Speaker 1: Welcome to The piked In Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Katie Studios. The only way I can really describe
Speaker 1: it is this is orchestrated. If you orchestrate something that
Speaker 1: goes to planning, everybody understands their position in the orchestra.
Speaker 1: They understand what notes to hit. They have a specific
Speaker 1: purpose and a job. They know the area and they
Speaker 1: know the prey. They know the nature of these individuals. Hell,
Speaker 1: they know where their homes are. They know where security
Speaker 1: cameras are. They know what they have to defeat to
Speaker 1: get past these and whether it be locks timing well
Speaker 1: if at the bedtime. They know all of this. That's
Speaker 1: why this is so shocking when you begin to think
Speaker 1: about it, is the level of orchestration involved to pull
Speaker 1: this thing off. This is the piked In Massacre. Returned
Speaker 1: to Pike County, Season two, Episode four, The Houses on
Speaker 1: Union Hill Road. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at
Speaker 1: Katie Studios with Stephanie Ledecker and Jeff Shane. Over two
Speaker 1: hundred investigators and police officers have contributed so far to
Speaker 1: this ongoing investigation. Today, they say they received eight hundred
Speaker 1: eighty three tips conducted four hundred sixty five interviews, did
Speaker 1: thirty eight search warrants, and sixty cyber extractions. Without question,
Speaker 1: this has been by four of the longest most complex
Speaker 1: and labor intensive investigation the Ohio Attorney General's Office has
Speaker 1: ever undertaken. As an investigator, I've worked any number of
Speaker 1: mass killings. I've never covered anything autists. That's corner Distinguished
Speaker 1: professor and criminal forensics expert Joseph Morgan. It is not
Speaker 1: a normal thing to walk into a house and seeablood
Speaker 1: mass It's something that borders only apocalyptic from the outset.
Speaker 1: The year magnitude of the case posed huge investigative hurdles
Speaker 1: for the Pike County Sheriff's Office. Pike County, it's a
Speaker 1: rural county. Of course, they don't have a lot of money.
Speaker 1: It's not a judgment, it's just the reality of it.
Speaker 1: When you begin to think about those detectives that were
Speaker 1: from this little area there for Pike, you know, from
Speaker 1: Pike County Shaf's apartment, it's something they'd never be more
Speaker 1: on witness too. It leads to limitations and your ability
Speaker 1: to processing. So it is a herculean undertaking for police investigators.
Speaker 1: And less than a month into the investigation, authorities made
Speaker 1: would seem to many like an unusual decision. Work has
Speaker 1: already begun to move the homes where eight members of
Speaker 1: the Rodent family were found shot to death last month
Speaker 1: in Pike County, Ohio. The judge has authorized his people
Speaker 1: to load the four mobile homes and transport them about
Speaker 1: four and a half miles north to the investigation command
Speaker 1: center in Waverley to preserve the crime scenes. Well, we
Speaker 1: talked with Joseph Morgan. We looked over aerial photos of
Speaker 1: the crime scenes before the mobile homes were removed. They're
Speaker 1: all we have to go on as no crime scene
Speaker 1: photos have been released. There's a mock ups showing the
Speaker 1: placement of the properties on our Instagram. The first few
Speaker 1: images were of the property where Chris Senior and Frankie
Speaker 1: Roden's trailers were located. Jeff got Morgan's thoughts on Pike
Speaker 1: County's relocation strategy. Looking at these aerial photos while we're
Speaker 1: talking about it. What really struck me They lived in trailers,
Speaker 1: but these look more like homes that are in the
Speaker 1: ground that aren't going anywhere. To me, that, like the
Speaker 1: crime scene is the most important part, and moving them
Speaker 1: like that seems like this was that would not be
Speaker 1: so easy. After the termination of this case and when
Speaker 1: it's finally these cases are all adjudicated, I'm going to
Speaker 1: want to study this from a crime scene perspective because
Speaker 1: I want to learn how they did this. I want
Speaker 1: to teach this because if they did it effectively, it's
Speaker 1: something that somebody could write an academic paper on. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's that big a deal. If you look at
Speaker 1: this image, you would have to detach that mobile home completely,
Speaker 1: and it's probably a foundational structure, so it's at least
Speaker 1: has a cinder block foundation that is built around the
Speaker 1: things that they can build a stick, build the structure
Speaker 1: around it, and then attach it to the mobile home.
Speaker 1: Just the sheer logistics of detaching this thing from the ground.
Speaker 1: I've certainly you never worked a case that involved multiple
Speaker 1: mobile homes that where people had been in dwelling for years,
Speaker 1: that are plumbed and have electricity run to them and
Speaker 1: have foundations, and that they're just lifted up off the
Speaker 1: ground and taken from there. This is a monumental task
Speaker 1: in or facilitate this. You've got to make sure that
Speaker 1: nothing is going to be disrupted in transit because everything
Speaker 1: is relative. It's relative. There's distance relationships, there's time relationships,
Speaker 1: because things degrade, they change. We've got bullet holes. Well,
Speaker 1: this is not like going into a static home. It's
Speaker 1: moving back and forth as it's kind of going down
Speaker 1: the road. So it's shifting. Well, what if it shifts
Speaker 1: just a few millimeters relative to if you're trying to
Speaker 1: pull trajectories on these bullets. So to that end, it
Speaker 1: really gives you pause to think, why was it that
Speaker 1: you wanted to move it from this location? By any measure.
Speaker 1: Investigating the Rodent murders was a massive undertaking. Eight bodies
Speaker 1: spread out across four bloody crime scenes, and soon after
Speaker 1: the victims were found, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and
Speaker 1: FBI agents were called in to help lead the charge.
Speaker 1: But according to Joseph Morgan, before the Rodent's mobile homes
Speaker 1: were moved, it was imperative that authorities analyze the scenes
Speaker 1: in their original states, viewing that body in the context
Speaker 1: and the environment in which it is found. That's where
Speaker 1: the tale is told at that point, and you have
Speaker 1: to allow the body to tell you that story. Maybe
Speaker 1: the person was face down they'll face down in bed
Speaker 1: there in a prom position. Someone walked up behind them,
Speaker 1: maybe when they were unaware, maybe they were sleeping, and
Speaker 1: a close range they put a single round into the
Speaker 1: back of their head. Well, I don't want to move
Speaker 1: or manipulate the body until it's time to remove it
Speaker 1: from the scene, after it's been measured and examined for
Speaker 1: things like postmortem changes and documented photographically. I don't want
Speaker 1: to change the body at all. I want to see
Speaker 1: what the body is telling the current. The body is
Speaker 1: the biggest piece of evidence that you have, because that is, obviously,
Speaker 1: in this case, the target of what the individuals were
Speaker 1: striving for. That's where the most forces brought to bear.
Speaker 1: That's where the most violence takes place. That's where you
Speaker 1: have the most transference. It's going to take place from
Speaker 1: one object to the body, or from one body to
Speaker 1: another body. The violence perpetrated by the alleged assailants, the
Speaker 1: Wagners in the road In case was unusually brutal, thirty
Speaker 1: two gunshot wounds between eight victims, all but one shot
Speaker 1: in the head, and the evidence collected on the scene
Speaker 1: and in the lab will all con tribute to chronicling
Speaker 1: what transpired on the night of April twenty first, twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: In light of Jake Wagner's plea deal, this story will
Speaker 1: be integral for the prosecution's case against the other three
Speaker 1: Wagners accused in the murders exactly five years after the
Speaker 1: road and murders in Pike County, one of the four defendants,
Speaker 1: Jake Wagner, is pleading guilty to all counts in exchange,
Speaker 1: he avoids the death penalty and will serve multiple life
Speaker 1: sentences with no chance at parole. His father, mother, and
Speaker 1: brother are similarly charged, and they've pleaded not guilty to
Speaker 1: help them avoid a possible death sentence. Prosecutors say that
Speaker 1: Jake will testify against them. I spoke with Joseph Markin
Speaker 1: about how Jake Wagner's plea will impact upcoming trials. You
Speaker 1: need to understand the larger narrative here. He's now on
Speaker 1: the outside. Jake is on the outside. He's no longer,
Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, part of the family. He
Speaker 1: is going to be a state's witness at this point
Speaker 1: in tom So you're going to have defense counsel. They
Speaker 1: want to prevent the state from validating anything that this
Speaker 1: man has to say. So, Jake's already pled guilty, He's
Speaker 1: already implicated his family. Why is how these murders happened important? Now?
Speaker 1: They want to try to either put all of the
Speaker 1: blame on him and say that our defendants had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this whatsoever. It's all on him. He
Speaker 1: suddenly got a guilty conscience, had you know what we say,
Speaker 1: come to Jesus moment and decided to roll over on everything.
Speaker 1: And it's all him, all by himself. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what we think. What's going to matter is what the
Speaker 1: jury thinks moving forward. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: everybody else will be able to draw their own conclusions.
Speaker 1: But how in the world is this going to be
Speaker 1: presented to the jury? And you're going to need a
Speaker 1: playbill to keep up with all of the all of
Speaker 1: the various permutations here, because if you've got you know,
Speaker 1: four different parties here. I'm including Jake and this and
Speaker 1: what he's saying to the prosecution, you've got four different
Speaker 1: parties here that are giving you difference in areas. It's
Speaker 1: going to be tass to someone to try to make
Speaker 1: sense of all of this, and that's someone that group
Speaker 1: of people are going to be the jury. It will
Speaker 1: be explained before the court and the people in that
Speaker 1: jury box and before the judge. They will say, well,
Speaker 1: we know that at this hour on the twenty first,
Speaker 1: this occurred. And then moving forward, this is when the
Speaker 1: bodies were found. Well what occurred between these moments? In
Speaker 1: top studying the aerial photos of the crime scenes, Stephanie
Speaker 1: put into perspective just how overwhelming a task it is
Speaker 1: putting the story of the road and murders together. Just
Speaker 1: seeing these photos now firsthand, in walking through them with you,
Speaker 1: only offers up more questions for us. This is not
Speaker 1: a small operation. This was huge. The volume of this
Speaker 1: case is one of the most striking things for me.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, out of every case that I cover,
Speaker 1: I don't recall case like this that's blood suked and
Speaker 1: it is spread far and wide. There are so many
Speaker 1: pieces that have to be put into place with this,
Speaker 1: you're leap frogging from this blood bath to another blood bath.
Speaker 1: The forensics alone were highly complicated just from a geographic
Speaker 1: distribution standpoint. It's like a beautiful mirror, okay, that someone
Speaker 1: had hanging on their wall and somebody with specific intent
Speaker 1: went in and destroyed this mirror and crashed it down
Speaker 1: into thousands and thousands of pieces. And then it is
Speaker 1: your job to make sense of these broken pieces and
Speaker 1: try to put it back together, not necessarily to make
Speaker 1: it usable again, but to try to understand what happened,
Speaker 1: what affected its destruction, to what degree is it destroyed,
Speaker 1: what instrumentality may have destroyed it, and what the timing
Speaker 1: was like on this How long has this thing men destroyed?
Speaker 1: We spoke with Joseph Morgan about the importance of timeline
Speaker 1: in a multiple homicide case. Tomline is essential here because
Speaker 1: you know, we just have these bits and pieces coming
Speaker 1: out about the order of death. They're going to be
Speaker 1: really focused on the body and the changes in the
Speaker 1: body and the traumas the body is sustained and all
Speaker 1: those sorts of things. I think that that's that's something
Speaker 1: that's critical. As we studied the aerial images of the
Speaker 1: crime scenes along with the autopsy reports, Morgan tried to
Speaker 1: piece together the chronology for us because his body was
Speaker 1: in a more advanced state of decomposition. It's been speculated
Speaker 1: that victim Chris Roden Sor was the killer's first victim.
Speaker 1: So we started by looking at the layout of his trailer.
Speaker 1: Joseph points it out what could have been the killer's
Speaker 1: way in here he is talking to Stephanie. They have
Speaker 1: a poor parking pad right there, and there's like a
Speaker 1: sidewalk that extends up to that's a ramp. Yeah, walking
Speaker 1: up into this little walkway into the porch area and
Speaker 1: therefore into the front door. There's this entire runway, which
Speaker 1: was likely where the assailants entered. Correct. So that brings
Speaker 1: me to this point. How many locks would have had
Speaker 1: to have been defeated on that door in order to
Speaker 1: gain entrance, and how can you gain entrance to that
Speaker 1: door without making noise? But if you're going into that porch,
Speaker 1: it also speaks to the fact that they did have
Speaker 1: multiple trained attack dogs surveiling this area. Why didn't those
Speaker 1: attack dogs attack because there's quite a bit of a
Speaker 1: runway for you to get up to that porch. And
Speaker 1: is it possible that they knocked on the door? They
Speaker 1: knew one another, their family was very close so or
Speaker 1: had very close bonds. Angela Wagner was there a woman,
Speaker 1: a mom? So wouldn't you go to the door a
Speaker 1: little more? Even if you were at odds? If the dads,
Speaker 1: for example, Chris Senior and maybe Billy Wagner at odds
Speaker 1: over something. We've heard this, but you know his wife
Speaker 1: is there, Angela, You're like, oh, what's happening. You'd be
Speaker 1: more likely to open your door. It seems implausible that
Speaker 1: they would draw them to the door. You know, it
Speaker 1: makes me, it really makes me think, why would they
Speaker 1: be in the bedroom? How did the perpetrators get into
Speaker 1: the bedroom without these guys knowing it. That tells me
Speaker 1: that maybe there was a hidden key. It does make
Speaker 1: sense about perhaps a hidden key. Certainly, we don't know
Speaker 1: this as fact, it's a speculation, but we do know
Speaker 1: that they were running serious surveillance on the family. They
Speaker 1: have cameras at each of the locations in the homes,
Speaker 1: really doing some top level surveillance on the family end.
Speaker 1: At Jake, the youngest son, was there quite a bit
Speaker 1: because he was sharing custody with the youngest daughter, and
Speaker 1: for a long period of time they would TikTok between homes.
Speaker 1: You get to know the location in the area very
Speaker 1: very well. Joseph speculated about why Chris Senior may have
Speaker 1: been targeted first. He apparently was identified as a primary
Speaker 1: target or at least as a primary threat in our language.
Speaker 1: And you hear this in the news mea quite a
Speaker 1: bit and on television shows and all not, but there
Speaker 1: really is truly something that is referred to as overkilled.
Speaker 1: You know, in Chris Senior's case, he was shot nine times.
Speaker 1: What do you make of the brutality of that? It
Speaker 1: kind of begs that question, Well, either you view that
Speaker 1: person as a threat, maybe you see that they're going
Speaker 1: to charge you, Maybe you have an awareness of what
Speaker 1: their potential for violence is and that you want to
Speaker 1: prevent that. There's evidence that he attempted or reacted at
Speaker 1: least to the point where he raised his arm. He's
Speaker 1: taken one round in his right forum. But this is
Speaker 1: the part that is very very curious. It says that
Speaker 1: around passed through a door. I don't know which door.
Speaker 1: He was in a bedroom, maybe it was the door
Speaker 1: to his bedroom, or maybe he was hiding behind the door.
Speaker 1: But then it goes on to say that that round
Speaker 1: in turn passed into his body. So you know, we're learning,
Speaker 1: just in the sequencing with the Senior among the road
Speaker 1: and Clan, that there was a lot of firepower that
Speaker 1: was essentially directed toward him. You know he resided in
Speaker 1: the trailer with Gary, so we can surmise that if
Speaker 1: Chris Senior was first, then Gary would have had to
Speaker 1: have been second because they occupied the same essentially the
Speaker 1: same space, you know, I guess they have separate bedrooms.
Speaker 1: But Gary didn't receive the same amount of tention that
Speaker 1: Chris Senior. He was only shot at three times, but
Speaker 1: these three gunshot ones he sustained. Two were to the head,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of non specific in the descriptor, but
Speaker 1: we know that one was in the face. And this
Speaker 1: is kind of a theme that that you see running
Speaker 1: through the nature of all of these killings. And I
Speaker 1: find that kind of interesting because anytime someone has shot
Speaker 1: an individual in the face from a profile standpoint, that
Speaker 1: gives you the attitude that the individual is looking at
Speaker 1: them at the shooter when they're fired upon. We're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break here, we'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment. Victims Chris Senior and Gary Roden's crime scene
Speaker 1: potentially held a cash of clues for investigators. We know
Speaker 1: that the scene in particular was very bloody, okay, because
Speaker 1: we know that Chris Senior was shot multiple time. So
Speaker 1: when we examine a scene. That is a treasure trove
Speaker 1: of evidence collection there. If someone has tried to clean themselves,
Speaker 1: clean their hands, washed down a weapon, maybe try to
Speaker 1: repair an injury of their own. You've got evidence sitting
Speaker 1: in the drain and this is something they would have
Speaker 1: had to have accounted for. So all of the drain traps,
Speaker 1: everything within there would have had to have been secured.
Speaker 1: What if something got flushed down the toilet, well, you know,
Speaker 1: because now that's going to go into a septic tank.
Speaker 1: Since this is so isolated, they're not going to be
Speaker 1: on city sewer system. Logistically, it's a freaking nightmare. I
Speaker 1: mean for a crime scene person, it is an absolute nightmare.
Speaker 1: You have to make sure that all of your bases
Speaker 1: are covered. Outside Chris Roden Senior's home was potentially even
Speaker 1: more evidence. Here comes the big part that port right there,
Speaker 1: which is a point of egress. You need to keep
Speaker 1: that in mind. That is a point through which somebody
Speaker 1: entered this damned dwelling. Just let that sink in for
Speaker 1: a second. That's got to be detached and moved. Now
Speaker 1: it looks like they have a concrete slab parking area.
Speaker 1: This is actually very nice. It's got a trailer or
Speaker 1: a red truck, a great truck and a small car
Speaker 1: that sparked right by the sidewalk, and that sidewalk is
Speaker 1: poured concrete as well. That's all going to contain potential evidence.
Speaker 1: We know that that is an important piece of It's
Speaker 1: almost like a Footprinton, right, that has so much potential
Speaker 1: DNA or blood or something that seeps into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: potentially blood evidence more than likely if they trapes out
Speaker 1: of that house. This would have required a herculean effort
Speaker 1: upon the authorities there. As we mentioned, crime scene photos
Speaker 1: were never released. There were also very few on the
Speaker 1: ground photos of the surrounding area because the entire road
Speaker 1: was closed to the public. However, the aerial shots provide
Speaker 1: valuable insight into the crime scenes. Most likely, the killers
Speaker 1: then moved to the trailer just a few hundred yards
Speaker 1: away where Frankie Rodin and his fiance Hannah Gilly were
Speaker 1: living with Frankie's toddler and the couple six month old
Speaker 1: baby boy. I always pictured it much further apart from
Speaker 1: one another. It looks as though, and again this is
Speaker 1: an aerial shot, you could on foot run from Chris
Speaker 1: Senior's home to Frankie where he and Hannah were sleeping.
Speaker 1: Making it up to Frankie and Hannah would be that's
Speaker 1: no effort whatsoever. And if you've been surveilling the area
Speaker 1: and keeping detailed notes on movements of people and this
Speaker 1: sort of thing, it wouldn't be a problem at all.
Speaker 1: In order to facilitate that, the proximity of the homes
Speaker 1: most likely forced the killers to utilize some critical tools silencers.
Speaker 1: We know from courtroom testimony that a homemade silencer was
Speaker 1: found at a property owned by the Wagner's. Having silencers
Speaker 1: when these crime scenes are so close together seems like
Speaker 1: they would have to. And it does sound as though
Speaker 1: from what we've researched that Frankie wrote in and his
Speaker 1: fiance Hannah Gilly in their three year old on frankie
Speaker 1: S three year old son, they were sleeping at the time. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is this is not something that
Speaker 1: you would do in the dark. You want to make sure,
Speaker 1: because you're going there to specifically execute these people, to
Speaker 1: kill them, you want to make sure that you're going
Speaker 1: to shoot them. So unless you've got flashlights in your hand,
Speaker 1: which they bear one might have, you're going to flip
Speaker 1: the switch as soon as you walk through the door,
Speaker 1: light switch is right there. The element of surprise allowed
Speaker 1: the killers to get with an intimate range of their victims.
Speaker 1: The gunshot wound. You don't think about that it's being intimate.
Speaker 1: But if you start scoring headshots, particularly multiple headshots, you
Speaker 1: know that there is kind of a close approximation of
Speaker 1: the perpetrator to the victim in that particular case. So
Speaker 1: it tells a different tale. And you know what gunshot
Speaker 1: ones to the head, particularly multiple ones, you want to
Speaker 1: think about, well, where are they shot in the head?
Speaker 1: If it is an execution style to the back of
Speaker 1: the head, that's one thing that I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: the person is being humane, that's doing it, but they
Speaker 1: want it over with and done as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: When you start talking about shooting people in the face,
Speaker 1: this is something different, particularly if it's multiple times. First off,
Speaker 1: the individual has potential to visualize you as you're doing it,
Speaker 1: and you're visualizing them. That brings it up to another level.
Speaker 1: Execution style means from the back of the head, so
Speaker 1: you don't have to make eye contact with your victim,
Speaker 1: which makes sense. Yeah, that's a classic interpretation of it.
Speaker 1: Like when I'm talking to somebody, a fellow death investigator,
Speaker 1: a fellow forensic science person, if I say, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was an execution style shooting automatically for me, and I
Speaker 1: would assume for most of my colleagues, we're gonna think, Okay,
Speaker 1: they're probably shot in the oxiput, which if you put
Speaker 1: your hand, your fingers on the back side of your
Speaker 1: head and you feel that big not in the back
Speaker 1: of your skull, that's your occiput. I swear your cerebellum
Speaker 1: dwells where your primal brain dwells, and there's mercy. There's
Speaker 1: mercy in the ox put back there, you know, while
Speaker 1: there's mercy because if you fire into that area, it's
Speaker 1: almost an instantaneous death. But if you start shooting people
Speaker 1: all over their body, and you do it multiple times,
Speaker 1: and particularly if you approach them and shoot them in
Speaker 1: the face, there's no guarantee they're dead instantly, no guarantee whatsoever.
Speaker 1: According to Morgan, the killers then likely traveled a mile
Speaker 1: and a half up the road where victims Dina Chris Junior,
Speaker 1: and Hannah Rodin lived. You know, I can't imagine that
Speaker 1: Dana poses the same threat level. Say, for instance, as
Speaker 1: Chris Senior, Chris pre robust kind of guy, big guy,
Speaker 1: you know, worked outdoors with cars and whatnot. He's familiar
Speaker 1: with weapons. I would imagine he could pose a threat.
Speaker 1: But this mother living in her trailer with her kids,
Speaker 1: what threat did she that she pose? Is she the
Speaker 1: focus of a tremendous amount of anger? Well, when you
Speaker 1: combine the fact that they have committed overkill here with
Speaker 1: the shooting of her in her skull so many times,
Speaker 1: and then they moved to shoot her in a manner
Speaker 1: in which could potentially disfigure her, this seems to me
Speaker 1: almost a messaging that's sent out the people that are
Speaker 1: perpetrating as have purpose to them. We have the other Hannah,
Speaker 1: And what kind of person could stand over a young
Speaker 1: woman and fire around into her face while staring at
Speaker 1: her and her baby? You're visualizing this. This is not
Speaker 1: something that's done in abstract. You're not a long long
Speaker 1: distance away. You're up close and personal in these rooms,
Speaker 1: are there? You know it's not the taj from the
Speaker 1: hall here. I mean, it's they're not real tiny, but
Speaker 1: they're pretty small. You're gonna be on top of her
Speaker 1: when you're doing this. Jeff wondered how the brutal precision
Speaker 1: executed by the killers could play into the prosecution's case.
Speaker 1: Does that come into play that they shoot a mother
Speaker 1: holding her baby twice in the head? Does that make
Speaker 1: it worse than shooting her once? This is a prosecutor's
Speaker 1: dream if you're talking about a narrative, all right. It
Speaker 1: takes such savagery on the part of an individual to
Speaker 1: do this. You look at Chris Junior who is in
Speaker 1: dwelling this place, and he's he's shot. It's kind of
Speaker 1: non specific. We do know that he was actually shot
Speaker 1: multiple times in the head, and he's a sixteen year
Speaker 1: old kid. You know what, what threat does he pose? Why?
Speaker 1: Why would you take the life of a sixteen year
Speaker 1: old boy? There? I don't I don't understand that. I
Speaker 1: think at the end of the day, when we analyze
Speaker 1: all of these these shootings, there's a thread. Obviously I've
Speaker 1: talked about about the overkill that goes into all of this,
Speaker 1: but there's a proximal issue here too, that is that
Speaker 1: you're getting into the space of these victims. Then it's
Speaker 1: likely the killers targeted their last victim, Kenneth Roden, who
Speaker 1: is sleeping a trailer a few miles away on Left
Speaker 1: Fork Road. However, Kenneth's crime scene was strikingly different from
Speaker 1: the other roaden victims. This is the end, the big finale,
Speaker 1: and they shoot this guy in the eye. Now you
Speaker 1: know this idea that he is shot in the eye again,
Speaker 1: this goes to another level of violence here. Literally did
Speaker 1: he see this coming at that moment in time? And
Speaker 1: then to kind of, you know, put the icing on
Speaker 1: the cake. You you know, you drop dollar bills around Again,
Speaker 1: that goes to motive. You're you're trying to put the
Speaker 1: police on the scent that this is something other than
Speaker 1: what it appears. I've worked cartel related homicides before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's messaging didn't go along with this sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But again, is that what they were going for. This
Speaker 1: is a different type of staging. You're not trying to
Speaker 1: mitigate the idea that it's something other than homside is
Speaker 1: still a hom side you're trying. This goes to the
Speaker 1: motivation behind the home side to put them off sent
Speaker 1: And that's a very very interesting narrative when you begin
Speaker 1: to kind of think about it. I believe in your
Speaker 1: professional experience, have you ever heard of a family that
Speaker 1: operates as a foursome two different locations in this manner.
Speaker 1: That's pretty uncommon. I would assume never did work into
Speaker 1: major metropolitan areas as corner medical examiner investigator. I've never
Speaker 1: encountered it. The sheer barbarity of the rodent murders will
Speaker 1: be a critical part of the story, but one element
Speaker 1: in particular will be crucial to convey to the jury.
Speaker 1: Jeff asked Joseph Morgan about it. I'm just curious, like
Speaker 1: how the prosecutors we're going to want to talk about
Speaker 1: the question of whether or not the victims were aware
Speaker 1: or their life was going to end, and how that
Speaker 1: might impact the jury. It's going to be critical for
Speaker 1: the prosecutor to be able to take the information that
Speaker 1: the investigators have developed in the field and working these scenes,
Speaker 1: in particular the time, these little markers and time along
Speaker 1: the way. How well were they able to document the
Speaker 1: actions that took place within the environment. If they can
Speaker 1: get that information out into open court, then they'll begin
Speaker 1: to talk about I can envision a closing statement in particular,
Speaker 1: prosecutor would stand up there and say they took their time.
Speaker 1: We have them document as being in this location or
Speaker 1: this particular time, and you as a jury have to
Speaker 1: consider this. What were they saying, what were they doing
Speaker 1: while they were in there? Did these people know that
Speaker 1: they were about to die? And of course the prosecutor,
Speaker 1: it's their job to put this horrible as it is,
Speaker 1: put the jury members in the place of the victims
Speaker 1: to help them understand, because everybody has been in fear
Speaker 1: of their life at the end of their life at
Speaker 1: some point in time. So you have to make that
Speaker 1: almost You can't do it, but you want to make
Speaker 1: it as almost tactile as you possibly can. So the
Speaker 1: people in the jury they feel it stirring within their
Speaker 1: soul where they understand, Okay, these people were at a
Speaker 1: critical mask and they knew that it was about to happen.
Speaker 1: What would I do in that moment, tom where I
Speaker 1: realized that my life was actually coming to an end.
Speaker 1: Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back
Speaker 1: in a moment. I think that even a trained assassin
Speaker 1: would find it foolhardy to go about trying to kill
Speaker 1: eight people on the same evening, covering this much territory.
Speaker 1: There are too many things that can go wrong unless
Speaker 1: you have somebody watching your back. You're going to have
Speaker 1: to have a person that potentially is a lookout, are
Speaker 1: a transporter. You're going to have to have somebody that
Speaker 1: can muscle or control the intended victims, and then you
Speaker 1: have to have a shooter and an ideally you would
Speaker 1: in fact need somebody that's doing overall coordination because this
Speaker 1: logistically it's a daunting task. I think, to say the
Speaker 1: very least you know in this particular case, there are
Speaker 1: too many variables involved. But even after you plan. Perpetrators
Speaker 1: are not crime scene investigators. They don't think like crime
Speaker 1: scene investigators. They're so very rare. Most of the cases
Speaker 1: that we work as investigators, there is a huge opportunity
Speaker 1: for these people to screw up along the way, to
Speaker 1: leave something behind that is a direct indicator there involvement
Speaker 1: are at the presence when these deaths occurred, and in
Speaker 1: this case, what was left behind included three young children.
Speaker 1: According to Morgan, these spared lives go directly to the
Speaker 1: heart of the presiding motive of the case, the singular
Speaker 1: driver behind this. It has to those children whole value.
Speaker 1: The attachment to the children is the driver behind this.
Speaker 1: When you get overkilled, in my experience, at least it
Speaker 1: goes to a lot of anger, it goes to a
Speaker 1: lot of passion, and you'll see it in domestics. You
Speaker 1: go to all this trouble, but yet you leave these
Speaker 1: three babies alive, and you have to you know, you
Speaker 1: begin to kind of question this, and it has an investigator.
Speaker 1: It takes you down a specific direction. Who would attach
Speaker 1: value to these children, who would want to see them
Speaker 1: continue to live and still exist among the land of
Speaker 1: the living up their pip can what accused killers Billy
Speaker 1: Angela and George Wagner head to trial. Prosecutors will paint
Speaker 1: them as the main characters in a gruesome, multilayered horror story.
Speaker 1: Good prosecutors are great storytellers. That's their heartbeat. If they
Speaker 1: are affective. They take all these little pieces of evidence,
Speaker 1: all this stuff we've been talking about, and they tighten
Speaker 1: that thing down, and they walk in the courtroom and
Speaker 1: they start talking about mama's and they start talking about babies,
Speaker 1: and they start talking about these familial ties. And it
Speaker 1: will be powerful in court. It will be very powerful.
Speaker 1: And I can almost see it now, envisioning right now,
Speaker 1: when he starts talking about this, and you can see
Speaker 1: that jury there will be a slow turn of their
Speaker 1: heads toward that defendant's table, no matter who's on trial
Speaker 1: at that particular time, because they will talk about mama,
Speaker 1: and they will talk about those babies, and they're going
Speaker 1: to stare that individual town and they're gonna think, who
Speaker 1: in the hell is in the courtroom with us. Well,
Speaker 1: we wait to see if Billy Angela and George Wagner
Speaker 1: will head to trial. There's one man intimately involved in
Speaker 1: the road and murder case who has already seen his
Speaker 1: day in court, Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader. After the murders,
Speaker 1: he became front and center of all of the coverage.
Speaker 1: She was giving information alongside the Ohio Attorney General at
Speaker 1: that time. People were looking to him for information and
Speaker 1: they wanted Reader, along with the state of Ohio, to
Speaker 1: solve these murders. From all of the coverage that went
Speaker 1: into Pike County in the months after these murders, I mean,
Speaker 1: Charlie Reader was a central figure in that. But Sheriff
Speaker 1: Reader had a quick fall from grace. In June twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: he was indicted on eight felonies and eight misdemeanors. His
Speaker 1: charges included thefton office and tampering with evidence. That was
Speaker 1: huge news, not only because of his involvement in the
Speaker 1: road and murders, but you're talking about the sitting sheriff,
Speaker 1: the high Sheriff of Pike County is now the subjects
Speaker 1: of an investigation. Evidence of misconduct, evidence of corruption by
Speaker 1: a politician. You're going, man, I don't know what may
Speaker 1: happen with this. On March twenty four, twenty one, Sheriff
Speaker 1: Freder appeared in court to face the charges leveled against him.
Speaker 1: A guilty verdict would have major consequences if you're a
Speaker 1: defense attorney working on this case and the sheriff, if
Speaker 1: the county gets indicted, I would think, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're a Wagner attorney, you would look to have a
Speaker 1: field day with that. That might be part of your defense.
Speaker 1: More on that next time. For more information on the
Speaker 1: case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie
Speaker 1: Underscores Studios. The piked In Massacre Returned to Pike County
Speaker 1: is executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker and me Courtney Armstrong.
Speaker 1: Editing and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional
Speaker 1: producing by Jeff Shane, Andrew Becker and Chris Graves. The
Speaker 1: piked In Massacre. Returned to Pike County is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
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