WAVERLY, Ohio — After hearing from the ex-wife and several family friends of the Wagners during the fourth week of testimony, the jury heard from agents with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations as the trial of George Wagner IV continued.
George — along with his mother Angela, father George "Billy" Wagner and brother Edward "Jake" Wagner — is accused of shooting and killing the Rhoden family members "execution-style." The family's bodies were found on April 22, 2016. He faces eight charges of aggravated murder, along with other charges associated with tampering with evidence, conspiracy and forgery.
Found dead that day were 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr., 37-year-old Dana Rhoden, 20-year-old Hannah "Hazel" Gilley, 16-year-old Christopher Rhoden Jr., 20-year-old Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 37-year-old Gary Rhoden, 19-year-old Hanna May Rhoden, and 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden.
The trial is the first time a person has faced a jury for the deaths of the Rhoden family six years ago.
BCI agent John Jenkins took the stand at the start of Wednesday morning to testify to recordings made of the Wagner family during the course of the investigation.
First, prosecutors played agents' first interview with Billy Wagner, made six months after the murders.
BCI agents became aware of Billy after a few tips from members of the community mentioned him; Jenkins said they also decided, since Billy was the grandfather of Sophia, Hanna May's child with Jake Wagner.
Jenkins said it took agents more time than normal to sift through all the people who had relationships with the Rhoden family, because of the high number of victims. Once they became aware of the Wagners, efforts to reach Billy were unsuccessful for quite some time.
Agents tried to find him at his home on Peterson Road, his mother's home at the Flying W Ranch, and were always told he wasn't home.
Tracking down Billy became "quite a consuming task," Jenkins said. Finally, he was told Billy had agreed to meet agents in the parking lot of the Waverly Kroger, because Billy was picking up groceries. Jenkins and another agent met Billy there, where they conducted the interview in an unmarked BCI vehicle.
Prosecution then played an audio clip that ran roughly one hour, 45 minutes long. In it, Billy rambled about several topics ranging from who could have possibly killed the Rhodens, to drug operations throughout the state, to describing his relationship with Chris Sr. — whom he several times called his "best friend."
PIKE COUNTY TRIAL: Billy says "it took ya long enough to come talk to me."
Says rumor that a Rhoden family member did it is "bullshit."
"What do you want to know? I'll tell ya."
— Evan Millward (@EvanMillward) October 5, 2022
"It took you long enough to come talk to me," he said.
The agents explained the phone number they'd had for him was no longer registered in Billy's name; Billy responded that he had to get a new cell phone one month prior because he'd broken his.
"Hey, you know why I broke it? Cause I kept frickin' calling Chris," he said.
Billy said in the weeks leading up to the murders that he'd noticed Chris Sr. wasn't acting like himself. The man rarely drank, Billy told agents, but he'd had to coax him home one night because he "got real drunk and was running up and down the damn road" in his vehicle.
Agents said others they'd interviewed had claimed Chris Sr. seemed depressed in the weeks leading up to the murders and that he'd told more than one person that "the storm is coming." Billy said he'd never heard that phrase, but that if something was really wrong with Chris Sr., he believed he'd have been told.
Agents asked him about tips they'd received that Billy and Chris Sr. were in an argument just one week before the murders; tipsters had apparently reported seeing Billy pull a gun on Chris Sr., agents said. Billy denied that any of that was true.
Billy also balked at giving the agents much information at first, indicating he didn't trust the local law enforcement or the Pike County Sheriff's Office.
"This is the crookedest f***ing county in the state of Ohio," he said.
Despite that, Billy still rattled off several names of people he said he believed could have been involved in the murders of the Rhodens; he gave descriptive directions to the homes of many people he mentioned, including where he claimed were several competing marijuana growers and dealers in the area.
PIKE COUNTY TRIAL: I think we've found who Billy said he hated - one of the Latham boys.
"He's an asshole."
— Evan Millward (@EvanMillward) October 5, 2022
He also mentioned people in Cincinnati with whom he believed Chris Sr. had been doing illegal business.
"I think you boys is going in the wrong damn direction," he said to the agents more than once.
In particular, Billy kept referencing a person called Latham. Jenkins clarified that Latham was a nickname given to a man named Skid Montgomery — he was often called Latham, because that was the town in which he ran his large-scale marijuana operation. Jenkins said there were also rumors Montgomery would put hits out on people.
Billy named several people who worked for Montgomery as possible culprits and dismissed any idea that the Rhoden family were killed by Mexican cartel members — a rumor that circulated early on in the investigation.
PIKE COUNTY TRIAL: Billy rails on the fact that the surviving kids are in foster care - notes that Jake thought Hanna's newborn was his but it wasn't.
— Evan Millward (@EvanMillward) October 5, 2022
After the audio clip played, John Parker, George Wagner IV's attorney, asked the judge to declare a mistrial, claiming the interview wasn't relevant to the trial of George — who was only mentioned once during the audio file, in passing. The judge denied the request, but instructed the jury to only view the recording as an explanation for how the investigation into the murders was conducted, not as any indication of guilt.
Following a lunch break, prosecutors called Julia Eveslage back to the stand. Eveslage, a criminal intelligence analyst with BCI, was previously called to the stand to testify about the victims' cell phone records and what they revealed about the family's activities leading up to their murders.
BCI subpoenaed Facebook to obtain records of messages sent and received by members of the Rhoden family. However, Parker objected to the use of several messages because they pertained to other people, like Hanna May and Jake, rather than George, who is on trial. As a result, some of them were stricken from the record.
Eveslage then testified to messages specifically exchanged between Hanna May and Tabitha, George Wagner's ex-wife. The messages were the same as ones read aloud by Tabitha herself during her testimony earlier in the week. Then, Eveslage read aloud messages exchanged between Hanna May and Tabitha's mother, Patricia.
In the messages, Patricia encourages Hanna May not to believe anything the Wagner family says, and to be wary of custody agreements; she said she'd tried to warn Tabitha, but her daughter hadn't listened.
"I won’t sign papers ever. It won’t happen. They will have to kill me first," Hanna May wrote.
That was the last message Hanna May sent in the conversation, which happened on December 9, 2015, just four months before she was murdered.
Eveslage also testified that, despite his declaration to BCI agents that he'd broken his phone because he kept calling his murdered best friend, Billy's phone records for two separate cell phones in his name did not show any calls to Chris Sr. after the murders.
Next to take the witness stand was Ryan Scheiderer, a special agent with BCI who became lead over the investigation.
He testified that the Wagners were not identified as people of interest in the investigation until after reading the Facebook messages from Hanna May that directly conflicted with information Jake had given them during an interview. Jake told agents his relationship with Hanna May was amenable and that there hadn't been any issues with custody over their child together.
Interviews with friends and family also provided information that conflicted with Jake's claims, Scheiderer said.
In addition, friends of the Rhoden family told agents that Chris Sr. had been keeping $20,000 of Billy's mother in the safe in his house; Scheiderer said $27,000 in cash was found inside that safe and that information had not been released publicly.
Scheiderer also pointed out that, in Hanna May's Facebook message to Patricia, she indicated that "they" would have to kill her — not "he" or Jake. He said many communications from Hanna May in the months leading up to her murder, she expressed concerns about custody and that the entire Wagner family was controlling, not just Jake.
In April 2017, just before the one-year anniversary of the murders, BCI agents visited the Wagner home on Peterson Road to attempt to speak with the family. They spoke with Jake, who told them the family had sold their farm and that new owners would take ownership of the property on May 10. BCI agents returned just before then, on May 3, 2017, and found the Wagners packing trucks and trailers with belongings.
"While speaking with Angela and Jake, I casually observed numerous fired cartridge casings lying about the driveway all over the place," said Scheiderer.
He said there were hundreds, possibly thousands of shell casings scattered throughout the yard and driveway.
Although Scheiderer was able to speak with Angela and Jake that day, he said George quietly went inside the home shortly after he arrived. Phone records later obtained from the Wagner family showed that around that time, George sent his father a text message.
"Don't come down till I text you got company," read the text.
Scheiderer said that same message was sent to two phones, both belonging to Billy Wagner.
While at Peterson Road, the Wagners informed BCI agents they were going to move to Alaska. A conversation later on with Billy, at the Flying W Farm, revealed that he was against the move, because he was reluctant to leave his sick and ailing father, for whom he'd been caring. He conceded that the rest of the family wanted to go, and that Angela wanted the move, so he was going along with it.
Additional phone data downloaded from Jake's cellphone revealed interesting information in the notes section of the phone; investigators discovered a note that logged every gun owned by the Wagner family, categorized by who the gun belonged to — including a small gun listed as belonging to Sophia.
Under George's name was listed several .30 caliber weapons that could match ballistic evidence collected from the crime scenes, and several .22 caliber weapons listed under George and Jake's names, that could match evidence found at two of four different crime scenes.
On May 10, when new owners were supposed to take control of the Peterson Road property, BCI agents executed a search warrant. Casings in the yard and driveway Scheiderer had noted before were collected by a BCI ballistics and firearms expert.
Inside the Wagner family home, on a shelf mounted just inside the front door, investigators found an unfired .22 caliber cartridge, Remington brand — similar to casings and bullets found in Frankie and Hannah Hazel's home and in Dana's home, where she, Chris Jr. and Hanna May were killed. Further inside the home, more .22 unfired casings were found inside a kitchen cabinet. They were collected by investigators as evidence.
That was the only evidence collected inside the Wagner family home.
You can catch up on the day's testimony below:
Watch opening statements below:
You can read recaps of each day of the trial in our coverage below:
- Ex-wife of George Wagner IV describes 'strange and controlling' Wagner home
- Jury hears from George Wagner IV's ex-wife as fourth week of testimony begins
- Family members tearfully describe the day of the homicides
- Bloody shoe prints, cell phone records are focus
- Experts testify about ballistics, shoeprint evidence
- Third week of trial moves on to Kenneth Rhoden's home
- Evidence presented from third crime scene
- Scene where Dana, Chris. Jr and Hanna May Rhoden were killed is focus
- Testimony focuses on second of four crime scenes
- Coroner describes two of eight victims autopsied
- Forensic testimony continues into Monday
- Forensic evidence takes center stage
- Testimony centers on Kenneth Rhoden, final victim discovered
- Emergency responders testify about chaotic scenes
- Witnesses describe discovering their family members' bodies
- Opening statements detail grisly moments in the six-year-old murder case
- Read a full timeline of the Pike County murder investigation
