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Pike County murders trial: Forensic testimony continues into Monday

Forensics, including ballistic, blood and shoe print evidence, were presented Friday to a jury that will decide the fate of a man accused of killing eight people in Pike County in 2016.
Shane Hanshaw
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WAVERLY, Ohio — The second week of testimony continued Monday in the trial of George Wagner IV who, along with several of his family members, is accused of killing eight people in Pike County in 2016.

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.

On Friday, the jury heard from Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent Shane Hanshaw, opted to be recorded during his testimony as he described how he documented the crime scenes after BCI was called in to assist in the investigation.

After a lunch break, prosecution resumed questioning Hanshaw about the home in which Chris Rhoden Sr. and Gary Rhoden were found shot to death. Hanshaw processed that scene and collected most of the evidence that day; he said he never went to any of the other crime scenes, focusing solely on Chris Sr.'s property.

Found in the living room was a broken pair of eyeglasses, one lens broken out, lying on the floor in a pool of blood, Hanshaw said. That blood tested to be Gary Rhoden's; Hanshaw said he did learn Gary wore eyeglasses.

Some time was spent examining and explaining a Jets baseball cap Hanshaw discovered on the floor of the kitchen in the home. The hat appeared to have perforations in the fabric, he said; there was a hole in the back Hanshaw testified appeared to be from a bullet and tearing in the front near the bill, where Hanshaw said a bullet was lodged.

"There's dried blood on this and I'm just being very cautious about unfolding it, I don't want it to become airborne," he said while showing the baseball cap to the jury.

The bullet hole in the back of the cap appeared to have evidence inside that a bullet had gone through the back of the cap and exited through the front of the cap, Hanshaw said.

The inside of the hat was swabbed and DNA testing showed Gary Rhoden's DNA was on the hat.

Back in the bedroom, where Chris Sr. and Gary were found dead at the end of a bloody trail, Hanshaw said both men were lying in positions that indicated they'd been dragged into the room: They both lied with their arms outstretched above their heads, their shirts were rolled up toward their heads and their pants were bunched up around their legs.

Hanshaw said it appeared they'd been dragged by their feet.

From there, the court examined up-close photos of the bodies of the two men, including their gunshot wounds. Chris Sr.'s wallet was found lying between his legs with his ID still inside.

Investigators swabbed both victims' hands, attempting to find trace evidence on their skin from any other person who may have touched them, Hanshaw said. Swabs from both men did not show any DNA except their own or one another's, Prosecutor Andrew Wilson said.

Other swabs were taken throughout the house, from doorknobs and light switches. None of them revealed DNA in the home belonging to anyone other than Gary or Chris Sr.

Hanshaw also said the house did not show any of the "classic" signs of a struggle, such as knocked over furniture or displaced photos and wall hangings.

Hanshaw also testified about several other evidence items collected on April 22, 2016, including forensic vacuuming of the victims, cell phones found in the home and a flashlight covered in Gary's DNA that was found near the bodies.

On a different building on the property, Hanshaw said he discovered a door with the handle broken off, lying on the second-floor deck below. The door stood open, inside of which was a small marijuana grow facility. Above the outside of the door was mounted a surveillance camera, Hanshaw said.

Investigators traced the cables leading from that camera inside the building, to a spot where there were multiple other cables, also attached to different security cameras positioned around the building, Hanshaw said.

"We found no recording device hooked to those," he said.

All four of the cords were swabbed for DNA, but there was insufficient DNA on the surfaces, the prosecution said.

On the outside of the door to the grow operation, Hanshaw saw what he believed were several blood transfer spots; swabs of those determined there was a presence of blood that tested positive for Gary's DNA.

Ultimately, Wilson said none of the swabs taken from the scene at Chris Sr. and Gary Rhoden's home contained DNA for either George Wagner, his brother Jake, his mother Angela or his father Billy.

Prosecutors continued to question Hanshaw, asking about how Chris Sr. and Gary were removed from the home. Hanshaw said they didn't move the bodies out until after the entire scene had been fully processed, to ensure the removal process didn't damage any of the evidence in the scene.

"It's too much evidence between the front entrance and where our victims were to take a chance on moving them out," he said. "It was not out of disrespect, but I did not want to lose evidence that could help me determine what had happened to them."

Hanshaw stayed on scene until both men were taken out and given over to an investigator from the county coroner's office, he said.

"I always stay with my victims until the time they are released and so that investigator and myself personally put our victims in their body bags and carried them out personally," said Hanshaw.

Prosecution rested their case and defense attorney John Parker cross-examined Hanshaw. Particularly, Parker asked Hanshaw how the broken glasses he'd found on the floor of the living room weren't signs a struggle had occurred inside the home. Hanshaw said in this case he didn't believe it showed a struggle.

During the prosecution's redirect, Wilson asked Hanshaw whether the glasses were more likely a sign that they were broken during the shooting, because they were found near a pool of blood that indicated someone had laid there bleeding for a time.

Hanshaw stepped down from the witness stand and another BCI agent, Todd Fortner, was called in. Fortner was the lead investigator on the second scene, where Frankie and Hannah Hazel were found dead next to their unharmed baby, but he was also brought in to assist Hanshaw with the first scene at Chris Sr.'s home.

Specifically, Fortner was called in to do 3D scans of the property, inside and outside of the trailer. During his testimony, completed versions of those scans were shown to the jury. In them, trajectory rods officers used to determine directionality of bullet holes in the front of the home were digitally extended to show where a person could have stood while the weapon was fired.

The scans showed the six bullet holes in the front of the home all lined up to show that a gun was fired from the front lawn, lower than the porch. The trajectories cannot show exactly where a person stood, knelt or laid to fire the weapon, Fortner said, but the lines led to a red mower that rested in the front yard of Chris Sr.'s home.

Metal detectors and bomb sniffing dogs equipped to smell gunpowder were unsuccessful in finding any shell casings in that area, Fortner said.

Another reason Fortner was brought in to assist with the first scene was to help scan and ultimately recover a bullet that had been fired directly into the floor of the home.

Fortner created 3D scans to calculate the trajectory of that bullet and another agent crawled beneath the trailer to recover it.

"It was a hollow-point, it appeared to be a pistol projectile that had not expanded," said Fortner.

That lack of expansion, he explained, was an indication that bullet had not hit a person.

Fortner was also on scene when a large gun safe in Chris Sr.'s bedroom was forced open by the fire department with the jaws of life; inside were several firearms, over $20,000 in cash, some white substance in a small bag and several documents and IDs, specifically social security cards for Frankie and his months-old son, Ruger, a social security card for Gary and a wallet containing a driver's license for 16-year-old Chris Jr.

Defense attorneys questioned Fortner about the guns found in the safe, of which there were more than a dozen. Guns identified included rifles, shotguns, one revolver, one semi-automatic pistol and a carbine pistol. Fortner testified that he was not familiar with the carbine pulled from the safe, but said guns of that type could be modified to be fully automatic and could handle large clips. Fortner did not know whether the carbine pistol from the safe was semi-automatic or fully automatic, he said.

You can watch Monday's testimony in full below:

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

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