Welcome to the piked in Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. Four members of the Wagner family are in prison awaiting death penalty trials for the murder of eight members of the Rodent family.
Four suspects are Billy and Angela Wagner and their sons George the Fourth n j.
These four individuals are now in custody for legilate committing this heartless, ruthless, cold blooded murder.
Two others have been charged with helping to cover up the grizzly crime.
Rita Joe Nukam and Fridrika Kirol Wagner under house arrest connected to the killings of eight members of the Rodent family. The judges said bond at one hundred thousand dollars.
But while Ohio's largest murder investigation brings the alleged killers to stand trial, it also raises some unsettling questions about the victims themselves.
There had been reports of scuffles with other people in public. There were indications that they were involved in some drug deals and drug trade.
Law enforcement yet.
To say if the extensive Maria Wanna grow operation they found is connected to the death.
And now two years after the arrests, the residents of Pikes in Ohio are conflicted about what really happened on the early morning of April twenty second, twenty sixteen.
I think there's more to it, and I don't know if we'll ever get the truth about it, to be.
Honest with you, this is the Pikeson Massacre, Episode four Alternate Theories. In the last episode, we examine the motive that authorities believe lie at the center of the brutal killings of eight members of the Rodent family, a feud between Jake Wagner and Hannah Roden over the custody of their two and a half year old daughter, Sophia. Though it is important to remember that the Wagners are all innocent until proven guilty, there is mounting evidence to support
the custody theory. Still, nearly two years after the arrests, some residents of Pikes in Ohio are conflicted about their guilt.
You know, the BCI, you know, in the state of Ohio, poor County.
They're not really wanting to spend a lot of money on it. Somebody did it, but it wasn't them. It just doesn't make sense to me if they are innocent, because who else would do that.
I wish we knew exactly what happened.
I know people kill people over custody, but not that many people. I think there's more to it. It's bigger than what people think it is, and I don't know if we'll ever get the truth about it. To be honest with.
You, that's exactly what we're going to explore in this episode. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KAT Studios. With Stephanie Leidecker and Jeff Shane, we worked on a documentary about the case back in twenty nineteen.
One thing the three of us know for sure is that the Rodents did not deserve this by all accounts, they were just a loving and caring family, and their loss is felt throughout the entire community. And that's really why we want to bring not only them, but the entire town of Piked injustice and hopefully shed a light on the crime and help bring everyone in some sense of closure.
Following the Roden murders, it was two and a half years before the Wagners were arrested. In that time, many other plausible theories were put forward, and there are those who believe that some of them are credible possibilities. When we began researching the story, we kept hearing rumblings about two of the victims we haven't discussed much yet, the Rodent sons, Chris Junior and Frankie. From all accounts, twenty
year old Frankie was a wonderful man. He was a devoted father and excited about his upcoming marriage to his fiance, Hannah Gilly. Chris Junior was just a few years younger than Frankie. Brittany, one of Chris Junior's oldest friends, talked to Stephanie about her memories of him growing up.
When did you and Chris Junior meet for the first time?
How old were you? Guys?
We were young.
We were either in Kindergorton or first grade.
And you were friends from that day forward.
Yes, we actually dated first grade.
He was the love of my life.
What did the first grade version of you love about him?
He's a little bad and that's how he always was, like he was the guy that he's like, I know, I have it all like.
He was that type of boy growing up.
One of the things that kept coming up when we talked to people around town was the Rodent boy's love of demolition Derby. Frankie and Chris Junior were very passionate about demolition Derby racing. They spent most of their time building and rebuilding these cars to race in Derby's all across Ohio. We spoke to journalist Jeff Winkler, who spent some time at Derby Races as part of his investigation into the Rodent murders.
Demolition Derby is if you've seen it on TV, it's it looks like chaos, and a's to a degree it is, but it's you know, rainming into people. There's a lot of loud noises, and there's a lot of concrete flying, and there's fires and smoke and dirt and it's exciting and fun and people who love it love it. The Rodents were deeply involved in demolition derbies in the area. They were very much part of that culture. But demolition
derbies are really intense. You're smashing each other, I mean, emotions get high.
Jeff told us about one Derby that Chris Junior and Frankie participated in in May of twenty fifteen that ends it in a bloody altercation.
Based on what's been reported in the court documents, I think it's fair to say that Frankie and Chris Junior, I mean, definitely were hot heads and definitely got into fights here and there. They had an incident with a fella named Tommy Gorman who was a rival in the demolition Derbies. They got into a bit of a sort of heated match, and there was a believe a sort of incident on the track. They got upset with each other.
It's some bad blood and then again it's you know, kind of picked up speed with Facebook posts about sort of consulting each other. And then of course Chris Junior Frankie drove over to Gorman's house and proceeded to really beat on Gorman and his father, and the fights and beatings were only really broken up after the grandfather came out and pumped a few shotgun shells into the air.
According to reports, the Rodents showed up with a dozen friends and proceeded to brutally assault Tommy Junior and even knocked out his father, Tommy Senior's front teeth in the aftermath of the fight. Frankie was arrested and sentenced to less than a year's probation for the attack. Chris Junior was a juvenile at the time of the attack, and no court records are available that charges made against him. Here's our producer Jeff Shane speaking to Jeff Winkler.
And was Tommy and his family were they ever looked at as suspects? Do you know, like, did the sheriff ever interview them or see if they were involved?
I mean, the press had talked to the Gorman family after hearing about these fights, you know, on Facebook, but as far as I know, the law enforcement never really approached them.
Well, the Gormans admitted to reporters that there was some bad blood between them and the Rodent family, it was not enough to retaliate and certainly not enough to kill over. In fact, the Gorman family were never suspects in the investigation, but there were more people to look into as our investigation unfolded. So too to the list of people who
could have wanted payback on the Rodents. Take Rusty Mongold, another local kid who had gotten into an altercation with Chris Junior just two weeks before the Rodents were murdered.
Long Gold had posted on Facebook that Chris Junior hit him with a car and in his message, you know he uses some pretty tough language. I mean, Rusty was nineteen at the time, and you know he's talking about I'm gonna break his fucking legs and Curb stop his ass, and I mean just sort of sort of nineteen year old bluster. Really, the Rusty Mongol thing happened just two weeks before the murders, so I mean, I think this was pretty obvious that the investigators had to check that out.
And of course he got pulled over and was detained and even did a DNA sample, but it was pretty clear that he had nothing to do with it. But you know, that kind of language is certainly going to grab the attention of authorities, especially after something like this.
With authorities finding no clear link between Rusty Mongold, the Gorman family, and the Rodent murders, the feeling around Python was still ominous. No one knew who could be responsible for the mass murder, or even if the responsible parties lived next door. Jeff Winkler fills us in on yet another incident that happened leading up to the murders.
According to court documents, on February twenty fourth, and this was two months before the murders, So two months before the murders In late February, Chris Junior was involved in a road rage incident with a thirty three year old woman named Rebecca Allen. Apparently, the court records, Rebecca had slapped Chris Junior in the face, and she also made threats against him and his mother, Dana, which were recorded on a cell phone.
Here's what we know about this. Dana Roden, Chris Junior's mom, got involved as well, and Rebecca Allen ultimately got two years probation, forty hours of community service, and a restraining order against contacting Chris Junior and Dana Rodin. This was on April twentieth, twenty sixteen, one day before the murders took place.
There were definitely some scrapes, some posting, and yeah, some social media threats. But is that really motive enough to murder eight people?
Of course not, But the timing of it is interesting. You know, as we try to understand what's happened, it's important to know everything this family was going through up until the murders, because we don't know what's important until
we know it's important. But going back to Rebecca Allen and the road ridge incident for just one second, Leonard Manley Dana's father, who at this point point was just trying to cope with the tragedy, was quoted in the news as saying that Rebecca Allen should be looked into with regards to the massacre.
Danner Roden's family. The Manleys, were deeply entrenched in the roadens day to day lives, and they were a key piece of the investigation at first. Bobby Joe Manley, for example, she's the one who discovered their bodies and also made that first nine to one one call.
Here's investigative reporter Jody Barr.
The days after this and I Am on one calls were beginning to be produced, so then you could get a picture of what happened that morning that you know, a family member went into the first home and found the first two dead, Gary and Chris.
Okay, okay, I need to get out of the house.
Did you drive over there?
That's again?
Okay?
What's your your name? My Bobby, Bobby?
What's your brother?
Last name?
Yeah?
What's his name?
Chris Rode? And dad? That was Bobby Joe Manley. You hear about James Manley going over to Dana's house, finding his sister, dad, his niece, and nephew. So you start getting some more pieces to put together in this puzzle and then you realize, well, wait a minute, why were they there?
Police want to know that too.
We found out from Lynn Manley, that's Dana Roden's father, James Manley's father, that Bobby Joe and James were both taken down into the Pike County Sheriff's office and interrogated. So from the outset, when you look at that and you go, well, obviously they had two people in mind. These were the two people who made the initial fines of the bodies that morning and made those nine on one calls. And then we had gotten word that investigators wanted to know who paid them to murder their own family.
Over the next few weeks, Bobby Joe Manleys questioned several times.
These people are not only being looked at his murder suspects, They're going through the entire process. They're being interrogated, they're given polygraphs. I can tell you I spoke with Bobby Joe Manley on the porch of her father's home and she told me that she was given three polygraph tests and passed everyone.
As the suspicion surrounding Bobby Joe subsides. Authorities began taking a closer look at James Manley, and it's not too long before they make a stunning discovery about who he talked to on the night of the murders.
In the overnight hours at two am. This would have been just, for all we know, minutes before the murders two in the morning. I mean the bodies were found at sun up, but that at two in the morning, James was texting with Jake Wagner. Jake obviously now charged in these murders. We didn't know the context of those ten but we do know that happened, and you know, it's just strange suspicions. And then James Manley took a polygraph and failed that.
We're going to take a quick break here, we'll be back in a moment. Here again is Jodi Barr commenting on James Manley's failed polygraph.
I don't know what to make of that. You know what that means, failing a polygraph. I have no idea because we don't know what questions were asked.
Without sufficient evidence to charge him, James Manley is released, but police continue to keep an eye on him.
Something to think about is that no arrests were made after this questioning or the alleged polygraph failure, So it's not like the police found some sort of smoking gun that implicated him in the crimes. Furthermore, are in the state of Ohio, polygraphic examinations are admitted under limited circumstances
in the court of law. In the state. Only if all parties, including the defendant, defense attorney, and the prosecutor agree in advance to the admissibility of the results, will the court be inclined to admit them.
Plus, it's really not uncommon for immediate family members, particularly those who have discovered bodies, to be considered air quotes suspects at first. It's just a natural place for most investigations to begin. All that said, I can only imagine how difficult that must have been for the Manleies.
We found out later that it was some respect a potential target of the investigation because we know that investigators put a GPS device underneath James Manley's pickup truck and for whatever reasons, they felt a need to track him. And then James Manly finds that this GPS tracker attached to the underside of his pickup truck, he rips that off, and then he's arrested for doing that.
This all happens in May of twenty seventeen, three hundred and ninety days after James Manley's sister and her family were murdered. He's charged with two felonies, tampering with evidence and vandalism, both counts for removing the tracking device on his car.
I can remember, you know, getting that news late late in the day and driving straight to Ross County, Ohio, to the jail where James Manley was booked and you know, being held overnight or waiting a bond hearing. But on the way there, you're trying to replay these conversations in your mind that you know, what were the scenarios that involved James. Why is there a GPS tracker on the brother of you know, a dead family. I mean, this
was hitting really close to home. So again, every trip to Pike County was this cloud of suspicion and confusion.
You wonder if they arrested him on those charges, to try to just bring him in and hope that they would then question him and he wouldn't it to something murder related.
You know, that was a suspicion. You know, it's like, man, where is this going to end up? You know, because this story is horrible and horrific enough.
But six days after his arrest, the charges against James Manley are dismissed. It's another dead end for investigators.
Another leading theory at the time was the involvement with the drug cartel. The Rodents did have marijuana growing on their property, and it was not just a few plants here and there in the window. It was a lot. A law enforcement source has confirmed that investigators found some two hundred marijuana plants on all of the properties. The same source said that the size of the operation indicates it was being grown for sale and not for personal use.
And just to put that into perspective, each plant could produce around one pound of marijuana, and a pound of high grade quality marijuana had a street value of around two thousand dollars at the time, meaning that the Rodents had in their possession four hundred thousand dollars worth of marijuana.
I think it's worth noting also that the unemployment rate in Piked in Ohio is one hundred and fifteen percent higher than the national average, and I share that simply to say, by all accounts, the Rodents were very hard working people, and the fact that there was this marijuana grow operation in their backyard kind of erased the entire investigation, as if the Rodent family was just a bunch of drug dealers who had it coming, and based on our research, that really doesn't add up.
It should be noted that around the same time as the murders, marijuana was being legalized for medicinal use in the state of Ohio, So in theory, the Rodents could have been growing the crop to be distributed for people who were prescribed marijuana legally to treat things like cancer and Alzheimer's.
Also, when Jeff and I were in piked in the last time, somebody said something to us in passing, and it's always sort of stuck with me regarding the marijuana grow operation. On the one hand, if it was a small operation, how would that possibly constitute a drug cartel hit of this size four different locations. It fell very personal. Each crime scene seemed to tell a story of sorts,
not totally the mo of the drug cartel. In our research on the flip, if it was a large scale operation, they would have needed a lot of equipment, specialized lighting, and that lighting likely would have caused a bit of a surge in electricity that would have been noticeable by the electric company number one and number two. It also would have been very bright. Where they lived was a very rural road. It's dark, there's no street lights. How would a grow operation of that size go unnoticed.
Yeah, and based on all of our research, if it really was the drug cartel, they would have killed the dogs and the kids. They leave no one behind.
I think it's okay for us to confirm that we did find marijuana.
In three locations.
Is a grow operations.
Our producer Jeff Shane spoke to investigative journalist James Pilcher, who was in and just after the announcement was made.
That obviously fueled even more speculation that these were outside operators. Possibly was as a drug deal gone bad, or was somebody trying to take over their turf. All kinds of rumors started flow after that disclosure.
So this idea that like a drug cartel being a potential culprit, it does sound crazy. This small town infiltrated by you know, international drug dealers in.
The middle of Appalachia in southern Ohio, you know, but if it turned out to be that, we would not have been surprised because Mexican drug cartels had done a lot of activity in southern Ohio, in the Pike County and Soota County and in Ross County.
In fact, in August twenty twelve, law enforcement officers found a major marijuana groves site in Pike County. It had suspected ties to a Mexican drug cartel. During that raid, officials destroyed about twelve hundred marijuana plants and found two abandoned campsites they believed belonged to Mexican national The main.
Route from southern Ohio to Columbus, which is the next biggest city next to Cincinnati, cuts right all through there, so you have those people coming in and out. Now, were the Rodents involved directly in the narcotics business. There were indications that they were involved in some drug deals, in drug trade with marijuana. The Rodans had attack dogs, which again belies that all American image, which means what
did they have to hide? They had attack dogs, the security cameras, there was a lot of security at that place. They wanted to protect what they had. Now, does that mean that they were doing anything wrong, not necessarily, but it certainly raised a lot of questions.
Journalist Jodi Barr walked off through the logic of the drug cartel theory.
As the months war on, no one has been arrested, no one charged, no people named as persons of interest, you really started to wonder, you know, maybe this drug cartel thing has there was something to that. They definitely knew how to kill people. You know, you're looking for signs of a drug cartel, and then you find Kenneth Roden with what appeared to be a gunshot in the head. Whether there were dollar bills or some sort of paper money spread around the body, Was that a sign? What
did that mean? You know, as you know, a reporter, you're studying back, trying to draw conclusion or at least a lead from what this meant. I mean, what does that mean? There's a body lying there with money on it, So, of course a drug cartel. At that point in time, you couple with the Attorney General announcing that they found commercial grow operations, it made sense.
Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back in a moment. The discovery of the Rodents grow operation didn't just complicate the case and who might be responsible. It forced the residents of Python to reconsider their feelings for the family.
As soon as the Line and Reader made that announcement of the commercial grow operations, that appeared to change the entire public perception of these murders. The empathy for this family, and even the monetary donations that were coming in to help bury these people, all of that stopped. There was a large reward put up by Jeff Ruby, a restaurant owner in Cincinnati, that was rescinded that day. The public
support they were getting almost vanished that day. I mean, these were eight innocent people, and then sort of flipped on its head that, you know, these were eight people potentially involved in some large drug offeration and then people seemingly just instantly stopped caring. And you know, all that momentum the family had of you know, the public being interested in this by trying to solve it, taking care of this, you know, these kids who were left trying
to bury these eight people. I mean, that's a large expense that vanished that day, and that was over as soon as that announcement was made.
However, those closest to the family never believed a cartel was behind the murders.
Kendra Rodent is Kenneth Roden's daughter. Kenneth was that eighth victim. The final victim found worked out an interview with Kendra and her mother at their home, and I mean through that interview we finally got a look at how close his family really was. Kendrick just going through her phone with her. She had pictures with Hannah, she had pictures with Chris Junior, she had pictures with Dana, her father obviously was a large part of the photos stored on
her phone. I mean, they looked like a normal family. I mean there was nothing in those pictures that would indicate that, you know, a week later, eight of these people in these pictures would no longer draw the breath of life. Man. You just it was nothing to indicate that. And you're looking at these pictures and you're looking for some clue, You're looking for that sign from Kendra when you're invited into her home. You saw none of that.
I mean, it was almost like, That's why it's almost unbelievable that it even happened, because when you look at these photographs and you talk to these people, they're just like anybody else. You'd ever talk to a typical rural American family who rose to this notorious, you know, platform through the nightly news, coming out and telling the world
about their darkest hour. Eight people murdered in their homes while they slept, children spared, covered with blood, And it's like, you try to reconcile what you saw in those photographs in the story that Kendra Roden was telling about this family to the picture that you now have of them murdered in these homes, apparently involved in some sort of commercial drug industry, and then you try to put all that together. I mean, I don't know how the hell you figure that out. It was so confusing.
So if it wasn't a drug cartel, who was it. Let's shift our focus back to the Wagners for a minute. Could there be other motives aside from the custody dispute between Jake Wagner and Hannah Rodin. As we found out from speaking to journalist Jeff Winkler, there were more connections between the Rodens and the Wagners than just Hannah and Jake.
Obviously, the families shared a grandchild together, so there was just a lot of interaction between the families but as the investigation went on, you know, there was a clear sort of trail between Christopher Roaden Senior and Bill Wagner. They had been a long time acquaintance, is possibly friends, and also business partners. They were just you know, some good old boy entrepreneurs. These are multi generational families in
the same area. So yeah, they just again that sort of mix of family and friends and neighbors and business partners, all sorts of blends in together.
Angela Wagner even had said to the press that her and her husband and Chris Senior were longtime friends. Like the Wagners were presenting them as close allies.
And I think some of that, of course, is trying to you know, sort of portray the family as not adversarial to the Rodents. But they had something to have fallen out before the murders.
Attorney and legal commentator Mike Allen Phil Deson.
Back in mid April twenty and sixteen, supposedly there was a fight between Chris Senior and Billy Wagner that witnesses say ended with Billy threatening to quote come back and finished them all unquote. Nobody seems to know what the fight was about or what caused it. But you know, these two families, from everything that I've seen, were probably not shy about taking care of business if they felt somebody abuse them or their family.
So could this all have stemmed from some kind of business arrangement gone wrong? Though we can't be positive. One thing we do know is that the detail of Chris Senior's autopsy seems to indicate that his death was much different than the other seven victims. Here's James Pilcher speaking to Jeff again.
Of all the crime scenes that day, like his was known to be the worst.
Yeah, he was shot the most first of all. He was shot nine times, possibly because he was trying to fight back, but possibly because you know, the vendetta was mostly against him, or he was the primary target, I should say. And then they positioned his his body in a certain way and actually drug his body away from where he had originally fallen, So that gave investigators even more of an indication that this was personal.
An anonymous Wagner family relative told Jess that the situation between the Wagners and the Rodents was reaching a boiling point. This was just before the Rodents were found dead.
I knew that they were the families, Hannahs, the Rodents, and you know my family. They were fighting. There was a lot of tension there, bad blood there, but I never thought in a million years that they had anything to do with that. To me, it's just it's so overwhelming.
There's a feeling that is almost indescribable. It's kind of like, you know, you don't know how to react, so you're constantly at least I am at this, like I fail, Like it does a war with my emotions, my feelings, because I love them so much, you know what, I care about them, and they are family, that's your family.
So it's hard to just turn your back and be like, Okay, well you're a freaking monster though I want nothing to do with you, and I don't love you no more and I don't care about you no more.
So it seems like your relationship with Angela and her family really changed and never really was the same.
Yep, it did, one hundred percent. It was absolutely mind blowing. I just couldn't I couldn't picture it because I knew them completely different people, you know what I mean. Like I would have never pictured Angela being capable or or the boys of any of that.
When we first heard about the Roden murders, we were shocked at the brutality of it all, and when we first got to piked In, we couldn't believe that these murders took place in this community. But upon speaking to residents and learning more about the town, we discovered that the Rodents were not the first murder victims who called Pikedin home.
You know, if you look back through the history piked And there's quite a bit of things that just happened that, you know, there's no explanation for get swept under the rug. I don't know. I think there's just more evil there than just what happened to those eight.
Pike County is beautiful. It's a beautiful place, but there's a lot of dirty people here too. For the town that we you know, the size of our town, there's been a lot of murders here that have not been solved.
More on that next week. Piked In Massacre is executive produced by Stephanie Leidecker and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional producing by Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker. The piked In Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio and Kat Studios. For more podcasts. For myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.