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The number one true crime podcast is back. The bodies of eight family members were discovered in Pike County, Ohio. Season four of the Python Massacre, the trials begin.
So let's talk about the crime scenes. Accused murderer George Wagner faces a judge and jury. This is legitimately the biggest murder trial in the state of Ohio's history. There are going to be some surprises in this trial. His mother and youngest brother are set to testify against him. It is extremely rare for family to testify against family.
Will he face the death penalty? They killed the mother of the girl they were trying to get custody of. Or will he walk free? I think the defense knows something that we don't know. We're there tracking the case in real time. I don't think I've ever seen photos that graphic before. Join the nearly 30 million listeners as the mystery unfolds. When a juror sees a human body that's been ripped to shreds, they want their pound of flesh.
This is the Pytan Massacre Trials Begin, Season 4, Episode 1, On the Eve of. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Lidecker and Jeff Shane. After following this case for years, trials are officially beginning in Ohio's largest criminal investigation in the state's history. It's been more than six years since the events of April 21st, 2016, when eight family members were shot dead in the middle of the night.
Some were sleeping and others based on crime scene evidence, their final moments are unimaginable. 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. Prosecutors say the Wagner family planned the killing for months. I don't know that people can fully fathom what went on in those mobile homes.
But when the full force of that hits the most important people in the room, which are going to be those jurors, it's going to reverberate. Two and a half years later, four members of a prominent local family who knew the victims very well were arrested and charged with capital murder. This was planned and plotted, four different homes where these family members were slaughtered, absolutely slaughtered. And for this family, God,
And when this happened, think about the shock and confusion. Like, who takes out a whole family? And why would you do that? Matriarch Angela Wagner, her husband Billy, and their two sons in their early 20s, Jake and George, were the arrested parties. Since then, Angela Wagner and her youngest son Jake have taken plea agreements in exchange for testifying against George and Billy Wagner. We've spent years chasing clues trying to unpack the mystery of what happened that night.
Since we've been following the Pikedon massacre for so many years, Stephanie and I decided the only way to make sure we got the whole story was to get in that courtroom for the trial. Here's Stephanie. As this trial finally approaches, there are a lot of questions that we still don't have answers to and are desperate to know more about.
It was noted in one of the motions that accused older brother George Wagner, who is the one standing trial, only joined the murdering spree very last minute that fateful night. And we don't understand why. It says in the motion that he was only going to protect his younger brother, Jake Wagner, from his father. What does that even mean?
I also want to know if accused mother Angela Wagner was actually at four murder locations. In her plea deal, she claims that she was, quote, home babysitting. But previous reports say otherwise. She also has a burglary charge, which would say perhaps she was at the location before or after the murders. It's yet unclear. And what a showdown in the courtroom this is actually going to be. Think
Think about it, for the very first time in years, Angela Wagner, the accused mother, and the youngest brother, Jake Wagner, are going to face off. They're gonna see George in the courtroom. They're gonna lock eyes, and that's gonna seal his fate. We desperately want to be there for that.
The courtroom where the Wagners' fate will be decided is in the Pike County Courthouse. It's a three-story, red-brick, federal-style building in the middle of Waverly, Ohio, about 20 miles northeast of where the murders took place. It looks exactly like you would imagine a medium-sized Midwest County Courthouse to look.
The anticipation is extremely high. I've been involved in this, in this area, southwest Ohio, trial work for years, and I've never seen anything like it. Like every other step in this case, from the crime scene itself through the investigation and shocking guilty verdicts, the word everyone uses is unprecedented. The fact that it's holding true, even leading up to the actual trial, maybe shouldn't feel surprising.
But it has been a pretty bumpy, unexpected start. Initially, opening statements were slated to begin on Tuesday, September 6th, the day after Labor Day. We booked a trip to Pike County, only to have to cancel it due to the delays. Jeff spoke with reporter James Pilcher about how local media was getting set up to cover the trial. Tell me, so you're in Pike County right now, or where are you? I'm actually on the first floor of the courtroom, the courthouse.
I'm sitting right below the courtroom in the media room. I'm going to be spending a lot of time here over the next four weeks, five weeks, six weeks. And so what's the feeling like in the courthouse and around the courthouse? Well, today was a lot of hustle and bustle with that. There were a couple other TV stations were here dropping off their equipment. We're installing all of our stuff, getting everything set up. Do you think that Waverly Courthouse is ready for a trial of this magnitude?
Over the past year, we've gotten glimpses of the prosecution's strategy based on arguments made by lead attorney Angie Canepa during pretrial motions.
It seems like they will attempt to paint a picture of a tight-knit family where everyone was in on the plot. The defense's main argument is that the family isn't on trial here. George Wagner is, and that he didn't actually kill anyone that night. How does defense get out from underneath the legal standard of
The wild card is what Jake and Angela may say while on the stand.
They have not seen each other since being arrested in 2018. How common is that for family to testify against family in a case like this? It is extremely, extremely rare for family to testify against family. Mike Allen is a legal analyst who's worked on the defense and prosecution sides and is also a former judge.
Maybe I've seen it two or three times in all the years I've been doing this and never, never on a case of this magnitude. It's like two family members against two other family members. And this is a family that is reportedly extremely close. That's going to be something to see because it just doesn't happen very often.
We can assume that what Jake and Angela say about George is not going to be favorable. They're not going to say that he didn't do anything wrong. Right. Quite the opposite. Exactly. I mean, yeah, the prosecutor is not going to put them up on the stand for them to testify how wonderful, you know, George is. Ain't going to happen. They're not going to be able to play around up there and play footsie with the prosecutor. I mean, they have to testify truthfully.
Can you talk to us about what the possible end results are for George? Could he walk? Are there lesser charges? Or is it guilty on all? What are the options? Here are the options for George. I mean, obviously, one of the options is a finding him not guilty to the aggravated murder. But even if that were to happen.
He's still stuck with four counts of aggravated burglary, three counts of tampering with evidence, two counts of unlawful possession of dangerous ordnance, single counts of conspiracy forgery, unauthorized use of a computer or telecommunications wire. So
Even if he's not convicted of the homicides, there is a lot here that can put him away for a lot of years. Could all of those together equal a life sentence, or is that totally unknowable? Oh, no, it could easily equal a life sentence. Meanwhile, jury selection, which began on August 8th, is underway. The first hurdle is finding an impartial jury in a small town for the largest case in the history of Ohio. Here's retired prosecutor Anne Flanagan.
You have to usually wait until you start to see the jury and see if you can come up with a number of people who indicate they can be fair and impartial. But it doesn't really matter if they've had some information come through. It's will they listen to the evidence and the rulings and the matters that have been brought to them in the courtroom, set aside anything else they might have heard,
and then make the decision fairly and honestly for both sides. I always talk to a jury and say, you know, at the end of the day, you want to go home and you want to be safe in your own heart and mind that you have only done what you've been asked to do because you want to go home and be able to sleep tonight. To find a jury, Pike County sent about 1,000 questionnaires to locals asking for volunteers. 200 people responded, and the court is in the process of whittling them down.
70 prospective death qualified jurors reported to the Pike County Courthouse. This is where final jury selection is beginning. Death qualified means it's already been determined that these jurors are willing to implement the death penalty if it's warranted. Local crime reporter Anjanette Levy has been our eyes and ears on the ground in Ohio for several seasons of the podcast. I spoke with Anjanette about what it's been like during the week preceding the trial.
70 death-qualified jurors showed up at the Pike County Courthouse. 51 of them were women, and 19 of them were men. And so George Wagner, the force attorney's
They filed a motion saying this whole panel, the whole veneer should be stricken because it's too many women. And there were working class jurors who were excluded for financial hardship and they shouldn't have been. So that's discriminatory. And so they thought, you know, we should start over with the whole thing.
Well, the judge said, no, I don't think so, and denied the motion. So jury selection continued. And we were all wondering whether or not they'd be able to really seat this jury. And they were able to do it. So the jury consists of nine women and three men and then the panel of six alternates. And that's five women and one man. So you have majority women who will be hearing this case. Wow. Wow.
With having so many women, that's unusual, right? You know, I don't know if it's unusual. I think we've seen trials like this in the past where it's weighted one way or the other. I covered the Johnny Depp trial in Virginia. Different trial, obviously, a civil case, a defamation case. But the majority of the jurors were men on the panel. Sometimes that's just how it shakes out. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in a moment.
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When you hit play on Post Reports, you'll get fascinating conversations and sometimes a little fun, too. 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. With the jury chosen in less than a week before the trial is set to begin, presiding Judge Deering drops a bombshell on the media.
Late today, Judge Randy Dearing issued his final rules on what can and can't be shown on camera or online. Judge Dearing is going to allow each witness to opt out of being photographed or recorded. That includes any audio of their testimony. So if they choose, witnesses can only be seen or heard by people inside the courtroom. The judge will also extend that right to the Wagners younger brother Jake and his mother Angela when they testify for the prosecution.
When the witness comes to the stand, he's going to say, "You have the right not to be shown on television." And then we have to turn the camera off. He's going to do that for every single witness. Why? You know, it's going to be very difficult if they all say no. And we still haven't gotten any clarification on whether or not we can at least play the audio of their voice. We're still kind of up in the air on when this whole thing is going to start, how we can cover it, all of that.
Here's reporter Anjanette Levy speaking with producer Chris Graves. In the state of Ohio, witnesses can opt out of being videotaped, recorded in any way. So we had to file something, so we're probably going to have a hearing next week. If they deny this motion that you guys are filing, then everyone gets the option to turn down being recorded, correct? They have the option anyway. What we're more concerned about is...
Jake and Angela being on camera. We don't want them to be able to opt out. And any other witnesses who don't want to be photographed, we want the right to record at least their audio.
You know, there may be lay witnesses who are fearful of testifying, and that's understandable. But we want to at least be able to hear what they're saying. We all pitched in, like all four Cincinnati TV stations, the Cincinnati Inquirer, Law and Crime, and Court TV. We all are represented by the same lawyer. Is it Jack? Yeah, Jack Greiner. Media lawyer Jack Greiner represented Local 12 and several other outlets in the effort to get better access to the trial.
On his website, Greiner calls himself a reporter's lawyer and is a well-known champion for First Amendment rights. We've spoken about him before. He's the same attorney who sued for access to the autopsies in this case.
We had hoped that we'd get a ruling that would really go towards maximizing the public's ability to participate in this trial, at least in the sense of observing it. People can come to the courtroom, but for many people, that's not possible. With George Wagner IV facing 22 counts, there's going to be a lot of evidence to go through point by point.
Also, since there has been so much that's been protected and redacted in the autopsies, this will also be our first opportunity to see the crime scene photos to find out exactly what occurred that night. Here's Stephanie. Those are going to tell a very specific story. I just want to see the accused Billy Wagner in person and see how his demeanor is.
I mean, think about it. It's been alleged that Billy Wagner, George Wagner and Jake Wagner all attended the funerals of people who they murdered. I mean, can you imagine the level of composure that must take? And what kind of psychopaths actually attend the funeral and pretend to be mourning the people they actually murdered?
This will also be the time when we find out if indeed these eight murders, the sole motive behind them was for custody of the daughter who was shared between confirmed murderer Jake Wagner and the victim Hannah Mae Roden, or were many other things at play. And more importantly, God willing, the Rodens, the Gillies, and the Manley family, that they'll finally get some justice. ♪
As the trial gets closer, there is another surprising development. The jury boarded a school bus and then they were taken to some of the remote locations where the crime scenes actually happened in both Piketon and Reardon, Ohio.
Jurors visited all four crime scenes, looking closely at rundown buildings now partially covered in overgrowth and the vacant ground where the road and mobile homes once sat. But a reminder that the jury view is not to be considered as evidence for the jurors. Rather, it's to give them a better understanding of the arguments here and really kind of give them a lay of the land, if you will. Anjanette Levy and the rest of the media are allowed to follow the school bus full of jurors and view the proceedings from a distance.
Chris Graves and I spoke with her about this. We followed along as the school bus and the motorcade went around. And we went to all these sites from 9.30 in the morning till about 7 at night.
We also went to places, points of interest, and drove around a lot of roads where, you know, they determined it was like the routes they said that the Wagners drove that night. Did they show them in the order that they thought they had been killed? We believe so. It started out at Chris's house, Chris Sr. Then they walked a path down to Frankie Roden's house that he shared with Hannah Gilley, and
And then they went down to Dana Roden's home but didn't stop. So it was very interesting. It makes you think, did they start at Chris Senior's? Then they went down to Frankie's. They turn around. They see that, you know, whatever's going on at Dana's house, maybe they didn't stop. Maybe they went down to Kenneth's and came back.
We don't know that for certain, but it's certainly a possibility because there was discussion that Dana had worked at double shift that night and worked later than anticipated. Oh, my God. Is the implication potentially with what you just said that they knew she was working a double shift that
and therefore didn't want to go knowing she wouldn't be there. That was the conclusion we were drawing. That doesn't mean we were right. But it seemed strange that they would drive down to Dana's and not get out when you're on the same road. Why do that? I don't recall a case where the jurors, and this includes the people, the 12 and paneled, and then the alternates, are loaded up in a school bus
and driven out to these locations where these events took place. Here's forensic death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan. You think about, you know, as the crew is moving down the road and they've essentially wiped out one portion of the family, are they talking about, you know, what they're going to do next on Union Hill Road?
And that kind of puts it in perspective at that moment in time. Does the jury have a sense of that? Was the prosecutor or the detectives on board that school bus kind of acting like a tour guide, if you will, and telling them it was at this point that they picked up the car? It was they, we believe that they traveled in this direction. And you're getting an idea of this pacing. Then you
You contemplate for a moment what these folks in the vehicle were talking about doing and what they did. And I think that that's certainly a note that the prosecutors want to drop into the ears of the jury members. All of these sorts of little details like that, which again, I think after this trial, these trials are said and done, this is something that will be studied for years to come.
This Pike County Sheriff impound lot is a key stop on the jury view. Remember, the rodents were found dead inside their mobile homes and camper. And this lot is where those vehicles were hauled and are still being held today. They took them to the impound lot at the sheriff's office where the trailers are now stored and where the pickup truck that we believe Jake said they purchased to commit the murders is stored. They were taken to 10 locations over two days.
To our knowledge, they were not taken into the actual trailers. We were not permitted to go into the actual structure where those trailers are housed. So we should have been allowed in there. It's public property. And according to the precedent, even if it was private property, we should be allowed to go on it. But they kept us out. Stephanie and I have been to Pikedon numerous times over the past few years. But this time the stakes felt higher.
We head to the courthouse to meet up with reporter James Pilcher to find out the latest about media access.
The most surprising thing about this whole enterprise is how quickly the judge turned from being media friendly to all of a sudden being the most restrictive trial any of us have ever had to deal with, ever. Why do you think? We don't know why. We've asked why, we've asked for a meeting with the judge, we've gotten no answer.
Technically, if you're a city official, you work for the city. So if the city is, you know, air quotes, standing, sitting jury and watching and wanting to see how taxpayer dollars are getting spent. For me, it's more of a transparency
public record, this is the most complex, most important murder trial in the history of the state, and yet nobody can watch it. I don't know, unless we want to push it to another appeals court or the Supreme Court, there's nothing we can do. - Like I kind of get it for retribution purposes, if you're somebody who's speaking out against the accused Wagners and you're fearing that someone's gonna come put a hit on you,
On Friday, they started erecting a fence around the parking lot of the courthouse and the entire courthouse, a chain link fence. We had never seen that before. This is an old, old courthouse. And George Wagner has to be brought into the courthouse from the outside. There isn't an underground tunnel or any other type of entrance. So they've erected a fence.
Is that concern for his safety? I would assume it's a safety issue. They don't want people just kind of walking through there that shouldn't be in there. That's my interpretation of why they did that. Hopefully we can get cameras in there. That's really the goal. Yeah, yeah. Right now, I don't know, man. It kind of looks a little bit shaky. What do you think the feeling is for the prosecution, for the defense, for everyone in Pike County right now?
You know, any time before trial, you get butterflies, no matter how many of them that you've done before, you get butterflies. Let's stop here for another break.
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On the morning of the first day of trial, the media is alerted to another development.
Opening statements were expected and slated for today, but there has been a delay. We were supposed to be in opening statements right now, but we got word that somebody involved with the trial has become ill and needs some time to recover. It's a temporary setback in a process that has taken over six years to begin. As of right now, we're planning for opening statements on September 12th. That's next Monday.
September 11th is a date etched in the consciousness of every American. Today, at least this year in Southeast Ohio, it's the day before the biggest trial in the history of the state.
James Pilcher: For me, it's the culmination of paying attention to this for the last two and a half years. I'm glad it's actually happening.
There were some doubt in my mind as to whether or not it actually ever would happen. I'm really, really interested to hear the opening statements from the prosecution because I think they're going to lay out their case and start talking specifically about the evidence that they have. I think the things that we're going to look for
are how does the defense present George as a quote-unquote innocent bystander on all this? One of the things we've heard is that potentially George only went along to keep Billy from killing Jake. If the evidence shows he was there, if the evidence and the wiretaps and the recordings of him talking about this, which apparently they do, how does he get out from underneath the aggravated murder charge, even if he isn't necessarily one of the trigger men?
But if this is a slam dunk for the prosecution, why is the defense going to trial?
There's a strategy there that I don't think we've seen yet. I haven't seen it at least. I think the defense probably knows something that we all don't know. Do you think there's some sort of break in the case that will come out in the courtroom that no one is expecting? Yes, I do. These are experienced defense counsel. They know exactly what they're doing. So I just think before this thing is over, we're going to know quite a few things about the case that we didn't know before.
More on that next time. I don't think I've ever seen photos that graphic before.
When a juror sees a human body that's been ripped to shreds, there's that thing within them that rises up and they want their pound of flesh. For more information and case photos, follow us on Instagram at KT underscore studios. The Pyton Massacre is produced by Stephanie Lidecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves, Scott DeGraw, Andrew Arnau, and me, Courtney Armstrong.
Editing and sound design by Jeff Twa. Music by Jared Aston. 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. 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.
Ready to hear more? Remember, you can get Episode 2 now, completely ad-free and a whole week early with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus, you'll get a never-before-heard subscriber-exclusive bonus episode and ad-free access to all previous seasons of The Pikedon Massacre as well. So open your Apple Podcasts app, search for iHeart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today.
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