warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
About 70 miles east of Cincinnati, sits the village of Piketon. Home to around 2000 people. An everyone knows everyone kind of place, with a strong community spirit. But in April 2016, Piketon would become the scene of Ohios largest ever mass murder, and one of the most complex investigations in its history.
We begin this case at 7.49 a.m,Friday April 22nd 2016.
A 911 call came in from Bobby Joe Manley.
Bobby stopped by her brother in law’s trailer each morning to help feed the dogs and chickens,Bobby’s brother in law was Christopher Rhoden senior. he had recently separated from Bobbys sister Dana, but this hadn’t changed any of Bobby’s routine.
She still kept in touch and was happy to help out at the trailer.
But this day ould be far from the norm, as she shut ther car door ,she spotted his dogs outside whereas normally they would be in the trailer.
as she grabbed the door handle, she found it locked,christopher would always open it first thing for her to just walk in.
Perplexed she grabbedher spare key and tentatively stepped inside.
It was totally silent, she looked down and saw a trail of blood, a drag mark.
she followed it and found the bodies of her brother in law Christopher Rhoden senior and his cousin Gary Rhoden in the bedrooms.
As she shakily ended her 911 call ,she hurried over to one of Dana and Christoper’s sons Clarence Christopher Jr who went by Frankie.
Frankie lived in a trailer just a stone throw away from his parents with his fianceé Hanna Gilley and their six- months old son Ruger,Frankie’s child from another relationship Brentley would also stay there a lot too.
Bobby banged on the door and to her surprise 3 year old Brently opened it, he seemed confused and said it looked like his dad had turned into a zombie.
He grabbed his hand to try to wake him up, but his hand had dropped to his side, Bobby ran inside to find the bodies of her nephew Frankie and his fianceé Hannah they were both dead in their bed.
Blood soaking the sheets and floor,next to them was their six months old son Ruger, he was patting his dad’s chest and was also covered in blood.
But mircaulously both Ruger and Brently was physically unharmed.
Bobby was beside herself and one cannot begin imagine was going through at that point . she and Dana had a brother James and he headed over to Dana’s trailer,who was also just a short walk away.
They all lived on the same plot of land, he walked in and found their sister 37 year old Dana dead as well.
He then found hers and Christopher senior’s two children, 19 year old Hanna Rhoden and 16 year old christopher Jr, they had all been in their beds.
And all of them had been shot to death.
Hannah had been in her bed with her 4 day old baby Kylie , Kylie was also alive and physically unharmed.
In a matter of minutes seven people had been found deceased four children left without parents and as police sped over local news quickly descended on the trailers.
Little did authorities know another call would come in a few hours later,several miles away.
Donald Stone hearing the news decided to go and check on his cousin Kenneth Rhoden, Kenneth was Christopher senior’s brother
Kenneth lived on left Fork Road just a few miles away from where some of his family had just been found .
But the 44 year old was also dead ,having been shot in the head,he was surrounded by cash.
Eight bodies in total had now been discovered in four separate places, they had all been shot ,some as many as nine times.
The three young children 4 days old Kylie,6 months old Ruger and 3 year old Brently were all taken out of the area and put into tempory protective custody.
Hanna Rhoden also had another daughter almost three year old Sophia ,she had been out of the house with her dad Jake that day and was aslo unharmed.
The dogs were taken away as well.
Everyone knew the Rhoden family,they were a big part of their community.
Christophe senior had lived in Ohio since birth,he had spent most of his life working in construction and was described as hardworking dependable.
A family man,his now ex-wife Dana and he had always maintain a very good relationship despite their split.
She was a nursing assistant and loved gardening and baking and was a big presence in her local church.
News was spreading further a field than the localstations and it was soon international.
Befor long all eyes were on the small community of Piketon.
Looking at the crime scenes ,it seemed that everyone had been killed in the middle of the night,Christopher senior and Gary appeared to have been shot first at around midnight,it was clearly a methodical hit , almost like an execution.
It had been well planned out and well throught through.
3 year old brently could tell the police nothing, he had been asleep in the front room at the time and didn’t see or hear anything.
no one else had either, no cars appeared to have driven past at the time and there were no neighbors apart from each other.
Altough there were four separate crimes scenes they were all very close three of them being less than a few minutes walk from each other
Police were able to move all the trailers and put them into a warehouse together where they monitored them each hour.
They also seized and search dozens of vehicles on the land.
They did think they gained a lead quite quickly with some discoveries at the properties.
Marijuana grow crops were found at the three of the four scene, with 2,000 cannabis plants in one location and this initially led them to suspect the potential involvement of the Mexican Cartel.
Especially given that Kenneth who was growing plants outside was surrounded by large sum of cash as well.
It seemed that crime scene had been staged as some sort of sign.
Detectives believed there was definitely more than one shooter as well.
Three different types of shell casings have been found along with different size shoe prints and treads.
How the theory of the cartel was soon questioned, the killers had to know the properties , they had to know the layouts and the routines of the family members very well too .
And it also seemed odd that the dogs did not react,people they didn’t know in the middle of the night would have undoubtedly caused a commotion.
Perhaps the killers had silences on their guns as well.
There were so many questions but one thing could now be ruled out.
The Cartel theory.
To leave the children and the dogs unharmed was unusual,one detective said with hits like this, there were rarely any survivors or witnesses.
The killers simply had to be known to the Rhoden family .
Despite the Public’s very natural worries about their own safety,the police knew this was personal.
They did not suspect anyone else in the community was in danger.
Between April 26th and May 3rd all eight victims were buried and hundreds were there.
As the community were rebuilding the authorities were hard at work and to say that it was a tough case was an understatement.
Over 8OO tips came in and they conducted more than 400 interviews,but as the months passed, the department needed more resources.
This was unprecedented for their area and far to big for a small team.
April 2017 came around and it was now a year after the murders, a year with no movements and no answers.
Petitions were circling with people hoping to get the FBI involved.
Althoug the public were concerned things weren’t moving quickly enough investigators were trying to find the balance between sharing information and be very careful about what they said.
They knew the killers whoever they were would be watching everything and they had to stay one step ahead of them.
At this point detectives had executed dozens of search warrants and one day went to search the grounds of 27 acre farm in Peebles Ohio.
A few tips told them this was an imporant area to look at ,the farm had sold a couple of months earlier but it was once owned by Edward Wagner,who went by Jake, Jake was the father of Sophia and the ex-boyfriend of Hannah Rhoden.
The connection between the Wagners and the Rhodens was definitely there and police had been closely watching all of them.
since they found out that Jack and Hanna had been in disputes about the custody of sophia.
Police couldn’t help but wonder either sophia was not in any f the homes of the days of the shootings.
Was this a total coincidence or did it point to a sinister plan?
But investigators had never named anyone in the Wagner family asa person of interest let alone a suspect.
However in small towns like this where everyone knows everyone else’s business it wouldn’t be long before some people started spekulting.
The Wagner family were wealthy and powerful and everyone in Piketon knew them it was the name that had a lot of weight behind it.
Jack’s grandmother Frederica owned more than 17 00 acres in Pike County and records placed the value of everything at more than $ 4 million .
A substantial amount of money for anyone but in that particular area it was unheard of.
The Wagners were described as a very tight group one that stuck together and rarely let people into their circle.
After the murders Jack’s family,his father Billy , mother Angela and older brother George moved 4,000 miles away to Alaska, taking Sophia with them as well.
They said they had to flee after getting death threats and listening to the constant lies being spread about them.
It was now 2018 and as much as it seemed like year had been quite ,little did everyone know things had been moving behind the scenes.
And as 2018 started to draw to a close detectives announced they had finally made six arrestes in connection with the Rhoden family murders.
48 year old Angela Wagner , her husband 47 year old George Wagner III who went by Billy their two sons 27 year old George the fourth and 26 year old Jake were all arrested and charged with murder along with 20 other charges.
65 year old Rita Newcomb ,Angelas mother and 76 year old Frederica Billy’s mom were also both arrested accused of covering up the murders.
Since the police found out about the custody issues with Sophia.
they uncovered enough evidence that showed the plan to kill the Rhodens had been i motion for a while.
Members of one family conspired plan carried out and allegedly covered up their violent act to wipe out members of another family.
They did this quickly ,colddly,calmly and very carefully, but not carefully enough.
Jack met Hanna when she was just 13 ,he started grooming her and by all accounts she was infatueded with the older Jake, who at the time was almost 20 .
She even moved in with the Wagner family too,they got matching tattoos on their ring finges and told everyone they were as good as married.
By 15 she was pregnant with Sophia but shortly into her pregnancy Jack became obsessed with the idea of custody and even though they were still together at this point he wanted sophia all to himself when she was born.
He started controlling what Hanna ate,telling her where she could and couldn’t go hwo she could and couldn’t see,his obsessive behavior was soon to much and they broke up with Hanna moving back in with her mother Dana.
But because of Sophia there was now constant tension and issues between the pair and by extension their families.
Jake even started taping their conversations hoping to catch Hannah saying something that would mean he could take Sophia away,but it never worked.
When Jake found out that Hannah was pregnant with her second child Kylie despite not being his baby ,he demanded that Hanna put his surname on Kylie’s birth certificate.
Kylie’s father was known to the Rhoden already, he was Hanna’ Gilly”s brother Charlie Gilly, Hannah Gilly had been engaged to Frankie.
Jake was furious when she said no and then tried to get mandatory visitation claiming that because Kylie was Sophia’s sister, he was as good as Kylie’s dad too.
Even after DNA had proven she was not his baby ,he still told everyone Hannah to be lying and started accusing her boyfriend of sexually aussaulting Sophia.
It was such an unsettling reaction to have about a child that was nothing to do with him,but Hannah had no problem fighting him,she was back living with her mother Dana and just wanted a fresh start.
Jack perstisted with the custody ,argument and just a couple of weeks before the murderes he presented Hannah with some papers,custody documents, in fact signed by various people,these turned out to have forged by his mother , Angela.
Hannah saw right through it ,signed nothing .
Detectives had seized and searched laptops and social media accounts and they found that Hannah even put a post on Facebook via her mother’s account, letting everyone know what was going on and vowing to never let him having Sophia full time” i wont sign papers , ever . it won’t happen.they will have to kill me first”
It really is unknown why it had got to this point in their heads but Billy,Angela, George and Jake developed an elaborate plan to kill the family.
They not only studied their habits routines work patterns and even when the dogs were walked but also studied some of the cameras on the properties as well which had before the murders been tampered with.
More searches of different homes and vehicles found shell casings which match those found on the murder scenes,and shoes that match the same size and tread from the scenes too.
They managed to trace the shoes back to Angela buying them at Walmart just a day before the killings.
During another search police found parts to make silencers for guns
as well as 20 bags of concrete mix,the Wagn
ers had used this to bury some of the weapons and then hide them in a Goose house on the lake.
What was believe to be a $ 630 cell phone jammer to prevent the family from calling for help was discovered too.
Their bank accounts were also analyzed which showed their money was coming from far more than farming,police said they had operated the same a high level criminal organizations and a lot of money that had come from burning down their own properties and cars.and claiming insurance for them.
A disturbing dark picture was being painted about a terrifying family ,the Wagners were by all accounts a family you did not cross and a scary match to meet if you did.
Their loyalty to each other was strong they would decided and plan everything together ,even if it was something really small or insignificant.
everything was done by committee.
Angela was the matriarch and she wwould do anything for her boys jake and George and everything to protect them.
While in Alaska Jake had met and married a women named Beth Anne, she said she feared for her life when she fled her brief and tumultuous marriage to him.
When they had met ,she made it clear she wanted to wait until they were intimated in any way,he along with his family rushed the marriage and in her words made sure they had sex the night of the weding.
Beth Anne described an unhealthily close relationship between Angela and her sons,especially Jake,recalling that the first time she met Jake,she thought he and Angela were a couple.
Beth Anne and George’s now ex -wife Tabitha said that the Wagners had a p-like mentality but Angela definitely ran the show,they were all very isolated and insular and were keen to keep it that way.
If someone new came into the fold they isolated them too,separating them from their family and friends,Tabitha said she saw the exact same pattern of behavior when the then 13 year old Hannah started psending time with jake and she was immediately concern for Hannah and Sophia’s well being .
Tabitha had met and married George out of High school she too was isolated from her family and prevented from leaving the Wagner home.
Angela even dictated what George and Tabitha could or couldn’t do sexually believing certain things would send you to hell.
Angela was involved quite literally in every part of her son’s lives ,after Tabitha and George had their son,she tried to convince George to move out but he refused and she knew she had to end things,she left in November 2014 after George started beating her with a belt and Angela attackedher with a piece of wood threatening to shoot her.
As soon as she could Tabitha got on her bike and went to a gas station where she called her mother for help,Angela started to throw out baseless accusation against both Beth Anne and Tabitha, she even accused Beth Anne of inappropriately touching Sophia and trying to poison the children.
George kept the child and banned Tabitha from having contact with their son for a year , they finally agreed on 50/50 custody but George would rarely comply and didn’t even tell her when his family was moving to Alaska ,taking their son with them along with Sophia.
Jake believed everything his mother said and believing this too,he told Beth Anne he would string her up in the barn,beat her with a bat and then burn the barn down ,he told her , if he didn’t do it his mom and dad would have no problem finishinghis task.
Beth Annes said the day she left ,she changed her clothes inside a walmart slipped out through a section in the back with absolutely nothing to her name and met a friend who drove her out of the state.
Along with all of this and the motive of the obsession of custody with not just Sophia but Tabitha’s son as well , they now had the murder weapons, the shoes, and the receipts.
Pulling everything together,the timeline of events was as follows Sophia was never supposed to be with Jake and his family that day it had been a totally random offering from Jake, Hanna with a now 4 day old baby was exhausted and thought she would let Sophia’s dad have her.
The Wagner’s had silencers already made ,the new shoes already purchased and the routines of everyone down .
sometime after 10:p.m . Billy ,George, and Jake left their home, Angela stayed at home with her grandchildren.
The three of them went to Christopher senior’s trailer first where they shot him and his cousin Gary.then quickly moved on to the second trailer next door, where frankie and Hannah Gilley were murdered before fleeing and heding just down to Dana’s trailer where Dana , Jake’s ex Hannah and Christopher Rhoden Jr were all shot in bed.
finally they went to Kenneth’s home about 10 minutes away.
They all went home put the weapons into the concrete mixture and move that out into a Goos hut in the middle of one of their lakes.
It was hard to say for sure but some believe that Angela was behind the plan and had been involved in every part of her son’s relationships and dictated everything.
That being said Angela,Billy ,George and Jake were all indicted by grand jury,on accounts of aggravated murder and forging childcustody documents amongs other charges total 23 each.
They were all held without bond and all four pleaded not guilty, the prosecution said that they would be seeking the death penalty against all of them.
The town was very split, some were not suprised but others could not believe their names would be connected saying it had to be a missunderstanding.
Jake, Billy and George had even attended the funerals, stood there and grieved with everyone else.
The state later dropped the murder charges against Billy’s mother Frederica and the judge ordered the charges be dismissed without prejudice and a gag order be placed on the attorneys.
Rita Newcomb ,however who was Angela’s mother pleaded guilty to a recuded charge of obstructing official business and in exchange, the felony charges of forgery perjury and obstructing justice were dismissed.
On the 5 years anniversaty of the killings Jake Wagner also changed his mind and finally pleaded guilty to 23 charges.
these included aggravated murder conspiracy aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence and lawful sexual conduct with a minor.
which was Hannah when she was 13.
During his court appearances Jake often smirked and laught, he said he was sorry but he added he felt like he had no choice to kill Hannah.
saying she was neglectful and making more wild allegations about Hannah’s boyfriend at the time molesting Sophia.
Just the same as with his ex-wife Beth Anne it was just another crazy baseless accusation.
He even admitted responsibility for five of the eight shootings,he said he had killed Dana, Hannah Rhoden,Chris Jr , frankie and Hannah Gilley.
He said his dad Billy was the one to shoot Christopher Senior, kenneth, and Gary.
George had fired one bullet which missed but then he had frozen and hadn’t killed any of them.
Jake agreed to testify against his father ,mother and brother if the death penalty was taken off the table for all of them.
The prosecution agreed to the terms.
Knowing this , Angela followed suit pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated murder . she was handed a minimum of 30 years without any chance of early release.
Jake was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In 2022 George Wagner’s trial started, given the fact he had fired no bullets something confirmed by Jake, he was still pleading not guilty.
George was in fact now denying he was even there at any of the crime scenes, claiming he was asleep by 10: p.m.
But the trial would undoubtedly have a lot more gray areas to it than that.
It was not as black and whit as George wanted people to think, he was there when it was being planned , he was there when it was happening and he did not do anything to stop it.
He also then spent years denying and lying about it,the jury heard from numerous people including Angela, Jake , who testified without cameras and Tabitha and Beth Anne.
A lot of witnesses had their testimonies redacted when it came to recording in the courtroom,because they said the Wagners were such a scary family, they didnt want to have their words out there publicly.
George testified in his own defense.
The jury took only 8 hours to return their verdicts, they found him guilty on all counts ,this included eight counts of aggravated murder, this have been one of the longest and most expensive criminal trials in Ohio history.
George was sentenced to eight consecutive terms plus 121 years with no chance of parole,some people did express empathy toward George acknowledging that he didn’t kill anyone , and that Jake and Angela had completely thrown him under the bus , in order to get a lesser sentence for themselves.
especially when you look at at the unbelievable loyalty within family,it was a surprising turn of events.
People said that George could be very easily led by his family andcould have found himself wrapped up in something before he realized how bad it actually was,but others didn’t feel quite so bad, believing he deserves his sentences.
he still conspired,he till covered up and he still watched as eight people died…
George later said he was seeking a new trial but as of 2024 there has been no movement on this.
Billy Wagner is still pleading not guilty.
And his trial was supposed to start on May 6 ,2024,however a new date was set for January 2025 at the earliest.
The defense now had an extra 16,000 pages of evidence to get through.
During George’s trial Brentley ,Frankie’s son who was now 11 and living with his mother Chelsea said ” i’ve been scared since that night,knwoing bad guys came into my house while i was sleeping, i’m always scared now that i will lose my mommy”
George son lives with his mother Tabitha and it is unknown wher Ruger and Sophia are living but sources say they are well and taken care of.
And with that we bring todays’s crimestory to somewhtat of a conclusion with three out of the four serving sentences.
And even all these years on ,it is clear that the impactt of this case is still widely felt so many lives lost and so many more affected and for what…