Air & Opportunity

the wrong mother. Now streaming only on Hulu. Search Mother Undercover. Interesting and relatable topics, knowledgeable guests, highly entertaining, and informative. Words that describe CNN's podcast Chasing Life with Doctor Sanjay Gupta. Because I talked to doctor Rich what really stood out to me was his approach to treating his patients. The therapeutic goal of treatment for problematic interactive media use cannot be abstinates. This is an essential tool and essential skill

of our time. Listen to Chasing Life with Sanjay Gupta on the iHeartRadio app. He'll forget about the video game you gave him on his birthday. Wow, thanks Grandpa, But he'll never forget how you invested in his future with the UNSTAP. Wow, Thanks Grandpa. The UNSTAP makes it easy for grandparents and family friends to give funds to a child's investment account for a limited time. Download the unst stapp and use the code I Heart fifty at sign up to receive a fifty dollar bonus when you find

your account. That's code I heart fifty when you sign up at un est dot COO for fifty dollars bonus. See terms and conditions at unest dot coo. How long was Neil Armstrong actually on the moon? When did Europe start speaking English? Did Marco Polo really go to China? Curiosity Stream is the streaming service for all things history, plus science, wildlife and more. What's the real story behind the Mona Lisa, We've got that. What caused the collapse

of Rome? We know where? Did we find Mankind's earliest ancestor? Come find out? From Egypt to Weinstein. Curiosity Stream is the place for history with monthly, annual, and bundled plans. Find one for you at curiosity stream dot com. Welcome to the Piketon Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. In April twenty sixteen, when eight members of the Roden family were murdered in their homes. The media descended on the sleepy town of Piketon, Ohio, the community clearly shaken

after this morning's multiple homicide. People in this small community being told to me on alert tonight. As news of the unthinkable and gruesome killing spread, the small rural community is left reeling and rumors begin swelling. Discoveries of the murder scenes are now advancing the theory the killings could be related to a drug cartel. Authorities aren't commenting on whether they have any potential suspects. Everybody thinks all the bad stuff happens in the big cities, but the devil

works at it everywhere. But in the aftermath of the arrests of six members of the Wagner family, attention turns to the very people responsible for the investigation. There was this belief among almost everybody I talked to about the incompetence came to law enforcement in that county. There's nobody watching the watchers in these small communities, and in many cases that can lead to major corruption and the dark secrets of a once quiet town are slowly brought to light.

There's been a lot of murders here that have not been solved. But if I say what I think, I could probably end up in the river. This is the Piked and Massacre Episode five, air and Opportunity. In the days after the killings, the road and murders became an international headline and it was a sensational story, a series of murders, multiple potential motives, all taking place in a small town in Ohio. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a TV producer at Katy Studios, where I work with Stephanie Lydecker and

Jeff Shane. We've been following the case for a long time and through the course of our investigation learned that the town of Piked in Ohio has its own story to tell. Journalist Jeff Winkler wrote about the story for the website The Outline. He told me about his impressions

of the initial reporting coming out of Piketon. 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 a lot of people have been summarily executed in the middle of Appalachia and no one knew

what was going on. I mean, I grew up in the Ozarks in Arkansas, and these are people I feel familiar with, you know, when I go up to New York, California and that's like a Disneyland, and it's a strange people are in place these areas and folks like this and not feel wildering to me in the same way that they were to the people who came down and covered the story. Originally, you get a lot of talk of book at these people smoking and you know, wearing camo,

and you know, a lot of gawking. You know, it was just these sort of quotes from ads sort of backwoods people is how they're perceived, and that's that's just not where I come from. But I think this thing that stood up for me was just how human everyone was. Piked In Resident Angie Montgomery shared her view of the media coverage with producer Jeff Sheen. How do you think like piked In and the sort like Pike County in general, I guess has been portrayed in the media. I don't

think they've been very kind to us. I've seen a lot of reports where they called us uneducated, m hil Billy just dumb. I think we're dumb. They think we're a bunch of inbread. I've actually seen that in some reports, and it's sad. Well, it's easy for some to view the town of piked In through this kind of provincial, almost stereotypical lens. It's not what we found when we visited the area. It's pretty faring from the big cities

of Ohio. It's about an hour and a half south from Columbus, an hour and a half east of Cincinnati, and just under thirty minutes from the Ohio River, which basically separates southern Ohio from northeastern Kentucky. There's a walmart, there's a restaurant. There used to be this great dive bar that is since closed, I believe, and look for the twenty two hundred residents piked In his home Native Barbara and Jeff actually spoke a bit about that when

we were there. Piked In's considered a village and it is a small just a small little town that has a grocery store and a pizza shop, and gas stations and there's a tire shop. People sit and talk to the gas station wherever they go. They people know each other and they just sit and talk. You know, at the tire shop, you're waiting for an an oil change or whatever. You used to sit there and chat with your neighbor or whoever happens to come in. You probably

know who it is. You know somebody everywhere, or you know somebody that knows somebody everywhere anywhere you go. I imagine that it's probably like sometimes kind of enjoyable, and then other times it's probably pretty maddening. Yeah, sometimes people know when I spend the day in my pool, or when when I skip a day. If there's a day goes by, I don't get in my pool. Next time I see someone else, I'll say, how come you weren't

in your pool the other day. So it's crazy. The majority of people we spoke with depicted piked in this way. Small town USA, everyone knows everyone, nobody ever locked their doors growing up. But when we started to pull back the curtain, it was clear that Piked in Harvard some dark secrets, secrets that didn't start with the Rodents. It seems like there's like two sides of piked in, which is one is like the blue collar hard workers who you know, want to raise their family's the right way,

and yet somehow something horrible still did happen. To this town. I think it's like every town, you're gonna find that wherever you go, there's going to be the ugly part, and piked In has it. Jeff spoke to Stefane, a former piked In resident who had recently left town. She shared Barbara's sentiments about the community. I want to ask you, so you now you're in Florida and you're away from piked In and all of this, but it still seems like it's very much a part of your DNA, right.

I haven't been home since July a year before last, since twenty eighteen, and I just I don't know if I'll ever really liked go back and live there ever. You know, if you look back through the history of piked and you know, there's there's quite a bit of things that just happened that you know, there's no explanation for get swept under the rug. I don't know. I think there's just more evil there than than just what

happened to those eight. Stefan's remarks left us unsettled, but when we followed up with investigative reporter Jodi Barr, he seemed to corroborate her thoughts with some troubling stories he had heard during his time covering the road in case. This was national news the day, the day after, a few days after it happened. But you know, as it typically happens with the new cycles, you know, the national

folks move on to the next big story. We were left with that, and we would get emails and constant questions or phone calls about new information. Is there anything to know? And there was nothing to know. So my boss came to me and said, hey, can you go over and start digging into this and see if there's

anything at all that we could find out. I was in Pike County a lot, and I kept getting stories about other homicides in Pike County, and I thought, man, if there were that many homicides in a county, this small man, there could be something here that we don't yet know. Worth taken a look through his research, Jodie discovered that there have been at least three recent cases

in By County involving multiple homicides. Cases like the January twenty sixteen murders of Candice Newsom and her teenage daughter Christina. They were both shot execution style in their home. Police finally did arrest the Newsom's neighbor for their murders. In twenty nineteen, neighbor Christian R. Davis was indicted by a grand jury, but did not please nor has he been convicted, but there was plenty of chatter on social media, none of which can be confirmed, mentioning the possibility of an

accomplice to the murders still at large. Candice Newsome's sister, Darla has even spoken publicly she thinks that her sister and niece's murder may be related to the Rodents, stating that they ran in the same circles. What struck me about Candice and Christina and was just the fact the similarities between, Like just the idea that in the middle of the night these people were gunned down in their

homes while they slept. Just it's it is striking, you know, before even reading any other details, just hearing Matt when you're research trying rod in case, We're like, well, that's weird. You know, that's fifteen minutes away. It's the same exact style of murder. Yes, and it was just so odd that you had that type of crime and happening in a place like that. Then in April twenty sixteen, just weeks before the Rodents were killed, Douglas Eatman and Carolyn

and Tomlinson were shot execution style in their home. According to Jody Barr, one detail of the crime struck a familiar chord, a double homicide, four children left alive. This is very similar to the Rodent case. I mean again, it's a striking coincidence that in the same area this is happening in the same month, you know, the same month and year that the Rodents were murdered, this has

also happened. That's what led us down the path of even looking at these cases, because we had heard that there were other people who were shot Noel and I executa style in their homes. When you're looking at the Rodent case and then you see these other cases in a county that small, you start asking yourself what the hell is going on because it doesn't make sense that this is happening there unless there is some sort of

common denominator. And it's still hard to believe today that there were these types of murders that took place in a county so small, with so few people living in it. I mean, you don't hear about that in big cities. And you sit back and you wonder to yourself, what is going on? I mean, why is this happening. Fortunately, police arrested Douglas Eatman's uncle Charles and his cousin James Allen,

on suspicion of Douglas and Caroline's murder. Each phase is twenty to fifty years or life in prison, with enhanced sentencing for capital offenses also a possibility. The pair we're indated but have not pled or been convicted. The case is ongoing. According to investigators, it was a drug related killing. The motive for Candice and Christina Newsome's murders, however, remains unclear.

But beyond the methods of these killings, there's another thing that Jody told us about that ties them all together. Then in some cases people get away with it for extended periods of time. Candice Newsome and her teenage daughter Christina, it took four years before investigators charged a neighbor and family friend with murder. And that and that's four years and the alleged perpetrator in that case is what a nextdoor neighbor, And it took four years to piece that together.

It's just you wonder if Pike County if people were getting good at committing crimes and potentially getting away with it. One case that remains unsolved is a two thousand and six murder of thirty four year old Curtis Francis and thirty year old Jennifer Prigette. Urt Francis and Jennifer Burgett. You know, they were both shot and killed in their beds,

in their homes in the middle of the night. And you know, when I'm looking through these incident reports of these murders, I go, WHOA, this sounds very similar to the road case. You know, two people shot in their bed in their homes in the middle of the night, and I thought, this is this is one we need to pursue. But no one would talk. We couldn't find out any information. All the search warrants were sealed at the courthouse, and there's absolutely no arrest. Ten years later,

there's nothing here. We are today still nothing. We're in a dead end and it may never be solved. And unfortunately there are other cases like that Dare that just didn't get the attention. We're going to take a quick break here, we'll be back in a moment. Like many of us, you might think identity theft will never happen to you. But consider this, there's a new identity theft

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first year at LifeLock dot com slash iHeart. That's LifeLock dot com slash iHeart to save up to twenty five percent identity theft protection darts here interesting and relatable topics, knowledgeable guests, highly entertaining and informative words that describe CNN's podcast Chasing Life with Doctor Sanjay Gupta. As I talked to doctor Rich, what really stood out to me was his approach to treating his patients. The therapeutic goal of

treatment for problematic interactive media use cannot be abstinates. This is an essential tool and essential skill of our time. Listen to Chasing Life with Sanjay Gupta on the iHeartRadio app. He'll forget about the video game you gave him on his birthday. Wow, thanks grandpa, but he'll never forget how you invested in his future. What the unst app? Wow, thanks Grandpa. Don't just give them any gift, give them a gift that can grow with them. Invite grandparents and

family friends to contribute to your child's future. What the unst App. Unst is an investment account for kids that makes it easy to gift funds that can be used for college tuition, their first home, and more. Just by sharing the link or include a UNSQR code on party invitations for birthdays and holidays. For a limited time, download the unst app and use the code I Heart fifty at sign up to receive a fifty dollars bonus when

you fund your account. That's code I Heart fifty when you sign up at une st dot coo for a fifty dollar bonus. See terms and conditions at uns dot coo. Curiosity Stream is the streaming service for people who want to know more more about our world and beyond. Curiosity Stream has the best collection of documentary films and TV shows and now check out Curiosity's new series, The Real Wild West. Rolling Stone magazine says it's the history of the West. They usually don't teach you the mythology of

the West left out a lot of the people. American West is far more different, far more diverse. Stupid say they've never seen a black cowboy. Well, we've been there, we've been doing it. I never really learned about the Hispanic Mexican aspect of the story. This is the history book, but did you know about these other facts? Watch The Real Wild West now on Curiosity Stream. Just go to curiosity stream dot com to sign up or download the

app now. With new titles dropping every week, you'll never run out of things to watch, and with monthly, annual, and bungled pricing plans, it's easy to find one that works for you when your budget. Go to Curiosity stream dot com to satisfy your curiosity and sign up today. Let's take one quick step back for a minute and really look at the Curtis Francis and Jennifer Burgett case. That's the couple who was also shot in their home

while they slept in two thousand and six. They only lived about fifteen minutes down the road from the road in property fifteen minutes into this day. That case remains unsolved. Angie Montgomery, Curtis Francis's cousin. It remains a devastating memory

without closure. She spoke to Jeff about it. I was shocked that I had never even heard of Curtis and Jennifer's case, because it's a pretty it's egregious that this happened and it's unsolved, and it just seems crazy that another in such a small community that's something like this could happen again. And so what I would love to do, and maybe it would kind of be to like walk through kurt and Jenny's case and kind of like explain who they were and any of the facts that you

know about the case. Well, Curtis was a very hard working, good guy, lovedy Stanley, lived hunting and animals and fishing and all that stuff, and he would help anybody. And he was very protective. That's one word I like to use to describe him. Very protective. As the people we loved, Jeanie was a good girls, always taking care of others. I think they just got messed up with the wrong people, the wrong people. Angie's referring to our local drug dealers.

The most to the crime that happens around here, like um cartaffs and breaking and enterings and things like that is from drugs. There's a huge problem with opoids and uh nothingn fhetamine here, huge and that probably does play a part and every almost every murder of that's happened, probably in the past ten years. I think the people that killed my cousin lived I think four or five

minutes up the road from Curtain Jenny. They were big drug dealers, and Curtis Oh didn't some money supposedly for marijuana. So you feel like you know who did at Oh. Yes, I don't want to be that person, but I'm I'm pretty blunt and upfront. And the law enforcement here they have mishandled Curtain Jenny's case from the rip when Angie says lawn forceman. She's talking about the Pike County Sheriff's Office, the same agency heavily involved in conducting the Rodent murder investigation.

In twenty sixteen, a plumber discovered a well that had seemed to have been mysteriously hidden with rocks and dirt. It was on a property that, according to eyewitness statements, was the last place Curtis Francis was seen on the night of his murder. The Pike County Sheriff's Office was called in to investigate. Officers lowered a plumber's drain camera into the well and discovered what appeared to be burned

clothes and a gun. It was a thirty OT six was at the bottom of the well in Curtis's pistol that was taken the night of the murders, and that's what they were shot with, a thirty out six. Both of them curtain Jenny with a potential murder weapon line just thirty feet down a well. The Pike County Sheriff's Office decided to use a curious tactic to recover the gun.

They called in a fire truck to pump water into the well to try and push the firearm back up out of the well shaft so invest gators could get their hands on it. It did not go as planned. They blew the water down the well, which in turn made the ground break because of the force of you know, a fire hose can blow the skin off of so when they did that, this is what they told us that happened. When they did that, it busted the ground loose.

The guns went down into the ground, and that they don't have the money or the equipment to get them out, so they hired a guy to seal the well shut. He's a welder. He welded the well shut and that was it. I think after this fiasco with the guns in the well, when the guns were found, and how they handled that situation and handled the possible murder weapons,

I think they're ashamed, and they should be. They took probably the only hope we have of any type of physical evidence and blew it to Snoggerens basically, and nothing's been done with it since. With Curtis and Jennifer's case going cold, Angie decided to pursue the killers herself. I've spent years and years. I've got file after file after file of things I've done. I've actually went and got names, I've went and talked to people. Well, I'm just going

to be honest with you. I've done what the police. I've tried to do what the police haven't done, which is talked to people, get information, you know, get date, get time, get people talking. You know all you've seen Kurt that day, Okay, who was with him? What was his demeanor? Things like that. There's eyewitness statement and I've tried my best to get somebody or anybody just to listen.

It's pretty cut and dry. I've had a few people out of state that are like retired homicide investigators and stuff look at the case and tell me that they can't, for the life of them, figure out why there hasn't been an arrest made for the town that we you know, the size of our town, there's been a lot of murders here that have not been solved. It's ridiculous. But if I say what I think, I could probably end

up in the river. According to Jodi, barr Angie's thoughts about the Pike County Sheriff's Office are shared by many in the community. The oppression I got from the people in Pike County. When I was working there covering the road and murders, there was this belief among almost everybody I talked to you about incompetence when it came to law enforcement in that county and the lack of that sheriff's office ability to do a large scale murder investigation

and carry that through to a prosecution. And the man at the head of the Pike County Sheriff's office is none other than Sheriff Charles Reader. You've heard about Sheriff Reader before. He's the officer who stated he would stop at nothing to solve the Rodent's case. I've got a message for the killers. We will find you, the family

and the victims. We'll have justice one day. To a lot of people watching these news conferences, Reader's passionate campaign for justice was admirable, but to journalist like Jeff Winkler, Reader's determination belied his mishandling of the Rodent investigation from the very start. It was the largest mass murder in Ohio's history, and the law enforcement at the beginning. The local law enforcement was almost comically inept to handle such

a large and bloody incident. They were just they weren't equipped to handle it from the very beginning of the investigation, and they bungled a lot of stuff right from the get go. It was one all them after another. Nearly a month after the bodies were found, Sheriff Frieder had key pieces of evidence, including the Rodents, mobile homes and automobiles, moved to a warehouse in the nearby town of Waverley. Jodi Barr was on the scene and told Jeff what

he saw. So I'm out of the warehouse where they moved these vehicles, the equipment from all the Rodent properties where they moved the four mobile homes where these murders happened. There's a large fence around this huge outdoor lot and it is full of cars and ATVs farming equipment, back hosed huge tractor trailers. So, as a reporter with you know, at least a small knowledge of the chain of custody

of evidence. I know that with all this evidence just you know, fifty yards away from me, that you've got to have it's secured somehow. There's got to be a peace officer someone there with a gun and swore who swear an oath to uphold the laws in the constitutions of the State of Ohio. They're guarding that that was not the case. Yeah. So it's the largest in criminal investigation in state history, right, and the main evidence is not getting watched. There was no one in that parking

lot watching that evidence. So when you drive up to a warehouse and you look and there's nothing between you and hundreds of pieces of evidence except air and opportunity, if that doesn't raise a red flag, I don't think you're doing your job. I knew at that point in time that there was something to explore here because potentially this evidence, if it's unguarded, they can't establish a chain of custody. This entire investigation could be jeopardized. So that's

why we took them. We took Mike Allen, the former Hamilton County District Attorney. We took them to Pike County. I called him, I said, hey, I want to take you to Pike County. Here's what I found. I don't want to show you what I found yet, I just want to take you to this way house and you give me your impressions of what we see there. Through the eyes of a prosecutor. Here's Mike Allen. Jody was on this thing like white on Rice and I went up there with him, and that's what I noticed. It

two and you know, you've got it. Seems to me it was close to thirty forty, maybe even fifty vehicles that had a fence around them. Well that's fine, but it would have taken an old man like me about ten seconds to climb over that fence and take something out of one of those vehicles, plant something, put something in one of the vehicles. It just was not done right.

I mean, anybody involved in law enforcement, from that first week that you're at the police academy, you learned that you must preserve the evidence, and you must preserve that chain of custody of the evidence. And I don't know what, if anything, they pulled out of any of those cars, but if I were defending this and they tried to introduce any of that evidence, I would be all over and I would move to have the evidence excluded because

it just was not properly secured. So Jody began preparing a report about the evidence fiasco for a new station Fox nineteen in Cincinnati. Soon after, Jody and his crew were approached by Sheriff Charles Reader, who presented them with a curious offer. The Sheriff's office declined to comment, but here is Jody's side of the story. He tried to make a deal with us to not hear that that

warehouse story. Yeah, and the deal was that he was going to give us this unfettered access where we could do this first hundred hours with Charlie Reader after he learned the murders. If we wouldn't do this, that always That still sits for me today. It pissed me off then because I'm like, you know, what do you think we are? We don't make deals. Well, photographer, now we're you know, we got back in the car after then we're going, what the hell just happened here? Never have

we ever experienced that. Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back in a moment. Only on CNN. See It Loud The History of Black Television of five part docuseries celebrating the achievements of black actors and creators, examining the historical impacts black culture has on all culture. See It Loud explores the best history of black television through iconic performances and sitcoms, comedy, drama, unscripted variety, and sci fi.

Premiering Sunday, July nine at nine pm. He'll forget about the video game you gave him on his birthday. Wow, thanks Grandpa, But he'll never forget how you invested in his future. What the unst app? Wow, thanks Grandpa. Don't just give them any gift, give them a gift that can grow with them. Invite grandparents and family friends to

contribute to your child's future with the UNSTAP. Unst is an investment account for kids that makes it easy to gift funds that can be used for college tuition, their first home, and more, just by sharing the link or include a UNSQR code on party invitations for birthdays and holidays. For a limited time, download the unstap and use the code I Heart fifty at sign up to receive a fifty dollars bonus when you fund your account. That's code I Heart fifty when you sign up at uneest dot

coo for a fifty dollars bonus. See terms and conditions at unest dot coo. Curiosity Stream is the streaming service built by and for people who want to know more more about our world and beyond. Curiosity Stream has the best collection of documentary films and TV shows about everything from the history of human migration to the future of space travel. With thousands of titles, Curiosity has something for everyone science, wildlife, travel, human stories, culture, and pretty much

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Meaningful Beauty System for just forty nine ninety five. That includes our introductory five piece system, free gifts, free shipping, and a sixty day money back guarantee. All of that available at meaningful beauty dot com. In June twenty nineteen, Reader was indicted on eight felonies and eight misdemeanors. These felony charges are not directly related to the road and investigation. He was accused of conflict of interest, deft in office,

and tampering with evidence, among other nefarious activities. According to reports, we are also allegedly still cash sees from drug arrest to fund a gambling problem. Here's investigative journalist James Pilcher. Yeah, he had a gambling addiction and he decided I'll just use my own forces money to feed it. Yeah. Man, in places like this, and I'm not going to say it's necessarily a lack of journalistic outlets keeping tabs or whatever,

but there's no accountability. There's nobody watching the watchers in these small communities, and in many cases that can lead to major corruption. It's definitely worth noting that Sheriff Reader has pled not guilty to all of these charges. However, to Jody Barr, it's just another surreal event to what

seems like a never ending bizarre story. Reader was, you know, shoulder to shoulder with Mike DeWine, the now governor who was then the attorney general when these murders happened, that they together were updating the nation about what happened here in those days after the murders and where you going?

Is this real? Then you read what the indictments alleged, and you read what the grand jury handed up, and then you know, you just have to assume if a grand jury is handing up an indictment, that there's been an investigation conducted, there have been facts gathered, a prosecutor has reviewed that, I mean evidence tampering and tampering with records.

You're talking about a guy who led the sheriff's office and who for a time, a moment in time when this first happened, these murders first happened, who was also leading that investigation until the state came in and took it over. You just sit back and go, man, let's see where this ends. I mean, Pike County has been a crazy ride ever since the end of April of twenty sixteen, and it's still right now. You've got people awaiting trial facing the death penalty on eight murders. The

sheriff and diedd removed from office. It has been an absolutely crazy half a decade. There still the people of pikes and are torn about Chaiff Reader. He put this town before him. He cared about Pike County. Here's road and family friend Brittany talking to Stephanie Lydecker. If it wasn't for him, he for Charlie Reader, they wouldn't have came close to even finding out about the Wagners. Honestly, that's my opinion. How come because he worked his ass off to find like that's all he did was to

investigate all of that. He didn't like, he didn't like he had done his job. Like he went and you know, like he was doomed really well in Pike County, like keeping this like getting the drugs off the streets and whatnot. But he still made effort a lot of effort into the rod In case. Charlie had dedicated himself to getting justice for the Roden family and then he was booted, not that that long ago. Apparently he was taking the money from the rod In case for gambling. But honestly,

I don't believe it because I don't know. I just don't believe that they just were finding reasons to get him out of office. Aie Montgomery holds a much different view of Saraff Reeder. You know, now he's blaming his gambling habits on because what he's seen is the crime scenes have haunted him so much he couldn't sleep, so he would go gamble. Well, I've known Charlie for thirty years and he's been gambling way before this happened. And that's just that, just to me shows you his character.

You know, I'm going to I'm gonna use the death of eight people to try to smooth over, and I'm still in money off my county and gambling and that is disgusting to me. I just think there's a lot of dirty deeds that going around here, and I think that they will do anything they can keep them covered up. Do we have a lot of crime here? Yeah, because of drugs. Do we have a lot of drug activity here? Yes, way more than there was fifteen years ago. Is it

safe here? I'm more scared of law enforcement than I am of the people that killed my cousin. You're afraid to say anything when in all reality, yeah, some things are out there that you think because you go down a ton of rabbit holes. When when you talk to two and three hundred people like I have over the course of two and two years, you find out a lot of crap and it does take you down those rabbit holes. Is it true? You don't know, but by god,

it looks like something isn't right. Pike County isn't It's beautiful, it's far as landscape. It's a beautiful place. You know. We're full of farmers and just down to earth people. But there's a lot of dirty people here too, and most of them are in power So with Sheriff Reader's ethics being brought into question, does this impact the charges

brought against the Wagners. Here's Jeff Weinlair again. I would assume, you know, the charges against Reader, the felonies and the misdemeanors about being you know, through and through corrupt and when it came to both law enforcement and financial dealings. Yeah, I would assume this is going to affect a lot of things. In fact, the prosecutor for the Pikedon area also just resigned. This just sort of makes you start

thinking about everything that happened at beginning. Now you're seeing these charges and these resignations, and you know, it doesn't speak well about finding any answers to this thing. Every answer we get about what happened to the road and seems to leave more questions. So how through all of these other crimes did official zero went on the Wagoners?

Police received over eleven hundred tips, They conducted over five hundred interviews, tested about seven hundred pieces of evidence, served close to two hundred church warrants, subpoenas and other things. So this was something that was huge. So when you read these indictments, you know they were talking about the Wagner's movements, even months before these murders happened. Four months to plan this out. I mean that's every day for

four months. That's the full time job. You know, they're hacking computers and there was surveillance cameras on those properties. If we are to believe the prosecution as alleged, you know, this paint tap a very dark picture. Everybody had started basically attacking them, the community, accusing them of murdering those people. One day, she because I can't believe that they just won't leave us alone. They just will not leave us alone. We're starting to get really worried that we're going to

be arrested. Where to come next week? Pikedon Massacre is executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional producing by Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker. The Pikedon Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Smart journalism, fascinating topics.

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