VERDICT WATCH OH - Pike Co - 8 in Rhoden Family Murdered - 4 Wagner Family Members Arrested #85

[arielilane]

He and George dyed their hair dark to match their favorite character from the TV show The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon. To psych himself up before the murders, he said he watched a clip from the movie Boondock Saints; he smiled and held back laughter in the courtroom when the prosecution made him watch the clip in court.

The night of the murders, Jake told the jury he had the Colt pistol, Billy took the Glock and George had his SKS rifle.


Pike County murder trial: 'I felt I had no other choice than to kill Hanna,' Jake Wagner told jury

 

[rsd1200]

Yeah, not a lot of parents of the year in this story ... though the testimony certainly shows the DR and CSsr. were not absent and supported their daughter

I disagree with the latter, but will leave it there.

 

[arielilane]

In one recording, George Wagner IV is heard speaking to his son, Bulvine, a toddler, telling him:

“You know what they want? The people at the border who talked to you and Sudsy, they want to kill your Uncle Jake, they want to kill your (inaudible), they want to kill your papaw and me for no reason,” George can be heard telling Bulvine. “Because they are bad people. They are bad people. They want us all to die, and they will take you away and give you to bad people. They want to take Sudsy away and give her to bad people. They are bad people. Don’t listen to what they tell you. They’re liars. That’s what they are. They are liars.”

Pike County massacre trial of George Wagner IV: What has happened so far

WAVERLY — In the trial of George Wagner IV, who is charged with killed eight members of Pike County’s Rhoden family, investigators have presented a lot of pieces of evidence — most recently, wiretap recordings of conversations between Wagner family members. The trial is in its sixth week at the...

www.daytondailynews.com

 

[Betty P]

He and George dyed their hair dark to match their favorite character from the TV show The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon. To psych himself up before the murders, he said he watched a clip from the movie Boondock Saints; he smiled and held back laughter in the courtroom when the prosecution made him watch the clip in court.

The night of the murders, Jake told the jury he had the Colt pistol, Billy took the Glock and George had his SKS rifle.


Pike County murder trial: 'I felt I had no other choice than to kill Hanna,' Jake Wagner told jury

All of the ballistic, digital and witness evidence matches his story, too. He didn't say "I dyed my hair, then Dad and I took 3 guns and went to kill the Rhodens".

 

[arielilane]

For the record, GW4 made threats both physically and verbally to TC (she testified to this), made threats to BCI agent and an AG, verbal abuse to two minor children and got in physical altercations with his father. But he's a nice guy. IMO, MOO.

 

[Betty P]

Yeah, not a lot of parents of the year in this story ... though the testimony certainly shows the DR and CSsr. were not absent and supported their daughter

Agree. They were reported to be unhappy with Hanna having a sexual relationship with Jake. He even admitted it. Dana they wanted her to stay in school. She wanted her to go to school for her nursing certification, which she eventually did.

 

[Niner]

Reposting James' tweet for those that may have missed it. BBM

https://twitter.com/jamespilcher

Nov 17
They are reviewing more exhibits tonight so the stream is still up. They also might remove death penalty specifications from George since Jake testified - that would remove requirement of jury being sequestered as a death penalty case

So - I might have missed this - but DID they remove the DP specifications? Or will they be doing that this week sometime or do they do that in front of the jury - ??
TIA if someone can explain that to me!

 

[arielilane]

Interesting older article covering wiretaps & cyber listening.

Former BCI agent testifies in motions hearing for eldest Wagner

The eldest Wagner appeared in a Pike County court Monday.

www.fox19.com

Hagaman told Special Prosecutor Angela Canepa that he issued 35 intercept warrants for wiretaps and cyber listening for the Wagners.

 

[arielilane]

"I don't know why they think mom's going to be a witness," said Angela.

Ultimately, Rita was the first facing charges connected to the homicides to confess and she did take the stand against George during trial.

On July 20, George and Angela spoke on the phone about attorneys; George implied his paternal grandmother, Fredericka Wagner, had indicated she would choose attorneys for family members. George said no matter what the best attorney they could hire should represent Angela, so she could have a higher chance at getting to take care of the children.

"The rest of us can screw ourselves," said George. "I don't care what my grandmother says, it's gonna be yours. I'll go in and do it without one, I don't care."

Pike County murder trial: The prosecution rests its case after playing final wiretap recordings

Trial began Thursday morning with a forensic expert called by the defense and ended in the afternoon with the prosecution playing the remainder of wiretap recordings of the Wagner family from 2018.

www.wcpo.com

 

[pcrum12]

Not worthless. He did not take the opportunity to deny his statements

well i just meant in the eyes of the law/court. You can notarize all you want but that have to go before the courts to be legal.
Even if notarized legally.

 

[pcrum12]

BIUBM That is significant. I didn't recall him testifying to the family movie and 12:30 bedtime part, but if he did, and changed horses mid-stream, then that's definitely significant. I'll take your word for it and am okay with what the jury decides. They've seen and heard much more than I have in this case, well, any of us have, except for those on here who may have quietly attended the trial.

In RE: He also changed his story about his whereabouts the night of the murders. First, he says he went to bed (after he and his entire family watched a movie) at 12:30 am. He testified that he went to bed at 10:00 night of the murders.

That was what was suppose to have been stated at the MT Border interview that no audio or transcript was put before the jury. He did not say this on the stand.

 

[arielilane]

So - I might have missed this - but DID they remove the DP specifications? Or will they be doing that this week sometime or do they do that in front of the jury - ??
TIA if someone can explain that to me!

No update if its been removed.

 

[justtrish]

In one recording, George Wagner IV is heard speaking to his son, Bulvine, a toddler, telling him:

“You know what they want? The people at the border who talked to you and Sudsy, they want to kill your Uncle Jake, they want to kill your (inaudible), they want to kill your papaw and me for no reason,” George can be heard telling Bulvine. “Because they are bad people. They are bad people. They want us all to die, and they will take you away and give you to bad people. They want to take Sudsy away and give her to bad people. They are bad people. Don’t listen to what they tell you. They’re liars. That’s what they are. They are liars.”

Pike County massacre trial of George Wagner IV: What has happened so far

WAVERLY — In the trial of George Wagner IV, who is charged with killed eight members of Pike County’s Rhoden family, investigators have presented a lot of pieces of evidence — most recently, wiretap recordings of conversations between Wagner family members. The trial is in its sixth week at the...

www.daytondailynews.com

This is due to paranoia about being framed also I am sure. It's not normal to tell our kids that the police want to kill us and the police want to take them away and give them to bad people?

No, the police wanted to protect those kids from the real bad people. The police would have preferred to never see 8 murdered people. They would have preferred that 2 infants were not laying in their dead parents blood for hours and a toddler wasn't seeing his dad and step mom covered in blood "playing zombies". Imagine how they felt letting that truck drive away from the border knowing 2 other innocent children were in that vehicle and they had came face to face with the monsters.

Thinking that at this point BCI didn't know everything, but they had the ballistics that matched. They had alibi stories that were oddly matching/not making sense. Then all 4 drive away with 2 innocent children.

 

[Myland]

In RE: He also changed his story about his whereabouts the night of the murders. First, he says he went to bed (after he and his entire family watched a movie) at 12:30 am. He testified that he went to bed at 10:00 night of the murders.

That was what was suppose to have been stated at the MT Border interview that no audio or transcript was put before the jury. He did not say this on the stand.

Jmo Capena could have easily pulled out the transcript to prove he was lying if he was unless there was some reason she was either scared of that transcript or there wasn’t one. Jmo

 

[rsd1200]

In RE: He also changed his story about his whereabouts the night of the murders. First, he says he went to bed (after he and his entire family watched a movie) at 12:30 am. He testified that he went to bed at 10:00 night of the murders.

That was what was suppose to have been stated at the MT Border interview that no audio or transcript was put before the jury. He did not say this on the stand.

Thank you. I didn't remember hearing it on the witness stand, but, I don't catch everything.

 

[Pru2U]

Maybe some of this debacle lay at BCI Trout's feet as well?
BCI supervisor connected to 2016 Pike County murder investigation suspended
Two local attorneys are calling the Pike County mass murder case into question now that a second high-ranking law enforcement officer connected to the case has been suspended.

Michael Trout was widely called the state's lead investigator into the eight Rhoden/Gilley family murders in 2016.

But the Bureau of Criminal Investigations supervisor is off the case - suspended and demoted - after an investigation into how he managed the unit tasked with closing the case.

I don't know, @rsd1200, but I don't think so. I think Trout was probably an a-hole, but I've seen nothing but the utmost professionalism and sincerity from every agent who has taken the stand. This guy Trout probably made their lives miserable, but they did their jobs in earnest and to the best of their ability.

Over a thousand tips called in and really, no real leads until the shell casings were spotted in the Wagner's Peterson Rd. driveway - by chance - and a full 13 months after the murders. There were so many moving parts, from collecting evidence from the scene, to autopsies, to social media, then the searches for a needle in a landfill. It was incredible investigative work years in the making. Yes, Trout could have screwed things up royally if even one of these dedicated & determined investigators had quit under his leadership. But they didn't. They were dedicated and they were determined, you can hear it in their voices and see it in their body language when they testified.

JMO

 

[Piffcat]

Jmo the night scope purchased in fall 2015? The sks Jake had access to or the one Jake owned? Cell phone jammers, did he buy them? The ones like Billy and crs got? Or the ones Angela purchased? Loaning Billy money to buy a truck? No evidence provided other than Jake he modified truck. And reconstruction of truck was a fail. What job did Billy assign George? I thought the jobs were assigned to Jake and Angela.

see this is where the term reasonable doubt comes from. anyone can make up random excuses about why an action which contributed toward a conspiracy "isnt as it seems". the standard isnt beyond a shadow of a doubt its reasonable doubt. youve lised multiple purchases g4 made which were later used to kill 8 people. youve got the person who murdered 5 of them coorborating the purchases and what they were used for specifically in the plot. youve got documentation proving the purchases were made. george would have been better off saying he knew tried to talk them out of it and then did not go with. listening to the conversations on the phone and in the truck g4 was up in the business as much as angela, if antthing jake sounded like the voice of reason. it is simple ubleievable that all of this documented evidence can be nullified with a carefully crafted retelling and excuses of incriminating actions. jake has no motive t o lie and put g4 at the scene zero. they were all offered lwop at the begining which is what jake got. ohio isnt even using the dp right now, so his deal is essentially giving him nothing and what does he ask for to save his family members lives. the first thing he asks for , there is no motive what so ever for jake to put g4 at the scene if he was not there. until we all walk around with a drone videotaping our every move, i cant imagine more evidence in a murder conspiracy case. what else besides a video could you ask for?? now angela canepa did a terrible job trying the case, but bci got more then enough evidence ot bury all 4 under the jail where they belong.

 

[Betty P]

So - I might have missed this - but DID they remove the DP specifications? Or will they be doing that this week sometime or do they do that in front of the jury - ??
TIA if someone can explain that to me!

Yes, I posted that the other day. He must have heard it from someone there at court. It was right before the recessed until Nov 28. JMO, the prosecution team don't seem to be die-hard DP proponents.

Since Jake's confession last year, they've given the impression they're willing to work with all 4 defendants to negotiate a fair deal that makes them pay for their horrible crimes without having to go through long trials or subject to the DP. They were trying to do that, JMO, when they worked a deal with Jake that included taking the DP off the table for the rest of the family.

It's GW4 and Billy who have bowed their necks and aimed for acquittals against all the evidence and confessions. They're facing the DP now because of their own stubborn stupidity. JMO

Let's hope there are some negotiations happening behind the scenes and they'll all work something out. I'd hate to see the surviving Rhoden Family members have to keep going through this misery for another trial and endless appeals. The surviving children shouldn't have to keep reading into their teens and 20's about Billy's trial or GW4's latest appeal, etc. The generational trauma is bad enough in this case without making it continue for another decade or longer.

 

[Myland]

see this is where the term reasonable doubt comes from. anyone can make up random excuses about why an action which contributed toward a conspiracy "isnt as it seems". the standard isnt beyond a shadow of a doubt its reasonable doubt. youve lised multiple purchases g4 made which were later used to kill 8 people. youve got the person who murdered 5 of them coorborating the purchases and what they were used for specifically in the plot. youve got documentation proving the purchases were made. george would have been better off saying he knew tried to talk them out of it and then did not go with. listening to the conversations on the phone and in the truck g4 was up in the business as much as angela, if antthing jake sounded like the voice of reason. it is simple ubleievable that all of this documented evidence can be nullified with a carefully crafted retelling and excuses of incriminating actions. jake has no motive t o lie and put g4 at the scene zero. they were all offered lwop at the begining which is what jake got. ohio isnt even using the dp right now, so his deal is essentially giving him nothing and what does he ask for to save his family members lives. the first thing he asks for , there is no motive what so ever for jake to put g4 at the scene if he was not there. until we all walk around with a drone videotaping our every move, i cant imagine more evidence in a murder conspiracy case. what else besides a video could you ask for?? now angela canepa did a terrible job trying the case, but bci got more then enough evidence ot bury all 4 under the jail where they belong.

Jmo I can’t put Jake on that pedestal and call him voice of reason after killing at Least five people. To me for Jake to accomplish people believing he is a voice of reason makes him scarier than ever. Jmo

 

[elliebug2015]

The truck tapes and wiretaps are all on Youtube under Wcpo9 or Law and Crime. They have the trial in order. There is only one LEO interview of George and they never played it in court. It was an audio interview at the border of MT. They never brought the agent who interviewed him to state otherwise, to what G4 testified to on the last day either. I remember the OJ trial. I watched it all from the chase to the acquittal. Then he wrote a book; If I Did It. He did it.

The murders and OJ’s trial are burned into my memory forever. I watched and read anything I could get my hands on. Still do. I get on little kicks where I get RE-obsessed with this case and will annoy everyone in my life talking about it. I was 9 when they murders happened. 9. I had my grandma record the trial and would run out of school as fast as I could to go to her house and watch it. I was an odd kid.