August 26, 2020 • 32 mins
In the aftermath of the arrest of six members of the Wagner family in connection with the Rhoden murders, many people across the country were shocked by the brutality of the massacre. But, for the Piketon, Ohio area, this grisly crime wasn’t exactly an anomaly.
In episode five, we take a dive into the dark history of the Piketon, Ohio community. We investigate a wave of murders that were eerily similar to the Rhoden case, a spate of unsolved violent crimes and take a look into the underhanded tactics of one prominent, law enforcement official entrusted to bring the killers of the Rhoden family to justice.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Pikedon Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and
KATI Studios. In April twenty sixteen, when eight members of
the Rodent family were murdered in their homes, the media
descended on the sleepy town of Piketon, Ohio.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Community clearly shaken after this morning's multiple homicides.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
People in this small community being told to be on
alert tonight as news of the unthinkable and gruesome killing spread,
The small rural community is left feeling and rumors begins swirling.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Discoveries the murder scenes are now advancing the theory the
killings could be related to a drug cartel.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Authorities aren't commenting on whether they had any potential suspects.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
Gooybody, thanks.
Speaker 6 (00:41):
All the bad stuff happens in the big cities, but
the devil works at it everywhere.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
But in the aftermath of the arrests of six members
of the Wagner family, attention turns to the very people
responsible for the investigation.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
There was this belief among almost everybody I talk to
about incompetence when it came to law enforce in that county.
Speaker 7 (01:02):
There's nobody watching the watchers in these small communities, and
in many cases that can lead to major corruption and.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
The dark secrets of a once quiet town are slowly
brought to light.
Speaker 8 (01:14):
There's been a lot of murders here that have not
been solved. But if I say what I think, I
could probably end up in the river.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
This is the piked In Massacre, Episode five, air and Opportunity.
In the days after the killings, the Rodent murders became
an international headline and it was a sensational story, a
series of murders, multiple potential motives, all taking place in
(01:43):
a small town in Ohio. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a TV
producer at Katie Studios, where I work with Stephanie Leidecker
and Jeff Shane. We've been following the case for a
long time and through the course of our investigation learned
that the town of piked In, Ohio has its own
story to tell. Journalist Jeff Winkler wrote about the story
for the website The Outline. He told me about his
(02:06):
impressions of the initial reporting coming out of piked In.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
It was a big media story for about two weeks,
and you know, everybody from all over came to cover it,
all over the world, and a lot of people had
been similarly executed in the middle of Appalachia and no
one knew what was going on. I mean, I grew
up in the Ozarks in Arkansas, and these are people
(02:29):
I feel familiar with. You know, when I go up
to New York, California, that's like a Disneyland and it's
a strange, people daring place. These areas and folks like
this are not wildering to me in the same way
that they weren't the people who came down and covered
the story Originally. You get a lot of talk of
(02:51):
a book at these people smoking and you know, wearing camo,
and you know a lot of gwking. You know, it
was just these sort of quotes from sad sort of
back its people is how they're perceived, and that's that's just.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Not where I come from.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
But I think this thing that stood out for me
was just how human everyone was.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Piked In Resident Angie Montgomery shared her view of the
media coverage with producer Jeff Sheane.
Speaker 9 (03:17):
How do you think like piked In and the like
Pike County in general, I guess has been portrayed in
the media.
Speaker 8 (03:23):
I don't think they've been very kind to us. I've
seen a lot of reports where they call this uneducated
kill billy just dumb. They think we're dumb, they think
we're a bunch of inbread. I've actually seen that in
some reports, and it's sad.
Speaker 9 (03:48):
Well, it's easy for some to view the town of
piped In through this kind of provincial, almost stereotypical lens.
It's not what we found when we visited the area.
Speaker 10 (03:57):
It's pretty far removed from the big cities of Olo.
It's about an hour and a half south from Columbus,
an hour and a half east of Cincinnati, and just
under thirty minutes from the Ohio River, which basically separates
southern Ohio from northeastern Kentucky. There's a Walmart, there's a restaurant.
There used to be this great dive bar that has
since closed, I believe, and look for the twenty two
(04:19):
hundred residents piked In his home Native Barbara and Jeff
actually spoke of it about that when we were there.
Speaker 11 (04:26):
Piked In's considered a village and it is a small
just a small little town that has a grocery store
and a pizza shop, and gas stations and there's a
tire shop. People sit and talk to the gas station, wherever,
wherever they go. They people know each other and they
(04:46):
just sit and talk. You know, at the tire shop
you're waiting for a or an oil change or whatever.
You just sit there and chat with your neighbor or
whoever happens to come in. You probably know who it is.
You know somebody everywhere, or you know somebody that knows
somebody everywhere anywhere you go.
Speaker 9 (05:06):
I imagine that is probably like sometimes kind of enjoyable,
and then other times it's probably pretty maddening.
Speaker 11 (05:11):
Yeah, sometimes people know when when I spend the day
in my pool or when I skip a day. If
if there's a day goes by, I don't get in
my pool. Next time I see someone else, they'll say,
how come you weren't in your pool the other day.
So it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
The majority of people we spoke with depicted piked in
this way. Small town USA, everyone knows everyone, nobody ever
locked their doors growing up. But when we started to
pull back the curtain, it was clear that piked In
harbored some dark secrets, secrets that didn't start with the rodents.
Speaker 9 (05:52):
It seems like there's like two sides of piked In,
which is one is like the blue collar hard workers
who you know, want to raise their families the right way,
and yet somehow something horrible still did happen to this town.
Speaker 11 (06:04):
I think it's like every town, you're gonna find that
wherever you go, there's going to be the ugly part,
and piked In has it.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Jeff spoke to Stephanne, a former Pikedon resident who had
recently left town. She shared barber sentiments about the community.
Speaker 9 (06:21):
I want to ask you, so you now you're in
Florida and you're away from Pikedon and all this, but
it still seems like it's very much a part of
your DNA, right.
Speaker 12 (06:29):
I haven't been home since July a year before last,
since twenty eighteen, and I just I don't know if
I'll ever really like go back and live there. Ever.
Speaker 13 (06:43):
You know, if you look back through the history of
piked In, you know there's quite a bit of things
that just happened that, you know, there's no explanation for
get swept under the rug. I don't know.
Speaker 12 (06:55):
I think there's just more evil there than just what
happened to those eight.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Stephan's remarks left us unsettled, but when we followed up
with investigative reporter Jodi Barr. He seemed to corroborate her
thoughts with some troubling stories he had heard during his
time covering the road in case.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
This was national news the day after a few days
after it happened.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
But you know, as it typically.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Happens with the news cycles, you know, the national folks
move on to.
Speaker 5 (07:28):
The next big story.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
We were left with that, and we would get emails
and constant questions or phone calls about new information.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
Is there anything to know? And there was nothing to know.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
So my boss came to me and said, hey, can
you go over and start digging into this and see
if there's anything at all that we could find out.
I was in Pike County a lot, and I kept
getting stories about other homicides in Pike County, and I thought, Man,
if there were that many homicides in a county, this
small man, there could be something here that we don't
(07:58):
yet know, and it's worth taking a look.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Through his research, Jodi discovered that there have been at
least three recent cases in By County involving multiple homicides.
Cases like the January twenty sixteen murders of Candace Newsom
and her teenage daughter, Christina. They were both shot execution
style in their home. Police finally did arrest the Newsom's
neighbor for their murders in twenty nineteen. Neighbor Christian R. Davis,
(08:25):
was indicted by a grand jury, but did not plead,
nor has he been convicted, but there was plenty of
chatter on social media, none of which can be confirmed,
mentioning the possibility of an accomplice to the murders still
at large. Candace Newsom's sister, Darla has even spoken publicly
she thinks that her sister and niece's murder may be
(08:45):
related to the Rodents, stating that they ran in the
same circles.
Speaker 9 (08:51):
What struck me about Candace and Christina and was just
the fact the similarities between, Like just the idea that
in the middle of the night these people were gunned
down in the in their homes while they slept. Just
it is striking, you know, before even reading any other details,
just hearing that when you're researching the road in case,
you're like, well, that's weird. You know, that's fifteen minutes away.
It's the same exact style of murder.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yes, And it was just so odd that you had
that type of crime in happening in a place like that.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Then in April twenty sixteen, just weeks before the Rodents
were killed, Douglas Eatman and Carolyn and Tomlinson were shot
execution style in their home. According to Jodi Barr, one
detail of the crime struck a familiar chord.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
A double homicide, four children left alive. This is very
similar to the Rodent case.
Speaker 9 (09:43):
I mean again, it's a striking coincidence that in the
same area this is happening. In the same month, you know,
the same month and year that the Rodents were murdered,
this has also happened.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
That's what led us down.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
The path of even looking at these cases, because we
had heard that there were other people who were shot
no the night, execution style in their home.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
When you're looking at.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
The Rodent case and then you see these other cases
in a county that small, you start asking yourself what
the hell is going on, because it doesn't make sense
that this is happening there unless there is some sort
of common denominator. And it's still hard to believe today
that there were these types of murders that took place
in a county so small, with so few people living
(10:26):
in it. I mean, you don't hear about that in
big cities, and you sit back and you wonder to yourself,
what is going on?
Speaker 5 (10:33):
I mean, why is this happening.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Fortunately, police arrested Douglas Eatman's uncle Charles and his cousin
James Allen, on suspicion of Douglas and Carolyn's murder. Each
face is twenty to fifty years or life in prison,
with enhanced sentencing for capital offenses also a possibility. The
pair were indicted but have not pled or been convicted.
The case is ongoing. According to investigators, it was a
(11:01):
drug related killing. The motive for Candas and Christina Newsom's murders, however,
remains unclear. But beyond the methods of these killings, there's
another thing that Jody told us about that ties them
all together.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Then in some cases people get away with it for
extended periods of time. Kendice Newsom and her teenage daughter Christina.
It took four years before investigators charged a neighbor and
family friend with murder in that And that's four years
and the alleged perpetrator in that case is what a
(11:35):
next door neighbor, and it took four years a piece.
That together is just you wonder if Pike County if
people were getting good at committing crimes and potentially getting
away with it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
One case that remains unsolved is the two thousand and
six murder of thirty four year old Curtis Francis and
thirty year old Jennifer Brigett.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Kurt Francis and Jennifer berg At. You know, they were
both shot and killed in their beds, in their homes
in the middle of the night. And you know, when
I'm looking through these incident reports of these murders and
I go, WHOA.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
This sounds very similar to the road case.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
You know, two people shot in their bed in their
homes in the middle of the night, and I thought,
this is one we need to pursue.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
But no one would talk.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
We couldn't find out any information. All the search warrants
were sealed at the courthouse and there's absolutely no arrest.
Ten years later, there's nothing here. We are today still nothing.
We're in a dead end and it may never be solved.
And unfortunately there are other cases like that there that
just didn't get the attention.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
We're going to take a quick break here we'll be
back in a moment.
Speaker 10 (13:05):
Let's take one quick step back for a minute and
really look at the Curtis Francis and Jennifer Burguett case.
That's the couple who was also shot in their home
while they slept in two thousand and six. They only
lived about fifteen minutes down the road from the road
in property. Fifteen minutes and to this day, that case
remains unsolved.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
For Angie Montgomery, Curtis Francis's cousin, it remains a devastating
memory without closure. She spoke to Jeff about it.
Speaker 9 (13:33):
I was shocked that I had never even heard of
Curtis and Jennifer's case, because it's a pretty it's egregious
that this happened and it's unsolved, and it just seems
crazy that another in such a small community that something
like this could happen again. And so what I would
would love to do, and maybe it would kind of
be to like walk through kurt and Jenny's case and
kind of like explain who they were and any of
(13:54):
the facts that you know about the case.
Speaker 8 (13:57):
Well, Curtis was a very hard working, good guy, loved
his family, loved hunting and animals, and fishing and all
that stuff, and he would help anybody. And he was
very protective. That's one word I like to use to
describe him. Very protective of the people. We loved. Jenny
was a good girl. It's always taking care of others.
(14:18):
I think they just got messed up with the wrong people.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
The wrong people and he's referring to are local drug dealers.
Speaker 8 (14:29):
The most of the crime that happens around here, like
carthev's and breaking and enterings and things like that, is
from drugs. There's a huge problem with opioids and methodmphetamine here,
huge and that probably does play a part in every
almost every murder that's happened, probably in the past ten years.
(14:52):
I think the people that killed my cousin lived I
think four or five minutes up the road from Curtain Jenny.
They were big druggillers, and Curtis owed in some money,
supposedly for marijuana.
Speaker 9 (15:06):
So you feel like you know who did it.
Speaker 8 (15:09):
Oh, yes, I don't want to be that person, but
I'm pretty blunt and upfront in the law enforcement here.
They have mishandled Curtain Jenny's case from the rip.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
When Angie says law enforcement, she's talking about the Pike
County Sheriff's Office, the same agency heavily involved in conducting
the Rodent murder investigation. In twenty sixteen, a plumber discovered
a well that had seemed to have been mysteriously hidden
with rocks and dirt. It was on a property that,
according to eyewitness statements, was the last place Curtis Francis
(15:46):
was seen on the night of his murder. The Pike
County Sheriff's Office was called in to investigate. Officers lowered
a plumber's drain camera into the well and discovered what
appeared to be burned clothes and a gun.
Speaker 8 (15:58):
It was a thirty out six was at the bottom
of the well and Curtis's pistol that was taken in
nine of the murders, and that's what they were shot with,
a thirty out six.
Speaker 9 (16:09):
Both of them.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Curtain Jimmy with a potential murder weapon line just thirty
feet down a well. The Pike County Sheriff's Office decided
to use a curious tactic to recover the gun. They
called in a fire truck to pump water into the
well to try and push the firearm back up out
of the well. Shaft so investigators could get their hands
on it. It did not go as planned.
Speaker 8 (16:29):
They blew the water down the well, which in turn
made the ground break because of the force of you know,
a fire hose could blow the skin off of it.
So they did that. This is what they told us
that happened. When they did that, it busted the ground loose.
The guns went down into the ground, and that they
(16:51):
don't have the money or the equipment to get them out,
so they hired a guy to seal the well shut.
He's a welder. He welded the well shut and that
was it. I think after this fiasco with the guns
in the well, when the guns were found, and how
(17:12):
they handled that situation and handled the possible murder weapons,
I think they're ashamed, and they should be. They took
probably the only hope we have of any type of
physical evidence and blew it to snotherings basically, and nothing's
been done with it since.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
With Curtis and Jennifer's case going cold, Angie decided to
pursue the killers herself.
Speaker 8 (17:43):
I've spent years and years. I've got file after file
after file of things I've done. I've actually went and
got names I've went and talked to people. Well, I'm
just going to be honest with you. I've done with
the police. I've tried to do the police haven't done,
which is talk to people, get information, you know, get date,
(18:05):
get time, get people talking.
Speaker 6 (18:07):
You know.
Speaker 8 (18:08):
All you've seen Kurt that day, Okay, who was with him?
What was his demeanor? Things like that. There's eyewitness statements,
and I've tried my best to get somebody or anybody
just to listen. It's pretty cut and dry, you know.
It's I've had a few people out of state that
(18:30):
are like retired homicide investigators and stuff look at the
case and tell me that they can't, for the life
of them, figure out why there hasn't been an arrest
made for the town that we you know, the size
of our town, there's been a lot of murders here
that have not been solved. It's ridiculous. But if I
(18:51):
say what I think, I could probably end up in
the river.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
According to Jody barr Angie's thoughts about the Pike County
Sheriff's Office are shared by many in the community.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
The impression I got from the people in Pike County
when I was working there covering the road and murders.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
There was this belief among.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Almost everybody I talked to about incompetence when it came
to law enforcement in that county and the lack of
that sheriff's office ability to do a large scale murder
investigation and carry that through to a prosecution.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
And the man at the head of the Pike County
Sheriff's office is none other than Sheriff Charles Reader. You've
heard about Sheriff Reader before. He's the officer who stated
he would stop at nothing to solve the Rodents case.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
I've got a message for the killers.
Speaker 7 (19:43):
We will find you, the family and the victims will
have justice one day.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
To a lot of people watching these news conferences, Reader's
passionate campaign for justice was admirable, But to journalists like
Jeff Winkler, Reader's determination, his mishandling of the road and
investigation from the very start.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
It was the largest mass murder in Ohio's history, and
the law enforcement at the beginning, the local law enforcement
was almost comically inept to handle such a large and
bloody incident. They were just they weren't equipped to handle it.
From the very beginning of the investigation, and they bungled
a lot of stuff right from the get go. It
(20:25):
was one problem after another.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Nearly a month after the bodies were found, Sheriff Reeder
had key pieces of evidence, including the roadents, mobile homes,
and automobiles, moved to a warehouse in the nearby town
of Waverley. Jodie Barr was on the scene and told
Jeff what he saw.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
So I'm out of the warehouse where they moved these vehicles,
the equipment from all the roadent properties where they moved
the four mobile homes where these murders happened.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
There's a large fence around this huge.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Outdoor lot and it is full of cars and ATVs,
farm equipment, back hos, huge tractor trailers. So, as a
reporter with you know, at least a small knowledge of
the chain of custody of evidence. I know that with
all this evidence just you know, fifty yards away from me,
(21:18):
that you've got to have it secured somehow.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
There's got to be a peace officer.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Someone there with a gun and a bat swore who
swear an oath to uphold the laws in the constitutions
of the state of Ohio.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
They're guarding that that was not the case. Yeah.
Speaker 9 (21:35):
So this it's the largest in criminal investigation in the
state's history, right, and the main evidence is not getting watched.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
There was no one in that parking lot watching that evidence.
So when you drive up to a warehouse and you
look and there's nothing between you and hundreds of pieces
of evidence except air and opportunity, if that doesn't raise
a red flag, I don't think you're doing your job.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
I knew at that point time.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
That there was something to explore here because potentially this evidence,
if it's unguarded, they can't establish a chain of custody.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
This entire investigation could be jeopardized. So that's why we
took them.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
We took Mike Allen, the former Hamilton County District Attorney.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
We took him to Pike County. I called him and
I said, hey.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
I want to take you to Pike County. Here's what
I found. I don't want to show you what I've
found yet. I just want to take you to this
warehouse and you give me your impressions of what we
see there through the eyes of a prosecutor.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Here's Mike Allen.
Speaker 6 (22:34):
Jody was on this thing like white on Rice, and
I went up there living and that's when I noticed
it too, and you know, you've got it. Seems to
me it was close to thirty forty, maybe even fifty
vehicles that had a fence around them. Well that's fine,
but it would have taken an old man like me
(22:54):
about ten seconds to climb over that fence and take
something out of one of those vas vehicles, plant something,
put something in one of the vehicles.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
It just was not done right.
Speaker 6 (23:06):
I mean, anybody involved in law enforcement, from the first
week that you're at the police academy, you learned that
you must preserve the evidence, and you must preserve that
chain of custody of the evidence. And I don't know what,
if anything, they pulled out of any of those cars,
but if I were defending this case and they tried
(23:27):
to introduce any of that evidence, I would be all
over it and I would move to have the evidence
excluded because it just was not properly secured.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So Jody began preparing a report about the evidence fiasco
for newstation Fox nineteen and Cincinnati. Soon after, Jody and
his crew were approached by Sheriff Charles Reader, who presented
them with a curious offer. The Sheriff's office declined to comment,
but here is Jody's side of the story.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
He tried to make a deal with us to not
hear that warehouse.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Yeah, and the deal was that he.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Was going to give us this unfettered access where we
could do this first hundred hours with Charlie Reider after
he learned the murders. If we wouldn't do this, that
always That still sits for me today. It pissed me
off then because I'm like, you know, what, what do
you think we are?
Speaker 5 (24:16):
We don't make deals. My photographer, how're you know? We
got back in the car after that, We're going, what
the hell just happened here? Never have we ever experienced that.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back
in a moment. In June twenty nineteen, Reader was indicted
on eight felonies and eight misdemeanors. These felony charges are
not directly related to the road and investigation. He was
(24:52):
accused of conflict of interest, theft in office, and tampering
with evidence, among other nefarious activities. According to reports, we
are also allegedly stole cash sees from drug arrest to
fund a gambling problem. Here's investigative journalist James Pilcher.
Speaker 7 (25:09):
Yeah, he had a gambling addiction and he decided, oh,
I'll just use my own forces money to feed it. Yeah,
uh huh. Man, in places like this, and I'm not
going to say it's necessarily a lack of journalistic outlets
keeping cabs or whatever, but there's no accountability. There's nobody
(25:30):
watching the watchers in these small communities, and in many
cases that can lead to major corruption.
Speaker 10 (25:42):
It's definitely worth noting that Sheriff Reader has pled not
guilty to all of these charges. However, to Jody Barr,
it's just another surreal event to what seems like a
never ending bizarre story.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Reader was, you know, shouldered to shoulder with Mike DeWine,
the now governor who was then the attorney general when
these murders happened, that they together were updating the nation
about what happened here in those days after the murders,
and where you going?
Speaker 5 (26:10):
Is this real?
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Then you read what the indictment's alleged, and you read
what the grand jury handed up, and then you know,
you just have to assume if a grand jury is
handing up an indictment, that there's been an investigation conducted.
There have been facts gathered, a prosecutor has reviewed that,
I mean evidence, tampering and tampering with records. You're talking
(26:32):
about a guy who led the sheriff's office and who
for a time, a moment in time when this first happened,
these murders first happened, who was also leading that investigation
until the state came in and took it over. You
just sit back and go, man, let's see where this ends.
I mean, Pike County has been a crazy ride so
ever since the end of April twenty sixteen, and it's
(26:52):
still right now. You've got people awaiting trial facing the
death penalty on eight murders. The sheriff and dited removed
from office. It has been an absolutely crazy half a decade.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
There still the people of pikes And are torn about
Sheriff Reader.
Speaker 14 (27:12):
He put this town before him, He cared about Pike County.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Here's roadin family friend Brittany talking to Stephanie Leidecker.
Speaker 14 (27:19):
If it wasn't for him, he for Charlie Reader, they
wouldn't have came close to even finding out about the Wagners. Honestly,
that's my opinion. How Come because he worked his ass
off to find like that's all he did was investigate
all of that. He didn't like, he didn't like he
(27:42):
had done his job, Like he went and you know,
like he was doing really well in Pike County, like
keeping this, like getting the drugs off the streets and whatnot.
But he's still made effort, a lot of effort into
the road In case.
Speaker 10 (27:59):
Charlie had dedicated himself to getting justice for the road
and family, and then he was booted, not that that
long ago.
Speaker 14 (28:05):
Apparently he was taking the money from the Rodent case
for gambling, But honestly, I don't believe it because I
don't know. I just don't believe that they just were
finding reasons to get him out of office.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Andrew Montgomery holds a much different view of Sheriff Reader.
Speaker 8 (28:28):
You know, now he's blaming his gambling habits on because
what he's seen is the Rodent crime scenes have on
iting so much he couldn't sleep, so he would go gamble. Well,
unknown Charlie for thirty years, and he's been gambling way
before this happened. And that's just that just to me
(28:48):
shows you his character. You know, I'm going to use
the death of eight people to try to smooth over that.
I'm still in money off my county and gambling, and
that is discuss things to me. I just think there's
a lot of dirty deeds that going around here, and
I think that they will do anything they can to
(29:08):
keep them covered up. Do we have a lot of
crime here, yeah, because of drugs. Do we have a
lot of drug activity here? Yes, way more than there
was fifteen years ago. Is it safe here? I'm more
(29:29):
scared of law enforcement than I am of the people
that killed my cousin. You're afraid to say anything when
in all reality, yeah, some things are out there that
you think because you go down a ton of rabbit holes.
When you talk to two and three hundred people like
I have over the course of two years, you find
(29:50):
out a lot of crap and it does take you
down those rabbit holes.
Speaker 13 (29:53):
Is it true?
Speaker 8 (29:54):
You don't know, but by god, it looks like something
isn't right. Hike County is It's beautiful as far as landscapes,
it's a beautiful place. You know. We're full of farmers
and just down to earth people. But there's a lot
(30:14):
of dirty people here too, and most of them are
in power.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So with sheriff readers ethics being brought into question. Does
this impact the charges brought against the Wagoners? Here's Jeff
wein Glare again.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I would assume, you know, the charges against Reader, the
felonies and the misdemeanors about being you know, through and
through corrupt, and when it came to both law enforcement
and financial dealings.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
Yeah, I would assume this is going to affect a
lot of things.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
In fact, the prosecutor for the piped in area also
just resigned. This just sort of makes you start thinking
about everything that happened in the beginning. Now you're seeing
these charges and these resignations, and you know, it doesn't
speak well about finding any answers to this thing.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Every answer we get about what happened to the road
and seems to leave more questions. So how through all
of these other crimes did official zero went on?
Speaker 6 (31:19):
The Wagner's Police received over eleven hundred tips, They conducted
over five hundred interviews, tested about seven hundred pieces of evidence,
served close to two hundred search warrants, subpoenas and other things.
So this was something that was huge.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
So when you read these indictments, you know they were
talking about the Wagner's movements, even months before these murders happened,
four months to plan this out. I mean, if that's
every day for four months, that's the full time job.
You know, they're hacking computers and there were surveillance cameras
on those properties. If we already believe that the prosecution
as a leg you know, this paints a very dark pick.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Everybody had started basically attacking them the community, accusing them
of murdering those people.
Speaker 13 (32:12):
One day, she was, I can't believe that they just
won't leave us alone. They just will not leave us alone.
We're starting to get really worried that we're going to
be arrested.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
More to come next week. Piked In Massacre is executive
produced by Stephanie Leidecker and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and
sound design by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional producing by
Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker. The piked In Massacre is
a production of iHeartRadio and Kat Studios. For more podcasts
(32:48):
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to the Pikedon Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and
KATI Studios. In April twenty sixteen, when eight members of
the Rodent family were murdered in their homes, the media
descended on the sleepy town of Piketon, Ohio.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Community clearly shaken after this morning's multiple homicides.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
People in this small community being told to be on
alert tonight as news of the unthinkable and gruesome killing spread,
The small rural community is left feeling and rumors begins swirling.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Discoveries the murder scenes are now advancing the theory the
killings could be related to a drug cartel.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Authorities aren't commenting on whether they had any potential suspects.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
Gooybody, thanks.
Speaker 6 (00:41):
All the bad stuff happens in the big cities, but
the devil works at it everywhere.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
But in the aftermath of the arrests of six members
of the Wagner family, attention turns to the very people
responsible for the investigation.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
There was this belief among almost everybody I talk to
about incompetence when it came to law enforce in that county.
Speaker 7 (01:02):
There's nobody watching the watchers in these small communities, and
in many cases that can lead to major corruption and.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
The dark secrets of a once quiet town are slowly
brought to light.
Speaker 8 (01:14):
There's been a lot of murders here that have not
been solved. But if I say what I think, I
could probably end up in the river.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
This is the piked In Massacre, Episode five, air and Opportunity.
In the days after the killings, the Rodent murders became
an international headline and it was a sensational story, a
series of murders, multiple potential motives, all taking place in
(01:43):
a small town in Ohio. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a TV
producer at Katie Studios, where I work with Stephanie Leidecker
and Jeff Shane. We've been following the case for a
long time and through the course of our investigation learned
that the town of piked In, Ohio has its own
story to tell. Journalist Jeff Winkler wrote about the story
for the website The Outline. He told me about his
(02:06):
impressions of the initial reporting coming out of piked In.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
It was a big media story for about two weeks,
and you know, everybody from all over came to cover it,
all over the world, and a lot of people had
been similarly executed in the middle of Appalachia and no
one knew what was going on. I mean, I grew
up in the Ozarks in Arkansas, and these are people
(02:29):
I feel familiar with. You know, when I go up
to New York, California, that's like a Disneyland and it's
a strange, people daring place. These areas and folks like
this are not wildering to me in the same way
that they weren't the people who came down and covered
the story Originally. You get a lot of talk of
(02:51):
a book at these people smoking and you know, wearing camo,
and you know a lot of gwking. You know, it
was just these sort of quotes from sad sort of
back its people is how they're perceived, and that's that's just.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Not where I come from.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
But I think this thing that stood out for me
was just how human everyone was.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Piked In Resident Angie Montgomery shared her view of the
media coverage with producer Jeff Sheane.
Speaker 9 (03:17):
How do you think like piked In and the like
Pike County in general, I guess has been portrayed in
the media.
Speaker 8 (03:23):
I don't think they've been very kind to us. I've
seen a lot of reports where they call this uneducated
kill billy just dumb. They think we're dumb, they think
we're a bunch of inbread. I've actually seen that in
some reports, and it's sad.
Speaker 9 (03:48):
Well, it's easy for some to view the town of
piped In through this kind of provincial, almost stereotypical lens.
It's not what we found when we visited the area.
Speaker 10 (03:57):
It's pretty far removed from the big cities of Olo.
It's about an hour and a half south from Columbus,
an hour and a half east of Cincinnati, and just
under thirty minutes from the Ohio River, which basically separates
southern Ohio from northeastern Kentucky. There's a Walmart, there's a restaurant.
There used to be this great dive bar that has
since closed, I believe, and look for the twenty two
(04:19):
hundred residents piked In his home Native Barbara and Jeff
actually spoke of it about that when we were there.
Speaker 11 (04:26):
Piked In's considered a village and it is a small
just a small little town that has a grocery store
and a pizza shop, and gas stations and there's a
tire shop. People sit and talk to the gas station, wherever,
wherever they go. They people know each other and they
(04:46):
just sit and talk. You know, at the tire shop
you're waiting for a or an oil change or whatever.
You just sit there and chat with your neighbor or
whoever happens to come in. You probably know who it is.
You know somebody everywhere, or you know somebody that knows
somebody everywhere anywhere you go.
Speaker 9 (05:06):
I imagine that is probably like sometimes kind of enjoyable,
and then other times it's probably pretty maddening.
Speaker 11 (05:11):
Yeah, sometimes people know when when I spend the day
in my pool or when I skip a day. If
if there's a day goes by, I don't get in
my pool. Next time I see someone else, they'll say,
how come you weren't in your pool the other day.
So it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
The majority of people we spoke with depicted piked in
this way. Small town USA, everyone knows everyone, nobody ever
locked their doors growing up. But when we started to
pull back the curtain, it was clear that piked In
harbored some dark secrets, secrets that didn't start with the rodents.
Speaker 9 (05:52):
It seems like there's like two sides of piked In,
which is one is like the blue collar hard workers
who you know, want to raise their families the right way,
and yet somehow something horrible still did happen to this town.
Speaker 11 (06:04):
I think it's like every town, you're gonna find that
wherever you go, there's going to be the ugly part,
and piked In has it.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Jeff spoke to Stephanne, a former Pikedon resident who had
recently left town. She shared barber sentiments about the community.
Speaker 9 (06:21):
I want to ask you, so you now you're in
Florida and you're away from Pikedon and all this, but
it still seems like it's very much a part of
your DNA, right.
Speaker 12 (06:29):
I haven't been home since July a year before last,
since twenty eighteen, and I just I don't know if
I'll ever really like go back and live there. Ever.
Speaker 13 (06:43):
You know, if you look back through the history of
piked In, you know there's quite a bit of things
that just happened that, you know, there's no explanation for
get swept under the rug. I don't know.
Speaker 12 (06:55):
I think there's just more evil there than just what
happened to those eight.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Stephan's remarks left us unsettled, but when we followed up
with investigative reporter Jodi Barr. He seemed to corroborate her
thoughts with some troubling stories he had heard during his
time covering the road in case.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
This was national news the day after a few days
after it happened.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
But you know, as it typically.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Happens with the news cycles, you know, the national folks
move on to.
Speaker 5 (07:28):
The next big story.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
We were left with that, and we would get emails
and constant questions or phone calls about new information.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
Is there anything to know? And there was nothing to know.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
So my boss came to me and said, hey, can
you go over and start digging into this and see
if there's anything at all that we could find out.
I was in Pike County a lot, and I kept
getting stories about other homicides in Pike County, and I thought, Man,
if there were that many homicides in a county, this
small man, there could be something here that we don't
(07:58):
yet know, and it's worth taking a look.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Through his research, Jodi discovered that there have been at
least three recent cases in By County involving multiple homicides.
Cases like the January twenty sixteen murders of Candace Newsom
and her teenage daughter, Christina. They were both shot execution
style in their home. Police finally did arrest the Newsom's
neighbor for their murders in twenty nineteen. Neighbor Christian R. Davis,
(08:25):
was indicted by a grand jury, but did not plead,
nor has he been convicted, but there was plenty of
chatter on social media, none of which can be confirmed,
mentioning the possibility of an accomplice to the murders still
at large. Candace Newsom's sister, Darla has even spoken publicly
she thinks that her sister and niece's murder may be
(08:45):
related to the Rodents, stating that they ran in the
same circles.
Speaker 9 (08:51):
What struck me about Candace and Christina and was just
the fact the similarities between, Like just the idea that
in the middle of the night these people were gunned
down in the in their homes while they slept. Just
it is striking, you know, before even reading any other details,
just hearing that when you're researching the road in case,
you're like, well, that's weird. You know, that's fifteen minutes away.
It's the same exact style of murder.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yes, And it was just so odd that you had
that type of crime in happening in a place like that.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Then in April twenty sixteen, just weeks before the Rodents
were killed, Douglas Eatman and Carolyn and Tomlinson were shot
execution style in their home. According to Jodi Barr, one
detail of the crime struck a familiar chord.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
A double homicide, four children left alive. This is very
similar to the Rodent case.
Speaker 9 (09:43):
I mean again, it's a striking coincidence that in the
same area this is happening. In the same month, you know,
the same month and year that the Rodents were murdered,
this has also happened.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
That's what led us down.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
The path of even looking at these cases, because we
had heard that there were other people who were shot
no the night, execution style in their home.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
When you're looking at.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
The Rodent case and then you see these other cases
in a county that small, you start asking yourself what
the hell is going on, because it doesn't make sense
that this is happening there unless there is some sort
of common denominator. And it's still hard to believe today
that there were these types of murders that took place
in a county so small, with so few people living
(10:26):
in it. I mean, you don't hear about that in
big cities, and you sit back and you wonder to yourself,
what is going on?
Speaker 5 (10:33):
I mean, why is this happening.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Fortunately, police arrested Douglas Eatman's uncle Charles and his cousin
James Allen, on suspicion of Douglas and Carolyn's murder. Each
face is twenty to fifty years or life in prison,
with enhanced sentencing for capital offenses also a possibility. The
pair were indicted but have not pled or been convicted.
The case is ongoing. According to investigators, it was a
(11:01):
drug related killing. The motive for Candas and Christina Newsom's murders, however,
remains unclear. But beyond the methods of these killings, there's
another thing that Jody told us about that ties them
all together.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Then in some cases people get away with it for
extended periods of time. Kendice Newsom and her teenage daughter Christina.
It took four years before investigators charged a neighbor and
family friend with murder in that And that's four years
and the alleged perpetrator in that case is what a
(11:35):
next door neighbor, and it took four years a piece.
That together is just you wonder if Pike County if
people were getting good at committing crimes and potentially getting
away with it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
One case that remains unsolved is the two thousand and
six murder of thirty four year old Curtis Francis and
thirty year old Jennifer Brigett.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Kurt Francis and Jennifer berg At. You know, they were
both shot and killed in their beds, in their homes
in the middle of the night. And you know, when
I'm looking through these incident reports of these murders and
I go, WHOA.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
This sounds very similar to the road case.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
You know, two people shot in their bed in their
homes in the middle of the night, and I thought,
this is one we need to pursue.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
But no one would talk.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
We couldn't find out any information. All the search warrants
were sealed at the courthouse and there's absolutely no arrest.
Ten years later, there's nothing here. We are today still nothing.
We're in a dead end and it may never be solved.
And unfortunately there are other cases like that there that
just didn't get the attention.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
We're going to take a quick break here we'll be
back in a moment.
Speaker 10 (13:05):
Let's take one quick step back for a minute and
really look at the Curtis Francis and Jennifer Burguett case.
That's the couple who was also shot in their home
while they slept in two thousand and six. They only
lived about fifteen minutes down the road from the road
in property. Fifteen minutes and to this day, that case
remains unsolved.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
For Angie Montgomery, Curtis Francis's cousin, it remains a devastating
memory without closure. She spoke to Jeff about it.
Speaker 9 (13:33):
I was shocked that I had never even heard of
Curtis and Jennifer's case, because it's a pretty it's egregious
that this happened and it's unsolved, and it just seems
crazy that another in such a small community that something
like this could happen again. And so what I would
would love to do, and maybe it would kind of
be to like walk through kurt and Jenny's case and
kind of like explain who they were and any of
(13:54):
the facts that you know about the case.
Speaker 8 (13:57):
Well, Curtis was a very hard working, good guy, loved
his family, loved hunting and animals, and fishing and all
that stuff, and he would help anybody. And he was
very protective. That's one word I like to use to
describe him. Very protective of the people. We loved. Jenny
was a good girl. It's always taking care of others.
(14:18):
I think they just got messed up with the wrong people.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
The wrong people and he's referring to are local drug dealers.
Speaker 8 (14:29):
The most of the crime that happens around here, like
carthev's and breaking and enterings and things like that, is
from drugs. There's a huge problem with opioids and methodmphetamine here,
huge and that probably does play a part in every
almost every murder that's happened, probably in the past ten years.
(14:52):
I think the people that killed my cousin lived I
think four or five minutes up the road from Curtain Jenny.
They were big druggillers, and Curtis owed in some money,
supposedly for marijuana.
Speaker 9 (15:06):
So you feel like you know who did it.
Speaker 8 (15:09):
Oh, yes, I don't want to be that person, but
I'm pretty blunt and upfront in the law enforcement here.
They have mishandled Curtain Jenny's case from the rip.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
When Angie says law enforcement, she's talking about the Pike
County Sheriff's Office, the same agency heavily involved in conducting
the Rodent murder investigation. In twenty sixteen, a plumber discovered
a well that had seemed to have been mysteriously hidden
with rocks and dirt. It was on a property that,
according to eyewitness statements, was the last place Curtis Francis
(15:46):
was seen on the night of his murder. The Pike
County Sheriff's Office was called in to investigate. Officers lowered
a plumber's drain camera into the well and discovered what
appeared to be burned clothes and a gun.
Speaker 8 (15:58):
It was a thirty out six was at the bottom
of the well and Curtis's pistol that was taken in
nine of the murders, and that's what they were shot with,
a thirty out six.
Speaker 9 (16:09):
Both of them.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Curtain Jimmy with a potential murder weapon line just thirty
feet down a well. The Pike County Sheriff's Office decided
to use a curious tactic to recover the gun. They
called in a fire truck to pump water into the
well to try and push the firearm back up out
of the well. Shaft so investigators could get their hands
on it. It did not go as planned.
Speaker 8 (16:29):
They blew the water down the well, which in turn
made the ground break because of the force of you know,
a fire hose could blow the skin off of it.
So they did that. This is what they told us
that happened. When they did that, it busted the ground loose.
The guns went down into the ground, and that they
(16:51):
don't have the money or the equipment to get them out,
so they hired a guy to seal the well shut.
He's a welder. He welded the well shut and that
was it. I think after this fiasco with the guns
in the well, when the guns were found, and how
(17:12):
they handled that situation and handled the possible murder weapons,
I think they're ashamed, and they should be. They took
probably the only hope we have of any type of
physical evidence and blew it to snotherings basically, and nothing's
been done with it since.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
With Curtis and Jennifer's case going cold, Angie decided to
pursue the killers herself.
Speaker 8 (17:43):
I've spent years and years. I've got file after file
after file of things I've done. I've actually went and
got names I've went and talked to people. Well, I'm
just going to be honest with you. I've done with
the police. I've tried to do the police haven't done,
which is talk to people, get information, you know, get date,
(18:05):
get time, get people talking.
Speaker 6 (18:07):
You know.
Speaker 8 (18:08):
All you've seen Kurt that day, Okay, who was with him?
What was his demeanor? Things like that. There's eyewitness statements,
and I've tried my best to get somebody or anybody
just to listen. It's pretty cut and dry, you know.
It's I've had a few people out of state that
(18:30):
are like retired homicide investigators and stuff look at the
case and tell me that they can't, for the life
of them, figure out why there hasn't been an arrest
made for the town that we you know, the size
of our town, there's been a lot of murders here
that have not been solved. It's ridiculous. But if I
(18:51):
say what I think, I could probably end up in
the river.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
According to Jody barr Angie's thoughts about the Pike County
Sheriff's Office are shared by many in the community.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
The impression I got from the people in Pike County
when I was working there covering the road and murders.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
There was this belief among.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Almost everybody I talked to about incompetence when it came
to law enforcement in that county and the lack of
that sheriff's office ability to do a large scale murder
investigation and carry that through to a prosecution.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
And the man at the head of the Pike County
Sheriff's office is none other than Sheriff Charles Reader. You've
heard about Sheriff Reader before. He's the officer who stated
he would stop at nothing to solve the Rodents case.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
I've got a message for the killers.
Speaker 7 (19:43):
We will find you, the family and the victims will
have justice one day.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
To a lot of people watching these news conferences, Reader's
passionate campaign for justice was admirable, But to journalists like
Jeff Winkler, Reader's determination, his mishandling of the road and
investigation from the very start.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
It was the largest mass murder in Ohio's history, and
the law enforcement at the beginning, the local law enforcement
was almost comically inept to handle such a large and
bloody incident. They were just they weren't equipped to handle it.
From the very beginning of the investigation, and they bungled
a lot of stuff right from the get go. It
(20:25):
was one problem after another.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Nearly a month after the bodies were found, Sheriff Reeder
had key pieces of evidence, including the roadents, mobile homes,
and automobiles, moved to a warehouse in the nearby town
of Waverley. Jodie Barr was on the scene and told
Jeff what he saw.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
So I'm out of the warehouse where they moved these vehicles,
the equipment from all the roadent properties where they moved
the four mobile homes where these murders happened.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
There's a large fence around this huge.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Outdoor lot and it is full of cars and ATVs,
farm equipment, back hos, huge tractor trailers. So, as a
reporter with you know, at least a small knowledge of
the chain of custody of evidence. I know that with
all this evidence just you know, fifty yards away from me,
(21:18):
that you've got to have it secured somehow.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
There's got to be a peace officer.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Someone there with a gun and a bat swore who
swear an oath to uphold the laws in the constitutions
of the state of Ohio.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
They're guarding that that was not the case. Yeah.
Speaker 9 (21:35):
So this it's the largest in criminal investigation in the
state's history, right, and the main evidence is not getting watched.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
There was no one in that parking lot watching that evidence.
So when you drive up to a warehouse and you
look and there's nothing between you and hundreds of pieces
of evidence except air and opportunity, if that doesn't raise
a red flag, I don't think you're doing your job.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
I knew at that point time.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
That there was something to explore here because potentially this evidence,
if it's unguarded, they can't establish a chain of custody.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
This entire investigation could be jeopardized. So that's why we
took them.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
We took Mike Allen, the former Hamilton County District Attorney.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
We took him to Pike County. I called him and
I said, hey.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
I want to take you to Pike County. Here's what
I found. I don't want to show you what I've
found yet. I just want to take you to this
warehouse and you give me your impressions of what we
see there through the eyes of a prosecutor.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Here's Mike Allen.
Speaker 6 (22:34):
Jody was on this thing like white on Rice, and
I went up there living and that's when I noticed
it too, and you know, you've got it. Seems to
me it was close to thirty forty, maybe even fifty
vehicles that had a fence around them. Well that's fine,
but it would have taken an old man like me
(22:54):
about ten seconds to climb over that fence and take
something out of one of those vas vehicles, plant something,
put something in one of the vehicles.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
It just was not done right.
Speaker 6 (23:06):
I mean, anybody involved in law enforcement, from the first
week that you're at the police academy, you learned that
you must preserve the evidence, and you must preserve that
chain of custody of the evidence. And I don't know what,
if anything, they pulled out of any of those cars,
but if I were defending this case and they tried
(23:27):
to introduce any of that evidence, I would be all
over it and I would move to have the evidence
excluded because it just was not properly secured.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So Jody began preparing a report about the evidence fiasco
for newstation Fox nineteen and Cincinnati. Soon after, Jody and
his crew were approached by Sheriff Charles Reader, who presented
them with a curious offer. The Sheriff's office declined to comment,
but here is Jody's side of the story.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
He tried to make a deal with us to not
hear that warehouse.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Yeah, and the deal was that he.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Was going to give us this unfettered access where we
could do this first hundred hours with Charlie Reider after
he learned the murders. If we wouldn't do this, that
always That still sits for me today. It pissed me
off then because I'm like, you know, what, what do
you think we are?
Speaker 5 (24:16):
We don't make deals. My photographer, how're you know? We
got back in the car after that, We're going, what
the hell just happened here? Never have we ever experienced that.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back
in a moment. In June twenty nineteen, Reader was indicted
on eight felonies and eight misdemeanors. These felony charges are
not directly related to the road and investigation. He was
(24:52):
accused of conflict of interest, theft in office, and tampering
with evidence, among other nefarious activities. According to reports, we
are also allegedly stole cash sees from drug arrest to
fund a gambling problem. Here's investigative journalist James Pilcher.
Speaker 7 (25:09):
Yeah, he had a gambling addiction and he decided, oh,
I'll just use my own forces money to feed it. Yeah,
uh huh. Man, in places like this, and I'm not
going to say it's necessarily a lack of journalistic outlets
keeping cabs or whatever, but there's no accountability. There's nobody
(25:30):
watching the watchers in these small communities, and in many
cases that can lead to major corruption.
Speaker 10 (25:42):
It's definitely worth noting that Sheriff Reader has pled not
guilty to all of these charges. However, to Jody Barr,
it's just another surreal event to what seems like a
never ending bizarre story.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Reader was, you know, shouldered to shoulder with Mike DeWine,
the now governor who was then the attorney general when
these murders happened, that they together were updating the nation
about what happened here in those days after the murders,
and where you going?
Speaker 5 (26:10):
Is this real?
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Then you read what the indictment's alleged, and you read
what the grand jury handed up, and then you know,
you just have to assume if a grand jury is
handing up an indictment, that there's been an investigation conducted.
There have been facts gathered, a prosecutor has reviewed that,
I mean evidence, tampering and tampering with records. You're talking
(26:32):
about a guy who led the sheriff's office and who
for a time, a moment in time when this first happened,
these murders first happened, who was also leading that investigation
until the state came in and took it over. You
just sit back and go, man, let's see where this ends.
I mean, Pike County has been a crazy ride so
ever since the end of April twenty sixteen, and it's
(26:52):
still right now. You've got people awaiting trial facing the
death penalty on eight murders. The sheriff and dited removed
from office. It has been an absolutely crazy half a decade.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
There still the people of pikes And are torn about
Sheriff Reader.
Speaker 14 (27:12):
He put this town before him, He cared about Pike County.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Here's roadin family friend Brittany talking to Stephanie Leidecker.
Speaker 14 (27:19):
If it wasn't for him, he for Charlie Reader, they
wouldn't have came close to even finding out about the Wagners. Honestly,
that's my opinion. How Come because he worked his ass
off to find like that's all he did was investigate
all of that. He didn't like, he didn't like he
(27:42):
had done his job, Like he went and you know,
like he was doing really well in Pike County, like
keeping this, like getting the drugs off the streets and whatnot.
But he's still made effort, a lot of effort into
the road In case.
Speaker 10 (27:59):
Charlie had dedicated himself to getting justice for the road
and family, and then he was booted, not that that
long ago.
Speaker 14 (28:05):
Apparently he was taking the money from the Rodent case
for gambling, But honestly, I don't believe it because I
don't know. I just don't believe that they just were
finding reasons to get him out of office.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Andrew Montgomery holds a much different view of Sheriff Reader.
Speaker 8 (28:28):
You know, now he's blaming his gambling habits on because
what he's seen is the Rodent crime scenes have on
iting so much he couldn't sleep, so he would go gamble. Well,
unknown Charlie for thirty years, and he's been gambling way
before this happened. And that's just that just to me
(28:48):
shows you his character. You know, I'm going to use
the death of eight people to try to smooth over that.
I'm still in money off my county and gambling, and
that is discuss things to me. I just think there's
a lot of dirty deeds that going around here, and
I think that they will do anything they can to
(29:08):
keep them covered up. Do we have a lot of
crime here, yeah, because of drugs. Do we have a
lot of drug activity here? Yes, way more than there
was fifteen years ago. Is it safe here? I'm more
(29:29):
scared of law enforcement than I am of the people
that killed my cousin. You're afraid to say anything when
in all reality, yeah, some things are out there that
you think because you go down a ton of rabbit holes.
When you talk to two and three hundred people like
I have over the course of two years, you find
(29:50):
out a lot of crap and it does take you
down those rabbit holes.
Speaker 13 (29:53):
Is it true?
Speaker 8 (29:54):
You don't know, but by god, it looks like something
isn't right. Hike County is It's beautiful as far as landscapes,
it's a beautiful place. You know. We're full of farmers
and just down to earth people. But there's a lot
(30:14):
of dirty people here too, and most of them are
in power.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So with sheriff readers ethics being brought into question. Does
this impact the charges brought against the Wagoners? Here's Jeff
wein Glare again.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I would assume, you know, the charges against Reader, the
felonies and the misdemeanors about being you know, through and
through corrupt, and when it came to both law enforcement
and financial dealings.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
Yeah, I would assume this is going to affect a
lot of things.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
In fact, the prosecutor for the piped in area also
just resigned. This just sort of makes you start thinking
about everything that happened in the beginning. Now you're seeing
these charges and these resignations, and you know, it doesn't
speak well about finding any answers to this thing.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Every answer we get about what happened to the road
and seems to leave more questions. So how through all
of these other crimes did official zero went on?
Speaker 6 (31:19):
The Wagner's Police received over eleven hundred tips, They conducted
over five hundred interviews, tested about seven hundred pieces of evidence,
served close to two hundred search warrants, subpoenas and other things.
So this was something that was huge.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
So when you read these indictments, you know they were
talking about the Wagner's movements, even months before these murders happened,
four months to plan this out. I mean, if that's
every day for four months, that's the full time job.
You know, they're hacking computers and there were surveillance cameras
on those properties. If we already believe that the prosecution
as a leg you know, this paints a very dark pick.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Everybody had started basically attacking them the community, accusing them
of murdering those people.
Speaker 13 (32:12):
One day, she was, I can't believe that they just
won't leave us alone. They just will not leave us alone.
We're starting to get really worried that we're going to
be arrested.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
More to come next week. Piked In Massacre is executive
produced by Stephanie Leidecker and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and
sound design by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional producing by
Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker. The piked In Massacre is
a production of iHeartRadio and Kat Studios. For more podcasts
(32:48):
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Stephanie Lydecker
Courtney Armstrong
Jeff Shane
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