I think the custody docs were key in this to the W's. If planning started late 2015 early 2016, at some point they may have realized that by already having shared custody on file the legal burden after the murders related to custody would be easier to get through. Once HR didn't sign those, they may have come up with a plan "B" such as telling grandma Newcomb HR signed these last week can you go ahead and notarize? Either way, I agree completely both grandmothers likely had a pretty good hunch on what happened very soon after the murders.
Note the reference to 3 weeks in Jakes comment. Wasn't the date associated with the docs April 3? It seems that could fall within this "3 weeks prior" time frame. April 3 was a Sunday so it's possible the "fighting" was Fri or Sat.
Jake Wagner and his mother have repeatedly told The Enquirer there was no custody battle for Sophia. Rather they said they were working with a Pike County lawyer in the weeks before the homicides to formalize a verbal shared custody arrangement in which the couple alternated weeks with Sophia.
“They were just putting down on paper what they were already doing," Angela Wagner said in an email to The Enquirer on June 2, 2017.
Relatives of some of the victims describe the relationship differently. They said Jake Wagner and his dad argued and fought with the Rhodens in the weeks just prior to the killings.
Jake Wagner balked at that: “No, I did not go to Hanna’s home three weeks prior to April 22 and kick in the door demanding she sign over custody of Sophia,’’ he wrote in that June 2017 email. “I did not want that. I wanted to continue what we were doing. It was working just fine.”
It does not appear any written custody agreement between Hanna Rhoden and Jake Wagner was ever filed in Pike County juvenile court prior to her death.
Rhoden family massacre: Arrests throw child custody issue back to Ohio courts