July 13, 2022 • 30 mins
As we’ve covered the tragedy, much has been said about the accused family, the investigation and the court appearances, but this week we explore the victims. For the first time, we’re talking with two Rhoden family members who have never spoken publicly before. These family members provide valuable insight into the Rhodens, a family steeped in history.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You live to try to defend your family, or you'd
live to try to defend people if you can. It's
not something I could put my finger on, but it's
just inside of us. I would wait into a hill
of bullets for somebody in my family to this day,
and I don't know why, but it would, and everybody
in my family would did the same. We just would.
(00:28):
This is the Piked and Massacre returned to Pike County
season three, episode eight, Manner of Life. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
a television producer at Katie's Studios with Stephanie Ledecker and
Jeff Shane. So far the season, we've heard a lot
about recent court proceedings between the Wagoners and the prosecution
(00:51):
that will shape upcoming trials. They've covered everything from where
the trials will be held, what evidence will be allowed
into testimony, and who might be charged with what. All
of this leads to what we hope will be some
small form of justice for the Roden, Gillie and Manly
families who lost the unthinkable. When the Maskaker initially happened
(01:12):
six years ago, a lot of the remaining family members
spoke publicly. Not so in recent years, however, we've made
contact with some people who want to share their memories
of their family. Here's Jeff speaking with a Roden family
member who reached out to us. They've asked us not
to use their name. I'm curious how you found us
(01:35):
and what made you contact us. Now, I drive a
lot on the road, and I listened to podcasts everywhere.
I happened upon the pike in Masker, which you know,
is part of my extended family. So I wanted to
listen to it, and I was really impressed with the
respect that was given to the family, and so a
friend of mine and myself we eagerly wait every week
(01:57):
to hear it, and so I just commented on it,
you know, thanking you all for being respectful to the family.
What is that experience like losing loved ones but then
losing it in a way where other people are kind
of a part of your experience. It'd be a strange
thing to divine for you, because we would see each
other a few times a year at family unions and
(02:18):
what have you. So it was a giant shop. Man.
I hate to say this, but it wasn't as hurting
to me as I know it was to a lot
of the very close family members, and it's hard to
describe a law such a loss of a large chunk
of a family. When you first heard the podcast, what
was your thought? Kind of got interested in yours because
(02:41):
you all would give the facts as they were, and
then you would talk about the possibilities of how that
would make people feel. So that was very interesting to me.
These are not just people who were removed from this earth.
They were people. They were real people. You actually going
after trying to bring real life people to this is
pretty exciting to me. I mean, not making them as
(03:03):
victims alone. You're making them as people and that's appreciated.
Jeff asked what growing up as a member of the
Roden family was like he first spoke about Geneva Roden
as a reminder, Geneva is Chris Roden seniors and Kenneth's mother,
Frankie Hannah and little Chris's grandmother. Growing up, especially in
(03:24):
my younger years, we would go visit Geneva and her family,
and the things I remember the most when you met Geneva,
you were guaranteed a smile and always a hug, and
whatever they had, whether it be a watermelon or a
piece of cake or whatever it was was shared with you.
When you got there, you just became one of the kids.
(03:45):
Geneva just was always the sweetest thing ever was and
would just hug you to death. About three times a year,
our family would get together and we would just pile
in a car and we would ride and see relatives,
and Geneva lived close to other relatives, so we would
just kind of make a big round trip in two
Ohio and then back into Kentucky. We would spend two
(04:07):
or three days up there, just following up wherever we could.
And our family was that way. If you went to
their house, they just made room for you. It didn't matter.
You just had a great time and you go swimming
and you do this and that. We didn't have Facebook
or things like that in those days. It sounds like
you like a nice way to grow up. It was,
it really was. Immediately after the murders, Geneva spoke publicly
(04:31):
about the unimaginable loss she was facing. On April twenty second,
twenty sixteen, in one single night, she lost her son's
Chris Roden Senior and Kenneth Roden, her grandchildren Frankie, Hannah
May and Little Chris Roden and her nephew Gary. Her
words were a stark juxtaposition to the idyllic life her
(04:53):
family once lived. Love decided. I'm the mother Christopher Senior
and the mother of Kenneth, and from my mother's heart
(05:15):
had I hurt so bad inside from the day that
I flmed out. If there's someone out there that knows
anything about what happened with the pleased pleased coming forward,
(05:41):
there has to be so one. It was all but
looks like the world had ended when I found out
about the family that they took out my grandchildren, X
daughter at all, my nephew and my grandson, my girlfriend.
(06:11):
There was eight members that they took that day, and
the hurt them blue way from a mother, I think
about a day night, I lose a lot of sleep
board and still what try to go on the rest
(06:36):
of my children is going to so much listen to
brothers the same day. I would have never dreamed that's
something that is would happen. Here are Stephanie and Jeff
speaking about Geneva Rodin. Geneva Rodin is nearly eighty years old,
(07:01):
and it's impossible to imagine what she deals with every day.
Not only the court proceedings, but also being there for
her family because there's still many other family members who
rely on her and lean on her as the Rodan matriarch.
Several years ago, when we were first making the documentary
for Oxygen about the Rodent murders, Jeff and I actually
went to the nursing home that Geneva resided at. At
(07:24):
the time, we actually thought she was a distant cousin
to the Rodents, and we didn't realize until we got
there that she was actually Chris Senior's mother and that
she had lost her children and her grandchildren, And ultimately
she was uncomfortable speaking on camera, which we of course
completely understood. It was all just way too raw for
(07:46):
her and her level of grief was frankly unimaginable. Geneva
is really an example of a person who's frankly inspiring.
You know, We've said this many times since then. When
you meet another human being who has experienced such deep
pain and she can continue to push on and continue
(08:08):
to be there for her loved ones and show up
to court relentlessly and push through, then surely the rest
of us can push through whatever stressing us in our lives.
And she's really offered us a lot of perspective. I
share this really simply to say the level of grief
that this family has experienced is incredibly far reaching. Geneva
(08:31):
Rodan and other members for her family, I would imagine
the catalysts for them wanting to speak out is to
bring attention to their family's case and not just how
to be about the accused Wagner family, and really remind
everyone that the victims, the Rodents in this case, were
real human beings who were not just what happened to
them in twenty sixteen. It's so true. And also, you know,
(08:53):
oftentimes when we talk about crime, the victims just become
a footnote. It's always about the manner of death and
less about the manner of life. And this is another
example that you know, Geneva is a living and breathing
woman who has had her entire family wiped out, and
(09:13):
whoever is responsible for that should pay. Jeff continued his
conversation with the Rodent family member. Where Chris Senior and
Gary and Kenneth were they around? Did you see them?
They were about probably eight or nine, maybe teen years younger. Man.
I remember Chris Junior and Kenneth and them they were
(09:36):
wandering around just doing what kids do. They played with us.
Kids have always just played together. We really didn't keep
in contact after you know, outside of family unions. Every
life kept getting in a way for everyone. And that's
just a sad fact of the way it was. They
were just beating their way through this world, just like
everyone else. To believe, that's why this thing was more
(09:58):
shocking than one would think. It became clear that there
were obvious parallels between Chris Roden Senior's upbringing and how he,
alongside his wife Dana, raised his own family. They were
just people, They were just good old Americans. She was
the daughter of a man named Tip who lost his
(10:19):
life in a little place called Jonesborough, Ohio. He was logging.
An attractor come back on him and killed him. And
then not too long after that, she lost her mother.
That left Geneva with raising her own siblings. After losing
her mother and father, she got married and they had children,
And this happened at the same time, and that she
(10:42):
had this entire group of people, her siblings and her
own children that she was raising. So that takes an
immense amount of strength to do, giving the way the
world is in Geneva didn't have a whole lot to
get through this world, but she made it. She was
and she raised them, and she raised fine people. Geneva's
(11:04):
father was one of eight or ten brothers who grew
up down in Kentucky. They lived in poverty, but it's
not a poverty that most people would understand. During the wintertime,
they didn't have shoes. They didn't even have leather to
put on their feet. They would rap rags or whatever
they could find around their feet just to get to school.
(11:27):
They went to school in a one room schoolhouse on
a little place called Grassy Creek. There was no way
to make a living for their father, James. That survival
instinct was passed down through through Geneva in most of
the family, and her dad was an amazing man, even
long before there were mechanics. He would find old cars
(11:49):
or tractors and make them run, and then he would
trade them for stuff that didn't run. Now, in that
trade he would get a little extra money which would
go to his family and they might be able to
buy a little something, a little bit of food. I've
heard with the Roden's being super resourceful with cars and
(12:10):
good with your hands, I've heard that about Chris Senior
being fiercely protective of one another and going to bath
for each other. It's the same stuff, and it's a
little easier for me then it would be for you,
of course, because I know the family. But that is
very interesting that you can draw a line from the
early nineteen hundreds to her children and see similarities, like
(12:31):
Chris Junior would just jump under the hood of a
car and be able to fix it. I can see
those similarities and being able to defend each other. I
can see that going all the way back to that
side of the family. I just want to clarify by
Chris Junior, you mean Chris Roden sor yes, he's Chris
Junior to you, because there's another Chris. Yes. Jeff also
(12:52):
recently had a phone conversation with Talicia, Dana and Chris
Senior's niece and Hannah, Frankie and little Chris cousin. Well
gone more than six years now, the Rodents are present
with Talicia and live on with her young daughters. As
someone who has been working on this story for many years,
I feel very touched by it, and I'm sure you
(13:14):
know obviously being related to everyone, it means a lot
to share her about and talk about it. Can you
hear me? Okay, yeah, I can hear you. I was
checking to see where the kids work. How many kids
do you have? I have foo? You have your hands fall? Yes,
they're all girls. I actually have one named after aunt Dana,
and her name is Hannah Lynne. We gave her Hannah
(13:35):
after the two Hannah's and Lynne after Dana. That's beautiful.
So Dana was your great aunt and she was able
to meet your eldest daughter, Cherokee before everything happened. Dana
was my aunt. She was Cherokee's great aunt. So who
are your parents? My mother was Dana's sister, Kathie. She
has two sisters and a brother. Her brother's name is
(13:58):
James Manley. And then my other aunt Bobby Joe. As
a reminder, Talicia's aunt, Bobby Joe Manley is the one
who discovered the horrific crime scene and called nine one
one nine one yes, if yes, forty over? I need
(14:24):
who walked to the no ball? Okay, my brother halls dead? Okay,
what girl Davey has sat here? Forty seventy seventy forty
seventy seven, forty seventy seven. Okay fort zero seven seven
email correct, yes for you see man on yes, all
(14:51):
over the house. Okay, my brother Haws who says very look,
I'll beat the hell. Okay, we're gonna blood all hearts
the man. Can you coming the county? That's dad is down.
It's my county. H Okay, okay, I need to get
(15:12):
out of the house. They can drive over there. That's
a head running Christler and seen Garry Rod and Sank
and Gary Rod and start things ahead. Looks like the
dad take your vad. I think the great dads. I
don't speaker pop out of them. Okay. If there anybody
else in the house, I know. Okay, the door was lost,
(15:39):
be good here, but on her friend team was and
I went in and hit her, landing on the floor
and went on house and I'm starting now. Okay, stay
out of the house the way anybody got her there? Okay, yeah,
all right, we don't get it. He's on my right. Okay,
I thank you your mother. The trauma of that discovery
(16:03):
is long lasting. I used to hang out a lot
with Bobby Joe that like after everything happened, she just
like completely changed. Here again is Jeff as a reminder,
Bobby Joe Manly is Dana Roden's sister, and she discovered
the horrific crime scene at Chris Senior Roden and Frankie
(16:24):
Roden's house, and to just kind of put yourself in
her shoes, she found out that her loved ones were
heinously murdered, not by word of mouth, but actually by
discovering their bloody bodies. And an experience like that it
changes you forever, how could it not. And we did
a little research into severe trauma like the kind Bobby
Joe experienced, and only around seven percent of Americans report
(16:48):
experiencing an event like this. And obviously, even I would
say what Bobby Joe went through is probably worse than
what a lot of those seven percent report. It's just unimaginable,
and I don't think anyone could ever understand what she's
dealt with. Here's steph again speaking with Telicia. To me
(17:09):
and Hannah were only like six months and four two
days apart. Wow, I just turned twenty four. I actually
have a picture of us on our baby and my
baby book in the Very Bad She was a year
and a half in this picture and I was five months.
So you guys grew up together. The leat your rope
togeverybody was pretty close her and my little brother was
close to him, and Christopher wasn't very far apart either.
(17:33):
Everybody used to ask me what I thought of Frankiella
was like, listen, me and Frankie and Hannah and Christopher
and Henry Junior, which is my brother, and Heath, which
is my other girl. I said, we was something else,
especially around Fourth of July, because when four the July came,
we wanted to try and have Roman candle fights and
everything else, so there'd be like big family celebrations on
(17:56):
these kind of days. Yeah, we're going to take a break.
We'll be back in a moment. As they grow into teenagers,
like many girls, Talicia and Hannah May would do each
(18:17):
other's hair and makeup and have fun just driving around.
Me and Hannah May like the long destination drives with
no idea where it was going. I'm just listening to music.
What kind of music did she like? She was mainly
a country girl. Other than that she liked Brian Church
I think is his name. She did ay sity a
country girl. When she was in a jeep, she liked
to go out, and she liked to go money and
(18:39):
tell me about Dana. What kind of aunt was she?
She would take us all clothes, shopping for school and stuff.
When school time came around. Your kids are young, do
they know about your great aunt and what happened. I
actually have a book I made in memory of them.
It's like a photo album book. I figured why not
(19:00):
keep their memory alive with the children. When I was
pregnant with Cherokee, Hannah had actually done a like a
gender revealed with me. She done my pictures and then
right before I gave birth to Cherokee, she had also
done my maternity picture. Dana was one of the first
ones I told that I was pregnant with Cherokee. She
(19:21):
was so excited and she kept telling me, all you're
having a girl. I was like, hey day, and I
don't know yet. I had went into labor with Cherokee
on the eighth of March and then I didn't have
her until the nights, and Dana was there the whole time.
She pasted the floors and she was like, is she
ready to get hurt? And Hanname was there when Nana
(19:43):
first saw Cherokee. She started crying at first, and she
looked at me and she was like, she's so beautiful.
After we brought her home from the hospital, she would
always want Cherokee to come out and take naps with
her before she went to work, and she wanted to
do pictures with Cherokee. I was born twenty fifteen, and
then Hannah was born, not even a month after they
(20:04):
were killed. When I went into labor with Hannah, I
looked at my mom and I said, I wish Auntina
was here, because you know, she was there for the
first baby, she would have wanted to be there for
the second. After I had delivered Hannah, I ended up
crying because I kept looking at her, and I've kept
telling Mama, was like, I want to be happy, but
(20:25):
I'm also kind of sad because you know, it's not
even been a month yet and we had lost family members.
How do you deal with that or reconcile with wanting
to remember but also wanting to live your life. When
I'm with the girls, I try to teach them stuff
that like Aunt Dana would have taught them as well.
Terry Key. She knows that if we go to the cemetery,
(20:48):
Aunt Dana's there and she'll ask, can we go see
Aunt Dana? Mommy and I will take her to see
the grave. We took her just a couple of weeks ago.
How do you think that the manly wrote in Jelly
families will be different now that all this has happened.
When it first happened, like we was all really close
with each other, and after the year started going out,
(21:09):
the only other time we gather is like when we
want to do like a release or a candle fighting
for another year of them being dead. Jeff as Talicia
if there was anything she could learn from this terrible tragedy,
and she was reminded of advice that her cousin Hannah
Ma gave her. I don't go by words. I watched
their actions. Hannah would teach me where she was murdered.
(21:32):
She would tell me you can't trust their words because
their words can always be broken. She's like, trust their actions.
What do you try to take away from Dana? As
you're a mom now she would take in the kids
that wasn't even hers. So everybody tells me that I'm
just like Aunt Dana Cherokee. She's she's usually a very
playful girl. She's like running around playing there was one day,
(21:55):
but was all sitting outside at night. We was around
a campfire, and she looked at us and she said, MoMA,
I missed Dana and I wish she was here. So
I liked that Cherokee and I pointed up at the stories.
I said, did you see that bright story there, the
brightest one in the sky. She said yeah, I said,
that's Dana watching over you. Well, clearly the Rodents enjoy
(22:17):
a strong sense of family. There are some dark things
that have happened to generations of the Rodents that can't
be ignored. I wonder about you. Hear the term generational trauma.
What is your take on generational trauma and how it
affects your family. The saddest part of this is that
only in the later years have we begun to even
(22:37):
to realize generational trauma. For people of that generation, it
was never considered trauma. It was just considered life. I
know that's a sad thing to say, but it was
just considered being able to live through, to fight through.
(22:58):
In these days, we really do understand so much better.
But I have to believe that in those days, what
it really meant was as sad as it is to say,
I think that type of trauma, giving from that generational
one really makes people stronger in a way. The survival
instinct is just within this family. Here again, Stephanie and Jeff.
(23:22):
Generational trauma is trauma that isn't just experienced by one person,
but extends from one generation to the next. And now
everyone is susceptible to generational trauma, but there are specific
populations that are more vulnerable due to their histories, and
two of those buckets are poverty and violence, which based
on what we've been told about the Rodent family history,
it seems that they would be susceptible to this type
(23:45):
of trauma. Based on our further research, dealing with generational
trauma is best dealt with through counseling. I recently spoke
to a psychiatrist who said that the Rodents were really
emblematic of generational trauma and they shared a very famous
example of what that could and there was experiment conducted
by scientists on mice and a lab and the scientists
(24:07):
would basically spray perfume near mice and then shock the mice,
and they would repeat that on a regular basis. They
would spray their perfume, shock the mice, spray their perfume,
shock the mice, and then sure enough, eventually, even without
shocking them, they would just spray the perfume and the
mouse would physically respond as though it had been shocked.
(24:30):
Perhaps even more interestingly, those mice eventually had babies of
their own, and guess what when the scientists sprayed those
mice with the perfume, they too would physically react like
they were being shocked, even though they weren't. This would
be an example of how trauma and sorrow can literally
be passed down generationally on a cellular level, as if
(24:52):
it becomes part of our DNA. Let's stop here for
another break. Here again our anonymous Rodent family member talking
about Chris Senior's mother, Geneva. They will come through when
(25:13):
this is long gone and we're remembering back, and they
will come out on the other side with their chins up.
No matter what happens, no matter who's locked up for what,
no matter who goes to prison, Geneva will walk with
her head up, and she will still be smiling. She
will smile. And I can only imagine the pain and
the tolls took on her, you know, with what happened.
But she will survive. That's just in her bloodline. She
(25:36):
will come through this. I don't think there's anything that
any of us could learn from this. It's just an awful,
terrible thing. How would you want your family to be remembered?
What's the legacy you being remembered a certain way probably
isn't as high on the list for my family or
(25:59):
my cousin. We would just like to know that we
did the best we could while we were here, and
if that means some type of legacy was left, then fantastic.
But if it doesn't, it still doesn't matter. We carved
our place out of this world. We know within ourselves
that you know, we are survivors and for lack of
a better term, we are fighters. You know, we will
(26:19):
fight for what we believe, and that is in family.
In current times, the only thing, and this is sad
to say that the world even knows the name wrote
and would be because of a terrible tragedy. I can
say absolutely that we don't want to know him for
just then, have you been following the court cases or
(26:40):
the legal proceedings, and if so, what's your take on
the My take on it is that this family was
just a strange and terrible, small cult like family. This
is just me, my own personal opinion, and no matter what,
I feel like they were guided by one in the family.
(27:00):
Now I'm not saying this person made them do it.
I'm saying they were guided by that person then would
do absolutely anything for this person, and somehow it went
from not killing people to killing people. And I don't
know what happened during that. I know that during the
plea when two of them played out, one claiming that
(27:22):
he didn't shoot anyone and the other one I'm not
even sure what he's claiming. It's going to be pretty
interesting of what happens there. But I just believe it
was a small cult family that just got ideas flowing
in the kitchen with baskets on the wall, and these
ideas just kept going and going and going until there
was no turning back. Do you think Angela Wagner was
(27:44):
kind of the one at the humble all us. I
feel like that, and I could absolutely be wrong, but
I feel like she was that type that she would
be the one to just kind of corner them in
and you know, here's what we're doing, guys, and this
is what we need to do. Guys, and then you know,
and that comes from what I've read and just the
evidence that I've seen. I'm sure that there's mountains of
evidence that I haven't seen or heard from it, as
(28:07):
I shouldn't because that's you know, that should be in court.
But that's where I am right now with it, which
it could change the next day. But I feel like
that she kind of kept the strong arm on these
boys for all these years, and it became so normal
to them that if mom says X, then X it
is right. That does seem to be what we're caring.
(28:29):
And do you feel a justice is going to be served?
Is there such a thing as justice in this situation?
I am a great believer in justice, I really am.
I absolutely feel that justice will be served, and I
believe wholeheartedly in our justice system. I'm not hoping for
anything one way or the other. I'm not hoping for
(28:50):
this sentence or that sentence. I have faith in our
justice system, and I believe in the end the powers
to be we'll see that justice is done. And this
was a family and they had every right to walk
on this earth with the rest of us, and someone
took that from them. And everyone needs to know that
these people lived, and these people had lives, and they
(29:11):
loved and they worked, and they are so much more
than what we're going to see and the years to come,
and it can't be helped. I know that the trial
and the people on trial would be in the limelight,
and that just is as it has to be. But
it is very important to me that the world knows
that they were alive, and they were living, and they
were loved, and they hadn't children. I just don't want
(29:32):
it forgotten that these were people. More on that next time.
If you're enjoying The Pikes and Massacre, listen to our
other hit series, Crazy and Love. New episodes there every
Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. For more information and
case photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios.
(29:56):
The Pikes and Massacre is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane,
Chris Greaves and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed
by Jeff Tis, music by Jared Aston, audio mixing by
Ken Novak. The Piked and Massacre is a production of
Katie Studios and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
(30:17):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
You live to try to defend your family, or you'd
live to try to defend people if you can. It's
not something I could put my finger on, but it's
just inside of us. I would wait into a hill
of bullets for somebody in my family to this day,
and I don't know why, but it would, and everybody
in my family would did the same. We just would.
(00:28):
This is the Piked and Massacre returned to Pike County
season three, episode eight, Manner of Life. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
a television producer at Katie's Studios with Stephanie Ledecker and
Jeff Shane. So far the season, we've heard a lot
about recent court proceedings between the Wagoners and the prosecution
(00:51):
that will shape upcoming trials. They've covered everything from where
the trials will be held, what evidence will be allowed
into testimony, and who might be charged with what. All
of this leads to what we hope will be some
small form of justice for the Roden, Gillie and Manly
families who lost the unthinkable. When the Maskaker initially happened
(01:12):
six years ago, a lot of the remaining family members
spoke publicly. Not so in recent years, however, we've made
contact with some people who want to share their memories
of their family. Here's Jeff speaking with a Roden family
member who reached out to us. They've asked us not
to use their name. I'm curious how you found us
(01:35):
and what made you contact us. Now, I drive a
lot on the road, and I listened to podcasts everywhere.
I happened upon the pike in Masker, which you know,
is part of my extended family. So I wanted to
listen to it, and I was really impressed with the
respect that was given to the family, and so a
friend of mine and myself we eagerly wait every week
(01:57):
to hear it, and so I just commented on it,
you know, thanking you all for being respectful to the family.
What is that experience like losing loved ones but then
losing it in a way where other people are kind
of a part of your experience. It'd be a strange
thing to divine for you, because we would see each
other a few times a year at family unions and
(02:18):
what have you. So it was a giant shop. Man.
I hate to say this, but it wasn't as hurting
to me as I know it was to a lot
of the very close family members, and it's hard to
describe a law such a loss of a large chunk
of a family. When you first heard the podcast, what
was your thought? Kind of got interested in yours because
(02:41):
you all would give the facts as they were, and
then you would talk about the possibilities of how that
would make people feel. So that was very interesting to me.
These are not just people who were removed from this earth.
They were people. They were real people. You actually going
after trying to bring real life people to this is
pretty exciting to me. I mean, not making them as
(03:03):
victims alone. You're making them as people and that's appreciated.
Jeff asked what growing up as a member of the
Roden family was like he first spoke about Geneva Roden
as a reminder, Geneva is Chris Roden seniors and Kenneth's mother,
Frankie Hannah and little Chris's grandmother. Growing up, especially in
(03:24):
my younger years, we would go visit Geneva and her family,
and the things I remember the most when you met Geneva,
you were guaranteed a smile and always a hug, and
whatever they had, whether it be a watermelon or a
piece of cake or whatever it was was shared with you.
When you got there, you just became one of the kids.
(03:45):
Geneva just was always the sweetest thing ever was and
would just hug you to death. About three times a year,
our family would get together and we would just pile
in a car and we would ride and see relatives,
and Geneva lived close to other relatives, so we would
just kind of make a big round trip in two
Ohio and then back into Kentucky. We would spend two
(04:07):
or three days up there, just following up wherever we could.
And our family was that way. If you went to
their house, they just made room for you. It didn't matter.
You just had a great time and you go swimming
and you do this and that. We didn't have Facebook
or things like that in those days. It sounds like
you like a nice way to grow up. It was,
it really was. Immediately after the murders, Geneva spoke publicly
(04:31):
about the unimaginable loss she was facing. On April twenty second,
twenty sixteen, in one single night, she lost her son's
Chris Roden Senior and Kenneth Roden, her grandchildren Frankie, Hannah
May and Little Chris Roden and her nephew Gary. Her
words were a stark juxtaposition to the idyllic life her
(04:53):
family once lived. Love decided. I'm the mother Christopher Senior
and the mother of Kenneth, and from my mother's heart
(05:15):
had I hurt so bad inside from the day that
I flmed out. If there's someone out there that knows
anything about what happened with the pleased pleased coming forward,
(05:41):
there has to be so one. It was all but
looks like the world had ended when I found out
about the family that they took out my grandchildren, X
daughter at all, my nephew and my grandson, my girlfriend.
(06:11):
There was eight members that they took that day, and
the hurt them blue way from a mother, I think
about a day night, I lose a lot of sleep
board and still what try to go on the rest
(06:36):
of my children is going to so much listen to
brothers the same day. I would have never dreamed that's
something that is would happen. Here are Stephanie and Jeff
speaking about Geneva Rodin. Geneva Rodin is nearly eighty years old,
(07:01):
and it's impossible to imagine what she deals with every day.
Not only the court proceedings, but also being there for
her family because there's still many other family members who
rely on her and lean on her as the Rodan matriarch.
Several years ago, when we were first making the documentary
for Oxygen about the Rodent murders, Jeff and I actually
went to the nursing home that Geneva resided at. At
(07:24):
the time, we actually thought she was a distant cousin
to the Rodents, and we didn't realize until we got
there that she was actually Chris Senior's mother and that
she had lost her children and her grandchildren, And ultimately
she was uncomfortable speaking on camera, which we of course
completely understood. It was all just way too raw for
(07:46):
her and her level of grief was frankly unimaginable. Geneva
is really an example of a person who's frankly inspiring.
You know, We've said this many times since then. When
you meet another human being who has experienced such deep
pain and she can continue to push on and continue
(08:08):
to be there for her loved ones and show up
to court relentlessly and push through, then surely the rest
of us can push through whatever stressing us in our lives.
And she's really offered us a lot of perspective. I
share this really simply to say the level of grief
that this family has experienced is incredibly far reaching. Geneva
(08:31):
Rodan and other members for her family, I would imagine
the catalysts for them wanting to speak out is to
bring attention to their family's case and not just how
to be about the accused Wagner family, and really remind
everyone that the victims, the Rodents in this case, were
real human beings who were not just what happened to
them in twenty sixteen. It's so true. And also, you know,
(08:53):
oftentimes when we talk about crime, the victims just become
a footnote. It's always about the manner of death and
less about the manner of life. And this is another
example that you know, Geneva is a living and breathing
woman who has had her entire family wiped out, and
(09:13):
whoever is responsible for that should pay. Jeff continued his
conversation with the Rodent family member. Where Chris Senior and
Gary and Kenneth were they around? Did you see them?
They were about probably eight or nine, maybe teen years younger. Man.
I remember Chris Junior and Kenneth and them they were
(09:36):
wandering around just doing what kids do. They played with us.
Kids have always just played together. We really didn't keep
in contact after you know, outside of family unions. Every
life kept getting in a way for everyone. And that's
just a sad fact of the way it was. They
were just beating their way through this world, just like
everyone else. To believe, that's why this thing was more
(09:58):
shocking than one would think. It became clear that there
were obvious parallels between Chris Roden Senior's upbringing and how he,
alongside his wife Dana, raised his own family. They were
just people, They were just good old Americans. She was
the daughter of a man named Tip who lost his
(10:19):
life in a little place called Jonesborough, Ohio. He was logging.
An attractor come back on him and killed him. And
then not too long after that, she lost her mother.
That left Geneva with raising her own siblings. After losing
her mother and father, she got married and they had children,
And this happened at the same time, and that she
(10:42):
had this entire group of people, her siblings and her
own children that she was raising. So that takes an
immense amount of strength to do, giving the way the
world is in Geneva didn't have a whole lot to
get through this world, but she made it. She was
and she raised them, and she raised fine people. Geneva's
(11:04):
father was one of eight or ten brothers who grew
up down in Kentucky. They lived in poverty, but it's
not a poverty that most people would understand. During the wintertime,
they didn't have shoes. They didn't even have leather to
put on their feet. They would rap rags or whatever
they could find around their feet just to get to school.
(11:27):
They went to school in a one room schoolhouse on
a little place called Grassy Creek. There was no way
to make a living for their father, James. That survival
instinct was passed down through through Geneva in most of
the family, and her dad was an amazing man, even
long before there were mechanics. He would find old cars
(11:49):
or tractors and make them run, and then he would
trade them for stuff that didn't run. Now, in that
trade he would get a little extra money which would
go to his family and they might be able to
buy a little something, a little bit of food. I've
heard with the Roden's being super resourceful with cars and
(12:10):
good with your hands, I've heard that about Chris Senior
being fiercely protective of one another and going to bath
for each other. It's the same stuff, and it's a
little easier for me then it would be for you,
of course, because I know the family. But that is
very interesting that you can draw a line from the
early nineteen hundreds to her children and see similarities, like
(12:31):
Chris Junior would just jump under the hood of a
car and be able to fix it. I can see
those similarities and being able to defend each other. I
can see that going all the way back to that
side of the family. I just want to clarify by
Chris Junior, you mean Chris Roden sor yes, he's Chris
Junior to you, because there's another Chris. Yes. Jeff also
(12:52):
recently had a phone conversation with Talicia, Dana and Chris
Senior's niece and Hannah, Frankie and little Chris cousin. Well
gone more than six years now, the Rodents are present
with Talicia and live on with her young daughters. As
someone who has been working on this story for many years,
I feel very touched by it, and I'm sure you
(13:14):
know obviously being related to everyone, it means a lot
to share her about and talk about it. Can you
hear me? Okay, yeah, I can hear you. I was
checking to see where the kids work. How many kids
do you have? I have foo? You have your hands fall? Yes,
they're all girls. I actually have one named after aunt Dana,
and her name is Hannah Lynne. We gave her Hannah
(13:35):
after the two Hannah's and Lynne after Dana. That's beautiful.
So Dana was your great aunt and she was able
to meet your eldest daughter, Cherokee before everything happened. Dana
was my aunt. She was Cherokee's great aunt. So who
are your parents? My mother was Dana's sister, Kathie. She
has two sisters and a brother. Her brother's name is
(13:58):
James Manley. And then my other aunt Bobby Joe. As
a reminder, Talicia's aunt, Bobby Joe Manley is the one
who discovered the horrific crime scene and called nine one
one nine one yes, if yes, forty over? I need
(14:24):
who walked to the no ball? Okay, my brother halls dead? Okay,
what girl Davey has sat here? Forty seventy seventy forty
seventy seven, forty seventy seven. Okay fort zero seven seven
email correct, yes for you see man on yes, all
(14:51):
over the house. Okay, my brother Haws who says very look,
I'll beat the hell. Okay, we're gonna blood all hearts
the man. Can you coming the county? That's dad is down.
It's my county. H Okay, okay, I need to get
(15:12):
out of the house. They can drive over there. That's
a head running Christler and seen Garry Rod and Sank
and Gary Rod and start things ahead. Looks like the
dad take your vad. I think the great dads. I
don't speaker pop out of them. Okay. If there anybody
else in the house, I know. Okay, the door was lost,
(15:39):
be good here, but on her friend team was and
I went in and hit her, landing on the floor
and went on house and I'm starting now. Okay, stay
out of the house the way anybody got her there? Okay, yeah,
all right, we don't get it. He's on my right. Okay,
I thank you your mother. The trauma of that discovery
(16:03):
is long lasting. I used to hang out a lot
with Bobby Joe that like after everything happened, she just
like completely changed. Here again is Jeff as a reminder,
Bobby Joe Manly is Dana Roden's sister, and she discovered
the horrific crime scene at Chris Senior Roden and Frankie
(16:24):
Roden's house, and to just kind of put yourself in
her shoes, she found out that her loved ones were
heinously murdered, not by word of mouth, but actually by
discovering their bloody bodies. And an experience like that it
changes you forever, how could it not. And we did
a little research into severe trauma like the kind Bobby
Joe experienced, and only around seven percent of Americans report
(16:48):
experiencing an event like this. And obviously, even I would
say what Bobby Joe went through is probably worse than
what a lot of those seven percent report. It's just unimaginable,
and I don't think anyone could ever understand what she's
dealt with. Here's steph again speaking with Telicia. To me
(17:09):
and Hannah were only like six months and four two
days apart. Wow, I just turned twenty four. I actually
have a picture of us on our baby and my
baby book in the Very Bad She was a year
and a half in this picture and I was five months.
So you guys grew up together. The leat your rope
togeverybody was pretty close her and my little brother was
close to him, and Christopher wasn't very far apart either.
(17:33):
Everybody used to ask me what I thought of Frankiella
was like, listen, me and Frankie and Hannah and Christopher
and Henry Junior, which is my brother, and Heath, which
is my other girl. I said, we was something else,
especially around Fourth of July, because when four the July came,
we wanted to try and have Roman candle fights and
everything else, so there'd be like big family celebrations on
(17:56):
these kind of days. Yeah, we're going to take a break.
We'll be back in a moment. As they grow into teenagers,
like many girls, Talicia and Hannah May would do each
(18:17):
other's hair and makeup and have fun just driving around.
Me and Hannah May like the long destination drives with
no idea where it was going. I'm just listening to music.
What kind of music did she like? She was mainly
a country girl. Other than that she liked Brian Church
I think is his name. She did ay sity a
country girl. When she was in a jeep, she liked
to go out, and she liked to go money and
(18:39):
tell me about Dana. What kind of aunt was she?
She would take us all clothes, shopping for school and stuff.
When school time came around. Your kids are young, do
they know about your great aunt and what happened. I
actually have a book I made in memory of them.
It's like a photo album book. I figured why not
(19:00):
keep their memory alive with the children. When I was
pregnant with Cherokee, Hannah had actually done a like a
gender revealed with me. She done my pictures and then
right before I gave birth to Cherokee, she had also
done my maternity picture. Dana was one of the first
ones I told that I was pregnant with Cherokee. She
(19:21):
was so excited and she kept telling me, all you're
having a girl. I was like, hey day, and I
don't know yet. I had went into labor with Cherokee
on the eighth of March and then I didn't have
her until the nights, and Dana was there the whole time.
She pasted the floors and she was like, is she
ready to get hurt? And Hanname was there when Nana
(19:43):
first saw Cherokee. She started crying at first, and she
looked at me and she was like, she's so beautiful.
After we brought her home from the hospital, she would
always want Cherokee to come out and take naps with
her before she went to work, and she wanted to
do pictures with Cherokee. I was born twenty fifteen, and
then Hannah was born, not even a month after they
(20:04):
were killed. When I went into labor with Hannah, I
looked at my mom and I said, I wish Auntina
was here, because you know, she was there for the
first baby, she would have wanted to be there for
the second. After I had delivered Hannah, I ended up
crying because I kept looking at her, and I've kept
telling Mama, was like, I want to be happy, but
(20:25):
I'm also kind of sad because you know, it's not
even been a month yet and we had lost family members.
How do you deal with that or reconcile with wanting
to remember but also wanting to live your life. When
I'm with the girls, I try to teach them stuff
that like Aunt Dana would have taught them as well.
Terry Key. She knows that if we go to the cemetery,
(20:48):
Aunt Dana's there and she'll ask, can we go see
Aunt Dana? Mommy and I will take her to see
the grave. We took her just a couple of weeks ago.
How do you think that the manly wrote in Jelly
families will be different now that all this has happened.
When it first happened, like we was all really close
with each other, and after the year started going out,
(21:09):
the only other time we gather is like when we
want to do like a release or a candle fighting
for another year of them being dead. Jeff as Talicia
if there was anything she could learn from this terrible tragedy,
and she was reminded of advice that her cousin Hannah
Ma gave her. I don't go by words. I watched
their actions. Hannah would teach me where she was murdered.
(21:32):
She would tell me you can't trust their words because
their words can always be broken. She's like, trust their actions.
What do you try to take away from Dana? As
you're a mom now she would take in the kids
that wasn't even hers. So everybody tells me that I'm
just like Aunt Dana Cherokee. She's she's usually a very
playful girl. She's like running around playing there was one day,
(21:55):
but was all sitting outside at night. We was around
a campfire, and she looked at us and she said, MoMA,
I missed Dana and I wish she was here. So
I liked that Cherokee and I pointed up at the stories.
I said, did you see that bright story there, the
brightest one in the sky. She said yeah, I said,
that's Dana watching over you. Well, clearly the Rodents enjoy
(22:17):
a strong sense of family. There are some dark things
that have happened to generations of the Rodents that can't
be ignored. I wonder about you. Hear the term generational trauma.
What is your take on generational trauma and how it
affects your family. The saddest part of this is that
only in the later years have we begun to even
(22:37):
to realize generational trauma. For people of that generation, it
was never considered trauma. It was just considered life. I
know that's a sad thing to say, but it was
just considered being able to live through, to fight through.
(22:58):
In these days, we really do understand so much better.
But I have to believe that in those days, what
it really meant was as sad as it is to say,
I think that type of trauma, giving from that generational
one really makes people stronger in a way. The survival
instinct is just within this family. Here again, Stephanie and Jeff.
(23:22):
Generational trauma is trauma that isn't just experienced by one person,
but extends from one generation to the next. And now
everyone is susceptible to generational trauma, but there are specific
populations that are more vulnerable due to their histories, and
two of those buckets are poverty and violence, which based
on what we've been told about the Rodent family history,
it seems that they would be susceptible to this type
(23:45):
of trauma. Based on our further research, dealing with generational
trauma is best dealt with through counseling. I recently spoke
to a psychiatrist who said that the Rodents were really
emblematic of generational trauma and they shared a very famous
example of what that could and there was experiment conducted
by scientists on mice and a lab and the scientists
(24:07):
would basically spray perfume near mice and then shock the mice,
and they would repeat that on a regular basis. They
would spray their perfume, shock the mice, spray their perfume,
shock the mice, and then sure enough, eventually, even without
shocking them, they would just spray the perfume and the
mouse would physically respond as though it had been shocked.
(24:30):
Perhaps even more interestingly, those mice eventually had babies of
their own, and guess what when the scientists sprayed those
mice with the perfume, they too would physically react like
they were being shocked, even though they weren't. This would
be an example of how trauma and sorrow can literally
be passed down generationally on a cellular level, as if
(24:52):
it becomes part of our DNA. Let's stop here for
another break. Here again our anonymous Rodent family member talking
about Chris Senior's mother, Geneva. They will come through when
(25:13):
this is long gone and we're remembering back, and they
will come out on the other side with their chins up.
No matter what happens, no matter who's locked up for what,
no matter who goes to prison, Geneva will walk with
her head up, and she will still be smiling. She
will smile. And I can only imagine the pain and
the tolls took on her, you know, with what happened.
But she will survive. That's just in her bloodline. She
(25:36):
will come through this. I don't think there's anything that
any of us could learn from this. It's just an awful,
terrible thing. How would you want your family to be remembered?
What's the legacy you being remembered a certain way probably
isn't as high on the list for my family or
(25:59):
my cousin. We would just like to know that we
did the best we could while we were here, and
if that means some type of legacy was left, then fantastic.
But if it doesn't, it still doesn't matter. We carved
our place out of this world. We know within ourselves
that you know, we are survivors and for lack of
a better term, we are fighters. You know, we will
(26:19):
fight for what we believe, and that is in family.
In current times, the only thing, and this is sad
to say that the world even knows the name wrote
and would be because of a terrible tragedy. I can
say absolutely that we don't want to know him for
just then, have you been following the court cases or
(26:40):
the legal proceedings, and if so, what's your take on
the My take on it is that this family was
just a strange and terrible, small cult like family. This
is just me, my own personal opinion, and no matter what,
I feel like they were guided by one in the family.
(27:00):
Now I'm not saying this person made them do it.
I'm saying they were guided by that person then would
do absolutely anything for this person, and somehow it went
from not killing people to killing people. And I don't
know what happened during that. I know that during the
plea when two of them played out, one claiming that
(27:22):
he didn't shoot anyone and the other one I'm not
even sure what he's claiming. It's going to be pretty
interesting of what happens there. But I just believe it
was a small cult family that just got ideas flowing
in the kitchen with baskets on the wall, and these
ideas just kept going and going and going until there
was no turning back. Do you think Angela Wagner was
(27:44):
kind of the one at the humble all us. I
feel like that, and I could absolutely be wrong, but
I feel like she was that type that she would
be the one to just kind of corner them in
and you know, here's what we're doing, guys, and this
is what we need to do. Guys, and then you know,
and that comes from what I've read and just the
evidence that I've seen. I'm sure that there's mountains of
evidence that I haven't seen or heard from it, as
(28:07):
I shouldn't because that's you know, that should be in court.
But that's where I am right now with it, which
it could change the next day. But I feel like
that she kind of kept the strong arm on these
boys for all these years, and it became so normal
to them that if mom says X, then X it
is right. That does seem to be what we're caring.
(28:29):
And do you feel a justice is going to be served?
Is there such a thing as justice in this situation?
I am a great believer in justice, I really am.
I absolutely feel that justice will be served, and I
believe wholeheartedly in our justice system. I'm not hoping for
anything one way or the other. I'm not hoping for
(28:50):
this sentence or that sentence. I have faith in our
justice system, and I believe in the end the powers
to be we'll see that justice is done. And this
was a family and they had every right to walk
on this earth with the rest of us, and someone
took that from them. And everyone needs to know that
these people lived, and these people had lives, and they
(29:11):
loved and they worked, and they are so much more
than what we're going to see and the years to come,
and it can't be helped. I know that the trial
and the people on trial would be in the limelight,
and that just is as it has to be. But
it is very important to me that the world knows
that they were alive, and they were living, and they
were loved, and they hadn't children. I just don't want
(29:32):
it forgotten that these were people. More on that next time.
If you're enjoying The Pikes and Massacre, listen to our
other hit series, Crazy and Love. New episodes there every
Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. For more information and
case photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios.
(29:56):
The Pikes and Massacre is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane,
Chris Greaves and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed
by Jeff Tis, music by Jared Aston, audio mixing by
Ken Novak. The Piked and Massacre is a production of
Katie Studios and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
(30:17):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Stephanie Lydecker
Courtney Armstrong
Jeff Shane
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