To help understand the motive for killing the 8, think back to when there was actually NO motive to kill them. If we go back far enough we will come to the point when there was no motive for the murders. There was a point in time when all this changed.
What were the changes that occurred in the life circumstances of the Wagners and Rhodens, and what changed in their relationships with each other in the several months pear by up to April 22, 2016? I will have to go back and look for exact dates.
1. Hannah and Jake live together and are
engaged and have a baby.
2. Hannah breaks off the engagement and wants to still live with Jake but also see others.
3. Hannah has a relationship with CG and tells
she doesn't want to live with him anymore.
One reason I like these thoughts is because it shows an escalation of events. To help understand the motive you must go all the way back to when there was NO motive for the murders. If we go back far enough we can see the time when the Wagners were not plotting murder.
So what changed? If you look through the months running up to the murders you will see an escalation of life events occurring.
JW is living with his fiancee and having a baby and planning his wedding, then his world is crushed because he gets dumped. He still lives with HR and sleeps with her but they are not a couple anymore and she gets with CG. Then she finally kicks JW out altogether but allows him to have SW every other week. Still he won't let go and sleeps with her, but then she tells him she's pregnant and it could be another man's baby.
It was around August that she likely discovered she was pregnant and then JW had all that fall of 2015 to realize the woman he loves is having another man's baby and she won't be coming home with him to Peterson Rd with the new baby ( according to a reporter he wanted nothing more then for this to happen.)
So we're now getting to the winter of 2015 and with a second baby on the way CSR would have realized that his granddaughters need more room so he makes plans to put down $30,000 cash on a new place and he gets approved for a $30,000 loan from OH Adams County Bank, using his land as collateral.
So while this big change is in the making, and I'm sure heavily discussed by all, you have another big change with HR falling very hard for Corey and she says she wants him to be the father. JW now knows he will always be on the outside of HR's life, not a main player.
Then the new year approaches and LE can see that surveillance and a murder plot were then being hatched by Jake and his family.
Lots of extreme changes in JW's life in the year leading up to the murders.
No expert here, just a nosy retired researcher. 