OH - Pike Co, 8 in Rhoden Family Murdered Over Custody Issue, 4 Members Wagner Family Arrested #70

[Tracey4AU]

I have not followed this case as intensely as I have a lot of others, have not heard a podcast, etc. I am trying to follow this opening statement. I am not succeeding. Ugh. Hot mess.

 

[geevee]

Good to see you @geevee You and I have watched a bunch of trials here. This opening is a trial in itself.

Hiya @Chelly so good to see you! Yes, this opening is a trial to be sure. lol

 

[GoJacks]

Oh my...thought I would tune in to opening statements (haven't followed this case much) because heard a lot of the evidence was going to be pretty interesting. Yeah....It's unwatchable for me with the ''um'' almost every other word.

Will have to tune back in after opening and see if it gets better.

 

[Chelly]

Hiya @Chelly so good to see you! Yes, this opening is a trial to be sure. lol

I can't understand AC's poor performance. She's considered an expert on this case since the beginning. Maybe she is just inexperienced addressing juries.

 

[SuziQ]

Surprised by the states opening, Canepa seemed far more assertive and prepared in her courtroom demeanor than in this opening statement when she was arguing in court during pretrial hearings, she is going over all the evidence in a logical and chronological fashion but keeps wandering off topic and then having to add things she has missed telling jury,

Maybe her strengths are in the questioning of witnesses and arguing on points of law, I am very pleased though that they have all the evidence on a computer, and she can pull up documents and pictures as needed, so that the jury can see the evidence she is talking about, chilling to see the actual gun in Jakes hand,

IMO, there was not much chronological about the opening statement. She forgot to introduce all of the victims. She bounced around from this evidence to that one. I lost count on how many, oh yeah I forgot, moments there were. She was in Ohio, then Alaska, then Ohio, back to the trailers, etc etc. She called the ballistics research "stuff." Very unprofessional, Imo.

 

[Piffcat]

ohio is so strange to me with their court system/county/prosecutor etc. how is it that with all the tax revenue and money spent on policing to combat crime that murder cases are not handled by the state attorney general. why is pike county given scraps when this trial is the exact purpose of goverment. what better way for budget money to be spent then on a octuple murder? ac is not a good litigator ive known this since the first arguments. but she is a good lawyer not everyone is a good public speaker. trial especially death penatly trials are the major leagues of litigation. im sure all the defense lawyers are seasoned death phenalty m urder defenses. in fact the murderers are guarenteed a top shelf lawyer belonging to the "death penalty pool" why can the state provide a free murd lawyer to wagners, but only provide 2 prosecutors with almost no experience in murder cases to the victims, families and everyone else ruined by these evil people. its outrageous!!

 

[geevee]

I can't understand AC's poor performance. She's considered an expert on this case since the beginning. Maybe she is just inexperienced addressing juries.

I'm surprised as well. Given the amount of evidence she should be making this as concise as possible, but she's just wandering all over the long and winding road. If defense tries to answer much of this in their opening, there won't be time left in the day for any witnesses.

 

[justtrish]

I knew it was going to be horrible, but hearing her speak Jake's version just hammered it home just how awful. Chris Sr. knew what was happening. Horrible to think he was awake and aware that his best friend was killing him.

 

[joe jones]

This second part of opening is so much better, this is the Canepa I remember from pretrial, she is far more eloquent and fluent, and has painted a very vivid picture of what happened that night, and I will say that my theory of the crimes was very wrong, except for the fact that I accepted GW had shot nobody

 

[CIA Team Member]

Is anyone else having issues hearing on the Law & Crime channel?

 

[joe jones]

so they all weren't asleep, Hanna saw JW but as he had ski mask on she did not know who it was, but she was awake when he shot her, dana was on phone when he shot her, sickening that he placed Kylie to her mother's breast after he shot her mother so she could continue to nurse, BW recalling CS snr face as he looked at his best friend who he knew was about to kill him sickening,

 

[Betty P]

I can't understand AC's poor performance. She's considered an expert on this case since the beginning. Maybe she is just inexperienced addressing juries.

Just checking in, haven't found a live feed. If AC is having problems, its likely because she was very sick last week. Rumor was that she had COVID 19

 

[Betty P]

so they all weren't asleep, Hanna saw JW but as he had ski mask on she did not know who it was, but she was awake when he shot her, dana was on phone when he shot her, sickening that he placed Kylie to her mother's breast after he shot her mother so she could continue to nurse, BW recalling CS snr face as he looked at his best friend who he knew was about to kill him sickening,

God in heaven, what did I just read?! That's sickening.

 

[Marysmith]

Just checking in, haven't found a live feed. If AC is having problems, its likely because she was very sick last week. Rumor was that she had COVID 19

I wondered about that… it’s rough recovering at times.

 

[Chelly]

Just checking in, haven't found a live feed. If AC is having problems, its likely because she was very sick last week. Rumor was that she had COVID 19

WATCH LIVE: First Trial in Pike County Massacre

The first defendant will stand trial for allegedly helping kill eight members of an Ohio family.

lawandcrime.com

 

[joe jones]

and AW admitting to endlessly nagging BW to do something so that they could get Sophia, and BW discussing with JW they need to get rid of HR, then it just spiraled as they added more Rhoden's to the list that had to be killed, and they were prepared to kill whomever was in those 4 homes that night,

Jake knew CRjr often had friends staying and they were prepared to kill him/her, and it was a possibility Hannas boyfriend would be their and he would have been killed,

 

[Chelly]

dp

 

[CIA Team Member]

Just checking in, haven't found a live feed. If AC is having problems, its likely because she was very sick last week. Rumor was that she had COVID 19

Law & CRime live feed.

 

[MTW2011]

And uhmmmmm I hope that uhmmmmm Ms. Canepa is unmmmn much better than, well today’s opening uhmmmm so far. It is, you know uhmmmm, it’s noteworthy that, well the evidence showed so far that her uhmmm presentation is not that captivating and hard to follow, MOO and likely the same as others from what I’m reading here.


I’m very curious if any of the jurors look like they’re having trouble focusing and following this just as much. This is rough. I’m sorry

 

[Betty P]

AC is putting forth a scattered, rambling, babbling opening.

After listening a little, I can see where she's going. She's not going to outline everything that happened that night. She's going to mention the relevant parts, but also explaining why charges were laid against each person, including GW4. It's complicated, there are 21 charges and she has to explain the reasons for leveling each of those charges against GW4.

She says he's guilty of each and every charge in the indictment and they will prove it. She really sounds out of breath, from COVID 19 I assume.

A couple other things: This trial will be different from what Law & Crime and other crime entertainment shows are accustomed to.

• It's a very complicated crime involving a lot of victims, crime scenes, evidence and killers
• All of the killers were members of the same family, so the prosecution not only has to explain the crime and charges as they relate to GW4, she has to explain how it relates to the other 3 Wagners
• Most of the key information about the crime and crime scenes has been kept from the public
• The entire pre-trial proceedings have been under a gag order, so information has been very limited
• All of the above puts the prosecution in the position of having to explain a lot of information to the jury that they've never heard before; same for the public.

DeWine made the decision early on to not release ANY information about these crimes, evidence, etc. Maybe he had a good reason, maybe he didn't. But it does make it more difficult for the prosecution to present this case in court.

DeWine's decision will also make it easier for the defense to confuse the jury and the public.

• The audio in that court room is very poor