The Victims Need a Voice

I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends. It's Las Vegas, it's the nineteen nineties, and it is time to find a husband. There were four Jewish doctors who were felt to be eligible bachelors. One of them was of the Baron bat On paper he was perfect, but in reality, this guy's a wacko. He shouted to the point went unconscious. I would call him and I would say, I know you killed my sister. You can listen to The girl Friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you

get your podcasts. This is the unbelievable but true story of George Remus. He was an eccentric and genius lawyer who figured out how to game the system during Prohibition. Remus is the biggest man in the business, but George Remus's wild existence took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal, revenge, and one of the most sensational murder trials in American history. Listen to Remus the Mad Bootleg King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or

wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Delia Wild and I want to invite you to listen to my newest podcasts to make up Appy existed to the two style. It's called The Oh My God Particle Show or OMGPS for short. How you like me? Always wondering about the universe, Like what the universe has made all of how it's going to evolve? So I went to get some answers. Listen to The Oh My God Particle Show on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to the piked in Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. A lot of what I do is I kind of tiptoe into people's tragedy, but I get to pull my toes out as opposed to the families who their entire lives are you know, shattered in some cases,

destroyed and decimated, which certainly happened in this case. But as the story unfolded, and as we started piecing together things and talking with family members and law enforcement and people in the community, it just became clear to me, I guess that this was a special place. This is the piked In massacre. Returned to Pike County Season two, episode six, The Victims Need a Voice. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at Katie Studios with Stephanie Lydecker and

Jeff Shane. Day that eight members of the Roden family were found murdered, journalist Chris Graves began covering the story for the Cincinnati Enquirer. Her insight is crucial, as she spoke with members of the victims families, the Rodens, Manlies, and Gillies in the immediate aftermath of the killings. She's the only journalist to conduct an exclusive interview with the Wagner family. Just weeks after the Rodents were found dead, Graves sat down with Jake Wagner, who has now pled guilty,

and his accused mother Angela. We finally got Chris Graves to sit down for an interview after many tries. She's speaking out now because she feels it's imperative that the victims have a voice in this story. This is highly significant due to the current gag orders. Here she is speaking to our producer, also named Chris Graves. When did you first hear about the Roden murders? So? I first heard about the crime the friday in which it broke.

I saw a tweet, as I recall, and the first news of this was that there were people dead in Pike County and that the police were beginning to investigate. So my news instincts kicked in, and then I texted our editors and said, this is our story, this is what I was thinking. Multiple people found Daddy in more than one location along Union Hill Road and piked in this morning. My two PM investigators say they found eight people dead, seven adult victims and a sixteen year old boy,

all from the road and family. There is a shooter or shooters out there somewhere. No one is in custody right now. Whoever they are, they were trying to possibly wipe out this entire family. I was trying to get somebody who's on the ground, who has eyes, who can help you as a reporter, because when stories like this begin to on full, there's just so much you don't know.

You don't know anything. There was a church right across from Union Hill Road, and I managed to get Reverend Phil Fulton on the phone, and I, you know, I just started interviewing him. And in the course of that conversation, I could hear the Reverend Fulton talking with what appeared to be a family member who turned out to be Leonard Manley. Leonard is the father of Dana Manley Rowden, also the grandfather of Hannah Roden, Chris Junior and all

of the kids. So I asked him if he could put Leonard Manley on the phone, and he did, and that was the first time I talked with a family member. He was able to tell me in that conversation who they believed had been killed. And it was his daughter who found the first four victims, who made the first nine one one call, which we've all heard. I was trying to on the phone pieced together who all these people, what their relationships were, Who were they, what were the relationships.

It was certainly horrific and tragic. Pykedon is a small community where everyone knows everyone in his youth. Imagine the town is just stunned, cunshock thinking about the whole family. Really, it is hard to believe. It's such a useless strategy. I just don't understand why it happened here. A lot of the things pinched me. Wake me up. The times I'll wake up, but they'll just be like a dream. On April twenty fourth, twenty sixteen, Chris Graves made her

way to Pike County. That church became a place for both law enforcement and the family to gather, and I asked the Reverend Fulton if I could attend his church service on Sunday, which is what I did. I went down into church and listened to his sermon. What was that sermon like on that Sunday. It's a small church, it's not a big church. Pastor Fulton sort of lives in the community, has lived in the community, sort of grew up there. He preached there for forty three years.

He talked a lot about this is what a church does. It's you know, it's a shelter, a refuge, a safe haven in a dark storm. He talked about the need for the community to come together and support a family. There was a lot of singing. He turned to the scriptures or inspiration and solace. He talked a lot about evil and what evil would descend to do this small country church just up the way north of U thirty two helping some of the family and friends as they

come to grips with an unspeakable event. Can you describe the evil community is? I don't think you can really describe. It is just unbelievable these things it's happening and going on, and such tragedies like this we should not have them. You were faced with this giant puzzle, a very tragic puzzle that you were trying to put together so that others could learn what it possibly happened. Right, You're trying

to find the truth. You're trying to figure out who is in a relationship with whom and how were these people connected and what could have happened, where did they work, what's all the you know, prior criminal history of everybody. And you're sort of left as a reporter to, I mean really to kind of do knock on doors, talk to people, try to figure out, you know, talk to the people who are closest to the information and begin to sort of piece stuff together. And what was the

result of that. I think this part of America gets a little bit of a rap that it's a very and it is. It is insular, but it's also kind. People were kind when they maybe shouldn't have been, you know, at least to me. And I just I really just wanted to understand the victims. I wanted to understand family.

So I spend hours, sometimes oftentimes interviewing not just family members, but people who lived, you know, down the road and across the way, and you know, the librarian, and I mean all kinds of you know, really the sheriff and the attorney general and all of that. People call it and we did too the road in case of the rod and certainly their family lost the most people, which

sounds horrific even to say. I mean, I just like, there's no good words for any of this, But I mean there are three family units, the Manlies, the Gillies, and the Rodents. Hannah Gilly is a little often turned into a rodent or a footnote. Right, we don't get to explore her world nearly enough. And that's the other thing I think about Hannah Hazel. That's what they call Hannah Hazel Gilly to make the distinction between Hannah may Roden. You know, she became I think, by default a rodent.

So when we first started writing, and I mean I did think about that, like how we're sort of saying, well, it's rodents, and I thought, well, she's essentially a rodent. I mean, she was engaged to Frankie, they were going to get married, they'd had a child together. She lived for her son, you know, was really into nursing and the health of him, and was trying to eat healthy. She graduated from high school, was totally in love with Frankie.

They were you know, it's everything building a life. She saw herself as a road And having said that, she's still a Gilly. And so this amount of devastation to essentially three families, all of whom live in close proximity to each other, and their families or have been in various stages differently intertwined, and the ripple effect of that, and the children, which is what hit me the hardest. I'm a mother of two, and the idea that there were three very small children at the crime scenes and

they were found alive and physically unharmed. Resonated with me Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine giving an update. Three children did survive, a four day old, six month old, and a three year old. I think what makes this particularly grizzly is the fact that you have these children involved who obviously were there when executions took place. You know, it's heartbreaking. I mean, you know the one mom apparently was killed with the four day old right there. I mean,

it's just, you know, which is hard. It's just hard to believe. Then I went and did my first column, and I just went driving Pike County. It's pretty rolling hills, It's absolutely beautiful, and it was starting to warm up.

Things were beginning to bloom. There were fields of yellow and purple, and I mean, it's just it was just absolutely beautiful, all of the things that someone who looks for ways in which to tell stories you look for, right, I mean, as this county was going through it's spring rebirth, it struck me that this tragedy was rippling across sort of these beautiful fields of yellow flowers. And I just could not get those three children out of my head.

And I just started looking out and I started to cry, truthfully, and sort of became, I don't know, overwhelmed, but I I came around or down a hill and I saw a house just sort of out on its own, with, you know, a couple of rocking chairs on the porch, and you know, they were just rocking, but nobody was

in them. And I sort of started thinking about this lullaby It's called the Appalachian Lullaby, and it just it just started going through my head and I was remembering pieces of it, and I just couldn't help but think about those children and who would rock them to sleep, and who would hold them tight, and who, you know, who would sing them lullabys to sleep. And I thought, that's what this is about. This was more than just a homicide or a multiple homicide or a mask killing.

It's about who takes care of those babies and what in the world happened here, And those children's lives will never be the same. These are families, so many lives affected, and the ripple effects of that which will go on for decades and generations. They now are and will forever be bound by this horrible tragedy, but both their strength and their resilience and their resolve and their pain. I mean, it's incredible to me. I don't, I don't. I'm struggling

with words because I don't know the right words. Truthfully, it's it's heartbreaking and and just awe inspiring. Somehow they're survivors. So that's what I wrote about. Nobody can imagine what this family has been through. Only the other families, the Manlies, the Gillies, those families are suffering as much as we are. They only know what we are all going through every day we live with this. It never goes away. I can tell you that even though it's been extremely hard,

that I know our family will never stop. We will never give up. We will never give up trying to find and bring the people whoever did this to justice. We will not give up. Can you describe your first impressions of the Wagner's My first interview with Jake Wagner and his mom, Angela was on May thirty first, twenty sixteen. You know, so, what is that six weeks after the homicides. I had talked with other people who said, oh, they probably aren't going to talk to you, they're pretty to themselves.

But I knew that Jake and Hannah had been in a relationship and had had shared a child. Said well, well, you know, we'll go try. I showed up, and he and his mom agreed to the interview. He and Angela outside their home, which was searched two years later. We sat outside on a patio area and talked for I don't know, two and a half hours. Maybe there were children's toys everywhere, like those little pretend little cars that they drive that are motorized, or little tikes, you know,

the slides and all of that. It seemed like, Wow, here's a family who really digs their kids and or grandkids in Angela's case, And I was trying to establish who were the Wagoners? Who are the Wagoners? When did you start dating Hannah? What was that relationship? You know? He didn't dodge questions, looked me in the eye when I interviewed him, really nice. It seemed to me as if when we had talked that very first time, that he was truly in love with Hannah, whatever that means.

But he thought that they were going to be that it would all that there would be a reconciliation and they would all come together. And he had this idea in his head about what that would look like. And I told him this, like, Wow, for a young man, you seem to have everything lined up, you know. I mean, he was saying, well, we were going to do this. He and Hannah, we were going to do this. We're going to do this. My plan was this. And I was like, wow, that's a lot of you are really linear,

I think, is what I said. Everything's has to line up. And I was sort of taken by that. I didn't quite know what to think of it. But again, I try to keep my mind as open as possible when I'm interviewing people. If in fact what Jake Wagner said is true. And he committed five of eight murders and then went to sleep that night, took a shower, and then had the nerve to sit down with you straight faced and said, I'm good, you know, like a regular person.

That's so unfathomable to me. Humans are multifaceted. I've said for years that being a reporter didn't get easier. It gets harder the longer you do it, because the world, you begin to understand the world is multidimensional and things are very it just there's not sometimes these clear things, they're not I have a lot of questions. As someone who's talked to Jake before, I have tons of questions, as you can only imagine. But yeah, I mean it seemed to me as if, as I just painted, you know,

there were toys everywhere. He talked about his daughter all the time. He talked about you know, for instance, he could name movies they all watched together, the books he would read her before they went to bed, what he told her about where her mom was. You know that mom's with Jesus now, he said, You know, I don't know how to explain to her that mom isn't coming back.

Did you ask where his daughter was that night? I mean, it was my understanding that this was his week to have the child, and he had gotten the child a day earlier than he would normally have done that. Fast forward five years. If Jake Wagner is to be believed by what he said in court, what we still don't know is where all four of the Wagners were the night and early morning of the twenty some twenty second. So there's an assumption, I think that all four of

the Wagners participated physically in the crimes. I don't know if that's true. I simply don't know that. What Jake said and as you all know, what Jake said in court is that he was quote unquote personally responsible for five of the eight victims. So I don't know where his brother was, his dad or his mom. What was Angela Wagner? Like, Jake talked a lot more than Angela, but Angela would add on things as Jake talked. But any in person interview I did with Jake, Angela was

there and didn't leave. I mean she was a mom. I mean that's how I saw it. You know, she's a mom. Here her Again, this is six weeks after these homicides, and when I you know, and again I'm not trying to be sympathetic to the Aagner's right now, I'm not. But again, dialing back five years, I show up on your doorstep, and if I'm the mom and my son has just lost the mother of his child, I guess I thought she was just being a protective mom,

I'm here for my kid kind of thing. Again, this all looks different today than it did five years ago. At the time, did you feel like they might have been guilty or did you believe what they were saying or do you not put yourself in that position to even have an opinion? I had somebody asked me, I don't even know a couple of years ago, what's it like to look into the eyes of pure evil? I said, I don't know. Sometimes I think that people think it

would you would just automatically. I don't know that. Some like I have some kind of radar that go off, we're you know, home. But they weren't suspects, so I wasn't approaching them with that in the back of my mind, like, oh, now you're suspects in this. It was more information gathering. They didn't seem nervous. I don't think they ever asked me, because sometimes in interviews people will say, oh, don't use that, or don't use that, or that makes me really nervous,

or I mean, I don't recall any of that. You know. It wasn't any like, well you can't use that, or what are you doing or any of that. But I don't. You know, again, you don't know what you don't know. And to be completely honest, I did ask them Angela and Jake Wants via email, just straight out did you kill them? And they never responded, we're going to take a quick break. Here, we'll be back in a moment. Oh. I'm Carol Fisher and I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends.

Back in the nineteen nineties in Las Vegas, a few of us dated the most eligible bachelor in town, Bob. He spoke several languages, he did medical missionary work, and he was Jewish. He was perfect on paper, but he wasn't. He really wasn't. He shouted and to the point she went unconscious. Bob could lie about anything, but only takes the one time when somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for Bob, us girlfriends know how to fight back. I wanted him to pay for his crime. He needed to be put

to justice. I'll be honest with you. If I saw him right now, I'd spit on him. I would call him and I would say, I know you killed my sister. I will always hound you and haunt you. You can listen to The Girlfriends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. In our twenty two years of friendship, Andy, this has to be the most bizarre thing we've ever done. I know, I love it.

Our podcast. My Vagina said, what is a podcast? Where we ask our everyday Vagina listeners to pull up a seat at the best Friend's table as were our most personal and humiliating stories and ask questions about women's bodies. We are going to discuss all body things like what exactly are we supposed to do with our pubs? Oh my gosh, if you could have a heart shaped pube that were bedazzled in pink rubies or perrymenopause, I feel right now justified. I'm going to start my own personal movement.

I'm going to start blaming anything that goes wrong in my life on perrymenopause, leg hair too long, haruse, don't have the will to clean, perrymopause exactly? Are whack periods? Boob issues and so much more. Listen to My Vagina said What podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What. This is the unbelievable but true story of George Ramus. You might know him as a character from Boardwalk Empire or as the inspiration

for Jay Gatsby. He was an eccentric and genius lawyer who figured out how to game the system during Prohibition. Remus is in the whiskey business, and Remus is the biggest man in the business while living the life of luxury with his clamorous and ambitious wife Imogene Daddy. I am so glad you are here. But George Remus's wild existence took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal. She had Remus just exactly where she wanted him revenge. Feel this muscle. I got this for Remus. I could

crush him like an egg. And one of the most sensational murder trials in American history, we the jury, find the defendant, Join me Abbot kaylor As we traced George Remus's transformation from bootleg King to alleged madman. Listen to Remus the Mad Bootleg King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Afghanistan twenty twelve, One Quiet Night, Staffs Are Robert Bales left his I'm at outpost alone. He walked into two villages and started shooting,

killing sixteen civilians, many of them children. Maybe I made a mistake, maybe I am wrong, but you have to understand the way it went down. We've conducted a series of interviews with one of America's most notorious war criminals. They paint a complex portrait of a man changed by the global War on terror, the idea of hurting a

kid killing a kid Come on. The War Within the Robert Bales Story is an investigative podcast revealing explosive information on one of the most controversial events in American military history. Bale's actions are merely a symptom of a broken army. Listen to The War Within the Robert Bale Story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In seventeen, the investigation ramped up. More than two dozen investigators are focused on solving one of Ohio's largest mass

murders in history. As of today, we've received eight hundred and eighty three tips, we have conducted four hundred and sixty five interviews, thirty eight search warrants have been issued, and sixty cyber extractions have been done. They say they made significant progress in the investigation, believe more than one person committed the crimes, but to day, the killers are still on the loose. When did you hear that the Wagners were suspects? All of a sudden, I got a

tipped from somebody. They said, hey, have you heard about the search at the Wagners. And it became really clear to me that they must have had something, because you'd have to have probable cause. So whatever it was that got them probable cause to do the search, I thought, well, they found something, because it isn't just going to be a fishing expedition, right. So I got in my car and I drove there, and the helicopters up and there

were law enforcement, like on four wheelers. I was sitting there at the search and someone said, well, you know the house is sold. I said, no, I don't know that. And then I sat in my car and looked up the property records and saw that it was on the market. And then you start connecting the dots in your own head, right, And I was like, whoa wait a minute, wait a minute. And then I found out they were in Alaska. The Wagners were in Alaska. And then I went to the

editor and said, I need to go to Alaska. I need to talk to them. We have major developments tonight in a bazaar and tragic murder case with ties between Ohio and Alaska. Investigators want any information the public has about the Wagner family. That someone has information, it really is in their best interest to come forth voluntarily thank you of us that information. They're not messing around. We're going to laugh for people if they're building average from

much so it's you, Marri interst to come forward. They went somewhere where you had to really want to find them to find them, right, They did seem like they were trying to get lost in a way. They lived in a rural part that's a Kenai peninsula, and Alaska is expansive, but I mean everything is so far from everything else. I talked with people and you know, a little like a little cafe. People knew that they were there,

but it wasn't any big deal. They were like, oh, you mean the people who are wanted in Ohio for killing all those people. Attorney General Dwine you know, said they were, you know, while not calling them suspects, said, you know, they were laser focus of the investigation. And I'm like, well, actually they're not really wanted, you know. I mean that was the thing that was really interesting.

By the time the news got there, most people thought they were wanted, but that didn't seem to bother people. I remember quoting a guy saying, well, this is where people come to get lost. You know, it's no surprise. I remember being struck when we drove there that, well, of course they live here. It looks just like Pike County. You know, it's wooded, it's beautiful. When I knocked on the door, she came to the door and I said, Angela, I'm here, let's talk. And she was sort of startled,

I think, to see me. And then Jake came to the door, and the little girl came and Jake Wagner says, oh, my gosh, Chris, it's so great to see you. It's so great to see somebody. I mean, there was no trepidation. But Billie did yell. I never saw him, but he yelled from the living room, Hey, Angela, what are you doing? You know, get back in here. And she's like, oh, don't mind him. You know, his barks hours in his bite. I mean, they were like, well, I don't know about this.

We've got a lawyer back in Ohio. I don't think we should say anything until we talked to him. I was like, well, i'd really like to do a sit down interview. I'd really like to record it. Then it became a back and forth about well, who's your lawyer, how do I talk to him? Where do I get him? What we do I need to talk to him? And then I had a long conversation with him on the phone, but he was in Ohio, So I go all the

way to Alaska to talk to somebody in Ohio. And he was the one who made it sound like Dwine was harassing them. This is all harassment. They've done nothing but be cooperative. They've cooperated one hundred and ten percent. They've given over their laptops, their phones, they've provided DNA, they've agreed to any number of interviews with a BCI, which is the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. They've told

authorities that they were going to Alaska. The state is making them look like suspects when they haven't called them suspects. And then he said that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to give the interview like they basically agreed to it, and then said nope, never mind, we've changed our mind, which is really unfortunate. It was the last time Chris Graves would ever speak with the Wagner family. However, she recently returned to Pike County for the first time

in years after hearing some shocking news. Exactly five years after the road and murders in Pike County, one of the four defendants, Jake Wagner, is pleading guilty to all counts In exchange, he avoids the death penalty and will serve multiple life sentences with no chance at parole. His father, mother, and brother are similarly charged, and they've pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors say that Jake will testify against them. Hearing the prosecutor sort of described that he, you know who's going to change his plea and outlining the terms of the plea arrangement, and then when she shared some details of the crime, it just was like, oh my gosh, this is really happening right now. I mean, I'm a journalist, so I just sort of think about, what are the facts, what's happening, what are they saying. I don't even know

if I really believe he personally killed five people? I thought, is he trying to get his mom off? Is he trying to pay the picture that his mom wasn't there or his dad somebody wasn't there, So he's gonna like hop the majority of them all four were involved, But what does that mean? Does that mean two were involved in the planning? Other people did something? You know, somebody went in and pulled all the trail cameras, but weren't

involved in the actual shooting. I don't. Again, we don't really, and I know I'm saying this all the time, but we really don't know. A ton of these details. A lot of it, even with his guilty plea, is speculation. So I don't know. I'm like, well, is he trying to spare as he trying to lie about? Who is there? I mean, he's lie before, so why would he tell the complete truth? Now let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back in a moment. Oh. I'm Carol Fisher,

and I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends. Back in the nineteen nineties in Las Vegas, a few of us dated the most eligible bachelor in town, Bob. He spoke several languages, he did medical missionary work, and he was Jewish. He was perfect on paper, but he wasn't. He really wasn't. He shouted into the point she went unconscious. Bob could lie about anything, but only takes the one time when somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for bob, Us girlfriends know

how to fight back. I wanted him to pay for his crime. He needed to be put to justice. I'll be honest with you. If I saw him right now, I'd spit on him. I would call him and I would say, I know you killed my sister. I will always hound you and haunt you. You can listen to the Girlfriends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In our twenty two years of friendship, Andy, this has to be the most bizarre thing we've ever done.

I know, I love it. Our podcast My Vagina said, what is a podcast where we ask our everyday Vagina listeners to pull up a seat at the best Friend's table as we share our most personal and humiliating stories and ask questions about women's bodies. We are going to discuss all body things, like what exactly are we supposed to do with our pubs? Oh my gosh, if you could have a heart shaped pube that were bedazzled in pink rubies or perrymenopause, I feel right now justified. I'm

going to start my own personal movement. I'm going to start blaming anything that goes wrong in my life on perrymenopause, us leg hair too long, Harry don't have the will to clean, Harry Minipade exactly, are whacked periods, boob issues, and so much more. Listen to my Vagina said. What podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. What. This is the unbelievable but true

story of George Remus. You might know him as a character from Boardwalk Empire or as the inspiration for Jay Gatsby. He was an eccentric and genius lawyer who figured out how to game the system during Prohibition. Remus is in the whiskey business, and Remus is the biggest man in the business, while living the life of luxury with his clamorous and ambitious wife Imogene. Daddy, I am so glad you are here. But George Remus's wild existence took a

dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal. She had Remus just exactly where she wanted him revenge. Feel this muscle. I got this for Remus. I could crush him like an egg. And one of the most sensational murder trials in American history, we the jury find the defendant, Join me Abbot Kaylor as we traced George Remus's transformation from bootleg King to alleged madman. Listen to Remus The Mad Bootleg King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Afghanistan twenty twelve, One Quiet Night, Staffs Aren't Robert Bales left his combat outpost alone. He walked into two villages and started shooting, killing sixteen civilians, many of them children. Maybe I made a mistake, maybe I am wrong, but you have to understand the way it went down. We've conducted a series of interviews with one of America's most notorious war criminals. They paint a complex portrait of a man changed by the global War

on Terror. The idea of hurting a kid killing a kid Come on. The War Within the Robert Bayle Story is an investigating podcast revealing explosive information on one of the most controversial events in American military history. Bale's actions are merely a symptom of a broken army. Listen to the War Within the Robert Bale Story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Like everybody. I want to know the answers. I want to know

the details. I want to know, like how you come up with this? How do you do you? Are you all just sitting around the kitchen table like plotting this? And at some point, why is it that out of four people, somebody doesn't say, uh no, no, it's one thing to talk about it. But now we're doing it, and we're building silencers and we're plotting things as I mean,

as it's been described. Some mental way, you're imagining you're doing something good for the benefit of your kin, your grandchild, But why would you put your own kids in the heart of murder? And again the idea that of four people, of four people who were supposedly religious people, not one of you said thou shalt not kill. Not one of you, really, not one of you had a moment where you said

this is wrong. This is fundamentally catastrophically wrong. I honestly don't I cannot understand that, Like, was that a surprise to you that it was that it was them? No. The thing that startled me, or continues to I guess that I've hard time wrapping my brain around, is that you would annihilate eight people or an entire family over the custody of your of the youngest member of that mine could joined family. But I can't think it's got to be about more than that. My gosh, I mean,

who does this or custody? You know, who destroys a family, decimates a family and in essence then destroying that child's life to protect that. It just doesn't it doesn't reconcile with me. I remember interviewing Tony Rowden. He's the brother of the victims and uncle and all of that. I remember Tony just saying Chris, and I can't, I mean, please, don't let that be true. I hope that isn't true, because that little girl does not deserve this, you know, for her sake. I just I hope this isn't true.

An he meant it, I mean, came from a very deep and meaningful place. But I guess we're all always looking for logical explanations to a logical acts. What has been your experience being back in Pike County now five years later? The question I've asked people here is do people still think about this case? Do people still talk about this? And the response that I've got is yes,

and I guess. I talked to a couple of people the other day in a public setting, and they talked in the terms of how tragic it is and how it's inconceivable. But yeah, I think it's a ballacy, and not just in this case but in all cases to think that there's like a closure thing. I don't think that exists. I drove past the crime scenes and they, you know, interestingly, a couple buildings that remain there a

little bit more weathered I noticed. But it feels like time sort of a standing still there, you know, waiting for an end to this. So I don't think this brings anybody closure. I think that's some Hollywood nice version of well, now you get to move on with your life. I think that's frankly bs. I think the amount of loss and the ripple effects of that loss will be felt for generations. But truthfully has become the most important

and meaningful story of my career. At the end of the day, I was doing my work, and I try to do that with compassion and empathy and understanding, as well as trying to find facts and being hard when I need to. But it's but then I get to leave, you know, I get to leave, and certainly they stay

with me, and they will always stay with me. But I don't, you know, I don't wake up every morning without a mother, without a son, without my grandchildren, without you know, I don't wake up having to figure out how to tell those children what happened to their mothers and fathers and cousins and uncles and that or I mean, my goodness, you know, the conversations that are going to have to be had with Jake and Hannah's daughter. I mean,

I don't have to do that. And that that's what I want people to think about when they think about this crime. I think sometimes we become fascinated with the inner workings of how would one family do this to the their family. These are people's lives, and I cannot say that enough. And that's what should not be forgotten in all of this is that through all of the horrificness of the crime these there are so many people

left behind in this wake. The family was decimated. So I guess that's what that I hope people take away from this, as opposed to it's a salacious story. On June twenty one, twenty twenty one, accused brother George Wagner will head back to court for a hearing, one that could change the landscape of the case moving forward. But as we wait, we turn our attention to another story that has had a lasting effect on a different community, just miles away from Pike County. It centers around a

notorious lawyer named Michael Moran. He was arrested in twenty twenty eight in charges related to running a prostitution ring. He's pleaded not guilty to all of them and is currently awaiting trial. He's accused of trafficking women all over the country, from New York and New Jersey to Florida. A lot of these women are part of marginalized society right Nobody was listening to their stories before or seeing

them as even human. They were seeing them as criminals, people who would rob them, people who were going to break into their house, but nobody was really hearing from them. I wanted to continue to investigate these stories, but I didn't know at that time how big this was. More on that next time. For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios.

The piked In massacre returned to Pike County is Executive produced by Steph Knee, Lie Decker and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional producing by Jeff Shane, Andrew Becker and Chris Graves. We'd like to thank the maud Hammond Flaying Faculty Research Fellowship Grant, which supports faculty research at the University of Nebraska Lincoln,

where Chris Graves teaches journalism. The Piked and Massacre Returned to Pike County 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. I'm Carol Fisher and I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends. It's Las Vegas, it's the nineteen nineties, and it is time to find a husband. There were four Jewish doctors who were felt to be eligible bachelors. One of them was

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