How We Got Here- Seasons 1 & 2 Recap
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Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm John Walczak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI.

In 2001, police say I killed my family and rigged my house to explode before escaping into the wilderness. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. Join me. I'm going down in the cave. As I track down clues. I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Hunting. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world. Robert Fisher. Do you recognize my voice? Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America.

Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to Haunting, Purgatory's premiere podcast. I'm your host, Teresa. We'll be bringing you different ghost stories each week, straight from the person who experienced it firsthand. Some will be unsettling, some unnerving, some even downright terrifying. But all of them will be totally true.

Listen to Haunting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to The Pacted Massacre, a production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio. This special episode will recap our previous seasons to get you up to date on the case.

And mark your calendars because season three premieres May 25th. Multiple people found dead in more than one location along Union Hill Road in Piketon this morning. By 2 p.m., investigators say they found eight people dead, seven adult victims, and a 16-year-old boy, all from the Rodin family. Just a nightmare scenario. All of them shot in the head, execution style.

They were trying to possibly wipe out this entire family. It's absolutely shocking. I hope that the law enforcement in this area apprehend each and every one. These aren't people, these are monsters. This has been by far the longest, most complex and labor-intensive investigation the Ohio Attorney General's office has ever undertaken. Go down to your knees. Hands behind your back. Hands behind your back.

Yesterday, a Pike County grand jury indicted four individuals for aggravated murder with death penalty specifications for allegedly committing this heartless, ruthless murder. One family targeted, murdered in their sleep, and the killers vanished. It's personal. Somebody was trying to send a message. Everyone was talking about who could have done it and why they would have done it.

I want to know exactly what happened that night. 32 gunshot wounds, eight people dead, two families destroyed, one grisly crime. What will happen is anyone's guess. This is the Pikedon Massacre, seasons one and two recap, How We Got Here. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Lidecker and Jeff Shane.

Our journey started back in 2019 when we made a documentary about the crime and we've been covering the story ever since. I think I speak for all of us when I say that from then until now, we have not been able to shake it or get it out of our heads. I think for me personally, the part of this case that continues to haunt me is the fact that there were mothers brutally murdered in front of their babies. What kind of a monster would do that?

We've had the benefit of going to Pike County many times and have interviewed to date probably hundreds of people.

whether that's local townspeople or experts or family members to the victims and family members of the accused. And one thing we can say in a small town like this, there's not a single person that hasn't been affected by this hideous story. And there's not a single person you can talk to on the street that doesn't know somebody connected to it in a meaningful way.

Through all these conversations, we began to piece together what happened on that fateful night. As you'll learn in the upcoming season three, there is still so much left to unravel in the community. Here's Pikedon native Barb. Hi,

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

But as some point out, in the shadow of its green hills, the area has an eerie past. On April 21st, 2016, evil reared its face in Pike County.

In the dead of night under cool cloudy skies, eight people were brutally shot and killed in four separate homes. I'll never forget that day. I'll never forget that day. I had gone into the office at the high school to pick Brittany up for an appointment. And when I walked in, they had a TV on and everyone in there was sitting with their mouths hanging open. And I was like, what's going on in here?

And the secretaries said, my God, there's been a shooting. They said six people were killed. And she said, we are very worried because little Chris Roden didn't show up today. And we think he might be one of them. Everyone was just in shock. So little Chris, law enforcement, because they couldn't find him, there was some speculation early on that he might have been involved.

For the residents of Pikedon, there was little more than confusion. At this point, people knew there was a shooting and that Chris Roden Jr., a 16-year-old freshman at Pikedon High, was missing. Where was the teen? It was at the home of Chris Roden Sr. that the nightmare began. Chris Roden Sr. was known to be a strong, hardworking family man.

He was, you know, a great father. He was a good man, just like the rest of the guys, you know, in that family. He would do anything for anybody. Chris and Dana Roden were married for 22 years, and although they divorced, they remained close. So close that Chris Sr. had recently bought Dana a home on the same road he lived on, Union Hill Road. He did it so they could stay close to their children.

Chris Sr.'s cousin, Gary Roden, was more like a brother to him and often stayed at his place. Little Chris's aunt, Bobbie Jo, who also lived nearby, was the first to make the gruesome discovery at 7:49 a.m. when she came to feed the dogs. -9-1-1. Okay, my brother-in-law's dead. There's blood all over the house. -Okay. -My brother-in-law's in the bedroom. It looks like he's -- I got a lot of them.

Patriarch of the family, Chris Roden, was dead. He looked like he'd been beaten to death. Chris's cousin, Gary Roden, who was staying with Chris, was also dead. Okay. Is there anybody else in the house?

Not that I know of. Okay. The door was locked when we got here, but I know where the key was at. And I went in and there was nothing on the floor. Bobby, I need you to get out of the house and wait. I'm down the house. Okay. And I'll start right now. Okay. The home's dispatch says 40-year-old Christopher Roden was the only one of the eight family members who was shot somewhere other than the head. He had multiple gunshot wounds to the head, torso, and extremities.

Coroner, distinguished professor, and criminal forensic expert Joseph Morgan tried to make sense of the Rodin murders, starting with father and family patriarch Chris Sr. Some of this will be hard to hear, particularly if you're personally connected to the tragedy, but it's important to understand the magnitude of what happened that night.

He was shot nine times. Now, for me as a forensic investigator, I would look at that and I would deem that as overkill. And, you know, why would somebody need to be shot nine times? They're saying that there's evidence that he attempted or reacted at least to the point where he raised his arm, his right forearm, and it shattered one of the bones. When you've got an individual that has got defensive wounds,

That person has an awareness, so that goes to a level of callousness that this rises to. Victim Gary Roden, Chris Sr.'s cousin, was a beloved member of the family. By all accounts, Gary and Chris Sr. were very close. Gary just happened to be at Chris's home that night. He was actually from Kentucky, so he didn't even live in the area or the neighborhood, but lived close enough to where he was staying with Chris that evening.

We do know that the shooter was very, very close to Gary when they fired because they talked about what is referred to as a press contact gunshot wound. And if our listeners will essentially take your index finger, okay, and point it toward the palm of your hand and extend the tip of your finger, maybe, I don't know, probably about half an inch away from the surface of your palm,

That's kind of what we refer to as a contact wound. And what that means is that you're going to have, you know, the bullet's not the only thing coming out of the end of the weapon. You're going to have the fire that actually the ignition of the bullet and around, you'll have this burning of powder that's coming out. You'll have unburned powder that's coming out. So this is a very intimate event.

I spoke with Mike Allen, criminal defense attorney from Ohio. Are you able to talk about the scenes themselves? You know, if you look at it, it's all from the autopsy reports. Those kind of injuries leaves no doubt that this was an intentional or these all were intentional killings kind of designed to send a message to someone. The muzzle mark sticks in my mind. You have to be obviously aware

Arms reach. I mean, you are locking eyes with the victim, it would seem. Does that paint any kind of picture or indicate to officers or attorneys anything? Sure it does. And maybe even closer than arms length. I mean, maybe just inches. It indicates, to me at least, especially when you have the number of shots like that here that somebody was trying to send a message. I don't think there can be any doubt about that. I mean, it was personal, and I think that's what that demonstrates.

At this point, Bobbie Jo sees two people dead by 12 gunshot wounds. While waiting desperately for police to arrive, she makes her way over to her nephew Frankie's house. She wanted to get some help and to tell him what happened to his father and uncle, whose bodies she had just found. Frankie Roden was Chris Sr. and Dana's oldest son. The 20-year-old was a father to two boys. Like his parents, Frankie was a hard worker.

He loved fishing, hunting, and demolition derby, but nothing so much as his family and his fiance, 19-year-old Hannah Gilley. Hannah Gilley was on the homecoming court in high school, and at that time, she told friends she planned to go to college, get a business degree, and open a daycare. Frankie and Hannah wanted a lot of kids. They had a bright future. The young family lived together just up the street from Chris Sr., also on Union Hill Road. They were looking forward to getting married soon.

So after Bobby Joe made the call to 911, she went to Frankie's house right nearby. And the person who came to the door was Frankie's three-year-old son. As the police reports and newspaper reports showed, he was covered in blood. And he, like any three-year-old, he died.

sort of didn't fully understand what was going on and he told his aunt that, you know, his father was playing zombie in the bedroom. And that's because the family were fans of The Walking Dead. So, you know, he was in there with his father playing a zombie, which is absolutely heartbreaking. - 20 year old Frankie Roden was shot three times in the head as he lay in bed next to his fiance and they're six month old.

We talk about Hannah Gilley, who's shot five times. She catches one in the eye. It poses this idea of, why are you shooting these people in the face? What's the purpose of it? Because not only are you shooting them in the face, you're shooting them multiple times. What threat did she pose? She's laying there with her child in the bed. Meanwhile, and this is all happening around 8 a.m. on April 22nd, Bobby Joe calls their brother James. She's in hysterics.

There's now two murder scenes, four people dead, 20 gunshot wounds, two children left alive at the scenes. James immediately goes over to his sister Dana's house to check on her and the remaining kids. Dana Roden was a nurse known for her gregarious nature and loving smile. She'd met Chris Roden Sr. when she was just in high school and it was love at first sight. Even though they divorced 22 years later, they remained very close.

Together, the pair had three beautiful children, 20-year-old Frankie, Hannah Mae, and little Chris. She's good-hearted, a lot of fun, you know, always laughing, cracking up. She was a very, very good person. She sent me a text. She said, my grandbaby's here. And I said, well, congratulations. I said, she's beautiful. What did Hannah Mae name her? She said, Kylie Mae.

And I said, "That's so pretty." And that was the last, you know, the last thing I ever heard from Dana. She, again, like Chris Sr., was shot multiple times. And not only was she shot multiple times, but specifically reports have her having been shot five times, four times, four times in the head. Now, why in the hell would you shoot somebody four times in the head?

Because, you know, one should suffice. But the shooter took the time to take that muzzle of that weapon, stick it beneath Dana's chin. Stick it beneath her chin. This is a common location for suicide, all right? This is atypical for homicide.

This particular April seemed extra special because Hannah Mae had just given birth to her second daughter five days prior. Just weeks before that, Dana threw Hannah Mae a big baby shower at their new house. The pictures from the shower show what a happy celebration it was. Sadly, James, Dana's brother, was about to enter yet one more unimaginable scene. Dana and her 19-year-old daughter, Hannah Mae, were both dead. Hannah Roden, she was shot twice in the head as her newborn lay beside her.

Maybe they're curled in a fetal posture along with their baby that's curled in a fetal posture. Mama's slowly stroking the head of the baby to try to, you know, calm through the baby during the night. Maybe she awakes and breastfeeds the baby during the night while she's sleeping. It's a position people have slept in for thousands and thousands of years. It's a position of comfort. Imagine you're laying there, you're there to protect your baby, and you're curled up on your side. There's an awareness.

This brings us back to when Dana's son, the high school freshman Chris Jr., was nowhere to be found. It took detectives several hours to locate him, but finally little Chris was found in the home with his mother Dana and his sister Hannah Mae. Sixteen-year-old Chris Jr. was shot four times, including twice in the top of his head. He was found wedged behind his bed, implying that he was trying to hide from the killer or killers.

There's now seven people dead, 31 gunshot wounds, and three children left alive at the scenes. The once small and sleepy town became the epicenter for grisly crime and the subsequent complex murder investigation. When it was all said and done, two families would be destroyed and the town would never be the same. For the quiet town, the scene was unreal.

Nearly seven hours after the first bodies were found, at 1.26 p.m. on April 22nd, a final, fatal discovery. Yeah, I need a deputy to come out to close to 799, Glensport. Okay. All this stuff that's on the news, I just found my cousin with a gunshot wound.

Okay, sir, is he alive? No, no. Okay. I'll be standing out by the red wake on him. What's your name, sir? Donald Stone. Donald Stone? Donald Stone. Stone? Yeah, I'm his cousin. What's his name? Kenneth Roden. Kenneth Roden? Yeah. Okay, sir, are you out of the house?

A few miles down Union Hill Road was Chris Roden Sr.'s brother Kenneth. The 44-year-old was shot once through his right eye.

Kenneth's cousin Donald Stone went to check on Kenneth after hearing about the murders of their six other family members. He'd failed to hear from Kenneth that day. What does it say that they would take the time and put themselves in a position where they could be face to face with Kenneth? He was found covered with dollar bills that were strewn about his body. He just, I mean, he can't make this up.

By the time officials released the names of the eight victims, Pikedon residents were reeling. You know, they had snuck in in the night and committed these murders, and nobody had a clue about, you know, who or why. And that's really scary.

We're going to take a break. Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind.

Stories about regaining a sense of safety, a handle on reality after your entire world is flipped upside down from unbelievable romantic betrayals. The love that was so real for me was always just a game for him. To betrayals in your own family. When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. Financial betrayal.

This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars. And life or death deceptions. She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Walzak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI. Come on.

In 2001, police say I killed my family. First mom, then the kids. And rigged my house to explode. In a quiet suburb. This is the Beverly Hills of the Valley. Before escaping into the wilderness. There was sleet and hail and snow coming down. They found my wife's SUV. Right on the reservation boundary. And my dog flew. All I could think of is him and the sniper me out of some tree.

But not me. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. For two years. They won't tell you anything. I've traveled the nation. I'm going down in the cave. Tracking down clues. They were thinking that I picked him up and took him somewhere. If you keep asking me this, I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Searching for Robert Fisher. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world.

Do you recognize my voice? Join an exploding house, the hunt, family annihilation today and a disappearing act. Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite shows. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I spent almost a decade researching right wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters.

But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsman plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to. Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat.

It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition?

Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions.

Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back in a moment. There were rumors about who had done the crime everywhere, online, in the coffee shops, amongst the police. I mean, everyone was talking about who could have done it and why they would have done it. Investigators believe that the murders were clearly premeditated.

But the killing spree was so staggering and merciless, there were endless questions. One of the first things investigators studied were confrontations the rodents had with locals in recent years. Could these conflicts have triggered a vendetta against the family? There was one concerning incident that had happened at a demolition derby.

Based on what's been reported in the court documents, I think it's fair to say that Frankie and Chris Jr., I mean, definitely were hotheads and definitely got into fights here and there.

They had an incident with a fellow named Tommy Gorman, who was a rival in the demolition derbies. They got into a bit of a sort of heated match and there was, I believe, a sort of incident on the track. They got upset with each other, some bad blood. And then again, it's, you know, kind of picked up speed with Facebook posts about sort of insulting each other. And then, of course,

Chris Jr. and Frankie drove over to Gorman's house and proceeded to really beat on Gorman and his father. And the fights and beatings were only really broken up after the grandfather came out and pumped a few shotgun shells into the air. Chris Jr. had also gotten into a scuffle with another local kid named Rusty Mongall.

But police scoured both of these leads, even taking DNA evidence of the suspects. They came up empty.

An ominous feeling had spread throughout Pike County. Here's investigative reporter Jody Barr. You got eight members of one family targeted, murdered in their sleep, in their homes, and the killers seemingly vanished.

We didn't know the pieces. We didn't know how to put it together. There was no information coming out about these murders, about motives. Even the family members who were in direct communication with law enforcement, even they weren't being told anything. I mean, call it good investigative work and you hold your cards close to the chest as an investigator. Maybe that's what it was. But from the outside looking in, it was almost like law enforcement didn't have a clue at that point in time.

Led by an ambitious sheriff, Charles Reeder, the ensuing investigation soon became the largest in Ohio's history. I've got a message for the killers. We will find you. The family and the victims will have justice one day. There's so many pieces that have to be put into place with this. You're leapfrogging from this bloodbath to another bloodbath.

One of the first major developments in the case came when Mike DeWine, then Ohio's Attorney General, announced that he believed the killings were planned and premeditated. He cited clear efforts taken by the shooter or shooters to remove any incriminating forensic evidence.

The Attorney General DeWine at the time said it was a pretty sophisticated operation and the people that carried it out were trying to do everything they could to make sure that they didn't get caught. Attorney General DeWine and Sheriff Reeder, they both said that the investigation was going to be a long one and a lengthy process. And boy, it sure has played out that way. An investigative task force of massive scope kicked into gear.

Led by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the BCI, more than 251 law enforcement officials were mobilized, including sheriffs from 25 offices across Ohio. The FBI and the DEA stepped in to provide technical expertise to DeWine's office. Solemn funerals were held for all the victims. For two years, not a single arrest was made.

If you lived in that area, man, it was hush-hush. You were just kind of walking around, looking over your shoulder and seeing what some of these people, not knowing, you know, who could be next, who did it. There was one very curious lead that investigators had unearthed. At three of the crime scenes on Union Hill Road, police found a substantial marijuana grow operation, including a grow house harboring hundreds of cannabis plants. This grow operation on the Roden's property was clearly being cultivated for sale.

It was also worth almost half a million dollars. The rodents had a pretty sizable crop of marijuana plants on their property. You know, there were indications that they were involved in some drug deals and drug trade with marijuana. That obviously fueled even more speculation that these were outside operators. Possibly, was this a drug deal gone bad or was somebody trying to take over their turf? All kinds of rumors started to flow after that disclosure.

As the months wore on, no one's been arrested, no one charged, no people named as persons of interest. You really started to wonder, you know, maybe this drug cartel thing, there was something to that. They definitely knew how to kill people. You know, you're looking for signs of a drug cartel, and then you find Kenneth Roden with what appeared to be a gunshot in the head.

but that there were dollar bills or some sort of paper money spread around the body. Was that a sign? What did that mean? Could the rodents operation have motivated a cartel hit? A lethal battle over territory? It was a tenable idea. But over the next months, as the investigation dug deeper, an entire new set of possible culprits came into frame.

Here's Jeff.

The Wagners were a well-known and well-to-do family in the Piketon area, and Frederica Wagner was at the helm of this. A self-described entrepreneur, she owned properties all over Pike County that spanned over 1,700 acres and were valued at more than $4 million. She had also founded two nonprofits: Lucasville Mission, a church that helps underprivileged children, and the Crystal Springs Home, a facility that provides services to developmentally disabled adults.

As we've learned throughout the series, Frederica had her detractors as well as her supporters in the community.

We probably need to clarify here. The Wagners seem like a good, God-fearing country family. But police were gathering hard evidence linking the Wagners to the crime. And the Wagners had had some tangles with law enforcement in the past. In 2001, seemingly homespun mother Angela Wagner, along with Billy Wagner, were charged with improperly handling a firearm. In 2012, they were both charged with receiving stolen property, a felony.

Investigators discovered that in the months prior to the killings, the Wagners began making their own gun silencers. Police believe silencers were necessary to pull these killings off because they happened in such close proximity.

Investigators also found that the Wagner family had bought ammunition, a magazine clip, a bug detector, and materials to build brass catchers. The brass catcher is a bag that hooks on the side of a firearm. It will catch spent cartridges. So every time you pull the trigger, a cartridge is ejected. And if you were really interested in not leaving anything behind, I

as far as holistic evidence, this sounds like a great start. This bag will collect the shell casing so there's no evidence left behind. The bug detector, apparently that helps someone find listening devices and sometimes create white noise to muffle sounds or discussion. - Authority searched a 71-acre farm in Peebles that was once owned by Jake Wagner. Jake was victim Hannah Mae Roden's former boyfriend. The pair shared a three-year-old child together.

Jake and Hannah Mae Roden had parted bitterly and were fighting over custody at the time of her murder. The vice was tightening around the Wagner family, and some speculate that the only way they felt they could escape it was to move 4,000 miles away.

The Wagners made Kenai, Alaska their new home. It's a tiny town south of Anchorage. All the while, they vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

Jake's mother, Angela Wagner, said her husband, Billy Wagner, and victim, Chris Roden Sr., were like brothers. She claimed that Billy would never harm Chris. Billy's mother, grandmother, Frederica Wagner, said the Wagners were, quote, a good Christian family. And despite the speculation about the family, many in Pike County couldn't figure the Wagners for murderers. I read that, and I had to laugh. I had to laugh so hard.

Okay, so you have to remember that this was a very organized, brilliantly done execution. This is something that you wouldn't learn on a DVD. Somebody with military background, Navy SEALs. I mean, whoever did it was brilliant. They're professional. These people are not professional killers.

I think that is the common theme of this entire story about Pike County and about this road massacre is it seems just too far fetched now when you try to connect the dots through the histories of, you know, how the Wagners conducted their business, how they lived their lives. I don't know that I have seen any reporting, any fact brought out about the Wagners that would say, yep, there you go, mass murderers.

I think that is the draw that continues to keep people interested in this story, is that you would have never seen any of this coming. In the spring of 2018, the Wagners returned to the Piketon area to take care of Billy's aging father. The plan was to set him up with care and then return to Alaska. But things did not go as planned.

If you think about it, the Wagners were scot-free. They went to Alaska. They could have took off and nobody could have ever seen them again, ever. But they came back here. They came back.

Now, my, the way that I am, I would never do that. But if I had pulled something off like that and got away with it that long and went to Alaska, you know, I'm packing my shit and I'm hitting the woods and nobody's ever going to see me again. I'm sure the hell I'm not going to come back. The only way I would come back is if I thought my ass was covered.

With their investigation reaching a fever pitch, then Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Pike County Sheriff Charlie Reeder asked the public for information on the Wagner family. I hope that the law enforcement in this area apprehend each and every one. These aren't people, these are monsters. DeWine said he was, quote, "laser-focused" on the Wagners, their business dealings, vehicles, firearms, and ammunition.

Investigators had solid ballistic evidence connecting firearms used in the homicide with guns believed to be owned by the Wagners. These included a .22 caliber long rifle, a .40 caliber handgun, and a .30 caliber gun. They also recovered a homemade silencer at the bottom of a well on the Wagners' property. Well, good afternoon. We promised that the day would come when arrests would be made in the Pike County massacres.

In a series of arrests that sent shockwaves through the insulated community, six members of a local family, the Wagners, were taken into custody. 47-year-old Billy Wagner is the patriarch of the Wagner family and was arrested near Lexington, Kentucky, in a horse trailer that was pulled over. Go down to your knees.

Hands behind your back. Hands behind your back. Angela Wagner is Billy's wife and matriarch of the Wagner family. The 48-year-old was arrested at their home near Pikedon, Ohio. Go ahead. Angela Wagner in the car, 21. Copy, 1331. Angela and Billy's two sons, George Wagner and Jake Wagner, were arrested together during a traffic stop. George was 27 and Jake was 26.

76-year-old Frederica Wagner, Billy Wagner's mother, was arrested at the family's horse farm, The Flying W. Angela Wagner's mother, 65-year-old Rita Jo Newcomb, was arrested at her home. While six members of the Wagner family were arrested in connection with the crime, Billy, Angela, George, and Jake Wagner were charged with eight counts of aggravated murder. Details about the arrests of four people and the murders of eight members of the Rodin family...

All the arrests happened within minutes of each other. And that tells me that the BCI, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification, who was in charge of this investigation, they know what they're doing. And they wanted to make sure that they affected these arrests without any kind of problems or tipping anybody off. So they hit that thing down pretty tight.

Six months later, four members of the Wagner family were indicted on charges of aggravated murder with death penalty specification for the murders. Yesterday, a Pike County grand jury indicted four individuals for aggravated murder with death penalty specifications for allegedly committing this heartless, ruthless, cold-blooded murder. ♪♪

Did they do it? We want to know now. Obviously, everybody wants to know right now. Man, if they're cooperating, as this attorney says, they're giving over computers and laptops, DNA, whatever it takes. You know, people who aren't experts in criminology, we look at that and go, well, man, that sounds like an innocent person. An innocent person would be doing that.

On the other hand, there were the ballistics discoveries. Here's Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent Ryan Scheiderer testifying in court that shell casings found in the Wagner's property matched the ones found at the Roden's crime scenes. We recovered .22 caliber shell casings, and where we recovered those was at 260 Peterson Road, which was property that was owned by George Wagner and his brother Jake.

And were those shell casings submitted to the lab for comparison to the shell casings that had been recovered from both Frankie's and Dana's residences? Yes. And what was the opinion of the... The weapon that fired the shell casings at 260 Peterson Road also fired the shell casings at Hannah's and Dana's residences as well as Frankie and Hannah Gilley's residences.

So the same firearm had been fired on the same properties. Okay. So the exact same gun, not just the same type of gun. The same firearm. Same gun. Okay. The indictment also includes a reference to a specific pair of boots that the Wagner family purchased at Walmart and allegedly wore during the murders. The theory was that the Wagners were trying to frame Dana Roden's brother, James Manley, who was known to wear this make of boot.

Sheriff Reeder said the Wagners planned these killings for months, studying the rodents' habits. He alleged that they then covered up the killings, including stealing the rodents' security footage and tampering with their phones. It seems a single-minded, cult-like obsession drove these murders.

So we've talked about the Wagners and how insulated that family was. And, you know, the word cult has been thrown around in reference to the family. It's hard to imagine a nuclear family of a mother, father, and two adult sons who started doing reconnaissance on the Rodin family, which by all accounts was a family that they were close with, friendly with in some way. And months before the murders, allegedly the Wagners started to track their comings and goings.

And the question is, why would they do that? I mean, the only thing I can think of is that Angela Wagner was this obsessed mother who not only wanted to control her son Jake, but also all the people in his life. By all accounts, it appears that the rodents were being hunted by the Wagner family. And that's unbelievable when you really put it into context. The idea of a killer family sitting around the kitchen table holding murder meetings...

is impossible to imagine. What came into focus is that there was a raging custody dispute between Jake Wagner and his former girlfriend, Haname Roden, over their three-year-old daughter. That is speculated as the real motive behind these murders.

They would travel back and forth between Hannah's mother's house and Jake's family's house. And they would live as a family for a few weeks at a time in each home. And for everyone who knew them, they said that the couple was very happy. They were talking about marriage and building a life together until seemingly in March of 2015, they broke up. And that's when Hannah started dating a new guy, a man named Charlie Gilley. And Jake was devastated.

Jake was pressuring Hannah to sign over full custody, something she adamantly did not want to do. So in the summer of 2015, when Hannah Rodin announced that she was pregnant with a new child, Jake Wagner was adamant that he was the dad of this kid. And he was desperate to prove it, so much so that he went to the hospital when the baby was born and checked for a Wagner family trait in the toe. And we know that just days after Hannah Rodin

was murdered, the Wagner family filed for custody of not only Jake's three-year-old daughter, but also the newborn baby. So it's clear that this family had plans to raise both children as their own. As you'll hear in season three, there's a lot more context to Jake's relationship with Hannah and what his state of mind was around the murders and before the murders in terms of moving on and how he felt about her. The Wagners wanted custody over Jake and Hannah's child at all costs.

But was that possibly enough to justify a whole-scale slaughter of another family? It seemed Jake Wagner was highly distraught over having lost Hannah Mae Roden. Here's an anonymous Wagner source. He was trying very hard to make sure that they got back together. He still wanted to be with her. He was trying to, I guess, get back with her. Just everything that he could. On top of the breakup, Hannah was also allegedly withholding their daughter from Jake. There was a custody battle.

I mean, he had made the comment, you know, that he were going to kill her.

And he told her that, you know, he's like, I'm going to, I'm going to have to kill you. Like, you're not going, you're not going to let me see the baby. Then, you know, you're not going to have her. And I'm like, Jake, you can't say those things. Please just chill out. And of course, you know, nobody ever really thinks like, oh my God, he's actually going to consider that. I mean, he was just completely out of his mind. It really, really upset him.

The Wagners had allegedly orchestrated another ruthless custody battle once before. Jake's brother, George Wagner, had a child with a woman named Tabitha. And when they split up, accused murderer George Wagner and his mother, Angela Wagner, blocked Tabitha from seeing her son. Here's Tabitha's sister, Christina.

Tabby, like whenever she would try to reach out to George, like, hey, can I come visit my son? And Angela would get on there and be like, oh, he's not your son anymore. Would tell Tabby like, oh, you might have gave birth to him, but I'm his real mother because I take care of him. And all these just nasty things.

At one point, accused murderer Angela Wagner even threatened Tabitha and ran her out of town. Here's court testimony about the incident. Eventually, there was a comment by Angela that she was going to kill Tabitha, so she fled to a gas station and ultimately never returned. And actually, specifically, she first hid on the property until nightfall and then got on a bike and drove to a gas station and made her escape that way and never went back after that. Correct.

And yet, the idea that the Wagners would resolve a custody issue in such a ruthless fashion is confounding. I don't think anybody would believe that a family could have put together such a tactical hit on another family that they had created life with. It's still too difficult to accept and too hard to believe. Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We

We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories. First-hand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Stories about regaining a sense of safety, a handle on reality after your entire world is flipped upside down from unbelievable romantic betrayals... The love that was so real for me...

was always just a game for him. To betrayals in your own family. When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. Financial betrayal. This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars. And life or death deceptions. She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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But not me. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. For two years. They won't tell you anything. I've traveled the nation. I'm going down in the cave. Tracking down clues. They were thinking that I picked him up and took him somewhere. If you keep asking me this, I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Searching for Robert Fisher. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world.

Do you recognize my voice? Join an exploding house, the hunt, family annihilation today and a disappearing act. Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite shows. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I spent almost a decade researching right wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters.

But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsman plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to.

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Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition?

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Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's stop here for another break. Before the killings, the Wagners were trying to coerce victim Hannah Mae Roden into signing forged documents ceding custody of her daughter to Angela Wagner in the event of Hannah's death.

The forged custody documents that have been discussed in this case, they were declaration documents. And it was stated in Rita Newcomb's case because she was the one accused of charged with forgery or obstruction. It said that it was declarations for the children of Hannah Roden, George IV, and Jake.

And so basically these documents designated a guardian should any of them die. And these documents had been signed and notarized 19 days before the murders. And it designated the children go to Angela should any of them die.

That's just one of those puzzle pieces that I felt like showed that Angela, she may have been the driving force here since she was the one that had the Facebook message that's been referenced in court that showed that Hannah said they'd have to kill me first before I gave up my child. And she showed that message to Jake. This paper says if Hannah is to meet her demise, then Sophia should go to Jake. Correct. Okay. But if Jake meets his demise...

Then his child goes to his mom. Correct. Not to Hannah. Correct. Then, on April 21st, 2021, on the five-year anniversary of the murder, and in a case where nothing made sense, accused murderer Jake Wagner abruptly pled guilty to eight counts of aggravated murder, felony conspiracy, unlawful possession of a dangerous ordinance, and tampering with evidence.

The state of Ohio agreed, as part of the guilty plea, not to seek the death penalty for him or his father, mother, or older brother. Here's Stephanie speaking with reporter James Pilcher.

Is it possible that Jake could say, I was in a very controlling environment, my mother, Angela Wagner, controlled us, my father was a bully and said I had to do these things and we were coerced into it. Is there any value in that even? I mean, that's entirely possible. In some of the reporting, that's what we've heard leak out.

The other thing I will say is that maybe they're going after a bigger game than Jake and they figured, we'll cut this deal now, he'll give us what we want, and then we can go get the mom and the dad. But clearly they were going after the people who plotted it.

Jake, who admitted to shooting five of the eight victims, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against his family members. He knows he will die in prison.

Do you think Jake is lying about being personally responsible for five of the eight? I don't know what his incentive to lie about that is. I mean, is he that afraid of the death penalty? The economics of that equation just does not make sense to me, where he would openly confess to murdering five people. Probably the worst act you could commit as a human is taking the life of another, and he did that five times over. I think we got a good idea of what happened here. The charges against Frederica Wagner were dismissed,

She maintained her faith throughout the ordeal, even as her son, accused murderer Billy Wagner, and his family were charged with horrible crimes. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path. And as my attorney will tell you, it was dismissed because I was innocent. They had no evidence against me. I never lied about anything.

The investigation hit a snag when Sheriff Reeder was arrested on felony charges not related to the case. There had been criticism about how Sheriff Reeder handled evidence in the Roden massacre, but these new charges—conflict of interest, theft in office, and tampering with evidence—stripped him of his badge and office.

I stand here before you today to take accountability for my actions, to accept responsibility for my conduct. As the sheriff of Ohio, I said, excuse me, everything that I've worked for professionally and honorably for 25 years was stripped to me with nobody to blame but myself. If I could go back and change it, I would a million times. This is not who I am.

According to reports, Reeder allegedly stole cash seized from drug arrests to fund a gambling problem.

He even blamed his gambling addiction on the stresses of investigating the rodent killings. You know, now he's blaming his

his gambling habits on because what he's seen is the rodent crime scenes have haunted him so much he couldn't sleep, so he would go gamble. Well, I've known Charlie for 30 years, and he's been gambling way before this happened. And that just, to me, shows you his character. You know, I'm going to use the death of eight people to try to smooth over that I'm stealing money off my county and gambling. And that is...

That is disgusting to me. You're talking about a guy who led the sheriff's office and who for a time, a moment in time when this first happened, these murders first happened, was also leading that investigation until the state came in and took it over. You just sit back and go, man, let's see where this ends. I mean, Pike County has been a crazy ride ever since the end of April of 2016. It has been an absolutely crazy half a decade there.

But despite Sheriff Reeder's downfall, the Wagners, Billy, George, Jake and Angela remain locked up. Jake's mother Angela, father Billy and brother George await their fate as Jake prepares to testify against them. The Wagners are facing 332,000 files of evidence from the prosecution. Will the Wagners remain behind bars? And what will Jake reveal about what happened that harrowing night in April 2016?

-Based on the totality of information now known by the state, including the forthright statements of the defendant, we have overwhelming evidence that the defendant and the three co-defendant members of his family are in fact responsible for planning and carrying out the homicides. Jake admitted that in the late

evening hours of April 21st 2016 into the early morning hours of April 22nd 2016 is when they committed these homicides. You think about staring into the eyes of your kinfolks across the room as you're sitting in the dock there and you're looking at them straight in the eyes and

people that you've spent Thanksgivings with, Christmases, you know, these moments throughout your life and you're looking at them and you're potentially sending them to proverbial gallows by virtue of what you're going to say. Will we figure out exactly what happened on the night of April 21st in Piketon? I want to know exactly what happened that night. You know, how did they get in the homes?

We know the end. We've got some idea what happened in the middle. But I think I want to know about the beginning. Was this truly about custody? I would just like to know exactly why from Jake Wagner. When did the switch flip to where the only resolution to whatever was going on between him and the Rosen's at that point was to go and kill them all? It makes absolutely no sense.

And was Angela the mastermind behind it all? What will happen in the meantime is anyone's guess.

Will there be another plea deal? It'll be interesting to see where this case goes from here. It's the Piketon Massacre. Who knows? You never know where this is going next. This season, we have a much fuller picture of who the Wagner family was prior to this and how they became the monsters we now know them to be. We've really started to learn more about the Wagner family, not only the lives that they led, but also their motivations for the crimes they allegedly committed.

Just when we thought it couldn't get any stranger or darker, it has. All will be revealed on season three of The Pyton Massacre. For more information on Kay's photos, follow us on Instagram at kt underscore studios. This special episode was produced by Stephanie Lidecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves, Alan Weider, and me, Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Twa. Music by Jared Astin.

Audio mixing by Ken Novak. The Piketon Massacre is a production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm John Walzak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI. Why not?

In 2001, police say I killed my family and rigged my house to explode before escaping into the wilderness. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. Join me. I'm going down in the cave. As I track down clues. I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Hunting. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world. Robert Fisher. Do you recognize my voice? Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America.

Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to Haunting, Purgatory's premiere podcast. I'm your host, Teresa. We'll be bringing you different ghost stories each week, straight from the person who experienced it firsthand. Some will be unsettling, some unnerving, some even downright terrifying. But all of them will be totally true.

Listen to Haunting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.