Summer Series 2025: Pike County Massacre: Part 3

Part 3 of the Rhoden family murders is continued trial coverage in the trial of George Wagner IV. Let’s dive into it all and break it all down. 

Sources for episode: 

https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2022/09/15/day-4-real-time-updates-from-the-trial-of-george-wagner-iv/

https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2022/09/16/day-5-the-bloody-shoe-print-in-george-wagner-ivs-trial-is-finally-introduced/ 

https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2022/09/20/day-6-what-monday-looked-like-in-george-wagner-ivs-trial/

https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2022/09/20/day-7-state-breaks-down-autopsies-of-rhoden-victims-in-george-wagner-ivs-trial/

https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2022/09/21/day-8-wagner-defense-calls-for-mistrial-as-prosecution-fumbles-like-the-worst-nfl-team-in-the-league/ 

https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2022/09/22/day-9-wagner-defense-moves-for-second-mistrial-juror-gets-sick-and-media-files-lawsuit-against-judge/ 

https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2022/09/23/day-10-state-goes-over-more-autopsies-and-finishes-crime-scene-3/

https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2022/09/26/day-11-final-autopsy-introduced-in-wagner-trial-as-firearms-expert-goes-over-bullets/ 

https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2022/09/27/day-12-jury-sent-home-early-after-secretive-crosstalk-in-wagner-trial/ 

https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2022/09/28/day-13-defense-introduces-reasonable-doubt-with-shoes-while-state-goes-over-phone-records-in-wagner-trial/

https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2022/10/03/day-15-george-wagners-ex-wife-takes-the-stand-against-him-describes-abusive-marriage/

https://www.wlwt.com/article/pike-county-massacre-trial-day-16-rhoden-family-george-wagner-iv-live-stream/41528684

https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/wagner-ex-tabitha-claytor-testifies-pike-massacre-trial?amp

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Summer Series twenty twenty five The Roden Family Murders,
also known as the Pike County Masker. We're going to
be discussing the murders of Dana Roden, Christopher Roden Senior,
Kenneth Roden, Gary Roden, Frankie Rodin, Hannah Hazel Gilly, Hannah Rodin,
and Christopher Roden Junior. Let's go ahead and dive right

(00:22):
into Summer Series twenty twenty five. Okay, guys, today we
are jumping in to part three of Summer Series twenty
twenty five, The Roden Family Murders. We are going to
be talking about more trial happenings today. Now, remember this
trial was extremely long. There was a ton of witnesses
both professional and personal, for the prosecution and the defense.

(00:46):
Jake Wagner ends up testifying, and George Wagner, the fourth
the defendant, also testified on his behalf. I will be
playing their testimony when I get to that part of
the trial. So a lot of this I'm going to
try to summer day by day. I'm going to do
my best to not be redundant, but there is a
lot of overlap because we have a lot of witnesses. Now,

(01:08):
although the trial was recorded and streamed, a lot of
witnesses did not want to be filmed. However, their testimony
was recorded. I'm going to do my best to try
and summarize it and get everything in a nice orderly fashion.
But there is a lot of information that I am
trying to present here, and there is a ton going on.

(01:29):
It's also important to remember that eight homicides occurred here,
So obviously there's going to be a lot of evidence
and a lot of different crime scenes, and there's a
lot of different dynamics between these eight people and the
Wagner family, And in order for the state to prove
their case, they really have to break down the dynamics
of everyone's relationships and the reason why the Wagner family

(01:54):
carried out this murder on these eight people of the
road and family. So first up in the next day
of test money is a paramedic named Darryl Hart. He
was on the scene that day of the trailer home
of Dana Rodin. He speaks on the baby who was found. Now,
this was Hannah's baby, Kylie, who was breastfeeding at the
time that Hannah was murdered. He described the baby as

(02:15):
sluggish and pink in color. However, she was responding normally
and upon arrival she was assessed by medical personnel and
although her two saturation was low, she was not harmed.
He also stated that he knew Dana Rodin because she
also worked in the medical field, and that she was
a nice person from his interactions with her. The defense

(02:36):
did not cross examine this particular witness. The next witness
was a Rodin family cousin named Donald Stone. Now, Donald
was one of the people who found Kenneth Roden's body.
Kenneth is assumed to have been murdered because he would
have known it was the Wagners who carried out the murders. Basically,
he was killed because he knew too much. This witness

(02:56):
was shown photos of the crime scene and Kenneth's body,
and he did become emotional. Now, if you remember, Kenneth
was found shot in the eye with money surrounding his body.
On a cross exam, they asked Donald about the layout
of Kenneth's trailer and they released him as a witness.
The next witness is Luke Roden, who was the son
of Kenneth and was with Donald Stone when Kenneth's body

(03:19):
was discovered. He said that he had spoken to his
dad the night before the murders and they had discussed
Luke going to get his CDL. Kenneth had sent Luke
some money to enroll in a truck and company and
had called to confirm that Luke received the money. They
asked Luke about the marijuana growing situation, and Luke said

(03:39):
that he did know about it and even at times
he would help tend to some of the plants on
his dad's property. He said that he was first alerted
about the murders by his mom, who said that Chris
Rodin's senior and everybody had been murdered. He then went
to the property and was sent away by law enforcement.
Everyone then gathered at a church and then he and
Dawn old Winter check on his dad and that is

(04:02):
when they found out that he had been murdered as well.
He was asked if he knew anything about the cameras
on his dad's property, and he said that he knew
that his dad had put cameras up for security purposes,
but those cameras had been deactivated according to the state
prior to the murders. On Cross Exam They went on
to question him more about the pod growing business, and

(04:24):
he said that the plants would grow at Kenneth's property
for about ninety days and then they would be harvested
and transported to Chris Senior's property, where he would then
go on to sell them for a profit. Luke had
said that Kenneth wanted to get out of the pot
growing business altogether and that he was going to turn
all of those things over to Gary Rodin, who often

(04:45):
acted as a middleman in the drug dealing of it all.
They then asked during redirect for Luke to point out
the defendant, George Wagner the Fourth, and he pointed him
out in court and they asked if he had looked
the same as he did six years prior, and he
said that he pretty much did, however, he had lost
some weight. Next up was a Rowdin family friend named

(05:06):
Brett Hartfield, and he actually worked with Kenneth. So the
day that the Rodin family's bodies were found, Brett had
gone to Ken's house to pick him up for work,
and when he pulled up, he noticed that there were
no lights on in the house and he just assumed
that Kenneth wasn't feeling well, because it wasn't super uncommon
for Ken to call out of work due to blood

(05:27):
pressure issues and not feeling well. So Brent went ahead
and left and didn't attempt to make any contact with Kenneth.
Little did he know that Kenneth had already been murdered
at this point in time. Brett said that he knew
of the drug operation that was going on between Chris
Rhaden Senior and Billy Wagner, and that they had been
working on things together and they would often travel for

(05:49):
these drug related reasons. And after Chris road And Senior
and the rest of the Rodents were murdered, Billy Wagner
said that there was a local man named Skid Montgomery
who had murdered the Rodin family because Skid was being
cut out of the drug operation by Billy and Chris Sr. However,
the state said that this was not true. The next

(06:09):
piece of evidence that was brought in by the state
was essentially the smoking gun, which was a bloody shoeprint
that was at one of the crime scenes. Now, if
you remember, at Chris Rodin Senior's house, he and his
cousin Gary were both found deceeased, and it looked like
their bodies had been dragged from the living room, through
the kitchen and into the back bedroom after they had
already been shot and killed. And in this that left

(06:32):
streaks of blood on the floor, which then left the
shoeprint that we are now going to talk about. And
the shoeprint was very distinct and it was able to
be tied back to the Wagner family, and we kind
of touched on it a little bit earlier. We had
heard from a BCI agent who had testified about some
of the bullet holes that were in the living room

(06:53):
on the front porch, and then they talked about some
of the blood patterns, and they talked very in depth
about the shoeprint. Now, each investigator that was present on
the scenes that day were asked on the stand about
the shoes that they were wearing, because they basically wanted
under oath for them to say I was wearing this

(07:14):
type of shoe and that law enforcement was able to
rule out that the shoe print that was found was
made by anyone else besides the killers. Now, if you remember,
there was a Walmart receipt that was found for two
pairs of shoes and it was placed in a box
that had a note on it that said important Things,

(07:34):
and it was confirmed that Angela Wagner is the one
who wrote the important things note and placed it on
the shoe box. Investigators were able to go back and
look at this Walmart receipt. They then went to that Walmart.
They were able to obtain security camera video from that
day and they for a fact saw Angela Wagner buying
these two different pairs of shoes and it was the

(07:55):
same shoe that matched the bloody shoeprint that was found
at one of the scenes. Now, the shoes themselves were
never found, and Jake Wagner would later confess that he
burned them with his family after the crimes were committed.
It's obvious that the Wagner family did everything in their
power to try to hide their tracks, except they did
forget a few things like receipts and video footage. They exist. So,

(08:19):
of course, during the trial there was multiple crime scene
photos shown. Autopsy photos were shown because the state is
trying to prove their case and a big part of
this case is the victims and the ballistics and the
blood and the fact that they were brutally murdered via gunfire.
But the defense was trying to do everything they could

(08:40):
to put a stop to it. So they ended up
on day eight calling for a mistrial, and they basically
said that the jury was being exposed to graphic crime
scene images autopsy photos, and they wanted the judge to
dismiss the case against George Wagner the fourth Now, obviously,
the state had their own argument and said that it
was necessary to show the photos in order to let

(09:01):
the jury know what had happened during these homicides, and
everything that they were doing would make sense when Jake
Wagner would come up to testify in the trial. Now,
the judge thankfully had some sense in his head and
denied the defense motion to Declaremus's trial. So testimony continued
on to the next witness. It was a woman named

(09:23):
doctor Karen Luhman who had conducted the autopsies of all
EID victims in twenty sixteen. So they went through all
the different autopsies and they first focused on Hannah Gilly
and Frankie Rodin. So Hannah had gunshot wounds to her head.
A total of five gunshot wounds were found. The first
bullet was shot and went through her left eye. Four

(09:45):
of the bullets in her body did not have exit wounds,
and the fifth one had a partial exit wound. Frankie
Rodin had been shot three times and his eyes were blackened,
and she said the reason that his eyes were blackened
was caused by the gunshot wounds, because blood in his
head was coming to the front after he was shot.
He was shot in his left temple, once by his

(10:06):
left ear, and once in the cheek, and all the
bullets were still lodged inside of his head. These were
just awful, awful murders. She then goes on to talk
about one of the other autopsies, the ones of Dana Rodin,
Chris Rodin Junior, and Hannah Rodin. Again, they were all
found in the same home and they had all been
shot while they were asleep in their beds. She said

(10:28):
all three victims were shot with the same gun, but
it was a different gun than was used to kill
the other five victims. Dana was shot a total of
five times. The first shot was to her left forehead,
which was done in very close proximity, and she knew
this because Dana's skin had signs of gunpowder on it.
The second shot was to the right forehead, and the

(10:49):
third was to the center forehead, The fourth was right
above her ear, and the fifth was along her right shin.
Hannah Rodin was only shot two times and both of
them were shot to the head. Chris Rodin Junior was
shot four times while he was lying in bed. It
is believed that he was sleeping and didn't even flinch,
so he probably didn't even know what had him. One

(11:10):
of the bullets had caused a complete fracture to Chris
Rodin Junior's skull. They then talked about Kenneth Roden's autopsy
and doctor Karen Luhmann testified that Kenneth was shot once
in the eye and she believed that he was asleep
because the gunshot to his eye basically went through his eyelids,
and she said she believed that he was shot within
three feet, but thought that it might have been a

(11:32):
lot closer because there was gunpowder also found on his face.
She also said that there was no indication that he
moved after he was shot, which likely means that he
was killed instantly, again he didn't even know what happened.
The next witness up was a man named Matthew White,
who is a firearms expert. He went over the different
type of guns and also said that the bullets recovered

(11:54):
from inside the victims met the characteristics of the firearms
that they believe were used to kill the road In family. Now,
there was a lot of shell casings that were picked
up from the crime scenes, but there was also some
that were left behind, and like I said earlier in
an earlier episode, they were able to tie these back
to the Wagner family because the Wagner family often did

(12:15):
target practice on their property, and they were able to
match the shellcasings from the crime scenes to the shell
casings at the Wagner property, and this is a big
part of their case, not only the foot prints, but
the shell casings. He went on to testify that one
of the guns used to kill Chris Roadin Senior was
the same gun that they used to kill Kenneth Roden

(12:36):
and Gary Roden. Next up to testify was a shoe
expert named Suzanne Elliott, and she testified that the shoe
prints that were found at two of the four murder
scenes were shoe sizes ten and a half and eleven.
And of course, like I said earlier, they had the
evidence that Angela Wagner went to Walmart bought the shoes.

(12:58):
They have a video of her buying the shoes, and
she said that once she got home with the shoes,
the boys decided they didn't like them and they didn't
want them. But when they were initially questioned about it,
the boy said they never even saw the shoes that
she had bought for them. Now, interestingly enough, Leonard Manly,
who was Bobby Joe and Dana's father, also had this

(13:20):
exact same type of shoe. However, his was a size ten. Now,
his shoes were tested for blood the day after the
murders and there was no sign of blood found anywhere
on his shoes. It was simply just a coincidence that
he had the exact same shoe. Now, Unfortunately, Leonard Manley
passed away before the trial could get underway, so he

(13:40):
never got to see justice for his daughter and the family.
So at this point, the state had not come forward
with what shoe sizes the Wagner family wore, although I
really don't think this is super important at least in
my opinion, because they intentionally bought two different shoe sizes,

(14:01):
so they could have even bought shoe sizes that weren't
necessarily their shoe sizes in order to throw off the trail,
so they wouldn't know what direction to go in in
looking for who these shoes could belong to. And despite everything,
the witness was not able to say that without a
shadow of a doubt that the Wagner family is the

(14:21):
ones who had worn these shoes to the murder scene
that day, although I think that things are pretty clear,
at least in my opinion, that they were the ones
wearing these shoes at the murder scenes that day, because
this is only one little speck of evidence that we
have to point to the Wagner family. Next up was
a bciphone records expert named Julia, and she went through

(14:46):
all the different phone activity amongst the victims and it
was reported that Hannah may Rodin was in contact via
text messages with Jake Wagner the night of the murders,
with the last text message being around nine pm that night,
and they also discovered that Dana Roden's last phone activity
was around three thirty am, Frankie Rhoden's last phone activity

(15:09):
was around ten thirty pm, and Hannah Hazel Gilly's last
one activity was around one am. This is all the
night that they were killed. Kenneth Roden had at last
used his phone at nine forty one pm the night
that he was killed. And although Gary Roden did not
own a cell phone, there was two cell phones that
Chris Rowden Senior had and on one of his phones,

(15:33):
his last activity was a phone call to Billy Wagner. Now,
if you remember earlier, Billy Wagner had gone to Chris's
house and said, oh my gosh, I forgot my phone.
Can you call it so I can make sure that
it's at home, And that was the phone call that
Angela Wagner allegedly picked up. And he did this to
make it seem like he wasn't the one who was

(15:55):
there at the scene. So although I think in the
Wagner's heads you really thought it through because he left
his cell phone at home so it couldn't track him
to the Rodent home, he was so dumb in saying, hey,
call my cell phone, and they were able to extract
that and get that information. That was a last phone

(16:17):
call that Chris Roden Senior made before he was murdered.
So despite very much trying to cover their tracks, they
very much left themselves a paper trail of evidence, or
I guess we could call it maybe a cell phone
trail of evidence. They weren't able to recover any of
the cell phones physically except for that of Frankie Rodent,
and they weren't able to access any text messages from

(16:39):
any of the phones because AT and T doesn't transmit
that type of data, which I think they should maybe
they do now, but back when this investigation and everything
was ongoing, they were not able to transmit that type
of data. But they were able to get the callogs,
which I think is very helpful in putting this case
together and piece seeing every little clue together and putting

(17:02):
together a timeline for the night that the Rowdin family
was murdered. The next witness up was a man who
was the lead BCI agent, and he kind of talked
about the initial stages of the investigation, and he said,
at one point they got some security camera footage from
neighbors that lived near Kenneth Roden, and in one of

(17:24):
the videos there was a couple of vehicles that could
be seen driving up and down the roads at the
same time that the road and family murders allegedly happened.
So at one thirty six am, there was a vehicle
leaving the area of the crime scenes on Union Hill Road.
At two am there was a vehicle scene driving off
of seven seventy two down Union Hill Road towards the

(17:47):
crime scenes. At two twenty nine am, there's a vehicle
seen driving towards Kenneth Roden's camper. At two forty one
am there's two vehicles leaving the area of the crime scene,
and at two fifty one there's a vehicle scene driving
towards Kenneth Roden's camper. And at three ten there's a
vehicle scene driving away from Kenneth Roden's camper, and at

(18:09):
three nineteen am there are two vehicles driving down Union
Hill Road towards the crime scenes. Now, there's absolutely no
way for them to know who is driving these vehicles
because it is dark and they're security camera footage, so
it's not really the greatest footage ever and they were
really unable to make out the make and model of

(18:29):
the vehicles. But it's not really a coincidence in my opinion,
that all of this action is going on at the
exact time that these murders are happening. Or that these
murders are allegedly happening. So I definitely think in some way,
shape or form, this is related to the road and
family murders, and those were probably the vehicles of the

(18:50):
Wagner family going back and forth from crime scene to
crime scene. Next witness we heard from was a man
named Jeff Tackett, and he was a friend of Billy
Wagner's and Jeff had at one point worked at the
Flying w Farms, which is the farm that was owned
by Billy's parents. Jeff went on to say that he
was an informant for BCI and he would wear a

(19:11):
wire after the murders to try and get evidence out
of the Wagner family. And he said each time he
did this he was paid one hundred dollars and he
went and spoke with them about five times after the murders.
He also testified that Billy Wagner and Chris Roden were
blood brothers and they even at one point pricked their
fingers and touched their fingers together so that way they

(19:34):
would be blood brothers. And he went on to testify
that Billy Wagner would often shoplift from the Dollar Store,
which is the lowest of the low. If you're going
to shoplift, at least do something a little more high
end than the dollar store. That just tells you what
kind of person Billy Wagner is. I also do not
condone shoplifting in any way, shape or form. But Jeff

(19:56):
would go on to say that Billy would wear this
big coat and that is how he was able to shoplift,
because he would just put the items in this big
coat and then walk out, And Jeff said it made
him and Chris Road and Senior very uncomfortable that Billy
was a chronic shoplifter and that he had done this
a lot. Jeff then went on to testify that one

(20:19):
time he had told him that he had gone to
Mexico and shot a bunch of people. And there was
also an incident where he and Angela had some boots
that were in the back of their vehicle and they
were selling them at the fairgrounds and they ended up
getting caught. I'm sure that the merchandise was stolen, that

(20:41):
is just my opinion, and they ended up being arrested,
and Billy told Jeff that there's no way that Angelo
would ever turn her back on him, which I think
is such an important component of this case because the
Wagner family loyalties were pretty deep prior to the murders
and immediately following the murders, but things started to shift

(21:03):
very very quickly as soon as they got caught. Now,
Jeff went on to testify that he saw the Rodent
family had been murdered on TV and he immediately called Billy,
but Billy did not answer, But Jeff thought had a
nagging suspicion that Billy was involved, so he went ahead
and called the tip line and left a message, and

(21:24):
it was then in September that he sat down with
BCI agents and agreed to go undercover and wear a wire.
Jeff then went on to testify that Billy and the
Wagner family had committed arson at least three separate times,
and one of these times Billy had told his sons
to use a turkey baser to catch the house on fire,

(21:47):
and with that Billy Wagner was able to receive two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in insurance money. So they
were stam artists through and through. That is the biggest
type of fraud you can commit, insurance fraud, and it
looks like the Wagners did it quite frequently for money. Okay,
buckle up. We are now going to hear from Tabitha Claytor,

(22:09):
who was George Wagner the Force ex wife and the
mother of his child. We've talked about her a little
bit in one of the first episodes where I gave
kind of the rundown of everything. So she testified that
she married George Wagner the fourth in twenty twelve, right
after she had graduated high school. And she said that
in the midst of their relationship, she and George Wagner

(22:31):
had been in a custody battle over their son, who
was born in twenty and thirteen. She testified that while
she was married to Angela, his mother was very controlling
of him and their relationship. She said she lived with
the Wagner family while she was pregnant with their son,
and after she gave birth. She testified that Angela would
come sit on their bed and basically give them instructions

(22:54):
on what type of sexual relations they could have. Although
they were a married couple. Angela Wagner told them that
they could not have oral sex because it was sinful
and they would go to hell. But on the other hand,
Angela Wagner is complicent in planning a mass murder, so
make that make any amount of sense. She then went
on to testify that Angela would come into their room

(23:15):
every night and basically kick Tabitha out of the room
so she could sit on the bed and scratch George's
back and talk about his day. And if that isn't
some weird stuff, I don't know what is. It is
so bizarre that a mother is having that type of
relationship with her son, and it really just makes me

(23:35):
question a lot of things. The couple's son was not
allowed to sleep in the room with them or in
his own crib, and Tabitha said that Angela demanded and
ordered the child to sleep in bed with Angela and
Billy each night. Now, again, that is super bizarre to me.
I don't understand why you want to have that type
of control. Tabitha then goes on to say that she

(23:58):
did have an affair because obviously her life was crazy
as hell, and I never condone cheating, but in this case,
I can understand what drove her to it, one hundred
percent understand. And from there, the Wagner family found out
about the affair. They ended up taking her cell phone
away and they basically held her hostage inside of the
home where she was living with the Wagners. She also

(24:21):
said that she was worried that Angela was going to
harm her and that she did have some thoughts that
Angela was going to try and shoot her. Tabitha's mom
was also kept from meeting her grandson until he was
eighteen months old. Tabitha went on to talk about the
day where she officially left George Wagner the fourth and
this was in November of twenty fourteen, and she said

(24:42):
this day that George had begun beating her with a
bell and she had some back and forth with Angela
and she ended up biting George and grabbing his groin
and then running out of the house. And of course,
because Angela Wagner can't mind her own business, she became
involved and through way two by four at Tabitha and

(25:03):
threatened her with a gun. And this is the incident
where she ended up having to hide until they stopped
looking for her. And then she got on her bike
and rode to a gas station and called her mom,
and she never went back to the Wagner family home
after that night, so they ended up divorcing in January

(25:23):
of twenty fifteen. George Wagner kept the Sun from Tabitha
and basically kept him from having any interaction with him,
and then following that, they agreed to a fifty to
fifty custody agreement, but she said that he would rarely
comply with that, And then after the family committed a
heinous mass murder and decided to move to Alaska, he

(25:45):
never let Tabitha know that he was actually moving and
taking the child with him, And thankfully Tabitha was able
to regain full custody following the Wagners being arrested in
twenty eighteen. And shout out to Tabitha for coming forward
whip her testimony. She is strong to come forward and
share her story. It can't be easy. She was young,

(26:09):
She was in a horrible way living with the Wagner family.
It was coercive control in its best. They used her
son against her, They manipulated her, and she was young,
so she didn't know any better. And once she finally
realized what was happening, she got out. And I think

(26:30):
that that is so so important in this case, because
she very much paints a parallel between what happened to
her and what happened with Hannah and Jake Wagner, because
at one point, Hannah Rodin was living with the Wagner family,
and I'm sure this is the exact same stuff that
she was going through with the Wagner family. And it
also goes to show you that the Wagner family is

(26:53):
going to do everything in their power to try and
keep control over a situation no matter what. So Tabitha
h in my opinion, was one of the star witnesses
of this trial because she really painted a picture for
the jury of what life was like inside of the
Wagner family residence for people that weren't a direct part
of the Wagner family. They kept her there, they isolated

(27:17):
her from her family, they used her child against her,
They controlled her in every way, shape and form and
aspect of life. And I am so glad that she
was able to get out and physically that she was okay,
but I can't imagine the mental anguish that she has
probably had to deal with following all of this. And

(27:39):
at the end of the day, George Wagner the fourth
is still her son's father. And I know that has
to be super super hard on her. So I commend
her so much for her testimony and for being a
strong woman and for getting out of that relationship and
leaving the Wagner family behind. One of the next witnesses
was a man named John Jenkins, and he was a

(28:02):
special agent. He was one of the first people on
the cases, and one of his assignments was the Frankie
and Hannah Hazel Gilly crime scene. So he goes on
to talk about the initial steps and the investigation and
how they obviously wanted to talk to people that were
close with the family, and they knew that Billy Wagner

(28:23):
was the grandfather of Sophia Wagner and they thought he
would be a really really good place to start. And
they also started having some tips come in and there
was some chatter about maybe the murders being related to
a custody battle between the Rodent and the Wagner family.

(28:44):
But they were having a hard time getting a hold
of Billy Wagner and he was kind of always going
from one place to another, so he was really really
hard to track down. But it took a long time
to do it, but they were eventually able to track
him down and they did a sit down interview with him. Now,
when they finally did track him down, he was at

(29:04):
a Kroger buying groceries for his dad who was failing
in health and he was basically his caregiver. So he
went to the parking lot of Kroger to meet Billy
Wagner and they have a conversation in the car in
the Kroger parking lot. That is how desperate they were
to talk to Billy Wagner about what had happened. Now,

(29:25):
this interview didn't happen until September of twenty sixteen, and
you would think Billy Wagner, being best friends with Chris
Roaden Senior, would want to do everything he could to
cooperate in the investigation. But yeah, it wasn't until September
of twenty sixteen that they finally were able to track
him down and sit with him in the Kroger parking lot.

(29:47):
So they did this interview in the parking lot in
the car, and the interview lasted an hour and forty
three minutes, which is just wild. I'm sure Billy Wagner
had a lot to say, and they play the interview
for the jury at this point in time, and interestingly enough,
in the beginning of this interview, Billy very much defends

(30:08):
Chris Roadin Senior and says, all of the stuff they're
saying about Chris is a lie. He would do anything
for anybody. He would give you the shirt off of
his back. Because I guess there had been a lot
of local chatter about Chris road And Senior being involved
in the weed business and people were talking poorly about
him because of that, and the investigator let him know

(30:28):
that they didn't really care about the weed. They really
don't care if Billy Wagner was involved in the whole
weed of it all. That wasn't really on their radar
and that wasn't really important to them. They were just
trying to get down to who did this and why.
Billy goes on to say that he talked to Chris
road And Senior every day and that he was his
best friend, and Chris was a really good guy and

(30:53):
would do anything for anybody. But he did go on
to say that he wasn't a saint, but that he
would never hurt anybody. He said that they were opposites.
Billy Wagner said, Chris Roadin Senior didn't tell anybody anything.
He kept his business to himself. He didn't go around
boasting about different things. And during this interview, Billy Wagner

(31:16):
also throws out a whole bunch of names of people
that were people that Chris knew or had dealings with.
And obviously, now in hindsight, we realized that he's doing
this to kind of throw the scent off and divert
attention away from him. He said, the last time he
talked with Chris Rowdin Senior, he seemed okay, and that

(31:37):
was the night before the murder. He said he called
him at eight or nine that night, and it was
him and Sophie, the granddaughter, and that Sophie wanted to
tell him good night and that she loved him, and
they talked a little bit, and then the next morning
is when the family was found murdered. They then asked
Billy about a fight that he and Chris got into

(32:00):
a week or two before the murders, and that Billy
allegedly pulled a gun on him, and Billy said, no,
that didn't happen, and there was just a lot of
rumors and speculations surrounding he and his family and he
was happy to clear anything up any questions they might
have had. So honestly, I think as much as it
seems Billy is keeping his composure during this interview, he

(32:22):
is probably losing his mind that the walls are finally
closing in on he and his family. He also briefly
talks about the relationship between Hannah Rodin and Jake Wagner
and Sophia, their granddaughter. And it's interesting to think about
Billy Wagner and Chris Roden Senior shared a grandchild. Sophia

(32:42):
was their grandchild, and the fact that he so brazenly
planned and committed these crimes against the Wagner family is
just so astonishing to me when you really think about it,
how these families were intertwined. These were not people that
were casual acquaintances. Billy and Chris were best friends, they

(33:03):
shared a grandchild, and it is just absolutely wild to
me that he did all of this. And then during
this interview he is constantly deflecting, throwing out a billion
and a half names, basically trying to deflect from he
and his family. He talks a lot about the drugs

(33:25):
of it all, and pill mills and cock fighting and
all the different things that Chris Roden Senior was involved in,
although Billy Wagner was also involved in those things because
they were best friends and they did a lot together.
So the whole interview is really really hard at points
to understand because Billy talks like he has marvels in

(33:47):
his mouth, and there's a lot of it that's jarbled
and you really can't understand what he's saying. But I
think from a standpoint of painting a picture of what
was going on with the Wagner family at this time
and how they were feeling about things, it's very apparent
in this interview that he was doing everything he could
to try and deflect from exactly what was going on.

(34:10):
The next witness up goes through some different messages, Facebook messages,
messenger messages, and there's a message from a friend of
Hannah's asking if she could hang out, and Hannah said,
I don't know, I am not at my house. I'm
living with Jake, which again I think just plays to

(34:31):
the fact that they were very controlling of everything that
Hannah did, just like they were controlling of everything Tabitha did.
There is a conversation that Hannah then was having with
somebody named Zach and they are talking about Jake Wagner,
and she said that she had been with him for
almost five years and she's at the point where she

(34:53):
can't stand him, saying that they really aren't together, but
he wants to try to take Sophia away from me,
and basically Jake has her at the moment because they're
going to the Newport Aquarium. She says she's been pretty
depressed lately and has wanted to do some stupid stuff,

(35:14):
but she has Sophia, and Sophia is the one that
stops her from doing anything like that, which basically Hannah
is alluding to the fact that she has kind of
thought about suicide and taking her own life because of
the situation that she's in with the Wagoners, and that
is so so sad to me because she is so
young and she was so controlled, just like Tabitha was

(35:36):
controlled in that same situation. Kennah then goes on to
say he's extremely controlling and doesn't even let her leave
to go visit her parents or her brothers, and she
says she hasn't seen Grandma rode In in forever because
of Jake. The next conversation thread we see is June

(35:57):
seventeenth of twenty fifteen. And this has been between Hannah
Rodent and Tess. Now Tess is Tabitha's mom, and we
know Tabitha, we love Tabitha. Tabitha is George Wagner, the
Fort's ex wife. So Hannah is telling Tess that they
want me to sign Sophie over and it's not going

(36:17):
to happen. And Tess said, don't do what Tabby did.
And she said I tried to get her to listen
to me and she wouldn't. And Hannah said, I'm not.
Sophie is my entire world. So the conversation continues into
the next day and Hannah says, I know how they are.

(36:38):
I was in their family for five years. I know
how it is to have children with one of them.
I won't sign papers and they will not be able
to prove that I'm an unfit mother. I won't lose Sophia.
I just got a new house that's bigger, with more rooms,
and there's not going to be any way that they
can tell me I'm not an unfit mother. And Tess said,

(36:59):
that's good. I've dealt with them for years. Don't believe
anything that family says, take your baby back and tell
them to go f themselves. Hannah says, I won't sign papers. Ever,
it won't happen. They'll have to kill me first, which
is so freaking sad, knowing what we know now that
Hannah lost her life because these people were so hell

(37:22):
bent on keeping custody of Sophia for no reason other
than because they are controlling a holes. It just completely
blows my mind that they have this text message thread
and those are literally Hannah's words, They'll have to kill
me first. So that is where we are going to
leave off for part three. We still have a heck

(37:42):
of a lot more to go. When George Wagner the
Fourth testifies on his behalf and the ever so mighty
Jake Wagner comes up to testify. I am going to
be playing their testimony because it is so interesting to
me and so telling, and I think it's interesting to
hear it from their mouth everything that allegedly went down.

(38:05):
But I just think it's really sad that this whole
family was destroyed by a family that was very close
to them, people that they thought they could trust, that
were their friends. But I guess with friends like that,
who needs enemies. Right. So that is Part three. Stay
tuned for Part four. Like I said, we still have

(38:25):
a lot more to cover, a lot more to talk about.
But as you can see, the case against the Wagner
family in this case, George Wagner, the fourth is really
taking whole taking shape, and I think we already can
tell what is going on here, what happened, and the
evidence lays that out, in my opinion, very very clearly.

(38:49):
I think the state has done a exceptional job up
to this point laying out the case and showing us
exactly what happened and the planning and the aftermath and
everything they did after the fact to try and cover
their tracks and deflect and draw attention elsewhere. And the

(39:10):
BCI did a fantastic job at investigating this case. They
didn't let a lot of information out in the beginning,
and I think that was intentional because I think they
had their sites set on the Wagoners pretty quickly, but
they needed to gather all of the evidence, and I
think they did a super impeccable job at doing so.

(39:30):
I'm often a little tough on law enforcement in some
cases because they don't do the best job, but in
this case, BCI did an amazing job, and I think
that's very telling because this was a massive homicide. Eight
people lost their lives. They had a lot to take on,

(39:51):
and this was the largest murder in Pike County. So
the fact that they were able to do what they
did in such a way and get justice for the
Road and family is very, very telling, and I think
that they deserve all the credit in this investigation because
they really did a dang good job, and the prosecution

(40:15):
in George's case did a day good job as well.
So we are going to go ahead and move on
to episode four. I will see you next week for that,
have a great one and I will see you then. Bye.