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Wagners in Custody

2020/8/5
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匿名瓦格纳家族亲戚
旁白
知名游戏《文明VII》的开场动画预告片旁白。
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旁白:2016年4月22日,俄亥俄州派克顿镇发生一起震惊全州的八人灭门惨案,八名罗登家族成员在家中被枪杀。这起案件是俄亥俄州历史上最大的一起凶杀案调查,引发了公众的恐慌和愤怒。 Jody Barr:派克顿八人命案是一起非典型的凶杀案,其复杂性和规模令人震惊。案发初期,警方信息披露很少,公众对案件进展感到困惑。当地流传的谣言指向当地人作案。 Barbara:八人命案给派克顿镇带来了极大的恐惧和不安,居民们担心自身安全。 Mike DeWine:警方在派克顿八人命案中逮捕了六名瓦格纳家族成员。 Mike Allen:瓦格纳家族成员的逮捕行动显示了警方周密的计划和执行能力。四名瓦格纳家族成员被控犯有加重谋杀罪,这在俄亥俄州属于死刑案件。同时有多人面临死刑指控的情况极其罕见。瓦格纳家族成员被控串谋犯案,表明这是一起有预谋的犯罪。 Dorea McAlevey:比利·瓦格纳是一个勤劳顾家的好父亲。弗雷德里卡·瓦格纳是一个乐于助人、深受爱戴的人。她不相信瓦格纳家族成员会犯下谋杀罪。 Christina Howard:乔治·瓦格纳是一个幽默风趣的人。杰克·瓦格纳小时候是一个善良的孩子。 匿名瓦格纳家族亲戚:安吉拉·瓦格纳是一个善良、乐于助人的人。比利·瓦格纳是一个冷漠、令人讨厌的人,控制欲很强,安吉拉·瓦格纳很害怕他。安吉拉·瓦格纳害怕离开比利·瓦格纳。杰克·瓦格纳与汉娜·罗登的感情破裂引发了激烈的抚养权争夺,杰克·瓦格纳曾威胁要杀死汉娜·罗登。 Jeff Winkler:弗雷德里卡·瓦格纳的公众形象和私下行为存在矛盾。瓦格纳家族的商业行为存在争议,他们可能为了保护家族利益而隐瞒了一些事情。弗雷德里卡·瓦格纳的公众形象与她可能参与的犯罪行为形成鲜明对比。 旁白:瓦格纳家族四名成员被认为是直接参与杀害罗登家族成员的凶手。安吉拉·瓦格纳被怀疑是这起案件的幕后策划者。

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The episode begins with the shocking discovery of eight members of the Rhoden family murdered in their homes, leading to the largest homicide investigation in Ohio's history.

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Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm John Walczak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI.

In 2001, police say I killed my family and rigged my house to explode before escaping into the wilderness. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. Join me. I'm going down in the cave. As I track down clues. I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Hunting. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world. Robert Fisher. Do you recognize my voice? Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America.

Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Pikedon Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and KT Studios. On the morning of April 22nd, 2016, the small town of Pikedon, Ohio, awoke to some horrifying news. Spread out across four homes, all within a few miles of each other, eight members of a local family, the Rodens, were found murdered. They 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. Frustration, anger, sadness, emotions are still raw in Pike County. Most of the people in this town say whoever shot and killed eight members of the Rodin family need to be found soon. I hope that the law enforcement in this area apprehend each and every one. These aren't people, these are monsters. Episode 2, Wagner's in Custody.

I'm Courtney Armstrong, a TV producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Lidecker and Jeff Shane. We produce television series and documentaries. Here's Stephanie. For me, 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 talking to Jody Barr, an investigative journalist who reported for TV station Fox 19 in Cincinnati. You're not, as a journalist, easily shocked, but this was shocking probably, right? Yeah, it was shocking. I would say it was more confusion because on the typical murder or a breaking news story, you can roll the events in your mind, but this isn't the typical murder story.

where there's one or two victims in a single house and the bad guy took off. This was something way outside the norm. You're just thinking, what is going on here? None of this makes sense, but you knew 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 law enforcement,

Even they weren't being told anything. I mean, call it good investigative work and 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.

An overwhelming amount of tips have been pouring into police, but no arrests have been made yet. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is saying that over 200 investigators and police officers have contributed so far to this ongoing investigation. A reward is being offered, but the killer has disappeared.

As the investigation dragged on, rumors ran rampant in the close-knit community. And journalists like Jody Barr started digging deeper. 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 in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it's a very tactical, a very clean, sort of, you know, when you think of an assassin doing a hit like you see in the movies, it

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. What does this mean? What is going on here? But after I started having conversations with the Roden 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 in Pike County who I knew they knew more than what they were telling me. I knew they knew more 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

But all we kept hearing from the Roden family, from the people around there, and they were phrasing it this way, is that it was locals. What did that mean? We didn't know.

By the summer of 2018, the investigation had entered its second year and piped-in residents like Barbara were becoming increasingly scared. 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. You know, it was, it was that trusting and relaxed atmosphere.

in Pike County. So we couldn't believe something like that would happen here. And it was especially terrifying because no one knew who did it or why. And you don't know if your family's next. - It's just a grizzly scene and a grizzly situation. - If you are fearful, arm yourself. If you feel that you need to protect yourself or family, do so.

On November 13, 2018, everything was set to change. Here's Governor of Ohio Mike DeWine, then Attorney General. Well, good afternoon. We promised that the day would come when arrests would be made in the Pike County massacres. Today is that day. In a series of arrests that sent shockwaves through the insulated community, six members of a local family, the Wagners, were taken into custody. Call it out. Just walk out. Keep your hands up. Don't raise for nothing.

47-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. Angela Wagner is Billy's wife and matriarch of the Wagner family. The 48-year-old was arrested at their home near Pikedon, Ohio. Go ahead. Angela Wagner in the car, 21. Copy, 1331.

Angela and Billy's two sons, George Wagner and Jake Wagner, were arrested together during a traffic stop. George was 27 and Jake was 26. 76-year-old Frederica Wagner, Billy Wagner's mother, was arrested at the family's horse farm, the Flying W. Angela Wagner's mother, 65-year-old Rita Jo 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. Mike Allen, a criminal defense attorney and legal commentator for Fox 19 in Cincinnati, was covering the story when the news broke.

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 pretty tight. You've got four people charged in the murders themselves. It's exhumated murder 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 a death penalty case. How rare is it to have multiple capital murder cases going? I haven't seen four people up for capital murder in Ohio before. You know what? I've been in the system for over 50 years, and I

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 four people, four defendants facing the death penalty. 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 Newcomb, was charged with forgery, perjury, and obstruction of justice.

But to Mike Allen, one charge brought against the alleged trigger pullers makes one thing clear. 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 on

Tampering with evidence kind of 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. We're going to take a quick break here. We'll be back in a moment.

Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Stories about regaining a sense of safety, a handle on reality after your entire world is flipped upside down.

From unbelievable romantic betrayals... The love that was so real for me was always just a game for him. To betrayals in your own family... When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. Financial betrayal...

This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars. And life or death deceptions. She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Walzak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI. Oh my God.

In 2001, police say I killed my family. First mom, then the kids. And rigged my house to explode. In a quiet suburb. This is the Beverly Hills of the Valley. Before escaping into the wilderness. There was sleet and hail and snow coming down. They found my wife's SUV. Right on the reservation boundary. And my dog flew. All I could think of is him and the sniper me out of some tree.

But not me. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. For two years. They won't tell you anything. I've traveled the nation. I'm going down in a cave. Tracking down clues. They were thinking that I picked him up and took him somewhere. If you keep asking me this, I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Searching for Robert Fisher. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world.

Do you recognize my voice? Join an exploding house, the hunt, family annihilation today and a disappearing act. Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite shows. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I spent almost a decade researching right wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters.

But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsman plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to.

Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat. It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We needed to know more about the Rodens and the accused, the Wagners. We also wanted to be in Pikedon to learn about the town. So Stephanie, Jeff, and I flew to Ohio. There was this extremely eerie vibe to the town.

There definitely was a sense that something very big was happening real time. It almost felt

It felt a little dangerous. I think eeriness, as you said, is the best word. Like just something was not right. 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. And, you know, we just started trying to go door to door to meet anyone who could tell us about the Rodin family.

I would say every single person we spoke to legitimately invited us inside and could not have been lovelier. 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, understandably, didn't want to speak to us. But those who did, they were so welcoming.

We reached out to journalist Jeff Winkler, who was doing research on the Wagner family. For me personally, when I first got an idea of how the Rodens lived and, you know, who was related to who and whatnot, I think I originally had the sense that the Wagners were in the same sort of position in terms of

property and and and perhaps financial situation or not but the wagner's i was rather surprised to learn that they had you know a huge farm they'd been running um various um farm businesses on this huge bit of land or landlords and um there were there was something of a sort of uh um

In all this, we couldn't help wonder: how could this esteemed Piketon family allegedly be responsible for Ohio's most horrific murder? It seemed like everyone had an opinion.

Here's Angie Montgomery, a Piketon resident. 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.

Hello? Hi, Dore. It's Jeff Shane calling. Hi. Hi, how are you? Is now a good time? Yeah. This is Dorea McAlevey. She's Billy Wagner's cousin, and she grew up with the Wagners. Were you close with Billy?

Billy was quite a bit younger than me. I was about 11 years old when Billy was born, but I was raised with him and we had a whole lot of fun. It was so much fun. 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. It was unbelievable. He was like a really good dad, right? Like a hardworking, just like sturdy, like good person, right? All for his family. All for his family.

DeRay's depiction of her aunt, Frederica Wagner, was just as glowing. I spent my summers with my aunt Frederica. It was awesome because we rode horses, we rode ponies, did all kinds of awesome stuff. I've heard the nicest things about her, that she was like an angel in that town. 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. But we were curious, what did DeRay think about the charges against her family? Our family joke is that there's no way that Betty Crocker and the Dode boys could ever go to an extreme of murder. It's not within their capabilities.

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. Somebody did it, but it wasn't them.

To get more information on 27-year-old George and 26-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 Lidecker about the time she spent with the Wagner family. My sister spent a lot of time over at George's house before they got married. She was pretty much living with him at the time before she got married. And then after she got married, she straight moved in with him. And I used to go over there to their house every now and again, you know. And did he seem like a nice guy? What was his demeanor like?

Um, he was funny. He was always cracking jokes and stuff all the time, so. I don't know much about Jake Wagner at all. What was he like as a kid? Um, 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. Was he shy? Um, 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 Tabby, she was dating George at the time and Tabby, she would pick on me and Jake, he would take up for me and be like, hey, don't pick on your little sister like that. That's mean and stuff.

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. 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 a

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. She had no idea anything about her. She just knew that this woman and her daughter needed help, so Angela went and helped her get out of that. She gave her a place to stay. She made sure that the daughter had clothes and food. She would always do stuff like that for people.

Everything we were hearing about the Wagners 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 continues speaking with the same anonymous Wagner relative who speaks so glowingly of Angela Wagner. 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.

Do you know when she met Billy and when they got married and how that relationship started and progressed? Yeah, that was... She has been with him for...

20 something years, maybe longer. But as far as he goes, now that's a different, like I and my family, we always kind of thought sometimes I was like off with him. We never got to like connect with him in that way. We always, everybody always kind of knew that there was something strange or 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 many ways. He was just a very rough around me as a guy and when it comes to him and Angela,

Um, I'm not sure really how the beginning of the relationship was, but I know towards the end, like before, you know, right after all this happened, he was just very controlling, very controlling. Um, he, she was afraid of him, extremely afraid of him as were the boys. Um, 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. So what can you tell me about the relationship between Angela and Billy Wagner? 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 on multiple occasions. Like, you know, you're not going to leave.

Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back in a moment. Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind.

Stories about regaining a sense of safety, a handle on reality after your entire world is flipped upside down from unbelievable romantic betrayals. The love that was so real for me was always just a game for him. To betrayals in your own family. When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. Financial betrayal.

This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars. And life or death deceptions. She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Walzak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI. Come on.

In 2001, police say I killed my family. First mom, then the kids. And rigged my house to explode. In a quiet suburb. This is the Beverly Hills of the Valley. Before escaping into the wilderness. There was sleet and hail and snow coming down. They found my wife's SUV. Right on the reservation boundary. And my dog flew. All I could think of is him and the sniper me out of some tree.

But not me. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. For two years. They won't tell you anything. I've traveled the nation. I'm going down in the cave. Tracking down clues. They were thinking that I picked him up and took him somewhere. If you keep asking me this, I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Searching for Robert Fisher. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world.

Do you recognize my voice? Join an exploding house, the hunt, family annihilation today and a disappearing act. Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite shows. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I spent almost a decade researching right wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters.

But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsman plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to. Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat.

It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This account of Angela and Billy's relationship piqued our curiosity. So we started poking around for more information about the Wagners. Most of what we uncovered 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. Draco 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 Wagners...

Had a lot of different sides 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 people who were at a disadvantage out of money. Yeah.

And these are substantiated court documents. Yeah, the longer we looked into it, the longer it seemed like the Wagners, 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, you get protective. Frederico Wagner had been...

very much built the family business. Frederica Wagner was the one who kept the family business going. She kept the family businesses on track. And, 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 dominance in the area. So I can definitely understand sort of protectiveness of that. And in those cases, you,

You know, maybe you close ranks a little bit. You stick to kin. You know, blood is thicker than water. As we talked to more people in the community, we found that these rumblings about the Wagners' business practices had been circulating for years. And some held to deep distrust of the family and their once sterling reputation. Jeff got Barbara's thoughts about grandmother Frederica Wagner. All I've ever heard about her is, I've heard how wonderful she is.

How generous she was. I never heard a bad word about that woman, 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 what I mean? Yeah. They seemed like everyone was on the surface, like everyone loved them. And then when this happens, all the other dirt kind of starts coming out. It's like I can see beneath that surface.

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, that the charges against Frederico Wagner were eventually dropped, and Rita Jo Newcomb ended up taking a plea deal. There's more to tell on these grandmother stories, but we'll get to all that later.

According to official court documents, all four of the Wagner family are considered trigger pullers, meaning each one of them had a hand in killing the rodents that night, which means they drove house to house, one at a time, killing eight people.

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?

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 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 Roden family and the Wagner family? We got very curious about the relationship between Jake Wagner and Hannah Roden.

Here's the anonymous Wagner relative again. Jake, he had got involved with Hannah Roden. Hannah Roden is the middle Roden 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. Eventually, you know, they had separated and everything, but they had separated, I guess, on bad terms.

It seemed that the demise of their relationship had sparked an ugly custody battle surrounding Sophia. 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 comment, you know, that he were going to kill her.

Next time on The Pikedon Massacre.

Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm John Walzak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI.

In 2001, police say I killed my family and rigged my house to explode before escaping into the wilderness. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. Join me. I'm going down in the cave. As I track down clues. I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Hunting. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world. Robert Fisher. Do you recognize my voice? Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the Weird Little Guys trying to destroy America.

Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.