Welcome to the piked In Massacre Episode nine. We're going to do something a little bit different for this episode and go into the process of producing the podcast and also answer some questions we've been getting over social media. I'm Courtney Armstrong. I work at Kat's Studios with Stephanie Leidecker and Jeff Shane.
We're finally together again, distance but together.
Yeah, because of COVID we've all been recording separately, but we're actually in the same socially distant space today for the first time in many months.
And we are sitting outside to keep safe.
One of the things a bunch of people have asked about is how we came upon this case, And Jeff, do you want to speak to that, because you really were the impetus for it.
Yeah.
At KAT Studios, we do a lot of true crime programming, and so we're always kind of on the lookout for interesting cases that are like aired and complex that could make for you know, compelling television documentaries. And you know, when it first happened, when the Rodents were first murdered, it got a fair amount of intention at the beginning, and as we've talked about pretty quickly, the media kind of backed off when there weren't arrests, and that was kind of all there was to it and in terms
of our knowledge. And then in June of twenty eighteen, I read an article by Jeff Winkler, who you've all heard during this podcast, that he wrote for The Outline, a long form article about the crime that really he did such a good job of laying out the story and what happened and the people involved, and it immediately struck a chord with me, just the human element of
it all and how tragic it was. And so reached out to Jeff Winkler and started the conversation about figuring out how we could make this some sort of long form documentary.
Yeah, so here's an excerpt of him talking about piped in and part of what drew us all in.
So I remember that very specifically. It was a big media story for about two weeks, and you know, everybody from all over came to cover it, all over the world, and then they left and the murder was still unsolved.
How did you end up writing because you wrote a pretty big piece, What was the tell me about that?
I wrote a piece about a year later. This was, after all, the sort of fanfare and media attention went away, and I went to piked In a year later, almost to the day, about a year or two the day of the killings, and I wanted to see how the town was doing, both the community and the people who were directly involved in it, because at that point there was still no suspects, no one was really arrested or being prosecuted for the crime, and it was the largest
unsolved murder in Ohio's history, and the second largest mass murder that year in the United States, after the poll shooting in Florida.
We had been tracking this case since it happened, and when we first got involved, the Wagners hadn't been arrested or weren't even being looked at as suspects by detectives. So we pitched the idea of this documentary to rod Asa and Corey Abraham, who are executives at NBC Universal's Oxygen Network, And.
Really the spirit of that was that this huge crime had occurred to the poor Rodin family and the killer was at large and they were still out there. Cut to the Wagners get arrested, and our executives at Oxygen call us and put us on a plane to piked In.
Yeah, I mean, let's talk about we've spent I mean, I think between the three of us weeks in piked In over the course of many trips, and yeah, you guys spent more time there than I did. So I'd be curious what your take on it is.
My first time was when we were going to do the doc and I flew by myself, I think on Thanksgiving and met Jeff Winkler, who of course wrote this important article. Who we were you know, just talking to and brainstorming with.
You know, Initially, this trip, Stephanie that you're talking about was literally nine days after the arrests. You know, they the Wagoners were arrested on November thirteenth, twenty eighteen. She's on a plane on November twenty second, and so it was really soon after that the team was there, and I mean the town was I think a form of shell shock at that point.
I think the mood in the town was really palpable. There was something very big about what was happening around us. You know, we've said this before. It is a very small town, two thousand people. So to have eight people murdered out of those two thousand, every single person in the town is affected to some degree or knows somebody six degrees of separation who was either on the Wagner
side or on the road And side. So everyone was very affected and asking questions about this huge crime at that time, you know, can can be hard because it's a sensitive topic. And it seems as though the town of piked And specifically and many of the family members of victims or on the Wagner side that in previous incarnations had been treated very poorly by the press, so we wanted to be very sensitive about that.
Yeah.
Another thing Jeff Winkler talked to us about was his visit in twenty seventeen.
I think this thing that stood up for me when I went to visit was just how human everyone was. And I know that sounds a little trite, but I mean I grew up in the Ozarks in Arkansas, so coming up from the Ozarks and then spend time in Texas and Tennessee, this is where I think the stories are and the coverage needs to be done more. And you know, when the initial coverage happened, you know, it was just these sort of footage and quotes from sad
sort of backwoods people is how they're perceived. But everyone there is full of faith and humor and you know, real, real sort of American mentality. People I met there who had family members had a sort of a grim humor about things. So it was a way of coping. And people found faith in the local church. And you find these sort of avenues that people from anywhere find to grieve and to sort of move on. And that was I think that was the biggest thing when I went there.
Jeff Wick learned it becoming the greatest.
We popped in a car and drove I don't know, probably fifteen hours a day door to door to various people's homes between Kentucky and Ohio. You know, Jeff Winkler, he knew this area. He'd been to piked in many times prior, so he had already been there and had the lay of the land.
I hadn't.
And you know, we've been tracking this case from far far away. It's articles, it's newspapers, it's news clippings. You know, you develop this relationship with the victims and the victims' families and now the accused simply by staring at their
photos excessively and obsessively, so for me getting there. It was fascinating, even just getting off the plane and renting a car to drive to piked In and seeing the water tower as I had seen in so many photos, and wanting to kind of understand better where the high school was, and you know, where everybody lived, and I
just remember being emotional, and it's hard. You know, we make prime shows for a living, but then sometimes when you're submerged in the place and you know what the grief is that everybody is experiencing on the victim side and on the accused side, it's a town ripped apart. And to Jeff's point, there's not a single person at the gas station or at the Walmart or at the you know, local restaurant that isn't either a thought, you know, isn't talking about it or thinking about it.
To your point about showing up and just knocking on doors. As TV producers were used to being able to call people and book some of these shows over the phone, piked In, I think is a little bit of an outlier. You know, there's not a lot of cell service there.
People live in the hills and it's hard to get someone on the phone, and so really the only way to do it was to show up, knock on the door, you know, with a smat hell and a box of cookies or a pie, and just hope that people would a answer the door and be let us in, which luckily the town of piked In was really, for the most part, very kind and receptive to us as complete outsiders being there.
Yeah, the first place I went was Rita Newcome's home and knocked on her door, and she was lovely.
Invited me right in.
You know, she was in fact wearing an ankle bracelet because she had recently been released, and to be truthful, at the moment, I didn't realize how embedded she potentially was in this investigation.
The first morning I was there was the arraignment of Jake Wagner, and it was an interesting experience. The courtroom was packed and completely silent. It was delayed by almost forty minutes. It was supposed to be not a start, and I've never sat in a more silent room filled with people, and it was a very interesting experience seeing Jake walk in and hearing his plea and sitting near members of the Rodent family.
Were people on both sides, where people on his side were people on the road and side, Like, what was your experience like.
Yeah, people were definitely on both sides, and the Rodents was absolutely filled and the Wagner side was much more sparsely filled.
Do you think that speaks to what we've been hearing and what we've been trying to convey with this podcast, which is that the road and family was so incredibly close and as we were told, family over everything.
Yeah.
Absolutely, and just the devastation that ripped through that family is a little hard to comprehend. So people were definitely there. People were definitely very sad. It was very tragic, and but they were there showing their support.
I remember when Courtney was at that arrangement, like calling you just to see what was it like. You know, again, we have these visions in our head based solely on photographs of the Wagner family, Jake Wagner being the youngest, just to kind of be able to see him face to face air quotes, or at least kind of look in his eyes to see, you know, does that look like a person who could actually commit something so heinous? And the truth is it's really an unanswerable question.
A lot of people understandably, a lot of listeners have asked about where the children are now.
Kylie, who is Hannah Rodin's newborn baby, is with her father, Charlie Gilly.
She was the infant that was just born five days prior to Hannah Rodin. I would say for all of us too, and this probably would apply to listeners. To the fact that there were such small infants and young children left alive at the scene just kind of puts a dagger in your heart.
So unfortunate. Sophia Wagner, who is the child of Jake Wagner and Hannah Rodin, is in the care of Child Protective Services, and that's something I know the Rodent family is unhappy about, and I know specifically in the Wagner side of it, Deray is unhappy about. I think the feeling is that there are people who are blood related to Sofia who could give her a really good home right now. So here's a little bit from Deray about that.
So you were actually hoping to like take Sophia in and give her, you know, a safe and comfortable home while all this is happening.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean I'm a I'm a professional. I mean I take in children with trauma that's my profession, that's what I like to do. I have two boys with me now who have autism. They're excellent children, they are well loved, their proof in the pudding, and we would have had a really good time.
So they couldn't even like you couldn't even see Sophia if you wanted to not.
All I want her to know is she's loved. I don't want her to think anything's wrong.
So something yeah, that we've been asked about by a fair amount of listeners was how the podcast has affected the people that we interviewed and the people that have spoken out about it. And I think for the most part, it's been pretty positive in terms of who we've talked to in their experience in piked It Living in piked In, Barb for example, told us that she felt like the podcast represented the town well and the story in a
fair way. Angie Montgomery, who we talked about her cousin Curtis and Jenny's case, felt happy that we were finally sheding a light on something that people haven't really been talking about.
That was a really important piece of this for us, because we care deeply about piked In first and foremost.
We've been there many many times.
The town has been extremely kind to us at a time that not everyone has been that kind to them, and making sure that we weren't coming across in any universe as being insensitive to the victims and the victims' families, understanding that there's a gag order, understanding that anything somebody
says could have impacts on upcoming trials. It's important. The stakes are actually extremely high, and we're wildly aware of that, but it's hard not to be emotional about it or to get emotionally attached to an answer or want to really understand who the boogeyman is, who's responsible for something so horrible.
And.
As a result, I think every time we get involved deeper into this case, we want to know more. Is it possible that, hopefully the mom isn't involved, This couldn't be if Angela Wagner was at the center of it. Is it because she was being forced to be so by her husband or is that just a lie? Or was Angela wildly manipulative and coerced her boys in the spirit of defending her family and defending her Sophia. And if that's the case, what a silly plan? Because now
you're never going to see your boys again. You've all been separated. If convicted, you'll never cross paths unless one of you folds on the other in court.
And with four people, you know, if indeed they are deemed guilty, there's the question that we raised a few episodes ago about the informant and who that is. There is an informant who's been written about, and if it is one of the four, you know, if they've turned on the rest of their family, how that would bear out, because it would be hard for to manage that guilt for years and years. Let's stop here for a quick commercial break.
We'll be back in a moment.
So just over four years four people, in my opinion, packed mentality would suggest that at some point the night of the murders, if they've Wagner did in fact do it, that there was a heavy there was somebody who was the real leader, right, and that the real leader reminds everybody this is why we have to do this. We're protecting our own or we're protecting our family, or we're
protecting Sophia, and to some degree everybody follows along. Again, at four different times, somebody could have changed their vote. Who knows what the circumstances of were that night. Although we're desperate to now add four years, four years separated, there's zero chance at all four of them will stick to the exact same story, not have the exact same amount of guilt, like somebody's going to crack. If that's
the informant, it makes a ton of sense. And if that's the informant who is either trying to spare themselves or spare their family somehow, that to me would make a lot of sense. The fact that George Wagner is requesting a Bible and requesting solitary confinement for lengthy periods of time, to me, has always been a bit of
a tell you know, Jake, Yes you're caught up. If in fact this is true, that you need to have custody of your child and your heartbroken and the love of your life is dating somebody else and just had a baby with somebody else, and it's filled with passion, it's a passion kill. We made crime shows for a living. Oftentimes it's love or money or revenge. Defending your family. This checks all of those boxes.
But that was then.
Now add four years, realizing you're not around your daughter any longer you've committed mass murder from which you can never go back. Somebody has to crack, is my point.
Just as a legal reminder, Angela, Billy Jake, and George Wagner were charged with aggravated murder. Angela Wagner's mother Rita Joe Nucomb and Billy Wagner's mother Frederica were both charged with obstruction of justice and perjury. Nucom was also charged with forgery. All six of them pled not guilty, and our justice system presumes innocence until guilt is proven.
Can we talk about one thing that has always I'm going to speak for all of us, but is the thing in my head that I can never get out of it? In terms of whether or not we believe, which frankly matters for nothing if the Wagoners are in fact guilty or.
Not, it's the hacking.
Why were they hacking the Rodent family for as long as they were And according to the official documents that we have seen, it has been reported about also that in fact they were busting into all of their social media Why in such a mass in such a big
way too, It's not as though it was. It doesn't appear to be Trump in if I'm incorrect, it doesn't appear that, say, for example, Jake was hacking Hannah Roden's Facebook because he was wildly jealous about her new relationship, or that she had moved on in a new relationship. That is terrible to do under any circumstance. But that seems like a young person's effort.
But it doesn't seem like that was they came.
It was a fairly high level surveillance operation happening to all of them.
And why what has been brought up in court is that it was deeply organized. I mean, there were Excel spreadsheets done, hundreds and hundreds of entries about child custody. They put up cameras, and they were in all of their computers and phones.
It was really elaborate.
It was elaborate, and the wagoners were often together. So was this an activity just because they wanted to track Hannah's relationship or like, where were they tracking?
You know?
What makes the most sense on the surface, and again allegedly, is that they were tracking the coming and goings and tracking the property and understanding the dogs. It did seem as though big dogs were common and we know for a fact that the Rodents had attack dogs. Why didn't
the dogs attack? That really does make no sense. However, if you knew the dogs and you had been to the home many times, as certainly Jake would have been many times, and you had an understanding of kind of how that home worked and what their habits were, it does feel like an indicate that the Wagners were up to no good if they were legitimately cyber stalking an entire family just months prior to that family's tragic death.
Clinton from Ganado, Texas asked us why Sophia wasn't with her mom the night of the murders and was it under unusual circumstances that she was picked up by Jake Wagner And yeah, it's up for debate why Sophia wasn't with Hannah. Jake Wagner has admitted that he did pick Sophia up a day earlier than he originally planned, and that so she wasn't with her mom that fatful Friday evening.
Jake Wagner said on the record, I reckon we missed it by just a few hours, and by it he means the murders, and so we don't know what happened between Jake Wagner and Hannah Rode in the night of the murders, or why he told her he was picking her up early, or why he did pick her up early. But we do know she was supposed to be with her mom that night, and for reasons we don't know, Jake Wagner did take her home early.
And my expectation would be if we have texts exchanges, just based on the fact that we know that people text so frequently because the reception between phones can be spotty in these rural places, there has to be some sort of a message saying I will pick her up early or requesting to pick her up early. I think that is another huge smoking gun, the fact that Sophia wasn't there that day and was picked up by Jake
off of schedule. He's changed his story on this a couple of times, and I think this was a key place where there was an inconsistency about this topic. But regardless, it is suspicious.
And we disagree on that. I think things happen, and what seems the simplest explanation to me is that Hannah Roadin had just had a baby days before, and maybe she wanted to break with just her infant and not a toddler, but something we don't know.
Jay from Storm like Iowa asked us what happens if the Wagners get off? Will they get custody of Sophia? I can only imagine that if the Wagners do get off, they will attempt to get back to their normal life,
and it's possible they would want custody of Sophia. But former prosecutor Mike Allen told me that because they were so closely linked to the murders, it may be difficult for Jake Wagner to obtain custody, which, if he's innocent, is tragic to think that because he was mixed up in this he wouldn't be able to get to race his daughter. Here's an excerpt of that conversation with Mike Allen. So let's say Jake Wagner does get off and has
proven not guilty. So do you think he doesn't have a chance of getting Sophia back?
Probably has a chance of getting her back, But I think a judge would be hard press to grant custody for someone who was named as a defendant in a multiple homicide case, even if he is acquitted. You just don't know, but I'll tell you what, that's not going to be decided, I don't think for many years to come.
Even if he let's say he really didn't do it and he's being held, you know, wrongly accused, that he never gets to see his daughter again, she never hear he dady like that even alone is such a tragedy.
Well, if there's no evidence or no strong evidence against him and he's acquitted and people are scratching their head thinking, well, why was he even indicted, I suppose he would have a chance then, but you never know, I mean, you never know what happens in a criminal trial. The custody battle is one that will probably outlive the criminal case. That will probably go on for years and years and years. I mean, obviously it was a contentious subject before the murders.
Again many believe that that was the primary motive. But that will continue to go on. They'll probably be news court hearings for years until that's finally settled. And that's a shame because the children, if they're not already hurt, which of course they are, they're going to continue to be victimized, probably for long a long time to come.
Susan from New Vienna, Ohio asked us when the trials are supposed to begin, and that's an interesting question. Obviously, the Wagners did waive their right to a speedy trial, but now because of COVID, it seems that the trials have been delayed. Billy Wagner's attorney, Mark Collins, said that the trials have been put on hold. Angela, Wagner's attorney, said something different. He said the trials were supposed to begin this fall, which would be very soon, if not imminent.
So it's unclear about what is exactly is happening, but we do know that right now the pre trial hearings are happening. George Wagner just had his last week, so things are starting to move in the right direction.
There was an attempt to be made to get him released on bond. Seems very different than somebody being held in solitary confinement with a Bible waiting for their last days. These are death penalty trials, you know, that's not to be underestimated. Four separate capital punishment trials are a big deal, and one surely affects the other, and any inconsistency from one to the next has to be a paramount to all I would imagine, you know, I.
Don't know the answer to that.
That's a good question because they are four separate trials, so I don't know actually if one has bearing on the other. I mean, you know, you'd assume the evidence some of it will be similar, but it's it's all going to be dependent. For example, I remember reading that DNA was there is confirmed that the prosecution has DNA evidence.
What that evidence is, we don't know, but there's been made mention of it, so you know, the fact that there's differences in DNA is going to change the course of those four trials completely.
I was just suggesting that those four trials, the I guess, the narrative from each of the Wagner members family members has to be pretty buttoned up.
If there's one inconsistency between.
Jake's story and his mom's story or their dad's story, that's a big deal.
Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back in a moment.
Another question we got was from call from Belfast, Ohio, who asked us, if something happens and the Wagners are found not guilty, how do we think the town would react to them being back and piked In, and would they be able to stay in the town. It's a good question, and based on what we've heard in the reaction to the Wagners, I personally think it would be
really hard for them to stay and piked In. You know, we talked to a Wagner family member who wished to remain anonymous, who gave us some pretty horrible details about what happened to them before the arrests. That being said, you know, Frederica does have a lot of land in piked In, and they have a lot of ties to the community, so they might that might be where they would call home.
Frederica Wagner is also an interesting piece to this puzzle. By all accounts, she's the great matriarch of the Wagner Empire, and you know, she looks like such a beautiful grandmother, like you would conjure up in your head or if you were casting a movie, that you wouldn't believe somebody could look so perfect.
She wears this little black lace.
It's not a veil over her face, it's sort of like an overlay, but it's really a look that makes you think, oh, she could never be involved, and she's so beloved by the town and has done so many charitable things. That's a real cross section of opinion.
So many some.
People say that she is a pure saint, the kindest, the nicest, the most genuine, the most charitable human that has ever walked the earth, and others say she's downright wicked.
I mean, listen, there's two sides to every coin, and I think both of what you said bears out. It really depends on what your perspective is. If you are one of the people who Frederica Wagner has helped along the way and provided food and assistance, you are going to see the godly woman that so many people speak of.
And if you are one of the people who were renting land that you were supposed to be buying at the end of it, and then you allegedly had that land pulled out from under you and revert back to Frederica, then you're going to feel very, very differently. Both things are.
True, both things are true. That's I guess what's so complicated about this. So you know, discovery continues, and these trials I think would be set sooner than later. Is I would imagine the hope the defense of the Wagoners was trying to move the trial outside of Pikedon because getting twelve unbiased jurors might be challenging, and they were ultimately denied that privilege. That's kind of a strike against
the defense. What we have heard from the prosecution is that they are accumulating a lot of evidence at this point, and much of it we can't get our hands on. So they've been pretty tight lipped outside of the silencers, the vests, the shoes that were bought at Walmart, DNA evidence that's said to be found at one, if not multiple crime scenes. But outside of that, they've kept a lot of things to themselves, understandably so, and that I think we're going to hear about sooner than later, because
who goes first, I think is very interesting. Who do you guys think will be up first?
You know, I'll go just by the arraignment, and I believe I'm correct that Jake Wagner was the first of the Wagners to be arraigned, So I would bet Jake. And a lot of the thought is that, you know, since custody allegedly is at the center, so I say, Jake Wagner.
I was going to say that the eldest son, George Wagner would be up first. But wow, what a shocker if Jake Wagner is up first, because then, to me, there's no question that his involvement with the Rodents is at the center of these trials at the bare minimum, whether he did or did not do it, that one piece would follow all of the trials.
I would imagine.
Reach out to us on our social media outlets with questions. We're on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Pike and Massacre. We look forward to answering your questions in upcoming episodes. Piked In Massacre is executive produced by Stephanie Leidecker and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional producing by Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker. The piked In Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio.
And Katie Studios.
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