Speaker 1: The cheerleaders at a gym in Buffalo have been recording
Speaker 1: themselves to make a new documentary where the news reporters
Speaker 1: because one year ago a mass shooting changed their lives.
Speaker 1: He just walked around shot all the black people. The
Speaker 1: cheer squad, most of whom are black, had to figure
Speaker 1: out how to go on and how to compete. I
Speaker 1: wanted to win for them more than anything this season.
Speaker 1: Listen to the embedded podcast from NPR within the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carol Fisher and
Speaker 1: I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends. It's Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: it's the nineteen nineties, and it is time to find
Speaker 1: a husband. There were four Jewish doctors who were felt
Speaker 1: to be eligible bachelors. One of them was of the
Speaker 1: Baron bat On paper he was perfect, but in reality,
Speaker 1: this guy's a wacko. He shouted to the point went unconscious.
Speaker 1: I would call him and I would say, I know
Speaker 1: you killed my sister. You can listen to The girl
Speaker 1: Friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. This is the unbelievable but true story
Speaker 1: of George Remus. He was an eccentric and genius lawyer
Speaker 1: who figured out how to game the system during Prohibition.
Speaker 1: Remus is the biggest man in the business, but George
Speaker 1: Remus's wild existence took a dark and shocking turn, leading
Speaker 1: to betrayal, revenge, and one of the most sensational murder
Speaker 1: trials in American history. Listen to Remus the Mad Bootleg
Speaker 1: King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Delia Wild and
Speaker 1: I want to invite you to listen to my newest
Speaker 1: podcasts to make up Appy existed to the two style.
Speaker 1: It's called The Oh My God Particle Show or OMGPS
Speaker 1: for short. How you like me? Always wondering about the universe,
Speaker 1: Like what the universe has made all of how it's
Speaker 1: going to evolve? So I went to get some answers.
Speaker 1: Listen to The Oh My God Particle Show on the
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the piked in Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Katie Studios. A lot of what I do is
Speaker 1: I kind of tiptoe into people's tragedy, but I get
Speaker 1: to pull my toes out as opposed to the families
Speaker 1: who their entire lives are you know, shattered in some cases,
Speaker 1: destroyed and decimated, which certainly happened in this case. But
Speaker 1: as the story unfolded, and as we started piecing together
Speaker 1: things and talking with family members and law enforcement and
Speaker 1: people in the community, it just became clear to me,
Speaker 1: I guess that this was a special place. This is
Speaker 1: the piked In massacre. Returned to Pike County Season two,
Speaker 1: episode six, The Victims Need a Voice. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
Speaker 1: a television producer at Katie Studios with Stephanie Lydecker and
Speaker 1: Jeff Shane. Day that eight members of the Roden family
Speaker 1: were found murdered, journalist Chris Graves began covering the story
Speaker 1: for the Cincinnati Enquirer. Her insight is crucial, as she
Speaker 1: spoke with members of the victims families, the Rodens, Manlies,
Speaker 1: and Gillies in the immediate aftermath of the killings. She's
Speaker 1: the only journalist to conduct an exclusive interview with the
Speaker 1: Wagner family. Just weeks after the Rodents were found dead,
Speaker 1: Graves sat down with Jake Wagner, who has now pled guilty,
Speaker 1: and his accused mother Angela. We finally got Chris Graves
Speaker 1: to sit down for an interview after many tries. She's
Speaker 1: speaking out now because she feels it's imperative that the
Speaker 1: victims have a voice in this story. This is highly
Speaker 1: significant due to the current gag orders. Here she is
Speaker 1: speaking to our producer, also named Chris Graves. When did
Speaker 1: you first hear about the Roden murders? So? I first
Speaker 1: heard about the crime the friday in which it broke.
Speaker 1: I saw a tweet, as I recall, and the first
Speaker 1: news of this was that there were people dead in
Speaker 1: Pike County and that the police were beginning to investigate.
Speaker 1: So my news instincts kicked in, and then I texted
Speaker 1: our editors and said, this is our story, this is
Speaker 1: what I was thinking. Multiple people found Daddy in more
Speaker 1: than one location along Union Hill Road and piked in
Speaker 1: this morning. My two PM investigators say they found eight
Speaker 1: people dead, seven adult victims and a sixteen year old boy,
Speaker 1: all from the road and family. There is a shooter
Speaker 1: or shooters out there somewhere. No one is in custody
Speaker 1: right now. Whoever they are, they were trying to possibly
Speaker 1: wipe out this entire family. I was trying to get
Speaker 1: somebody who's on the ground, who has eyes, who can
Speaker 1: help you as a reporter, because when stories like this
Speaker 1: begin to on full, there's just so much you don't know.
Speaker 1: You don't know anything. There was a church right across
Speaker 1: from Union Hill Road, and I managed to get Reverend
Speaker 1: Phil Fulton on the phone, and I, you know, I
Speaker 1: just started interviewing him. And in the course of that conversation,
Speaker 1: I could hear the Reverend Fulton talking with what appeared
Speaker 1: to be a family member who turned out to be
Speaker 1: Leonard Manley. Leonard is the father of Dana Manley Rowden,
Speaker 1: also the grandfather of Hannah Roden, Chris Junior and all
Speaker 1: of the kids. So I asked him if he could
Speaker 1: put Leonard Manley on the phone, and he did, and
Speaker 1: that was the first time I talked with a family member.
Speaker 1: He was able to tell me in that conversation who
Speaker 1: they believed had been killed. And it was his daughter
Speaker 1: who found the first four victims, who made the first
Speaker 1: nine one one call, which we've all heard. I was
Speaker 1: trying to on the phone pieced together who all these people,
Speaker 1: what their relationships were, Who were they, what were the relationships.
Speaker 1: It was certainly horrific and tragic. Pykedon is a small
Speaker 1: community where everyone knows everyone in his youth. Imagine the
Speaker 1: town is just stunned, cunshock thinking about the whole family. Really,
Speaker 1: it is hard to believe. It's such a useless strategy.
Speaker 1: I just don't understand why it happened here. A lot
Speaker 1: of the things pinched me. Wake me up. The times
Speaker 1: I'll wake up, but they'll just be like a dream.
Speaker 1: On April twenty fourth, twenty sixteen, Chris Graves made her
Speaker 1: way to Pike County. That church became a place for
Speaker 1: both law enforcement and the family to gather, and I
Speaker 1: asked the Reverend Fulton if I could attend his church
Speaker 1: service on Sunday, which is what I did. I went
Speaker 1: down into church and listened to his sermon. What was
Speaker 1: that sermon like on that Sunday. It's a small church,
Speaker 1: it's not a big church. Pastor Fulton sort of lives
Speaker 1: in the community, has lived in the community, sort of
Speaker 1: grew up there. He preached there for forty three years.
Speaker 1: He talked a lot about this is what a church does.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's a shelter, a refuge, a safe
Speaker 1: haven in a dark storm. He talked about the need
Speaker 1: for the community to come together and support a family.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of singing. He turned to the
Speaker 1: scriptures or inspiration and solace. He talked a lot about
Speaker 1: evil and what evil would descend to do this small
Speaker 1: country church just up the way north of U thirty
Speaker 1: two helping some of the family and friends as they
Speaker 1: come to grips with an unspeakable event. Can you describe
Speaker 1: the evil community is? I don't think you can really describe.
Speaker 1: It is just unbelievable these things it's happening and going on,
Speaker 1: and such tragedies like this we should not have them.
Speaker 1: You were faced with this giant puzzle, a very tragic
Speaker 1: puzzle that you were trying to put together so that
Speaker 1: others could learn what it possibly happened. Right, You're trying
Speaker 1: to find the truth. You're trying to figure out who
Speaker 1: is in a relationship with whom and how were these
Speaker 1: people connected and what could have happened, where did they work,
Speaker 1: what's all the you know, prior criminal history of everybody.
Speaker 1: And you're sort of left as a reporter to, I
Speaker 1: mean really to kind of do knock on doors, talk
Speaker 1: to people, try to figure out, you know, talk to
Speaker 1: the people who are closest to the information and begin
Speaker 1: to sort of piece stuff together. And what was the
Speaker 1: result of that. I think this part of America gets
Speaker 1: a little bit of a rap that it's a very
Speaker 1: and it is. It is insular, but it's also kind.
Speaker 1: People were kind when they maybe shouldn't have been, you know,
Speaker 1: at least to me. And I just I really just
Speaker 1: wanted to understand the victims. I wanted to understand family.
Speaker 1: So I spend hours, sometimes oftentimes interviewing not just family members,
Speaker 1: but people who lived, you know, down the road and
Speaker 1: across the way, and you know, the librarian, and I
Speaker 1: mean all kinds of you know, really the sheriff and
Speaker 1: the attorney general and all of that. People call it
Speaker 1: and we did too the road in case of the
Speaker 1: rod and certainly their family lost the most people, which
Speaker 1: sounds horrific even to say. I mean, I just like,
Speaker 1: there's no good words for any of this, But I
Speaker 1: mean there are three family units, the Manlies, the Gillies,
Speaker 1: and the Rodents. Hannah Gilly is a little often turned
Speaker 1: into a rodent or a footnote. Right, we don't get
Speaker 1: to explore her world nearly enough. And that's the other
Speaker 1: thing I think about Hannah Hazel. That's what they call
Speaker 1: Hannah Hazel Gilly to make the distinction between Hannah may Roden.
Speaker 1: You know, she became I think, by default a rodent.
Speaker 1: So when we first started writing, and I mean I
Speaker 1: did think about that, like how we're sort of saying, well,
Speaker 1: it's rodents, and I thought, well, she's essentially a rodent.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was engaged to Frankie, they were going
Speaker 1: to get married, they'd had a child together. She lived
Speaker 1: for her son, you know, was really into nursing and
Speaker 1: the health of him, and was trying to eat healthy.
Speaker 1: She graduated from high school, was totally in love with Frankie.
Speaker 1: They were you know, it's everything building a life. She
Speaker 1: saw herself as a road And having said that, she's
Speaker 1: still a Gilly. And so this amount of devastation to
Speaker 1: essentially three families, all of whom live in close proximity
Speaker 1: to each other, and their families or have been in
Speaker 1: various stages differently intertwined, and the ripple effect of that,
Speaker 1: and the children, which is what hit me the hardest.
Speaker 1: I'm a mother of two, and the idea that there
Speaker 1: were three very small children at the crime scenes and
Speaker 1: they were found alive and physically unharmed. Resonated with me
Speaker 1: Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine giving an update. Three children
Speaker 1: did survive, a four day old, six month old, and
Speaker 1: a three year old. I think what makes this particularly
Speaker 1: grizzly is the fact that you have these children involved
Speaker 1: who obviously were there when executions took place. You know,
Speaker 1: it's heartbreaking. I mean, you know the one mom apparently
Speaker 1: was killed with the four day old right there. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just, you know, which is hard. It's just hard
Speaker 1: to believe. Then I went and did my first column,
Speaker 1: and I just went driving Pike County. It's pretty rolling hills,
Speaker 1: It's absolutely beautiful, and it was starting to warm up.
Speaker 1: Things were beginning to bloom. There were fields of yellow
Speaker 1: and purple, and I mean, it's just it was just
Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful, all of the things that someone who looks
Speaker 1: for ways in which to tell stories you look for, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, as this county was going through it's spring rebirth,
Speaker 1: it struck me that this tragedy was rippling across sort
Speaker 1: of these beautiful fields of yellow flowers. And I just
Speaker 1: could not get those three children out of my head.
Speaker 1: And I just started looking out and I started to cry, truthfully,
Speaker 1: and sort of became, I don't know, overwhelmed, but I
Speaker 1: I came around or down a hill and I saw
Speaker 1: a house just sort of out on its own, with,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of rocking chairs on the porch,
Speaker 1: and you know, they were just rocking, but nobody was
Speaker 1: in them. And I sort of started thinking about this
Speaker 1: lullaby It's called the Appalachian Lullaby, and it just it
Speaker 1: just started going through my head and I was remembering
Speaker 1: pieces of it, and I just couldn't help but think
Speaker 1: about those children and who would rock them to sleep,
Speaker 1: and who would hold them tight, and who, you know,
Speaker 1: who would sing them lullabys to sleep. And I thought,
Speaker 1: that's what this is about. This was more than just
Speaker 1: a homicide or a multiple homicide or a mask killing.
Speaker 1: It's about who takes care of those babies and what
Speaker 1: in the world happened here, And those children's lives will
Speaker 1: never be the same. These are families, so many lives affected,
Speaker 1: and the ripple effects of that which will go on
Speaker 1: for decades and generations. They now are and will forever
Speaker 1: be bound by this horrible tragedy, but both their strength
Speaker 1: and their resilience and their resolve and their pain. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's incredible to me. I don't, I don't. I'm struggling
Speaker 1: with words because I don't know the right words. Truthfully,
Speaker 1: it's it's heartbreaking and and just awe inspiring. Somehow they're survivors.
Speaker 1: So that's what I wrote about. Nobody can imagine what
Speaker 1: this family has been through. Only the other families, the Manlies,
Speaker 1: the Gillies, those families are suffering as much as we are.
Speaker 1: They only know what we are all going through every
Speaker 1: day we live with this. It never goes away. I
Speaker 1: can tell you that even though it's been extremely hard,
Speaker 1: that I know our family will never stop. We will
Speaker 1: never give up. We will never give up trying to
Speaker 1: find and bring the people whoever did this to justice.
Speaker 1: We will not give up. Can you describe your first
Speaker 1: impressions of the Wagner's My first interview with Jake Wagner
Speaker 1: and his mom, Angela was on May thirty first, twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: You know, so, what is that six weeks after the homicides.
Speaker 1: I had talked with other people who said, oh, they
Speaker 1: probably aren't going to talk to you, they're pretty to themselves.
Speaker 1: But I knew that Jake and Hannah had been in
Speaker 1: a relationship and had had shared a child. Said well, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll go try. I showed up, and he
Speaker 1: and his mom agreed to the interview. He and Angela
Speaker 1: outside their home, which was searched two years later. We
Speaker 1: sat outside on a patio area and talked for I
Speaker 1: don't know, two and a half hours. Maybe there were
Speaker 1: children's toys everywhere, like those little pretend little cars that
Speaker 1: they drive that are motorized, or little tikes, you know,
Speaker 1: the slides and all of that. It seemed like, Wow,
Speaker 1: here's a family who really digs their kids and or
Speaker 1: grandkids in Angela's case, And I was trying to establish
Speaker 1: who were the Wagoners? Who are the Wagoners? When did
Speaker 1: you start dating Hannah? What was that relationship? You know?
Speaker 1: He didn't dodge questions, looked me in the eye when
Speaker 1: I interviewed him, really nice. It seemed to me as
Speaker 1: if when we had talked that very first time, that
Speaker 1: he was truly in love with Hannah, whatever that means.
Speaker 1: But he thought that they were going to be that
Speaker 1: it would all that there would be a reconciliation and
Speaker 1: they would all come together. And he had this idea
Speaker 1: in his head about what that would look like. And
Speaker 1: I told him this, like, Wow, for a young man,
Speaker 1: you seem to have everything lined up, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was saying, well, we were going to do this.
Speaker 1: He and Hannah, we were going to do this. We're
Speaker 1: going to do this. My plan was this. And I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, that's a lot of you are really linear,
Speaker 1: I think, is what I said. Everything's has to line up.
Speaker 1: And I was sort of taken by that. I didn't
Speaker 1: quite know what to think of it. But again, I
Speaker 1: try to keep my mind as open as possible when
Speaker 1: I'm interviewing people. If in fact what Jake Wagner said
Speaker 1: is true. And he committed five of eight murders and
Speaker 1: then went to sleep that night, took a shower, and
Speaker 1: then had the nerve to sit down with you straight
Speaker 1: faced and said, I'm good, you know, like a regular person.
Speaker 1: That's so unfathomable to me. Humans are multifaceted. I've said
Speaker 1: for years that being a reporter didn't get easier. It
Speaker 1: gets harder the longer you do it, because the world,
Speaker 1: you begin to understand the world is multidimensional and things
Speaker 1: are very it just there's not sometimes these clear things,
Speaker 1: they're not I have a lot of questions. As someone
Speaker 1: who's talked to Jake before, I have tons of questions,
Speaker 1: as you can only imagine. But yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: seemed to me as if, as I just painted, you know,
Speaker 1: there were toys everywhere. He talked about his daughter all
Speaker 1: the time. He talked about you know, for instance, he
Speaker 1: could name movies they all watched together, the books he
Speaker 1: would read her before they went to bed, what he
Speaker 1: told her about where her mom was. You know that
Speaker 1: mom's with Jesus now, he said, You know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how to explain to her that mom isn't coming back.
Speaker 1: Did you ask where his daughter was that night? I mean,
Speaker 1: it was my understanding that this was his week to
Speaker 1: have the child, and he had gotten the child a
Speaker 1: day earlier than he would normally have done that. Fast
Speaker 1: forward five years. If Jake Wagner is to be believed
Speaker 1: by what he said in court, what we still don't
Speaker 1: know is where all four of the Wagners were the
Speaker 1: night and early morning of the twenty some twenty second.
Speaker 1: So there's an assumption, I think that all four of
Speaker 1: the Wagners participated physically in the crimes. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's true. I simply don't know that. What Jake
Speaker 1: said and as you all know, what Jake said in
Speaker 1: court is that he was quote unquote personally responsible for
Speaker 1: five of the eight victims. So I don't know where
Speaker 1: his brother was, his dad or his mom. What was
Speaker 1: Angela Wagner? Like, Jake talked a lot more than Angela,
Speaker 1: but Angela would add on things as Jake talked. But
Speaker 1: any in person interview I did with Jake, Angela was
Speaker 1: there and didn't leave. I mean she was a mom.
Speaker 1: I mean that's how I saw it. You know, she's
Speaker 1: a mom. Here her Again, this is six weeks after
Speaker 1: these homicides, and when I you know, and again I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to be sympathetic to the Aagner's right now,
Speaker 1: I'm not. But again, dialing back five years, I show
Speaker 1: up on your doorstep, and if I'm the mom and
Speaker 1: my son has just lost the mother of his child,
Speaker 1: I guess I thought she was just being a protective mom,
Speaker 1: I'm here for my kid kind of thing. Again, this
Speaker 1: all looks different today than it did five years ago.
Speaker 1: At the time, did you feel like they might have
Speaker 1: been guilty or did you believe what they were saying
Speaker 1: or do you not put yourself in that position to
Speaker 1: even have an opinion? I had somebody asked me, I
Speaker 1: don't even know a couple of years ago, what's it
Speaker 1: like to look into the eyes of pure evil? I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Sometimes I think that people think it
Speaker 1: would you would just automatically. I don't know that. Some
Speaker 1: like I have some kind of radar that go off,
Speaker 1: we're you know, home. But they weren't suspects, so I
Speaker 1: wasn't approaching them with that in the back of my mind, like, oh,
Speaker 1: now you're suspects in this. It was more information gathering.
Speaker 1: They didn't seem nervous. I don't think they ever asked me,
Speaker 1: because sometimes in interviews people will say, oh, don't use that,
Speaker 1: or don't use that, or that makes me really nervous,
Speaker 1: or I mean, I don't recall any of that. You know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't any like, well you can't use that, or
Speaker 1: what are you doing or any of that. But I don't.
Speaker 1: You know, again, you don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 1: And to be completely honest, I did ask them Angela
Speaker 1: and Jake Wants via email, just straight out did you
Speaker 1: kill them? And they never responded, we're going to take
Speaker 1: a quick break. Here, we'll be back in a moment. Oh.
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Fisher and I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends.
Speaker 1: Back in the nineteen nineties in Las Vegas, a few
Speaker 1: of us dated the most eligible bachelor in town, Bob.
Speaker 1: He spoke several languages, he did medical missionary work, and
Speaker 1: he was Jewish. He was perfect on paper, but he wasn't.
Speaker 1: He really wasn't. He shouted and to the point she
Speaker 1: went unconscious. Bob could lie about anything, but only takes
Speaker 1: the one time when somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for Bob,
Speaker 1: us girlfriends know how to fight back. I wanted him
Speaker 1: to pay for his crime. He needed to be put
Speaker 1: to justice. I'll be honest with you. If I saw
Speaker 1: him right now, I'd spit on him. I would call
Speaker 1: him and I would say, I know you killed my sister.
Speaker 1: I will always hound you and haunt you. You can
Speaker 1: listen to The Girlfriends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. In our twenty two
Speaker 1: years of friendship, Andy, this has to be the most
Speaker 1: bizarre thing we've ever done. I know, I love it.
Speaker 1: Our podcast. My Vagina said, what is a podcast? Where
Speaker 1: we ask our everyday Vagina listeners to pull up a
Speaker 1: seat at the best Friend's table as were our most
Speaker 1: personal and humiliating stories and ask questions about women's bodies.
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Speaker 1: exactly are we supposed to do with our pubs? Oh
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Speaker 1: said What podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or
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Speaker 1: but true story of George Ramus. You might know him
Speaker 1: as a character from Boardwalk Empire or as the inspiration
Speaker 1: for Jay Gatsby. He was an eccentric and genius lawyer
Speaker 1: who figured out how to game the system during Prohibition.
Speaker 1: Remus is in the whiskey business, and Remus is the
Speaker 1: biggest man in the business while living the life of
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Speaker 1: am so glad you are here. But George Remus's wild
Speaker 1: existence took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal.
Speaker 1: She had Remus just exactly where she wanted him revenge.
Speaker 1: Feel this muscle. I got this for Remus. I could
Speaker 1: crush him like an egg. And one of the most
Speaker 1: sensational murder trials in American history, we the jury, find
Speaker 1: the defendant, Join me Abbot kaylor As we traced George
Speaker 1: Remus's transformation from bootleg King to alleged madman. Listen to
Speaker 1: Remus the Mad Bootleg King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Afghanistan twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: One Quiet Night, Staffs Are Robert Bales left his I'm
Speaker 1: at outpost alone. He walked into two villages and started shooting,
Speaker 1: killing sixteen civilians, many of them children. Maybe I made
Speaker 1: a mistake, maybe I am wrong, but you have to
Speaker 1: understand the way it went down. We've conducted a series
Speaker 1: of interviews with one of America's most notorious war criminals.
Speaker 1: They paint a complex portrait of a man changed by
Speaker 1: the global War on terror, the idea of hurting a
Speaker 1: kid killing a kid Come on. The War Within the
Speaker 1: Robert Bales Story is an investigative podcast revealing explosive information
Speaker 1: on one of the most controversial events in American military history.
Speaker 1: Bale's actions are merely a symptom of a broken army.
Speaker 1: Listen to The War Within the Robert Bale Story on
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Speaker 1: In seventeen, the investigation ramped up. More than two dozen
Speaker 1: investigators are focused on solving one of Ohio's largest mass
Speaker 1: murders in history. As of today, we've received eight hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty three tips, we have conducted four hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty five interviews, thirty eight search warrants have been issued,
Speaker 1: and sixty cyber extractions have been done. They say they
Speaker 1: made significant progress in the investigation, believe more than one
Speaker 1: person committed the crimes, but to day, the killers are
Speaker 1: still on the loose. When did you hear that the
Speaker 1: Wagners were suspects? All of a sudden, I got a
Speaker 1: tipped from somebody. They said, hey, have you heard about
Speaker 1: the search at the Wagners. And it became really clear
Speaker 1: to me that they must have had something, because you'd
Speaker 1: have to have probable cause. So whatever it was that
Speaker 1: got them probable cause to do the search, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: they found something, because it isn't just going to be
Speaker 1: a fishing expedition, right. So I got in my car
Speaker 1: and I drove there, and the helicopters up and there
Speaker 1: were law enforcement, like on four wheelers. I was sitting
Speaker 1: there at the search and someone said, well, you know
Speaker 1: the house is sold. I said, no, I don't know that.
Speaker 1: And then I sat in my car and looked up
Speaker 1: the property records and saw that it was on the market.
Speaker 1: And then you start connecting the dots in your own head, right,
Speaker 1: And I was like, whoa wait a minute, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: And then I found out they were in Alaska. The
Speaker 1: Wagners were in Alaska. And then I went to the
Speaker 1: editor and said, I need to go to Alaska. I
Speaker 1: need to talk to them. We have major developments tonight
Speaker 1: in a bazaar and tragic murder case with ties between
Speaker 1: Ohio and Alaska. Investigators want any information the public has
Speaker 1: about the Wagner family. That someone has information, it really
Speaker 1: is in their best interest to come forth voluntarily thank
Speaker 1: you of us that information. They're not messing around. We're
Speaker 1: going to laugh for people if they're building average from
Speaker 1: much so it's you, Marri interst to come forward. They
Speaker 1: went somewhere where you had to really want to find
Speaker 1: them to find them, right, They did seem like they
Speaker 1: were trying to get lost in a way. They lived
Speaker 1: in a rural part that's a Kenai peninsula, and Alaska
Speaker 1: is expansive, but I mean everything is so far from
Speaker 1: everything else. I talked with people and you know, a
Speaker 1: little like a little cafe. People knew that they were there,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't any big deal. They were like, oh,
Speaker 1: you mean the people who are wanted in Ohio for
Speaker 1: killing all those people. Attorney General Dwine you know, said
Speaker 1: they were, you know, while not calling them suspects, said,
Speaker 1: you know, they were laser focus of the investigation. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, actually they're not really wanted, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean that was the thing that was really interesting.
Speaker 1: By the time the news got there, most people thought
Speaker 1: they were wanted, but that didn't seem to bother people.
Speaker 1: I remember quoting a guy saying, well, this is where
Speaker 1: people come to get lost. You know, it's no surprise.
Speaker 1: I remember being struck when we drove there that, well,
Speaker 1: of course they live here. It looks just like Pike County.
Speaker 1: You know, it's wooded, it's beautiful. When I knocked on
Speaker 1: the door, she came to the door and I said, Angela,
Speaker 1: I'm here, let's talk. And she was sort of startled,
Speaker 1: I think, to see me. And then Jake came to
Speaker 1: the door, and the little girl came and Jake Wagner says, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, Chris, it's so great to see you. It's
Speaker 1: so great to see somebody. I mean, there was no trepidation.
Speaker 1: But Billie did yell. I never saw him, but he
Speaker 1: yelled from the living room, Hey, Angela, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: You know, get back in here. And she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: don't mind him. You know, his barks hours in his bite.
Speaker 1: I mean, they were like, well, I don't know about this.
Speaker 1: We've got a lawyer back in Ohio. I don't think
Speaker 1: we should say anything until we talked to him. I
Speaker 1: was like, well, i'd really like to do a sit
Speaker 1: down interview. I'd really like to record it. Then it
Speaker 1: became a back and forth about well, who's your lawyer,
Speaker 1: how do I talk to him? Where do I get him?
Speaker 1: What we do I need to talk to him? And
Speaker 1: then I had a long conversation with him on the phone,
Speaker 1: but he was in Ohio, So I go all the
Speaker 1: way to Alaska to talk to somebody in Ohio. And
Speaker 1: he was the one who made it sound like Dwine
Speaker 1: was harassing them. This is all harassment. They've done nothing
Speaker 1: but be cooperative. They've cooperated one hundred and ten percent.
Speaker 1: They've given over their laptops, their phones, they've provided DNA,
Speaker 1: they've agreed to any number of interviews with a BCI,
Speaker 1: which is the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. They've told
Speaker 1: authorities that they were going to Alaska. The state is
Speaker 1: making them look like suspects when they haven't called them suspects.
Speaker 1: And then he said that it probably wouldn't be a
Speaker 1: good idea to give the interview like they basically agreed
Speaker 1: to it, and then said nope, never mind, we've changed
Speaker 1: our mind, which is really unfortunate. It was the last
Speaker 1: time Chris Graves would ever speak with the Wagner family. However,
Speaker 1: she recently returned to Pike County for the first time
Speaker 1: in years after hearing some shocking news. Exactly five years
Speaker 1: after the road and murders in Pike County, one of
Speaker 1: the four defendants, Jake Wagner, is pleading guilty to all
Speaker 1: counts In exchange, he avoids the death penalty and will
Speaker 1: serve multiple life sentences with no chance at parole. His father, mother,
Speaker 1: and brother are similarly charged, and they've pleaded not guilty.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors say that Jake will testify against them. Hearing the
Speaker 1: prosecutor sort of described that he, you know who's going
Speaker 1: to change his plea and outlining the terms of the
Speaker 1: plea arrangement, and then when she shared some details of
Speaker 1: the crime, it just was like, oh my gosh, this
Speaker 1: is really happening right now. I mean, I'm a journalist,
Speaker 1: so I just sort of think about, what are the facts,
Speaker 1: what's happening, what are they saying. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if I really believe he personally killed five people? I thought,
Speaker 1: is he trying to get his mom off? Is he
Speaker 1: trying to pay the picture that his mom wasn't there
Speaker 1: or his dad somebody wasn't there, So he's gonna like
Speaker 1: hop the majority of them all four were involved, But
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Does that mean two were involved
Speaker 1: in the planning? Other people did something? You know, somebody
Speaker 1: went in and pulled all the trail cameras, but weren't
Speaker 1: involved in the actual shooting. I don't. Again, we don't really,
Speaker 1: and I know I'm saying this all the time, but
Speaker 1: we really don't know. A ton of these details. A
Speaker 1: lot of it, even with his guilty plea, is speculation.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I'm like, well, is he trying
Speaker 1: to spare as he trying to lie about? Who is there?
Speaker 1: I mean, he's lie before, so why would he tell
Speaker 1: the complete truth? Now let's stop here for another quick break.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment. Oh. I'm Carol Fisher,
Speaker 1: and I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends. Back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties in Las Vegas, a few of us
Speaker 1: dated the most eligible bachelor in town, Bob. He spoke
Speaker 1: several languages, he did medical missionary work, and he was Jewish.
Speaker 1: He was perfect on paper, but he wasn't. He really wasn't.
Speaker 1: He shouted into the point she went unconscious. Bob could
Speaker 1: lie about anything, but only takes the one time when
Speaker 1: somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for bob, Us girlfriends know
Speaker 1: how to fight back. I wanted him to pay for
Speaker 1: his crime. He needed to be put to justice. I'll
Speaker 1: be honest with you. If I saw him right now,
Speaker 1: I'd spit on him. I would call him and I
Speaker 1: would say, I know you killed my sister. I will
Speaker 1: always hound you and haunt you. You can listen to
Speaker 1: the Girlfriends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. In our twenty two years of friendship, Andy,
Speaker 1: this has to be the most bizarre thing we've ever done.
Speaker 1: I know, I love it. Our podcast My Vagina said,
Speaker 1: what is a podcast where we ask our everyday Vagina
Speaker 1: listeners to pull up a seat at the best Friend's
Speaker 1: table as we share our most personal and humiliating stories
Speaker 1: and ask questions about women's bodies. We are going to
Speaker 1: discuss all body things, like what exactly are we supposed
Speaker 1: to do with our pubs? Oh my gosh, if you
Speaker 1: could have a heart shaped pube that were bedazzled in
Speaker 1: pink rubies or perrymenopause, I feel right now justified. I'm
Speaker 1: going to start my own personal movement. I'm going to
Speaker 1: start blaming anything that goes wrong in my life on perrymenopause,
Speaker 1: us leg hair too long, Harry don't have the will
Speaker 1: to clean, Harry Minipade exactly, are whacked periods, boob issues,
Speaker 1: and so much more. Listen to my Vagina said. What
Speaker 1: podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. What. This is the unbelievable but true
Speaker 1: story of George Remus. You might know him as a
Speaker 1: character from Boardwalk Empire or as the inspiration for Jay Gatsby.
Speaker 1: He was an eccentric and genius lawyer who figured out
Speaker 1: how to game the system during Prohibition. Remus is in
Speaker 1: the whiskey business, and Remus is the biggest man in
Speaker 1: the business, while living the life of luxury with his
Speaker 1: clamorous and ambitious wife Imogene. Daddy, I am so glad
Speaker 1: you are here. But George Remus's wild existence took a
Speaker 1: dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal. She had Remus
Speaker 1: just exactly where she wanted him revenge. Feel this muscle.
Speaker 1: I got this for Remus. I could crush him like
Speaker 1: an egg. And one of the most sensational murder trials
Speaker 1: in American history, we the jury find the defendant, Join
Speaker 1: me Abbot Kaylor as we traced George Remus's transformation from
Speaker 1: bootleg King to alleged madman. Listen to Remus The Mad
Speaker 1: Bootleg King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Afghanistan twenty twelve, One
Speaker 1: Quiet Night, Staffs Aren't Robert Bales left his combat outpost alone.
Speaker 1: He walked into two villages and started shooting, killing sixteen civilians,
Speaker 1: many of them children. Maybe I made a mistake, maybe
Speaker 1: I am wrong, but you have to understand the way
Speaker 1: it went down. We've conducted a series of interviews with
Speaker 1: one of America's most notorious war criminals. They paint a
Speaker 1: complex portrait of a man changed by the global War
Speaker 1: on Terror. The idea of hurting a kid killing a
Speaker 1: kid Come on. The War Within the Robert Bayle Story
Speaker 1: is an investigating podcast revealing explosive information on one of
Speaker 1: the most controversial events in American military history. Bale's actions
Speaker 1: are merely a symptom of a broken army. Listen to
Speaker 1: the War Within the Robert Bale Story on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Like everybody.
Speaker 1: I want to know the answers. I want to know
Speaker 1: the details. I want to know, like how you come
Speaker 1: up with this? How do you do you? Are you
Speaker 1: all just sitting around the kitchen table like plotting this?
Speaker 1: And at some point, why is it that out of
Speaker 1: four people, somebody doesn't say, uh no, no, it's one
Speaker 1: thing to talk about it. But now we're doing it,
Speaker 1: and we're building silencers and we're plotting things as I mean,
Speaker 1: as it's been described. Some mental way, you're imagining you're
Speaker 1: doing something good for the benefit of your kin, your grandchild,
Speaker 1: But why would you put your own kids in the
Speaker 1: heart of murder? And again the idea that of four people,
Speaker 1: of four people who were supposedly religious people, not one
Speaker 1: of you said thou shalt not kill. Not one of you, really,
Speaker 1: not one of you had a moment where you said
Speaker 1: this is wrong. This is fundamentally catastrophically wrong. I honestly
Speaker 1: don't I cannot understand that, Like, was that a surprise
Speaker 1: to you that it was that it was them? No.
Speaker 1: The thing that startled me, or continues to I guess
Speaker 1: that I've hard time wrapping my brain around, is that
Speaker 1: you would annihilate eight people or an entire family over
Speaker 1: the custody of your of the youngest member of that
Speaker 1: mine could joined family. But I can't think it's got
Speaker 1: to be about more than that. My gosh, I mean,
Speaker 1: who does this or custody? You know, who destroys a family,
Speaker 1: decimates a family and in essence then destroying that child's
Speaker 1: life to protect that. It just doesn't it doesn't reconcile
Speaker 1: with me. I remember interviewing Tony Rowden. He's the brother
Speaker 1: of the victims and uncle and all of that. I
Speaker 1: remember Tony just saying Chris, and I can't, I mean, please,
Speaker 1: don't let that be true. I hope that isn't true,
Speaker 1: because that little girl does not deserve this, you know,
Speaker 1: for her sake. I just I hope this isn't true.
Speaker 1: An he meant it, I mean, came from a very
Speaker 1: deep and meaningful place. But I guess we're all always
Speaker 1: looking for logical explanations to a logical acts. What has
Speaker 1: been your experience being back in Pike County now five
Speaker 1: years later? The question I've asked people here is do
Speaker 1: people still think about this case? Do people still talk
Speaker 1: about this? And the response that I've got is yes,
Speaker 1: and I guess. I talked to a couple of people
Speaker 1: the other day in a public setting, and they talked
Speaker 1: in the terms of how tragic it is and how
Speaker 1: it's inconceivable. But yeah, I think it's a ballacy, and
Speaker 1: not just in this case but in all cases to
Speaker 1: think that there's like a closure thing. I don't think
Speaker 1: that exists. I drove past the crime scenes and they,
Speaker 1: you know, interestingly, a couple buildings that remain there a
Speaker 1: little bit more weathered I noticed. But it feels like
Speaker 1: time sort of a standing still there, you know, waiting
Speaker 1: for an end to this. So I don't think this
Speaker 1: brings anybody closure. I think that's some Hollywood nice version
Speaker 1: of well, now you get to move on with your life.
Speaker 1: I think that's frankly bs. I think the amount of
Speaker 1: loss and the ripple effects of that loss will be
Speaker 1: felt for generations. But truthfully has become the most important
Speaker 1: and meaningful story of my career. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I was doing my work, and I try
Speaker 1: to do that with compassion and empathy and understanding, as
Speaker 1: well as trying to find facts and being hard when
Speaker 1: I need to. But it's but then I get to leave,
Speaker 1: you know, I get to leave, and certainly they stay
Speaker 1: with me, and they will always stay with me. But
Speaker 1: I don't, you know, I don't wake up every morning
Speaker 1: without a mother, without a son, without my grandchildren, without
Speaker 1: you know, I don't wake up having to figure out
Speaker 1: how to tell those children what happened to their mothers
Speaker 1: and fathers and cousins and uncles and that or I mean,
Speaker 1: my goodness, you know, the conversations that are going to
Speaker 1: have to be had with Jake and Hannah's daughter. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't have to do that. And that that's what
Speaker 1: I want people to think about when they think about
Speaker 1: this crime. I think sometimes we become fascinated with the
Speaker 1: inner workings of how would one family do this to
Speaker 1: the their family. These are people's lives, and I cannot
Speaker 1: say that enough. And that's what should not be forgotten
Speaker 1: in all of this is that through all of the
Speaker 1: horrificness of the crime these there are so many people
Speaker 1: left behind in this wake. The family was decimated. So
Speaker 1: I guess that's what that I hope people take away
Speaker 1: from this, as opposed to it's a salacious story. On
Speaker 1: June twenty one, twenty twenty one, accused brother George Wagner
Speaker 1: will head back to court for a hearing, one that
Speaker 1: could change the landscape of the case moving forward. But
Speaker 1: as we wait, we turn our attention to another story
Speaker 1: that has had a lasting effect on a different community,
Speaker 1: just miles away from Pike County. It centers around a
Speaker 1: notorious lawyer named Michael Moran. He was arrested in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight in charges related to running a prostitution ring.
Speaker 1: He's pleaded not guilty to all of them and is
Speaker 1: currently awaiting trial. He's accused of trafficking women all over
Speaker 1: the country, from New York and New Jersey to Florida.
Speaker 1: A lot of these women are part of marginalized society
Speaker 1: right Nobody was listening to their stories before or seeing
Speaker 1: them as even human. They were seeing them as criminals,
Speaker 1: people who would rob them, people who were going to
Speaker 1: break into their house, but nobody was really hearing from them.
Speaker 1: I wanted to continue to investigate these stories, but I
Speaker 1: didn't know at that time how big this was. More
Speaker 1: on that next time. For more information on the case
Speaker 1: and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios.
Speaker 1: The piked In massacre returned to Pike County is Executive
Speaker 1: produced by Steph Knee, Lie Decker and me Courtney Armstrong.
Speaker 1: Editing and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional
Speaker 1: producing by Jeff Shane, Andrew Becker and Chris Graves. We'd
Speaker 1: like to thank the maud Hammond Flaying Faculty Research Fellowship Grant,
Speaker 1: which supports faculty research at the University of Nebraska Lincoln,
Speaker 1: where Chris Graves teaches journalism. The Piked and Massacre Returned
Speaker 1: to Pike County is a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Carol
Speaker 1: Fisher and I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends. It's
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, it's the nineteen nineties, and it is time
Speaker 1: to find a husband. There were four Jewish doctors who
Speaker 1: were felt to be eligible bachelors. One of them was
Speaker 1: the spot Barrenbout. On paper, he was perfect, but in reality,
Speaker 1: this guy's a wacko out and to the point she
Speaker 1: went unconscious. I would call him and I would say,
Speaker 1: I know you killed my sister. You can listen to
Speaker 1: the girl Friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. These days, more often than not,
Speaker 1: the success of a company is attributed to its founder.
Speaker 1: But that's only part of this story. My name is
Speaker 1: Noah Callahan Bever and I'm brought to present Idea Generations
Speaker 1: All Angles, a Willpacker Media podcast. We'll be talking to
Speaker 1: all the key players from all your favorite brains like
Speaker 1: Loud Records, Ghetto, Gastro and Earn your Leisure. So join
Speaker 1: me each week as we dissect the most dynamic companies
Speaker 1: and culture, because the only way to truly understand success
Speaker 1: is to look at it from all angles. Listen new
Speaker 1: Idea Generations All Angles on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the unbelievable
Speaker 1: but true story of George Remus. He was an eccentric
Speaker 1: and genius lawyer who figured out how to game the
Speaker 1: system during Prohibition. Remus is the biggest man in the business,
Speaker 1: but George Ramis's wild existence took a dark and shocking turn,
Speaker 1: leading to trial, revenge, and one of the most sensational
Speaker 1: murder trials in American history. Listen to Remus, the mad
Speaker 1: bootleg King, every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, are you
Speaker 1: ready for a brand new podcast that you had no
Speaker 1: idea existed. I'm Rory Scoville and I'm Daniel van Kirk
Speaker 1: and it's the pen Pals Podcast. Maybe you've had a
Speaker 1: pen pal before, where you have two of them right now.
Speaker 1: You send us your letters about anything going on in
Speaker 1: your life. Gotta mean Grandma, need a new haircut, whatever
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Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts,