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Imagine this. You go to your sister's house, to your nephew's house. You open the door and you find them shot to death in bed. It sounds medieval almost. But George Wagner of the Force lawyers disputed almost all of that. They also pointed out that their client, despite facing eight aggravated murder charges, is not believed to have killed anyone. This is the Pikes and Massacre Return to Pike County. Season 4, Episode 3, Con Artists and Liars.
I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Leidecker and Jeff Shane. On the first day of the trial of George Wagner IV, opening statements for the prosecution clocked in at four hours. It raised some eyebrows among media and legal experts for its length and amount of detail. After a lunch break, it was time for the defense to make their case heard. The defense attorney you'll hear is Richard Nash.
Is the defense ready to give an opening statement? Yes, Your Honor. All right. You may do so. It's important to note that George Wagner IV, who is currently on trial, and his father, Billy Wagner, whose trial is upcoming, have pleaded not guilty to all charges. Good afternoon, everybody. April the 22nd of 2016, George Wagner lived on Peterson Road, and that day started off like most days.
Nash is in his mid-40s, bald with a beard and glasses. He wears a bright red tie. Nash jumps right into the defense's narrative of what happened the morning after the murders. George knew he had one task that he had to do that day, and that was to disassemble a building, a wood shed, so to speak. That was the one thing that he had to do. But before George could take off to do that, he noticed that
Jake was off in that new barn up on that hill on Peterson Road. Nash is alluding to a barn that sits on a hill above where the entire Wagner family resided at the time of the murders. At that point, nothing seemed suspicious to George, although again it was off, but Jake was already up that day, and usually Jake is the second to rise. While they were headed back home to Peterson Road, Jake's cell phone went off.
There the caller was Andrew Carson. Andrew Carson said hello Jake and there he had a conversation. That's when he thought he was the first to tell Jake that the mother of his child, Hannah, had been murdered along with six of her relatives. Jake, according to Mr. Carson,
put on an act worthy of an Academy Award. An act where he conned Carson into thinking that he was the first to tell him as he wept and cried on the phone and that is the first time George learned about murders. It's at this point the whole world becomes privy to the defense's main argument. George was not there that night and didn't know about the murders until the next day.
This is the first time we're hearing about this, let alone at his trial. It's a pretty bold move by the defense to say he wasn't there, period. My takeaway is that what George Wagner is attempting to do, which is a pretty interesting strategy, is remove himself from the culpability of even being aware that the murders were happening and letting them happen. And it might work. I mean, the only evidence that we know of that the prosecution has is this shoe print
As we know, there's nothing really tying George Wagner to the Rodin murders, the night of the murders. And this is a plausible workaround that the defense has come up with or is possibly the truth. We don't know. That's yet to be proven. But wouldn't that completely discount what his brother, Jake Wagner, is saying? It would, Steph. But what I think George Wagner is doing is thinking about his own safety at this point. He's not worried about what Jake's plea deal is or what Angela's plea deal is. He's worried about himself.
What a showdown that's actually going to be when you take this part into account as well. So for the first time, George Wagner is going to see his brother, Jake Wagner, but they're also going to completely disagree on the story. Shakespeare couldn't have written this better himself. I mean, we've heard how close these two brothers were for years growing up, that they stood by each other, that they protected one another.
Now this contradictory story is really going to play out in court. And, you know, we've been wrong before in terms of what our theories are, what we think, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that George Wagner did not know about these murders. Here's reporter Anjanette Levy.
I think it's interesting that they say that George wasn't even there. And I guess they have to, right? Because if he's there, he's going down for aggravated murder. So they can't concede that point to the state. But they've talked about in a pretrial motion in the past that Jake said that George went along at the last minute because he feared that Billy might kill Jake at the end of the night. They've quoted Jake as saying that. Local journalist James Pilcher was also in the courtroom.
The defense is clearly stating that George wasn't there, that the first he heard about the murders was the next morning, and that Jake had gotten up before him and was getting rid of the evidence that morning before he even got up. And that was surprising to me, that they would play that gambit, but really, really hammering on the fact that there is absolutely not one shred of physical evidence that
specifically tying George Wagner to the scene of the crimes or that he killed anybody. So they are going to leverage that as much as possible as this trial goes on. It's clear at this point that the defense is going all in against the rest of the Wagner family. Nash continues to separate George from his relatives. After some time, BCI had narrowed down who they felt were suspects. In fact, it's worthy to note
that BCI had interviewed Jake Wagner four times. BCI conducting their investigation also felt it was important that they interview Angela Wagner. The third person that they felt that was important to talk to in the Wagner household was Billy Wagner. George was right there. Not once did they ever ask to speak with George.
Earlier that day, during the prosecution's opening statement, Angie Canepa revealed that authorities kept tabs on the Wagners before their arrests, even when they were in Alaska. When the family decided to come back to Ohio, investigators were waiting for them at the U.S.-Canadian border. Imagine, if you will,
Four individuals being surprised at a Montana border. Agents putting them in separate rooms and BCI walking in and questioning them. First Billy gets in the vehicle. He's released first. And then Angela gets in the vehicle. Not a word. Not a word about, oh my gosh. Can you believe that happened? They think we did this? No conversation like that at all. No conversation at all about what just happened. We find out later.
that there's a reason for that because Billy had told them, you know, be quiet. The defense tells its side of the story. We had special agents who had four different rooms where they spoke with all four family members. And George had an agent there speaking with him, Special Agent Hageman. And he told George, "Your family has big problems, George. Do you want to be a witness or do you want to be a suspect?"
Here again, James Pilcher. He was being questioned by the BCI when they came across the border in Montana. And he said, yeah, he had problems with his family, but he never knew them to be violent. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe they would kill somebody, and he did not. Special Prosecutor Angie Canepa objects, and she and Defense Attorney Nash approach the bench and huddle with Judge Deering. It is very highly unusual.
that the prosecution would interrupt somebody just five minutes into their opening statement. And at that point, they went to the bench and argued for two minutes and then went back into chambers and argued for another eight to nine minutes. And then the judge says, you know, opening statements are not evidence. So clearly the prosecution was trying to say he's throwing this out there and he doesn't have any proof for it and he needs to be called out.
You may continue your opening statement. Thank you, Judge. So back to that interview room with Special Agent Hageman, he had just a few statements to make. Then he said, "If I don't know who did it, then you all go down for conspiracy." And so Hageman never received any information. And here George says, "If I don't hear who did it, you all go down for conspiracy."
This is a trial about the state of Ohio against George Wagner. It's not the Wagners. It's not Billy Wagner. It's not Angela Wagner, nor is it Jake Wagner. This is all about George. There are certain things in life that we can't control. One of those things is our birth name. Unfortunately, George cannot help that he's a Wagner, but that doesn't make him a murderer.
They are clearly relying on the fact that the prosecution has burden to prove here. They can just play defense and swat away anything, or that they can sit there and say, well, George didn't know anything, and how can you prove it? George gets more animated as his attorney speaks, making eye contact with the jury. The media outside the courthouse is quick to comment.
And what the defense has really done well out is really try to paint George as an individual, an individual who happened to be part of a family who had kind of a sordid past and a past with corruption and other criminal behavior. But their argument essentially is just because his family is this way doesn't mean that he's this way. And it certainly doesn't make him a murderer. As you hear the evidence in this case, there's five things I want you to pay attention to.
The first is going to be what Jake says. Jake will tell you that George had nothing to do with the planning of these murders. Jake will tell you that George shot no one. Jake will tell you that George did nothing to destroy any evidence. He is clearly pointing the finger at Jake and Angela and Billy and that George had nothing to do with it.
So did they just change their story because now they've seen all of the evidence and are just sort of making a strategy switch? Yeah, I think so. And I think what they're going to do is just call the credibility Jake and Angela because that's what this case relies on. The second thing that I want you to pay attention to will be the credibility of Angela and Jake. The third thing that I want you to pay attention to is the incentives that were offered by the state of Ohio
for such heinous crimes to Angela and Jake to get them to talk, to get them to tell a story. This is a family of con artists, liars, and thieves. He says that in the opening. And that Jake became the vessel for all of that, and George was not like that. George wanted to get away from that. And it's up to the prosecution to prove otherwise. That second thing I wanted to talk to you about is Jake and Angela, who are con artists and liars.
We've already touched on it some, but Angela is the con artist through and through. That's who the state has as their key witness, con artists and liars. Clearly the defense's strategy is going to be, these people are liars, you can't believe a thing they said. They've lied before, what makes you think they're not lying now? The con didn't stop then, it's continued, it's who they are. They've conned the state of Ohio into the most heinous crime, into a 30 year sentence.
In a sentence most deserving of death, he escapes with life. The plea deal is what I'm speaking of. In order to avoid the death penalty, they must implicate George. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in a moment.
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As Nash lays into the rest of the Wagners, George listens with a hint of sadness on his face. Going back to the morning after the murders, the defense lays out their story. According to Nash, Jake was in the barn destroying cell phones, burning clothes, and breaking down the silencers and weapons used in the murders. There's no physical evidence George was at any of those murder scenes. There's no DNA, there's no prints, and BCI knew he had no motive.
Outside the courtroom, Mike Allen comments. Sure seems like it's a strong case for the state. But you know, the defense, I don't think they'd be taking this to trial unless they thought they had something. So it's going to be interesting to see. Again, two of the family members pled out to give people backstory. That's correct. Two pled out. I think the state's loaded for bear. But again, we just don't know what the defense strategy is. It's going to be interesting to see.
The defense closes by once again highlighting the character differences between their client, George Wagner IV, and the rest of the Wagner family. The last thing I want to tell you about is George is not like his mother, his father, or his brother. He's different from them. George disagreed with the way that his family lived their life. He disagreed with them so much he actually engaged in physical fist fights with his father.
George disliked the way that that family functioned so much, he was not part of them, that as soon as he could leave that home, as soon as he got his driver's license when he was 16 years old, he left. He ran away. George, like most 16 year olds, couldn't make it at 16, so unfortunately he had to come back home. We believe the evidence will show that George could not have committed these murders. And it goes further.
We believe the evidence will show that Jake, in fact, killed all eight. But he had to implicate his father in actually killing somebody. But the evidence will show that Jake killed all eight.
We've heard mixed things about George over the years, but we also have heard that he was just very loved and had close friendships, had very close relationships. I go back to our interview with Chris Newcomb, who was Angela Wagner's half-brother, and he grew up very close with Jake and George.
And he explained to us he felt completely betrayed by George specifically because he considered him more like a brother than anything else. And he couldn't possibly imagine that he would have had anything to do with this.
more than any of the other family members. And so I guess, I mean, is it possible that George didn't do this and he's been roped into this awful crime by his family who was scheming to kind of bring him down with them? Either that or he's a really good liar. This is the outline, your bullet points. You're going to see this, this and this.
Now, the prosecution obviously went much longer. They have a much, much bigger case. They have all this evidence that they've been gathering for four years and not been able to present to anybody. And so they just dumped it all over the jury. Knowing what we know now about the opening statements and what has been said, is it becoming possible that he could walk free?
Or does that still seem completely impossible? It depends on how believable the jury finds Jake and Angela. Is it possible that he walks free? Absolutely, it's possible. You never can tell. The next morning, witness testimony begins. First up is victim Dana Roden's sister, Bobbie Jo Manley.
Bobby Manley and a friend found the first two victims, Chris Roden Sr. and his cousin Gary. That discovery was quickly followed by this anguished 911 call, which was played for the jury.
Yes, I need up, Jeffy. 4077. 4077. 4077. Okay, 4077. Correct? Yes, 4077. Ma'am, ma'am, can you tell me what's going on? There's blood all over that.
I think they're both dead. I think they're both dead. It looks like someone has beat the fuck out of them. Okay. Is there anybody else in the house? Not that I know of.
Okay. The door was locked when we got here, but I know where the key was at. And I went in and there was a lady on the floor. I'm done now. I'm staying outside right now. Okay. Just stay out of the house for a while. Anybody go in there, okay? Yeah. All right. We got that video on the way, okay? All right. Thank you. You're welcome.
I think it's always just worth mentioning. So many listeners reach out on a regular basis giving us tips, and we take every one of them seriously and do our very best to go down the rabbit hole on each of them. We've also had listeners reach out to say,
They thought they heard something, for example, in the 911 call. Was there something else in the background that maybe we hadn't covered before? And we did look into that, for example, and ultimately we weren't able to hear anything that wasn't already reported about.
Anything that listeners send us, we put through a very strict filter of whether or not it's worth sharing on this platform. We don't want to share any rumors or any mistruths because we know how toxic that can be for the family. But yeah, we always encourage our listeners to share and interact with the show.
After finding Chris Roden Sr. and Gary Roden, Manley told Kanepa she and her friend checked another trailer nearby and found the bullet-riddled bodies of Frankie Roden and his fiancée, Hannah Gilley. Mercifully, a baby boy, whom Hannah Gilley was likely nursing at the time, survived. As would be expected, Bobby Joe still feels the trauma of that day. Last season, Jeff spoke with her niece, who was very close to Hannah Mae Roden.
See, me and Hannah, we're only like six months and 14 days apart. So you guys grew up together. Yeah, we grew up together. We was pretty close.
Her and my little brother was close too. Him and Christopher wasn't very far apart either. When it first happened, like we was all really close with each other and after the year started going up, the only other time we gather is like when we want to do like a balloon release or a candle lighting for another year of them being dead. I used to hang out a lot with Bobby Jo, but like after everything happened, she just like completely changed.
When Bobby Cho takes the stand as the first witness in the trial of George Wagner IV, there is no camera coverage.
You know, a lot of people were watching the live stream and a lot of questions. Why was that? Why did that happen? Yeah, frustrating for people watching from home. Frustrating for all of us covering the trial as well. It's because of an order from Judge Deering here that allows witnesses to either opt in or opt out. They can decide they don't want to be broadcast and that's video or audio. We fought it, but the judge has ruled officially before this trial started that that's the way it is going to be.
Bobby Joe Manley tells her story to the jury. The media furiously taking notes in lieu of the camera feed. Bobby Joe, the youngest Manley sibling, was the first to find the bodies. Chris was Dana's ex-husband. Bobby Joe and a friend, Billy Morgan, found a trail of blood leading to the bedroom. Chris and his cousin, Gary, were dead on the floor covered by a comforter.
The prosecution also showed the jury photos from inside the trailers of Chris Sr., Frankie, and Dana Roden, including where the Wagner family is accused of dragging Chris' body back to his bedroom. There are three photos shown to the jury. The first is pointing back from the living room towards a cracked open front door. There's a vacuum and a child's play chair in the corner. On the couch are two camouflaged jackets. Kids' shoes are strewn about the floor.
There's a stick-on logo next to the front door that says simply, "Family." Another photo shows what looks to be a kid's room with a crib. The final photo is of a recliner in what looks to be the living room. There's a one-foot-wide streak of blood running from the base of the chair across the floor to somewhere else in the house. Anjanette Levy was in the courtroom for the first morning of testimony.
For Bobbie Jo being on the stand, I thought she did a really good job recalling some really horrific events in her life. Getting up there and testifying to these really awful things that have happened to their family and finding them and all of the things that they saw. Also on the stand today was a Pike County deputy who responded to the scene. In fact, they got flagged down by Bobbie Jo outside of Frankie Roden and Hannah Hazel Gilley's house.
I don't think anybody really wants to do that. When you're in public service, it's your job. And this is the biggest murder case in Ohio history. I'm so mad about this whole opting out crap. Like, if these family members can get up there and talk about these awful things, as if somebody paid by the taxpayers, you should be able to get up there too and show your face and talk about this. It's one thing to be fearful. If you fear retribution, I can understand being scared in this case.
I understand Bobbie Jo Manley. She seems like a very quiet person. I get that. When you have people in public service opting out...
What message does that send? It also doesn't send a good message when this is an area that sees a lot of police corruption, or at least has seen a lot of police corruption. You would think you'd want to get up there and take a stand and say, you know what, this is the process, this is the accountability we can offer, and it's been done right, and we aren't going to allow this type of thing to happen in our community. Dana Roden and Bobby Joe Manley's brother, James Manley, does not opt out.
His testimony gives us the first word-for-word account of what happened that morning from the perspective of the surviving members of the Roden family. His words are few. James Manley has a beard and wears a black shirt.
He sits back in his chair near the wall. Manley largely answers Angie Kanepa's questions with one or two word answers. I know this witness isn't showing much emotion right now here on the stand. However, I can't imagine what it would be like to come upon that crime scene and see...
all of that. I think he's amazingly composed in that he's describing probably the most horrific day of his life. And to ask him to go through that step by step without breaking down, without being emotional, I think he's doing a really good job. This prosecutor, I think, can do a better job helping that witness paint that awful picture for the jury.
If you have a witness that isn't as talkative as other people might be, the onus is on the prosecutor to then kind of get as close to a leading question as you can get or as the judge might allow, because you're just not going to get it from the witness. Let's stop here for another break.
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When you hit play on Post Reports, you'll get fascinating conversations and sometimes a little fun, too. I'm Martine Powers. And I'm Elahe Azadi. Martine and I are the hosts of Post Reports. The show comes out every weekday from The Washington Post. You can follow and listen to Post Reports wherever you get your podcasts. It'll be a match, I promise.
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He uses the present tense to describe Sister Kathy and the past tense to speak about his late sister, Dana Roden. When he gets there, he finds Bobby Joe Manley distraught.
I asked her what the hell happened. Okay. You asked Bobby Joe? Yep. Can you describe what you saw? Blood everywhere.
You said blood everywhere? Yeah. Okay. And when you say blood everywhere, can you tell us where specifically? It was on the body, on the bed, on the walls. Frankie Roden and his fiancee, Hannah Hazel Gilley, dead in bed. Hazel had been nursing their months-old son at the time, James Manley, then drove to his sister Dana's house down the road to tell her her son was dead. After you knocked on the door and it opened, what did you do? I yelled her name. Then what happened? My eyes.
At this point, Manley is showing emotion. His face is flushed as he describes finding his sister. Dana Roden's room is dark. He feels along the foot of her bed and touches her foot. He tries to wake her up. And when you got to where you thought her head was, what did you do?
I felt like a pillow over her head. I started to pick the pillow up and you feel it stuck. So you started lifting up the pillow, but you could feel that it was sticking? Yeah. Or it was stuck? Yeah. Okay. And you said then you ran out of the house or went out of the house? I just turned around and walked back out. Okay. And why did you do that? Like, what did you think? Because I figured she was dead too.
Okay, what made you think that? Cause where the pillow was stuck. Did you hear anything in the house? He could hear his niece, Hannah Mae Roden's new baby crying in another room. He just couldn't bring himself to look. She was dead there too. Her brother Chris Jr. dead in yet another room. The final testimony of day one is from Justin Wiering. He's one of the EMT drivers who gets to Frankie and Hannah Hazel's house shortly after James Manley does.
When he arrives, he sees kids in the yard. There were two. There was a young child that was probably four or five years old that was running around in the yard. And then there was an infant child who was around six months old. And did you notice anything unusual about the infant? The infant was covered with blood. His diaper was saturated with blood.
Images of an infant covered in the blood of his family are difficult to comprehend for everyone in the courtroom. This is only the beginning of a long, dark journey full of the horrific details of what happened that night in Pike County. We are also getting a first look at the crime scenes in the Pike County massacre, and we want to warn you, some of the images are disturbing.
We don't really know the full scope of what the Rodin family faced. Does the prosecution hold back any level of violence or the gore of that, or do they just put it all out there for them to see? Can you imagine the level of grief and despair to have to sit there and look at these autopsy photos? One of the issues, for instance, will be range of fire. You know, how far was it from the end of the muzzle to a bullet hole in the forehead?
I don't know that people can fully fathom what went on in those homes. It's mind-boggling. More on that next time. For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kt underscore studios. The Pyton Massacre is produced by Stephanie Lidecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves, Scott DeGraw, Andrew Arnau, and me, Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Twaugh.
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. Please welcome our Fife County Dogwood Festival Queen. Lord, I just thank you for bringing us all together as a community.
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 NBCUniversal'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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