WAVERLY, Ohio — George Wagner IV endured an often tense cross examination by the prosecution Thursday, while on the stand in his own defense.
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.
You can watch George's testimony here:
George took the stand for a second day on Thursday, answering questions from his defense attorney, John Parker. His first day on the stand, the defendant appeared nervous and spoke softly, with a wavering voice at times; in contrast, he appeared more comfortable on the stand Thursday and spoke firmly, delivering answers with confidence.
Parker asked him about several items the prosecution presented to the jury earlier in the trial, including a GoFundMe page created after the murders, a profile picture George once had on Facebook and George's social media use.
He'd never read the contents of the GoFundMe page before it was read aloud in trial, he said, but was aware it was a page "my brother made." The profile picture of a wolf with two different colored eyes and a black mark over one eye had nothing to do with the homicides, George said, and he rarely used social media sites like Facebook outside of shopping in marketplaces.
George admitted he didn't trust his brother's ex-wife, Beth, especially after his niece made allegations that she'd been inappropriately touched by Beth. He was suspicious of her from the beginning, when she broke up with Jake after learning the family was suspected in the octuple homicide case but got back together with him just one week later; he said their hired attorney at the time had suggested the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations could plant a spy in the Wagner family.
Beth had also told a story that shook George's trust in her, about growing up in a cult in Texas that she'd learned sold children into sex slavery; Jake also recounted this story during his testimony.
"I just didn't feel my son was safe around her," said George, adding he wanted her to move out of their home.
Parker asked him whether he would have killed anyone for his niece, Sophia, or his son, Bulvine, and George immediately responded that he would not. He said he wasn't upset knowing that, in the end, Tabitha, his ex-wife, has been the primary caregiver for Bulvine.
"As long as she straightened her life up, I have no problem with it," he said.
Parker walked George back over several points he worked to drive home Wednesday, asking George to reiterate that he loved Hanna May like a little sister, was best friends with Frankie, and didn't trick Tabitha into conceding custody of their son.
George elaborated on a chop shop enterprise he engaged in with his maternal grandfather, Ed Carter, years ago; people Carter knew would bring him vehicles they didn't want to pay loans on any longer and George would buy them for $500 to $1,000. Then George chopped the vehicles up, scrapped and sold the parts and the original owner would report the vehicle stolen, collecting insurance payouts from the claim.
He admitted to signing a custody document identical to the one Angela forged Hanna May's signature on, but said he didn't read it or pay any attention to a date printed at the bottom of the document. He said he hastily signed it on his way out the door one day; it was just one of many custody documents his mother would draw up and have him sign.
George told the jury he didn't know his mother and brother were involved in the homicides at first, believing their claims that the hassling they'd received from law enforcement was an effort to frame the Wagners to make it look like police were doing their jobs.
"I was raised to believe all law enforcement was crooked," he said, adding their attorney told them BCI would stoop to any level for information.
His mother and brother told him repeatedly that evidence collected on them was being twisted by agents, who only sought to frame them, and George said he believed them and felt angry and protective of his family.
"I now know that (Jake) was just lying through his teeth to me," he said, noting his mother had too.
In recordings made by agents from wiretaps of the Wagner phones and vehicles they drove, George often angrily engaged in conversation, saying he wanted to kill lead BCI investigator Ryan Scheiderer; George conceded he'd said that, but that it was a result of irritability caused by a lack of sleep and overdosing caffeine while he drove long-haul routes.
A text George sent to a woman he'd been interested in stated his family was very close; George said it had nothing to do with the murders, he'd just wanted to tell her if she moved to Ohio that his family had always been in close proximity to one another.
On parenting their children, George and Jake had "massive disagreements," he said. He spoiled his son, buying him things he wanted and adopted a less restrictive parenting style for Bulvine, believing that part of being a kid was making mistakes and learning from them, regardless of how parents intervened. Jake was a much more restrictive parent to Sophia, he said.
"My brother wanted to keep Sophia chained up in the house for her entire life until she graduated college," he said.
Parker concluded questioning of his client by asking him to reiterate to the jury he wasn't involved in the murders, had no idea of his own family's involvement, and that, had he learned of the plot he would have somehow stopped it.
Special prosecutor Angela Canepa stepped up for the state's cross examination, immediately questioning George's claim that he and Frankie had been best friends.
She pointed out George had only once met Frankie's fiancee, Hannah Hazel — who was also murdered that night. He'd never met Frankie's then-6-month-old son, Ruger, either and didn't even know the baby's name. Canepa said it appeared George hadn't seen Frankie in the nine months Hannah Hazel was pregnant or the first six months of Ruger's life, a total of 15 months.
George maintained he considered Frankie a best friend; he previously testified that he hadn't had as much time for his friends after his son was born and he began driving long-haul trucking routes.
During the exchange, George seemed frustrated, stumbling a bit over his words and occasionally answering over Canepa.
He insisted Frankie hadn't held any grudges against him after learning he'd spoken to the mother of Frankie's older child privately on social media; when Chelsea testified that was true, she was mistaken, he said, but refused to agree with Canepa that he was calling Chelsea a liar.
Next, it was Canepa's turn to stumble a bit as she questioned him about Billy's game of spotting cameras; she seemed to think the game had been about trail cameras — of which there had been several discovered to be missing from a few of the crime scenes. George corrected her and told her it was surveillance cameras in parking lots, stores and on streets, never trail cameras. If Billy spotted one the brothers didn't, he'd loop the parking lot or drive around the block until they found it.
There'd been a night scope bought at a Bass Pro Shop using Jake's rewards card that BCI believed had been used to detect trail cameras because it could see the infrared sensors on the devices, but George maintained he didn't know it could do that and simply used it for poaching deer at night.
Canepa then questioned George on various crimes he'd committed throughout his life, touching again on the chop shop operation with Carter, a pick-up owned by George that was intentionally crashed for insurance money and a truck that burned for which the Wagners also received insurance payouts.
George denied the fire was intentionally set, because it had been just a small blaze in the cabin that smothered itself early; if it had been intentionally set ablaze, it would have instead been reduced to just the scorched frame, he said.
Canepa brought out the transcript of George's interview with BCI when the family was detained trying to cross the border from Canada into Montana in 2017, noting that several things he'd said then didn't match his testimony in trial. George said he didn't remember much of what he'd told agents back then.
During the interrogation, he'd told agents he went to bed the night of the murders at around 12:30 a.m., after watching a movie with his family, but during testimony while on the stand he told the jury he went to bed around 10 p.m. that night. George said he didn't remember the details of what he told BCI, but doubled down on his testimony that he'd been in bed close to 10 p.m.
Chris Sr. and Gary were being murdered at around 11 p.m., Canepa said; George replied he didn't know that because he wasn't there.
Jake testified that George was present the night of the murders and even inside more than one of the Rhoden homes while the murders were being carried out, though he'd conceded his brother hadn't fired a single shot.
During the interrogation at the border, George had adamantly told agents there was no way anyone in the house could go down the stairs and leave the home without him knowing, because of the location of his bedroom.
"You actually insisted on it and said it more than 15 times to the agents at the border," said Canepa.
Yet, during trial he said he never heard them leave after claiming to be asleep around 10 p.m., she said. George again reiterated that he didn't have a clear memory of what he'd told agents at the border.
The morning after the murders, George said he'd gotten up and was surprised to find his brother already awake; George was typically the first person up in the mornings, he said. Canepa pointed out that he never told agents at the border that; he replied that they'd never asked. They'd only asked what he did that morning and he'd told them truthfully, he said.
To BCI, he'd defended his family, but during testimony he'd behaved as if he couldn't stand them, Canepa pointed out. George again said he couldn't remember the details of his interview with BCI, but emphasized he wasn't lying on the stand.
During cross examination, Canepa became increasingly waspish with George, who occasionally seemed frustrated but remained overall composed and steady. George often asked permission to elaborate further on questions and appeared to be eager to provide answers.
At one point, George asked Judge Randy Deering whether he could go into detail about a question and Canepa scoffed.
Despite his described desire to leave the Wagner family home, Canepa pointed out that, in July of 2018, George spoke with his mother on the phone, telling her he wanted to buy a farm out west where he, Jake, Angela and the kids could live peacefully; the prosecution played that recorded call for the jury earlier in the trial.
George said he didn't mean the family would all live in the same house, but instead that they'd buy a large plot of land where each could have their own house, yet still remain close.
Canepa continued to compare George's testimony to others who have taken the stand, including Jake, Angela and Tabitha, pointing out that his version of events didn't always match theirs; George said he believed Angela and Jake could have lied and that Tabitha could have been mistaken.
On the topic of the custody arrangement with Tabitha, Canepa accused George of withholding Bulvine from his mother, citing Tabitha's testimony. George conceded that he hadn't wanted Tabitha's sister or mother around his son, because of their complicity and attitude about the sexual abuse Tabitha and her sisters endured growing up. Canepa asked why Tabitha's sisters were a danger when they had been victims themselves and George replied they believed sexual abuse was normal and something kids just got over as they grew up, and that kind of thinking worried him.
George said he never tried to keep Bulvine from Tabitha and that she'd canceled visits just as often as he had, though he conceded he'd had to cancel because of work or because Tabitha insisted on bringing her mother or boyfriend along — the man with which she'd had an affair while she was married to George.
As for Tabitha's flight from the Wagner household, George said she and his brother had merged two different altercations together into their account of the night she left. He insisted his recounting of it on Wednesday was accurate and told the jury Angela throwing the two-by-four and saying she'd get a gun was from an "entirely different event," though when he asked Canepa whether he could elaborate on that event, she refused.
"You agree she fled that night?" asked Canepa.
"I agree she left that night," said George.
He said he'd tried multiple times to get Jake and Angela to stop logging into Tabitha's Facebook account after she left; he didn't agree with them reading her personal messages, even if he wasn't ready to share custody of his son with her until she "straightened her life up."
"I tried getting them to stop multiple times, they wouldn't do it," he said.
"Because you didn't think that was appropriate," said Canepa, emphasizing the last word sarcastically.
"I didn't think she needed to be monitoring Tabi's page," he said.
Canepa looped back to crimes George committed, including using a false address to buy a gun; George said the seller told him to use the address on his driver's license, which was for Bethel Hill Road, although the family had already moved to Peterson Road. He knew the home on Bethel Hill was burned intentionally and salvaged his belongings before they could be burned; Canepa pointed out that he profited from it, as someone who was able to live at Peterson Road, which was purchased with the insurance money from the Bethel Hill blaze.
In fact, Canepa said, the Peterson Road home was put in Jake and George's names; George said that was to skirt inheritance taxes, so Jake and George could have the farm after his parents had passed away without paying additional taxes.
Throughout his life, George had owned several different SKS rifles, he told the jury.
"More than I can put a number on," he said.
But none of them were ever used to kill anyone, he said, and Jake had owned one too. Canepa asked where the SKS George had owned around the time of the murders went and he said he sold it to a friend in 2015, before the murders even happened. He hadn't told the agents that in Montana, Canepa pointed out. They hadn't asked, George replied, adding Scheiderer had only asked him about a .22 caliber Colt pistol during his talks with investigators.
"At that time I had no knowledge of an SKS being used in this, and he never asked me about any gun on that list besides a Colt .22," he said.
In fact, he was already arrested and charged with the murders by the time he learned an SKS rifle was used in the homicides, he said.
He also denied knowing that Jake had ever owned the .22 Colt pistol. Canepa expressed skepticism that his brother could own a gun for over a year without George knowing about it. She produced receipts for the purchase of the Colt and gun purchases made by George on the same day at the same gun show in Columbus, Ohio. George said he didn't remember Jake coming along to that show, only that his father was there.
Canepa repeatedly pushed him on the topic, telling him she didn't believe that he wouldn't have remembered the gun or his brother's presence.
"I'm not saying he wasn't there, I'm saying I don't remember him being there," said George.
Canepa also brought up several things witnesses have testified had nothing to do with the murders, like George's tattoo and the brothers dyeing their hair — though George said he never dyed his own hair, he agreed Jake certainly had dyed his. George repeated his testimony from the day prior that he didn't choose most aspects of his tattoo, least of which the 8-ball tattoo; his tattoo artist also testified that George hadn't selected many of the details for the cover-up art.
The special prosecutor also mentioned the bug detector purchased with George's credit card and mentioned by George in a tapped phone call to his mother; George said his father had used his card to by the bug detector and two GPS trackers for Chris Sr. in 2015, though before Billy and Chris Sr. used them, George played with them a bit, he said.
He hadn't known his card was used to buy the device until his trial, he said.
"For someone who makes the majority of decisions in the house, you sure didn't know a lot," said Canepa.
"If you want to look at it that way, you can look at it that way, I just didn't know it had been bought," said George, sounding exasperated.
During redirect, Parker simply re-asked several questions he'd already posited to his client: Were you at the crime scenes that night? Did you know about the murders or the plan? George said "no."
"Are you telling the truth?" asked Parker.
"Yes," said George.
"Your life is on the line?" asked Parker.
"Yes," said George.
On rebuttal, Canepa asked what happens to George if he admits he helped slaughter perfectly innocent people, including two who'd been nursing infants at the time. He asked her to clarify if she meant what would happen to anyone who committed those crimes, but she simply repeated the question.
"What should happen to anybody is they should have death given to them," said George.
With no further questions to answer from either side, George stepped back down from the witness seat and walked across the court room to retake his place in the defendant's chair.
On Friday, court will begin with attorneys still working to admit all the evidence needed for the prosecution to rest their case; the jury won't arrive until 1 p.m.
You can watch part one of George's testimony in the player below:
You can watch the second day of George's testimony here:
You can read recaps of each day of the trial in our coverage below:
- George Wagner IV testifies in own defense
- Arguments over evidence, defense calls witnesses
- No jury Monday as defense and prosecution argue over evidence
- The prosecution rests its case after playing final wiretap recordings
- 'We get electrocuted...it's your fault," George told his brother in wiretap
- Jury dismissed early again over disagreements on wiretap recordings
- Prosecution tries to tie murder plot to movie plot
- Trial postponed to Monday over evidentiary issues
- Murders were about protection, not custody, said Angela
- Angela told the prosecution bloody shoeprints belonged to George
- Angela Wagner called to stand, opted out of recording
- Investigators describe recovering, testing murder weapons
- Jake Wagner finishes testimony as seventh week of trial wrapped up
- Photos of murder weapons are shown for first time as Jake testifies for third day
- Jake Wagner 'could not bear to think' or speak about his crimes after the murders
- 'I felt I had no other choice than to kill Hanna,' Jake Wagner told jury
- 'I was afraid they were going to kill me,' Jake's ex-wife testifies
- Texts between Hanna Rhoden and Jake Wagner detail ongoing custody argument
- Witnesses describe intertwined Wagner finances and a device found inside a well
- Clandestine recordings made by Jake, Wagner family finances presented
- Wire taps played for jury as court enters sixth week of testimony
- George Wagner IV's grandmother testifies
- Interview with Angela played for jury, Angela's half brother takes stand
- Texts highlight Wagner family dynamic, purchases for possible silencer
- Dozens of guns collected in search of Flying W Farm, but no murder weapons
- Jury shown evidence collected from Wagner belongings
- Evidence collected on Wagner property presented
- BCI agents testified to evidence
- 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
Watch opening statements below:
