Thank you CC. I think we all stimulate each other in different ways, and I think that's a good thing. I love your bolded words and your strong feelings for Justice showing through. It is encouraging to me to see others who don't try to straddle the fence here. It's fine if some haven't decided sides yet, but this site is a victim-friendly site and it gets on my last nerve when they are bashed or the alleged killers are supported. JMO
Thank you for being here!
I have never been on the fence about the Wagners guilt. I have been convinced it was them for years now. Early on I considered other people and other motives (stolen cars, drugs trafficking, cockfighting, dog fighting, derby racing, ect) but nothing ever fit.
If it was a Mexican drug cartel why kill everyone? I happen to know a little about Mexican drug cartels since my DIL is from Mexico and still has all her family there. I rang up her mother, who is in Mexico and asked her opinion. She said if it was the cartel they would absolutely not go from house to house killing members of one family. She said if 8 members of one family was in
one house at the same time and the cartel came in to kill someone they
might kill them all so as to not leave witnesses. But even that would be unusual because the cartel knows the remaining family members are not going to talk anyway so they leave them alive. If it was a local drug ring they would have killed maybe Chris, Kenny and Gary, but why go kill Dana, Junior and Hannah? An American drug ring would have known what a crap storm going door to door killing 8 family members in four different houses would have brought down on them and their operation.
I considered stolen cars, but if it was a stolen car ring, again why kill Dana, Junior and Hannah? Or Frankie and Hanna? Ditto with cockfighting or dogfighting. If it was derby racing why kill Dana, Junior and Hannah? Or Chris, Gary and Kenny? If any of them like Chris, Kenny, Gary, Dana or Frankie was involved in something illegal why kill any of the others?
So if none of the other motives was reasonable then it had to be a custody battle. Lenny mentioned a custody dispute right off the bat. Since Lenny was the closest to most of the victims you had to take what he said seriously.
I considered briefly that it could have been over the incident with RA and that the charges may have caused her to get involved with CPS and lose her children. But if so why kill Kenny, Chris, Gary, Frankie, Hanna or Hannah? RA was a relative. Why kill so many of her family members over something like that when with the charges against her she would have gotten her children back in a short time anyway?
I considered ChelR. But there was not even a hint of trouble between CR and Frankie and they had been split up for a couple of years if they were ever a serious couple to begin with.
The only recent breakup that involved custody was Jake and Hannah. And their breakup had been in that "First year" timeline given by all the experts as the most dangerous time for a battered woman after she left her abuser. So it all kept coming back to Jake.
But why kill them all? Why go door to door and kill 8 of her family members? Then I considered how many other men had did the same thing, with one man killing his wife , her sister, her BIL and then driving 90 miles to kill his wife's parents. I thought about his mumbled excuse that his wife's family was keeping her away from him. Not allowing him to see her or her to come back to him. That was my light bulb moment.
Jake. But how did he go to that many houses and kill that many people alone? The answer was, he didn't. He had help. Then Lenny talked about Billy and Jake coming to Chris's house and trying to get Hanna to sign away her parental rights. So that meant Jake's family was involved and had to have helped him.
The only one I was ever on the fence about was George. I could see Jake's motive. He hated Hanna for leaving him and hated her family for keeping him from her. I could see Billy's motive. Chris had been a close friend and he saw Chris shutting down that parental rights thing and keeping Jake from dragging Hannah home as a betrayal of that friendship. I could see Angela's motive. Jake probably filled her head full of the danger SW was in and how she would never see her grand daughter again.
But George. I could never see what George stood to gain from it all. It wasn't his kid, his GF, his fight. So why did he get involved? Then I thought about that rumored fight in which Billy lost. That must have been a huge blow for a man as big as Billy to lose to short chubby Chris. Then I saw George's motive. No one does that to his daddy and gets away with it. Ditto for Fred. No one does that to her son.
From that moment on it was all the Wagners for me. I am still on the fence about Rita, feeling that she might have been duped by her daughter or that her notary stamp might have been stolen by her daughter. But then again, blood is thicker than water and Rita did plead guilty.
JMO