in the
Speaker 9: roadens day to day lives, and they were a key
Speaker 9: piece of the investigation at first. Bobby Joe Manley, for example,
Speaker 9: she's the one who discovered their bodies and also made
Speaker 9: that first nine to one one call.
Speaker 1: Here's investigative reporter Jody Barr.
Speaker 6: The days after this and I Am on one calls
Speaker 6: were beginning to be produced, so then you could get
Speaker 6: a picture of what happened that morning that you know,
Speaker 6: a family member went into the first home and found
Speaker 6: the first two dead, Gary and Chris.
Speaker 8: Okay, okay, I need to get out of the house.
Speaker 9: Did you drive over there?
Speaker 10: That's again?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 8: What's your your name? My Bobby, Bobby?
Speaker 3: What's your brother?
Speaker 6: Last name?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 10: What's his name?
Speaker 6: Chris Rode? And dad? That was Bobby Joe Manley. You
Speaker 6: hear about James Manley going over to Dana's house, finding
Speaker 6: his sister, dad, his niece, and nephew. So you start
Speaker 6: getting some more pieces to put together in this puzzle
Speaker 6: and then you realize, well, wait a minute, why were
Speaker 6: they there?
Speaker 1: Police want to know that too.
Speaker 6: We found out from Lynn Manley, that's Dana Roden's father,
Speaker 6: James Manley's father, that Bobby Joe and James were both
Speaker 6: taken down into the Pike County Sheriff's office and interrogated.
Speaker 6: So from the outset, when you look at that and
Speaker 6: you go, well, obviously they had two people in mind.
Speaker 6: These were the two people who made the initial fines
Speaker 6: of the bodies that morning and made those nine on
Speaker 6: one calls. And then we had gotten word that investigators
Speaker 6: wanted to know who paid them to murder their own family.
Speaker 1: Over the next few weeks, Bobby Joe Manleys questioned several times.
Speaker 6: These people are not only being looked at his murder suspects,
Speaker 6: They're going through the entire process. They're being interrogated, they're
Speaker 6: given polygraphs. I can tell you I spoke with Bobby
Speaker 6: Joe Manley on the porch of her father's home and
Speaker 6: she told me that she was given three polygraph tests
Speaker 6: and passed everyone.
Speaker 1: As the suspicion surrounding Bobby Joe subsides. Authorities began taking
Speaker 1: a closer look at James Manley, and it's not too
Speaker 1: long before they make a stunning discovery about who he
Speaker 1: talked to on the night of the murders.
Speaker 6: In the overnight hours at two am. This would have
Speaker 6: been just, for all we know, minutes before the murders
Speaker 6: two in the morning. I mean the bodies were found
Speaker 6: at sun up, but that at two in the morning,
Speaker 6: James was texting with Jake Wagner. Jake obviously now charged
Speaker 6: in these murders. We didn't know the context of those
Speaker 6: ten but we do know that happened, and you know,
Speaker 6: it's just strange suspicions. And then James Manley took a
Speaker 6: polygraph and failed that.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break here, we'll be
Speaker 1: back in a moment. Here again is Jodi Barr commenting
Speaker 1: on James Manley's failed polygraph.
Speaker 6: I don't know what to make of that. You know
Speaker 6: what that means, failing a polygraph. I have no idea
Speaker 6: because we don't know what questions were asked.
Speaker 1: Without sufficient evidence to charge him, James Manley is released,
Speaker 1: but police continue to keep an eye on him.
Speaker 4: Something to think about is that no arrests were made
Speaker 4: after this questioning or the alleged polygraph failure, So it's
Speaker 4: not like the police found some sort of smoking gun
Speaker 4: that implicated him in the crimes. Furthermore, are in the
Speaker 4: state of Ohio, polygraphic examinations are admitted under limited circumstances
Speaker 4: in the court of law. In the state. Only if
Speaker 4: all parties, including the defendant, defense attorney, and the prosecutor
Speaker 4: agree in advance to the admissibility of the results, will
Speaker 4: the court be inclined to admit them.
Speaker 9: Plus, it's really not uncommon for immediate family members, particularly
Speaker 9: those who have discovered bodies, to be considered air quotes
Speaker 9: suspects at first. It's just a natural place for most
Speaker 9: investigations to begin. All that said, I can only imagine
Speaker 9: how difficult that must have been for the Manleies.
Speaker 6: We found out later that it was some respect a
Speaker 6: potential target of the investigation because we know that investigators
Speaker 6: put a GPS device underneath James Manley's pickup truck and
Speaker 6: for whatever reasons, they felt a need to track him.
Speaker 6: And then James Manly finds that this GPS tracker attached
Speaker 6: to the underside of his pickup truck, he rips that off,
Speaker 6: and then he's arrested for doing that.
Speaker 1: This all happens in May of twenty seventeen, three hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety days after James Manley's sister and her family
Speaker 1: were murdered. He's charged with two felonies, tampering with evidence
Speaker 1: and vandalism, both counts for removing the tracking device on
Speaker 1: his car.
Speaker 6: I can remember, you know, getting that news late late
Speaker 6: in the day and driving straight to Ross County, Ohio,
Speaker 6: to the jail where James Manley was booked and you know,
Speaker 6: being held overnight or waiting a bond hearing. But on
Speaker 6: the way there, you're trying to replay these conversations in
Speaker 6: your mind that you know, what were the scenarios that
Speaker 6: involved James. Why is there a GPS tracker on the
Speaker 6: brother of you know, a dead family. I mean, this
Speaker 6: was hitting really close to home. So again, every trip
Speaker 6: to Pike County was this cloud of suspicion and confusion.
Speaker 4: You wonder if they arrested him on those charges, to
Speaker 4: try to just bring him in and hope that they
Speaker 4: would then question him and he wouldn't it to something
Speaker 4: murder related.
Speaker 6: You know, that was a suspicion. You know, it's like, man,
Speaker 6: where is this going to end up? You know, because
Speaker 6: this story is horrible and horrific enough.
Speaker 1: But six days after his arrest, the charges against James
Speaker 1: Manley are dismissed. It's another dead end for investigators.
Speaker 4: Another leading theory at the time was the involvement with
Speaker 4: the drug cartel. The Rodents did have marijuana growing on
Speaker 4: their property, and it was not just a few plants
Speaker 4: here and there in the window. It was a lot.
Speaker 4: A law enforcement source has confirmed that investigators found some
Speaker 4: two hundred marijuana plants on all of the properties. The
Speaker 4: same source said that the size of the operation indicates
Speaker 4: it was being grown for sale and not for personal use.
Speaker 4: And just to put that into perspective, each plant could
Speaker 4: produce around one pound of marijuana, and a pound of
Speaker 4: high grade quality marijuana had a street value of around
Speaker 4: two thousand dollars at the time, meaning that the Rodents
Speaker 4: had in their possession four hundred thousand dollars worth of marijuana.
Speaker 9: I think it's worth noting also that the unemployment rate
Speaker 9: in Piked in Ohio is one hundred and fifteen percent
Speaker 9: higher than the national average, and I share that simply
Speaker 9: to say, by all accounts, the Rodents were very hard
Speaker 9: working people, and the fact that there was this marijuana
Speaker 9: grow operation in their backyard kind of erased the entire investigation,
Speaker 9: as if the Rodent family was just a bunch of
Speaker 9: drug dealers who had it coming, and based on our research,
Speaker 9: that really doesn't add up.
Speaker 4: It should be noted that around the same time as
Speaker 4: the murders, marijuana was being legalized for medicinal use in
Speaker 4: the state of Ohio, So in theory, the Rodents could
Speaker 4: have been growing the crop to be distributed for people
Speaker 4: who were prescribed marijuana legally to treat things like cancer
Speaker 4: and Alzheimer's.
Speaker 9: Also, when Jeff and I were in piked in the
Speaker 9: last time, somebody said something to us in passing, and
Speaker 9: it's always sort of stuck with me regarding the marijuana
Speaker 9: grow operation. On the one hand, if it was a
Speaker 9: small operation, how would that possibly constitute a drug cartel
Speaker 9: hit of this size four different locations. It fell very personal.
Speaker 9: Each crime scene seemed to tell a story of sorts,
Speaker 9: not totally the mo of the drug cartel. In our
Speaker 9: research on the flip, if it was a large scale operation,
Speaker 9: they would have needed a lot of equipment, specialized lighting,
Speaker 9: and that lighting likely would have caused a bit of
Speaker 9: a surge in electricity that would have been noticeable by
Speaker 9: the electric company number one and number two. It also
Speaker 9: would have been very bright. Where they lived was a
Speaker 9: very rural road. It's dark, there's no street lights. How
Speaker 9: would a grow operation of that size go unnoticed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and based on all of our research, if it
Speaker 4: really was the drug cartel, they would have killed the
Speaker 4: dogs and the kids. They leave no one behind.
Speaker 3: I think it's okay for us to confirm that we
Speaker 3: did find marijuana.
Speaker 9: In three locations.
Speaker 3: Is a grow operations.
Speaker 1: Our producer Jeff Shane spoke to investigative journalist James Pilcher,
Speaker 1: who was in and just after the announcement was made.
Speaker 5: That obviously fueled even more speculation that these were outside operators.
Speaker 5: Possibly was as a drug deal gone bad, or was
Speaker 5: somebody trying to take over their turf. All kinds of
Speaker 5: rumors started flow after that disclosure.
Speaker 4: So this idea that like a drug cartel being a
Speaker 4: potential culprit, it does sound crazy. This small town infiltrated
Speaker 4: by you know, international drug dealers in.
Speaker 5: The middle of Appalachia in southern Ohio, you know, but
Speaker 5: if it turned out to be that, we would not
Speaker 5: have been surprised because Mexican drug cartels had done a
Speaker 5: lot of activity in southern Ohio, in the Pike County
Speaker 5: and Soota County and in Ross County.
Speaker 1: In fact, in August twenty twelve, law enforcement officers found
Speaker 1: a major marijuana groves site in Pike County. It had
Speaker 1: suspected ties to a Mexican drug cartel. During that raid,
Speaker 1: officials destroyed about twelve hundred marijuana plants and found two
Speaker 1: abandoned campsites they believed belonged to Mexican national The main.
Speaker 5: Route from southern Ohio to Columbus, which is the next
Speaker 5: biggest city next to Cincinnati, cuts right all through there,
Speaker 5: so you have those people coming in and out. Now,
Speaker 5: were the Rodents involved directly in the narcotics business. There
Speaker 5: were indications that they were involved in some drug deals,
Speaker 5: in drug trade with marijuana. The Rodans had attack dogs,
Speaker 5: which again belies that all American image, which means what
Speaker 5: did they have to hide? They had attack dogs, the
Speaker 5: security cameras, there was a lot of security at that place.
Speaker 5: They wanted to protect what they had. Now, does that
Speaker 5: mean that they were doing anything wrong, not necessarily, but
Speaker 5: it certainly raised a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: Journalist Jodi Barr walked off through the logic of the
Speaker 1: drug cartel theory.
Speaker 6: As the months war on, no one has been arrested,
Speaker 6: no one charged, no people named as persons of interest,
Speaker 6: you really started to wonder, you know, maybe this drug
Speaker 6: cartel thing has there was something to that. They definitely
Speaker 6: knew how to kill people. You know, you're looking for
Speaker 6: signs of a drug cartel, and then you find Kenneth
Speaker 6: Roden with what appeared to be a gunshot in the head.
Speaker 6: Whether there were dollar bills or some sort of paper
Speaker 6: money spread around the body, Was that a sign? What
Speaker 6: did that mean? You know, as you know, a reporter,
Speaker 6: you're studying back, trying to draw conclusion or at least
Speaker 6: a lead from what this meant. I mean, what does
Speaker 6: that mean? There's a body lying there with money on it, So,
Speaker 6: of course a drug cartel. At that point in time,
Speaker 6: you couple with the Attorney General announcing that they found
Speaker 6: commercial grow operations, it made sense.
Speaker 1: Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back
Speaker 1: in a moment. The discovery of the Rodents grow operation
Speaker 1: didn't just complicate the case and who might be responsible.
Speaker 1: It forced the residents of Python to reconsider their feelings
Speaker 1: for the family.
Speaker 6: As soon as the Line and Reader made that announcement
Speaker 6: of the commercial grow operations, that appeared to change the
Speaker 6: entire public perception of these murders. The empathy for this family,
Speaker 6: and even the monetary donations that were coming in to
Speaker 6: help bury these people, all of that stopped. There was
Speaker 6: a large reward put up by Jeff Ruby, a restaurant
Speaker 6: owner in Cincinnati, that was rescinded that day. The public
Speaker 6: support they were getting almost vanished that day. I mean,
Speaker 6: these were eight innocent people, and then sort of flipped
Speaker 6: on its head that, you know, these were eight people
Speaker 6: potentially involved in some large drug offeration and then people
Speaker 6: seemingly just instantly stopped caring. And you know, all that
Speaker 6: momentum the family had of you know, the public being
Speaker 6: interested in this by trying to solve it, taking care
Speaker 6: of this, you know, these kids who were left trying
Speaker 6: to bury these eight people. I mean, that's a large
Speaker 6: expense that vanished that day, and that was over as
Speaker 6: soon as that announcement was made.
Speaker 1: However, those closest to the family never believed a cartel
Speaker 1: was behind the murders.
Speaker 6: Kendra Rodent is Kenneth Roden's daughter. Kenneth was that eighth victim.
Speaker 6: The final victim found worked out an interview with Kendra
Speaker 6: and her mother at their home, and I mean through
Speaker 6: that interview we finally got a look at how close
Speaker 6: his family really was. Kendrick just going through her phone
Speaker 6: with her. She had pictures with Hannah, she had pictures
Speaker 6: with Chris Junior, she had pictures with Dana, her father
Speaker 6: obviously was a large part of the photos stored on
Speaker 6: her phone. I mean, they looked like a normal family.
Speaker 6: I mean there was nothing in those pictures that would
Speaker 6: indicate that, you know, a week later, eight of these
Speaker 6: people in these pictures would no longer draw the breath
Speaker 6: of life. Man. You just it was nothing to indicate that.
Speaker 6: And you're looking at these pictures and you're looking for
Speaker 6: some clue, You're looking for that sign from Kendra when
Speaker 6: you're invited into her home. You saw none of that.
Speaker 6: I mean, it was almost like, That's why it's almost
Speaker 6: unbelievable that it even happened, because when you look at
Speaker 6: these photographs and you talk to these people, they're just
Speaker 6: like anybody else. You'd ever talk to a typical rural
Speaker 6: American family who rose to this notorious, you know, platform
Speaker 6: through the nightly news, coming out and telling the world
Speaker 6: about their darkest hour. Eight people murdered in their homes
Speaker 6: while they slept, children spared, covered with blood, And it's like,
Speaker 6: you try to reconcile what you saw in those photographs
Speaker 6: in the story that Kendra Roden was telling about this
Speaker 6: family to the picture that you now have of them
Speaker 6: murdered in these homes, apparently involved in some sort of
Speaker 6: commercial drug industry, and then you try to put all
Speaker 6: that together. I mean, I don't know how the hell
Speaker 6: you figure that out. It was so confusing.
Speaker 1: So if it wasn't a drug cartel, who was it.
Speaker 1: Let's shift our focus back to the Wagners for a minute.
Speaker 1: Could there be other motives aside from the custody dispute
Speaker 1: between Jake Wagner and Hannah Rodin. As we found out
Speaker 1: from speaking to journalist Jeff Winkler, there were more connections
Speaker 1: between the Rodens and the Wagners than just Hannah and Jake.
Speaker 3: Obviously, the families shared a grandchild together, so there was
Speaker 3: just a lot of interaction between the families but as
Speaker 3: the investigation went on, you know, there was a clear
Speaker 3: sort of trail between Christopher Roaden Senior and Bill Wagner.
Speaker 3: They had been a long time acquaintance, is possibly friends,
Speaker 3: and also business partners. They were just you know, some
Speaker 3: good old boy entrepreneurs. These are multi generational families in
Speaker 3: the same area. So yeah, they just again that sort
Speaker 3: of mix of family and friends and neighbors and business partners,
Speaker 3: all sorts of blends in together.
Speaker 4: Angela Wagner even had said to the press that her
Speaker 4: and her husband and Chris Senior were longtime friends. Like
Speaker 4: the Wagners were presenting them as close allies.
Speaker 3: And I think some of that, of course, is trying
Speaker 3: to you know, sort of portray the family as not
Speaker 3: adversarial to the Rodents. But they had something to have
Speaker 3: fallen out before the murders.
Speaker 1: Attorney and legal commentator Mike Allen Phil Deson.
Speaker 2: Back in mid April twenty and sixteen, supposedly there was
Speaker 2: a fight between Chris Senior and Billy Wagner that witnesses
Speaker 2: say ended with Billy threatening to quote come back and
Speaker 2: finished them all unquote. Nobody seems to know what the
Speaker 2: fight was about or what caused it. But you know,
Speaker 2: these two families, from everything that I've seen, were probably
Speaker 2: not shy about taking care of business if they felt
Speaker 2: somebody abuse them or their family.
Speaker 1: So could this all have stemmed from some kind of
Speaker 1: business arrangement gone wrong? Though we can't be positive. One
Speaker 1: thing we do know is that the detail of Chris
Speaker 1: Senior's autopsy seems to indicate that his death was much
Speaker 1: different than the other seven victims. Here's James Pilcher speaking
Speaker 1: to Jeff again.
Speaker 4: Of all the crime scenes that day, like his was
Speaker 4: known to be the worst.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was shot the most first of all. He
Speaker 5: was shot nine times, possibly because he was trying to
Speaker 5: fight back, but possibly because you know, the vendetta was
Speaker 5: mostly against him, or he was the primary target, I
Speaker 5: should say. And then they positioned his his body in
Speaker 5: a certain way and actually drug his body away from
Speaker 5: where he had originally fallen, So that gave investigators even
Speaker 5: more of an indication that this was personal.
Speaker 1: An anonymous Wagner family relative told Jess that the situation
Speaker 1: between the Wagners and the Rodents was reaching a boiling point.
Speaker 1: This was just before the Rodents were found dead.
Speaker 8: I knew that they were the families, Hannahs, the Rodents,
Speaker 8: and you know my family. They were fighting. There was
Speaker 8: a lot of tension there, bad blood there, but I
Speaker 8: never thought in a million years that they had anything
Speaker 8: to do with that. To me, it's just it's so overwhelming.
Speaker 8: There's a feeling that is almost indescribable. It's kind of like,
Speaker 8: you know, you don't know how to react, so you're
Speaker 8: constantly at least I am at this, like I fail,
Speaker 8: Like it does a war with my emotions, my feelings,
Speaker 8: because I love them so much, you know what, I
Speaker 8: care about them, and they are family, that's your family.
Speaker 8: So it's hard to just turn your back and be like, Okay,
Speaker 8: well you're a freaking monster though I want nothing to
Speaker 8: do with you, and I don't love you no more
Speaker 8: and I don't care about you no more.
Speaker 4: So it seems like your relationship with Angela and her
Speaker 4: family really changed and never really was the same.
Speaker 8: Yep, it did, one hundred percent. It was absolutely mind blowing.
Speaker 8: I just couldn't I couldn't picture it because I knew
Speaker 8: them completely different people, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 8: I would have never pictured Angela being capable or or
Speaker 8: the boys of any of that.
Speaker 1: When we first heard about the Roden murders, we were
Speaker 1: shocked at the brutality of it all, and when we
Speaker 1: first got to piked In, we couldn't believe that these
Speaker 1: murders took place in this community. But upon speaking to
Speaker 1: residents and learning more about the town, we discovered that
Speaker 1: the Rodents were not the first murder victims who called
Speaker 1: Pikedin home.
Speaker 10: You know, if you look back through the history piked
Speaker 10: And there's quite a bit of things that just happened that,
Speaker 10: you know, there's no explanation for get swept under the rug.
Speaker 10: I don't know. I think there's just more evil there
Speaker 10: than just what happened to those eight.
Speaker 7: Pike County is beautiful. It's a beautiful place, but there's
Speaker 7: a lot of dirty people here too. For the town
Speaker 7: that we you know, the size of our town, there's
Speaker 7: been a lot of murders here that have not been solved.
Speaker 1: More on that next week. Piked In Massacre is executive
Speaker 1: produced by Stephanie Leidecker and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and
Speaker 1: sound design by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional producing by
Speaker 1: Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker. The piked In Massacre is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio and Kat Studios. For more podcasts.
Speaker 1: For myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.