Breadcrumbs

death penalty as long as Jake testifies in court. George did not shoot or kill anybody. He did not pull a trigger once. Jake, on the other hand, has admitted to killing at least five people personally and shooting a sixth. Special Prosecutor Angie Kneppa argued the murder charges and death penalty specifications against George Wagner should remain until Jake Wagner

testifies on the record in a courtroom. Surviving members of the Rodent family anxiously await for a search to close the case, but won't ever erase the heartache they feel. This is the piped In Massacre season three, episode seven, Breadcrumbs Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at Katie's Studios, with Stephanie Ledecker and Jeff Shane. In this episode, we follow the trail of breadcrumbs left behind during these hearings. Some of them lead into very dark corners that may only

be fully illuminated once the trial begins. And no issue has cast a larger shadow over the case than what Angela and Jake's testimony may reveal about George and Billy's involvement. The state has made a bargain with the shooter of at least five people to kill her at at least five people in this case, then we believe it's own constitutional improper and abuse are to pursue the death tony

against George. When they admitted he didn't shoot anybody. You're not stipulating that George did not shoot anybody because you don't know that. We are simply stipulating, in sporting proper George did not shoot anybody. Maybe that's supports distinction. Now, Judge Deering ended up denying the defense motion filed by George Wagner's attorney. Now, we also learned that all four of the suspects were offered the same chance to negotiate a deal if they agreed to tell prosecutors what happened

the night the Rodent family members were killed. These murders in Pike County, Ohio. It's not something they just entered into, you know. They're not just you know, sitting around with a few cans of beer oup and say let's go slaughter to Rodents. That's not what happened. This took planning. You're talking about the murder of eight other human beings. They're gonna go into quite graphic detail about, first off, the kids being locked up in this house with the

deceased remains of their parents. They're going to talk about the bloodstains that were on the children. They're going to talk about how their children were weeping and crying. It's going to be incredibly impactful. It'll be like getting hit in the chest with a ten pound slash ner. You're not going to have a totality of the execution of this agreement until they get up on the stand and they do what they say that they were going to do, you know, and absent that, then it's a game changer.

Defense attorney, former prosecutor, judge and Fox nineteen Legal analyst Mike Allen has been following the Keys closely. We asked them about Angela and Jake's proffers and if their testimonies need to line up closely with the prosecutions, investigative and

forensic findings. The answer to that is yes. I mean, if there's what they call a proper made by a defendant, where the defendant will say, well, this is what I would testify to, it's got to line up, not a resolutely perfectly, but generally it's got to line up with what the prosecutions. They're probably meeting with Angela and Jake regularly.

You don't want to screw this up. You don't want to make some kind of comment to somebody, anybody that you're in jail with, even the prison staff, that you're coming in contact with him in daily basis, anything that could hamper this trial. They want to keep this thing as pristine as they possibly can. Going into what are the prosecution's going to do with George and Billy, here's producer Chris Graves speaking with forensic death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan.

If those proffers are to be believed, it would seem that Billy did the other three. Yeah, yeah, it would seem that and Jake admitted to these killings if he facilitated the deaths of five people, which he's admitted to, and we still have three that are unaccounted for it, and I think Money's own Billy at this point in time,

he's front runner. I think that the State's going to want their pound of flesh in this case because of everything that has happened relatively, all of the deception, all of this horror that has come down upon this little rural county in southern Ohio. I think the people of Ohio probably are going to demand it. The Rodent family case is going to be that case that eighty years from now, people are going to sit around campfire and

tell stories about. Another motion, Motion seventy six, filed by the defense, deals with the admissibility of specific evidence and expert testimony that the prosecution hopes will seal the deal for convincing the jury of Georgia's involvement. The prosecution quickly filed a memorandum stating that their case for why the evidence should be admissible and why Motion seventy six should be struck down. Here's Chris Graves speaking with retired prosecutor

and Flan again about the shoeprint evidence. For every motion at the defense file, there may be a response or there may be another motion filed by the state that seeks something. And in those motions at times that you will glean some additional facts that maybe you have not heard from other sources. It's like finding little breadcrumbs to this puzzle we've all been trying to figure out. We took this new evidence and compared it to some of

the facts already known in the case. Here's Stephanie and Jeff. This is the relevant factual background in the memorandum. Eight members of the Rodent family were murdered in their homes on the night of April twenty twenty sixteen. Investigators located shoeprints at two properties four oh seven seven Union Hill Road and three one two two Union Hill Road. These shoe prints had pools of dried blood belonging to the victims. Okay,

so let's dig into this just a little deeper. The locations where these prints were found were at the homes of Chris Roden Senior and then Dana Rodin. We've been to this location and their running distance from each other. When we visited piked In, we actually did the drive of Union Hill Road to map out the different crime scenes. Union Hill Road lies about twenty minutes west of downtown

piked In off of Route thirty two. You exit the highways, then double back and head into a patchwork of forests and fields, and about half a mile up the road on the right is when you first see three one two two Union Hill Road, the property that Chris road And Senior bought for Dana and the kids just months before the murders, and we talked about this. That's also the location where Hannah May Roden had her baby shower

just leading up to the murders. So moving into this home was a really happy and exciting thing for Dana. Just down the road from that is four oh seven seven Union Hill Road, and that's where Chris Roden Senior was living and as we know, his cousin Gary was staying with him. This was a very brutal crime scene. Were pools of blood everywhere, and in these pools of blood, what police found were two shoeprints, one a size ten

and a half and the other a size eleven. According to the report, a size eleven Walmart Athletic Works brand shoe left a print. Here's Joseph Scott Morgan. I went back and I thought that brand sounded familiar. And the reason it was familiar to me is that when my son Noah got one of his first jobs, it was at Chick fil A and they require you to wear those non slip shoes. We went to Walmart to buy him a pair, and that's what they were, and I

just looked that up. They're primarily Athletic Works shoes. Their non slip souls is what they are. They're black in color, they kind of look like athletic shoes, and visiting their website, they go for like thirteen bucks a pair or something like that. It's something that's easily acquired. The size eleven shoe was actually found in both Christina and Data's home, which is extremely significant because there's been so much speculation

about this. Did they divide up and each go to a different location or did they do it together, and that's what this evidence would imply. Yeah, to further knock point stuff. What they also found was that the size eleven shoe had a mix of multiple victims blood in it, which again speaks to your point that whoever was wearing that shoe went to multiple road in houses for Joseph Morgan. It brought to mind another infamous family massacre. I urge anybody that has never read In Cold Blood to go

read this book, specifically because of the forensics. Capodi did such a fantastic job and given such a great description of this horrible scene where this family was absolutely butchered, not too dissimilar from what happened in Piked, and only happened in one single home in Kansas all those years back. They had one piece of evidence that really tied everything together that scene. In Cold Blood is a non fiction novel by author Truman Capote that was published in nineteen

sixty six. It details the nineteen fifty nine murders of the Clutter family in small town, Kansas. And you might have read this book in high school or have heard of it. It's really one of the first true crime stories that people sank their teeth into, and I would surmise that any true crime TV series or podcast or documentary really should give some credit to this one, because without it, I don't think the genre would be what

it is. There are actually a lot of parallels between the piked and massacre and the clutter of family murders one the family aspect. Also to the brutality three the victims being shot in the head, and just the sheer amount of bloodshed. It's chilling. For those of you who aren't familiar with the story, we'll give you a little

bit of a top line about it. It all started in the fall of nineteen fifty nine when these two x cons named Perry Smith and Richard Hiccock drove across Kansas on a tip they had received from one of their fellow inmates when they were in jail. While the duel was still in jail, they met a man nam Floyd Wells, who had claimed to them he had once worked as a farmhand for a man named Herb Clutter, who, according to Floyd, had kept thousands of dollars in a

safe in his basement. And that is all that Smith and Hiccock needed to hear, And eventually, when they got out of jail, they drove four hundred miles to the Clutter residence and snuck into the house as the family was sleeping. They started by tying up mister and Missus Clutter and their two teenage children, Kenyon and Bonnie. It's

every parent's worst nightmare. I can't help being reminded of what the Rodent family must have been feeling the night that they were murdered, thinking about them in their homes and having a loud, banging sound and all of a sudden, there's gun in your face. And it turns out there actually was not a safe. It was a total lie. Or her rumor and Hiccoc, who had a very short temper,

flew into a raid. And it's so sad because they must have decided beforehand that they wouldn't lead any witnesses alive, so all they got away with was a radio in maybe fifty dollars, but still they decided they had to kill the entire family. Yeah, once they made this decision, they kind of went one by one to the family members who were in various points of the home. And they started with mister Clutter, who was bound and gagged on a box spring in the basement. Harry Smith slit

his throat and then shot him in the head. They then went to the teenage son, Kenyon, who was bound in another part of the basement and shot him to death, and then they of course headed upstairs to kill mom Nancy Clutter, and sadly, after hearing both her parents and her brother being murdered, Bonnie Clutter was shot in the head. Her hands were tied in front of her, she was gagged, and get this, they actually tucked her into her bed. It's almost like they were trying to make her comfortable

in the moments leading up to her murder. Another similarity to the road in case seems to be the sheer violence of all of this. To shoot someone and slip their throat is the definition of overkill. In the same way shooting members of the Rodan family multiple times in

the face is just violence for violences sake. Something else that we should note that at some point in the night, Perry Smith stepped in mister Clutter's blood in the basement and left a partial footprint that again seems eerily similar to this footprint that we've been discussing in the Rodent homes. A lot of creepy stuff went on in this case. Anyway, He was executed down there, and Perry, who was one of the killers, was wearing a boot that had been

resold in this boot. When you hear this name, this name in forensic parlance, it's a benchmark moment. It's called the cat Paul print. When he stepped on that box, he transferred a print to that box with his boot that had transferred from blood onto the surface, and it left that Cat Paul print. Perry Smith's boots were later recovered. Not so, and piked In the defense has struck gold here. Really, I think, so, what makes you think that, Well, guess

what they found. They had Perry's boots in this case, they ain't got nothing and Piked and they don't have the shoes. They don't have that to compare to in the Clutter case they did. And I'm drawing these conclusions because I think, in my opinion at least, that this case, much like the Clutter case, is going to be a blood bath. The prosecution is betting that their footprint expert, William Bosniak, can tie the bloody prints back to the

Wagners without having the actual footwear for his analysis. Bosniak bought the same Athletic Works model size and shoe at Walmart about a thousand miles away from piked In and his homestate of Florida. The defense is trying to raise doubt about the process by which Bosniak determined the match, as well as about Bosniak's actual qualifications as an expert.

To do this, they've requested what's called a Daubard hearing here again and Flanagan Dalbert is just the name of a case where some guidelines were set forth by the US Supreme Court. And it was done with the idea that we don't want junk science going to a jury just because someone was declared an expert and said that this was his expert opinion. And so they gave some guidelines for attorneys and courts, and so some of the

guidelines aren't what would be called Dalbert factors. Some of these factors include whether the theory or technique in question can be and has been tested, whether it has been subject to peer review and publication, known potential error rate, and whether it has attracted widespread acceptance within the forensic scientific community. Well, one of the attacks that the defense made is that this is not the shoe. The shoe that he compared to the print is a sample shoe

that he bought later. They would want to do that because they see that as very damaging evidence. Understand, the defense's job is to exploit these small little issues along the way. They don't have to destroy the whole case. You know, when you start to talk about you know, well, they've given so much value to this piece of evidence,

they're going to try to paint it that way. If this trial happens down there in southern Ohio and Appalachia, people that inhabit those regions, their ears perk up when they hear an accent from other places, or they see people that don't quite fit in. And all he has to do is say, you know, this s guy, he's with the Feds. Why the hell are you going to go outside of your own law enforcement Emily and the crime lab there in state, in contract with an outside

expert in this particular case. Ultimately, Judge Daring ruled for the defense that the Dobbard hearing could go forward. Joseph Scott Morgan explains that if the judge rules in favor of the defense, a jury would never hear any of the evidence about the shoes. Defense is writtenes sing up to state that this gentleman is going to testify to size ten and a half and to size eleventh athletic works shoes. He's going to testify to those items and then he's marrying those up to the photographs of the

shoe prints that's seen to these individuals. They're saying that this isn't going to hold water forensically, then we can conclude that perhaps that bit of evidence will be excluded. But listen, this is the defense. This is what they do. If I hire a defense attorney, I'm assuming that's their job to basically throw anything against the wall and hope

that it sticks. I would imagine it's a little bit of an upful battle defending someone like George Wagner because there's a lot of evidence against him, and so the defense attorney is just trying to find ways around that and ways to cast reasonable doubt. Because with a jury, you don't need to prove that someone's innocent. All you need to do is poke enough holes in the prosecution story that there is a reasonable doubt that George Wagner

did not murder eight people. We think it's important to go through the different pieces of evidence that the prosecution is allegedly putting forward because it really does play a huge part in this case. The first thing that we think seems very relevant is these shoe receipts. Now as a result of a search warrant executed on the vehicles and the trailers belonging to the Wagner family. Investigators located

a Walmart receipt for a location in Waverley, Ohio. The data on the receipt is April seventh, twenty sixteen, which, as we know, is just a couple of weeks before the murders. The receipt was for two pairs of gray men's Walmart branded shoes with belcrow straps in sizes ten and a half and eleven. Officials were able to obtain and preserve surveillance photographs and receipts of all recent purchases of that model and those sizes of the shoe in

numerous Walmart stores throughout southern Ohio. At some point, an expert review the photographs obtained from a Walmart in Waverley, Ohio, and it included still images of the customers who purchased athletic work shoes that day, and the customer purchasing those shoes in this particular surveillance shot is none other than Angela Wagner. They actually show her exiting the Waverley Walmart on April seventh, twenty sixteen, at approximately the exact same

time on the receipt found on the Wagner property. And this day is so significant because, as you know, Hannah May Roden was having her baby shower at her new house where she lived with her mom, which we talked about earlier. It is pretty damning evidence, to say the least. We were told at some point that Angela Wagner chose those specific shoes for her boys to wear, because they were allegedly the exact same shoes that Dana Roden's brother

wore to work. And it's been speculated that perhaps Angela Wagner was literally trying to set up Dana Roden's brother for these murders. I have a question, what do you think has more weight in the courtroom, the science and the facts of the case or Jake Wagner's version of events. Well, it all depends on what Jake has given them at this point. And Mama, from a forensic standpoint, I can't wait to see this. They've already shown their hand to

a certain degree. They're saying, we're going after the forensic evidence right now. We know it's footwear. What else is on the table, or we're gonna talk about ballistics because that's the agency for bringing about death here. You know, we're talking about firing multiple rounds into all of these people. Reporter Angeanette Levy sees potential implications for George and Billy

Wagner if the evidence is allowed. I just know from one of the hearings back in August of twenty twenty, they were saying, you have no evidence against George the fourth and the same with Billy. Billy's attorneys said in court documents, you have no evidence against our guy. There's

nothing in the discovery that ties him to this. So when you look at it, if we're looking at shoe impression evidence, those could be things that maybe tie them to the crime scenes because we have that whole issue of the state saying and Angela Wagner at confirming that she purchased these shoes at Walmart for them to use. So those items could tie George and Billy to the crimes.

Because the Dabbard hearing could affect both father and son, Judge Deerring raised the possibility that they both appear in court at the same time. I would think that's going to be potentially the most interesting thing to come out of the Daubard hearing. So you're going to have the singular hearing about the scientific evidence, and then it's going to be presented at two separate capital murder trials. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in a moment.

Judge Deerring decided to have two separate Dabbard cases for George and Billy Wagner, avoiding a father son faced face for the first time since their arrests almost four years ago. Here's Joseph Morgan. What if they come to a conclusion, let's just say it has to do with footwear, they come to the conclusion X relative to the findings in George's case and validity of the evidence and how was examined, collected and analyzed. You've got the dynamic of a separate

legal team there. They might have a completely different view of this. When you're accused of something, and I'm just speaking strictly about forensics here, you have to be able to hold forth against the entire might of the state and what they bring to bear their forensic resources. George's team is there to save George, they're not there to save Billy. The morning of the trial, William Bosniak arrived early and took a seat while the defense and prosecution

organized their arguments. Bosniak is fit with a head of silver hair. You might guess he's ten years younger than his actual age of seventy six. Stud call, mister Tom the testimony. You are about the institute the truth for whole truth and nothing about the truth? Answer? And you got? I did? Can you tell us what your vocation is. I'm a forensic consultant and examiner. I specialize in footwear entire impression evidence. And can you tell us how abo

you see big doing that? Since nineteen seventy three, George the Fourth avoids eye contact with Bosniak. Angie Kneppa goes through the very standard procedure of having an expert describe his resume to the court. He speaks for a full hour and a half on his qualifications. Bosniak has done thousands of footwear impression examinations during his career with the FBI and in the twenty plus years of consulting since his retirement in nineteen ninety eight. Footwear shoes of people

leave impressions. Some of these are on two dimensional surfaces, where shoes acquire material like dust, dirt, mud, blood, and so forth, and then they read deposited in subsequent steps, typically the few step in a pool of blood. The first few steps are pretty heavy and messy. I have a lot of blood, and then eventually each step some of that blood is transferred to the floor and consumed,

so the next step doesn't have as much. Bosniak explains that he can identify specific brands, models, and sizes of shoes even if they aren't recovered. He does this by comparing or recovered prints to the molds used by manufacturers to make the soles of any given shoe. In shoes that are not popular, a manufacturer may only make one mold for most or all sizes. The basic design will

be the same. It's computer generated has been for years, so it's overall design and its physical size of that design from all of those molds will virtually be indistinguishable. But in some shoe designs they also add something that is known as generically as texture. At this point, Bosniac fires up a video he narrated. Texture is broadly defined as a shallow pattern sometimes found on selective surfaces of a footwear outshole. Adding texture to a mold is a

separate process. The video shows two workers in Southeast Asia. They each sit at their own workbench with a small hammer and all they're punching little divots into the shoe molds that will later be used to cast rubber soles. During the molding process, there are two predominant methods of adding texture to a mold surface. One of those are shown here, involves mechanically striking a pattern into the surface using a steel dye or similar tool. This is known

as hand stiffly. Believe it or not, those little patterns of the fine detail on the bottom of your shoes are mostly hand carved, and no two are alike. A size of level and mold created by one person will have minute differences from a size eleven created by another person. This goes even for the same brand and model shoe. It creates a very specific footprint. What's great about this evidence is that it's what we call it the monstrable And when you have demonstrable evidence, that's a big, big

test of its reliability. If you live with Florida and you're asked to do an examinations with Florida, how can you make a comparison to a chie print impression? It was left because manufacturers sell their shoes all over the country, so if they're sold at one Walmart, you're probably sold at the majority of them. If I know they're Walmart shoes, then that's the obvious place that I would go to first.

Angie cannep arrests. Now it's time for defense attorney Rob Junk to convince the judge that Bosniak is not a reliable expert. So what I'm hearing from you? Then, in doing this test, you're required to have a mold standard from the factories, right, No, in some cases, I just simply go to the store and buy some or get permission to make photographs and take standards of the shoes they have. And why not go to the manufact That's

not always possible, they're at other countries mostly. But unless you have obtained all of the molds, how do you know or how can you be certain that the impression you have is a one particular mold or shoe that you have purchased from the store. I mean, this is just through your experience, is that right? You don't know this to be I know this to be certain because I've observed it. I've worked cases like this, I've interacted

with manufacturers, numerous manufacturers. I've been in factories asking questions like this, and I've observed it over and over again and used this process over and over again, and it's a certain as anything can be. The defense works tirelessly to see if Bosniak will slip up. The defense then moves on to the issue of not having the actual

shoes used in the crime. Can you explain to the quarters, if we're looking at a Walmart, how reliable it is to make a comparison ring match between a Walmart store and Florida and a shoe that a Walmart store maybe in California d sell. Sure they came from the same hold, they just got distributed to all over the country. And although the impression corresponded with the shoe that you purchased from Walmart, you cannot say that that impression came from

the athletic work shoe or a right. Yes, it's an athletic workshoe that has the texture that I purchased in that I compared and they corresponds with the crime scene. After three hours of questioning, Judge Deering has heard enough. I think I'm just going to rule an emotion. I mean, I could include the court concludes that the footwear impression evidence has explained and testified too, but William Budsiac satisfies the criteria of evidence rule seven and two and Dallart

Merrill for the admissibility of expert testimony. Let's stop here for another break with the Dobbard hearing over and motion seventy six denied. It's guaranteed the jury will hear the testimony of William Bosniac his positive identification linking the shoes bought at Walmart by Angela Wagner and the footprints at the crime scene containing the blood of multiple victims. This

may have far rich in consequences for the entire Wagner family. Regardless, jurors will still see Jake's plea correct, and that would have its own narrative in and of itself, and maybe then the defense would poke holes in that. You're gonna get more than that from Jake. He's gonna be on the stand. He's got to stand and deliver. That's the only way they made to steal him and Mama gonna

be on stand. Man, You're gonna have a five time murderer all to stand given testimony against his daddy, against his brother, I don't ever recall that I've ever heard of case like this, not in my memory, not in recent history, at least anywhere in America. The stakes at this point are so incredibly high it's unimaginable. More on that next time. If you're enjoying The Pikes and Massacre, listen to our other hits series, Crazy and Love. New

episodes are every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts. For more information and case photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. The Piked and Massacre is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Greaves, Scott de Graw, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Tui. Music by Jared Aston. The Piked and Massacre is a

production of Katie Studios and I Heartradio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.