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Pike County murder trial: George Wagner IV testifies in own defense

Wagner trial continues. Week 11
Liz Dufour/Liz Dufour/Cincinnati Enquirer
George Wagner IV, takes the stand in his,Wednesday Nov. 16, 2022 in Pike County Common Pleas Court in Waverly, Ohio. His attorney, John P. Parker, started the questioning with Wagner’s upbringing. Judge Randy Deering presides. Eight members of the Rhoden family were found shot to death at four different locations on April 21-22, 2016. Wagner’s brother Jake Wagner and mom, Angela Wagner, have already pleaded guilty. George’s dad, George “Billy” Wagner III will go on trial in 2023.
Wagner trial continues. Week 11
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WAVERLY, Ohio — On Wednesday morning, court began with the defense calling George Wagner IV to the stand to testify in his own defense.

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.

As he took the witness stand in his own trial, George spoke softly at first, his voice wavering; as he testified, he appeared to gain confidence and began speaking more firmly throughout questioning by John Parker, his defense attorney.

You can watch the day's proceedings in the player below:

Parker began by asking him about his weight, a problem George said he'd dealt with his entire life.

"I probably haven't been under 250 (pounds) since I was 13," said George.

Questioning moved on to other aspects of his childhood, touching on chores on the Wagner family farm, his relationship with his family and his decision to quit his homeschooling at the age of 14. When he was young, he said he'd wanted to grow up to be a game warden or forester, but his father ultimately pushed him toward becoming a mechanic instead.

"My father didn't want no one in the family that wore a badge," said George. "He thought all law enforcement was crooked."

He described, like his brother, Jake, had before him, a childhood filled with farm work and lessons on how to commit various crimes, like stealing from vending machines and semi trucks parked at truck stops.

The family would target trucks that belonged to businesses, he said, and Jake, Angela and Billy were all involved in the thefts. In particular, Billy would target trucks from Walmart.

"He despises Walmart, I don't know why," he said.

His mother was present for the thefts "99% of the time," and he and his brother were there from a young age, he told the jury. Billy also taught them to steal diesel fuel from trucks; the family always bought vehicles with diesel engines for their personal use, so they'd always have free fuel, he said. Diesel was the gasoline of choice because it didn't explode like regular gas, said George.

When they were kids, he and Jake would get a dollar from Billy every time they spotted a police officer and, in turn, would have their four-wheelers taken away for one week if they didn't spot a camera present nearby before Billy did.

Parker asked him to recount his childhood with Jake and George said he'd always preferred the outdoors while Jake preferred collecting action figures, playing video games and watching cartoons.

Getting his driver's license was the first time he experienced real freedom; he said before that, he didn't have much ability to make his own friends and was instead only exposed to people who came to their farm. Once he had his license, he said he spent as much time away from his family's home as he possibly could.

At one point, after a fight with his father, George said he got in his truck and left with the intention of not going back; he made it 250 miles into Kentucky before gas got low and he was forced to turn back, he said. He didn't have any money or anywhere to go, so he returned to the Wagner home.

Eventually, George began gathering with friends at Big Bear Lake, a camp ground, to party and drink.

One of those friends was Frankie Rhoden, he said.

Parker asked George to recount getting his first vehicle; Jake was gifted a truck three to four months before he was, he said. His brother wanted a very specific kind of truck — a 1971 Chevy with a Cummins engine in it — and when the family spotted one such truck while on a trip, Billy turned the car around to go get it for Jake.

"My mother made him buy it for him," said George.

This was a point of contention, he said, because he'd been denied the kind of truck he'd wanted but his parents spent the same amount — around $16,000 — on the truck for Jake. George was gifted a $2,500 truck months later, he said.

He described the Wagner's various homes, many of which were intentionally burned down for insurance money. The first home he remembered, a trailer, was burned by Angela, but only partially.

"My mother tried to burn the house down, that failed because she didn't know what she was doing in the beginning," he said. "Then my grandmother paid to remodel it because my mother told her it was an accidental fire."

They burned the homes by sticking newspaper under the fuse box, he said, and Angela taught Billy how to do it and, later, her sons.

One of their homes, a trailer, was bought for the family by Fredericka, Billy's mother. It was later built onto, with extensions added.

"I called it a Kentucky wonder mansion," said George, smiling.

While they lived in that home, on Bethel Hill Road, Angela was running her fraudulent dog breeding business, he said. She was often upset with George for being away from the home, leaving Jake to do all the chores on the farm, he said.

"She'd always throw a fit for me leaving my brother," he said, adding that, in contrast, Jake "stayed and worked all day when my mom told him to."

In late 2007 or 2008, the "wonder mansion" burned, said George. The Wagners had spent a week on vacation in Alaska and when they got back, he said the family intended to move up there permanently and, to collect the funds for the move, they burned the home down. In the end, Billy changed his mind and didn't want to leave the farm, so the family stayed instead and built a new house on the property on Bethel Hill Road.

That house, a one-story home with a basement built from the ground up on the property, was also set ablaze, said George. Fredericka, who owned the land, had leased the property out and Angela was angry, he said.

"My mother didn't want to leave her house for my grandmother to let someone else live in," said George.

George detailed other thefts performed by his family, including stealing a trailer of hot tubs, a trailer full of boots and one filled with Dell laptops; the Wagners resold the items.

Parker asked George about his relationship with his father; George said it started out fine when he was young, but Billy had a tendency to pick up habits of whomever was filling the role of a father figure to him at the time.

"He has daddy issues," said George.

Billy began abusing pills and medication while driving long-haul trucking routes, mirroring the behavior of the man he traveled with, and the pills made him irritable and quick to anger, George said. He described multiple fist fights he engaged in with Billy, after his father snapped over something trivial.

In one such fight, at the Flying W Farm, he said Billy punched through his truck's window, covering him in shattered glass, before the two of them began physically fighting. Another time, Billy tried to use a rope to tie George up, but wound up wrapping the rope around George's throat instead, he said. George jerked the rope, knocking Billy off his feet before pummeling his father, he explained.

Parker asked George about his relationship with his ex-wife, Tabitha, who took the stand earlier in the trial for the prosecution. George's aunt instigated the relationship, trying to set Jake up with Tabitha and George up with her sister when they were young — George was 12 and Tabitha was 11, he said.

The girls would stay over at the Wagner's home on Bethel Hill Road for weeks at a time, "until their mom would come and get them," he said. During that time, the sisters slept in Jake's room and the brothers bunked together, but after Tabitha's sister stopped visiting, sleeping arrangements changed.

Angela made Tabitha sleep on the couch, but George didn't like that, he said, so he volunteered to sleep on the couch instead to give her his room; Angela was opposed to this and, eventually, Billy began letting Tabitha sleep in George's room with him. After around a year, George said he broke up with Tabitha because "I was chasing another girl around."

George recounted how Hanna May and Jake met at the Pike County fair and Parker asked about his relationship with her.

"I looked at Hanna as a baby sister," he said.

The pair would tell dirty jokes with one another, bake together at the holidays and talk about their shared struggles with weight loss. He said he also sometimes snuck her alcohol in containers so she could drink without Jake knowing. The two would also confide in one another when either was "having an emotional day," he said.

Parker asked how Jake felt about his relationship with Hanna.

"I don't think he really liked it, he always said I was too close to her," said George.

Questioning pivoted to the topic of growing up in the Wagner household, where, in the beginning, George said he and his brother "were just like normal kids," doing chores and watching TV. That changed when they got older; Jake became paranoid that he was going to hell, because Angela constantly berated the family and told them they were "making Jesus cry" when they did something she didn't see as appropriate.

"Jake was always terrified of going to hell," said George.

As teenagers, George said he spent as much time away from his brother as he could, because Jake was unpopular, particularly with George's friends.

"My brother is extremely rude and has no filter and he thinks he's better than anyone," said George, adding that Jake gave his opinion in ways that insulted people because he believed people wanted honesty. "My brother thinks that he's a saint and can do no wrong."

Angela was the same, he said, and she constantly told George he should be more like his younger brother.

As adults, the two didn't spend much time together, he said. While living in the same house on Peterson Road, the brothers barely interacted; George said the only thing he really did with his brother was build a fence and occasionally work on trucks together.

"He was more of an associate" than a brother, said George. His uncle, Chris Newcomb, was more like a brother to him, he said. George said he grew tired of Jake constantly highlighting his flaws and telling him he was going to Hell for his behavior.

Parker asked about George's relationship with Tabitha, once the pair reunited. He described his wedding day as a "catastrophe," because everything went wrong — the power went out, a big storm swept through, many things they'd ordered never arrived. The day was still a happy one, he added.

"We had a lot of really good days until she had her fits," he said.

When they were younger, Tabitha often had episodes where she'd rock back and forth and cry; George said he could usually calm her down. Hugging her seemed to calm her, he said. When they were older, the episodes became worse and were accompanied with yelling and throwing things.

"It's not technically her fault," said George. "She had a rough life."

Still, he described the moment when he learned she was pregnant as "the best moment of my life." His excitement over the baby was short-lived, however, when he learned his wife had a sexually-transmitted disease; he believed her when she told him the doctor said the virus could be dormant for years, but when she was diagnosed with it a second time, he knew something was not right.

"I might have been dumb for the first time," he said, adding he learned Tabitha had been having an affair.

The infidelity shook George, who said he tried to leave Tabitha the day she gave birth to their son, Bulvine.

"It was nice to have my son, but not so nice to not know if he's yours or not," he said. "It's always in the back of your head, it doesn't leave."

Tabitha begged him to stay with her and, ultimately a DNA test revealed he was Bulvine's father, so the pair remained together, he said.

Things didn't get easier from there, though; George detailed trying to raise Bulvine despite Tabitha's "fits" and the couple's fights. The dynamic inside the Wagner home didn't make matters better either, he said.

He tried to leave his family behind a second time for Tabitha's sake, he said; He described a time he came home and found Bulvine sitting on the kitchen counter with Tabitha nowhere to be found. When he found her, he discovered she'd attempted to end her own life. He put her and their son into his truck with the intention of driving away and never returning, he said, but Tabitha was concerned they didn't have any money. He said she told him it seemed better to stay where they had a roof over their head; they ultimately went back into the house, with Tabitha refusing to be taken to the hospital.

A third time he tried to leave was after a fight between Angela and Hanna poured over, involving Tabitha; he didn't like her getting dragged into a fight she had nothing to do with and "I was fed up with my mom," he said. He packed their bags, but was once again swayed to stay when faced with the reality of having his personal finances so tied up with his family's that he wasn't sure he could support his family.

He said he regretted not leaving.

"I just wish I hadn't turned around in Kentucky, or any of them, really," he said.

George confirmed that the Wagner family finances were entangled, a point the prosecution has worked to drive home to the jury throughout the trial; he said he didn't think it was unusual, because that's how they'd operated his entire life. He and Jake shared the responsibility of paying the bills and Angela handled the paperwork; it wasn't unusual for her to use George's credit card or debit card freely, he said.

His marriage deteriorated over time, which culminated in the fight that led to their divorce; Tabitha described that evening in great detail while she testified, but George was more vague. He said the fight began because Bulvine wouldn't stop wailing while Tabitha tried to change him and he saw she was being rough with the boy; George tried to take over the task, but Tabitha got angry, picking up the child and hitting his head on the doorframe while she tried to storm out. George took the boy and gave him to Hanna, but he said Angela came home while Tabitha was upset and yelling, which escalated things.

He tried to calm his wife, he said, but she bit him, hit him with a board and ran out of the house. The next time he saw her she was pedaling her bike up the road to the truck stop.

Details of that night were recounted differently by Tabitha and Jake told the story differently from them both during his time on the stand.

Eventually, the pair divorced; George said he offered to get Tabitha an attorney for the proceedings, where they'd determine custody for their son, but she declined because she planned to leave Bulvine with George until her living situation improved.

Just before he was arrested, he'd gotten notice that Tabitha was taking him back to court over the custody agreement, which had limited her to visits with Bulvine only when supervised by a member of the Wagner family.

Parker asked whether, at any point, George had begun to reject his upbringing that encouraged crime and bad behavior; he said he stopped partying when he got married and, some time in 2014, resolved to stop engaging in crimes his family carried out.

"I was tired of looking over my shoulder and I didn't want my son to eventually end up doing that life," he said.

Parker asked how George would describe the members of his nuclear family.

"Selfish, greedy, a little jealous...over opinionated," he said of Jake.

"She think's she's better than everybody," he said of his mother, adding she was over opinionated and manipulative.

Before he became a trucker and began abusing the drugs that made him into a powder keg, his father was a good person, said George.

Parker asked about Angela's relationship with her grandchildren.

"In a lot of ways, I think she was trying to start over with them," said George. "I thought she was looking at me as a failure and trying to start over with my son."

His mother would regularly try to convince George to move out and leave Bulvine behind with her, which bothered him, he said.

George admitted he helped his brother build a goose box as a birthday gift for their grandfather. He said he loaded it into the bed of his truck and drove it to the Flying W Farm, where they put it into a lake on the property; he said the box was weighed down with metal chunks they retrieved from the Flying W, insisting he had no idea the concrete buckets were there or what was inside of them.

Parker questioned George on his tattoo; he explained it had been to cover up an old tattoo he'd grown to hate. He'd had the Cummins logo on his shoulder and told the jury he got a discount for it because it was his artist's son's first tattoo, but what was supposed to be smoke looked like bubbles, which garnered him plenty of teasing.

He said he didn't choose the style or design of the cover-up tattoo, which the prosecution has repeatedly tried to suggest served as a sort of trophy after the homicides. The tattoo artist testified on the stand that he'd chosen the artwork, because the solid black of the 8-ball was the only thing that would successfully cover the tattoo underneath.

George denied having known anything about the murders, what his family had planned or the preparation process in the months leading up to them. If he had known about it, he wouldn't have allowed it to happen, he said.

"One way or another, I would have never let it happen," he said.

He'd never known Billy and Jake had left the house the night before, and he didn't remember waking up at all that night, he said.

He learned of the homicides from the news, after Angela called him and Jake and ordered them to come home on April 22, 2016. When he got home, he saw the news on television; Billy was freaking out, telling them he couldn't get ahold of Chris Sr. and Jake told him a friend had called and told him Hanna and Frankie were among the dead.

"It was more heartbreaking and more of a trauma than I've ever been through in my life," said George.

He reacted by driving his four-wheeler to the woods for a couple of hours to calm down, something he said he often did when upset. When he came back to the house, Jake was sitting in the living room in an unresponsive daze and Billy was sitting there, trying to talk to Jake. Angela was in the kitchen with the children. Billy stayed overnight at the Peterson Road house for days after that, which George said was very unusual, before his fighting with Angela drove him back to the Flying W Farm.

He, Billy and Jake went to the funerals of those murdered, he said; it was "everybody's" idea for them to go. He said he didn't know his father and brother had any involvement in the homicides at all.

While at the funerals, he said Jake showed little emotion, but that was typical for him. He said his brother didn't like being touched or hugged and rarely showed emotion; he'd never seen his brother grin or smirk the way he had on the witness stand when he described the night of the homicides, he said.

When law enforcement began to level suspicions against his family, George said he thought it was just police wasting their time — particularly since they'd already accused Bobby Jo Manley, James Manley and Leonard Manley of the homicides. He also thought Leonard had perhaps encouraged police in their direction.

"I assumed it was because my brother had pissed everyone in the Manley family off," said George.

Like his mother and brother before him, George recounted the family's trips to Alaska and back, including the interrogations at the Montana border.

"I didn't believe what they were saying," he said, but told the jury he'd agreed to spy on Jake for BCI, which had predominantly questioned him on his mother and brother's involvement.

After the interrogations, he confronted Jake, asking his brother if he had any knowledge of the murders or who had done them.

"He swore up and down that he didn't know who did it and they had nothing to do with it," he said. "I had no reason not to believe him."

After he was laid of from his job in Alaska, George said he made up his mind that he was moving back south, having found a job with R&L in Kansas City, MO. He mentioned the job to Billy, who leapt at the opportunity to return home to the Flying W Farm; Angela and Jake were harder to convince, but George said he and his father were ready to leave without them.

The job in Missouri was ultimately a bust, George said; he'd wanted a team trucking job, which paid more, but that position wasn't available in Kansas City. It was, however, available in Wilmington, Ohio, and George said he resolved to move back for the job with or without his family. Once more, Angela and Jake didn't want to leave; George said he told his mother he planned to go regardless, and take his son with him, which upset her enough to change her mind. Once she caved, George said Jake followed shortly after.

Questioning touched on Beth and the wiretap recordings; George said he didn't trust Beth after Sophia's allegations and conceded that he'd suspected BCI was listening to his phone and conversations in the semi truck he drove with Jake.

"My father raised me to always assume they were recording," said George.

He had no idea the truck his father bought off his uncle was used to commit the homicides until he learned of Jake's proffer. The announcement of Jake's guilty plea shocked him, he said, because he'd still believed his family could never have had anything to do with the homicides.

At first, he said he thought his brother had just gone crazy while sitting in jail.

"My brother's not a social person and doesn't get along well with people," he said.

His attorney, Richard Nash, had delivered the news to him and he didn't think Nash would lie, but he still didn't believe his brother was capable of murdering eight people. The news made him feel heartbroken and betrayed, because he'd defended his brother in the years after the murders, he said.

He experienced similar feelings when, months later, his mother changed her plea to a guilty one.

"I just couldn't believe that they were capable of it," he said quietly. "I have a hard time dealing with it, yes."

Parker asked him how it felt to have his mother testify against him. After a long pause, George answered, his voice tight.

"It was emotionally hard, considering she wouldn't even look at me," he said.

As to the motive his family had, George said he had no idea why any of his family members would believe Sophia was being abused, because no one in Hanna's family would have ever harmed a child. He said he hadn't even been aware there were significant custody issues between Hanna and his brother.

He denied knowing his mother purchased shoes from Walmart that were used in the homicides or that any purchases — made with his credit card or otherwise — were made to obtain items needed to build a silencer.

Parker showed George the list of guns BCI agents found on Jake's phone during the course of the investigation and asked him, line by line, whether he'd seen any of those guns. The prosecution has claimed the list was a catalogue of firearms owned by the family, made one year before the murders; Jake also said that's what the list was, including guns used in the murders.

George disagreed; he said his brother often made lists, particularly of things he planned to or wanted to purchase. One such list held hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Snap On tools Jake coveted, he said. Parker had George go through the list item by item; some guns he said he or his family had owned, but no longer did when Jake made that list. Others he said he'd never seen the family own. Others still were owned by the family, but not in the color or style listed on Jake's phone.

The list was created on February 11, 2015 and last modified on May 1, 2015. In that time, George said he also owned many guns that weren't on that list at all.

"I've not seen half of what he's got on that list," he said.

Parker asked how he felt knowing Jake had pleaded guilty. George paused before answering.

"I really don't even like calling him my brother anymore," he said. "I'm ashamed that my family would do anything like this."

Parker asked how he felt about his mother.

"I have the same feeling towards her," he said.

You can watch the day's proceedings in the player below:

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

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