WAVERLY, Ohio — The jury has found George Wagner IV guilty for the murders of eight members of the Rhoden family in Pike County in 2016 after deliberating for just over seven hours.
He will be sentenced during a separate hearing on December 19.
After the first guilty count was read, a gasp rang out in the court room. George remained stoic, his gaze downward, as the judge continued to read guilty verdict after guilty verdict.
After the jury was dismissed from the court room for the final time, members of the family embraced in the gallery, some crying.
Members of the Rhoden family spoke out after the verdict was read:
George — along with his mother Angela and brother Edward "Jake" Wagner — is guilty of charges associated with shooting and killing the Rhoden family members "execution-style." The family's bodies were found on April 22, 2016. His father, George "Billy" Wagner III, has maintained a plea of "not guilty" and is scheduled to face trial in 2023.
He faced eight charges of aggravated murder, along with 14 other charges associated with tampering with evidence, conspiracy and forgery.
In a press conference following the verdict, Pike County prosecuting attorney Rob Junk thanked the victims' families for sticking with them throughout the trial.
"Good won today, and evil lost," Junk said.
Major Al Lewis, a retired lead investigator in Pike County Sheriff's Office, said you can't express the magnitude of this type of investigation.
"We got one more to go," Lewis said referring to George "Billy" Wagner's upcoming trial. "He's next. We're gonna win that one too."
Bottom row, left to right: Chris Rhoden Jr., Kenneth Rhoden, Gary Rhoden
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 was the first time a person faced a jury for the deaths of the Rhoden family six years ago.
The case was one of the biggest criminal investigations in Ohio's history. From suspected Mexican cartel involvement to the custody of a then-3-year-old girl to the state of Alaska, the six years since the murders has delivered twists and turns in an investigation that culminated in George's trial.
The trial spanned nearly three months, during which the jury heard from investigators, family members of the victims, family members of the defendant, forensic experts and first responders who arrived to the four different crime scenes in 2016.
The prosecution entered hundreds of evidential exhibits for the jury to consider while making their decision, from shell casings to shoes to a video clip from the Boondock Saints series.
Most notably, George's mother and brother — who have both accepted deals from the prosecution in exchange for guilty pleas — both testified against him during the trial.
Both have confessed to their involvement in the murders and the planning efforts that preceded them and both, as a result of their plea deals, had to take the stand to testify against George in order for the death penalty specifications facing the family to be dropped.
The prosecution announced to the court and, later, to the jury that they'd determined Jake and Angela's testimonies were accurate and truthful enough to fulfill the requirements of the plea deal. George officially no longer faced the death penalty as of Nov. 22, just one week before the jury was given the case for deliberation.
Ultimately, jurors decided George was guilty despite his having never fired a shot the night of April 21, 2016.
Ohio law states that anyone complicit in the execution of a crime can be found guilty for the crime itself, regardless of the amount of participation.
The jury determined George was just as guilty as the other members of his family who were all accused of conspiring together to commit the murders. During his trial, the prosecution laid out how the Wagner family worked together to purchase items in the months leading up to the homicides, including parts used to build homemade silencers, a phone jammer, a bug detector and brass catchers.
Jurors were faced with determining whether they believed it was possible George, while living in the same home as Angela and Jake, was simply at home sleeping as his brother and father were out committing the homicides.
Both Jake and Angela told the jury George was present that night, along with Jake and Billy, as the three crept from home to home on Union Hill Road and Left Fork Road, fatally shooting each member of the Rhoden family in their heads. Defense attorneys urged the jury to disregard Jake and Angela’s testimonies as unreliable, citing their history of lies and crime, but in the end jurors determined the state’s case was more believable.
The prosecution argued the motive behind the Wagners’ actions was over the custody over Jake’s daughter, whom he had with Hanna May; Jake and Angela said it was more complicated than that. They alleged the Wagners believed the girl was being sexually abused by someone in Hanna May’s life and that, in the end, they had to murder the Rhodens to protect her.
