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