State of Ohio vs. George Wagner IV

The state made a deal with the devil. Basically, so far, Edward Jake Wagner and his mother, Angela Wagner have confessed to prosecutors and have agreed to testify against the rest of the family. George and Billy Wagner are still going through the court process. The trial has been sent for April of next year. This is George Wagner's defense attorney talking about Jake Wagner. He's the person that is most responsible for this. He's the actual killer. He's the actual shooter.

He's the one that snuck into these homes in the middle of the night and shot the victims in the head. All right, Our client didn't shoot anybody made the double in this case. Four of the individuals are charged in This is the piked in massacre returned to Pike County Season three, Episode four, State of Ohio Versus George Wagner The Fourth. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at Katie Studios with Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane, with both Jake

and Angela taking plea deals. The possible outcome of George Wagner's trial seems on the surface limited in scope. It is anything but that the defense is trying to position themselves to win the case by limiting what evidence will be admissible through a series of motions. Each motion involves a request to the court by the defense to make a decision on a specific issue before the trial begins.

Here's retired prosecutor and Flanagan. If you look at any trial, it is the state that has to put out everything. It's like throwing a party and you're the host or hostess and you have to have everything ready. Well, you might have a guest on the other side who's going to come and say, well, you didn't get yes, you didn't do this, you didn't do that. So all they have to do is whittle away at the state's witnesses and evidence. It's up to the judge to make a

decision on each of these changes. In this episode, we're taking a deep dive into George Wagner's pre trial and how these motions could radically change the outcome of the trial. Two motions eighty and eighty one have been introduced specifically to keep evidence off the table for a capital murder case like George's. It could mean the difference between life and death, and as we'll find out, even with their plea deals in place, it could affect whether Jake and

Angela reopen them selves to the death penalty. The first motion will discuss is eighty one. Here's journalist Angeanette Levy, followed by criminal attorney and legal analyst Mike Allen. They're both speaking with producer Chris Graves. On January tenth of twenty twenty two, the defense for George Wagner filed motion number eighty one, and it was a motion to suppress

audio recordings. And the thing they're taking issue with in this motion is the fact that apparently BCI agents and other law enforcement involved in this case placed listening devices in a truck that was driven by both George Wagner and Jake Wagner before the Wagners were arrested in twenty eighteen. Hundreds of hours of audio were recorded by Ohio BCI. I'm looking at this and I'm thinking to myself, what on earth could be so damning in these recordings. There

may be nothing, or there may be something. I don't know. This is all speculation at this point, but there might be something that George incriminated himself on that they're trying to suppress. Right, there would have to be, or they wouldn't go to the problem to file the motion, no question about it. Defense counsel wants something with respect to those statements thrown out. We just don't know what it is. So in your mind, George or someone in his cab

or on some conversation possibly incriminated the family. Absolutely, absolutely, they wouldn't be going through all this if that weren't the case. To obtain the recordings, homicide detectives had to gain physical access to George's truck. Here's Stephanie and Jeff. I think there's a really big piece to the puzzle here about wire tapping and bugging, and there seems to be some sort of a difference between the two that

is now really a big piece of George's defense. Wire tapping and bugging, I think often get confused, and you see wire and bugging a lot in movies and TV shows, but it's actually a little more nuanced than what you see on the screen. So how wire tapping works specifically is that you need to get permission from a phone company to tap into the cell transmission tower. And back in the old days, what you would see done in the movies is cops literally clipping wires to the phone

line in the basement or something like that. But now it's all done remotely electronically, so in conjunction with the warrant served to the cell phone provider, officials are able

to do it from the comfort of their office. Bugging literally is this transmitter with a microphone that needs to be planted someplace physically in a space where authorities would want to pick up conversations, which is, by the way, very interesting because they have to go through a very layered process to be able to get permission to bug

a vehicle. Bugging is much more invasive because you're actually able to record private versations in someone's home or their car, and in this case, they were able to get all types of conversations that George Wagner was having, so law enforcement was apparently able to listen to and remotely record everything that was said in that truck twenty four to seven. I mean in person conversations, phone conversations, and even mister

Wagner talking to himself. The defense is claiming that the recordings are inadmissible for a number of reasons, many pertaining to the fact that it was George's truck that was bugged. The case of the bugging is slightly complicated as it applies to the Wagner's because what the BCI bugged was not George's vehicle. It was the truck that he used for work, so he didn't own this big rigged truck.

It was his employer's truck, and so presumably the BCI was given permission to access the vehicle from the employer and planted the bug when George was not with the truck. The type of truck George would drive is a typical semi that you see all over the country on the highways, and so the semi has a sleeper cab in the back, which is where the drivers go to take a rest,

relax sleep for the night. So Ohio BCI agents put the bug in the sleeper cab portion of the semi truck, and this small detail is one of the four things

the defense is using to get the motion dismissed. There could be an issue with that because that sleeper cabin on the semi could be analogized to being someone's home, and you know, for all intention purposes, it probably was when mister Wagner was on the road, and the house is the most constitutionally protected thing that there is, so there might be a potential problem there with the authorization itself.

Because the truck was both not owned by George and served as a sleeping quarters, the defense may argue it is similar to bugging a hotel room. We also know that Jake was in the truck as well. At some point the two brothers were alone for hours or even days on the road and what they assumed was a completely private setting. That really does speak to the question of assumed privacy and conversations that may have happened between

Jake and George. Allegedly, those conversations are probably very relevant for this trial. So the fact that the defense wants to question that speaks more to what they're potentially hiding. Here's Judge Pat dink a locker. This is interesting because

we don't get bugging cases wire tapping cases much. When I looked through this, I thought to myself, if they had an expectation of privacy, the two of them, okay in the state illegally vied it that, then this is the proper motion that the judge could grant, say that they're not allowed to bring those audio recordings into evidence. Here's Judge Sylvia Hendon, who works as a visiting judge out of the Ohio Supreme Court. It's a violation sixth Amendment.

We see that all the time. You have an expectation of privacy. Does your expectation of privacy increase if you're in a sleeper cab truck versus a regular cab truck. I don't know the answer to that. But again, speaking from an appellate perspective, I can tell you that whichever way Judge during goes on this, it's going to be an issue. I believe in an event of an appeal, I would have to believe that that motion to suppress is going to loom large in the Court of Appeals.

In the event of a guilty finding, I will be very interested to see his ruling. If I'm employed by somebody, even if I'm sleeping there, I wouldn't think that I walk into a building or an entity owned by somebody else that's employing me. I wouldn't think that I would have an expect of privacy. Here's former BCI homicide investigator Seth Hageman testifying in court he oversaw the creation of

the warrants for the Wagner case. So when you're installing devices, you need a search warrant in the county where you're going to install the device Correctly and specifically, you're talking about the search warrant that was installed in the RNL truck, correct that both the defendant, George Wagner and his brother Jake Wagner drove in tandem. Correct. To get approval to bug or wire tap, investigators must adhere to an even stricter protocol than a standard search warrant. They must also

produce what's called an interception warrant. Interception warrants are inherently scrutinized to a greater degree because of the privacy issues that they raise, and there's very specific statutory requirements of other things. In addition to just the normal problem cause of the search warrant that needs to be addressed among the is not only do I have to show there's probable cause that a crime was committed, you have to show that there is probable cause that a specific person

or person's committed that crime. You actually have to show that you've exhausted other methods of investigation that were less intrusive prior to applying for that, and so those are the different steps that make it more complicated in a much more difficult process to obtain. Hageman and ohio Bci felt that after months of the investigation, they had grounds

to successfully lobby for an interception warrant. During the investigation, Inspector Hageman put together a lengthy report and submitted it for approval of an interception warrant to bug the Wagner's truck. The warrant was approved, giving homicide a period of thirty days to monitor the truck once the bug was installed.

The state played it one hundred percent by the book, but the prosecution's case is complicated by the fact that ohio Bci coordinated the bugging of George's truck with his employer, and the defense has raised this as a second point of contention in their motion. Here again reporter Angrenette Levy, followed by attorney and legal analyst Mike Ellen. The defense is saying this basically violated George's rights because the owner of the truck allowed it to happen and he had

an expectation of privacy. But I'm not really sure you have an expectation of privacy in a truck that your employer owns. Apparently the owner consented to the bug, but it's a case of where the owner is actually acting as the government's agent and authorizing that, and there could be problems with that. It probably would be upheld. You know. It all depends on what the cops probable cause for the search warrant to do that would be, And I think that's one of the sticking points on this one.

There is a third complicating issue for the prosecution. Much of the audio was recorded across state lines. Would any statement that is given outside of the state of Ohio be valid under that warrant. I don't have the warrant, so I don't know for sure, but I think that's going to be questioned as well. Usually warrants are just limited to the geographical jurisdiction, and in this case, it'd be Pike County and or the state of Ohio. But

let's just say he said something incriminating in Tennessee. I don't know. I mean, there may be problems with that too. If it was a federal warrant, then they'd be okay, But a state warrant, they might have some issues with that. I've not researched it. I've never encountered it ever as an attorney, law student, whatever, But it's an issue that if I were defense counsel, I'd be pursuing it. The defense also claims that the investigators on the case tried

to eat the Wagner brothers into incriminating themselves. They talk about in the motion that they were trying to stimulate incriminating conversation by initiating the contact, and that could be problematic for the government too. I mean, if a statement is freely and voluntarily given, then there's no problem with it. But if the government induces someone to make a statement,

that could be problematic. What I also thought was very interesting about this was the fact that police would actually put things out on social media in hopes that one of the Wagners, or specifically Angela Wagner accused killer Mom that she would see these posts and that would maybe stir up conversation that they would then have with each other,

and then those conversations would be bugged. This is actually called tickling the wire, and tickling the wire means that the Feds have wire taps in place and are placing stories and then waiting for revealing conversations to happen because of said stories. And that's the question, specifically, is that

baiting or is that just good process. Angela Wagner's mother, Rita Joe Newcombe, was sent a court order to have these conversations where she would go with the boys into having further conversations with her mother and father about the crimes. Remember when she got arrested, her mother also got arrested. That's Rita Newcome. So here is Rita trying to get herself also out of this mess that she was dragged into because she was accused of all this forgery with

the original custody documents. Now she's basically working with BCI to start conversations with the Wagner boys to hopefully get them to say something incriminating and that just shows the dissension between mother daughter, that's her grandsons and that's her daughter and her son in law. Rida Nucombe was charged with forgery, perjury, and obstructing justice. In twenty nineteen, Nwcombe

reached a plea deal and those charges were dropped. She ultimately pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge of obstructing official business. It must have been probably a hard celt to swallow. We know she didn't have much choice because it was a court order, but at this point we do know a little bit of her frame of mind. According to her son, Chris Newcomb, that she felt really

betrayed by Angela. She has her son and other grandchildren to look out for and so if Angela and her sect of the family are not going to look out for her, why is she going to look out for them? I mean, that must have been the most brutal decision to have to make. Do you actually turn against your own daughter and your grandsons and your son in law.

And by the way, it must have worked and got them talking, because the defense is adamant that they do not want these conversations to be a part of any of this moving forward. So you could imagine those conversations must be very telling. During testimony, Seth Hagman confirmed the success of this approach in the past. How many other interception warrants would you say that you've been a part of. We already has been related to a cool case homicide

four or five. And in those situations, did you use this same method as far as tickling the wire or provoket of acts or whatever your terminology is for that. Yes, in every single one, even the ones that had some level of correct crime happening, we would use some level of tickling the wire just to try to get conversation about those past events. Okay, And have you been met with success in those efforts? There were success in all of them. In most cases we've developed information that's led

to either ongoing prosecutions or guilty pleas or verdicts. And in another case I've actually exonerated someone using that method. Here again, as attorney my Gallen, it's just a real fine line as far as inducement. The government has some flexibility, but still, I mean, they can't elicitly for an illicit purpose to goad them into making a comment. Every case rises and falls on its own set of facts. And I know that's not really a helpful answer, but it's

an accurate answer. Besides investigators and the Wagners themselves, no one but the prosecution and defense know what is on those tapes. If the guy makes some incriminating statements and they are validly taken, that's a problem. I mean, it's a problem for the defense because they are stuck with them. If you were in the prosecution's seat and you saw this come down, what are you thinking? Well as the prosecution, I mean, I would fight as hard as I could,

obviously to make sure the judge keeps it in. But again, I'm just assuming that they've got a lot of other evidence as well. But the defense attorney's doing his job here. I mean, he wants to whittle away at Stage's evidence as much as he can. And you know, this is all a part of it. She's so hard to say how much it would damage the stage case when we don't know what other cards they're holding. We're going to

take a break. We'll be back in a moment. Another motion, Motion eighty has been put forth by the defense to block Jake and Angelis testimony. It's another possible game changer as part of his plea deal, Jake makes many claims that seemingly exonerate George of the worst aspects of this grizzly massacre. Here again Chris Graves speaking with retired prosecutor

and Flanagan. This is from Jake's profferty. Jake has stated clearly that George did not shoot new One, did not fire a shot, was not supposed to go with Jake and Billy on the murder spree, and only when it's a last second to protect Jake from Billy, who was thought he might kill Jake at the end of the series of accurgated murders, presumably to get rid of a witness.

Do you never really emotions to suppress the testimony of someone else, So he has still the capability of trying to show some kind of dishonesty on Jake's part, or that he's not testifying truthfully. But what they're a thing the court to do is to take this away to suppress their statements before the jury ever gets to hear it. Grounds to suppress are usually based on misconduct of officers. Was their coercive activity on the part of officers and

they weren't coerce clearly Angela and Jake. For one thing, the defense attorneys here don't represent the Angela or Jake, so they don't have standing to suppress their statements. Because they're representing George, they can move to suppress his statements, but not Jake's and Angela. So this is somewhat novel. They're trying to suppress it, not because of any course of activity, but because he might be motivated to lie under oath because he wants to get his agreement enforced.

So our proffers done under oath they can be. They don't have to be. I don't know how they did it here. I know I have done that on occasion when I have a co defendant or someone that's going to cooperate, I have tried to get it under oath. In case they don't testify in accordance with it, I can bring that up and cross examine them. Look, you gave a sworn statement before you under oath. You said it was the truth, and you're now you're saying this, So I'm assuming they may have done that, but it's

not required. It's possible Jake could have lied to get out of the death penalty or said what he had to say to save his brother. You're obviously putting some trust, in some faith in his statement. You're putting somebody up there to testify to this when you may not be exactly sure that he's telling the whole truth. And that happens sometimes in cases where somebody they're telling you the truth,

but maybe not the whole truth. Like you're not getting the whole story, the entire story, but you're basically getting what happened, but not every little detail. Because maybe Jake was trying to protect his brother at some point too. You know, maybe he's thinking, God, I can't take my brother down with me. I'm not sure why father would kill his son or why another son would be fearful of That affects even the motivation. Potentially is Billy the mastermind? Yeah, mastermind?

And also to his motive if he's trying to eliminate witnesses. And certainly she think this is not the most functional family. The presumption has been that it was Angela who kind of masterminded everything. And I'm not saying she's not deserving. I don't know here, but we're hard on matriarchs sometimes or mothers, And did we do that legitimately It does really kind of make you think who was calling your

shops in this operation? If that's indeed true, that George only went along at the last minute to protect his brother from their father, what was going on there? What is Billy capable of? I mean, I guess George in this scenario was ready to die for his brother protecting him. That would be one hell of a car ride, wouldn't it. Yeah, I don't know much about Billy. Nobody's spoken about Billy

very much. Is that the kind of defense they're fashioning, That he's here to protect Jake from big Dad Billy and that they're both afraid of him? And how is he going to protect him from bad Billy unless he hits a firearm? Maybe? Do you know what kind of dad he was? I was here with Jake and George. He's an asshole. Chris knwcom, who we've heard from before, is Angela Agner's half brother. Now, Karen Billy get into some screaming matches. Billy's about a useless sustance on a borehole.

That's the guy who run the truth up. How do you mean? I mean that man is one hundred percent just lazy and hale useless, always conniving on something, trying to think how to do something, to make a quick book. I think the most horseless human being I think I've ever met in my life. Despite Billy's nature, angelisted by his side. Some see a parallel with Angela's dad, Eddie pug Carter. I knew him, his hug Carter. He always wore this slight metal brace and he walked with a limp.

What I heard from my dad was that he would five electric holes and still copper or something off the holes, and he's got electric huted and it affected his walking. It could be that Angela was fiercely loyal to Bill because he reminded her of her father. At the end of the day, the prosecution in this particular case is focused on one job, putting George Wagner behind bars, or possibly even sending him to death row. It will be up to the jury to navigate the muddy waters of

the Wagner family dynamic. If you are a group of people and you are going to go do something, if one person holds back and says, now, I'm not going to do this, it may not happen. If two do, certainly it may not happen. But when you hear these people bolstering each other and actually sharing ideas and dynamics, they're just as much a part of all that ended up happening as the person who actually pulled the trigger.

And I know that, and I think jurors know that, and people know that, But will they really hold them accountable? It's a little harder to understand how the police are going to work into the trial. Actually presiding over four separate cases is a lot easier than presiding over four people together, because in a separate case, you're focused on that particular defendant. Now you're still going to have to keep things straight. You're going to have to know when

to exclude evidence. There's a lot of rules about confessions of co defendants that you're going to have to follow. But to try to balance a case with four defendants, because right away you've got eight lawyers. If you're talking about a capital murder case, so you've got a minimum of eight lawyers, four defendants, and lordliners how many witnesses.

Let's stop here for another break. Without the audio from George's truck, the jury will not get to hear what the detectives heard in private conversations between the brothers, and if the defense's motions are successful, Jake and Angeli's testimony will be off the table as well. Would you be concerned if it's a live witness and Angela steps on the stand and she's facing her oldest son testifying against them, is there a word that might cause her not to Yeah,

ny witness who's somewhat involved with the defense. Even though they've said they're testifying and they've given good information to pass, you have to wonder what's the physical, visceral effects, emotional effect of sitting in front of that person. Will they freeze? Will they talk? Will they tell us what they've told us before? This brings us to the final issue. The defense and prosecution must navigate how Jake and Angela's plea deal relates to these motions and what that means for

the future of all four Wagners. As of now, the death penalty is still on the table for George Wagner, and Jake and Angela's deal to avoid death row is not guaranteed. It's contingent upon their testimony being what the court calls to the satisfaction of the prosecution. We look at this family and their story keeps changing, and I am curious to know what the air quote satisfaction of

the prosecution even means. Does that mean that if Jake and Angela, who we know have taken plea agreements, if they don't deliver the goods, then what is their death sentence put back on the table or all of their death sentences put back on the table? Who decides the satisfaction piece? It would be the prosecution. And so basically, under the terms of their deal, they probably agreed to the version of events of that night and the months

they let up to the crime. And so if once they're on the stand under oath and they don't stick to the script for lack of a better term, than the whole deal would be off and death penalty would be back on the table for the entire family. Georgia's sticking to his not guilty plea, which would imply that he's not involved in this at all, And so Jake and Angela's testimony, which we can assume is going to

say something along the lines of will. While George might not have pulled the trigger, he certainly knew about the murders and might have been there the night of the murders and helped cover the murders up, and so that testimony is going to be pretty damning for his not guilty plea. It does also speak to the fact that there are so many endings that could still be you know, we see plea deals and you think that's the end of the road for Jake Wagner, but now that's not so.

There's a big performance ahead and he and now his mother, who he's essentially working with and against at the same time. How this plays out in court with George and then later Billy Dad, every piece of it affects the other person. So the totality of it is massive, and this whole

case from the beginning has been utterly unpredictable. And so to assume when Billy and George's trials start that we know what's going to happen and we know what Jake and Angela are going to say when they're on the stand, I think would be naive. I think what we can assume is that we don't really know the ending yet.

We've been told several theories even just this season alone, that speak to a larger plot happening behind the scenes, and that it's possible that the Wagoners are lying, Jake may have a hand in deciding whether he and his brother live or die. It's also possible the defense and prosecution don't know the whole story that Angela and Jake have to tell. There's a tenseness about it that isn't

there with other cases. We don't know what other evidence exists, you know, we just don't know, to be honest with you, though, it all depends on what their story is on that day in a courtroom, face to face with the son, with a brother and a jury of their peers, I mean, with whisperings of Carton involvement and other rumors still lingering in Pike County. If given the opportunity to test, if I could Jake and Angela Wagner choose to blow this whole thing up? Or are they being put up to

it behind bars? We have heard many rumors regarding the Cartel and that there's a larger story happening here, and that the Rodents murder was not just merely over custody, but that there's larger issues at play with some different dealings between the families, and that's dangerous stuff. And maybe it's possible that the Wagoners are safest behind Bars. More on that next time. If you're enjoying The Pikes and Massacre, listen to our other hit series, Crazy and Love. New

episodes there every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. For more information and case photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. The Pikes and massacres 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.