Monsters

This is the Pike Did Massacre A production of Katie Studios and iHeartRadio Season three, Episode two Monsters. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at Katie Studios with Stephanie Ledecker and Jeff Shane, and preparation for this season, We've been speaking to many sources in and around Pike County who would not go on the record before, probably because they were scared, but now they are ready to talk. In some cases

they were fearing retribution, including those close to Angela. There are so many perspectives on Mom Angela Wagner, and it begs the question, is it possible for a human being to be all things at once. Throughout all of these conversations and interviews, we've learned a lot more about the victims, the Rodent family, and the alleged killers, the Wagners. This includes other theories and information that goes generations deep, and some of it has far reaching and sometimes nefarious tentacles.

Here's what we know about Angela Wagner. She had a mother named Rita Newcome. I actually met her in person, was in her home just days after she was released. And she was married to a man named Pug Carter, Angela's father. They at some point divorced, Rita remarried and had a second child, twenty years younger, her half brother, Chris Newcomb. Chris has agreed to speak with us for the podcast on the record for the very first time. Has now a good time? Do you have a minute? Well?

What would you wanting to know? You are Angela's half brother. Explain that all to me, Like how you're related and how much younger you are. Angela is my half sister from my mom's first marriage. We got the same mom. She is twenty years older than I am. Well, here's my backstory that I can give for your radio thing. I grew up with George and Jake, like my brothers. I was always closer to George than I was with Jake.

George would do anything in the world for anybody out of Never in my life thought this out of him. Jake on he has hand, I'd have never thought it out of him either. But he's always been a little odd. I mean, he just always has been. My sister met here never really got along that well. Jake ain't no better in my opinion, and I got nothing for him at all. Billy's Billy. He's always been Billy. I mean,

everybody was trying to say. And he might have been the brains of the operation that some bitches stamp film. He couldn't hit the ground with his hat three tries, So you didn't really grow up with her. I never grew up with her at all, hardly. I mean when I wasn't even a year old, I was like nine, ten months old, she got pregnant with George, her oldest boy,

which would be my nephew. How did you see any of them, George, Jay, Cancel or Billy And back when I was a kid, hell, I was always I had to go over and spend the night for two three weeks at a time. Oh wow. Hell, I spent several summers over there, and when we got older and stuff like that. I'd see George when every swung by or he'd called and say, hey, we're gonna go hunting and we're gonna move fishing. So we'd all go out and do that. So you might grow up with Jake and

George being your peers. Oh yeah, yeah, we grew up more like brothers than we did uncle and nephews. I mean, we as close as hell. When of these kids, she'd treat me as one of the kids. But it just, I don't know, it seemed cold. Whenever she had to do something for me. It wasn't like a like a warming feeling, like you know here I want I want to help you have fun, or I want to help you out do this. It was just cold. Was she

liked that with the boys too? Are just yell, not really just made Mainly, I don't think she liked me much. Why Why do you think that is? I don't know. I didn't like her either, so I kind of worked out I never looked into my sister was very controlling person. Whenever rise around, she always tried to control every aspect that I did, and I pretty much told her go

to hell and that was the end of it. But I mean she pretty much controlled every aspect of their life, right down to their social media, their Facebook, their Message or Twitter. They're fucking uh, their dating sites. They had dating sites, and she actually had the information for their dating sites. She had to passwords to it. No. Yes, So when you were a kid and you would spend summers there or extended periods of time, Angela was your sister.

But I imagine treated you like a mom. You should probably helped cook for you and treated you like one of the boys. Was she kind to you that or was she always judge? Kind of a mixture of both. She was kind of a judge, kind of fake. What do you mean by that? It just seemed like she would be nice, but it was all like an act because she always told me, she said I'll never amount to anything. And she didn't tell just me that, she

told other people that. She said that I would never amount to nothing and I'd probably end up spending the rest of my life in jail. I almost want to answer a phone call from her just to laugh at her. Wow, you mentioned you and Angela were raised differently. How would you describe how you were raised and how would you say how she was raised. I wasn't around whenever she was being raised, you know, I wouldn't even have thought then mom was still married to her dad, Pug or

Eddie Edward Carter. He was always a good old guy. I knew him, ra Will you like Pug? Oh? I thought the world Pug Eddie Carter, better known as Pug, was Angela Wagner's father. We didn't know much about him or Angela's upbringing and how that might have shaped the person she is until now. Here's Jeff speaking to an anonymous friend of the Carter family who reached out to us. Your message is really interesting to me. I would love

to just kind of like hear all of it. And now you found this information out on what your take on all of it is. I grew up in South Webster, where the Wagners came back from Alaska's where they moved to, and the actual house that they lived in was the house of her dad. I knew him as a Pug Carter. He always wore this like metal brace and he walked

with a limp. He heard from my dad was that he would climb electric poles and steal copper or something off of the poles, and he's gotten electric uted and it affected his walking. When money would get tight by Black would go like pawn things to little but he ran like a I guess it would be illegal pawnshop where people would go take like small tools, long equitable, you know, stuff like that. I think he'd gotten in

trouble for forgery. One time. People would take their vehicle titles and pawned them to him for money, and he got to where he would like he would forge the titles and sell the vehicles, so people were like losing cars. So somebody eventually took him to court for that. And he'd done that for several years before he got in trouble for him, and that's the reason why Dad quit feeling with him. Explain that to me. So I would

take my car title and sell it to him. You would pawn it him, so you would give him your title and he would give you a couple hundred dollars and you'd pay it back, or once you paid him back, he would give your title back. But then he started like selling the vehicles before people had a chance to pay him back. The whole opioid epidemics started around here, and I guess he'd gotten into pills and stuff and he was started selling drugs as well as running this

underground pawn shop he was doing. There isn't a lot of information out there about Puck Carter, but what we could find included a criminal record filled with arrests for assault, receiving stolen property, and truck possession. From what I remember is that there was like an undercover seeing where the police were going to his house and purchasing and selling drugs. So actual drug bust is how he got caught. But the reason Michael Moran came into is Michael Moran he

was like the cheaper lawyer. So if you were kind of poorer on like the lower income level, he would work out a deal where you didn't have to pay as much for a lawyer like he was who all the poorer people went to. And I think that's really how he got to where he could target prostitutes and stuff, is because they were lower income and they could afford his services. It's not a surprise to me that her

dad had him as a lawyer. It's important to note that the recollections that Michael Moran was put Carter's attorney is strictly the first hand account of our anonymous source. Here's Stephanie and Jeff. We talked about Michael Moran in season two. He's an attorney and a former city councilman in Portsmouth, which is about twenty five miles south of

Pike County. He had multiple allegations against him, including sex trafficking, the disappearance of several young women connected to him personally, and the possible murder of another at the age of seventy five while out on bail and awaiting trial for promoting prostitution, compelling prostitution, human trafficking, and engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity. Michael Moran died in November of twenty twenty one. There's a place called Big Bear Lake that has come up a lot over the year in

our research. It's this spot not too far from Pike County that people go to on vacation. Essentially, it's like a holiday location. We're going to discuss this further, but it's also been alleged that it's a spot where sex trafficking happens, drug trafficking happens, and potentially there's a connection between Michael Moran and the Wagner family. I have to be really honest, my mouth dropped when we heard the connection between Pug Carter, Angela Wagner's father, and Michael Moran.

It's full circle. It just further speaks to this idea that Pike County and the surrounding area is where people in power continue to stay in power by abusing other people. It also points to a larger plot here. Angie was always really close with her dad, Like I remember her being at her dad's often, like she took care of

her dad. What I've heard locally is that's why they came back from Alaska's because Billy's dad had died and her dadded night they needed to settle those estates, and then they ended up moving into his house to Plug's house, and that's where they lived when they were arrested. Did you have any interaction with them when they came back. No, Nobody really knew they were here until they were arrested.

People would be like, Oh, I think I saw Angela and Jake at Jackson Walmart, which is a completely different county. I think they were going there, so they weren't noticed, and everybody's like, no, there's no way. Then all of a sudden they were arrested, and we're like, oh, well, maybe it was true. They were back into town. But if you drive by Plug's house, like the wagoner's vehicles are still there, it's still as if it was the day they were arrested. Nothing has been best with or moved.

Somebody cuts the grass, but as far as like they're stuff still being in there, it is still there. Can you paint the picture for me? So like a brick ranch home with you know, like a big grawl lot and they're still kind of stuff out. It still kind of looks like it did when Plug own didn't but there's like vehicles setting outside. They had like this really big Dodge Ram Diesel truck. When you have something like that around here, it means you have money. It's interesting

that that stuff wasn't seized. Yeah, we kind you get like a Garie feeling when you drive farther too, It's like, oh, there's so much bad stuff that's happened in that one house. A crime goes Yeah, I mean that's where they were hiding out and potentially they were there planning those murders, So we're going to take a break. We'll be back in a moment. Sammy Joe grew up in the piked In area and was closed with both the Wagner and

the Rodent families. Sammy spent a lot of time at the Wagner's home, where she found Angela to be not so much motherly as controlling. Here she is speaking with Stephanie. I grew up with the Wagner and then I dated Frankie wrote, where were you when you heard all of the news about the murders. I was standing in my living room, and I lived not tremendously far away, but I heard all the sirens and everything going on. The next thing, you know, my Facebook was all lit up

with family members found dead. And I'm thinking, there ain't no way we all talk about Angela Wagner, the mom of killers, as being in the mastermind. Oh, I wouldn't put a pastor if Angela said jump and you didn't say how high Angela got mapped, especially with Jake. Jake was her baby. Like if Angela didn't like me, Jake wasn't allowed to like me that week. I didn't come from the right family or I did her wrong in her eyes or something. What about Billy would you describe him?

What was he like? He was a type of guy that he could crack a joke and you would laugh for days. My dad had a stroke, a massive brain laying a stroke, and I remember writing Angela and I said, hey, this is Samantha Brian Frederick's daughter. I need to get ahold of Billy. And Billy got ahold of me, and I told him my fight listened. The house that we're living in the floor falling through. They will not let my dad come home and let I get the floor fit.

Billy showed up with plywood feed for my animals. He had bought me cinnamon products, a shampoo conditioner, like he was there to help, like in his mom. I got ahold of Billy and I'd say, listen, my mom's behind on the electric bill. We're in disconnect. They're literally shutting us off. We need a good amount of money. And Frederika got ahold of us and she paid our electric bill. They wasn't bad people. I mean they're bad people now, but I honestly, in my opinion, I don't think they

were all in vault. I think there was other people in ball under Angela's demand, right, is it possible that they weren't even there and that maybe other people were there that night. In my opinion, yes, I think they know, but they won't speak about it. I think the boys know what happened, and if they speak about it, they'll be dead. And that's my opinion. Jake and George was

always homeschooled, like they were never in public schools. The public systems that Angela was not good enough for her boy, so her teaching her kids was better. I don't know how much better that was, but it was teaching them pretty much. What Angela said goes like she's off the vibe of like if she said you're going to rub a bank and you tell her no, like she gets scary. I love the boys to death. They're a little weird,

but I love them to death. I remember decades ago we all went to the bull riding thing and Billy and her got my little argument. I've never seen a grown man in an argument shut up so fast in my life, Like the argument was over within seconds. It was controlling, is what it was. And have you been in the house when all of them were home at the same time. Yeah, the house was always quiet, very quiet. Normally would be Billy sitting there in a chair grinding

his teeth, just sitting there watching TV. That would be like the living room area. Angela would normally in their cooking and then off. All that in the bag was the boys' room. To the left was Georgie's room, until the right was Jake's room. Of course, typical boys, you're going to have to your heads and guns in there.

And that's pretty much the house. I can't remember a time that they were one of the houses burnt down and they were living in a shack and they were all cramped up in this little living room area and I'm standing there by the door with my dad. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. As a reminder, this is Sammy Joe's recollection of events. I could tell you every place that they had, every place that burned down. I can't prove that it was in Churce,

but that many houses. There's the trailer, trailer, slush house, the building. There's like a good four or five places at Burndale pluses in my truck. There wasn't anybody home or in the houses when they burnt down. Correct We've heard for several years about suspicious fires related to Angela and Billy Wagner, but have never been able to speak out about it. However, now these allegations have been substantiated

in court. On May second, twenty two, Special Prosecutor Angie Kneppa references arson in connection with the Wagner family multiple times. Some of these acts are alleged. Some of these we have again high levels of proof, specifically number one, multiple instances of arson of various properties for their own financial gain. Everybody in the conspiracy has their own role, and they carry out that role. Ironically. Oftentimes Angela absents herself from

the crime itself. The men Jake, George and Billy carry out the crime, and then they have a story, cover up story. I probably had a chance to talk to George. I honestly would, because I just want to know why I actually want fishing with George. Shortly after and it got brought up, Wait, you went fishing with George Wagner after the murders, I asked him. I was like, I can't believe this happened. And because him and Frankie after

a while got row close. As terrible as it is to say, now victim Frankie Rodin and accused murderer George Wagner were known to be good friends. Sammy Job calls the time when Frankie Rodin was standing up to Jake Wagner to defend his sister Hannah May. I did hear about Frankie and Jay getting into it, because I guess Jake and Hannah got into it and Jake had hit Hannah. Sorry to interrupt, but just for clarity, you're referring to to victim Frankie Rodin Hadame Rodin's older brother, right, Yeah,

but I don't know. I wasn't there or that's just what I was told. But George like shut me out, like he goes, how could we do it? Because they were already being questioned who was going to be there with the kids, And I was like, well, I don't know. I was like, there's just something wrong. Like he totally shut me out. Like I knew sometime was wrong that day when we were talking about it, like our vision trip was going good and it got run roll fucked. Like I talked to them why they were in Alaska?

Tell me about the Alaska piece. Why Alaska that's been the boys' dream since they were Mehi to Grosshopper. Do you know if Angela and Hannah at any point had a positive relationship, even back in the early days. Oh yeah, one one time. They loved each other as far as I know. But Angelo was the type of person if you say or do something out of the way, you're a bad person. Why, I think, honestly because Hannah was the type of person. But first I know that's what

I mean. And Angela wasn't getting her way with the custody, And I honestly feel like, and this was my opinion, Angela was afraid that Hannah was going to take away all visitations and that's how it was going to be. Not only did Sammy Joe know the Wagner family, but she also knew the Rodents intimately when they were very much alive. She spent a lot of time at mother Diana Roden's house sitting her boyfriend Frankie. How old were you when you dated Frankie Rodin. I dated him from

seventh grade to like ninth grade. He was fun and you just like the rest of him, like he was so well going, give the shirt off his back, caring Malsee. When you were dating Frankie, did you spend any time at the road and home? What were they like? What was their home like? It was fun, like it was a live like that place was alive. Frankie would write a bus home with me. Mostly I write a bus home with them and just spend a lot of time out there. I spent more time than even at my

own house. And was Dana close with Frankie? Oh that was her baby boy? Like should hurt someone over her kids? Could you physically describe her? Like? What did she look like? Her hair was always sure? We always called her fluffy. She was about five to seven, very loud, but yeah, like I never wanted to go home, like I actually felt like I was wanted. She would go out of your way like my dream shoes was I called him Abby's shoes like they were the very long shoes that

zip up the back. I can't remember what they're called now and her and Frankie Blomingham. I had those shoes for years. Did you know Hannah Gilly Frankie lover? You could tell Sammy Joe shared a recollection she had about Hanna me roudin Hannah. She would drive past my house just honking, and she drove by Honk and I was on my porch. She was I'll see you later. I called to see you later, and I didn't get to see her later because she was dead the next day.

Let's stop here for another break. While Sammy Joe's relationship with Angela was similar to what we've heard from other people and in childs that she was controlling and suspicious. Like all people, Angela is different things to different people. Here's Howe, a family friend who knew the Wagners both in Ohio and Alaska. My understanding is that you had a very close relationship with the Wagner family. I grew up with them and went to church and them and

things like that. Tell me about them. What were they like? I always thought they were great people. I've stated at their house multiple times. Like I said, I've gone to church with them growing up. It's kind of like a second family to me. I thought they were decent people. Did you remember anything about Angela Wagner. I just remember her being the typical mom. In a million years, I have never thought she could plot anything or do anything of this sort of caliber. Like I said, just the

typical mom. She reminds me of my own mother. What about her specifically was typical in your opinion, her attitude, you know, just the standard mom. You know, the way she looks. You look at her and you see mom like she's just that friendly of a person. Just her attitude in general, she's a welcoming person. You had mentioned Alaska. Did you live in Alaska or did you visit them while the Wagoners were in Alaska? I lived in Alaska and they came up and visited. Tell me how old

were you at that point? I was probably thirteen fourteen somewhere around there, just you know, a young teenager. They were a little older than I was, so we didn't really hang out a whole lot. Then I went fishing with him once or twice in Alaska. Why Alaska do

you think? I think the real thing was the pastor in Alaska was also the pastor in the church in Ohio that they went to, and they knew my grandparents, so they had a lot of people up here that in Alaska is just the place that everybody wants to come and visit. So I assume that you know, they wanted to come to see old friends and things like that. And when they came, that was before the massacre. Correct, Yeah,

this was before. It's at least thing serious. Why they went to Alaska and moreover, why would they go back to Pike County. They came the first time to visit and then the whole Pike County massacre thing happened, and they came back to Alaska, but they had no contact with anybody. They didn't talk to any of us, Like we reached out, were like, hey, what's up, how are you guys? We're sorry this happened, and they never once

talked to us. They moved to a different city. I believe they lived in Saladna or Cassia Lock or something like that, and they never had any sort of contact with me, my grandparents and my sisters, the pastor nothing. What do you make to that? It was definitely strange hearing people were murdered, then they show up out of nowhere coming back to Alaska. It was it was definitely fishy. And that's when I kind of cut ties, you know, just just to be on the stais. I didn't want

to be involved in anything of that sort. When they were in fact arrested for the murders, that must have been a huge shock. Oh, I cried, I said in my apartment, and I cried live for my art because she's just, you know, one of the sweetest people ever. I just don't think it's going to add up. And I think people do dumb thing for their family. People say they do anything for their family, and I think she did do anything for her family, as terrible as

it was. As we continue speaking with more people, much more information is coming out, including other acts the Wagners have allegedly committed over the years. This is according to prosecutors, the Wagner family tracked her, they threatened her, they threatened her family's lives. The family definitely on that side. They did stuff to make money other than legally. It begs the question of how why their net is spread and

what other people may be involved. For the first time on this podcast, we'll hear Jake Wagner's ex wife Elizabeth. They keep being asked, did you know Jake Wagner was a murderer before you married him? What I'm getting real say, ooh, have nothing to do with the murders. This voice belongs to another person who has requested anonymity due to their proximity to the Wagner family. Is Angela. The monster or

did she marry into monsters. I feel like Jilly's a type that would pay someone in prison to kill his own kids. More on that next time. For more information on case photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. The Piked and Massacre is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Tis, music by Jared Aston, audio mixing by Ken Novak. The Piked and Massacre is a production of

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