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