Connecting the Dots

Pike County season four, episode nine, Connecting the dots. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at Katie Studios, with Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane. It's important to note that George Wagner has pleaded not guilty and has maintained he did not kill anyone. His father, Billy Wagner, whose trial is upcoming, has also pleaded not guilty to all charges. Here's Stephanie and Jeff speaking about some of the revelations from the

autopsy results. They mentioned doctor Karen Luhman, who you may remember is the forensic pathologist who performed all at autopsies and testified at the child How were three people at Dana Roden's home shot in their sleep. I just am trying to wrap my head around how the perpetrators were able to walk around home shooting one person at a

time without waking anyone else up. And also, one thing that I thought was interesting about Luman's testimony was how she determined that some of the shots fired that night were what she called at intermediate range, which is essentially anywhere between three inches and three feet from someone, and then others weren't. She said that's based on something called stippling, or actual evidence of damage to the victim, based on how close the muzzle of the gun was to the

victim itself. Some victims had that and were seemingly shot at close range, but some didn't. So the choreographing of all of that seems so complicated. Who was where when? This morning? Lead Prosecutor Angie Kaneppa begins by addressing exactly this question. Back on the stand is doctor Karen Luhman speaking about Hannah Hazel Gilly's injuries? Can you tell us where was gunshot? Wound number one located on the diagram. Number one is on the far left. It looks like

it's on the right forehead. It's a little more on the side of the forehead. Doctor, can you tell us what did you determine the distance to be of that gunshot wound? That is intermediate? And again that intermediate is somewhere not contact or lose contact, but somewhere less than three feet Yeah, okay, Shots two, three, and four we're indeterminate, while shot five was again close range or what she calls intermediate. When you conducted your examination of Hannah Rode in,

how many gunshot wounds did you observe her to have? Two? And can you tell us if you determined a distance? Yes? And what was that it was indetermined? Canepa has a chart where she keeps track of the myriad of gunshots, some at a distance, some close, all while the victims were asleep. Then she brings up the idea of how this might be affected by the use of a silencer. And doctor loman I believe you testified to this before.

But do you know or do you have an opinion if there was a silencer used on a weapon, could that possibly impact your distance determinations? It possibly could? Yes, Okay. The defense has no choice but to address the introduction of a possible use of a silencer as well. On the last one, of the last points the prostitute made the silence, How would that impact determination of the distance?

A silencer in general would fit around or in the area of the muzzle, and it could capture some of the soot or stipling that normally would have landed on clothes or the body. It may capture that. So, if I understand what you're saying, the distance could actually be closer than what you have observed. Yes, this is a turning point in the trial. It's the first of many loose threads that the prosecution finally begins to weave together for a jury, a public, and a media weary after

weeks of detail specific testimony. So far, the prosecution has worked in a meticulous linear fashion, laying out the grizzly narrative that they want the jury to consider. Here's long crime reporter Anjeanette Levy. I've covered a lot of trials my career, a lot of criminal cases, but I've never seen one presented in this fashion in court, where it's all chronological or goes in chronological order of the investigation.

You know, it's a two and a half year investigation between the time of the homicides and the arrest sometimes it just feels like we're bouncing around a lot. You know, it'll be up to the jury to determine whether or not that was a good strategy. I've often wondered, are they confused by this? Here's James Pilcher, longtime investigative reporter in Cincinnati, now with Local twelve. When it comes to physical evidence, it's the shoe prints, and it's the ballistics

without Guy. And this is exactly how the prosecution begins to connect the dots and tighten the new son George and the Wagner family. Today, prosecutors present some of the most crucial evidence yet in the trial of George Wagner the Fourth and the Pike County massacre. Local twelve James Pilcher reports on key footprints that were found at the scene.

Susan Elliott, a shoeprint specialist for the AHIB Bureau of Criminal Investigation at the time of the murders, declined to be on camera with her testimony, but she matched footprints found at the first crime scene with an actual shoe

style in size. Juror's eyes were glued to the latest witness to testify in George Wagner the Fourth's murder trial as she opened large pizza boxes inside pieces of flooring cut from one of the Pike County crime seats, the trailer on Union Hill Road where Chris Roden Senior and Gary Rodin were murdered. She said these impressions that have since been enhanced, were not in the crime lab's shoe database. You may recall from last season the testimony of shoeprint

expert William Bodsiac during pre trial motions. Bodesiac, who worked on the oj Simpson case, stated that investigators finally found the model shoe that made the Prince at Walmart with Susan Elliott who made the actual discovery James Pilcher. She's the one to found at all. She was the one that new will be looking out for the Walmart shoes because she remembered, you know, our shoeprin expert found these shoes of Walmarts, so we need to be looking for

anything for Walmar. Here is testimony from Brian Scheiterer had BCI investigator who provided testimony the same day about how they use that information As a result of learning that you were looking for a size eleven shoe that you believed belonged to whoever committed these murders, or at least

one of the individuals. What did you guys do? In response to that information, it was decided that we would contact the walmarts within a fifty mile radius of Pike County and asked for all their records for transactions involving that shoe dated back to January first of twenty sixteen. In an addition to getting the records of any transactions, did you also get a request and receive video surveilance

that corresponded with this y? As we know from previous episodes, this is how the recorded video of Angela buying the same model she is was found. Subsequently, they then seized a receipt from the purchase. Here's Jeff speaking with Mike Allen and your expertise as a lawyer. How big is this piece of evidence? It's really big because you've got the receipt for purchasing them, they match up in size, and then of course she got the bloody footprint in

one of the trailers. So it's very strong evidence. And I think that's something that the jury is going to be thinking about. And do you think you know without DNA evidence, this shoeprint is maybe the closest thing we have. How much weight can the prosecution put on it? Oh, I think they can put a lot of weight on it. I mean the odds of it being some kind of coincidence are in the millions, So I think they'll put a lot of weight on It's it's real strong evidence

for the statement. What's the defensive counter argument to this? How do they defend the shoe print? I guess you would have to argue that it's a pretty popular brand of shoe at Walmart. You'd have to do your homework and it. I don't know any other way to do that, because, like I said, it's such strong evidence, you'd have to argue that well, you know, it is what it is. But they were in a real tough position on that one.

I don't know how they're going to do it. They're just going to have to argue coincidence, and I don't think the jury's going to buy that. Here's forensic death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan. Well, for me, shoper prints tell everything.

The shoe prints are indicative of purpose. They're indicative of thought and air being taken when it comes to planning, because from where did the shop prints originate, well, they originated from a pair of shoes that were purchased for the sole purpose of, you know, following through with this horrible plan. We've already got Angela Wagner actually stating that she purchased the shoes and for them to have the utility to go out for them to commit these crops. Next,

angel Wilson turns to ballistics. Mister White, where do you work? I work at the Bureau of Criminal Investigation also known as BCA in London, Ohio. We have been able to gather from preliminary motions and prosecution filings that there is a connection, they assert between shell casings found at at least one of the crime scenes and weapons link back to the Wagner family. So we do expect that this ballistics expert will prove a very important to this case.

White is a striking presence on the stand. He wears a broad shouldered black three piece suit and sports a wide flat beard that ends the midway down his chest. When Matt White comes to work in London, Ohio, VCI, what does he do every day? Our primary duties involved examination of firearms to determine their operability, as well as looking at fired ammunition components, be it a fire cartridge

case or a fire bullet. I can perform microscopic examinations to determine if they've been fired in or from a particular farm, and if not, I could generate a potential

list of farms that could have been fired from. I want to take you back to April of two sixteen, April twenty sixteen, at some point where you asked to Adam of fads that have been collected as part of an investigation of an eight person homicide in Pike count Yes, I was, And can you tell the jury how were you initially brought into this case or asked to assist.

My supervisors notified us that there was a larger case that was coming into the laboratory, and I just happened to be the person selected to work the case at the time. White goes on to testify that he identified two types of bullets at Chris Senior's home, thirty caliber bullets from a high profiled rifle and forty caliber bullets

from an unknown firearm crime scene too. The home of Frankie Rowden and Hannah Hazela Gilly was a different story, were several of the items that you examined from this scene shell casings had been recovered by the crime scene unit. Yes they were. Yes, this is one fired watching long rifle cartridge case. The fact that that cartridge has the name long rifle, does that mean that it has to be or can only be fired out of a rifle. No,

certainly not. Twenty long rifle cartridge is generic. It can be fired in a pistol, revolver, a rifle, any fire that's designed to actually fire that specific cartridge. Were you also ask to be I think it came from Seeing three. Yes, I was. Was one of the items that you were asked to look at with respect the scene three as shell casing. That was our cartridge casing that was recovered from under a crib in this residence. Yes, that's correct.

This is a fire twenty two long rifle cartridge case remick and brand with a rectangular wedge shaped fine pin impressure. That item had the same general class characteristics as the shell casings that you just testified too from scene two. Yes, that's correct, and again or those consistent with the other projectiles recovered. An autopsy of the other victims have Seen three and the other victims have scene two. Yes, they are Stephanie and Jeff. So we have two types of

bullets found at the scene. We have thirty caliber high powered rifle bullets and forty caliber bullets found in Chris Senior's home. And we know from Fortner's testimony last week that the thirty calibers were sprayed from outside the trailer and the forties were found to have gone through the floor and into the dirt below the home, so they were shot inside. Now here's where it gets confusing, because at Frankie and Dana Roden's homes they found twenty two

caliber bullets. Does that mean that whoever did this, whether it's one person or many people, did they do that by switching out guns mid murder scene? Or does that mean they almost divided and conquered and that different family members were using different guns and that they were committing these murders simultaneously. They moved on to crime scene four, Kenneth Roden's house. If you recall there was only one shot fired Station Divot D two eighty two. You've already

opened her up. Do you recognize the markings on that package? Yes, laboratory number, item number and my initials and we're able to examine that item and reach any conclusion with respect to brand and caliber associated with that Yes, I was able to conclude this as a fired forty Smith and Wesson cartridge case horn Day brand. Were you asked to make some comparisons in this case to determine whether or not certain pieces of evidence had been fired by the

same weapon at each scene? Yes, I was. Were you able to reach a conclusion to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty as to whether or not the forty caliber shell casing a scene one was fired from the same firearm that fired the forty caliber shellcasing the scene forty Yes, microscopic comparison examining of the two fired forty Smith and Weston cartridge cases, I was able to conclude the two forty Smith and Weston cartridge cases had been fired in

the same fire. Media outlets jumped on the breaking news. Today, prosecutors turned to the bullets used in all eight murders. The casings included a forty caliber shell found on Chris Senior's kitchen floor. He also showed the bullets to retrieved from the victim's bodies. His testimony came after another BCI agent walked through the crime scene where police found Chris Senior's brother, Kenneth Rowden, shot in his bed. Agents also found a forty caliber shell in his bed. We're going

to take a break. We'll be back in a moment. The next day, the prosecution picks up once again with testimony from Matthew White Angel. Wilson is intent on further closing the loop on the physical ballistic evidence. In addition to that information that you passed onto the investigators, did you do further work or further analysis to try to determine what kind of twenty two or what kind of

forty was involved in these homicides? Yes. Oftentimes, if I'm encountered evidence and there's no firearms submitted, I can look at certain features of the fire cartridge cases or the fire bullets to give a possible list of firearms that could have fired them to aid investigators and what they should be looking for. In the case of the twenty two, he pinpoints the probable gun used. I was able to examine other examples of test fires taken with Walter Cold

nineteen eleven twenty two pistols. I was able to physically examine a couple different of the specific guns. I was able to disassemble them, look at them further, examine the firing pin itself, take additional test fires for comparison. In addition to that, I corresponded with a design engineer at Walter in Germany about the shape the orientation of the

fine pin impression. He was able to look at some stock examples at the factory of farms that they were producing, and he agreed and concurred that the shape of the fine pin impression and the orientation of it was consistent with the farms that they produced the Walter Colt nineteen eleven twenty two pistols. In the case of the forty caliber, he pulls up an enlargement of the bullet casing, pointing out marks around the base of it. You can see

the fine pin impression itself. It's elliptical, it is not circular in shape. Those two features are very common with block firearms. So based on those observations, again, did you begin to feel that a block firearm or a forty cow block was responsible for shooting the showcases recover from scene one in ze four. Yes, the lock is by far the most common firearm encountered that has those two characteristics. Next,

the prosecution asked a key question of light. But at that time, when you were doing your initial work in this case, did you have a firearm that had been plected as evidence to compare from the scene or from a suspect. No, I did not to understand the recovery of the Wagner's firearms. Brian Scheider is asked to step back and give the jury a big picture on how they began their investigation. Remember, at the time, BCI did

not yet know the Wagners were involved. Back to that very first day, you responded to the Sheriff's office, you interviewed some people, then what happened? Then what did you do? Things were still very confusing at that time. There's a lot of information coming in, as you can expect. The media was on scene at the time, so this had

went statewide as well as national. So eventually we went back to the piked And Police Department and we try to organize things like we knew this was going to be We're going to be in for the long haul on this. We're trying to say, here's what we had at the crime scenes, here's what the families told us, and here's tips that are coming in. That's all happening extremely fast. Like it's overwhelming, it overloads you, it's coming in so fast. We also established a tip system because

we had so many tips coming in. Ultimately, I believe we had eleven hundred and forty three tips that came in through the end of the investigation to the arrests, and eleven forty three of those tips were investigated and cleared. And so how was that tip system established. They would mark the tip, it would get assigned to an agent, and the agent would go out investigate the tip and

respond back and report his or her findings. At some point, they received a tip about the Wagner's collection of firearms. Here's Jeff speaking with Mike Gallen. Law enforcement have to verify who sent the tip or does it not matter if if it checks out? You mean, when the tip comes in, try to figure out who it is. Yeah, Like if they got a tip that, oh, you should search this property because there might be weapons there. If that tip checks out, doesn't matter who called it in.

In theory, wouldn't they want to track that person down because that's a good witness or they don't care. They probably would have to have more than that. You know, they get a tip like that, they'd have to develop its somewhat, you know, just some Tom Dick or Harry calling and saying, Hey, you know, I think there's a bunch of evidence and weapons down there Joe Jones's house. The cops will have to have more than that. You just use the term to develop the tip. I've never

heard that. What does that mean? You know, perhaps try to find out whatever this witness said, maybe go to the place, check it out, maybe talked to other people. I just think that would be very weak to go to a judge and ask for a search warrant just based on a completely anonymous tips that they would have to bolster that somehow it was enough to get warrants

to search the Wagner's property. We also talked about you seeking court orders for various phone records and Facebook records and any other records are correct, and can you tell us kind of at what point did that start to happen and what kinds of information were you receiving that led you to turn your attention to them. It takes a long time to examine those things, you know, many

of those files are extremely large, several thousand pages. It is these electronic records a lead BCI to Jake Wagner via social media posts about custody of his and Hannime Rodin's young child. When we first made contact with Jake Wagner, he had indicated that everything was okay, that he had a good relationship with Hannah, and there's no issues involving

their child that they shared together. So that that was a little suspicious morranted a little further investigation, obviously, But we were also conducting an interviews of friends and family who were reporting a similar situation. So you kind of have conflicting stories, right. You have one side that's saying everything's okay, and then you have records and family members

and friends that are saying that's not true. So that kind of you know, you need to investigate that that's important, that's a lead, that's that's something that needs to be ran down, and so that's what we started to do. Did you also look at Jake's fall and did you find anything of interest on that phone? Yes? And can you tell us what you thought? And again, these were expedited reviews of these records. It wasn't like we had days to go through these. We literally downloaded these phones

and started going through quickly. But one of the most interesting things that we found on Jake's phone at that time was under the note section, and it was a list of guns owned by the Wagoners or purported to be. So basically there's a list with each Wagner's name and then a list of guns underneath each of those names. At this point, the defense objects and everyone approaches Judge during upon request, they consult briefly and during rules testimony

can continue. Thank you, honor, Agent Scheider. I'm going to show you what is going to be marked as students at h two. Okay, and can you tell us first of all, Agent Scheider, what are we looking at? This was again, this is a an extraction report or a snippet of an extraction report related to Jake's iPhone that we took of May of seventeen, and this was found in the notes section of the phone, and it is

a list of firearms and associated Wagner names. Go through those and tell us which guns are listed belonging and belonging to do and what date was that list created pursuing to the reports. I'm having trump to see you that February eleventh, twenty fifteen. Okay, thank you, and go

ahead and tell us what guns are listed there? Starting at the top, the list starts with George's and Acadian possession, and it says Glock seventeen nine millimeter, Baretta ninety six forty caliber, Taurus Revolver three fifty seven, Remington fourteen twenty two, Ruger M seventy seven to seventy, ruger M seventy seven, twenty two, Hornets, Remington Woodmaster thirty six, Ruger M seventy seven twenty two, c Z twenty two and SKS seven point six two by thirty nine. And who else is

listed on that list? Moms, dad's and Jake's. Okay, that is at the extent of the list. It was extracted from the phone belonging to Jake Wagner. Yes, but you seize pursued to the search warrant. Yes, let's stop here for another break. Here's Jeff speaking with McAllen. He pretty much figured out what the firearms were through that obviously the help of the corner, what the what the rounds showed,

what kind of weapon they were fired from. And you know, they got a real break on Jake's phone when they got the search warrant for that and found on the notes portion just about every gun that the family had, and it matched up. Again. That was just good old fashioned police work, not a lot of technology in that. What do you make of Jake Wagner writing all this stuff down? Stupid? It was just stupid. Why would you

do that? You know? In many ways, I think he covered his tracks, or at least tried to cover his tracks pretty well, but it's just stupid. I guess he just wanted to keep track of what everybody had, and my goodness, you talk about an arsenal, they had just about any kind of weapon you can think of. Learning a lot of guns, though, does not necessarily make you guilty of murder. It definitely does not make you guilty

of murder. But it's a piece of the puzzle, especially when two of the weapons that he had on that list were the type of weapons that were used to commit theach murders. When you can tie a weapon or weapons, you know, to a homicide, that's big. I mean, it's good evidence. The jury wants to hear that, so it's strong evidence. More on that next time. We're going to take a short break. The Piketon Massacre returns with all new episodes starting Wednesday, January fourth, with Angela and Jake

Wagner taking the stand. There's much more to uncover and the biggest bombshells are yet to come. Don't defense ready? Yes you wish you to call a witness at this time, then yes, we call it George. For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. The Piketon Masaker is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Scott de Graw, Andrew ar Now, Gabriel Castillo and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Tis.

Music by Jared Aston. The piked In Masacer is a production of iHeartRadio and Kati Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.