August 5, 2020 • 26 mins
In April 2016, after eight members of the Rhoden family were murdered in their homes, Ohio authorities launched the largest homicide investigation in the state’s history. For over two years, residents of the small town of Piketon lived in fear, as rumors circulated about who the killers could be.
Then, on November 13th, 2018, six members of a local family were arrested in connection with the brutal massacre. In episode two, we meet the family accused of being responsible for this unthinkable crime and talk to those who knew them the best. We’ll also examine the ties that bound the two families together and the driving motive authorities claim might lie at the heart of the tragedy.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the piked In Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio
and Katie Studios. On the morning of April twenty second,
twenty sixteen, the small town of piked In, Ohio who
woke to some horrifying news spread out across four homes,
all within a few miles of each other, Eight members
of a local family, the Rodents, were found murdered. They
(00:23):
were shot execution style in their beds, the victims of
a methodical killing spree. It was an unprecedented and confounding crime,
one that would launch the largest homicide investigation in Ohio's history.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Frustration, anger, sadness, emotions are still raw at Pike County.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Most of the people in this town say, whoever shot
and killed eight members of the Rodent family need to
be found soon.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
I hope that the.
Speaker 5 (00:47):
UH now enforcene in this area apprehend each and everyone.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
These aren't peoples, these or monsters.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Episode two, Wagner's in Custody. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a TV
producer at Katie Studios. With Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane,
we produced television series and documentaries. Here's Stephanie for me.
Speaker 6 (01:13):
This case was incredibly disturbing and personally really hard to
stop thinking about eight people from the exact same family,
all killed in one night, but at four different locations.
That's extremely strategic. The three of us have been following
this case very closely for years. Here's producer Jeff Shane
(01:34):
talking to Jodi Barr, an investigative journalists who have reported
for TV station Fox nineteen and Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
You're not, as a journalist, easily shocked, but like this
was shocking, probably right, Yeah, it was shocking.
Speaker 7 (01:45):
I would say it was more confusion because on the
typical murder, or you know, a breaking news story, you
can roll the events in your mind. But this is
this isn't the typical murder, you know, where there's one
or two victims of a single house and you know
the bad guy took off. You know, this was something
way outside the norm. You're just thinking, what is going
(02:06):
on here?
Speaker 4 (02:07):
This? None of this makes sense, But you knew.
Speaker 7 (02:09):
It had to be something big because you've got eight
members of one family targeted, murdered in their sleep, in
their homes, and the killers seemingly vanished. We didn't know
the pieces, we didn't know how to put it together.
There was no information coming out about these murders, about motives,
Even the family members who were in direct communication with
(02:30):
law enforcement, even they weren't being told anything. I mean,
call it good investigative work, and you know you hold
your cards close to the chest as an investigator. Maybe
that's what it was, but you know, from the outside
looking in, it was almost like law enforcement didn't have
a clue at that point in time.
Speaker 8 (02:47):
An overwhelming amount of tips have been pouring into police,
but nor rest have been made.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Attorney General Mike Dwine is saying that over two hundred
investigators and police officers have contributed so far to this
on going.
Speaker 9 (03:00):
Investment, and he's being offered, but the killer has disappeared.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
As the investigation dragged on, rumors ran rampant in the
close knit community, and journalists like Jodi Barr started digging deeper.
Speaker 7 (03:14):
This did seem to be a very tactical, a very
clean sort of you know, when you think of an
assassin doing a hit like you see.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
In the movies.
Speaker 7 (03:23):
You started to wonder if there wasn't something to that
because of just how seemingly clean these killings were. I mean,
how does one person or a group of people hit
four separate homes kill eight different people seemingly leave absolutely
no trace of any evidence.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
What does this mean? What is going on here?
Speaker 7 (03:43):
But after I started having conversations with the Rodent family
and you start talking to some people who were very
close to the victims in this case, at least very
close acquaintances, you started to realize that, you know that
there were some people that even I had conversations with
than Pike County, who I knew they knew more than
what they were telling me. I knew they knew more
(04:05):
about what happened that morning, and they knew more about
the circumstances surrounding the Rodents that could have led to
these murders. But they would not tell it. And I
don't know if it was because they were afraid or
they didn't want to believe what they believed happened. But
all we kept hearing from the Rodan family, from the
(04:26):
people around there, and they were phrasing it this way
is that it was locals.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
What did that mean? We didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
By the summer of twenty eighteen, the investigation had entered
its second year and piked in. Residents like Barbara were
becoming increasingly scared.
Speaker 10 (04:45):
It's an extremely sinister thing that occurred. It's like a movie.
When I was young, people got along and you know,
it was we left our doors unlocked. It was. It
was that trusting and relaxed in Pike County, so we
(05:07):
could believe something like that what happen here.
Speaker 11 (05:12):
And it was.
Speaker 10 (05:13):
It was especially terrifying because no one knew who did
it or why. And you don't know if your family's next.
Speaker 12 (05:27):
It's just a grizzly scene in a grisly situation.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
If you are fearful, arm yourself. If you feel that
you need to protect yourself or family, do so.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
On November thirteenth, twenty eighteen, everything was said to change.
Here's Governor of Ohio, Mike Dwine, then Attorney General.
Speaker 10 (05:47):
Well, good afternoon.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
We promised that the day would come when the rest
would be made in the Pike County masters.
Speaker 13 (05:56):
Today's that day.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
In a series of arrests that sent shock waves through
the insulated community, six members of a local family, the Wagners,
were taken into custody.
Speaker 9 (06:06):
Up your hands all right, brung up whack hollar.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Forty seven year old Billy Wagner is the patriarch of
the Wagner family and was arrested near Lexington, Kentucky, in
a horse trailer that was pulled over.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Go down your name and Hunterback and hungerbuy.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Angela Wagner is Billy's wife and matriarch of the Wagner family.
The forty eight year old was arrested at their home
near Piketon.
Speaker 13 (06:33):
Ohioha Angela Wayner in the car twenty one copy thirteen
thirty one.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Angela and Billy's two sons, George Wagner and Jake Wagner,
were arrested together during a traffic stop. George is twenty
seven and Jake was twenty six. Seventy six year old
Frederica Wagner, Billy Wagner's mother, was arrested at the family's
horse farm, the Flying w Angela Wagner mother, sixty five
(07:01):
year old Rita Joe Newcomb, was arrested at her home,
while six members of the Wagner family were arrested in
connection with the crime. Billy, Angela, George, and Jake Wagner
were charged with eight counts of aggravated murder.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
It deals about the arrests of four people in the
murders of eight members of the road in family.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Back in April twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Mike Allen, a criminal defense attorney and legal commentator for
Fox nineteen and Cincinnati, was covering the story when the
news broke.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
All the arrests happened within minutes of each other, and
that tells me that the BCI, the Ohio Bureau of
Criminal Identification, who was in charge of this investigation, they
know what they're doing and they wanted to make sure
that they affected these arrests without any kind of problems
or tipping anybody off, so they had that thing down
(07:53):
pretty tight. You've got four people charged in the murders themselves,
and that's capital murder in the state of Ohio that
does have the death penalty as a possible penalty in
a case like this, so it is death penalty case.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
How rare is it to have multiple capital murder cases going.
I haven't seen multiple four people up for capital murder
in Ohio before.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
You know what.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
And I've been in the system for over fifty years,
and I mean the most I've seen were two co
defendants being tried for capital murder from the same set
of facts, but never four. So that is extremely rare
that you got for people. For defendants facing the death penalty.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
The charges for the two other family members were less severe.
Grandmother Frederica Wagner, Billy Wagner's mother, was charged with obstruction
of justice and perjury. Angela Wagner's mother, Rita Newcombe, was
charged with forgery, perjury, and obstruction of justice. But to
Mike Allen, one charge brought against the alleged trigger pullers
(09:05):
makes one thing clear.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
They're also charged with conspiracy engaging in a pattern of
corrupt activity, which means that they all work together on this.
I think it's obvious, at least to the prosecutors and
the investigators that this thing was nobody freelancing. They were
possibly all operating together tampering with evidence. That kind of
(09:28):
speaks for itself. I mean, you know, once they knew
that they were the focus of the investigation, perhaps they
did something with the evidence.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
We're going to take a quick break here. We'll be
back in a moment. We needed to know more about
the Rodents and the accused, the Wagners. We also wanted
to be mpiped in to learn about the town. So Stephanie,
Jeff and I flew to Ohio.
Speaker 6 (10:08):
There was this extremely eerie vibe to the town. There
definitely was a sense that something very big was happening
in real time. It almost felt it felt a little dangerous.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
I think eeriness, she said, is the best word, like
just something was not right.
Speaker 6 (10:24):
Yeah, and it's not uncommon. It was a perfect American
small town, right, there's one diner, there's not a movie theater.
So again, small insulated.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And you know, we just when we just started trying
to go door to door to meet anyone who could
tell us about the road and family.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
I would say every single person we spoke to legitimately
invited us inside and could not have been lovelier.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
There also was the experience of knocking on doors knowing
very well people are there. There was smoke coming out
of the chimney. We physically saw the curtains be closed,
and certain people ndstandably didn't want to speak to us,
but those who did, they were so welcoming. We reached
(11:10):
out to journalist Jeff Winkler, who was doing research on
the Wagner family.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
For me personally.
Speaker 9 (11:16):
When I first got an idea of how their ownents
lived and you know, who was related to who and whatnot,
I think I originally had the sense that the Wagoners
were in the same sort of position in terms of
property and and and perhaps financial situation will not. But
(11:37):
the Wagoners, I was rather surprised to learn that they had,
you know, a huge farm. They'd been running various farm
businesses on this huge bit of land or landlords. And
there were there was something of a sort of sort
of a family, if you will, in the area. And
(11:59):
you know, there were people that they we spoke with
that had some very open thoughts and loving thoughts about
the family.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
In all this, we couldn't help wonder how could this
esteemed piked In family allegedly be responsible for Ohio's most
horrific murder. It seemed like everyone had an opinion. Here's
Andreie Montgomery, a piked In resident.
Speaker 8 (12:25):
When the Wagners were arrested, you had your fifty to fifty.
Speaker 13 (12:27):
You had people that said, yes, I knew that they
did that, and then you've got people that say, there's
no way those people did that.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
But we wanted to get the story for ourselves, to
talk to those who actually knew the people accused of
carrying out these ruthless murders.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Hello, Hi, Dorey, It's Jeff Shane calling Hi.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
How are you is now a good time.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, this is Deray Mcalvy. She's Billy Wagner's cousin and
she grew up with the Wagners.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Were you close with Billy.
Speaker 12 (12:58):
Billy was quite a bit younger than me.
Speaker 8 (13:00):
I was about eleven years old when Billy was born,
but I was raised with him, and we had.
Speaker 12 (13:05):
A whole lot of fun. It was so much fun.
Speaker 8 (13:09):
We all bred horses, and we lived in Ohio and
it was beautiful and it snowed in the wintertime, and
it was beautiful in the summer, and we just had
so much fun.
Speaker 12 (13:17):
It was unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
He was like a really good dad, right, like a
hard working just like sturdy, like good person, right.
Speaker 12 (13:24):
All for his family. M hmm, all for his family.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Dere's depiction of her aunt, Frederica Wagner was just as glowing.
Speaker 12 (13:32):
I spent my summers with my aunt Frederica.
Speaker 8 (13:35):
It was awesome because we rode horses, we rode ponies,
did all kinds of awesome stuff.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
I've heard the nicest things about her that she was
like an angel in that town.
Speaker 8 (13:46):
She had to have been an angel in that town
because what I seen for her, what she did for
the community. She built a church for the community. She
financed the church for the community. She loves people, she
loves children.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
But we were curious what did Deray think about the
charges against her family.
Speaker 8 (14:10):
Our family joke is that there's no way that Betty
Crocker and the Dobe boys could ever go to an
extreme of murder.
Speaker 12 (14:21):
It's not within their capabilities.
Speaker 8 (14:26):
They love animals and they love people, and they are
really good at being resilient. And if you look up
the word Hillbilly and you really research that word, they
were very resilient in taking care of their family.
Speaker 12 (14:49):
Somebody did it, but it wasn't Now.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
To get more information on twenty seven year old George
and twenty six year old Jake Wagner, Angela and Billy
Wagner's sons, we reached out to Christina Howard. Christina's sister, Tabitha,
was married to George Wagner. The pair later divorced. Christina
spoke with Stephanie Leidecker about the time she spent with
the Wagner family.
Speaker 11 (15:14):
My sister spent a lot of time over at George's
house before they got married. She was pretty much living
with them at the time before she got married, and
then after she got married, she straight, you know, moved
in with them, and I used to go over there
to their house every now and again, you know.
Speaker 6 (15:33):
And did he seem like a nice guy?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
What was his demeanor like?
Speaker 11 (15:37):
He was funny. He was always cracking jokes and stuff
all the time.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
So I don't know much about Jake Wagner at all.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
What was he like as a kid.
Speaker 11 (15:47):
He was actually really sweet as a kid. We got
along pretty good because you know, we just hung out
all the time, played video games, went outside.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Was he shy?
Speaker 11 (15:58):
He wasn't shy with me. He was a really nice kid.
And well, growing up, my sisters were kind of bullies
to me and Taby she was dating George at the time,
and Tabby she would pick on me and Jake he
would take up for me, but like, hey, don't pick
on your little sister like that. What's mean and stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Here's a Wagner family relative. She asked us not to
use her name, but was happy to talk to us
about the family. She remembers Angela Wagner as a caring
mother with a big heart.
Speaker 13 (16:35):
Angela was just so sweet, like she was the sweetest lady.
I mean, anybody could ask her for help. I know
there was multiple times where there was just she had heard,
you know of Like there was a woman and her
daughter that was getting out of an abusive relationship and
Angela had just heard about it. She didn't know this lady,
you know, she had no idea anything about her. She
(16:58):
just knew that this woman and her you know, needed help.
The Angelos went and helped her get out of that.
You know, she gave her place to stay, She made
sure that the daughter had clothes and suit and you know,
she would always do stuff like that for people.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Everything we were hearing about the Wagner seemed at odds
with this image of the cold blooded killers accused of
murdering an entire family. But the deeper we dug, the
more secrets we began to find. Jeff continued speaking with
the same anonymous Wagner relative who speaks so closingly Evangela Wagner.
(17:36):
As it turns out, not everyone in the Wagner family
has such a sterling reputation, and when the conversation shifts
to Billy Wagner, things take a turn. Here is the
Wagner relative's first hand account.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Do you know when she met Billy and like when
that when they got married and how like that relationship
started and progressed.
Speaker 13 (17:54):
Uh, yeah, that was. She has been with him for
something years, maybe longer, but towards he goes now, that's
a different Like I and my family we always kind
of thought sometime was like off with him. We never
(18:14):
actually never got to like connect with him in that way.
We always everybody always kind of knew that there was
something stranger that he was kind of he just had
this persona about him, like he was just a very
cold and just hateful person really is what I thought of.
In anyways, he was just a very rough around me
(18:35):
as a guy. And when it comes to him and Angela,
I'm not sure really how the beginning of a relationship was,
but I know towards the end, like before or you know,
right after all this happened, he was just very controlling,
very controlling. He She was afraid of him, extremely afraid
(18:57):
of him, as were the boys now, their oldest son George,
him and his dad. They were kind of like the same.
I just I don't believe that they're good people at all.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
So what can you tell me about the relationship between
Angela and Billy Wagner?
Speaker 13 (19:17):
I do know that Angela was, She was extremely She
was just afraid to leave, you know, she was afraid
to leave. She was terrified that if she did try
to leave, that he would find her, because he made
that very clear, you know, from what I've heard and
what her father had said, all multiplecasions like you know,
you're not gonna leave.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back
in a moment. This account of Angela and Billy's relationship
piqued our curiosity, so we started poking around for more
and from about the Wagoners. Most of what we uncovered
(20:03):
had to do with grandmother Frederica Wagner, Billy Wagner's mother,
and what seemed to be some potentially questionable business practices.
I followed up with journalist Jeff Winkler to find out more.
Speaker 9 (20:14):
Rodrika Wagner was repeatedly referred to as a god fearing woman,
was running a nursing home and doing a lot of
community service and community care for people, but like the Wagers,
had a lot of different sides.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
To them exactly. And she had started a church as well,
and she took underprivileged kids. If people needed groceries, she
brought them groceries. So there is all of that, and
then on the flip side, many other people say they
were very secretive. There's also allegations of for example, in
the nursing home, maybe some dishonest business and perhaps cheating
(20:50):
people who were at a disadvantage out of money. And
these are substantiated court documents.
Speaker 9 (20:56):
Yeah, the longer we looked into it, the longer it
seemed like thens you know, apart from having property and
been there for a long time, they were wheeling and dealing.
And I think although they were sort of pillars of
the community and involved in the community, certainly I think
that sort of especially when you have that sort of
much to lose.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
You get protective.
Speaker 9 (21:18):
Frederica Wagner had very much built the family business. Fredrika
Wagner was the one who kept the family business going,
and she kept the family and businesses on track. And uh,
you know, when you are building an empire, the last
thing you want to do is to see it fall.
And they were working on their fourth generation of Wagner
(21:39):
uh dominance in the area. So I can definitely understand sort.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Of protectiveness of that.
Speaker 9 (21:46):
And in those cases, you you know, maybe you close,
maybe you close.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Ranks a little bit. You stick, you stick to kin.
Speaker 9 (21:55):
You know, blood is thicker than water.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
As we talked to more people in the community, we
found that these rumblings about the Wagner's business practices had
been circulating for years, and somehowd the deep distrust of
the family and their once sterling reputation. Jeff got Barber's
thoughts about grandmother Frederica Wagner.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
All I've ever heard about her is one I've heard
how wonderful she is, how generous she was. I never
heard a bad word about that woman.
Speaker 10 (22:28):
But just you know, she knew what she was doing,
and she just did what she could do to keep
them from being guilty, to keep them from being found
guilty or from being arrested, you know.
Speaker 11 (22:46):
What I mean.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Yeah, they seem like everyone was on the surface, like
everyone loved them, and then when this happens, all the
other dirt kind of starts coming out.
Speaker 10 (22:53):
It's like I can see beneath that surface, you know,
I feel like I can see her heart. When I
look at her, I just see is just kind of
see evil.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
But while Frederica Wagner may have been involved in some
questionable business dealings and to some accounts, Billy Wagner may
not have been the best husband. We still didn't know
what all this had to do with the Rodents. At
their arraignment, all six members of the Wagner family pled
not guilty to all charges. It is worth noting, however,
(23:33):
that the charges against Frederica Wagner were eventually dropped and
Rita Joe Nukam ended up taking a plea deal. There's
more to tell on these grandmother stories, but we'll get
to all that later.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
According to official court documents, all four of the Wagner
family are considered trigger pollers, meaning each one of them
had a hand in killing the Rodents that night, which
means they drove house to house the time, killing eight people.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
It's also been speculated that Angela Wagner was really the
mastermind of this whole plan. When you look at her picture,
for example, her mugshot, she just looks like a regular
mom that you would see at the market. She doesn't
at all fit the profile that I have in my
head of what a serial killer or a mass murderer
should look like. And if she did do this, why
(24:22):
did she put this plan together? Because she wanted to
protect her own family? And if so, the irony is
if she's found guilty, because they're all being tried separately,
she may never cross paths with her husband or her
sons ever.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Again, you know, we obviously wanted to go back and
see what was the lead up, what brought us to
this point, and what was the intersection between the Rodent
family and the Wagner family. We got very curious about
the relationship between Jake Wagner and Hannah Rodin. Here's the
anonymous Wagner relative again, Jake.
Speaker 13 (24:58):
She had got involved with with Hannah Roden.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Hannah Rodin is the middle Rodent child and murder victim.
She was found dead in bed next to her five
day old baby, Kylie. She shared a child with Jake Wagner,
a two and a half year old daughter named Sophia.
Speaker 13 (25:14):
Eventually, you know, they had separated. In everything that they
had separated, I guess.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
On five term.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
It seemed that the demise of their relationship had sparked
an ugly custody battle surrounding Sophia.
Speaker 13 (25:28):
Hannah she was, you know, refusing to allow him to
see her, to get her or any of the family
to see her, and so it kind of just it
got out of hand. At that point it just set
him off to the point where Jake he had made
the comments you know that he were going.
Speaker 12 (25:48):
To kill her.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Next time on the Pikes and Massacre. Piked In Massacre
is executive produced by Stephanie Leidecker and me Courtney Armstrong.
Editing and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional
producing by Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker. The piked In
Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. For
(26:17):
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to the piked In Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio
and Katie Studios. On the morning of April twenty second,
twenty sixteen, the small town of piked In, Ohio who
woke to some horrifying news spread out across four homes,
all within a few miles of each other, Eight members
of a local family, the Rodents, were found murdered. They
(00:23):
were shot execution style in their beds, the victims of
a methodical killing spree. It was an unprecedented and confounding crime,
one that would launch the largest homicide investigation in Ohio's history.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Frustration, anger, sadness, emotions are still raw at Pike County.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Most of the people in this town say, whoever shot
and killed eight members of the Rodent family need to
be found soon.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
I hope that the.
Speaker 5 (00:47):
UH now enforcene in this area apprehend each and everyone.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
These aren't peoples, these or monsters.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Episode two, Wagner's in Custody. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a TV
producer at Katie Studios. With Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane,
we produced television series and documentaries. Here's Stephanie for me.
Speaker 6 (01:13):
This case was incredibly disturbing and personally really hard to
stop thinking about eight people from the exact same family,
all killed in one night, but at four different locations.
That's extremely strategic. The three of us have been following
this case very closely for years. Here's producer Jeff Shane
(01:34):
talking to Jodi Barr, an investigative journalists who have reported
for TV station Fox nineteen and Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
You're not, as a journalist, easily shocked, but like this
was shocking, probably right, Yeah, it was shocking.
Speaker 7 (01:45):
I would say it was more confusion because on the
typical murder, or you know, a breaking news story, you
can roll the events in your mind. But this is
this isn't the typical murder, you know, where there's one
or two victims of a single house and you know
the bad guy took off. You know, this was something
way outside the norm. You're just thinking, what is going
(02:06):
on here?
Speaker 4 (02:07):
This? None of this makes sense, But you knew.
Speaker 7 (02:09):
It had to be something big because you've got eight
members of one family targeted, murdered in their sleep, in
their homes, and the killers seemingly vanished. We didn't know
the pieces, we didn't know how to put it together.
There was no information coming out about these murders, about motives,
Even the family members who were in direct communication with
(02:30):
law enforcement, even they weren't being told anything. I mean,
call it good investigative work, and you know you hold
your cards close to the chest as an investigator. Maybe
that's what it was, but you know, from the outside
looking in, it was almost like law enforcement didn't have
a clue at that point in time.
Speaker 8 (02:47):
An overwhelming amount of tips have been pouring into police,
but nor rest have been made.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Attorney General Mike Dwine is saying that over two hundred
investigators and police officers have contributed so far to this
on going.
Speaker 9 (03:00):
Investment, and he's being offered, but the killer has disappeared.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
As the investigation dragged on, rumors ran rampant in the
close knit community, and journalists like Jodi Barr started digging deeper.
Speaker 7 (03:14):
This did seem to be a very tactical, a very
clean sort of you know, when you think of an
assassin doing a hit like you see.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
In the movies.
Speaker 7 (03:23):
You started to wonder if there wasn't something to that
because of just how seemingly clean these killings were. I mean,
how does one person or a group of people hit
four separate homes kill eight different people seemingly leave absolutely
no trace of any evidence.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
What does this mean? What is going on here?
Speaker 7 (03:43):
But after I started having conversations with the Rodent family
and you start talking to some people who were very
close to the victims in this case, at least very
close acquaintances, you started to realize that, you know that
there were some people that even I had conversations with
than Pike County, who I knew they knew more than
what they were telling me. I knew they knew more
(04:05):
about what happened that morning, and they knew more about
the circumstances surrounding the Rodents that could have led to
these murders. But they would not tell it. And I
don't know if it was because they were afraid or
they didn't want to believe what they believed happened. But
all we kept hearing from the Rodan family, from the
(04:26):
people around there, and they were phrasing it this way
is that it was locals.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
What did that mean? We didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
By the summer of twenty eighteen, the investigation had entered
its second year and piked in. Residents like Barbara were
becoming increasingly scared.
Speaker 10 (04:45):
It's an extremely sinister thing that occurred. It's like a movie.
When I was young, people got along and you know,
it was we left our doors unlocked. It was. It
was that trusting and relaxed in Pike County, so we
(05:07):
could believe something like that what happen here.
Speaker 11 (05:12):
And it was.
Speaker 10 (05:13):
It was especially terrifying because no one knew who did
it or why. And you don't know if your family's next.
Speaker 12 (05:27):
It's just a grizzly scene in a grisly situation.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
If you are fearful, arm yourself. If you feel that
you need to protect yourself or family, do so.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
On November thirteenth, twenty eighteen, everything was said to change.
Here's Governor of Ohio, Mike Dwine, then Attorney General.
Speaker 10 (05:47):
Well, good afternoon.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
We promised that the day would come when the rest
would be made in the Pike County masters.
Speaker 13 (05:56):
Today's that day.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
In a series of arrests that sent shock waves through
the insulated community, six members of a local family, the Wagners,
were taken into custody.
Speaker 9 (06:06):
Up your hands all right, brung up whack hollar.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Forty seven year old Billy Wagner is the patriarch of
the Wagner family and was arrested near Lexington, Kentucky, in
a horse trailer that was pulled over.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Go down your name and Hunterback and hungerbuy.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Angela Wagner is Billy's wife and matriarch of the Wagner family.
The forty eight year old was arrested at their home
near Piketon.
Speaker 13 (06:33):
Ohioha Angela Wayner in the car twenty one copy thirteen
thirty one.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Angela and Billy's two sons, George Wagner and Jake Wagner,
were arrested together during a traffic stop. George is twenty
seven and Jake was twenty six. Seventy six year old
Frederica Wagner, Billy Wagner's mother, was arrested at the family's
horse farm, the Flying w Angela Wagner mother, sixty five
(07:01):
year old Rita Joe Newcomb, was arrested at her home,
while six members of the Wagner family were arrested in
connection with the crime. Billy, Angela, George, and Jake Wagner
were charged with eight counts of aggravated murder.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
It deals about the arrests of four people in the
murders of eight members of the road in family.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Back in April twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Mike Allen, a criminal defense attorney and legal commentator for
Fox nineteen and Cincinnati, was covering the story when the
news broke.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
All the arrests happened within minutes of each other, and
that tells me that the BCI, the Ohio Bureau of
Criminal Identification, who was in charge of this investigation, they
know what they're doing and they wanted to make sure
that they affected these arrests without any kind of problems
or tipping anybody off, so they had that thing down
(07:53):
pretty tight. You've got four people charged in the murders themselves,
and that's capital murder in the state of Ohio that
does have the death penalty as a possible penalty in
a case like this, so it is death penalty case.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
How rare is it to have multiple capital murder cases going.
I haven't seen multiple four people up for capital murder
in Ohio before.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
You know what.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
And I've been in the system for over fifty years,
and I mean the most I've seen were two co
defendants being tried for capital murder from the same set
of facts, but never four. So that is extremely rare
that you got for people. For defendants facing the death penalty.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
The charges for the two other family members were less severe.
Grandmother Frederica Wagner, Billy Wagner's mother, was charged with obstruction
of justice and perjury. Angela Wagner's mother, Rita Newcombe, was
charged with forgery, perjury, and obstruction of justice. But to
Mike Allen, one charge brought against the alleged trigger pullers
(09:05):
makes one thing clear.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
They're also charged with conspiracy engaging in a pattern of
corrupt activity, which means that they all work together on this.
I think it's obvious, at least to the prosecutors and
the investigators that this thing was nobody freelancing. They were
possibly all operating together tampering with evidence. That kind of
(09:28):
speaks for itself. I mean, you know, once they knew
that they were the focus of the investigation, perhaps they
did something with the evidence.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
We're going to take a quick break here. We'll be
back in a moment. We needed to know more about
the Rodents and the accused, the Wagners. We also wanted
to be mpiped in to learn about the town. So Stephanie,
Jeff and I flew to Ohio.
Speaker 6 (10:08):
There was this extremely eerie vibe to the town. There
definitely was a sense that something very big was happening
in real time. It almost felt it felt a little dangerous.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
I think eeriness, she said, is the best word, like
just something was not right.
Speaker 6 (10:24):
Yeah, and it's not uncommon. It was a perfect American
small town, right, there's one diner, there's not a movie theater.
So again, small insulated.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And you know, we just when we just started trying
to go door to door to meet anyone who could
tell us about the road and family.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
I would say every single person we spoke to legitimately
invited us inside and could not have been lovelier.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
There also was the experience of knocking on doors knowing
very well people are there. There was smoke coming out
of the chimney. We physically saw the curtains be closed,
and certain people ndstandably didn't want to speak to us,
but those who did, they were so welcoming. We reached
(11:10):
out to journalist Jeff Winkler, who was doing research on
the Wagner family.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
For me personally.
Speaker 9 (11:16):
When I first got an idea of how their ownents
lived and you know, who was related to who and whatnot,
I think I originally had the sense that the Wagoners
were in the same sort of position in terms of
property and and and perhaps financial situation will not. But
(11:37):
the Wagoners, I was rather surprised to learn that they had,
you know, a huge farm. They'd been running various farm
businesses on this huge bit of land or landlords. And
there were there was something of a sort of sort
of a family, if you will, in the area. And
(11:59):
you know, there were people that they we spoke with
that had some very open thoughts and loving thoughts about
the family.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
In all this, we couldn't help wonder how could this
esteemed piked In family allegedly be responsible for Ohio's most
horrific murder. It seemed like everyone had an opinion. Here's
Andreie Montgomery, a piked In resident.
Speaker 8 (12:25):
When the Wagners were arrested, you had your fifty to fifty.
Speaker 13 (12:27):
You had people that said, yes, I knew that they
did that, and then you've got people that say, there's
no way those people did that.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
But we wanted to get the story for ourselves, to
talk to those who actually knew the people accused of
carrying out these ruthless murders.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Hello, Hi, Dorey, It's Jeff Shane calling Hi.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
How are you is now a good time.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, this is Deray Mcalvy. She's Billy Wagner's cousin and
she grew up with the Wagners.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Were you close with Billy.
Speaker 12 (12:58):
Billy was quite a bit younger than me.
Speaker 8 (13:00):
I was about eleven years old when Billy was born,
but I was raised with him, and we had.
Speaker 12 (13:05):
A whole lot of fun. It was so much fun.
Speaker 8 (13:09):
We all bred horses, and we lived in Ohio and
it was beautiful and it snowed in the wintertime, and
it was beautiful in the summer, and we just had
so much fun.
Speaker 12 (13:17):
It was unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
He was like a really good dad, right, like a
hard working just like sturdy, like good person, right.
Speaker 12 (13:24):
All for his family. M hmm, all for his family.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Dere's depiction of her aunt, Frederica Wagner was just as glowing.
Speaker 12 (13:32):
I spent my summers with my aunt Frederica.
Speaker 8 (13:35):
It was awesome because we rode horses, we rode ponies,
did all kinds of awesome stuff.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
I've heard the nicest things about her that she was
like an angel in that town.
Speaker 8 (13:46):
She had to have been an angel in that town
because what I seen for her, what she did for
the community. She built a church for the community. She
financed the church for the community. She loves people, she
loves children.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
But we were curious what did Deray think about the
charges against her family.
Speaker 8 (14:10):
Our family joke is that there's no way that Betty
Crocker and the Dobe boys could ever go to an
extreme of murder.
Speaker 12 (14:21):
It's not within their capabilities.
Speaker 8 (14:26):
They love animals and they love people, and they are
really good at being resilient. And if you look up
the word Hillbilly and you really research that word, they
were very resilient in taking care of their family.
Speaker 12 (14:49):
Somebody did it, but it wasn't Now.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
To get more information on twenty seven year old George
and twenty six year old Jake Wagner, Angela and Billy
Wagner's sons, we reached out to Christina Howard. Christina's sister, Tabitha,
was married to George Wagner. The pair later divorced. Christina
spoke with Stephanie Leidecker about the time she spent with
the Wagner family.
Speaker 11 (15:14):
My sister spent a lot of time over at George's
house before they got married. She was pretty much living
with them at the time before she got married, and
then after she got married, she straight, you know, moved
in with them, and I used to go over there
to their house every now and again, you know.
Speaker 6 (15:33):
And did he seem like a nice guy?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
What was his demeanor like?
Speaker 11 (15:37):
He was funny. He was always cracking jokes and stuff
all the time.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
So I don't know much about Jake Wagner at all.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
What was he like as a kid.
Speaker 11 (15:47):
He was actually really sweet as a kid. We got
along pretty good because you know, we just hung out
all the time, played video games, went outside.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Was he shy?
Speaker 11 (15:58):
He wasn't shy with me. He was a really nice kid.
And well, growing up, my sisters were kind of bullies
to me and Taby she was dating George at the time,
and Tabby she would pick on me and Jake he
would take up for me, but like, hey, don't pick
on your little sister like that. What's mean and stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Here's a Wagner family relative. She asked us not to
use her name, but was happy to talk to us
about the family. She remembers Angela Wagner as a caring
mother with a big heart.
Speaker 13 (16:35):
Angela was just so sweet, like she was the sweetest lady.
I mean, anybody could ask her for help. I know
there was multiple times where there was just she had heard,
you know of Like there was a woman and her
daughter that was getting out of an abusive relationship and
Angela had just heard about it. She didn't know this lady,
you know, she had no idea anything about her. She
(16:58):
just knew that this woman and her you know, needed help.
The Angelos went and helped her get out of that.
You know, she gave her place to stay, She made
sure that the daughter had clothes and suit and you know,
she would always do stuff like that for people.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Everything we were hearing about the Wagner seemed at odds
with this image of the cold blooded killers accused of
murdering an entire family. But the deeper we dug, the
more secrets we began to find. Jeff continued speaking with
the same anonymous Wagner relative who speaks so closingly Evangela Wagner.
(17:36):
As it turns out, not everyone in the Wagner family
has such a sterling reputation, and when the conversation shifts
to Billy Wagner, things take a turn. Here is the
Wagner relative's first hand account.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Do you know when she met Billy and like when
that when they got married and how like that relationship
started and progressed.
Speaker 13 (17:54):
Uh, yeah, that was. She has been with him for
something years, maybe longer, but towards he goes now, that's
a different Like I and my family we always kind
of thought sometime was like off with him. We never
(18:14):
actually never got to like connect with him in that way.
We always everybody always kind of knew that there was
something stranger that he was kind of he just had
this persona about him, like he was just a very
cold and just hateful person really is what I thought of.
In anyways, he was just a very rough around me
(18:35):
as a guy. And when it comes to him and Angela,
I'm not sure really how the beginning of a relationship was,
but I know towards the end, like before or you know,
right after all this happened, he was just very controlling,
very controlling. He She was afraid of him, extremely afraid
(18:57):
of him, as were the boys now, their oldest son George,
him and his dad. They were kind of like the same.
I just I don't believe that they're good people at all.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
So what can you tell me about the relationship between
Angela and Billy Wagner?
Speaker 13 (19:17):
I do know that Angela was, She was extremely She
was just afraid to leave, you know, she was afraid
to leave. She was terrified that if she did try
to leave, that he would find her, because he made
that very clear, you know, from what I've heard and
what her father had said, all multiplecasions like you know,
you're not gonna leave.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back
in a moment. This account of Angela and Billy's relationship
piqued our curiosity, so we started poking around for more
and from about the Wagoners. Most of what we uncovered
(20:03):
had to do with grandmother Frederica Wagner, Billy Wagner's mother,
and what seemed to be some potentially questionable business practices.
I followed up with journalist Jeff Winkler to find out more.
Speaker 9 (20:14):
Rodrika Wagner was repeatedly referred to as a god fearing woman,
was running a nursing home and doing a lot of
community service and community care for people, but like the Wagers,
had a lot of different sides.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
To them exactly. And she had started a church as well,
and she took underprivileged kids. If people needed groceries, she
brought them groceries. So there is all of that, and
then on the flip side, many other people say they
were very secretive. There's also allegations of for example, in
the nursing home, maybe some dishonest business and perhaps cheating
(20:50):
people who were at a disadvantage out of money. And
these are substantiated court documents.
Speaker 9 (20:56):
Yeah, the longer we looked into it, the longer it
seemed like thens you know, apart from having property and
been there for a long time, they were wheeling and dealing.
And I think although they were sort of pillars of
the community and involved in the community, certainly I think
that sort of especially when you have that sort of
much to lose.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
You get protective.
Speaker 9 (21:18):
Frederica Wagner had very much built the family business. Fredrika
Wagner was the one who kept the family business going,
and she kept the family and businesses on track. And uh,
you know, when you are building an empire, the last
thing you want to do is to see it fall.
And they were working on their fourth generation of Wagner
(21:39):
uh dominance in the area. So I can definitely understand sort.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Of protectiveness of that.
Speaker 9 (21:46):
And in those cases, you you know, maybe you close,
maybe you close.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Ranks a little bit. You stick, you stick to kin.
Speaker 9 (21:55):
You know, blood is thicker than water.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
As we talked to more people in the community, we
found that these rumblings about the Wagner's business practices had
been circulating for years, and somehowd the deep distrust of
the family and their once sterling reputation. Jeff got Barber's
thoughts about grandmother Frederica Wagner.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
All I've ever heard about her is one I've heard
how wonderful she is, how generous she was. I never
heard a bad word about that woman.
Speaker 10 (22:28):
But just you know, she knew what she was doing,
and she just did what she could do to keep
them from being guilty, to keep them from being found
guilty or from being arrested, you know.
Speaker 11 (22:46):
What I mean.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Yeah, they seem like everyone was on the surface, like
everyone loved them, and then when this happens, all the
other dirt kind of starts coming out.
Speaker 10 (22:53):
It's like I can see beneath that surface, you know,
I feel like I can see her heart. When I
look at her, I just see is just kind of
see evil.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
But while Frederica Wagner may have been involved in some
questionable business dealings and to some accounts, Billy Wagner may
not have been the best husband. We still didn't know
what all this had to do with the Rodents. At
their arraignment, all six members of the Wagner family pled
not guilty to all charges. It is worth noting, however,
(23:33):
that the charges against Frederica Wagner were eventually dropped and
Rita Joe Nukam ended up taking a plea deal. There's
more to tell on these grandmother stories, but we'll get
to all that later.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
According to official court documents, all four of the Wagner
family are considered trigger pollers, meaning each one of them
had a hand in killing the Rodents that night, which
means they drove house to house the time, killing eight people.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
It's also been speculated that Angela Wagner was really the
mastermind of this whole plan. When you look at her picture,
for example, her mugshot, she just looks like a regular
mom that you would see at the market. She doesn't
at all fit the profile that I have in my
head of what a serial killer or a mass murderer
should look like. And if she did do this, why
(24:22):
did she put this plan together? Because she wanted to
protect her own family? And if so, the irony is
if she's found guilty, because they're all being tried separately,
she may never cross paths with her husband or her
sons ever.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Again, you know, we obviously wanted to go back and
see what was the lead up, what brought us to
this point, and what was the intersection between the Rodent
family and the Wagner family. We got very curious about
the relationship between Jake Wagner and Hannah Rodin. Here's the
anonymous Wagner relative again, Jake.
Speaker 13 (24:58):
She had got involved with with Hannah Roden.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Hannah Rodin is the middle Rodent child and murder victim.
She was found dead in bed next to her five
day old baby, Kylie. She shared a child with Jake Wagner,
a two and a half year old daughter named Sophia.
Speaker 13 (25:14):
Eventually, you know, they had separated. In everything that they
had separated, I guess.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
On five term.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
It seemed that the demise of their relationship had sparked
an ugly custody battle surrounding Sophia.
Speaker 13 (25:28):
Hannah she was, you know, refusing to allow him to
see her, to get her or any of the family
to see her, and so it kind of just it
got out of hand. At that point it just set
him off to the point where Jake he had made
the comments you know that he were going.
Speaker 12 (25:48):
To kill her.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Next time on the Pikes and Massacre. Piked In Massacre
is executive produced by Stephanie Leidecker and me Courtney Armstrong.
Editing and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional
producing by Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker. The piked In
Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. For
(26:17):
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Stephanie Lydecker
Courtney Armstrong
Jeff Shane
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