Episode Transcript
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at curiosity stream dot com. Welcome to the Piked and Massacre,
a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. Episode seven four
thousand miles away. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at
(02:17):
Katie's Studios with Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane. After the
Roden family was brutally gunned down in their homes, authorities
embarked in what would become the largest homicide investigation in
Ohio's history. Over the course of the cases first year,
law enforcement officers began compiling a staggering amount of clues
that they hoped would lead to the killers. Ohio Attorney
(02:37):
General Mike Dwine giving an update in the Pike County murderers.
You've received eight hundred and eighty three tips. We have
conducted four hundred and sixty five interviews, Jewine says. There
have also been thirty eight search warrants issued, but so
far new arrest. I think that you know, we made
significant progress. But by early twenty seventeen, the evidence that
(02:58):
authorities had collected was pointing them to where it's one
group of people, in particular the Wagner family. That spring,
with the case heating up, the Wagners decided to leave
the piked In area with Jake Wagner and Hannah Rodin's
daughter Sophia until they sold their farm packed up their
belongings and drove four thousand miles north to Kenaie, Alaska,
a city of about eight thousand people southwest of Anchorage.
(03:24):
It was a move that Wagner relative Deray not only encouraged,
but conceived of. They had been wanting to move to
Alaska for a while because the pastor of the church
moved there. He's very important headstone and their family. I'm
the one that told him go to Alaska. Number One,
the state of Ohio can not afford to extradite you
(03:44):
from Alaska back home. I just thought it was the
greatest that they took off. I said, that's the best
thing in the world for the kids, and it's the
best thing in the world for you guys. The family
quickly got settled in Keenei. They lived together in a
double white trailer on a large piece of property. Billy
and Angela even registered to vote. Jeff talked to one
(04:06):
of the Wagner's family relatives who kept in touch with
them while they were in Alaska. She asked us not
to use her name, but told us about their life
once they arrived. What was their life like in Alaska. Well,
Jake has got a job. It was a construction type business.
Angela didn't work. I think she might have done some
things from like home over the internet or something like that.
(04:27):
And Bill, I'm not sure what he did exactly, but
they did have it very nice home in Alaska that
they were in the process of trying to buy from
what I understand anyways, and Jake he had Sophie at
the time, and they just kind of work getting by.
The Wagner's sudden departure left the whole town of piked
(04:49):
and bewildered and suspicious. Dana Roden's friend Stefane remembers the
day she heard the news. She shared her thoughts with
Jeff Well, when they left for Alaska, I was like, oh, wow,
they are gonna they are running, you know, they are running.
And then I thought they all get away with it
if they did this, if they did this, they will
(05:11):
get away with it. Or people talking about the Wagoners, like,
was the feeling that they might have been guilty or
what were people thinking or speculating in town. M Yeah,
they pretty much thought that, you know, that was the
that was the deal. They were running from it. But
(05:32):
the Wagoner's relocation didn't hinder the investigation. According to reporter
James Pilcher, it only helped to move the case forward.
They moved to Alaska, which raised even more suspicion. But
then the very following month, law enforcement actually finally searches
the properties where the Wagoners lived. So that was really
the first public indication that the Wagoners were possible suspects,
(05:54):
if not people of interest, So that started to tighten
the noose in terms of the Wagoners. On June six,
twenty seventeen, as the investigation pressed on, Attorney General Mike
Dwine appealed to the public for information connecting the Wagners
to the crime. Investigators want any information about the family,
including information about vehicles, guns, and ammunition. Anyone with information
(06:18):
is asked to call the pieces. Investigative journalists Jodie Barr
recalled to the Attorney General's announcement. Other than being on
the ground in Pike County and hearing the Waggoner's names
come up from time to time and you had no
verifiable leads or you would exhaust all leads, that was
the first time that anything was said in public from
anybody with this investigation that they may have people that
(06:40):
they were looking at and who potentially had something to
do with this, and at that time, no one knew
the extent of the involvement that the investigators believed the
Waggoners may have had. It was just they were asking
for help, and that seems really strange. But it also
on the other end, it connected some of the pieces
that we had heard in the beginning, you know, that
(07:02):
maybe gave more weight to the custody issues that we
were trying to dig into before. But it was still
just it was still confusing that they would come out
and say that and no arrest made, no indictments made,
but yet they were asking for help to identify. Yeah,
it's not unusual that they would just kind of like
blatantly say a name and be like, does anyone know
(07:24):
anything about this person who's not an official suspect or
someone we've arrested. Even it's just confusing, and I would
love to ask now, Governor Mike DeWine, you know why
they played it the way they played it? You know,
did they know what they needed to know? Then? Were
they trying to have the Wagners make a misstep when
they announced this to the world. Mike DeWine's press release
(07:49):
prompted the Wagner's family attorney John K. Clark, to accuse
law enforcement of harassing his clients. Here's Jeff, followed by Stephanie.
In a statement to the Cincinnati Inquired, the lawyers said
that the authorities were clueless and competent, or they themselves
were involved in a cover up. In short, his clients
were innocent. That's because, according to Clark, the Wagners were
(08:10):
cooperating with officials and had provided authorities with everything they
had asked for, including laptops, phones, and DNA willingly, and
they also agreed to repeated interviews with the Ohio Bureau
of Criminal Investigation. Clark even said that the Wagners told
BCI agents that they were in fact moving. I spoke
with former Ohio Prosecutor Mike Allen about the legal implications
(08:32):
of the Wagner's cooperation. What about the Wagners and their
compliance with authorities? I know their lawyer has said they've
cooperated one hundred and ten percent. Can you talk through
the details of that, sure? I mean, from what I understand,
they did turn over some things laptops, phones that they
submitted to DNA, giving examplars which it could be compelled
(08:54):
to do anyway. Some of them at least were interviewed
by Ohio BCI agents, and I guess they told those
agents that they were traveling and about to move to Atlanska,
and they claimed they had been thinking about that for
a long time. So yeah, I mean, from what I
can see, there was some cooperation. But whether it was
(09:15):
one hundred and ten percent, I don't know. And frankly
I doubt because that rarely happens. Does that do anything
when it comes to juries, you know, does that hold sway?
It can you know in closing argument that the defense
lawyer could stand up and say to the jury, my client,
you know, he cooperated one hundred and ten percent, you know,
(09:37):
meaning that he has nothing to hide. The Cincinnati Inquirer
even tracked the family down in Alaska in July of
twenty seventeen. In a published article, Jake Wagner said that
he had moved to give Sophia a better life. This
is Jodi Barr again. The Cincinnati Inquirer obviously went there
and they found them. I mean, it was they didn't
(10:00):
try to slip off in the middle of the night.
It didn't seem I mean, if a reporter could find
them then obviously law enforcements knew very much where they
were at that point in time. I mean, as far
as a level of cooperation, we haven't heard anything yet
that said the Waggoners weren't cooperating with the law enforcements.
Did they do it? We want to know now. Obviously
everybody wants to know right now, and you don't let
(10:22):
the process play out. But man, if they're cooperating, as
this attorney says, they're giving over computers, a laptop, you know, DNA,
whatever it takes. You know, people who aren't experts of criminology,
we look at that and go, well, man, that sounds
like an innocent person. An innocent person will be doing that.
Despite their involvement in a very large and very active
(10:44):
murder investigation. The Wagners were trying to start a new
life in Alaska and didn't seem to have any intention
of returning. Here's our anonymous Wagner family source. When I
would ask to answers, how thanks going, you know, when
are you say come back and visit or and so forth,
she was kind of just really backwards about it. She
never would really tell me what they were doing. She
(11:06):
never really said when she would be back home to visit,
just that she misses us, you know, and that she
would love to be able to come home, but right
now she can't, and that she made the comment or
and said that if she did get to come back,
that she couldn't tell me over the phone, that she
would just basically have to show up, and that once
(11:26):
she made it here, then she would contacting me and
letting me know, but that she didn't, you know, want
to botch people to find out about it. In Alaska,
the family went about life as normal. They tried to
fit into the local community and became regular parishioners at
the local church. Their pastor even described them to the
Dayton Daily News as quote good country people. We reached
(11:50):
out to the pastor, who declined to speak with us.
It was at this same church that Jake Wagner was
introduced to another churchgoer, Elizabeth Armor. The couple dated for
several months, and then in March twenty eighteen, they got married.
This is Jodi Barr. I've seen you know people I
know lost his spouse. You know they're married again six months.
(12:12):
If he's innocent and he got remarried, he wanted to
carry on with his life, and you know, maybe that's it.
But if he really is guilty of having a hand
and killing eight people and one of those being the
mother of his own child, and then he enters into
valves with another woman within months of that, pooh, I
don't know. I don't know what kind of person you're
(12:34):
dealing with. Here here's Stephanie talking about what she learned
by looking at Elizabeth Armour's Facebook posts. She took to
Facebook to let the world know just how dangerous being
involved with the Wagners could be. Elizabeth said in one
of her posts that God told her to come forward
about her relationship with Jake Wagner. According to her posts,
Elizabeth met Jake through the church and then was encouraged
(12:56):
to get to know him by her pastor. But she
maintained that she had no idea that the Wagners were
involved in such a large murder investigation, and when that
news of the Rodent massacre came up, the pastor had
vouched for the Wagoners, telling her that the charges were
just slander against the family. However, in another post, she
said she wanted to just be a mother to Sophia,
(13:17):
but that she ended up marrying her worst nightmare. All
of those posts have since been taken down. We've tried
to find her and contact her directly, and she's literally
nowhere to be found. Then, in the spring of twenty eighteen,
two years after the Rodents were killed, the Wagner shocked
everyone again, this time by returning to the piked In area.
(13:42):
Our Wagner family relative explained why they decided to come
home from what I like, I said, I have understood
just from a little bit of that I thought to
Angela and then our family and jenneral talking. They had
came back home because built family father got sick and
they couldn't afford they were losing what's that home and
(14:02):
everything they had there in Alaska. So basically just like
it was a handful of that type of stuff. So
they decided that they were going to come back down
here and they were just gonna get everything basically situated here.
Once that happened, and once they got back on their feet,
basically then they were planning to go back. They wanted
(14:23):
to go back. Angela wanted to go back there. She
made that clear to her father multiple times that that
was going to be in place that they were. They
were really looking forward. She lived in and just wanted
to be there, but they had a bunch of stuff
that they still had to take care of in order
so that to happen. The move seemed to baffle everyone
(14:44):
and piked in Here's local resident Auntie. If you think
about it, the Wagners were scott free. They went to Alaska.
They could have took off and nobody could have ever
seen them again ever. But they came back here. Came
back now the way that I am. I would never
(15:05):
do that. But if I had pulled something off like
that and got away into that long and went to Alaska,
you know, I'm packing my ship and I'm hitting the woods,
and nobody's ever going to see me again, I'm sure
the hell not going to come back. The only way
I would come back is if I thought my ass covered.
Upon returning to Peyton, the Wagoners tried to fly under
the radar and return to life as normal, but our
(15:27):
Wagner family relative told Jeff that their homecoming was anything
but welcome. When they came back, were people kind of
like has the story died down? Or were people like, oh,
the Wagoners are back. It was probably quiet for about
I don't know two or three weeks at that, and
then everybody toned out that they were back in town,
and they just absolutely tortured daily. Everybody had started basically
(15:53):
attacking then the community, accusing them of murdering those paul
Like if they were in town and people identified um
their vehicle, they would throw pot bottles at them. Angela
had actually went into a store one day and some
woman had actually flewed up behind Angela as she was
(16:16):
coming back out of the store and through a glass
key bottle after and it busted her in the back.
She was constantly getting it was less than right, like
anybody that knew them, or that knew our family, Like
where we lived, and there was a handful of people
that had drove by my house and then they were
throwing stuff because I lived kind of right on the
highway and my house is very easy to spot. I
(16:37):
have no privacy, so when they I was getting trash,
people were throwing their trash out in my yard, in
my driveway. They were trying to hit us while we
were me and my son at the time. You know,
they were just doing my workplace. My vehicle was parked
outside and my vehicle got keyed. They had, of course
through ange on it all that type of stuff, wrote
(17:00):
murderer on it. What I had absolutely nothing to do
with any of that. As things began to unravel for
the Wagner's law enforcement was tightening up the case against
the family. It seemed like it was only a matter
of time before they were arrested. Investigators now believe there
were multiple attackers, as according to information from the Ohio
Attorney General's office. The Ohio Attorney General says the investigation
(17:23):
is progressing. Wine adds his office knows a lot more
about what goes on in those Pike County hills. Now
we know a lot more today. Have we cracked the phase?
Have we come up with enough evidence to arrest someone
and get them convicted? No, we have not, But we
made the rogress. Oh yeah, we made a lot of progress.
On Halloween of twenty eighteen, authorities conducted yet another search
(17:46):
on a Wagner family property, this time a farm formerly
owned by Jake and George Wagner. During that raid, investigators
uncovered a homemade silencer at the bottom of a well.
It would seem to be the final piece of the
puzzle for investigators. As we discussed in great detail in
(18:06):
episode two. On November thirteenth, Angela and Billy Wagner, and
their two sons, Jake and George Wagner, were arrested for
the murders of eight members of the Rodent family. Can
hear one We had major developments tonight in a bazaar
in tragic murder case. He took two and a half years,
but arrests have finally been made in the Pike County massacre.
George Billy Wagner the third, he's forty seven. Also forty
(18:28):
eight year old Angela Wagner, twenty seven year old George
Wagner the fourth, and twenty six year old Edward Jake
Wagner are now facing charges. The Attorney General announced two
more arrests of people accused of being involved in Angela's mother,
Rita Nuga and Billy's mother Fredrika. We're also arrested today
in conjunction with the cover up of these crops. We're
(18:56):
going to take a quick break here. We'll be back
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and sign up today. Angela, Billy Jake, and George Wagner
(22:41):
were charged with aggravated murder. Angela Wagner's mother Rita Joe
Nukam and Billy Wagner's mother, Frederica were both charged with
obstruction of justice and perjury. Nucombe was also charged with forgery.
All six of them pled not guilty, and our justice
system presumes innocence until guilt is proven at first blush,
it seems far fetched to believe that these two grandmothers
(23:03):
had a part in conspiring to pull off Ohio's largest
mass murder. Jeff spoke with Mike Allen about the charges
against Frederica Wagner. Frederica has been charged with the obstruction
of justice and perjury, So how do you explain that
to someone who, like me, who's never been to law
school or doesn't know what it means. Well, perjury is
pretty simple under Ohio law. It just basically says that
(23:24):
you cannot knowingly make a false statement in an official
proceeding while you are under oath. It's real simple. And
the obstructing justice is pretty simple as well. Ohio law
provides that you can't, with purpose to hinder the discovery, apprehension,
or prosecution of a person, do anything that would assist
(23:46):
someone in doing that, and that's one that that's charged
pretty frequently. You don't see perjury charged a lot because
it's so difficult to prove, but with convicted of both,
she would be facing four years match. Plainly stated prosecutors
think Frederica was lying to them and trying to hinder
the investigation to cover up for her family. We'll get
(24:08):
into the specifics of her charges later. For now here, Stephanie,
followed by Jeff We wondered if there was anything in
Frederica Wagner's past that could have indicated that she would
be involved in something as gruesome as mass murder. As
we know, the Wagners were a well known and well
to do family in the Piketon area, and Frederica Wagner
was at the helm of this. A self described entrepreneur,
(24:29):
she owned properties Oliver Pike County that spanned over seventeen
hundred acres and were valued at more than four million dollars.
She had also founded two nonprofits, Lucasville Mission, a church
that helps underprivileged children, and the Crystal Springs Home, a
facility that provides services to developmentally disabled adults. As we've
learned throughout the series, Frederica had her detractors as well
(24:50):
as her supporters in the community. Growing up, Christina Howard
spent a lot of time with Frederica. In fact, her
mom worked at the Crystal Springs Home. She was pretty
well known by everybody, and if she wasn't doing a
charity or something outside of church since she was doing
one in church. She owed over two hundred acres of
(25:11):
land and a lot of people that lived on her
property that she ranted out to. She would say, hey,
you know, if you come to church, then I won't
charge you a diamond root. And all she ever asked
of him was for them to go to church. She
was always nice to me grown up. She's never yelled
(25:32):
at me. She's never really told me no. There would
be times that I would go to work with mom
and I would just hang out at Freddy's all day
long while my mom was working, you know, I would
just hang out, feed the horses, giving masks, rush them.
She was literally like a grandma to me grown up.
(25:55):
The Ray paints a similar portrait of Frederica. She told
us about the pastoral surroundings of her grandmother's Flying w
farms and her family's legacy in the area. If you
go to their house, you go eighty eight miles out
of Cincinnati east on thirty three, and I'm telling you
you were in the hills, the Appalachian Hills of Ohio
at this time. Then all of a sudden, you'll see
(26:18):
something to the right. It looks like a real nice entryway.
It's flying w farms on it. And you look you
see a trailer sitting right next to the entrance, a
nice entrance with wrought iron gates. It's got flying w's
on it. Then you look aways up you see all
these little houses, some of them were catteries. And then
(26:40):
she's got the pighouse, and then she's got the old
walking horse barn, and then she's got the shop. Then
you come to her her colonial style home, and it's
a very homey feeling. When you walk into the home,
you feel like you're going home. And I see all
my grandmother's cat like little statues around and pictures of
(27:03):
the kids on the horses, pictures of all their famous horses.
She developed a breed of horse called the George and
Grande that she named after my uncle, which she takes
no credits for the horses. Is what the driving passion
was for Frederick and Bold to be together, stay together,
work together, because that's the problem I think with people
(27:24):
who get married today. Okay, so it's natural to want
to have relationships. It's naturally who want to have kids
when you're young. All those hormones in your head. But
to keep you together, you better have something solid in
common that you have to work with together to keep
your family, leaving them a legacy. And that's what Frederica
(27:46):
Wagner did for her kids. Her and Bob developed a
breed of horse. Over years, they have a two thousand
acre farm. They had three kiads and they left them. See,
you know, we're not talking about people who are trained murderers.
We're talking about real people here. They had who had real,
(28:06):
honest and goodness, godfearing lives. Frederica Wagner's attorney described her
as a godfearing woman who taught Sunday school for nearly
half a century and lived about as close to the
cross as anyone can. We all struggled with this contradiction
in Frederico Wagner. How could this sweet grandmother, who was
charitable and kind be involved in any capacity with the
(28:29):
murder of eight people. So we decided to look a
little deeper into Pikedon's most giving resident, and what we
found was not all virtuous. Jodi Barr filled us in
after the world became familiar with the Wagner family. You know,
of course, reporters start digging into their backgrounds, and it's
just some of the things that come out. You learn
(28:50):
about the business dealings, and you know what Frederica, you know,
is accused of doing in the past. This is good
background information to have when you're trying to understand who
these people are. But I have to say, when I
was on the ground in Pike County, Ohio, when I
was hearing their names, when I went by Flying w Farm,
I mean, it is a peaceful, quaint farm tucked into
(29:12):
the rolling hills of eastern Ohio. When you drive by there,
nothing on the surface points to anything that's been alledged
now that any of the people involved in any of
this could have been involved in the killing of eight people.
That's the beauty of investigations, I guess, is that you
just don't know the whole story until you know the
(29:33):
whole story. Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll
be back in a moment. Since her role as White
House correspondent, Caitlyn Collins has never been afraid todict deep.
She's a reliable, deeply sourced reporter and is always willing
(29:53):
to hold the powerful accountable. On her new CNN show
The Source, with Caitlyn Collins. Caitlyn is bringing that tenacious
spirit a primetime. She's chasing the facts, connecting with her
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viewers are getting the very latest the Source with Caitlin
Collins weeknights at nine pm Eastern only on Sanna. He'll
(30:16):
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(30:38):
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is an investment account for kids that makes it easy
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start with Flying W Farms. The farm breeds horses as
(33:32):
well as dogs and pigs typically found in New Zealand.
In the nineteen nineties, Frederica got into legal trouble with
a group of customers surrounding the sale of these pigs.
Here's Mike Allen again. She was sued by a group
of customers. I guess the allegation was that her place,
I think it was the Flying w it didn't meet
the standards promise for the sale of exotic animals, which
(33:56):
is interesting. I guess the group said that she defrauded
them in the sales. They gave them some animals that
didn't match the advertised description. Dana Rodin's friend Becky told
Jeff that Flying W Farms had been whispered about and
piked in for years. At one point in time, you know,
Frederica was a person to be feared in the county
because there was always rumors. I don't know exactly what
(34:18):
all the rumors was, but everybody's like, oh, you don't
want to get back there by things happen to people
that go back here. So you know, I stayed away
from our area. Wait back, where's farm? Because I've always
heard about things about it, So yeah, I said where
I would never go piked in local Barbara told Jeff
about one rumor in particular, they made their money in
(34:42):
horses and miniature horses. And there's some shady dealings that
I've heard about going on there, like them stuff and
the horses with drugs and sending them back and forth
to Mexico and you know, just awful things like that. Now,
we obviously can't prove that, but it's worth mentioning because
(35:03):
it's this type of thing that people in Pike didn't
like to whisper about. One thing we should talk about
is this quote unquote life changing rent to own operation
Frederica Wagner, designed to help lower income residents. Over the decades,
Frederica Wagner entered into at least one hundred and thirty
two land installment contracts. Now, these contracts basically allowed the
(35:23):
Wagners to retain deeds on land as buyers attempted to
pay off the principle and the interest. The idea was
that if the buyers made all of their payments, they'd
eventually become landowners, but it rarely played out that way.
In fact, as it turns out, only twelve of those
contracts were actually satisfied, twelve out of one hundred and
(35:43):
thirty two. And in looking into all of the deals,
nearly eighty percent of them were ultimately terminated without a
corresponding d transfer, and that basically indicates despite somebody making payments,
at the end of the day, the land stayed in
Frederica Wagner's possession. There are countless examples of soured deals
just like that, where people really did feel that Frederica
(36:05):
Wagner took advantage of them. And again, does that mean
that she was involved with a mass murder, of course not,
but it does point to character, which I do think
is valuable. Yeah, there was one tenant quoted in the
story saying that Frederica had raised her rent by twenty
five percent following the murders in twenty sixteen, and another
described his rental property as a one room home with
(36:28):
an exposed toilet standing just a few feet from the
foot of his bed. Again, this doesn't prove their guilt,
but it does speak to the type of woman Frederica was,
or at least how the public perceived her at the time.
I spoke to attorney my Gallon about Frederica's land deal
contracts when I was in piped and I spoke to
some people and these are just personal accounts, but saying,
(36:52):
you know, my family rented land, ended it for years
and years and years, and then had it pulled out,
which I mean, the court seems to back that up.
But yeah, land contracts are tough, and you know, for
the person who is not the owner of the property
but the person trying to buy it, there are a
lot of pitfalls with it, and someone smart, which apparently
(37:14):
Frederica was, they can take advantage of people in a
land contract situation. Frederica also runs a nonprofit called Crystal Springs,
a group home that provides housing and rehabilitation services to
developmentally disabled adults, and according to some when her son
Billy married Angela Nucom who we now know as Angela Wagner,
(37:36):
Frederica wasn't happy about it. Christina Howard told us that
the relationship between Frederica Wagner and her daughter in law
always seemed contentious. She never really had much to do
with Angela unless they come to Billy and it's grown
up by her. Freddie called Angela like an evil woman
or tom or two like a nasty woman. One time
(37:58):
Angela tro to keep Freddy from seeing her grandkids, George
and Jake because they was talking about moving away. In
all this, and I never heard Freddie say that she
hated anybody, but she said, you know, like, oh, I
really disliked this woman. She's just a nasty woman. Perhaps
(38:19):
Frederica Wagner has reason to be suspicious of Angela. Christina
Howard gave Stephanie her thoughts on Angela Wagner. Angela, she
does have a little bit of a shady for sad tour,
Like you feel like there's more tour than meets the
eye and stuff. Like on the outside she's all happy
thoughts with anybody and everything else, But you just get
(38:41):
a vibe from her, you know that there's more to it.
It turns out that this seemingly devoted, hard working mother
had a bit of a checkered past. In two thousand
and one, Angela Wagner, along with Billy Wagner, were charged
with improperly handling a fire, and in twenty twelve, they
(39:02):
are both charged with receiving stolen property, which is a
fifth grae felony. Jodi Barr put the Wagner family's criminal
history into context for us. You're looking at improperly handling
a firearm charges. When you look at those two charges,
in even the details that were reported to support those charges,
(39:22):
I'm back to where I was in the rest of
the Waggoner's background when you look at this as a whole,
across the course of their lives. The charges of improperly
handling a firearm, I mean those charges came fifteen years
before these murders. It was an alleged road rage. You know,
there was a gun pulled out, but the charges are dismissed.
(39:43):
No one got hurt. I mean that is something that
I see multiple times a week, alleged police reports. The
charge of receiving stolen property came four years before these murders.
When you look at the criminal record, nothing in this
says to me that got murderers in the hills of
Pike County, Ohio. I mean, this could be your neighbor
(40:06):
next door with these charges. Here again, is Frederica's niece Deray,
reading a news article about her aunt's involvement in the
Rodent murders. So let me summarize it for you. On
November the thirteenth, twenty and eighteen, the Ohio Governor elect
Mighty Wine held an internationally broadcast news conference and announced
(40:30):
the arrest of Frederica Wagner and several of her family members.
Governor Dwine accused Frederica's family members of the Rodents homicides,
and he specifically accused Frederica of masterminding the cover up.
When I heard that, I wanted to call him up
and tell him that there was no way and that
(40:51):
someday you will have to apologize to my aunt. I
do not know who came up with that theory and
tried to put it out there. That is someone with
an evil mind. I think that that it's that it's
the devil trying trying to test us, because there's no
(41:12):
way possible that Frederick could ever do something like that. Ever,
she is not that kind of person. She carries the
life of Jesus with her everywhere she goes, and I
am I am, I am convicted on that there's no
(41:33):
way she would have ever done something like that. Ever,
the idea that the entire Wagner family allegedly conspired to
kill the Rodents and cold Blood still baffles Jodie Barr
to this day. Now. I think that is the common
theme of this entire story about Pike County and about
this Rodent massacre. Is it things just too far fetched
(41:56):
out when you try to connect the dots through the
histories of you know, how the Wagoners conducted their business,
how they lived their lives. I don't know that I
have seen any reporting, any fact brought out about the
Waggoners that would say, Yep, there you go, mass murderers.
I think that is the draw that continues to keep
people interested in this story, is that you would have
(42:18):
never seen any of this coming. I don't know what
a family capable of a mass murder would look like
or how they would conduct their business. But this was
out of nowhere. It's still just hard to believe. On
June twenty six, twenty nineteen, Frederico Wagner headed into a
(42:40):
Pike County courtroom for a pre child hearing, with Frederica
sitting in the defendant's chair. There was a stunning courtroom revelation.
Charges against the grandmother connected to the Rhodent family massacre
have been dismissed. It was dismissed because I was innocent.
They had no evidence against me. Well, grandmother Frederico Wagner
might be out of the woods. The rest of her
(43:01):
family await their day in court, where a stunning number
of truths promised to be exposed. It searched for the truth.
I believe that as it applies to this case, the
mystery will be solved. The truth will eventually be discovered.
Hannah was struggling to keep custody of Sobia Tavvy. Straight up,
TOLDERI we a say presenting with papers, do not sign
(43:22):
them because they will, sure you will. You've got to
wonder who is this informant, because if it's a member
of the Wagoner family. I think that's a twist no
one saw coming. More on that next week. Reach out
to us on our social media outlets with questions. We're
(43:44):
on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at piked in Massacre. We
look forward to answering your questions and upcoming bonus episodes.
Piked In Massacre is executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker and
me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by executive Sir
Jared Aston. Additional producing by Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker.
(44:05):
The pikedon. Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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