A Family Torn
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You know, this was an abusive relationship between Hannah Mae and Jake. She talked about Jake chasing her down in a vehicle one time. Even though George Wagner is the one on trial here, all of this testimony about Jake is relevant because prosecutors say a custody battle over s**t is the reason four members of the Wagner family murdered eight members of the Roden family.

One of the defense lawyers told the jurors that every time you hear the Wagners, keep in mind that George Wagner is the only one on trial here. This is The Pikedon Massacre, Return to Pike County. Season 4, Episode 8, A Family Torn. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Lidecker and Jeff Shane. In the middle of George Wagner IV's trial, a typical Ohio fall has settled on Pikedon.

The wind has picked up and temperatures are dropping into the 30s. But unlike the vibrant autumn leaves springing up all around the Pike County Courthouse in Waverly, Ohio, the mood in the courtroom is dark. In the biggest murder investigation in Ohio's history, Jake Wagner's older brother, George IV, stares down eight counts of aggravated murder with death penalty specifications.

It's important to note that George Wagner IV, currently on trial, has pleaded not guilty and has maintained he did not kill anyone. His father, Billy Wagner, whose trial is upcoming, has also pleaded not guilty to all charges. This episode contains frequent mentions of the names of the children impacted by this crime. We will continue to avoid exposing their identities. Here's Judge Randy Dearing.

Now, is the state ready to proceed at this time? Yes, Your Honor. Is the defense ready to proceed? Yes. All right. The state may call another witness. Of course, this entire trial has been gut-wrenching. But today's testimony was also deeply emotional, as Prosecutor Angie Canepa called friends and family of the Rodens to the stand. These relatives and friends were forced to relive the day the Rodens had been murdered, where they were when they found out whom they were with and how they handled the harrowing news.

The first witness was April Manley, the wife of James Manley, Dana Roden's brother. April was Hanameh's aunt and extremely close to her. She has long blonde hair and wears a rose-colored V-neck sweater on the stand. Intermittently, April wipes tears from her eyes. She lives less than a mile to the east of Dana Roden's home.

On the morning of the murders, April said she rode in the ambulance to Adams County Regional Medical Center with Hanameh's newborn baby, her child with Charlie Gilley. The four-day-old was unharmed. Fighting back tears, April said her husband James knew something was wrong when, outside the road and home, he heard Hanameh's infant crying nonstop. They knew Hanameh would not let her baby cry like that. So your husband comes back and tells you that he believes Dana is dead?

What do you do as a result of that? I went with him out to Dana's. He was an emotional wreck. I didn't want him to be alone. Did he tell you anything about at that time? James, yes. He said that he'd heard crying, but he went and walked back there because he knew what kind of a mother Hannah was, and she wouldn't be letting her like that. So he was concerned because he felt Hannah would have been tending to the baby. Yes.

Then, at the hospital, April had what she described as an unsettling encounter with Jake. According to April, Jake seemed apathetic about Hannah Mae Roden's death. He seemed more concerned with taking custody of her newborn child, who, we would come to learn, was not even his. And while you were there, did anybody else show up to the hospital? I don't recall who all, but I knew there was a couple of my nieces and nephews there, and

a cousin of mine and then eventually at the end jake showed up jake wagner and where were you when jake wagner showed up i was outside and can you tell us how that interaction went it was motionless that makes sense they cried and like he wasn't worried about nothing wasn't someone that bought had just lost someone they claimed to love so he was not showing emotion in that time why was he there

He came to check on to see if he could take her. Did you inform him that he could not take her? Yes. And did he hug you at all while he was there? Yes. April then commented that she wondered whether Jake had Hannah's blood on him when he was embracing her. Jake was extremely controlling over Hannah Mae Roden, April said, and had negatively shaped her body image. He was very controlling over Hannah.

We wasn't allowed to take a check or treat and even know whether it was Hannah's week. Hannah was always a chunky little monkey. And she had got down so tiny because he would tell her that she was fat and tell her not to eat. Did Hannah ever tell you that she was scared? Yes. Of Jake? Yes. And did she indicate that she was afraid of Jake and his family? Yes. Okay. And can you tell us...

The defense objects to this line of questioning and Judge Dearing sustains the objection. According to April, Jake also physically threatened Hannah on multiple occasions, even engaging her in a dangerous high-speed chase.

And can you tell us, you indicated Jake Wagner was the one who would be around the most because of Hannah, and that he would sometimes be up at that residence that Frankie and Hazel were found in when Dana and Hannah and little Chris lived there. Yes. Can you tell us what your interactions would have been with him? We didn't interact. I didn't like him. He didn't like me. Okay. Why not? Because he thought I was nosy and he needed to stay in my place because I would defend Hannah.

Okay. And how do you know that he felt that way? Because it was at my house one evening and they'd got into it and Hannah had left. She had just got her driver's license. She was a new driver. And she called me. He had left after and she called me and said he was chasing her around at high speeds. And I told her to try to get away somewhere and she finally got away from him and hid behind a church on Union Hill.

And I called her mom, and her mom called her dad, and then I called Hannah back and stayed all the time with her. And so Chris got to her. April commented that it wasn't only Jake she found scary. Hannah was also fearful of Billy Wagner, who usually walked around with a gun holster to his side. April also described the disturbing experience of seeing the Wagners at the Rodents' funerals. Did you see Billy Wagner there at the funeral? Yes.

Emotional and raw, April Manley was an effective witness for Angie Kanepa's team, offering deeper insight into Jake's depravity. Here's Law and Crime Network reporter Anjanette Levy. She's been following the case for years.

I think April Manley provided some really good testimony for the prosecution. She talked about how, you know, this was an abusive relationship between Hannah Mae and Jake. She talked about how the Wagners, Billy, George, and Jake attended the funerals of the Roden family members. I mean, that's pretty stunning to think that somebody who

was part of killing your family members showed up at the funerals with their family members who were also accused. Now, Billy and George maintain they didn't do this. They've pleaded not guilty. But just the fact that we actually have photographs and video of Jake and George and Billy at the funerals is pretty stunning. It's very eerie. But April Manley provided some testimony that was very damaging to Jake Wagner.

It should be pointed out that none of April's testimony incriminates George IV or puts him at the crime scene. Nor does it indicate that George Wagner had any motive to carry out his brother's grudge against Hannah Mae Roden. But according to Ohio-based criminal defense attorney and legal analyst Mike Allen, Kanepa is trying to weave a larger narrative about the Wagners as a family unit that did everything together, including murder.

One of the defense lawyers in his opening statement was very, very short, told the jurors that every time you hear the Wagners, you know, keep in mind that George Wagner is the only one on trial here.

And, you know, we don't know what went on in chambers when the judge talks to the prosecutor in defense counsel. I mean, perhaps the judge told the prosecutor, hey, you know, you're getting a little bit of field on some of these witnesses. You're going to have to narrow it down. That happens all the time. But it sure seems, though, like she had pretty much free reign to tell the tale of the Wagner family, even if what the witnesses were saying was not particularly relevant to

to George. A lot of testimony came in that was not relevant to George. As a matter of fact, I'd go as far as to say most of it. But again, she's telling the story. The judge was letting her do it. I would have done the same thing if I was prosecuting the case.

Judges will permit prosecutors to do things like this, telling the tale and setting it up like that. But at some point, if it gets to be too much, the judge can step in. But he didn't feel it appropriate to do that. And, you know, again, I think it was the prosecutor's desire to just weave the tale about how awful this family was. Another part of the prosecution's strategy is to maintain constant sympathy for the victims.

Obviously, the prosecutor wants to create as much sympathy for the victims that she can. And from what I understand, she has been able to do that. You know, the Rodens are obviously their family members were brutally murdered and they want to be there. And it helps the state, too, with the jury, because, again, I think there was emotion shown at the appropriate time. So it helps the state. Were the Wagners, including George, the tight knit clan they appeared to be?

Did they always take action as a unit, following what's known in the Appalachian fringe as the Code of the Hills? So far, the prosecution may have fallen short of proving that. Here again, Anjanette.

Jake's daughter, custody of his daughter, is really what the prosecution says was the motive in this case. And they say it's a conspiracy and that four people were involved in the conspiracy. So a lot of the testimony seems to point more to Jake. And we hear way more about Jake and Angela Wagner than we do about George. So George seems like in some ways suspicious.

to not be that much of a fixture or a feature in his own murder trial at a lot of points when we're listening to some of this testimony. It seems strange. It's not the first time I've covered a trial where it seems like you don't hear that much about the defendant. When I've seen this happen in the past, it's always been an experience

A case that involved more than one defendant, right? I mean, Jake Wagner is really the main player in this case. And Jake Wagner, of course, pleaded guilty and admitted it, said that this is why the family carried out these crimes.

But if you're George Wagner's defense attorneys, I would think you'd be thinking, you know what? My guy's name hasn't been mentioned very often up to this point. So I'd be trying to exploit that as much as I could because it's all been about Jake and Hannah Mae or about Angela and Hannah Mae or Angela and Jake and the child. It hasn't really been that much about George. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in a moment.

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Your testimony is that you saw George Wagner a few times at Chris's fireworks, correct? Yes. Okay. In that you knew him enough to recognize him, correct? Correct. Okay. And in addition to that, you saw him at the funeral? Correct. Okay. Do you recognize him in the courtroom here today? Yes. And can you please tell us where he is sitting and what he is wearing? Over there in that vest and white shirt and black tie.

Cody and Frankie Roden were best friends. Frankie lived down the road from Cody and rode with him every day to work. On the morning of April 22nd, Frankie didn't show up at Cody's house like he usually did. So Cody drove over to the Roden's to see what was going on. Cody described arriving at the scene of the murders and seeing his Aunt Bobbie Jo Manley's car along with a police officer's car. He then walked into the scene of the crime. I just pulled alongside the road and walked into Frankie's. Okay.

And can you tell us where did you see the cop car and where was Bobby Joe's car? Bobby Joe's car was in the driveway slash yard. And the cop car was like driveway slash road. Okay. So kind of half in the driveway and half in the road. Right. And you walked into Frankie's house. Right. Okay. And what happened? I went to his bedroom and like froze. Why did you freeze? Because I saw things I didn't want to see. What he saw was Frankie Roden and Hannah Hazel lying in a pool of blood.

Cody testified that Chris Sr.'s dog, Chance, probably knew the killers because it would have likely attacked them if he didn't. Something special about Chance. Something different. What was that? What do you mean, different? Well, was Chance a gentle dog or not? To me, yes, he was gentle. To you, and Chance knew you because you'd been to that property often, right? Right. How was Chance with people he didn't know?

They wouldn't have went in the house. Here's Anjanette's overview of Cody's testimony.

Cody Manley is Hannah Mae's cousin and the son of James and April Manley. And he was close with Frankie Roden. He ended up actually going down to Frankie's house and saw Bobby Joe in the driveway. And he walked into the house to see what was going on. And he actually found Frankie and Hannah Hazel dead in the bed.

A deputy came in and told him, look, you've got to get out of here. He said he was frozen. He just couldn't move. And he testified about Hannah Mae being fearful of the Wagners. He didn't say necessarily that Hannah Mae was fearful of George, but that she did fear the Wagners. She wasn't living there with the Wagners anymore. That's why she broke it off with Jake.

He had made some threats to her in the past as well and kept her in her bedroom for periods of time and wouldn't let her leave the house. So listening to Cody Manley talk about how Hannah was fearful of the Wagners was pretty telling. First of all, can you tell us your name? Kendra Roden. And Kendra, can you tell us how old you are? 25. Okay. And where do you work? I currently work as a nurse at Brookdale.

Kendra Roden, Kenneth's daughter, also gave heart-wrenching testimony. She wore a white shirt with lace accents and her long blonde hair in a neat braid. She was extremely close to Hannah Mae and witnessed many of Jake's abuses.

And you mentioned Hannah. Who are you talking about when you say Hannah? Hannah Roden. She was Chris's daughter. She was my cousin, my best friend. We were like sisters. And can you tell us for how long of your life that was? Did that start in early childhood or did that start later in life? Early childhood. We were only a month apart, so we had been together forever.

Kendra echoed April Manley's claim that Jake was controlling and cruel. Did you continue to hang out with Jake and Hannah on various occasions? Yes. Was there ever a time that you expressed a disliking of Jake? Yes, I told Hannah I did not like Jake. And can you tell us what led you to say that? He would constantly try to be controlling. He would follow her anywhere we went. She was never allowed to be alone.

So give us some examples of that. An example would be when we went to the Raritan Whitetail Deer Festival. Hannah would need to go to the bathroom, or we would say that we were going to go to the bathroom, and Jake had to tag along. And then he would wait outside until we were done. And did anything happen at the, I believe you said the Scioto County Fair? No.

Yes, ma'am. Okay. At the Scioto County Fair, Jake had made a demeaning remark to Hannah Roden and grabbed her by the arm in which I turned and kicked him in the shin because I didn't like it, and then Hannah got in between the both of us. She had come to me. She had arranged a little day for us to be together, and we had went to a man-made pond that my family had built out on Left Fork Road. We were swimming and fishing in the pond there.

At one point during her separation, Hannah shared with Kendra deeply disturbing voice recordings of Jake.

It was testimony that ran a gauntlet of objections from the defense. At some point, did Hannah end up leaving Jake Wagner? Yes, ma'am. And what do you remember from that? The night that she had left Jake, she came to my mother's residency where I was staying at, 70 Millers Lane. And she was a little distraught.

We lied in my bed and she had played audio recordings from Jake Wagner, phone calls that they had had or from when they were in person. There are multiple different ones about incidents that had occurred between Jake and her. And do you know what occurred between them? Yes, ma'am. She not only told me but had played audio recordings of Jake admitting to hitting her, choking her, pushing her against a wall.

When he was admitting to that stuff, what was the tenor of those or the tone of those recordings? Was he saying other things to her? And was this before or after Hannah had left Jake? It was after she had left Jake. How were you able to listen to this conversation? Hannah had the phone on speakerphone. That way I could be witness to anything that was said. And that was an intentional act on her part? Yes, ma'am. Okay.

And how do you know that it was Jake Wagner on the other end of the phone? I've met Jake before. I've talked to Jake before. I know his voice. And what was that discussion that you heard? The discussion was actually because Hannah had found out she was pregnant with her youngest. And Jake had believed that was his. And we were trying to point out to him that she absolutely was not his and that he couldn't be a part of her life. And at what point do you learn?

My Aunt Michelle had later got a text because none of us had service, and she became frantic and screamed out that my father was dead. You were still at the church at that time? Yes, ma'am. Let's stop here for another break. The hottest new social casino is finally here, and you need to see what all the excitement is about. Visit ZulaCasino.com. At Zula, you can play more than 500 Vegas casino-style games for free. Sign up today for an exclusive bonus. Be on the lookout for daily mega jackpots

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Do you stay at the church?

Upon learning that my father had been killed as well, I walked down the hill there until a family friend had actually picked me up. Her name was Melissa. And I told her that I just needed to get across the highway. She took me across the highway and I got out. There was a statey there that stopped me. I was trying to get to Hannah because I just wanted to be with her. I was crying and the statey

I had dropped to the ground in the state. He helped me get back up. At what point did you learn that something had happened? My boyfriend at the time had woken me up around 8:30. We had missed a phone call from a family friend, Nicole Francis, that had said that my uncle, Chris Sr., had been shot. She had heard it on a police radio. So I called her back, and at that point she had told me that Chris had been shot.

I tried to call Hannah. I couldn't get a hold of Hannah. I couldn't get a hold of anybody. So my brother and I, his girlfriend and my ex-boyfriend, we drove to Union Hill, in which we were stopped just before Frankie's driveway. Stopped by whom? The sheriffs that were there. At the time that you got that call, was the only information you had was that Chris Sr. had been shot? Yes, ma'am.

At what point did you learn differently? At some point my brother, Luke Roden, had obtained some information from one of the sheriffs that Hannah had also been shot, in which he had come and told me that she had been shot as well and she was dead. What did you do at that point? I became very upset. I couldn't believe that she had also been shot. I cried.

We each, there was a few of us that had actually tried to push past the sheriffs. At this point, George IV's lawyer began a flimsy cross, asking Kendra if she had any knowledge of Chris Sr.'s drug dealings. The line of questioning ran aground. Now, referring to the information which you had provided previously to law enforcement,

You had given information about an individual you know as Big Mike, is that right? Yes. And Big Mike is someone who is from the Cincinnati area? To my knowledge. Okay. That's information that you had given agents though, right? That I had heard from my father. You were asked about drug dealing with your family's involvement with drug dealing, right? You're on it.

You were asked that question? Yes. Okay. And so I'm eventually going to ask you about Big Mike. Did you ever observe an African-American male with Chris Sr. or your father? Not that I recall. Okay. Do you have personal knowledge of Chris Sr. preparing to buy a building for a pill mill? No. Do you remember providing that information to agents? I provided it based on hearsay. Okay.

You were also asked about Billy Wagner by agents, right? Yes. You described the relationship between Chris Sr. and Billy Wagner as business associates. Yes. Okay. You're aware of Chris Sr.'s involvement with marijuana trafficking, right? Yes. And you're aware that he was engaged in more than just marijuana trafficking? Not firsthand knowledge. You had told BCI agents about more than just marijuana trafficking, right? Yes, based on what I heard.

Thank you. Again and again, the defense failed to gain ground in George IV's favor. But neither really did the prosecution make a clear case against Jake's older brother, George. Instead, they seemed focused on painting Jake as a sociopath. Here again, Mike Allen. It's not all that probative or relevant because George is on trial, not Jake. But I think the prosecution had a strategy to paint Jake

as kind of a depraved lunatic throughout the entire trial. And I think they were successful in doing it. I mean, any time that they could take a shot at Jake one way or the other, they did. I think that was probably the strategy there. Oh, I think the jury's picking up on that. And the prosecutor has been pounding it throughout the trial. And it just shows that this is a family affair.

Like no other family that I've seen before, they're depraved and they don't care about anyone other than their family. And that is coming through loud and clear on this trial. But George's abusive tendencies will come to light soon when his ex-wife Tabitha takes the stand. Here's Mike and Anjanette.

Well, Tabitha was on the stand the next day and gave testimony that she worked at the group home that Frederica Wagner owned. It was called Crystal Springs. She cheated on George while working at that group home. They fired her and took her phone. She wasn't allowed to go outside home alone when she was there.

And it's really frightening too. You know, she talked about that night she fled the house. She said that Angela and Hannah Mae had gone out to get some toys for the kids and she was home with her son and Angela had told her she claimed that she needed to clean up the dishes from lunch. Well, she didn't do it. She laid down to take a nap with her son.

And she said that when Angela came home, she was very upset with her for not completing that task or that chore. There was an argument. George got upset with her for yelling at Angela. George slapped her and hit her with a belt. She escaped living with them by hiding under George's truck, then getting a bike out of the barn and riding away.

She rode the bike down to the gas station down the road and she had her mom pick her up. She was hiding from them because she was scared of being shot. George took their son to Alaska when the Wagners fled, but did not let Tabitha know. She had no contact with her son while the Wagners were in Alaska. George kept making excuses as to why.

And one of George's closest friends testifies that George wasn't his usual self after the killings. Samantha Staley had also testified, though, that after the homicides, she was with George and some other people and they went fishing. And she said he wasn't the same George.

He just seemed different. It wasn't the same George. And she brought up the fact that Frankie had been killed and the rest of the family, and he, George, she said, told her to shut the F up, which sounds like it was pretty out of character for him, at least when dealing with her. More on that next time. For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kt underscore studios.

The Pikedon Massacre is produced by Stephanie Lidecker, Jeff Shane, Alan Weider, Andrew Arnau, Gabriel Castillo, and me, Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Twa. Music by Jared Aston. The Pikedon Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio and KT Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Who could have killed eight family members in one night?

I lost my best friend and I will never be the same because of that day. Four crime scenes, no DNA, no witnesses. The killer left those children laying in their mother's blood. The word that comes to mind is overkill. Who was the mastermind? I'm telling you, if they frame us, I'm not sitting in prison. One thing I learned...

The smaller the town, the bigger the secrets. Be sure to watch our upcoming documentary, The Pike County Murders, A Family Massacre, premiering on NBC Universal's Oxygen Network and also streaming on Peacock this Thanksgiving Day weekend, November 24th and November 25th. Please check your local listings, and our hearts are with the Rodens and the Gilley families.

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