Opening Statements 37:13

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Jake Wagner said that he rearranged Hannah Mae's body so that her newborn baby could breastfeed off of her now dying or dead mother. They were thinking that if they wiped out the entire Rodin family, there would be no one left to battle them for custody of this child. Billy came running out of the residence saying, I just shot my best friend. I just shot my best friend.

This is the Pikes and Massacre. Trials begin. Season 4, Episode 2, Opening Statements. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Leidecker and Jeff Shane. It's a gray morning in Waverly, Ohio, and you can feel the first hint of fall weather starting to seep into the air. Everyone has filed inside the courtroom by 9 a.m.

— Good morning. This is the case of state of Ohio plaintiff versus George Washington Wagner IV, defendant. Today is September 12, 2022, and we continue proceedings in the trial of this matter. — With multiple attorneys, sheriff's deputies, and a scattering of television monitors throughout the courtroom, it feels small. Dark wood walls and thick red carpet make it seem even more so.

There is a large hand-painted mural on the wall behind Judge Deering that says Semper Justitia. It's Latin and means justice for all. Present today is the defendant with his attorneys John Parker and Richard Nash. The state of Ohio is represented by Rob Junk, prosecuting attorney, and special prosecutors Angela Canepa and Andrew Wilson.

It's important to note that George Wagner IV, currently on trial, and his father Billy Wagner, whose trial is upcoming, have pleaded not guilty to all charges. George Wagner IV sits between his lawyers, motionless, staring straight ahead, as the judge instructs the jury. He looks thinner than he did over the summer and has lost some hair as well. There's no one in court to support George Wagner and the media is allocated to his side of the courtroom.

Anjanette Levy is one of the reporters. Kind of goes to this whole thing of how they were kind of insular and, you know, operating as one unit. There's nobody there to support George Wagner IV, and it's kind of sad when you think about it. Courtney and I were actually sitting behind him, and it kind of occurred to us after that if you had access to the feed, that it might appear that we were in support of the Wagners just by being there.

which, you know, gave us some pause. It's really hard if you're in that courtroom, if you're not sitting up front to hear at times. So getting a front row seat is actually better. And nobody should read anything into people sitting behind George Wagner. It's not a show of support. It's just a matter of logistics and where we were told to sit.

Because there will be no witnesses called to the stand today, the video feed to media outside the courtroom is up and running.

For people at home, basically the prosecutor's office will be giving the jury members kind of the roadmap of where they're taking this investigation to prove their case. That's exactly what opening statement is. It's a roadmap letting the jury know what they think they can prove, where they think their case is going to go. The important thing about opening statement is do not overpromise. Lead prosecuting attorney Angie Canepa gets up to address the jury.

She has blonde, shoulder-length hair with bangs and is wearing a smart, conservative navy blue suit. Let's talk about why we are here. We are here, ladies and gentlemen, because this defendant, George Wagner IV, a.k.a. George Wagner, and his brother, Edward J. Wagner, Jacob Wagner,

and his father, George Wagner III, also known as Billy Wagner, murdered eight people who did not deserve to die. I want that to sink in. -Kanepa speaks with an air of confidence and directness. -Question that has been asked the most over the past six and a half years is why? Why?

did four individuals plot to kill eight members of another family. And I think you will be disappointed to learn that there is no good reason. These murders happened after a period of three months of planning and plotting and purchasing and preparing and executing

eight individuals of a family. And in part, you will learn his mother, who helped in the planning and plotting of this. You will learn that the defendants knew that before they walked out of the door that night to kill these individuals, that there might be other people there. And they all agreed those people would have to be killed too, regardless of the fact that they literally had no issue with any of those other individuals.

As Angie Canepa talks about the collateral damage of the night of the murders, George bows his head ever so slightly and looks down. They were willing to kill indiscriminately with no reason. At this point, she locks in with the jury. Canepa spends almost 20 minutes detailing the last known moments of the Roden family. Chris Roden Sr. was 40 years old at the time of his death. You see here that on April 21st of...

2016, his last outgoing text was to Dana Roden. Dana Roden was 37 years old at the time she was killed, and she was last seen on video surveillance at the People's One Stop having a conversation with her friend and coworker. Frankie Roden was 20 years old. The last activity we see on his phone, just before 11 p.m., he takes a picture of both of his children sleeping. Hannah Mae Roden

had just turned 19 a few weeks prior to her death. Her last outgoing contact was a text to Corey Holdren. You may recall Corey Holdren was Hannah Mae's boyfriend at the time of the murders. There were two things that were kind of chilling about that. One was that the boyfriend was supposed to go over there and hang out, and his sister had some kind of plumbing problem or something, so he couldn't come over.

and that probably saved his life. The other thing was that Chris Jr. had friends over all the time, but he was grounded, and he would have had a friend over sleeping over, hanging out, playing video games or whatever, but he was grounded, so his friend couldn't come over, and that saved his friend's life. They were going to kill anybody as collateral damage that were in those trailers.

Here's Stephanie. I have to say, hearing the details about each victim's final moments was a piece of the puzzle we'd never heard before. Just knowing that Corey Holdren was the last person that Hannah Mae wrote and texted before the murders is kind of a chilling detail.

The idea that little Chris Jr., who was again just a little teenager, having a buddy over for a sleepover where they were going to play video games all night, who can't relate to that?

It was very chilling when Angie Kanepa goes on to say what could have been that night. There could have been even more victims indiscriminately taken with this tragedy. Now we're hearing these details from the prosecution that we just hadn't known before. Angie Kanepa, I think particularly in this section of her opening statement, said,

It was really incredibly effective. She is painting a picture of the moments in these victims' lives and you can see them and you can place yourselves in their shoes, whether it's

The last known thing they did was taking a picture of their kids or was having a conversation with a co-worker while stopping by on an errand after work. The fact that people's lives were taken purely as collateral damage, the Wagners, according to everything that's been said, were willing to take those, quote, extra lives. ♪

So just by happenstance, Gary Roden was there that night, and we have interviewed several people over the years who have said, you know, Gary would frequently do that. He would just pop by Chris Sr.'s and crash for a night or two, sometimes even up to a week, and then months would go by where he wouldn't. And again, wrong place, wrong time. Kanepa outlines the entire trajectory of Jake and Hannah's relationship. Hannah Mae Roden.

Her crime was not returning the love of Jake Wagner, not submitting to the control of the Wagners. And you will learn that that is

The character of this family was very controlling of any women who came into their circle. It kind of starts with a love story, if you want to call that. A very young teenage girl, Hannah Mae Roden, age 13 at the time, was at the Pike County Fairgrounds, and somebody introduced her to Jacob. Two years later, Hannah Roden is pregnant with the daughter she shares with Jake Wagner.

There are text messages from Jake to Hannah Mae which state, quote, "I'll take and if I have to, by force." This is when was still inside of Hannah Mae's womb. Hannah Mae gives birth to the daughter she shares with Jake Wagner in 2013 and eventually goes to live with the Wagners, but things go south quickly. Angela wants the little girl to call her mom even when Hannah Mae is there.

It's all too much for Hannah.

Hearing these text messages really puts to light the fact that Hannah Mae Roden was clearly in an abusive relationship with Jake Wagner. And sometimes when you're in an abusive relationship, you get desensitized to bad behavior. And in her case, she was wise enough and brave enough to get out of that relationship despite her young age. And also, she was very fortunate to have a loving family and a safe place to land with her family. Not everybody has that.

And I think that's the double whammy here is that she did everything correctly. She got out of an abusive situation. She tried to make things better. She tried to keep things cool with the father of her daughter. Her family justifiably looked out for her and protected her. And yet even that didn't offer enough safety for any of them. Eventually, Hannah Mae leaves Jake.

in early 2015. She calls her father, asks for him to come get her. Jake had choked her and she just could not handle the controlling nature of not just Jake, but also the family. April 22nd, 2016. After the news breaks about the murders, James Manley goes to check in on his sister, Dana Roden, his nephew, little Chris, and niece, Hannah Mae.

When he gets there, he also notices that the door is ajar. He went back to her bedroom. She was covered up, so he didn't know if she was in the bed. He felt around in the bed until he could feel that her body was there. And he lifted the pillow that was covering her face. She was deceased, shot in the head. He goes to check on Haname. He will tell you that he heard something.

the five-day-old baby crying, but he could not bring himself to go back and see anything more. -Kanepa brings up Jake's confession of what happened that night. Stephanie and I speak with Anjanette Levy.

I think one of the most stunning things out of opening statements that I heard was the fact that Jake Wagner told the prosecutors that he was in Dana Roden's house where Hannah Mae and Chris Jr. were also in the home and that he could see Dana Roden was still awake and had the light from her cell phone up to her face. And then he said that

He was standing kind of by Dana Roden's bedroom and Hannah Roden's bedroom was nearby and the newborn baby started crying. And so he didn't want Dana Roden getting up or waking up or what have you to cry.

help with the baby so he stepped into the room and shot her in the head and then went over to hannah may's room and hannah may turned and according to angie knepa jake believes she saw him but didn't necessarily recognize him he wasn't sure of that and then he then shot her and it's

It's so flabbergasting to me the fact that Angie Canepa said, Jake Wagner said that he rearranged Hannah Mae's body so that her newborn baby could breastfeed, if that's even possible, off of her now dying or dead mother. I feel like you couldn't make that up. And keep in mind, this was after he'd already killed, allegedly, or helped kill, I should say.

according to Jake, Chris Sr. and Gary. It is the detail that I think was the most haunting takeaway from opening statements. It's such a disturbing detail on top of so many disturbing details. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in a moment.

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The tragic arc of Jake and Hannah's romance highlights how intertwined the families were, both in love and in business. It turns out it was also the undoing of the Wagners. When Jake Wagner was initially interviewed pretty early in the investigation, he indicated that everything was just dandy between he and Hannah Mae.

A large part of the prosecution's case revolves around texts and Facebook messages that paint anything but a rosy picture of Jake and Hannah's battle over their daughter. The media latches onto it immediately. Prosecutors said the Wagners were aware of a chilling statement that Hannah Mae Roden made on social media about that little girl's custody just weeks before the killings. In Facebook messages, their girl's mom, Hannah, said the only way he would get custody is if, quote, they kill me.

Prosecutors said the Wagners knew about that private social media post because they had stolen the passwords of the person that Hannah Roden sent that message to.

Additionally, Billy Wagner was interviewed and he indicated that he did not have the phone that he had at the time of the homicides because he kept trying to call Chris Sr. because Chris Sr. was his best friend. And after the homicides, he kept trying to call him and he finally got frustrated and upset one day and broke his phone. Well, that was a good story, but it wasn't true because we have phone records that indicate he never once tried to call Chris Sr.

According to Kanepa, Jake will testify to the complicated and deep relationship Billy had with Chris Sr. Here again is Stephanie. We've always heard that Billy Wagner and Chris Sr., you know, they knew each other for a long time. They might have done some ancillary work stuff together. But best friends? Never have I heard that Billy Wagner was his best bud. ♪

I too have never heard the term best friends as it relates to Billy Wagner and Chris Roden Sr. However, we do know there is a past. There are some business dealings. They were grandpas to the same baby.

That's fair. In this moment during the opening statement, Angie Kanepa then goes on to give a preview of what Jake will say in his testimony, including some details like the night of the murder when Billy was at Chris Sr.'s house before Chris was aware what was going on. Billy asked Chris Sr. to call him because, quote, he couldn't find his phone.

when in actuality, all of the Wagners' phones were back with Angela so that when Chris Sr. called Billy's phone or any of the other phones, they would register at being at home. Even just having the foresight to put that part of the plan in place, they were smart enough to know that these phones will be tracked and they will ping someplace and that will provide them with an alibi. Angie Canepa continues.

And Jeanette Levy.

In Chris Sr.'s home, there was a long path of blood, drag marks from where apparently he and Gary Roden had been dragged back into a back bedroom and essentially thrown on top of each other and then a comforter thrown on top of them. You know, they were just thrown away like trash. Chris Sr. was shot just in that general area nine times. So...

There was just a long path of blood. There were so many familial roots and conflicting feelings between the two families. But why the totality of the crime, the entire family? Early in her statement, Angie Kanepa alludes to the collateral damage and indiscriminate killing in this focused custody battle over Jake Wagner and Hannah Mae's shared daughter. Chris Roden Sr. was...

one of the intended targets of the Wagners. That's because he was the patriarch of the family, and they considered basically that if they kind of got rid of him, that the structure of the family would fall. And they also knew that if they only killed Hannah Mae, that he would know who did it, and that would either get them arrested or he would retaliate. Gary Roden was killed simply because he was there.

As Kenneppa goes through the entire family at the defense's counsel table, George Wagner IV looks down for this entire part of the statement. Kenneth Roden and Chris Roden Sr. were very close to each other. There had been prior occasions where Chris Roden had been hurt and Kenneth retaliated on his behalf. So the Wagners very much knew that about Kenneth, and so they decided that he had to be killed because, again, he would know who it was.

We have kind of been working under the narrative that whoever did this wanted to wipe out the entire bloodline, frankly, or anybody who would potentially lay claim to custody of the then three-year-old.

But it also sounds like some of the victims were targeted because they feared retribution. Kenneth Roden has always been a confusing crime scene to me because we never understood why. And maybe now it makes sense that the idea was he was very, very close with Chris Sr. And he was very close to the entire family and

Had he known that anybody had ill will toward his family, that, you know, he would have taken retribution. That makes sense to me, but I hadn't thought of it before. I always thought they would have been wiped out because they would have possibly known who did it, not necessarily because of the...

retribution or revenge aspect of it. It would have just been like, "Oh, you have knowledge. You knew you were going to point the cops at us." But they make it sound like, no, Kenneth would have maybe taken matters into his own hands and taken care of this himself. The fact that Hannah Hazel, I always thought she was killed because of Charlie Gilly, because of a jealousy type thing there, but apparently they say she was just collateral damage, that she was killed because she was there. Gary Roden was killed because he was there.

The logic doesn't grok with me. She was Frankie's fiance. Of course she was going to be there. It seemed like it was Dana's house. Of course she was going to be there. I really, I can't logically compute it. I think it's more like Hannah Hazel wasn't a target, but it was almost like they had to kill her because she was there.

You can't go in and kill Frankie and not kill her. And so that to me is just, not that it ever makes sense to kill anybody, but that's just even more senseless. If they were fearing that the Rodin family would want to take matters into their own hands, not that they said that, but it was intimated that they feared retribution, that also shows how much they were loved. They were all steeped in so much loving history.

That, yeah, it speaks to the fact that they were all very close. The motive to kill Dana Roden always seemed murky. And how about the fact that Dana Roden was considered not a target? Which I find really strange because how could she not have been an intended target? Because she could have possibly laid claim to s***. She would have known about the custody battle. And she was going to be home that night. I mean...

Maybe if she had worked an overnight shift, we knew she worked a later shift, a double that day, and got home later. But how could she not have been an intended target? If they had already said, you know, even if Chris Jr. had a friend over, they would have killed that person. They would have killed whoever was there. So how was Dana Roden not an intended target? According to Kanepa, Dana was privy to the threat Stig made towards Hannah. Dana couldn't be left alive to reveal what she knew.

When Chris Sr. and Gary's bodies were found, another persistent theme in our investigation was discovered. Bobby Joe will tell you that on this particular morning, she and Billy and Emma Morgan drove up to that location. Emma and Billy Morgan were a married couple living with Bobby Joe Manley. They would come to Chris Sr.'s house in the morning to help feed his animals.

Typically, Chris Sr. is not there when they arrive because he gets up early and he's already on his way to Big Bear Lake where he works. Every day he operated heavy equipment and did construction, built decks and stuff like that. You will learn that they immediately thought something was amiss because Chris Sr.'s truck was still at the house. And both of the inside dogs were sitting outside of the house on the front porch.

Gary Roden was 38 when he was killed. He was from Kentucky and would come up to Pike Den and live with Chris Sr. on and off. Gary also worked at Big Bear Lake. Billy went to go start feeding the animals. Bobby Joe goes up to the house to see what's going on with Chris, why the dogs are out, all that stuff. The door is locked. That's also unusual.

They obviously were not prepared for what they saw when they entered that residence. When they found Chris Sr., he was wearing a big bare-leg sweatshirt. They quickly exited, and she went to the car where Emma Morgan, they call her Emmy, was still seated. And she retrieved her telephone and made a phone call to 911. Another loose end in the case is brought up as well.

Angie Canepa mentions what she calls a, quote, false exculpatory story. It's a story about a big drug deal in California that Billy Wagner and Chris Roden were supposed to be a part of. Also a part of this alleged deal was a man named Skid Montgomery. It's important to note that we are not saying Skid Montgomery has any drug-related convictions.

nor are we saying he's implicated in any way into the murders. This is simply a reporting of what was brought up in open court. After the murders, a local man named Jeff Tackett got a visit from his friend Billy Wagner.

He said after the homicides, Billy came to his home and stood at the end of the driveway and talked to him and said that he couldn't stand himself. He also told a story about Skin Montgomery, one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in Pike County, possibly arranging the Roden murders because Chris Sr. cut his...

Skid out of a drug deal. And we've heard no evidence that Chris Sr. and Skid Montgomery were actually involved in drug dealing together. But we've heard that Billy and Chris Sr. were business associates. We've also gotten a lot of tips from listeners in and around the area who keep pointing to Skid Montgomery as something relevant. The prosecution also seems to be rolling out the cartel as part of their case.

So here's Billie putting out this new theory

And it's caught enough wind that even we've heard about it. I'm curious what the connection to this Skid Montgomery is. What do you think about the fact that Angie Kanepa is sort of eliminating any of the theories regarding the cartel? I think that what she's doing is a good job at her job as a prosecutor. She's laying forth a narrative and she wants to make sure there is no other focus on

on anything but what she is saying is true and that it was the Wagners and the Wagners alone. Is it the full story? We'll find out. Much has been made of the fact that the opening statements are very long. Keep in mind, there's so much to cover and it has to be very thorough. She has to really take her time and lay it all out there because one misstep could jeopardize the whole case.

All in all, Angie Kineppa's opening statement runs nearly four hours long. The reaction from the media is swift and none too kind. Let's talk about the prosecution and the storytelling because we've had legal analysts on and viewers have said the opening statement of the prosecution was very lengthy, somewhat confusing, pretty tedious about the details. It wasn't what I would have done, which is to come out,

say what the crime was, tell them what the crime was, who the victims were, who you think the perpetrators are. I thought it could have been done much more streamlined and more effectively. I was thinking to myself, "Oh my God, are these jurors gonna be confused?" It had to be overwhelming.

Much has been made about Angie Canepa as maybe being too long-winded or she's giving so much information that, to your earlier point, it would be really hard for a juror to kind of track all of these details. At the end of the day, Mike Allen had a different take. You know, a lot of people, lawyers too, that I see have said,

Man, how could she have given such a long opening statement? You know, she probably lost the jury. And opening statements are never usually that long from the prosecutor. However, in this case, there is so much that she had to unpack and tell that jury. And I was there that day. I watched it. She did not lose that jury. She didn't. They were just transfixed by what she was telling them.

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Angie Canepa may already be planting seeds.

One of the more riveting aspects of the opening statement is about the evidence the jury will see in coming weeks. On the day after the Wagners left for Alaska, search warrants were already in place and police were combing the property for evidence. A neighbor approached them and offered up a tip. The Wagner family had put all of their belongings in trailers and parked them off Route 41. When police searched these trailers, they found a gold mine.

In a plastic tub labeled, quote, important things, they found custody documents and more. And by custody documents, I mean documents that one would fill out so that if anything happened to you, your children would go to somebody. So there were documents that purported to be signed by Hannah Mae that said...

If I die, I want my child to go to Jake Wagner. That piece of paper was dated as if Hannah Mae had signed it on December 24th of 2014, Christmas Eve 2014, which was really the last holiday that she spent with the Wagners. As she lays this out to the jury, you can hear confidence in Kanepa's voice. She stares them directly in the eye.

The problem with that, first of all, was that our handwriting people looked at it and said that Hannah Mae likely did not sign that thing. But more importantly, it was printed off the computer on April 3rd of 2016. That piece of paper didn't even exist until April 3rd of 2016, so it could not have been filled out in December of 2014. April 3rd of 2016...

just a little over two weeks before the homicides, they're printing this out so that if Hannah Mae would unexpectedly meet the end, would go to Jake. But what they found next speaks to the question of who might be the instigator of the entire massacre. But there were two other documents that we found on that day, which are extremely telling. There were two documents, one that Jake filled out and one that George filled out.

And they were dated, I believe, in 2015, March of 2015. But they said for Jakes, if he dies, it goes to Angela Wagner, not Hannah Mae. Almost like they knew Hannah Mae wasn't going to be alive. That's one. George Wagner also fills out a custody document that if something happens to him on the night of the murders, his child dies.

will go to his mother. So they were anticipating whether they got arrested, caught in the middle of the act, or something worse. They wanted to make sure that custody of their children was secure. On April 3rd of 2016, all three of those documents were printed out and filled out and signed.

We know that there were custody documents drawn up that gave custody of Jake and Hannah Mae's daughter to Angela should anything happen to Jake or George. Maybe, and I say maybe because I don't know, but maybe.

You make it look like Jake did this and it was a murder-suicide. Or maybe you just take him out because you want custody of your granddaughter. All to yourself. You make him do the dirty work. I don't know. But Billy is obviously somebody who's been described by Jeff Tackett and other people as somebody who's capable of violence, for sure. Kill your own kid. We're going from more demented to more demented.

Angela did not minimize her own involvement. In fact, she will tell you that it was her idea to begin with and that she nagged and nagged and nagged Billy to figure out a solution to the problem. The problem being that we're losing control of...

The prosecution has argued that this was a family affair, that it was all for one, one for all. George Wagner, the fourth lawyer, disputed almost all of that. They also pointed out that their client, despite facing eight aggravated murder charges, is not believed to have killed anyone. George is an outsider. George does not go along with what his family does, and he didn't do it on that night. George is not guilty of murder, and we believe when you've heard all of the evidence, you will agree that...

George had no part in this murder. And that you'll find him not guilty. More on that next time. For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at KT underscore studios. The Pikes and Maskers produced by Stephanie Lidecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves, Scott DeGraw, Andrew Arnau, and me, Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Twaugh.

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 Fife 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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