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Pike County murder trial: Prosecution delivers closing arguments

After the jury in the George Wagner murder trial spent a week off while the prosecution and defense argued procedural hearings in court, trial resumed Monday with closing arguments from the prosecution.
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WAVERLY, Ohio — After the jury spent a week off while the prosecution and defense argued procedural hearings in court, trial resumed Monday with closing arguments from the prosecution.

During procedural hearings, the prosecution said they intend to drop the death specifications against the defendant in agreement with plea deals formed with Jake and Angela Wagner. The jury was informed of that Monday; Judge Randy Deering also informed the jury they would not be sequestered during deliberation.

George Wagner IV — 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.

For the prosecution's closing arguments, Angela Canepa, special prosecutor, stepped up to the podium, which had been turned to face the jury box instead of the witness stand.

Canepa began by apologizing to the jury for the lengthiness of the trial, which has also been peppered with various delays throughout the eleven weeks of testimony since the jury was selected.

"You guys have served the longest of any criminal jury I can think of," she said.

Returning to her opening statements nearly three months ago, Canepa said now the jury can appreciate what she meant then, when she said the murders were senseless.

"We are here because eight innocent victims were slaughtered, most of them in their sleep and all of them unarmed and unsuspecting that anything was afoot," said Canepa.

The motive for the murders, she urged the jury to remember, was to protect George's niece Sophia from unconfirmed abuse at the hands of someone in the Rhoden family; the idea became an obsession of the Wagner family.

She began by revisiting each victim, repeating the words witnesses and family used to describe them both on and off the witness stand and reinforcing that many of the victims were murdered just because they were there, or because they would have known the Wagners were the murderers.

"Frankie was the type of man you would have to get through to get to his family," she said.

"Her crime was solely being there, nothing else," Canepa said of Hannah Hazel.

She noted to the jury that Chris Sr. was described as a hard worker who provided for his family.

"He was killed because he was the patriarch," she said.

Gary was described by friends and family as "goofy," Canepa said, but ultimately all he'd done to warrant his murder was "simply being there."

She recalled family's anecdotes about Kenneth and his generosity, particularly for his own family, and described him as "a hard-working man."

Dana was a "loving mother and grandmother," who was supposed to babysit her grandson the very next day.

"She was not suspected of doing anything wrong to Sophia at all, she was just there," said Canepa.

Hanna May — the main target of the homicides — was just 19 years old and while the Wagner family didn't think she'd done anything to harm her own daughter, she wasn't cooperating with the Wagner family's ideals for how to raise Sophia.

"She refused to be manipulated by the Wagners," said Canepa.

Chris Jr., shot to death while he slept, was suspected by Angela of being Sophia's abuser because of a remark made by the toddler. Other than that, the only negative thing said about the then-16-year-old boy was that he was an annoying little brother sent to chaperone Hanna May's visits to the Wagner family property while she dated Jake.

Canepa then pivoted, walking the jury back through the last several weeks of witness testimony beginning with what they heard from the women with whom Jake and George had relationships; Tabitha, George's ex-wife, Beth, Jake's ex-wife and Hanna May were all women "who find themselves ensnared in the Wagners' lives," said Canepa.

The relationships play out like a soap opera, Canepa admitted, but said they were crucial to the jury's understanding of the Wagner family dynamics and the family's motive to commit murder.

George used the court systems and Tabitha's trust in him to gain full custody of their son, Bulvine, instead of resorting to murder, but it was that custody arrangement and the lack of access it gave Tabitha to her son that influenced Hanna May to refuse signing any paperwork offered to her by the Wagner family.

Both Tabitha and, later, Beth, testified the Wagner home was strange and controlling, with everything up for family-wide debates — including their marriages and sexual relationships with their husbands.

Canepa again pointed out that, just months before she and her family were murdered, Hanna May told Tabitha's mother in a Facebook message that she'd never sign papers — they'd have to kill her first. That message was seen by members of the Wagner family, who hacked into Tabitha's accounts and the accounts of her family members to gather dirt on her.

"Angela and Jake both say this message was shared and talked about amongst the three of them and that's when the plotting begins," said Canepa.

Not long after that message was typed by Hanna May, the Wagner family purchases for items that could be used to build a homemade silencer began.

The addition of Beth to the family after she moved in with the Wagners on their return from Alaska was the lynchpin of the investigators' case, Canepa said, because it helped verify what they were already hypothesizing themselves: That the murders were "a family affair" committed as a result of paranoia around the safety and custody of Jake's daughter.

"It's hard to imagine eight people would lose their lives over such a flimsy motive, but it's true," Canepa told the jury.

Calls recorded by investigators regarding Beth, played for the jury during trial, featured George yelling at Jake about the danger he was putting Bulvine and Sophia in by allowing Beth to remain in the Wagner home. The family felt — even after Sophia recanted her claim — Beth could have inappropriately touched Jake's daughter and George felt the children were not safe around Beth. In one conversation between Jake and George, George threatened to take his niece away from Jake, since he wouldn't protect her by forcing his then-wife from the family home.

In that call, Canepa pointed out that was "not the voice of anyone to ever sit one out."

George parroted his mother in conversations with Jake, Canepa said, and it was clear that "they whipped themselves into a frenzy," though at the core of the conflict was Angela and George leading the charge.

In another call played for the jury, George told Jake "the family has spoken," and that he had to remove Beth from the children.

"Not 'me, I'm telling you,'" said Canepa. "Not my mom. The family has spoken."

Canepa lingered on the topic of the women in Jake's and George's lives, all of whom alleged abuse of some kind at the hands of the Wagner family, likely hoping to appeal to the mostly-female jury.

She then moved on to explaining that, despite much of the evidence being circumstantial, the pieces fit together to show that all four members of the Wagner family were involved in committing the homicides, whether they pulled a trigger or not.

She touched on the circumstantial evidence — including the Walmart shoes, bloody prints, gun list, photo of Jake holding a murder weapon and ballistics evidence — and the direct evidence, which came from witness testimony from Jake and Angela.

"The first thing I would say is obviously Jake Wagner gave us a lot of information," said Canepa. "Not us here in the courtroom, but us during his proffer and then led us to some evidence, right?"

She pointed out that Jake hadn't lied when he told investigators where to find the murder weapons — which were located by officials exactly where he'd said they would be.

"He also gave us the truck that they used and, keep in mind, these were not things we knew about," said Canepa.

Investigators hadn't known of the pickup or the false bed built to fit it and conceal the Wagner brothers the night of the murders, she said, nor had they had any idea of where the murder weapons could have been hidden. Jake and George's cousin, Katy, testified earlier in the trial about the morning her uncle, Billy, showed up unannounced at her family's home in Athens County with a pick-up truck to gift her and an urgency to get back home quickly.

Angela's testimony also corroborated Jake's, Canepa said, with both of them describing things in the same manner despite never having known what either of them confessed to investigators after their plea deals. Angela could have assumed Jake confessed to everything and took all the blame, Canepa said, but instead the two told their sides of the stories and matched one another's accounts.

"We wanted to know if we could bank on what Jake was telling us and she does completely corroborate and I don't think we should take that lightly," said Canepa.

From two different sources — guilty or not — the jury heard that George was there with his brother and father on Union Hill Road the night of the murders. Both admitted their own guilt without lying, Canepa said, and could have pinned the whole thing on Billy without ever implicating George.

"The reason their stories are consistent, the reason their stories match is because they both decided to tell the truth," said Canepa.

George's attorney, John Parker, has told the jury repeatedly that Jake received "the deal of the century" in having the death penalty dropped for all Wagners in exchange for his testimony in any trials. Canepa told the jury this deal was not reached without the consent of the family left behind by the victims — who were willing to make the deal in order to learn exactly what happened to their loved ones on the night of April 21, 2022.

"If this was someone you loved, you would want to know what happened more than anything. Some got the peace of mind they were looking for because their loved one was sleeping, some of them did not." said Canepa, her voice cracking with emotion.

The deal was crafted so that none of the perpetrators of the murders would get away, she said.

Despite the deal, neither Jake nor Angela had any incentive to lie to the jury during their time on the stand, Canepa said.

"Angela Wagner, this is her son," she said. "Ask yourself what motive would she have to say that George was involved if George wasn't involved? Why would you do that to your son?"

In fact, one request made by Jake during the plea deal negotiations was to have the opportunity to hug his family one last time before they were all imprisoned for the murders, she said.

"If George was completely innocent, didn't know anything about this and I'm saying you helped me murder people — not a stealing fuel offense, but you helped me murder people, would I expect you to hug me? How ludacrous would that be?" said Canepa.

By contrast, when George testified on his own behalf, he could remember some details very clearly but others not at all — despite having access to all the evidence through discovery with which he could have refreshed his mind, Canepa said. Neither Jake nor Angela had access to their confessions or the evidence investigators collected, but George did.

Much of George's testimony didn't match what he'd told investigators years later during the interrogations at the Montana border but when pressed about it, George said he couldn't remember what he'd said; Canepa pointed out George would have had access to his own interview as part of discovery too.

He was incentivized to lie to the jury while on the stand and did freely, telling jurors he'd gone to bed at 10 p.m. the night of the murders when he'd previously claimed the whole family was up watching a movie and didn't go to bed until 12:30 p.m, said Canepa. He also lied about trying to run away from his family and being best friends with Frankie, she added.

"We know that's not true so why?" said Canepa. "Why does he want you to believe that he and Frankie are best friends? He thinks that's compelling."

If Hanna May was like a sister to him and Frankie was a best friend, the jury could be less inclined to believe he'd have a hand in their murders, said Canepa, pointing out not for the first time that George had never met Hannah Hazel or known the name of the baby she had with Frankie.

"The biggest and most important lie that he told you was about the gun show," said Canepa.

The prosecution showed him receipts from a gun show that happened in Columbus, where both George and Jake purchased a gun — but the gun Jake bought was the 1911 .22 caliber Walther Colt pistol that would eventually be used to murder five people.

"His memory is so good that he remembers going to that gun show with his dad and buying that gun for his dad — but for the life of him he cannot remember Jake being there with him," said Canepa.

The jury decides what evidence is important, what are lies and what are not, how crucial a specific piece of evidence may be and what they believe happens, Canepa reminded them. They could choose to believe parts of a testimony, all of it, or none at all, but it is their choice.

"I think you should disregard all of (George's testimony)," she said.

In George's case, Angela and Jake are more believable witnesses than a person who's incentivized to lie to protect themselves; Jake may not be a hero — "he is a despicable, vile human being if we can use 'human being' to describe him," said Canepa — but he came forward and gave members of the Rhoden and Gilley families answers in the end.

"I would say 'the family has spoken,'" said Canepa, quoting George's words to Jake. "They've told you everything George did that night."

The defense will be able to present their closing arguments Tuesday morning, when court reconvenes at 8:30 a.m.

You can read recaps of each day of the trial in our coverage below:

Watch opening statements below:

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