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 Pikedon Massacre. Returned to Pike County, Season two, Episode six,
Speaker 1: The Victims Need a Voice. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television
Speaker 1: producer at Katie Studios with Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane.
Speaker 1: The day that eight members of the Rodent family were
Speaker 1: found murdered, journalist Chris Graves began covering the story for
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati Enquirer. Her insight is crucial, as she spoke
Speaker 1: with members of the victims families, the Manli's and Gillies
Speaker 1: in the immediate aftermath of the killings. She's the only
Speaker 1: journalist to conduct an exclusive interview with the Wagner family.
Speaker 1: Just weeks after the Rodents were found dead. Graves sat
Speaker 1: down with Jake Wagner, who has now pled guilty, and
Speaker 1: his accused mother, Angela. We finally got Chris Graves to
Speaker 1: sit down for an interview after many tries. She's speaking
Speaker 1: out now because she feels it's imperative that the victims
Speaker 1: have a voice in this story. This is highly significant
Speaker 1: due to the current gag orders. Here she is speaking
Speaker 1: to our producer, also named Chris Graves. When did you
Speaker 1: first hear about the Rodent murders? So I first heard
Speaker 1: about the crime the friday in which it broke. I
Speaker 1: saw a tweet, as I recall, and the first news
Speaker 1: of this was that there were people dead in Pike
Speaker 1: County and that the police were beginning to investigate. So
Speaker 1: my news instincts kicked in, and then I texted our
Speaker 1: editors and said, this is our story, this is what
Speaker 1: I was thinking. Multiple people found Daddy in more than
Speaker 1: one location along Union Hill Road and piked in this morning.
Speaker 1: My two PM investigators say they found eight people dead,
Speaker 1: seven adult victims and a sixteen year old boy, all
Speaker 1: from the road. And family. There is a shooter or
Speaker 1: shooters out there somewhere. No one is in custody right now.
Speaker 1: Whoever they are, they were trying to possibly wipe out
Speaker 1: this entire family. I was trying to get somebody who's
Speaker 1: on the ground, who has eyes, who can help you
Speaker 1: as a reporter, because when stories like this begin to unfold,
Speaker 1: there's just so much you don't know. You don't know anything.
Speaker 1: There was a church right across from Union Hill Road,
Speaker 1: and I managed to get Reverend Phil Fulton on the phone,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I just started interviewing him. And
Speaker 1: during the course of that conversation, I could hear the
Speaker 1: Reverend Fulton talking with what appeared to be a family
Speaker 1: member who turned out to be Leonard Manly. Leonard is
Speaker 1: the father of Dama Many Roden, also the grandfather of
Speaker 1: Hannah Roden, Chris Junior, and all of the kids. So
Speaker 1: I asked him if he could put Leonard Manley on
Speaker 1: the phone, and he did, and that was the first
Speaker 1: time I talked with a family member. He was able
Speaker 1: to tell me in that conversation who they believed had
Speaker 1: been killed, and it was his daughter who found the
Speaker 1: first four victims, who made the first nine one one call,
Speaker 1: which we've all heard. I was trying to on the phone,
Speaker 1: pieced together who all these people, what their relationships were,
Speaker 1: Who were they, what were their relationships? It was certainly
Speaker 1: horrific and tragic. Pikeden is a small community where everyone
Speaker 1: knows everyone, and as you can imagine, the town is
Speaker 1: just stunned, cunshock thinking about the whole family. Really, it
Speaker 1: is hard to believe. It's such a useless strategy. I
Speaker 1: just don't understand why it happened here. It was one
Speaker 1: of the things, you know, pinched me, wake me up.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'll wake up, but they'll just feel 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 in turn 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 RU thirty two,
Speaker 1: helping some of the family and friends as they come
Speaker 1: to grips with an unspeakable event. Can you describe the
Speaker 1: evil community is? I don't think you can really describe.
Speaker 1: It is just unbelievable. These things that'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, what could have happened, where did they work,
Speaker 1: what's all the prior criminal history of everybody, and you're
Speaker 1: sort of left as a reporter to I mean, really
Speaker 1: kind of do knock on doors, talk to people, try
Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, talk to the people who
Speaker 1: are closest to the information, and begin to sort of
Speaker 1: piece stuff together. And what was the result of that.
Speaker 1: I think this part of America gets a little bit
Speaker 1: of a rap that it's a very and it is.
Speaker 1: It is insular, but it's also kind. People were kind
Speaker 1: when they maybe shouldn't have been, you know, at least
Speaker 1: to me. And I just I really just wanted to
Speaker 1: understand the victims. I wanted to understand family. So I
Speaker 1: spent hours, sometimes oftentimes interviewing not just family members, but
Speaker 1: people who lived, you know, down the road and across
Speaker 1: the way, and you know, the librarian, and I mean
Speaker 1: all kinds of you know, certainly the sheriff and the
Speaker 1: attorney general and all of that. People call it and
Speaker 1: we did too, the road in case of the road,
Speaker 1: and certainly their family lost the most people, which sounds
Speaker 1: horrific even to say. I mean, I just like, there's
Speaker 1: no good words for any of this, but I mean
Speaker 1: there are three family units. The Manlies, the Gillies, and
Speaker 1: the rodents. Hannah Gilly is a little often turned into
Speaker 1: a rodent or a footnote, right, we don't get to
Speaker 1: explore her world nearly enough. And that's the other thing
Speaker 1: I think about Hannah Hazel. That's what they call Hannah
Speaker 1: 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 Dwine giving an update. Three children
Speaker 1: did survive, a four day old, a six month old,
Speaker 1: and a three year old. I think what makes this
Speaker 1: particularly grizzly is the fact that you have these children
Speaker 1: involved who obviously were there when executions took place. You know, heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know the one mom apparently was killed
Speaker 1: with the four day old right there. I mean, it's just,
Speaker 1: you know, which it's just hard to believe. Then I
Speaker 1: went and did my first column, and I just went
Speaker 1: driving Pike County. It's pretty, rolling hills, It's absolutely beautiful,
Speaker 1: and it was starting to warm up. Things were beginning
Speaker 1: to bloom. There were fields of yellow and purple, and
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it was just absolutely beautiful. All
Speaker 1: of the things that someone who looks for ways in
Speaker 1: which to tell stories you look for, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: as this county was going through its spring rebirth, it
Speaker 1: struck me that this tragedy was rippling across sort of
Speaker 1: these beautiful fields of yellow flowers, and I just could
Speaker 1: not get those three children out of my head. And
Speaker 1: I just started looking out and I started to cry,
Speaker 1: I truthfully, and sort of became, I don't know, overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: but I I came around or down a hill and
Speaker 1: I saw 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 lullabies 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 um and just awe inspiring. Somehow
Speaker 1: they're survivors. So that's what I wrote about. Nobody can
Speaker 1: imagine what this family has been through. Only the other families,
Speaker 1: the Manlies, the Ali's, those families are suffering as much
Speaker 1: as we are. They only know what we are all
Speaker 1: going through every day we live with this. It never
Speaker 1: goes away. I can tell you that even though it's
Speaker 1: been extremely hard, that I know our family will never stop.
Speaker 1: We will never give up. We will never give up
Speaker 1: trying to find and bring the people whoever did this
Speaker 1: to justice. We will not give up. Can you describe
Speaker 1: your first impression to the Wagner's. My first interview with
Speaker 1: Jake Wagner and his mom, Angela was on May thirty first,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. You know, so, what is that six weeks
Speaker 1: after the homicides. I had talked with other people who said, oh,
Speaker 1: they probably aren't going to talk to you. They're pretty
Speaker 1: to themselves. But I knew that Jake and Hannah had
Speaker 1: been on a relationship and had had shared a child.
Speaker 1: Said well, well, you know, we'll go try. I showed up,
Speaker 1: and he and his mom agreed to the interview. He
Speaker 1: and Angela outside their home, which was searched two years later.
Speaker 1: We sat outside on a patio area and talked for
Speaker 1: I don't know, two and a half hours. Maybe there
Speaker 1: were children's toys everywhere, like those little pretend little cars
Speaker 1: that 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 Wagners, 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 then 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 Wagoners were the
Speaker 1: night and early morning of the twenty first and 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 said,
Speaker 1: and as you all know, what Jake said in court
Speaker 1: is that he was quote unquote personally responsible for five
Speaker 1: of the eight victims. So I don't know where his
Speaker 1: brother was, his dad, or his mom. What was Angela Wagner? Like,
Speaker 1: Jake talked a lot more than Angela, but Angela would
Speaker 1: add on things as Jake talked. But any in person
Speaker 1: interview I did with Jake, Angela was there and didn't leave.
Speaker 1: I mean she was a mom. I mean that's how
Speaker 1: I saw it. You know, she's a mom. Here her Again,
Speaker 1: this is six weeks after these homicides, and when I
Speaker 1: you know, and again I'm not trying to be sympathetic
Speaker 1: to the Wagner's right now, I'm not, but again, dialing
Speaker 1: back five years, I show up on your doorstep, and
Speaker 1: if I'm the mom and my son has just lost
Speaker 1: the mother of his child, I guess I thought she
Speaker 1: was just being a protective mom. I'm here for my
Speaker 1: kid kind of thing. Again, this all looks different today
Speaker 1: than it did five years ago. At the time, did
Speaker 1: you feel like they might have been guilty or did
Speaker 1: you believe what they were saying or do you not
Speaker 1: put yourself in that position to even have an opinion?
Speaker 1: I had somebody asked me, I don't even know a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, what's it like to look into
Speaker 1: the eyes of pure evil? I said, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think that people think it would you would
Speaker 1: just automatically. I don't know that some like I have
Speaker 1: some kind of radar that go off that we're you know.
Speaker 1: But they weren't suspects, so I wasn't approaching them with
Speaker 1: that in the back of my mind, like, oh, now
Speaker 1: you're suspects in this. It was more information gathering. They
Speaker 1: 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 nervous, or
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, the investigation ramped up. More than two
Speaker 1: dozen investigators are focused on solving one of Ohio's largest
Speaker 1: mass murders in history. As of today, we've received eight
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty three tips, we have conducted four hundred
Speaker 1: and 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 a significant progress in the investigation, believe more than
Speaker 1: one person committed the crimes, but to day, the killers
Speaker 1: are still on the loose. When did you hear that
Speaker 1: the Wagoners were suspects? All of a sudden, I got
Speaker 1: a tip from somebody. They said, hey, have you heard
Speaker 1: about the search at the Wagoners? And it became really
Speaker 1: clear to me that they must have had something, because
Speaker 1: you'd have to have probable cause. So whatever it was
Speaker 1: that 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 there were helicopters up and
Speaker 1: there were law enforcement, like on four wheelers. I was
Speaker 1: sitting there at the search and someone said, well, you
Speaker 1: know the house is sold. I said, no, I don't
Speaker 1: know that. And then I sat in my car and
Speaker 1: looked up the property records and saw that it was
Speaker 1: on the market. And then you start connecting the dots
Speaker 1: in your own head, right, And I was like, whoa
Speaker 1: wait a minute, wait a minute. And then I found
Speaker 1: out they were in Alaska. The Wagners were in Alaska.
Speaker 1: And then I went to the editor and said, I
Speaker 1: need to go to Alaska. I need to talk to them.
Speaker 1: We have major developments tonight in a bazaar and tragic
Speaker 1: murder case with ties between Ohio and Alaska. Investigators want
Speaker 1: any information the public has about the Wagner family. That
Speaker 1: someone has information, it really is in their best interest
Speaker 1: to come forward voluntarily, thank you of us that information.
Speaker 1: They're not messing around. We're going to ask for people
Speaker 1: if they're building evidence from us, so it's in their
Speaker 1: interests to come forward. They went somewhere where you had
Speaker 1: to really want to find them, to find them, right,
Speaker 1: It did seem like they were trying to get lost
Speaker 1: in a way. They lived in a rural part that's
Speaker 1: a Kenai peninsula, and Alaska is expansive, but I mean
Speaker 1: everything is so far from everything else. I talked with
Speaker 1: people in you know, a little like a little cafe.
Speaker 1: People knew that they were there, but it wasn't any
Speaker 1: big deal. They were like, oh, you mean the people
Speaker 1: who are wanted in Ohio for killing all those people.
Speaker 1: Attorney General Dwine you know, said they were you know that,
Speaker 1: while not calling them suspects, said, you know, they were
Speaker 1: laser focus of the investigation. And I'm like, well, actually,
Speaker 1: they're not really wanted, you know. I mean that was
Speaker 1: the thing that was really interesting. By the time the
Speaker 1: news got there, most people thought they were wanted, but
Speaker 1: that didn't seem to bother people. I remember quoting a
Speaker 1: guy saying, well, this is where people come to get lost,
Speaker 1: you know, it's no surprise. I remember being struck when
Speaker 1: we drove there that, well, of course they live here.
Speaker 1: It looks just like Pike County. You know, it's wooded,
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. When I knocked on the door, she came
Speaker 1: to the door and I said, Angela, I'm here, let's talk.
Speaker 1: And she was sort of startled, I think to see me.
Speaker 1: And then Jake came to the door, and the little
Speaker 1: girl came, and Jake Wagner says, oh, my gosh, Chris,
Speaker 1: it's so great to see you. It's so great to
Speaker 1: see somebody. I mean, there was no trepidation, but Billie
Speaker 1: did yell. I never saw him, but he yelled from
Speaker 1: the living room, Hey, Angela, what are you doing? You know,
Speaker 1: get back in here. And she's like, oh, don't mind him.
Speaker 1: You know, his barks hours in his bite. I mean,
Speaker 1: they were like, well, I don't know about this. We've
Speaker 1: got a lawyer back in Ohio. I don't think we
Speaker 1: should say anything until we talked to him. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'd really like to do a sit down interview. I'd
Speaker 1: really like to record it. Then it became a back
Speaker 1: and forth about well, who's your lawyer, how do I
Speaker 1: talk to him? Where do I get him? What will
Speaker 1: we do? I need to talk to him, and then
Speaker 1: 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 the
Speaker 1: Wan was harassing them. This is all harassment. They've done
Speaker 1: nothing 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, NOLP, 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 counts.
Speaker 1: In exchange, he avoids the death penalty and will serve
Speaker 1: 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, he'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 was just was like, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: this 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 paint the picture that his mom wasn't there
Speaker 1: or dad? Somebody wasn't there, so he's gonna like top
Speaker 1: the majority of them. All four were involved. But what
Speaker 1: does that mean? Does that mean two were involved in
Speaker 1: the planning other people did something, you know, somebody went
Speaker 1: in and pulled all the trail cameras, but weren't involved
Speaker 1: 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 was there?
Speaker 1: I mean, he's lied 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. Like everybody, I want
Speaker 1: to know the answers. I want to know the details.
Speaker 1: I want to know, like how you come up with this?
Speaker 1: How do you do you? Are you all just sitting
Speaker 1: around the kitchen table like plotting this? And at some point,
Speaker 1: why is it that out of four people, somebody doesn't say,
Speaker 1: uh no, no, it's one thing to talk about it.
Speaker 1: But now we're doing it, and we're building silencers and
Speaker 1: we're plotting things as I mean, as it's been described.
Speaker 1: In some mental way, you're imagining you're doing something good
Speaker 1: for the benefit of your kin, your grandchild, But why
Speaker 1: would you put your own kids in the heart of murder?
Speaker 1: And again the idea that of four people, of four
Speaker 1: people who were supposedly religious people, not one of you
Speaker 1: 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 don't.
Speaker 1: I cannot understand that, Like, was that a surprise to you,
Speaker 1: that it was that it was them? No. The thing
Speaker 1: that startled me, or continues to I guess that I
Speaker 1: have a 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 is
Speaker 1: a family, decimates a family and in essence then destroying
Speaker 1: that child's life to protect that. It just doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't reconcile with me. I remember interviewing Tony Rowden, he's
Speaker 1: the brother of the victims and uncle and all of that.
Speaker 1: I 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 it came from a
Speaker 1: very deep and meaningful place. But I guess we're all
Speaker 1: always looking for logical explanations to a logical acts. What
Speaker 1: has been your experience being back in Pike County now
Speaker 1: five years later? The question I've asked people here is
Speaker 1: do people still think about this case? Do people still
Speaker 1: talk about that? 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 is 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's what I
Speaker 1: want people to think about when they think about this crime.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we become fascinated with the inner workings
Speaker 1: of how would one family do this to the other family.
Speaker 1: These are people's lives and I cannot say that enough.
Speaker 1: And that's what should not be forgotten in all of
Speaker 1: this is that through all of the horrificness of the
Speaker 1: crime these there are so many people left behind in
Speaker 1: this wake. The family was decimated. So I guess that's
Speaker 1: what that I hope people take away from this as
Speaker 1: opposed to this a salacious story. On June twenty one,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, accused brother George Wagner, will head back
Speaker 1: to court for a hearing, one that could change the
Speaker 1: landscape of the case moving forward. But as we wait,
Speaker 1: we turn our attention to another story that has had
Speaker 1: a lasting effect on a different community, just miles away
Speaker 1: from Pike County. It centers around a notorious lawyer named
Speaker 1: Michael Moran. He was arrested in twenty twenty on eighteen
Speaker 1: charges related to running a prostitution ring. He's pleaded not
Speaker 1: guilty to all of them and is currently awaiting trial.
Speaker 1: He's accused of trafficking women all over the country, from
Speaker 1: New York and New Jersey to Florida. A lot of
Speaker 1: these women are part of marginalized society right Nobody was
Speaker 1: listening to their stories before, or seeing them as even
Speaker 1: human They were seeing them as criminals, people who would
Speaker 1: rob them, people who were going to break into their house,
Speaker 1: but nobody was really hearing from them. I wanted to
Speaker 1: continue to investigate these stories, but I didn't know at
Speaker 1: that time how big this was. More on that next time.
Speaker 1: For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. The Piked and
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. We'd like to thank the maud
Speaker 1: Hammond Fling Faculty Research Fellowship Grant, which supports faculty research
Speaker 1: at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, where Chris Graves teaches journalism.
Speaker 1: The Piked and Massacre Returned to Pike County is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.