August 12, 2020 • 40 mins
Four members of the Wagner family are in prison, awaiting death penalty trials for allegedly murdering of eight members of the Rhoden family. Two other family members have been arrested for supposedly conspiring to pull off the crime.
In episode three, we talk to friends of the Rhodens who shed light on the victims’ lives in the months leading up to the murders. We’ll also explore the relationship between Hanna Rhoden and Jake Wagner, the custody battle that unfolded between the two in the months before the Rhoden family was murdered, and the tragic legacy left in its wake.
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dot Com. How Deep does a Mother's Love Run? Now
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four mothers who went undercover. My ex partner abducted our
six year old son and took him out of the country.
This was a mother's worst nightmare, and we'll stop at nothing.
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piked in Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios.
(02:08):
The Bodies of seven adults and one sixteen year old
boy were found in four different locations along the country
road in Pike County. A small town nightmare comes to
life in rural Ohio. Eight members of the road and
family gunned down in cold blood in their sleep. Just
a nightmare scenario, all of them shot in the head
(02:29):
execution style is absolutely shocking. The brutal murder spark a
two and a half year investigation comprising state, local, and
federal authorities. Then Attorney General Mike Dwine comments on what
ends in a stunning series of arrests at the center
of this case or members of the Wagner family, whom
we believe the avalanche will show who's fire together to
(02:49):
kill these eight people. It's a crime that shocks a
once quiet community and leaves a haunting legacy that may
lie at its very heart. There are survivors and they
are very young. We're talking three children, one is young
as four days old, a six month old baby, and
a three year old. And when the reporters were asking
were all of them asleep at the time, they said,
(03:10):
now this is the piked. In Massacre Episode three, Hannah
and Jake. Over the course of the first two episodes
we've covered the details of the rod And murders and
learned about the family accused of carrying them out, the Wagoners.
(03:30):
I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at Keatie Studios. With Stephanie
Lydecker and Jeff Shane. We worked on a documentary about
the Road and Murders back in twenty nineteen. Here's Stephanie.
If we're going to talk about the road in deaths,
then we also need to talk about their lives. So
often when it comes to crime victims, it all becomes
about their murders and so little about who they were prior.
(03:51):
By all accounts, the Rodent family was a very happy,
close knit family. In fact, they lived jess miles from
one another. They were close enough that they all lived
on the same road, which speaks to just how tight
knit they were. And you know, this family went back
to generations in Pike County. Everyone we talked to you
pretty much said the same thing about them. They were
all very hard working, very kind, and very generous. And
(04:13):
we probably heard this the most about the matrix of
the family, Hannah's mother, Dana Rodin. Here's one of Dana's
oldest friends, Becky Ryder, She's a very nice person, just
a great mother and a great your wife to her husband. Yeah,
she's just a wrong, a good person. As we listened
to Becky described Dana Rodin, we began to see a
(04:35):
vivid portrait take shape. A trusted friend, a caring nurse
at a nearby assisted living facility, and a surrogate mother
to some of the local kids. Brittany was one of them,
A lifelong friend of Dana's son, Chris Junior. She reminisced
about Dana with Stephanie. She had shorter brown hair. She
always had the like curly and sometimes she would put
(04:58):
like purple streaks in her hair, brawn streaks, like I
don't know. She liked that kind of weird stuff. And
I'm sitting here like I always looked at her, like,
what are you doing to your hair? See now I
do that to my hair. She would be very proud
of you, Yes, she would. She'd laugh at me. And
Dana always sort of looked after everybody else's kids. She
would kind of be the mama bear. Yeah. One time
(05:21):
we were all riding and I wasn't. I wasn't on
the four whiller with Chris while we were all riding
in I actually gotten a wreck because the four whiller, Like,
I don't know what happened to it, Like it just
completely messed up. And we flipped down the hill and
Chris went and got his mom, and his mom like
came up in the woods. It was like freaking out.
(05:42):
And then she took care of me, gave me some eyes,
she gave me some water, you know, being the whole
mom like are you okay? Are you okay? Do I
need to call the ambulance? So that was always a
good thing. Dana met her husband, Chris Roden Senior, when
she was in high school, and they fell in love immediately.
A few years later, they got married. Here again is
(06:03):
Becky Ryder speaking to producer Jeff Shane. She remembered meeting
Dana as a young wife who had found the man
of her dreams. Well, I met Dana, you're her and
Chris Senior was already married. So they got married in
high school then, Yes, she got married really young. Was
that uncommon? Yes, it's uncommon, But for her, she knew
that's the man that she loved, and she knew she
wanted to be with him forever. Stephane Likens knew Chris
(06:29):
Senior as a devoted family man and a skilled craftsman.
She spoke to our producer Jeff about him. I tell you,
if you could see some of the stuff, some of
the things that he built, like the decks. He was
an amazing carpenter. He built this one that had all
(06:49):
kinds of intricate you know, he designed them, you know,
just his imagination. You know he could if you know,
if they said money, he's no object, you would be amazed,
you know, the things that he could do together. Dana
and Chris Senior raised three kids, Frankie, Hannah, and Chris Junior,
(07:13):
but after more than twenty years of marriage, the relationship
began to fall apart. Dana and Christine You got divorced,
but they continued to live on the same property, working
together to take care of the children. They still had
each other's back no matter what. Their thing was always
four kids. Nineteen year old Hannah Rodin was Chris Senior
(07:33):
and Dana's only daughter. She was great, She was funny,
She was really funny. She was really really nice. She
knew everyone, Everyone knew her, and she just like talked
to everyone. But she wasn't stuck up or anything. Like that,
and she lived life to the fullest. But after her
murder in twenty sixteen, it became clear that Hannah's life
(07:54):
and the events leading up to her death were much
more complicated than anyone in piked In could have known.
All of this starts six years earlier, in the summer
of twenty ten. Hannah had recently turned thirteen, and she
starts dating a local boy named Jake Wagner. At the time,
(08:15):
Jake was just shy of eighteen. The relationship moves quickly.
Three years later, Hannah and Jake began planning to start
a family, and in November twenty thirteen, Hannah gives birth
to their baby girl, Sophia. She was a great mom
like sometimes she would bring her her baby to school
like the She would always come into mind in Chris's
(08:36):
class because we had American Government together, and she'd always
bring the baby in there and let our teacher, mister
Karino see the baby. We talked to a relative of
the Wagner family. She asked us not to use her name,
but shared her thoughts on what Jake was like as
a father to Sophia. Jack was always very I mean,
hand on like he would always be playing like Davey
(08:57):
out you know, non hand. He always kind of made
sure that she had what she needed. Just very active
with her and very protective of her. It seemed like,
you know, the second that if anything bad were to happen,
(09:18):
I guess he was on it. Like he was there
for her. He was ready to do whatever needed to
be done in order to make sure that she was okay.
While raising a family is difficult for the young couple,
they make things work. Hannah stays in school while Jake
works as a truck driver with his brother, George Wagner.
(09:40):
The couple and Sophia split time between the Rodent and
the Wagner households. For everyone involved, it's a dream scenario.
Angela Wagner, Jake's mother, is already a grandparent, but she's
excited to be spending time with the newest addition to
her family. Her great children. They absolutely adored her, They
loved her. They always wanted to, you know, go with her,
(10:00):
and she would go out of her way to make
sure that they were taking care of or, you know,
on the holidays, that they caught you know, anything like
coos eating she could give them and everything like that.
Dana Roden's friend Stefan told our producer Jeff that Dana
was just as elated. Was she excited to be a
grandmother again? Oh my gosh, yes, those babies were her lives.
(10:24):
In twenty fifteen, things seemed to be going well for
Hannah and Jake. They have a wedding date set and
even had rings tattooed on their fingers. Throughout that time,
Hannah became very close with the Wagner family, so much
so that after the murders, Angela Wagner tells the press
that Hannah was like a daughter to her and her
entire family. So if that's the case, what could possibly
(10:46):
have gone wrong? We have a little bit of insight
into that thanks to a signed Affi David that Jake
Wagner submitted, And this is just from his perspective, but
what he claims is that he and Hannah split in
April twenty fifteen, which is a year before the murders.
He claims that Hannah actually was the one to bring
up with him because she thought he was working too much,
(11:09):
and his perspective was that he wanted to stay at
home wife and a full time mother to Sophia, which
Hannah was just not ready to do, which, again, that
is his account. We don't have the benefit of having
Hannah's account or any of Hannah's family's account either. We
spoke with an anonymous Wagner family's source and they say
that Jake just really wasn't ready to throw in the
towel on the relationship period. He was trying very hard
(11:32):
to make sure that they got back together. He still
wanted to be with her, He was trying to get
get back with her just everything that he could. It's
really hard to know what goes on in a relationship
behind closed doors. Is it possible that Hannah felt as
though she was being controlled by Jake or that she
was in over her head and couldn't get out of
(11:54):
the relationship. Is it possible that Jake Wagner's broken heart
was really the reason that his entire family allegedly killed
her entire family. Yeah, again, going back to kind of
figuring out like the timeline and what might have happened,
We're able to kind of piece some of it together
through social media. We found a post from July of
(12:15):
twenty fifteen where she made a rather cryptic entry on
Facebook posting lyrics to a song about domestic abuse, and
the lyrics read he slowly isolates her from all of
her friends. She works really hard, but he takes all
of it. She ended the post with her own words, saying,
end domestic violence, live a happier life. It is important
(12:38):
to note that we don't know for an absolute fact
that these posts were about Jake. The timeline certainly matches up,
but if they were all about Jake, it raises a
number of questions. Was Jake Wagner a controlling and abusive partner.
Though we can't be sure about what went on behind
the scenes of Jake and Hannah's relationship, we do know
(12:58):
one thing, and it was eighteen years old when she
posted that message, and she would be dead within a year.
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How Deep does a Mother's Love Run? Now streaming only
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time by four mothers who went undercover. My partner abducted
our six year old son and took him out of
(16:30):
the country. This was a mother's worst nightmare. I didn't
know what to do, and we'll stop at nothing. I
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(16:51):
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I wanted him to know, you mess with the wrong mother,
(17:12):
now streaming only on Who over Search, Mother Undercover. Let's
go back to that summer of twenty fifteen, just after
Hannah and Jake broke up. That May, she starts dating
a guy named Charlie Gilly. Charlie is her brother, Frankie's
(17:33):
best friend and the brother of Frankie's fiance, Hannah Gilly.
Here's journalist Jeff Winkler. There was this period after Hannah
May had broken things off with Jake Wagner that when
she got with Charlie, it was sort of what you
would hope for, you know, everyone seemed to like Charlie Gilly,
who you know, by all accounts, was very caring, very loving,
(17:57):
very much liked by the family. Charlie is proud of
his relationship with Hannah. He often posts photos of he
and Hannah kissing and proclaims his love for her online. However,
as fast as things heat up, they fizzle out just
as quickly, and by the end of July twenty fifteen,
the couple breaks up now. According to that same Effi
(18:19):
David that Jake Wagner signed, he and Hannah continue a
physical relationship that entire summer. Brittany told Jeff Shane what
she heard about Jake Wagner and Hannah's fraud relationship from
Hannah's brother, Chris Junior. Chris would always come to school
and talk to me about it. What would he say,
just that his sister is in a shitty situation. He
(18:39):
just treats her awfully and she really can't do anything
about it because she has a kid with him. He
would just say that it's a whole bunch of bs
and that Jake would just treat her like crap, Like
what did you think about that? At the time, that
she needed to get out of that relationship and not
be associated with that. At some point this same summer,
(19:05):
Hannah falls for another boy from piked in, Corey Holdron.
According to our Wagner family source, when Jake finds out
he's crushed, she got extremely upset when he found out
that she was seeing somebody else, and he was hurt.
He didn't understand and every time that I got a
chance to talk to him, he would cry. He was like,
(19:25):
you know, I don't understand why she's, why she's been
this way, why she you know, won't give me from
the chance to explain myself, Like, we could work on
it and it would be Goodia, we would be good
together her. I mean, it was just always Yeah, he
was very very upset about that. So and after I think,
after after being upset and after that prank of war off,
(19:51):
I think it did turn to anger. In August twenty fifteen,
Hannah Summer ends with a big shock. She's pregnant. Unlike
her first child, this one is unplanned. Adding to the anxiety,
she doesn't know who the father is. The potential fathers
are Charlie Gilly, Corey Holdron, and Jake Wagner. For Jake,
(20:17):
the pregnancy offers a glimmer of hope. I could just
tell by talking to him that when he did find
out the Handle was pregnant again that it almost was
like a sense of release to him, kind of. I
think he thought that that was going to bring them
back together. He asked Canna and was willing to to
be there, you know, for the birth. He was asking,
(20:39):
you know, if she needed any help with anything with
the baby, child support. He was willing to say that
he had gotten things for the baby. At one point
on him and Angela had went and bought a crib
and just things like that for the child. Yea. And
this was before he had any idea that was even
his or not. But behind the scenes, there are rumors
(21:03):
that the once amicable co parenting situation between Hannah and
Jake is beginning to fall apart. According to Mike Allen,
attorney and legal analyst for Fox nineteen and Cincinnati, things
soon reached a boiling point two or three weeks prior
to the murder. There's evidence that Jake Wagner and his
father tried to get Hannah road and to sign some
documents related to custody of her daughter Sophia to Jake Wagner.
(21:26):
But Jake's plan seems to backfire here again our Wagner
family member. There was a custody battle, is basically what
did go to do. There was a custody battle between
you know, the daughter. Hannah wasn't allowing Jake to see
her or any of the family to see her, and
so it kind of just got out of hand at
(21:47):
dot point. It just set him off to the point
where Jake, because he had made the comments a couple
of times, I mean, and I had tout a couple
of people's about this. I mean, had made the comments,
you know that he was going to to kill her.
And he told her that, you know, He's like, I'm
(22:08):
going to I'm going to have to kill you. Like
you're not going you're not gonna let me see the baby,
then you know you're not gonna have her. And I'm like, Jake,
you can't say those things. Please just chill out. And
of course, you know, nobody ever really thinks like, oh
my god, he's actually going to consider that. Right. People
(22:28):
say stuff like that all the time, rush it's right, like,
especially when they're upset as he was. I mean, he
was just completely out of his mind. It really really
upset him. On April seventeenth, twenty sixteen, in the midst
of the couple's custody dispute, Hannah gives birth to a
baby girl named Kylie. On the births to forget, she
(22:51):
doesn't list anyone as the father. Less than a week later,
on April twenty second, Hannah and seven members of her
family are found murdered in their homes. Thankfully, the life
of baby Kylie and her two cousins are spared. The
brutal murders committed in front of these young children rattled
everyone who heard about the story, even seasoned prosecutors like
(23:13):
an Attorney General Mike Dwine. I guess the worst thing
I've ever seen. And when you see a mother, young
mother just gave worth four days before, and she's murdered
right beside her child. Thank god they did not harm
the baby. But you know, it doesn't get much worse
than that. Jeff Winkler spoke to us about trying to
(23:35):
make sense of the killer's intentions. There was a conscious
choice to leave every single young child alive who basically
couldn't identify them successfully. I mean, that is probably the
most shocking part of the whole ordeals that there was
a conscious choice by these killers to spare the children,
(23:56):
which sort of displays the coldheartedness of decisions they were making.
Going back to the timeline for a second. Following the murder,
it was one week that passed and Jake Wagner files
for custody for both Sophia and the newborn Kylie. He
seems convinced that he's Kylie's father, but acknowledges that even
(24:18):
if he isn't, he still deserves partial custody so the
sisters could spend time together. Yeah, the whole Wagner family
was pretty vocal at that time about their need to
have custody of these kids. Angela Wagner told the press
that Sophia and Kylie quote unquote needed each other and
that when they got older enough to understand what happened
(24:39):
to their mother, that they will really need each other. Right,
and custody is something as complicated and it varies state
by state. So Stephanie, I know you dug into this
quite a bit. Yeah, it's very specific. We spoke to
a family law attorney in Ohio, and you know, yes,
if you're an unmarried woman, all parental rights go to you.
(25:01):
The father does not have any parental rights unless he
goes to court and files accordingly. To that point, these
papers for custody were filed exactly one week after the murders.
That's pretty quick to pull all of your custody documents
together in such a short amount of time. I know
things vary from state to state, but it's pretty unusual
(25:23):
to have that so tidy so quickly. And some reports
I've indicated that that may mean that they had been
going through the process and that Jake and the Wagner
family were compiling documents in such prior to the murders.
So it is possible that because he didn't have any rights,
could that actually be reason enough to go through with
(25:46):
this crime. Yeah. I spoke to Mike Allen, he's a
former prosecutor and now he's a criminal defense attorney in Ohio,
and he told me about how Jake's quick custody filings
look from a legal perspective, that's extremely strong evidence for
the prosecution. I mean six days, less than a week
after the killings to go ahead and file it can
(26:08):
take months, you know, maybe a year, a little bit more,
a little bit less. It's not something that goes quickly
at all. And I think that that is going to
be some evidence that's problematic for the defense doing it
that quickly. After the murders, Jake seems determined to be
(26:28):
a father to Sophia and to Hannah's newborn baby. Throughout
Hannah's pregnancy and even after the birth, Jake Wagner publicly
says there's a good chance he's baby Kylie's father. He's
so confident that shortly after Kylie is born, he checks
her for a hammer index toe, a Wagner family trade.
He still wanted to be involved and still wanted to
(26:51):
be there, so it was a very emotional time for him.
So he really wanted to be a part of hannah
life and Sophia's life and Kylie's baby, Kylie's life. Absolutely, absolutely,
he was still willing, I guess, to get help with
the child, help with you know, whatever Handah would need.
(27:13):
In June twenty sixteen, nearly two months after the road
and murders, Jake Wagner, Charlie Gilly, and Corey Holdron all
take paternity tests. It's determined that Charlie Gilly is Kylie's father.
With baby Kylie going to her father Charlie Gilly, three
year old Sophia goes to her father, Jake Wagner, the accused,
(27:34):
which is interesting when you look at the timeline of events.
In fact, on the day of the murders, Jake allegedly
picked up Sophia from the road and home. As a result,
Sophia's life was thankfully spared. She wasn't even there. Was
that just a huge coincidence? Was that fate or does
that actually point to a larger plot. Well, for example,
(27:57):
if the Wagner's indeed are the killers, then on the
very day Hannah and the rest of the Rodents that
they were celebrating the expected birth of Kylie with the
baby shower, the Wagners were out shopping at Walmart for
items that the prosecutor plans to introduce his evidence at
their trial. Right, that's an important trip to Walmart that
becomes a big piece of this case. We've seen those
(28:18):
photographs too, from the baby shower, and everybody looks so happy,
you know, it's really staggering. Let's just say that Jake's
dream was to be a family again with Hannah. He
was in love with her. He wanted to keep his
family together. Why kill her and guarantee that you're traumatizing
your child. It doesn't really totally make sense. Journalist Jodie
(28:39):
Barr analyzed the potential motive. The older these kids get,
the more they're going to look like their moms and
dads who are murdered, and you want that connection, and
these families are fighting over that through the court system.
And now on the back end of this you learned
that wait a minute, if everything is true, that these
investigators have a ledge in these charging documents. Man, this
(29:01):
goes much deeper, you know, as far as the custody
is involved here, if that is truly what happened. But
this is a case. I mean we're four years removed
from this now. I think about this every day in
some respect. I mean, if it's you know, you wonder
about those kids, you know, how they're doing? Now? Has
it gotten any easier to accept this? Are those kids?
(29:22):
Do they remember any part of this? It's a whole
I mean, it's generations of a family wiped out. Yeah.
Then you think about, you know, on the back end
of this, I mean, those kids had to go somewhere.
What do you do with those children? What are they
telling them? You know, it's just like when you when
you think about the human end of this outside of
the investigation, Man, this family, These are going to be
hard conversations that they have with these children. Could you
(29:45):
imagine explaining this to a kid when they ask where
their mom and dad are? Tell me about my mom
and dad? And I mean they're going to get on
the internet one day, They're going to google it. I mean,
you google rodin the worst news possible they any human
because ever have is going to come up, and you know,
how do you prepare them for that? This is you know,
whatever happened that morning on Union Hill Road. You know
(30:07):
it impacted a lot more than just those eight people
who are killed. I mean, you've got their family members
and you've got people in that area are going to
remember this forever. This is never going away. Let's stop
here for another quick break. We'll be back in a moment.
(30:30):
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(32:37):
time by four mothers who went undercover. My ex partner
abducted our six year old son and took him out
of the country. This was a mother's worst nightmare. I
didn't know what to do, and we'll stop at nothing.
I knew something bad for the children they love. This
is the mission to get the child back. I was
so scared I would have to disguise myself to get him.
(32:59):
You're not keeping my child for incredible heart racing stories.
I'm not a detective. I just wanted my family back together.
I had to live a double life to save my son.
This is the last chance to get my kids back,
and that's when all hell breaks loose. Go Go, Go
experience the stunning new true crime docuseries Mother Undercover. I
(33:21):
wanted him to know, you mess with the wrong mother
now streaming only on Who over Search, Mother Undercover. You
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at body dot com. That's Bodi dot com. The legacy
still lingers on with Dana's friend Stefan. Quite a shame,
you know that, Hayna, May you know, just just hide
that baby and they you know, it's Oh, it makes
(34:50):
me sick. It's really unimaginable. Yes it is. You know.
No one deserves, no one deserves to die the way
that they did. And it breaks my heart. It breaks
my heart that Daniel'll never see her kids, you know,
grow up, go to go to school, get married, have
(35:12):
their own children. I'm sorry, it's okay, it's okay to
be emotional about it. I mean it is emotional. It's horrible, Yes,
it is. On the one hand, you've heard, I'm sure
you've heard. I've heard that like whoever did this, um
(35:36):
you know, had like some sort of moral code that
they wouldn't hurt the children and they wouldn't you know,
harm the kids. But then on the other hand, it's like,
but they left all these kids without a family, and
so like that's almost worse in a way. Yes, And
I feel so smart for the children, you know that
that will never get to know their parents, you know,
(35:56):
will never grow they'll they'll grow up without their parents.
We know that the Wagoners are in prison awaiting trial
for these murders, but also that they've pled not guilty
to all charges. It's also important to remember that they
are innocent until proven guilty. So if somebody else other
(36:17):
than the Wagoners committed this crime, who was it and why.
During the ensuing investigation, information started to emerge that perhaps
there were several other theories that needed to be considered closely.
Here's reporter James Pilcher, who followed the story closely for
(36:38):
years on The Therapist. The Rodents appeared to be, you know,
salt of the earth. All American, very close knit family,
and there were other things that led you to believe
that all was now as it seemed. There had been
reports of scuples with other people in public, there had
been reports of run ins with law enforcement, and it
(37:00):
wasn't long before authorities made a shocking discovery that turned
the case on its head. Here's the Attorney General, Mike
Dwine at a news conference a few days after the
murders took place. Let me go ahead, and I think
it's okay for us to confirm that we did find
marijuana in three three locations. It's a grow operations. Later
(37:25):
it was discovered that the Rodents had a pretty sizable
crop of marijuana plants on their property. You know, there
were indications that they were involved in some drug deals
and drug trade with marijuana. That obviously feeled even more
speculation that these were outside operators. Possibly was as a
(37:46):
drug deal gone bad, or was somebody trying to take
over their turf. All kinds of rumors started slow after
that disclosure. More on at next week. Piketon Massacre is
executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing
(38:09):
and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston, additional producing
by Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker. The Piketon Massacre is
a production of iHeartRadio and Kat Studios. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. Curiosity Stream is the
(38:32):
streaming service for people who want to know more and now.
Check out Curiosity's new series, The Real Wild West. Rolling
Stone Magazine says, it's the history of the West. They
usually don't teach you the mythology of the West, laughed
out a lot of the people. People say they've never
seen a black cowboy. This is the history book, But
did you know about these other facts? Watch The Real
Wild West now on Curiosity Stream with monthly, annual, and
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bundled plans. Find the one that works for you at
curiosity stream dot com. How Deep does a Mother's Love Run?
Now streaming only on Hulu. Experience a Waste against Time
by four mothers who went undercover. My ex partner abducted
our six year old son and took him out of
the country. This was a mother's worth nightmare. And we'll
stop at nothing. I knew something bad at for the
(39:19):
children they love. I was so scared, and that's when
all hell breaks loose. Mother Undercover. I wanted him to
know you mess with the wrong mother. Now streaming only
on Hulu search Mother Undercover. When we protect the ocean,
we protect the creatures we love and ourselves. From sea
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These animals need a healthy ocean to thrive, and so
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visiting us at Monterey Bay aquari dot org, slash share
(40:01):
your voice. Since her role as White House correspondent, Caitlyn
Collins has never been afraid to dic deep. She's a reliable,
deeply sourced reporter and is always willing to hold the
powerful accountable. On her new CNN show The Source with
Caitlyn Collins, Caitlin is bringing that tenacious spirit to prime time.
She's chasing the facts, connecting with her rolodex of sources
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and pulling the threads of a story together right up
to the minute she goes live, so viewers are getting
the very latest The Source with Caitlyn Collins weeknights at
nine pm Eastern only on CNN
He'll forget about the video game you gave him on
his birthday. Wow, thanks Grandpa. But he'll never forget how
you invested in his future with the UNSTAP. Wow, thanks Grandpa.
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dollar bonus when you fund your account. That's code I
heard fifty when you sign up at un est dot
coo for a fifty dollars bonus. See terms and conditions
at unest dot coo. Curiosity Stream is the streaming service
for people who want to know more and now. Check
out Curiosity's new series, The Real Wild West. Rolling Stone
magazine says, it's the history of the West. They usually
(00:42):
don't teach you the mythology of the West, laughed out
a lot of the people. People say they've never seen
a black cowboy. This is the history book, But did
you know about these other facts? Watch The Real Wild
West now on Curiosity Stream with monthly, annual, and bundled plans.
Find the one that works for you at Curiosity stream
dot Com. How Deep does a Mother's Love Run? Now
(01:03):
streaming only on Hulu. Experience a race against time by
four mothers who went undercover. My ex partner abducted our
six year old son and took him out of the country.
This was a mother's worst nightmare, and we'll stop at nothing.
I knew something bad app for the children day Love.
I was so scared, and that's when all hell breaks
loose Mother Undercover. I wanted him to know you mess
(01:25):
with the wrong mother. Now streaming only on Hulu Search
Mother Undercover. Reasons to use get Around the awesomest car
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get around trip with code no line. Welcome to the
piked in Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios.
(02:08):
The Bodies of seven adults and one sixteen year old
boy were found in four different locations along the country
road in Pike County. A small town nightmare comes to
life in rural Ohio. Eight members of the road and
family gunned down in cold blood in their sleep. Just
a nightmare scenario, all of them shot in the head
(02:29):
execution style is absolutely shocking. The brutal murder spark a
two and a half year investigation comprising state, local, and
federal authorities. Then Attorney General Mike Dwine comments on what
ends in a stunning series of arrests at the center
of this case or members of the Wagner family, whom
we believe the avalanche will show who's fire together to
(02:49):
kill these eight people. It's a crime that shocks a
once quiet community and leaves a haunting legacy that may
lie at its very heart. There are survivors and they
are very young. We're talking three children, one is young
as four days old, a six month old baby, and
a three year old. And when the reporters were asking
were all of them asleep at the time, they said,
(03:10):
now this is the piked. In Massacre Episode three, Hannah
and Jake. Over the course of the first two episodes
we've covered the details of the rod And murders and
learned about the family accused of carrying them out, the Wagoners.
(03:30):
I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at Keatie Studios. With Stephanie
Lydecker and Jeff Shane. We worked on a documentary about
the Road and Murders back in twenty nineteen. Here's Stephanie.
If we're going to talk about the road in deaths,
then we also need to talk about their lives. So
often when it comes to crime victims, it all becomes
about their murders and so little about who they were prior.
(03:51):
By all accounts, the Rodent family was a very happy,
close knit family. In fact, they lived jess miles from
one another. They were close enough that they all lived
on the same road, which speaks to just how tight
knit they were. And you know, this family went back
to generations in Pike County. Everyone we talked to you
pretty much said the same thing about them. They were
all very hard working, very kind, and very generous. And
(04:13):
we probably heard this the most about the matrix of
the family, Hannah's mother, Dana Rodin. Here's one of Dana's
oldest friends, Becky Ryder, She's a very nice person, just
a great mother and a great your wife to her husband. Yeah,
she's just a wrong, a good person. As we listened
to Becky described Dana Rodin, we began to see a
(04:35):
vivid portrait take shape. A trusted friend, a caring nurse
at a nearby assisted living facility, and a surrogate mother
to some of the local kids. Brittany was one of them,
A lifelong friend of Dana's son, Chris Junior. She reminisced
about Dana with Stephanie. She had shorter brown hair. She
always had the like curly and sometimes she would put
(04:58):
like purple streaks in her hair, brawn streaks, like I
don't know. She liked that kind of weird stuff. And
I'm sitting here like I always looked at her, like,
what are you doing to your hair? See now I
do that to my hair. She would be very proud
of you, Yes, she would. She'd laugh at me. And
Dana always sort of looked after everybody else's kids. She
would kind of be the mama bear. Yeah. One time
(05:21):
we were all riding and I wasn't. I wasn't on
the four whiller with Chris while we were all riding
in I actually gotten a wreck because the four whiller, Like,
I don't know what happened to it, Like it just
completely messed up. And we flipped down the hill and
Chris went and got his mom, and his mom like
came up in the woods. It was like freaking out.
(05:42):
And then she took care of me, gave me some eyes,
she gave me some water, you know, being the whole
mom like are you okay? Are you okay? Do I
need to call the ambulance? So that was always a
good thing. Dana met her husband, Chris Roden Senior, when
she was in high school, and they fell in love immediately.
A few years later, they got married. Here again is
(06:03):
Becky Ryder speaking to producer Jeff Shane. She remembered meeting
Dana as a young wife who had found the man
of her dreams. Well, I met Dana, you're her and
Chris Senior was already married. So they got married in
high school then, Yes, she got married really young. Was
that uncommon? Yes, it's uncommon, But for her, she knew
that's the man that she loved, and she knew she
wanted to be with him forever. Stephane Likens knew Chris
(06:29):
Senior as a devoted family man and a skilled craftsman.
She spoke to our producer Jeff about him. I tell you,
if you could see some of the stuff, some of
the things that he built, like the decks. He was
an amazing carpenter. He built this one that had all
(06:49):
kinds of intricate you know, he designed them, you know,
just his imagination. You know he could if you know,
if they said money, he's no object, you would be amazed,
you know, the things that he could do together. Dana
and Chris Senior raised three kids, Frankie, Hannah, and Chris Junior,
(07:13):
but after more than twenty years of marriage, the relationship
began to fall apart. Dana and Christine You got divorced,
but they continued to live on the same property, working
together to take care of the children. They still had
each other's back no matter what. Their thing was always
four kids. Nineteen year old Hannah Rodin was Chris Senior
(07:33):
and Dana's only daughter. She was great, She was funny,
She was really funny. She was really really nice. She
knew everyone, Everyone knew her, and she just like talked
to everyone. But she wasn't stuck up or anything. Like that,
and she lived life to the fullest. But after her
murder in twenty sixteen, it became clear that Hannah's life
(07:54):
and the events leading up to her death were much
more complicated than anyone in piked In could have known.
All of this starts six years earlier, in the summer
of twenty ten. Hannah had recently turned thirteen, and she
starts dating a local boy named Jake Wagner. At the time,
(08:15):
Jake was just shy of eighteen. The relationship moves quickly.
Three years later, Hannah and Jake began planning to start
a family, and in November twenty thirteen, Hannah gives birth
to their baby girl, Sophia. She was a great mom
like sometimes she would bring her her baby to school
like the She would always come into mind in Chris's
(08:36):
class because we had American Government together, and she'd always
bring the baby in there and let our teacher, mister
Karino see the baby. We talked to a relative of
the Wagner family. She asked us not to use her name,
but shared her thoughts on what Jake was like as
a father to Sophia. Jack was always very I mean,
hand on like he would always be playing like Davey
(08:57):
out you know, non hand. He always kind of made
sure that she had what she needed. Just very active
with her and very protective of her. It seemed like,
you know, the second that if anything bad were to happen,
(09:18):
I guess he was on it. Like he was there
for her. He was ready to do whatever needed to
be done in order to make sure that she was okay.
While raising a family is difficult for the young couple,
they make things work. Hannah stays in school while Jake
works as a truck driver with his brother, George Wagner.
(09:40):
The couple and Sophia split time between the Rodent and
the Wagner households. For everyone involved, it's a dream scenario.
Angela Wagner, Jake's mother, is already a grandparent, but she's
excited to be spending time with the newest addition to
her family. Her great children. They absolutely adored her, They
loved her. They always wanted to, you know, go with her,
(10:00):
and she would go out of her way to make
sure that they were taking care of or, you know,
on the holidays, that they caught you know, anything like
coos eating she could give them and everything like that.
Dana Roden's friend Stefan told our producer Jeff that Dana
was just as elated. Was she excited to be a
grandmother again? Oh my gosh, yes, those babies were her lives.
(10:24):
In twenty fifteen, things seemed to be going well for
Hannah and Jake. They have a wedding date set and
even had rings tattooed on their fingers. Throughout that time,
Hannah became very close with the Wagner family, so much
so that after the murders, Angela Wagner tells the press
that Hannah was like a daughter to her and her
entire family. So if that's the case, what could possibly
(10:46):
have gone wrong? We have a little bit of insight
into that thanks to a signed Affi David that Jake
Wagner submitted, And this is just from his perspective, but
what he claims is that he and Hannah split in
April twenty fifteen, which is a year before the murders.
He claims that Hannah actually was the one to bring
up with him because she thought he was working too much,
(11:09):
and his perspective was that he wanted to stay at
home wife and a full time mother to Sophia, which
Hannah was just not ready to do, which, again, that
is his account. We don't have the benefit of having
Hannah's account or any of Hannah's family's account either. We
spoke with an anonymous Wagner family's source and they say
that Jake just really wasn't ready to throw in the
towel on the relationship period. He was trying very hard
(11:32):
to make sure that they got back together. He still
wanted to be with her, He was trying to get
get back with her just everything that he could. It's
really hard to know what goes on in a relationship
behind closed doors. Is it possible that Hannah felt as
though she was being controlled by Jake or that she
was in over her head and couldn't get out of
(11:54):
the relationship. Is it possible that Jake Wagner's broken heart
was really the reason that his entire family allegedly killed
her entire family. Yeah, again, going back to kind of
figuring out like the timeline and what might have happened,
We're able to kind of piece some of it together
through social media. We found a post from July of
(12:15):
twenty fifteen where she made a rather cryptic entry on
Facebook posting lyrics to a song about domestic abuse, and
the lyrics read he slowly isolates her from all of
her friends. She works really hard, but he takes all
of it. She ended the post with her own words, saying,
end domestic violence, live a happier life. It is important
(12:38):
to note that we don't know for an absolute fact
that these posts were about Jake. The timeline certainly matches up,
but if they were all about Jake, it raises a
number of questions. Was Jake Wagner a controlling and abusive partner.
Though we can't be sure about what went on behind
the scenes of Jake and Hannah's relationship, we do know
(12:58):
one thing, and it was eighteen years old when she
posted that message, and she would be dead within a year.
We're going to take a quick break here. We'll be
back in a moment. Like many of us, you might
think identity theft will never happen to you, but consider this.
(13:20):
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Identity theft protection starts here. He'll forget about the video
game you gave him on his birthday. Wow, thanks Grandpa,
(14:23):
But he'll never forget how you invested in his future.
What the unstapp? Wow, thanks Grandpa. Don't just give them
any gift, give them a gift that can grow with them.
Invite grandparents and family friends to contribute to your child's
future with the unstapp. Unst is an investment account for
kids that makes it easy to gift funds that can
(14:45):
be used for college tuition, their first home, and more.
Just by sharing the link or include a UNQR code
on party invitations for birthdays and holidays. For a limited time,
download the unst stapp and use the code I fifty
at sign up to receive a fifty dollars bonus when
you fund your account. That's code iHeart fifty when you
(15:05):
sign up at uneest dot coo for a fifty dollars bonus.
See terms and conditions at UNS dot coo. Curiosity Stream
is the streaming service for people who want to know
more more about our world and beyond. Curiosity Stream has
the best collection of documentary films and TV shows and
(15:27):
now check out Curiosity's new series, The Real Wild West.
Rolling Stone magazine says, it's the history of the West.
They usually don't teach you the mythology of the West
left out a lot of the people. American West is
far more different, far more diverse. Peo would say they've
never seen a black cowboy. Well, we've been there, we've
been doing it. I never really learned about the Hispanic
(15:49):
Mexican aspect of the story. This is the history book,
But did you know about these other facts. Watch The
Real Wild West now on Curiosity Stream. Just go to
curiosity stream dot com to sign up or download the
app now. With new titles dropping every week, you'll never
run out of things to watch, and with monthly, annual,
and bungle pricing plans, it's easy to find one that
(16:09):
works for you when your budget. Go to curiosity stream
dot com to satisfy your curiosity and sign up today.
How Deep does a Mother's Love Run? Now streaming only
on Hulu. Experience for yourself a real life race against
time by four mothers who went undercover. My partner abducted
our six year old son and took him out of
(16:30):
the country. This was a mother's worst nightmare. I didn't
know what to do, and we'll stop at nothing. I
knew something better for the children they love. This is
the mission to get the child back. I was so
scared I would have to disguise myself to get him.
You're not keeping my child for incredible heart racing stories.
(16:51):
I'm not a detective. I just wanted my family back together.
I had to live a double life to save my son.
This is the last chance to get my kids back,
and that's when all oprex Louse has to be away Up, Go,
Go Go experience the stunning new true crime docuseries Mother Undercover.
I wanted him to know, you mess with the wrong mother,
(17:12):
now streaming only on Who over Search, Mother Undercover. Let's
go back to that summer of twenty fifteen, just after
Hannah and Jake broke up. That May, she starts dating
a guy named Charlie Gilly. Charlie is her brother, Frankie's
(17:33):
best friend and the brother of Frankie's fiance, Hannah Gilly.
Here's journalist Jeff Winkler. There was this period after Hannah
May had broken things off with Jake Wagner that when
she got with Charlie, it was sort of what you
would hope for, you know, everyone seemed to like Charlie Gilly,
who you know, by all accounts, was very caring, very loving,
(17:57):
very much liked by the family. Charlie is proud of
his relationship with Hannah. He often posts photos of he
and Hannah kissing and proclaims his love for her online. However,
as fast as things heat up, they fizzle out just
as quickly, and by the end of July twenty fifteen,
the couple breaks up now. According to that same Effi
(18:19):
David that Jake Wagner signed, he and Hannah continue a
physical relationship that entire summer. Brittany told Jeff Shane what
she heard about Jake Wagner and Hannah's fraud relationship from
Hannah's brother, Chris Junior. Chris would always come to school
and talk to me about it. What would he say,
just that his sister is in a shitty situation. He
(18:39):
just treats her awfully and she really can't do anything
about it because she has a kid with him. He
would just say that it's a whole bunch of bs
and that Jake would just treat her like crap, Like
what did you think about that? At the time, that
she needed to get out of that relationship and not
be associated with that. At some point this same summer,
(19:05):
Hannah falls for another boy from piked in, Corey Holdron.
According to our Wagner family source, when Jake finds out
he's crushed, she got extremely upset when he found out
that she was seeing somebody else, and he was hurt.
He didn't understand and every time that I got a
chance to talk to him, he would cry. He was like,
(19:25):
you know, I don't understand why she's, why she's been
this way, why she you know, won't give me from
the chance to explain myself, Like, we could work on
it and it would be Goodia, we would be good
together her. I mean, it was just always Yeah, he
was very very upset about that. So and after I think,
after after being upset and after that prank of war off,
(19:51):
I think it did turn to anger. In August twenty fifteen,
Hannah Summer ends with a big shock. She's pregnant. Unlike
her first child, this one is unplanned. Adding to the anxiety,
she doesn't know who the father is. The potential fathers
are Charlie Gilly, Corey Holdron, and Jake Wagner. For Jake,
(20:17):
the pregnancy offers a glimmer of hope. I could just
tell by talking to him that when he did find
out the Handle was pregnant again that it almost was
like a sense of release to him, kind of. I
think he thought that that was going to bring them
back together. He asked Canna and was willing to to
be there, you know, for the birth. He was asking,
(20:39):
you know, if she needed any help with anything with
the baby, child support. He was willing to say that
he had gotten things for the baby. At one point
on him and Angela had went and bought a crib
and just things like that for the child. Yea. And
this was before he had any idea that was even
his or not. But behind the scenes, there are rumors
(21:03):
that the once amicable co parenting situation between Hannah and
Jake is beginning to fall apart. According to Mike Allen,
attorney and legal analyst for Fox nineteen and Cincinnati, things
soon reached a boiling point two or three weeks prior
to the murder. There's evidence that Jake Wagner and his
father tried to get Hannah road and to sign some
documents related to custody of her daughter Sophia to Jake Wagner.
(21:26):
But Jake's plan seems to backfire here again our Wagner
family member. There was a custody battle, is basically what
did go to do. There was a custody battle between
you know, the daughter. Hannah wasn't allowing Jake to see
her or any of the family to see her, and
so it kind of just got out of hand at
(21:47):
dot point. It just set him off to the point
where Jake, because he had made the comments a couple
of times, I mean, and I had tout a couple
of people's about this. I mean, had made the comments,
you know that he was going to to kill her.
And he told her that, you know, He's like, I'm
(22:08):
going to I'm going to have to kill you. Like
you're not going you're not gonna let me see the baby,
then you know you're not gonna have her. And I'm like, Jake,
you can't say those things. Please just chill out. And
of course, you know, nobody ever really thinks like, oh
my god, he's actually going to consider that. Right. People
(22:28):
say stuff like that all the time, rush it's right, like,
especially when they're upset as he was. I mean, he
was just completely out of his mind. It really really
upset him. On April seventeenth, twenty sixteen, in the midst
of the couple's custody dispute, Hannah gives birth to a
baby girl named Kylie. On the births to forget, she
(22:51):
doesn't list anyone as the father. Less than a week later,
on April twenty second, Hannah and seven members of her
family are found murdered in their homes. Thankfully, the life
of baby Kylie and her two cousins are spared. The
brutal murders committed in front of these young children rattled
everyone who heard about the story, even seasoned prosecutors like
(23:13):
an Attorney General Mike Dwine. I guess the worst thing
I've ever seen. And when you see a mother, young
mother just gave worth four days before, and she's murdered
right beside her child. Thank god they did not harm
the baby. But you know, it doesn't get much worse
than that. Jeff Winkler spoke to us about trying to
(23:35):
make sense of the killer's intentions. There was a conscious
choice to leave every single young child alive who basically
couldn't identify them successfully. I mean, that is probably the
most shocking part of the whole ordeals that there was
a conscious choice by these killers to spare the children,
(23:56):
which sort of displays the coldheartedness of decisions they were making.
Going back to the timeline for a second. Following the murder,
it was one week that passed and Jake Wagner files
for custody for both Sophia and the newborn Kylie. He
seems convinced that he's Kylie's father, but acknowledges that even
(24:18):
if he isn't, he still deserves partial custody so the
sisters could spend time together. Yeah, the whole Wagner family
was pretty vocal at that time about their need to
have custody of these kids. Angela Wagner told the press
that Sophia and Kylie quote unquote needed each other and
that when they got older enough to understand what happened
(24:39):
to their mother, that they will really need each other. Right,
and custody is something as complicated and it varies state
by state. So Stephanie, I know you dug into this
quite a bit. Yeah, it's very specific. We spoke to
a family law attorney in Ohio, and you know, yes,
if you're an unmarried woman, all parental rights go to you.
(25:01):
The father does not have any parental rights unless he
goes to court and files accordingly. To that point, these
papers for custody were filed exactly one week after the murders.
That's pretty quick to pull all of your custody documents
together in such a short amount of time. I know
things vary from state to state, but it's pretty unusual
(25:23):
to have that so tidy so quickly. And some reports
I've indicated that that may mean that they had been
going through the process and that Jake and the Wagner
family were compiling documents in such prior to the murders.
So it is possible that because he didn't have any rights,
could that actually be reason enough to go through with
(25:46):
this crime. Yeah. I spoke to Mike Allen, he's a
former prosecutor and now he's a criminal defense attorney in Ohio,
and he told me about how Jake's quick custody filings
look from a legal perspective, that's extremely strong evidence for
the prosecution. I mean six days, less than a week
after the killings to go ahead and file it can
(26:08):
take months, you know, maybe a year, a little bit more,
a little bit less. It's not something that goes quickly
at all. And I think that that is going to
be some evidence that's problematic for the defense doing it
that quickly. After the murders, Jake seems determined to be
(26:28):
a father to Sophia and to Hannah's newborn baby. Throughout
Hannah's pregnancy and even after the birth, Jake Wagner publicly
says there's a good chance he's baby Kylie's father. He's
so confident that shortly after Kylie is born, he checks
her for a hammer index toe, a Wagner family trade.
He still wanted to be involved and still wanted to
(26:51):
be there, so it was a very emotional time for him.
So he really wanted to be a part of hannah
life and Sophia's life and Kylie's baby, Kylie's life. Absolutely, absolutely,
he was still willing, I guess, to get help with
the child, help with you know, whatever Handah would need.
(27:13):
In June twenty sixteen, nearly two months after the road
and murders, Jake Wagner, Charlie Gilly, and Corey Holdron all
take paternity tests. It's determined that Charlie Gilly is Kylie's father.
With baby Kylie going to her father Charlie Gilly, three
year old Sophia goes to her father, Jake Wagner, the accused,
(27:34):
which is interesting when you look at the timeline of events.
In fact, on the day of the murders, Jake allegedly
picked up Sophia from the road and home. As a result,
Sophia's life was thankfully spared. She wasn't even there. Was
that just a huge coincidence? Was that fate or does
that actually point to a larger plot. Well, for example,
(27:57):
if the Wagner's indeed are the killers, then on the
very day Hannah and the rest of the Rodents that
they were celebrating the expected birth of Kylie with the
baby shower, the Wagners were out shopping at Walmart for
items that the prosecutor plans to introduce his evidence at
their trial. Right, that's an important trip to Walmart that
becomes a big piece of this case. We've seen those
(28:18):
photographs too, from the baby shower, and everybody looks so happy,
you know, it's really staggering. Let's just say that Jake's
dream was to be a family again with Hannah. He
was in love with her. He wanted to keep his
family together. Why kill her and guarantee that you're traumatizing
your child. It doesn't really totally make sense. Journalist Jodie
(28:39):
Barr analyzed the potential motive. The older these kids get,
the more they're going to look like their moms and
dads who are murdered, and you want that connection, and
these families are fighting over that through the court system.
And now on the back end of this you learned
that wait a minute, if everything is true, that these
investigators have a ledge in these charging documents. Man, this
(29:01):
goes much deeper, you know, as far as the custody
is involved here, if that is truly what happened. But
this is a case. I mean we're four years removed
from this now. I think about this every day in
some respect. I mean, if it's you know, you wonder
about those kids, you know, how they're doing? Now? Has
it gotten any easier to accept this? Are those kids?
(29:22):
Do they remember any part of this? It's a whole
I mean, it's generations of a family wiped out. Yeah.
Then you think about, you know, on the back end
of this, I mean, those kids had to go somewhere.
What do you do with those children? What are they
telling them? You know, it's just like when you when
you think about the human end of this outside of
the investigation, Man, this family, These are going to be
hard conversations that they have with these children. Could you
(29:45):
imagine explaining this to a kid when they ask where
their mom and dad are? Tell me about my mom
and dad? And I mean they're going to get on
the internet one day, They're going to google it. I mean,
you google rodin the worst news possible they any human
because ever have is going to come up, and you know,
how do you prepare them for that? This is you know,
whatever happened that morning on Union Hill Road. You know
(30:07):
it impacted a lot more than just those eight people
who are killed. I mean, you've got their family members
and you've got people in that area are going to
remember this forever. This is never going away. Let's stop
here for another quick break. We'll be back in a moment.
(30:30):
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(32:15):
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How Deep does a Mother's Love Run? Now streaming only
on Hulu. Experience for yourself a real life race against
(32:37):
time by four mothers who went undercover. My ex partner
abducted our six year old son and took him out
of the country. This was a mother's worst nightmare. I
didn't know what to do, and we'll stop at nothing.
I knew something bad for the children they love. This
is the mission to get the child back. I was
so scared I would have to disguise myself to get him.
(32:59):
You're not keeping my child for incredible heart racing stories.
I'm not a detective. I just wanted my family back together.
I had to live a double life to save my son.
This is the last chance to get my kids back,
and that's when all hell breaks loose. Go Go, Go
experience the stunning new true crime docuseries Mother Undercover. I
(33:21):
wanted him to know, you mess with the wrong mother
now streaming only on Who over Search, Mother Undercover. You
will fail. So what everybody does, but your jim, your watch,
your yoga pants. They pretend you won't. So when you
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(33:45):
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at body dot com. That's Bodi dot com. The legacy
still lingers on with Dana's friend Stefan. Quite a shame,
you know that, Hayna, May you know, just just hide
that baby and they you know, it's Oh, it makes
(34:50):
me sick. It's really unimaginable. Yes it is. You know.
No one deserves, no one deserves to die the way
that they did. And it breaks my heart. It breaks
my heart that Daniel'll never see her kids, you know,
grow up, go to go to school, get married, have
(35:12):
their own children. I'm sorry, it's okay, it's okay to
be emotional about it. I mean it is emotional. It's horrible, Yes,
it is. On the one hand, you've heard, I'm sure
you've heard. I've heard that like whoever did this, um
(35:36):
you know, had like some sort of moral code that
they wouldn't hurt the children and they wouldn't you know,
harm the kids. But then on the other hand, it's like,
but they left all these kids without a family, and
so like that's almost worse in a way. Yes, And
I feel so smart for the children, you know that
that will never get to know their parents, you know,
(35:56):
will never grow they'll they'll grow up without their parents.
We know that the Wagoners are in prison awaiting trial
for these murders, but also that they've pled not guilty
to all charges. It's also important to remember that they
are innocent until proven guilty. So if somebody else other
(36:17):
than the Wagoners committed this crime, who was it and why.
During the ensuing investigation, information started to emerge that perhaps
there were several other theories that needed to be considered closely.
Here's reporter James Pilcher, who followed the story closely for
(36:38):
years on The Therapist. The Rodents appeared to be, you know,
salt of the earth. All American, very close knit family,
and there were other things that led you to believe
that all was now as it seemed. There had been
reports of scuples with other people in public, there had
been reports of run ins with law enforcement, and it
(37:00):
wasn't long before authorities made a shocking discovery that turned
the case on its head. Here's the Attorney General, Mike
Dwine at a news conference a few days after the
murders took place. Let me go ahead, and I think
it's okay for us to confirm that we did find
marijuana in three three locations. It's a grow operations. Later
(37:25):
it was discovered that the Rodents had a pretty sizable
crop of marijuana plants on their property. You know, there
were indications that they were involved in some drug deals
and drug trade with marijuana. That obviously feeled even more
speculation that these were outside operators. Possibly was as a
(37:46):
drug deal gone bad, or was somebody trying to take
over their turf. All kinds of rumors started slow after
that disclosure. More on at next week. Piketon Massacre is
executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing
(38:09):
and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston, additional producing
by Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker. The Piketon Massacre is
a production of iHeartRadio and Kat Studios. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. Curiosity Stream is the
(38:32):
streaming service for people who want to know more and now.
Check out Curiosity's new series, The Real Wild West. Rolling
Stone Magazine says, it's the history of the West. They
usually don't teach you the mythology of the West, laughed
out a lot of the people. People say they've never
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did you know about these other facts? Watch The Real
Wild West now on Curiosity Stream with monthly, annual, and
(38:56):
bundled plans. Find the one that works for you at
curiosity stream dot com. How Deep does a Mother's Love Run?
Now streaming only on Hulu. Experience a Waste against Time
by four mothers who went undercover. My ex partner abducted
our six year old son and took him out of
the country. This was a mother's worth nightmare. And we'll
stop at nothing. I knew something bad at for the
(39:19):
children they love. I was so scared, and that's when
all hell breaks loose. Mother Undercover. I wanted him to
know you mess with the wrong mother. Now streaming only
on Hulu search Mother Undercover. When we protect the ocean,
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These animals need a healthy ocean to thrive, and so
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your voice. Since her role as White House correspondent, Caitlyn
Collins has never been afraid to dic deep. She's a reliable,
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powerful accountable. On her new CNN show The Source with
Caitlyn Collins, Caitlin is bringing that tenacious spirit to prime time.
She's chasing the facts, connecting with her rolodex of sources
(40:21):
and pulling the threads of a story together right up
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