This has been one of Ohio’s biggest cases, which happened when now-Gov. Mike DeWine was Attorney General.
Those who were killed include 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr., 37-year-old Dana Rhoden, 20-year-old Hannah “Hazel” Gilley, 16-year-old Christopher Rhoden Jr., 20-year-old Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 37-year-old Gary Rhoden, 19-year-old Hanna May Rhoden and 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden.
The details: While George Wagner’s brother Jake and his mother Angela took plea deals and are expected to testify in this trial, Billy Wagner also will be on trial for the slayings. So far in this trial, None of the Wagner family members have been on the stand. Jurors have heard from other relatives and friends of the Wagners and Rhodens, and investigators have presented lots of pieces of evidence, including shoe prints, paperwork and bullet casings found on multiple properties involved in this case.
Credit: Brooke Laay, Valley/The Columbus Dispatch via AP, File
Credit: Brooke Laay, Valley/The Columbus Dispatch via AP, File
Week 6 (this week): The jury has been listening to wiretap recordings presented by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Bugs were put in the Wagner family’s vehicle they used to travel between Ohio and Alaska, where they had moved in the years since the Rhodens’ deaths. On Monday, the judge held a hearing in which prosecutors and the defense argued whether a witness, who lives in Alaska, may testify remotely. He has not yet ruled on this and will at a later date. Both parties must work to determine the technology that will be used to ensure the witness may be heard reliably.
In one recording, George Wagner IV is heard speaking to his son, Bulvine, a toddler, telling him:
“You know what they want? The people at the border who talked to you and Sudsy, they want to kill your Uncle Jake, they want to kill your (inaudible), they want to kill your papaw and me for no reason,” George can be heard telling Bulvine. “Because they are bad people. They are bad people. They want us all to die, and they will take you away and give you to bad people. They want to take Sudsy away and give her to bad people. They are bad people. Don’t listen to what they tell you. They’re liars. That’s what they are. They are liars.”
Week 5 (Oct. 10-14): Bureau of Criminal Investigation Agent Ryan Scheiderer testified in Week 5 that the Wagner family became suspects in the Rhoden killings when agents discovered a firearm that killed five of them had been shot at their Peterson Road residence. That connection helped agents zero in on the Wagners. Scheiderer told the courtroom that shoeprints at the homicide scenes matched shoes Angela Wagner had purchased at a local Walmart, again pointing agents to someone at their home on Peterson Road.
Also in Week 5, more was presented about the Wagners living in Alaska at the time they became suspects. Agents worked with law enforcement in Montana, a state the Wagners traveled through to get back to Ohio, to bring them in for questioning. When six Wagners showed up in one vehicle at the Montana border, they were taken to a border patrol post and into separate rooms for interviews. Children who were with the Wagners were baby-sat by investigators, who allowed them to play.
BCI Analyst Julia Eveslage showed text messages between the defendant’s parents in which they discussed George’s fighting with his brother, Jake. There were also text messages between Jake and Angela that had Angela expressing anger that Hanna May Rhoden had the ears of her daughter with Jake pierced. Texts between Billy and Angela showed Billy wanted Angela to stay with him more than the grandchildren and sons. She asked Billy not to make her choose between her husband and her grandkids. Eveslage on the stand in which the words “pink bunnies” and “sprinkls” were code words in text messages the Wagners used when referencing parts to make gun silencers, she said. Texts were shown that have Angela using those words when messaging her son Jake.
BCI agent Perry Roeser showed the jurors guns found at the Flying W farm, a property owned by George Wagner IV’s grandmother, Fredericka. Defense attorney John Parker repeatedly objected, saying the weapons being shown were not used in the killings. He was overruled by the judge every time.
Week 4 (Oct. 3-7): Prosecutors played agents’ first interview with Billy Wagner, made six months after the murders. BCI agents became aware of Billy after a few tips from members of the community mentioned him; BCI agent John Jenkins said they also decided this since Billy was the grandfather of Sophia, Hanna May’s child with Jake Wagner. Jenkins said it took agents more time than normal to sift through all the people who had relationships with the Rhoden family, because of the high number of victims. Once they became aware of the Wagners, efforts to reach Billy were unsuccessful for quite some time.
Tracking down Billy became “quite a consuming task,” Jenkins said. Finally, he was told Billy had agreed to meet agents in the parking lot of the Waverly Kroger, because Billy was picking up groceries. Jenkins and another agent met Billy there, where they conducted the interview in an unmarked BCI vehicle. Prosecution then played an audio clip that ran roughly one hour, 45 minutes long. In it, Billy rambled about several topics ranging from who could have possibly killed the Rhodens, to drug operations throughout the state, to describing his relationship with Chris Sr. — whom he several times called his “best friend.”
“It took you long enough to come talk to me,” he said.
Also in the fourth week of the trial, jurors heard testimony from multiple people connected to the Wagners and Rhodens, including George Wagner IV’s ex-wife, Tabitha Claytor, with whom he shares a son. Claytor testified met George when she was around 12 years old because her mother worked at a group home owned by George’s grandmother, Fredericka Wagner. Claytor and Wagner IV began dating when she was a senior in high school. Eventually they married and lived with Wagner’s parents.
Angela was the rule maker in the home, she said, and Angela decided who came and went in the house and when. She also dictated how chores, like cooking, cleaning and laundry, had to be done.
Jake’s girlfriend and eventual mother of his child, Hanna May, also moved in to the home and they did not get along.
“We both were basically competing for Angela’s approval,” she said.
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Weeks 2-3 (Sept. 19-23 and Sept. 26-30): At one point during Weeks 2 and 3 of the trial, George’s defense attorneys filed a motion requesting Judge Randy Deering declare a mistrial. Attorney John Parker argued that the prosecutors’ continued display of graphic photos depicting the victims and their wounds could prejudice the jury, because the prosecution’s case against George is predominantly about complicity; prosecutors have said George’s brother, Jake — who took a plea deal in 2021 — will testify that George was present for the murders, but never pulled a trigger. Deering overruled the request and trial continued.
During this time in the trial, eight different crime scenes were a large focus of testimony from BCI agents. Bryan White, former agent with the Bureau, testified about the third scene where Dana, Chris Jr. and Hanna May were found dead. He said Hanna May had been found with her days-old baby still alive, lying next to her in the bed. During opening statements, prosecutors said Hanna May had been nursing the baby when she was killed. First responders testified during the first week that the baby was removed from the bed by an EMT the morning the bodies were discovered.
White said they took time to document the positioning of Hanna May, who was lying with one breast exposed and one covered up. Among some pillows on the floor, White said they found one with apparent blood stains on its casing.
Earlier prosecutors questioned witnesses about the first two crime scenes; first, the home in which Chris Sr. and Gary were found dead, then the second home where Hannah Hazel and Frankie were discovered.
Week 1: Opening statements from the prosecution and the defense were made. The trial started a week late because of an illness of someone connected to it. Two weeks prior, the jury had been driven to the various murder scenes. Special prosecutor Angela Canepa started with an apology to the jury for the long process. She also laid out groundwork for Wagner’s involvement in the massacre. Canepa said there are wiretap recordings catching him speaking to Jake about them being in trouble, and that Jake should have smashed his laptop and thrown away his phone.
She also said George and Jake both dyed their hair darker the week prior to the homicides, and that they were inspired by a scene from the movie “Boondock Saints 2.” Jake, she said, wore his hair like the actor Norman Reedus, who appears in the Boondock Saints movies as well as the TV show “The Walking Dead.” Jake fancied himself like Reedus, Canepa told the jury.
Credit: Robert McGraw
Credit: Robert McGraw
Investigators said family financial records show purchases of masks, ammunition and a phone jammer. The records really show the Wagner family operated as one unit, the prosecution said.
Prosecutors also allege Jake was violent with Hanna Rhoden on multiple occasions before she and her family were found murdered.
Canepa also claimed Billy lured Christopher Rhoden Sr. to his death by setting up a fake “lucrative” drug deal at the Union Hill Road property in which he was ultimately found shot to death.
Defense Attorney Richard Nash told the courtroom Wagner is much different than the rest of his family and wasn’t involved in the murders, and he had no motive. Nash pointed out to the jury that while other Wagner family members were talked to by investigators on several occasions, George was only talked to once — when they needed them out of a vehicle so it could be bugged.
He called George a family “outsider.”
WCPO reporters Felicia Jordan, Evan Millward and Courtney Francisco contributed to this report.
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