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Apparently, George or Jake were having nightmares and George had become a different person. And she brought that up to Billy. And Billy apparently told her, I don't know why George is having any trouble. He didn't shoot anybody. She asked Billy, why so many? He told her, because they were there. Billy apparently is a doomsday prepper. Now add the fact that you've now murdered eight people and you're on the lam and Billy was crazy paranoid.
I have never, in all the years I've been doing this, ever seen a case where mother testified against son. Well, George has got hell to pay now because he's the one that's on trial. This is The Pikedon Massacre, Return to Pike County, Season 4, Episode 20, Angela Wagner Takes the Stand, Part 2. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Lidecker and Jeff Shane.
It's important to note that George Wagner IV has pleaded not guilty and has maintained his innocence. His father, Billy Wagner, whose trial is upcoming, has also pleaded not guilty to all charges. In the previous episode, we left off with Angela Wagner testifying about the morning after Billy, Jake, and George murdered eight members of the Roden, Manley, and Gilly families. ♪
Angela opted out of her testimony being recorded. Here's James Pilcher, longtime investigative journalist from Cincinnati, now with Local 12. ♪
She gets up the next morning and Billy's there and Jake's outside and they turn on the news and it's already on the news and they've identified possibly seven victims. They haven't found Kenneth yet. And according to her testimony, she looks at him and says, "Why so many?" And he turns to her and he says, "Because they were there." He had already told her that the plan was whoever's there is going to go. It's collateral damage.
They had their primary targets in mind, but anybody else was going to have to go too. We heard in Jake Wagner's testimony about how their kill list expanded beyond Hannah Mae prior to the murders. Here's Anjanette Levy, investigative journalist and host for the Law and Crime Network.
Billy said, well, you know, if you kill her, you're going to have to kill Chris and Frankie because they will know you did it and they will come after you. So it was just this insane, like, oh, if we're going to kill her, we got to kill everybody else too. And just the way that they came up with this, just...
Just thinking, oh, I have no other choice but to drive up to Union Hill Road on an April night and slaughter people. Some of the people were killed. You know, they were only killed because they were there. I mean, Hannah Hazel Gilley was killed only because she was there. Chris Jr. likely killed only because he was there. Gary Roden likely killed just because he was there. Kenneth Roden.
according to them, killed because he was a strong guy, protective of his family, and he would know who did it, and he would come and exact revenge. I mean, so horrifying.
According to Angela's testimony, Billy directed the family to not speak about the murders. She also confessed to her family agreeing on an alibi to tell police that they were all at home during the killings. The whole thing afterwards was Billy telling her and telling the whole family, you cannot talk about anything in front of anybody to make sure nobody finds out that it's us. They would write stuff down on paper and walk out to the field and the barn and burn it.
The day after the murders, Billy gave away the truck the Wagners used to get to the Roden's households to his niece. According to Angela, Jake was the first member of the family to speak with law enforcement. She was nervous. The prosecutor asks Angela if she thought they would get away with it. She also said she didn't think they'd necessarily get away with this, which I found interesting. In May of 2017, the Wagners moved to Alaska.
Here's Stephanie, who was in the courtroom during Angela Wagner's testimony. They decide they have to move. So they go to Alaska, and Billie really didn't want to move because Frederica was dead against it. She did not want Billie moving with the family. In fact, she had a private conversation with Angela saying that she would pay Angela $1,000 a month if Billie didn't move.
According to Angela, Billy's father passed away while they were in Alaska. Billy started to, quote, lose it and began drinking a lot, becoming unstable.
Everybody's having a really weird transition at that point. Billy apparently is off the chains, paranoid, and has always felt like the TVs are listening and kind of rides that line. Like so much so when Y2K was happening in the year 2000, he had a bread truck and they filled it with water and supplies and then they buried it so that when Y2K happened, that they were prepared for that.
So now add the fact that you're on the lam and you're trying to get away with it. Billy was crazy paranoid, but generally speaking would only speak to everybody outside in like a driveway because he was afraid to be around the televisions.
She said, quote, I told him I don't think we should have involved them in the homicides, the planning or any of it. We should have not have done that. And what she meant by that was apparently Georgia or Jake were having nightmares and not sleeping well. And Georgia become a different person. And she brought that up to Billy. And Billy apparently told her, I don't know why George is having any trouble. He didn't shoot anybody.
Meanwhile, in Ohio, law enforcement is gathering evidence that ties the Wagners to the murders.
In May of 2017, the Wagners are intercepted at the Canadian border by BCI agents. The agents asked Angela if she knew of any custody agreements between Jake and Hannah over custody of their shared daughter. At first, Angela denied she knew anything. Here's a reminder of the portion of the recordings taken of Angela Wagner when she's interviewed by the BCI at the Canadian border. So this right here is a slip of the eye. Those are...
Okay. Yeah, I don't remember those. You don't remember that? The document appears to be a custody agreement saying that in the event of Hannah Roden's death, that custody of her daughter would go to Jake. It has Hannah's signature on the form. Detectives tell Angela Wagner they found it at her home.
The document appeared to be notarized by Angela's mother. During the same interview at the Canadian border, law enforcement also collected a writing sample from Angela. Suddenly she's realizing that they're looking into things very quickly.
In her testimony, Angela details what happened next. She basically flubbed that part of it. And she was like kicking herself that this was like the thing that she messed up. She's the one that did the misstep here. Now they're like, they could tell that she was lying and that the custody papers were going to turn around and be a problem too. So they get released.
They go back and Rita Newcomb, person whose signature she just forged, and Billy had a secret meeting in this laundry room with the dryer on because they didn't want anybody to be able to hear them. She basically has to confess to her mom that she forged her name and that
the police are kind of looking into it. And, you know, she felt very badly about it and that Rita volunteered to take the fall for her just to say, no worries. I'll just say it was my handwriting.
So Rita apparently very willingly stepped into it to take the fall. And then it wasn't until much later that Angela found out that Rita, in fact, had confessed and pled guilty far prior and was actually working with authorities to get a wiretap or some sort of recorded confession from one of the boys. So she's actually working for the BCI.
On the stand, Angela testifies that she forged the custody documents. Wagner admitted to forging the custody documents using her mother Rita's notary public stamp so that her family would get Sophia should Jake or Hannah be killed. Angela Wagner also testifies that during the interview at the Canadian border, she knew law enforcement was on to them. Here's Stephanie.
She's doing this interview. They've all been separated. And now she realizes, oh my goodness, they have stuff on me. And she's not really prepared. For some reason, she's ill-prepared to answer the custody stuff. She gives the writing sample. And then also there was some receipts or something regarding the shoes that we know she bought on surveillance. And
She didn't have a really good answer for, did you buy these shoes? Her answer was, no, I didn't get those shoes. And then they're like, oh, really? Surprise, here you are on surveillance. And apparently she changes her demeanor. And it's evident in that interview also how she can flip a switch a little bit. We have a receipt for those shoes purchased by you.
Okay, well I did purchase them. So you remember buying them? I purchased them. I'm telling you, they didn't like them. They wouldn't wear them. You know, they wanted a pair of shoes. They always wear boots. What could you do? I bought them and they didn't like them. I don't know about that.
On the stand, Angela admits to buying the shoes that left footprints at one of the crime scenes. She told jurors that she bought shoes at a Walmart for her sons to wear the night of the murders while George and Jake waited outside the store. But a key moment was when she said that she talked about the shoe prints with George.
And she said, they're telling us there's two shoe prints there. And she says George told her. One of them was mine. I tried to smudge it out. And dad said, no, don't worry about it. We got to go. Come on. And that's at Chris Roden Sr.'s house. She obviously was caught red-handed buying the shoes. She doesn't remember seeing the boys put the shoes on, but she remembers hanging them on the bag. And after the night of the murders, they were gone.
In June of 2017, while the Wagners were living in Alaska, law enforcement issued a press release that included photos of the four Wagners and asked anyone with information about the rodent masker to contact the police. At this point in the investigation, Angela is getting progressively more paranoid.
Now on the stand today, Angela Wagner admitted she's been a liar and a thief, and she talked about the paranoia she felt as investigators started closing in and asking her family questions. In the spring of 2018, Special Agent Ryan Scheiderer sent a text to George Wagner with a photo that allegedly showed Jake Wagner holding the .22 Colt 9/11 used in the homicides.
They found that and the picture of the gun in Jake's hand on the backup of his phone that they got on the laptop on the Montana border. The prosecution asked Angela about the photo. Angela testifies that she didn't recognize the hand at first, but then saw the thumb and thought that it looked like Jake's. George Wagner, according to his mom, wanted to confess long before his younger brother and his mother Angela did so.
And then also, big piece of information, apparently George offered to take the fall for Angela and for everyone. That George gave the offer that he'll take the blame for everybody. And she just said, I couldn't do that to him. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in a moment.
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I'm Martine Powers. And I'm Elahe Azadi. Martine and I are the hosts of Post Reports. The show comes out every weekday from The Washington Post. You can follow and listen to Post Reports wherever you get your podcasts. It'll be a match, I promise. ♪
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While the Wagners are living in Alaska, Jake meets his new wife, Elizabeth. When she took the stand, Elizabeth Armour discussed the alleged abuse allegations that ultimately turned out to be baseless. From Angela Wagner's testimony, it did not appear that she liked Elizabeth.
She didn't feel comfortable ever really having Elizabeth alone with the granddaughter. Angela did not like her, said she was, quote, weird. And she didn't feel comfortable with her changing in front of ****. In fact, she made that kind of a mandate and that basically if **** wasn't with Angela attached to her leg, then she was with Jake.
There's one point in the testimony where Angela Wagner says that her granddaughter told her other grandmother, Rita Newcomb, that Elizabeth had touched her. Angela asked the toddler about it and she allegedly responded, "No, no, no," and took it back. Angela then told Jake, who tried to speak with his daughter about it, and later confronted Elizabeth about the same. Angela was present during the confrontation. Jake said that if what his daughter was saying was true, he'd beat Elizabeth.
Here's Stephanie. Here she is entering this world. If Angela was home and Jake was at work, Elizabeth would stay home in her room with the door locked, but never alone with. And then once in a blue moon, she would go for a walk and Angela didn't really know where she would go. But we've heard this. Elizabeth was writing in her journal that
and would journal things. And then she would go out to the driveway out front and burn it up. And it was kind of her way of therapy, as Angela explains. So she would write it down in the form of a letter to her grandfather, and then she would go out front and burn it. And
Angela, after a while, was like, you cannot be burning things in the front driveway. So she was very troubled by that. So one day, Elizabeth is going out and Angela goes into her room and starts snooping through the stuff and finds the letter that she had written about her in regards to Angela that she hadn't gotten to burn yet. And she's saying this so softly, like, ugh, it's like a scary movie. It legitimately is.
She's just saying something sweet and innocent. Like she was just concerned because, I mean, she can't have BCI thinking that they're destroying evidence in the front driveway. So she finds like a one subject loose leaf binder and it says, you know, dear granddaddy, but it seems like a diary entry from a 16 year old, you know, and basically said that there's a lot of fighting in the house and a lot of yelling in the house. And it was disparaging about Angela in general and,
nothing super damning, but just that it was stressful in there. And when she saw that, she took a photograph of it and she took that photo and sent it to George. So here they are so paranoid about BCI and they know that there are cameras everywhere and they assume that their TVs are bugged and that their cars are bugged and that the phones are bugged. Yet Angela took a photograph of this journal entry and send it via text.
to George and now we're seeing a picture of it in the big screen at the trial. So she texts this picture to George and
And George is very upset about it. And then she tells Jake about it. And then Jake is very upset about it. But she also thought that Elizabeth was a plant. They thought maybe she was a spy working for the BCI. She even says to Angie Canepa, I don't know, she could have been a plant working for you, signaling to Angie Canepa. Angela testified that she drew up a contract before Jake and Elizabeth got married.
In those rules, it was stipulated that if they were to break up, Elizabeth would have no connection to . The weekend after the wedding, the Wagners and Elizabeth moved back to Ohio. A few months later, Jake and Elizabeth divorce. On the stand, Angela speaks about what brought them back to Ohio. She started getting visibly choked up when she spoke about Pug, her father, and how he passed away.
She wasn't there when he died, and had she known how sick he was, he was in such a state that she would have come back from Alaska sooner to be with him. And that is, in fact, why they came back from Alaska. So they ultimately ended up living at Pugg's house because he's since his past. In Ohio, Angela Wagner's paranoia grows. Here's medical examiner Joseph Scott Morgan.
I think that when individuals attempt to control others, particularly in a criminal enterprise where there's a lot of planning that goes into it, there's a certain level of paranoid behavior that kicks in. I know that there was one instance where they were interacting with someone that had shown up in the house and she thought there was going to be a sniper up in the woods. So as soon as she opened the door, they were going to put her around between her eyes.
What kind of person thinks like that? So when they're planning the killings, this massacre, when they're planning this, I think that that hyper self-awareness and awareness of your surroundings, everything goes into these kind of paranoid beliefs, perhaps.
On November 18th, 2018, Billy, Angela, George and Jake were arrested and charged with murdering the Rodin, Manley and Gilley families. The four of them pleaded not guilty. Angela testifies that the first time she heard about Jake taking a plea deal was on the news. Here's Stephanie. She only heard that Jake cut a deal while in prison, seeing it on breaking news. She saw it and it was her.
her heart just got ripped open that day. And I wish they had asked why, because was your heart ripped open because now you've been caught and your boys just turned on you? Or is your heart ripped open because now you're realizing that these murders really happened?
Five months after hearing about Jake's plea deal, Angela changes her plea to guilty. This is in September of 2021. On cross-examination, the defense challenges Angela on the terms of her plea deal. Now,
Now, according to prosecutors, this plea deal Angela was given is a 30-year sentence to be served in full, so long as she admits to her role in the killing of the Rodin family in 2016. However, the defense argued that it was only after Jake pled guilty that she decided to as well, claiming that Angela only did so to prevent her sons from testifying against her.
Now, Angela argued back against the defense, saying that was only partly true, and claimed there were multiple reasons for her coming forward. This is a big jaw-dropper. She only took the plea deal because she did the math and hoped that she could get out at 80. At the bare minimum, she could then hug her grandbabies and hug her sons and husband one last time before she died. Here again, investigative reporter James Pilcher.
To be honest, I think she was telling the truth when she testified. She wanted a chance to see her kids again and see her grandkids again. That's her whole life. You know, however twisted this family might have been, that family was all she had. And so she wants a chance to be reunited with them. And in her own worldview, this deal possibly makes that possible.
The defense argues that Angela got the plea deal of the century. The evidence will be that Jake and Angela have conned the state of Ohio here as well. They've conned the state of Ohio into the most heinous crime, into a 30-year sentence. In the sentence most deserving of death, he escapes with life. In order to avoid the death penalty, they must implicate George. Here's Jeff speaking with attorney and legal analyst Mike Allen.
Is this a sweetheart deal? And did she earn her deal? Oh, I think she definitely earned her deal. I think her testimony was credible. And you look at it from the state's point of view, I mean, I don't think they gave up much. She's, I believe, will be 80 years old when she's eligible for parole. She may not make it out other than on a stretcher. It was a smart deal for the state.
Because they got a lot of testimony from her that does coincide and jibe with some of the other testimony, some of the physical evidence in the case too. Remember, Angela testified that George wanted to take the fall for the family months before Jake pleaded guilty. Here's Stephanie.
George tries to take the fall for all of them. She says no, she could never do that. And really the only main reason also that she took the plea agreement for the 30 years is because she couldn't possibly bear Jake going through the trauma of having to testify against her. She just wouldn't put him through that, which...
Sounds great until you realize you're actually staring at your other son right now. On the one hand, she's being so kind, yeah, to Jake and she wouldn't put him through it. But she's saying that at the trial of her other son who she's putting through it. The defense brings up a letter that Angela wrote to her mother-in-law, Frederica, after she accepted the plea deal.
She wrote a letter to Frederica from prison, a handwritten letter, and she had to read it out loud. And she wanted her to know that basically everything they're all saying in court is not true. And they're just saying that because they want to get the plea agreement. And the reason why that's a big deal is because, again, she just said,
pled to this. So just by that letter alone, she's saying she's a liar. She's a liar either way. You lied to your mother-in-law from prison saying not to believe anything you said in court. So why are we believing anything you're saying in court? Why did she write that letter and what does she really mean by it in
in terms of she wasn't really guilty of the things they say she was guilty of, trying to make her sound like she didn't really believe in her own plea deal. And what she says she meant by it was, yeah, I pleaded to burglary and I pleaded to the gun specs, but I wasn't really there and I didn't hold a gun. That's what she said she meant when she wrote to Frederica and said,
Here's another key quote. We're nothing like what the media portrays us as. Nash hits her on this, too. Nash on the cross says not anywhere in that letter do you express remorse for taking the lives of eight innocent people. And you're not getting a fair trial for that. And she says, to be honest, that's because voters will be looking for someone to blame. I wanted to make sure that they got the truth by voters. She meant jurors, of course, because voters are jurors.
The defense says that Angela Wagner is lying to satisfy her end of the bargain with no regard for her son George. Angela Wagner testified on the stand for three days. Where does George Wagner, the man on trial, stand after all of this testimony? Some of the biggest takeaways from Angela Wagner's testimony was she says George knew about the plan to murder the rodents and he helped with the cover-up.
Well, George has got hell to pay now because he's the one that's on trial. He's a creature of free will and he made these decisions of his own free will. But, you know, trust me, Angela was there in the background. Jake was a tool in her hands, just like Billy was. And, you know, we're seeing George on trial and George made a choice, I think, by the influences that Angela exerted over him. It compelled him. She was still his mama. And at the end of the day, that's more powerful than a lot of other things.
Then the prosecution finished their questioning by asking Angela whether she regretted her actions. She then became visibly emotional in court, saying, yes, quote, because they're my sons. I should have protected them from that situation. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in a moment.
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At the end of Angela's testimony, the defense asked her about her relationship with her sons. When Nash asked her if she favored Jake over his brother, Wagner told the court, "I did not have a favorite son. I love George just as I do Jake." When asked about being on the witness stand against her son, Wagner with tears in her eyes said, "This is not easy for me. It rips my heart out."
The defense continues their cross of Angela. Here again, James Pilcher. And then she's asked, "This is a tragedy you created?" "Yes, it is." "Mrs. Wagner, do you love your sons?" "Yes." "Do you believe they love you?" "I hope so." She's in tears at this point. How difficult has it been to testify? Extremely. She's not even looking at him at this point. "Do you still regret having involved your sons?" "Yes."
Obviously, those were emotional questions that she was asked. She answered them, I think, honestly. She was asked, do you think George loves you? And she said she hopes so, which was a reasonable and probably an honest answer. Under the circumstances for a mother to be testifying against her son, I don't think she would know whether he still loved her or not, because that's a hell of a thing. Again, Law and Crime's Antoinette Levy.
Well, is she sorry for herself or is she sorry for her son? She had told Billy she was sorry they involved Jake and George. Like, they shouldn't have done that. I guess she thought maybe they should have just done it themselves. I don't know. She obviously has feelings for them and loves them. But is that real love when you bring your kids into a murder plot? Angela barely made eye contact with her son George throughout her three days of testimony.
I have never in all the years I've been doing this ever seen a case. I don't care if it's a shoplifting case or an aggravated murder case where mother testified against son. I'm sure it's happened somewhere in the world before, but I've never seen it.
There was that one story that really got my attention. I think it goes back to the time when George was maybe 16 and he had had it up to his eyeballs with the family and he had his car. He's headed south. I think he made it into Kentucky. He realized he was going to run out of gas and he turned around and headed back.
I often think of that 16-year-old kid, George. I think if he had to do it over again, he would have worked and worked until he could have paid for several tanks of gasoline just to put as much distance between him and him. I certainly think he would now, considering the position that he's in. He's on trial right now for his life.
Here's Jeff and Mike Allen. And what about if he's found guilty? Can they write to each other or call each other from prison to prison? I don't think they can. He's still got, obviously, Billy's case hanging. I think they'll kind of keep that separation in place until all of the cases are over with. But it would be interesting to see how they communicate and what they have to say to each other because for now, if there's any communication at all, it's got to be through the lawyers. It's just so interesting. I'm thinking like,
This could be the last time they see each other, not that they really communicated, but that they have any sort of interaction for the rest of their lives. In George's defense, his attorneys argue that even though George was a part of the family, he kept his distance from these crimes. George knew his family had done a lot of bad things in their life, but he had never known of them to ever commit a crime of violence.
He couldn't believe it. He denied it. At the end of this testimony, how did the defense and prosecution do? As horrible as the crime was, I do think she came off as credible. I don't think the defense was able to really do any damage to her on cross-examination. I think for the prosecution, it's a brilliant move. The dirty details in this case are important, but they're not as...
important as an overarching theme. It's like writing a mystery novel or a screenplay. You have an overarching theme and it rises in Jake and it sets in Angela because she's the big finale. I mean, she truly is. She's the great big exclamation point. And I think the really sad thing about this is that her life's not in jeopardy. She's not the one that has her life on the line here. She's cut a deal. And I think that she's chief among sinners.
But these others, they're not going to see the light of day. I thought the defense made good points in their cross-examinations of both Jake and Angela. But I think that Jake and Angela's testimony, coupled with the wiretaps, do not bode well for George.
Even if you believe that Jake and Angela, let's say they implicated George just because they had to in order to get these plea deals that they wanted. The wiretaps, in a lot of respects, he still sounds like he's in the thick of this and he knows exactly what's going on. They all live together and grew up committing crimes together. You would think that that would just be very difficult for the defense to overcome.
For them to come into court and feel confident that they were going to somehow poke enough holes in Jake and Angela's testimony to make George not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I'm not saying it's not possible. And Angela Wagner said we are all guilty. So I think that they've got a tough mountain to climb. They may have to put him on the stand. More on that next time.
For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kt underscore studios. The Piketon Massacre is produced by Stephanie Lidecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Caccaro, Andrew Arnau, Gabriel Castillo, and me, Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Twa.
Music by Jared Aston. The Piketon Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio and KT Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Please welcome our Pike County Dogwood Festival Queen. Lord, I just thank you for bringing us all together as a community.
Who could have killed eight family members in one night?
I lost my best friend, and I will never be the same because of that day. Four crime scenes, no DNA, no witnesses. The killer left those children laying in their mother's blood. The word that comes to mind is overkill. Who was the mastermind? I'm telling you, if they frame us, I'm not sitting in prison. One thing I learned...
The smaller the town, the bigger the secrets. Be sure to watch our upcoming documentary, The Pike County Murders, A Family Massacre, premiering on NBCUniversal's Oxygen Network and also streaming on Peacock this Thanksgiving Day weekend, November 24th and November 25th. Please check your local listings, and our hearts are with the Rodens and the Gilley families.
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