0:01

Welcome to the piked In Massacre, a production

0:03

of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios,

0:07

the bodies.

0:07

Of seven adults and one sixteen year

0:09

old boy were found in.

0:11

Four different locations along a country

0:13

road in Pine County.

0:16

A small town nightmare comes to life in rural

0:18

Ohio. Eight members

0:20

of the road and family gunned down in cold

0:22

blood in their sleep.

0:24

Just a nightmare scenario.

0:25

All of them shot in the head execution

0:28

style is absolutely shocking.

0:30

The brutal murder spark a two and a half year investigation

0:33

comprising state, local, and federal authorities.

0:36

Then Attorney General Mike DeWine comments

0:38

on what ends in a stunning series of arrests.

0:41

At the center of this case were members of

0:43

the Wagner family, whom we believe the

0:45

avalanche will show conspired together

0:47

to kill these eight people.

0:49

It's a crime that shocks a once quiet community

0:51

and leaves a haunting legacy that may lie at its

0:53

very heart.

0:54

There are survivors and they are very

0:56

young. We're talking three children.

0:59

One is is four days old, a

1:01

six month old baby, and a

1:03

three year old. And when the reporters were asking

1:06

were all of them asleep at the time, they said no.

1:12

This is the piked In Massacre, Episode

1:15

three, Hannah and Jake. Over

1:20

the course of the first two episodes, we've covered

1:22

the details of the Rodin murders and learned

1:25

about the family accused of carrying them out,

1:27

the Wagoners. I'm Courtney Armstrong,

1:29

a producer at KATI Studios. With Stephanie

1:32

Leidecker and Jeff Shane, we worked on a

1:34

documentary about the Roden murders back in

1:36

twenty nineteen. Here's Stephanie.

1:38

If we're going to talk about the road in deaths, then

1:40

we also need to talk about their lives. So

1:42

often when it comes to crime victims, it all

1:44

becomes about their murders and so

1:47

little about who they were prior. I all

1:49

accounts, the Roden family was a very happy,

1:52

close knit family. In fact, they lived

1:54

just miles from one another.

1:56

They were close enough that they all lived on the same road,

1:58

which speaks to just how

2:00

tight knit they were. And you know, this family

2:02

went back generations in Pike County.

2:05

Everyone we talked to you pretty much said the same thing about

2:07

them. They were all very hard working, very

2:09

kind, and very generous. And we

2:12

probably heard this the most about the matrix

2:14

of the family Hannah's mother, Dana

2:16

Rodin.

2:17

Here's one of Dana's oldest friends, Becky

2:19

Ryder.

2:20

She is a very nice person, just a

2:22

great mother and a great your

2:24

wife to her husband.

2:26

Yeah, she's just so wrong, a good person.

2:30

As we listened to Becky described Dana Roadin,

2:33

we began to see a vivid portrait take

2:35

shape. A trusted friend, a caring

2:37

nurse at a nearby assisted living facility,

2:40

and a surrogate mother to some of the local kids.

2:43

Brittany was one of them, a lifelong

2:45

friend of Dana's son, Chris Junior. She

2:47

reminisced about Dana with Stephanie.

2:50

She had shorter brown hair.

2:52

She always had the like curly and

2:55

sometimes she was put like purple streaks

2:57

in her hair, blonde streaks like I don't

2:59

know. She liked that kind of weird stuff slumps in

3:01

here like. I always looked at her, like, what are you doing

3:04

to your hair? See now I

3:06

do that to my hair.

3:08

She would be very proud of you, Yes she would.

3:11

She'd laugh at me.

3:12

And Dana always sort of looked after everybody

3:14

else's kids. She would kind of be

3:17

the mama bear.

3:18

Yeah, one time we were all riding and

3:21

I wasn't on the four wheeler

3:23

with Chris. Well, we were all riding

3:25

in I actually got in a wreck because

3:27

the four wheeler, like I don't know what happened

3:30

to it, Like it just completely messed

3:32

up and we flipped down the hill and

3:35

Chris went and got his mom, and his mom like

3:37

came up in the woods. It was like

3:40

freaking out, and then she took care of me, gave

3:42

me some eyes, she gave me some water, you know,

3:45

being that whole.

3:46

Mom like are you okay?

3:47

Are you okay?

3:48

Do I need to call the ambulance? So that was

3:50

always a good thing.

3:52

Dana met her husband, Chris Rhoden Senior,

3:54

when she was in high school, and they fell in love immediately

3:57

a few years later they got married. Here

4:00

again, as Becky Ryder speaking to producer

4:03

Jeff Shane, she remembered meeting Dana

4:05

as a young wife who had found the man of for dreams.

4:07

Well, I met danae her and Chris was

4:09

already married.

4:10

So they got married in high school.

4:12

Then, Yeah, she got married really young.

4:14

Was that uncommon?

4:15

Yes, it's uncommon, But for her, she knew

4:17

that's the man that she loved, and she knew she wanted to

4:19

be with him forever.

4:26

Stephane likns knew Chris Senior as

4:28

a devoted family man and a skilled craftsman.

4:31

She spoke to our producer Jeff about him.

4:33

I tell you, if you

4:35

could see some of the stuff, some

4:38

of the things that he built,

4:40

like the decks. He

4:43

was an amazing carpenter. He

4:46

built this one that had all kinds of intricate

4:49

you know, he designed

4:51

them, you know, just his

4:53

imagination. You know he could

4:56

if you know, if they said money's

4:58

no object, you would be a at

5:01

you know, the things that he could

5:03

do.

5:06

Together. Dana and Chris Senior raised three

5:08

kids, Frankie, Hannah, and Chris

5:10

Junior, but after more than twenty

5:12

years of marriage, the relationship began to fall

5:15

apart. Dana

5:17

and Christina got divorced, but they

5:19

continued to live on the same property, working

5:21

together to take care of the children.

5:24

They still had each other's back no matter what. Everything

5:27

was always for the kids.

5:29

Nineteen year old Hannah Rodin was Chris Senior

5:31

and Dana's only daughter.

5:33

She was great, She was funny, She was

5:35

really funny. She was really really nice. She

5:38

knew everyone, Everyone knew her, and she just

5:40

like talked to everyone, but she wasn't

5:42

stuck up or anything like that, and she

5:46

lived life to the fullest.

5:49

But after her murder in twenty sixteen, it

5:51

became clear that Hannah's life and the events

5:53

leading up to her death were much more complicated

5:55

than anyone I piked in could have known. All

6:01

of this starts six years earlier, in

6:04

the summer of twenty ten. Hannah had recently

6:06

turned thirteen, and she starts dating

6:09

a local boy named Jake Wagner. At

6:13

the time, Jake was just shy of eighteen. The

6:17

relationship moves quickly. Three years

6:19

later, Hannah and Jake begin planning to start

6:21

a family, and in November twenty

6:23

thirteen, Hannah gives birth to their baby girl,

6:25

Sophia.

6:27

She was a great mom like sometimes she

6:29

would bring her her baby to school

6:32

like the She would always come into minding Chris's

6:34

class because we had American Government

6:36

together, and she would always bring the baby in there and let our

6:39

teacher, mister Krino, see the baby.

6:43

We talked to a relative of the Wagner family.

6:45

She asked us not to use her name, but shared

6:47

her thoughts on what Jake was like as a father to

6:49

Sophia.

6:50

Jake was always very i

6:52

mean hand on, like he would always be

6:54

playing like, hey be outside baby, you

6:57

know, non stop hand

6:59

and he always kind of make

7:01

sure that she, you know, had what she needed.

7:05

Just very active with

7:07

her and very protective of her. It

7:11

seems like, you know, the second that like

7:15

if anything bad were to happen, I guess

7:17

he was on it. Like he was

7:20

there for her. He was ready to

7:22

do whatever needed to be done in

7:25

order to make sure that she was okay.

7:29

Well. Raising a family is difficult for the young couple,

7:32

they make things work. Hannah stays

7:34

in school while Jake works as a truck driver

7:36

with his brother, George Wagner. The

7:38

couple in Sophia split time between the Rodent

7:40

and the Wagner households. For

7:43

everyone involved, it's a dream scenario.

7:46

Angela Wagner, Jake's mother, is

7:48

already a grandparent, but she's excited

7:50

to be spending time with the newest addition to

7:52

her family.

7:53

Her great children. They absolutely adored

7:55

her. They left her. They always wanted to, you know, go

7:57

with her, and she would go out

7:59

of her way to make sure that they

8:02

were taking care of or, you know, on

8:04

the holidays that they thought you

8:06

know anything that cod you think she

8:08

could give them and everything like

8:10

that.

8:11

Dana Rohden's friend Stefanne told our producer

8:13

Jeff that Dana was just as elated.

8:16

Was she excited to be a grandmother again?

8:18

Oh my gosh, yes, those

8:21

babies were her lives.

8:23

In twenty fifteen, things seemed to be going

8:25

well for Hannah and Jake. They have a

8:27

wedding date set and even had rings tattooed

8:29

on their fingers.

8:31

Throughout that time, Hannah became very close

8:33

with the Wagner family, so much so

8:35

that after the murders, Angela

8:37

Wagner tells the press that Hannah

8:39

was like a daughter to her and her entire family. So

8:42

if that's the case, what could possibly

8:44

have gone wrong?

8:45

We have a little bit of insight into that thanks

8:47

to a signed affid David

8:50

that Jake Wagner submitted, And

8:53

this is just from his perspective, but what

8:56

he claims is that he and

8:58

Hannah split in April twenty fifteen, which

9:00

is a year before the murders. He claims that

9:02

Hannah actually was the one to break up with him because

9:05

she thought he was working too much, and his

9:08

perspective was that he wanted to stay

9:10

at home wife and a full time mother to Sophia,

9:12

which Hannah was just not ready to do.

9:14

Which, again, that is his account. We don't

9:17

have the benefit of having Hannah's account or any

9:19

of Hannah's family's account either. We

9:21

spoke with an anonymous Wagner family

9:23

source and they say that Jake just

9:25

really wasn't ready to throw in the towel on the

9:27

relationship period.

9:30

He was trying very hard to make sure that they

9:33

got back together. He still

9:35

wanted to be with her. He was

9:37

trying to get back with her,

9:40

just everything that he could.

9:42

It's really hard to know what goes on in a relationship

9:44

behind closed doors. Is it possible

9:46

that Hannah felt as though she was being controlled

9:49

by Jake or that she was in over

9:51

her head and couldn't get out of the relationship. Is

9:53

it possible that Jake Wagner's broken

9:56

heart was really the reason that his

9:58

entire family allegedly killed

10:01

her entire family.

10:02

Yeah, again, going back to kind of figuring

10:04

out like the timeline and what might

10:07

have happened, We're able to kind of piece some

10:09

of it together through social

10:11

media. We found a post from July of twenty

10:14

fifteen where she made a rather

10:16

cryptic entry on Facebook,

10:18

posting lyrics to a song about

10:20

domestic abuse, and the lyrics read,

10:23

he slowly isolates her from all of her

10:25

friends. She works really hard, but he takes

10:27

all of it. She ended the post

10:29

with her own words, saying, en domestic

10:32

violence, live a happier life.

10:35

It is important to note that

10:37

we don't know for an absolute fact that

10:39

these posts were about Jake. The

10:41

timeline certainly matches up, but if they

10:43

were all about Jake, it raises a number

10:46

of questions. Was Jake Wagner

10:48

a controlling and abusive partner. Though

10:52

we can't be sure about what went on behind the scenes

10:54

of Jake and Hannah's relationship, we do

10:57

know one thing. Hannah was eighteen years

10:59

old when she posted message, and

11:01

she would be dead within a year. We're

11:08

going to take a quick break here. We'll be back

11:10

in a moment. Let's

11:20

go back to that summer of twenty fifteen. Just

11:22

after Hannah and Jake broke up. That May,

11:25

she starts dating a guy named Charlie Gilly.

11:27

Charlie is her brother, Frankie's best friend

11:30

and the brother of Frankie's fiance, Hannah

11:32

Gilly. Here's journalist Jeff

11:34

Winkler, there was.

11:35

This period after Hannah May had broken

11:38

things off with Jake Wagner

11:40

that when she got with Charlie,

11:42

it was sort of by what you would hope

11:44

for, you know, everyone seemed

11:47

to like Charlie Gilly, who you

11:49

know, by all accounts was very

11:52

caring, very loving, very much liked

11:54

by the family.

11:57

Charlie is proud of his relationship with Hannah.

12:00

He often posts photos of he and Hannah

12:02

kissing and proclaims his love for her online.

12:05

However, as fast as things heat up,

12:07

they fizzle out just as quickly, and

12:09

by the end of July twenty fifteen, the couple

12:12

breaks up. Now, according to that

12:14

same Fit David that Jake Wagner signed, he

12:16

and Hannah continue a physical relationship

12:18

that entire summer. Brittany

12:20

told Jeff Shane what she heard about Jake

12:23

Wagner and Hannah's fraud relationship

12:25

from Hannah's brother, Chris Junior.

12:27

Chris would always come to school and talk to me about

12:29

it. What would he say, just

12:31

that his sister is in a shitty situation.

12:34

He just treats her awfully

12:36

and she really can't do anything

12:39

about it because she has a kid

12:41

with him. He was

12:43

just saying that it's a whole bunch of bs and that

12:46

Jake would just treat her like crap.

12:48

Ele Like, what did you think about that?

12:49

At the time, that she needed

12:51

to get out of that relationship and not be

12:54

associated with that family.

12:59

At some point this same summer, Hannah falls

13:01

for another boy from piped in, Corey

13:03

Holdron. According to our Wagner

13:05

family source, when Jake finds out he's.

13:07

Crushed, he got extremely

13:10

upset when he found out that she was seeing somebody

13:12

else, and he

13:14

was hurt. He didn't understand, and every

13:17

time that I got a chance to talk to him,

13:19

he would cry. He was like, you know, I don't

13:21

understand why she's

13:24

why she's been this way, why she you

13:26

know, won't give me from the chance to explain

13:28

myself, Like we could work on it, and it

13:30

would because Lucia, we would be good

13:33

to Yeah, I mean, it was just always

13:35

Yeah. He was very very upset

13:37

about that. So and

13:40

after I think, after after

13:43

being upset and after

13:45

that kind of war off, I think it

13:47

did turn to anger.

13:52

In August twenty fifteen, hannah summer

13:54

ends with a big shock. She's pregnant.

13:58

Unlike her first child, this one is unplanned,

14:01

adding to the anxiety, she doesn't know who the

14:03

father is. The potential

14:05

fathers are Charlie Gilly, Corey

14:08

Haldron, and Jake Wagner. For

14:12

Jake, the pregnancy offers a glimmer

14:15

of hope.

14:16

I could just tell by talking to him

14:18

that when he did find out that Hannah was pregnant

14:20

again that it almost was like a sense

14:23

of relief to him, kind

14:25

of. I think he thought that was going to bring him

14:27

back together. He as Hannah

14:30

and was willing to bear,

14:33

you know, for the birth. He was acting, you know, if

14:35

she needed any help with anything with the

14:38

baby, like the child support,

14:40

he was willing to pay that He had gotten

14:42

things for the baby at one point on him

14:44

and Angela had went and bought a crib

14:47

and just things

14:49

like that for the child. Yeah,

14:52

and this was before he had any idea if

14:54

it was even his or not.

14:57

But behind the scenes, there are rumors that the once

14:59

amicable cope parenting situation between

15:01

Hannah and Jake is beginning to fall apart.

15:04

According to Mike Gallon, attorney and legal

15:06

analyst for Fox nineteen and Cincinnati,

15:08

things soon reached a boiling point.

15:10

Two or three weeks prior to the murder, there's

15:12

evidence that Jake Wagner and his father

15:15

tried to get Hannah rode and to sign some documents

15:17

that related to custody of her

15:20

daughter Sophia to Jake Wagner.

15:22

But Jake's plan seems to backfire here

15:25

again, our Wagner family member, there.

15:27

Was a custody battle. It's basically would

15:29

have been able to do. There was a custody battle between you

15:31

know, the the daughter. Hannah

15:34

wasn't allowing Jake to see her

15:36

or any of the family to see

15:38

her, and so it kind

15:41

of just it got out of hand at that point.

15:44

It just set him off to the point

15:46

where Jake, because

15:49

he had made the comments a couple of times,

15:51

I mean, and I had to a

15:53

couple of people about this. I mean, he had made

15:55

the comments, you know, that he were going to

15:59

kill her, and

16:02

he told her that, you know, He's like, I'm going

16:04

to I'm going to ever chill

16:06

you like, you're not going You're not gonna let

16:08

me see the baby, then you know you're

16:11

not gonna have her. And I'm like, Jake, you can't

16:13

say those things. Please just chill

16:15

out and of course.

16:18

You know, nobody ever really thinks like, oh my

16:20

god, he's actually gonna consider

16:22

that.

16:23

Right, People say stuff like that all the time, right.

16:26

It's right, like, especially when I'm upset

16:28

as he was. I mean, he was just completely

16:31

out of his mind. It

16:34

really really upset him.

16:38

On April seventeenth, twenty sixteen, in

16:40

the midst of the couple's custody dispute, Hannah

16:43

gives birth to a baby girl named Kylie.

16:46

On the birth certificate, she doesn't list anyone as

16:48

the father. Less than a week later,

16:50

on April twenty second, Hannah and seven

16:52

members of her family are found murdered in their

16:55

homes. Thankfully,

16:58

the life of baby Kylie and her two cousin are

17:00

spared. The

17:02

brutal murderers committed in front of these young

17:04

children rattled everyone who heard about the story,

17:07

even seasoned prosecutors like then Attorney

17:09

General Mike DeWine.

17:11

I guess the worst thing I've ever seen. And when you

17:13

see a mother, young mother

17:15

just gave worth four days before and

17:17

she's murdered right beside

17:19

her child. Thank God they did not harm

17:22

the baby. But you

17:24

know, it doesn't get much worse than that.

17:28

Jeff Winkler spoke to us about trying to make

17:31

sense of the killer's intentions.

17:32

There was a conscious choice

17:35

to leave every single young

17:38

child alive who basically couldn't

17:40

identify them successfully.

17:42

I mean, that is probably the most.

17:44

Shocking part of the whole ordeals,

17:46

that there was a conscious choice by

17:49

these killers to spare

17:51

the children, which sort of displays

17:54

the cold heartedness of decisions they

17:56

were making.

18:01

Going back to the timeline for a second.

18:03

Following the murder, it was one week that passed

18:06

and Jake Wagner files for custody

18:08

for both Sophia and the newborn Kylie.

18:10

He seems convinced that he's Kylie's father,

18:12

but acknowledges that even if he isn't, he still

18:15

deserves partial custody so the sisters

18:17

could spend time together.

18:18

Yeah, the whole Wagner family was pretty vocal at

18:20

that time about their need

18:23

to have custody of these kids.

18:26

Angela Wagner told the

18:28

press that Sophia

18:30

and Kylie quote unquote needed each other and

18:32

that when they got older enough to understand what

18:34

happened to their mother, that they will really

18:37

need each other.

18:37

Right and custody is something as complicated

18:40

and it varies state by state,

18:43

So Stephanie, I know you dug into

18:45

this quite a bit.

18:46

Yeah, it's very specific. We spoke to a

18:49

family law attorney

18:51

in Ohio and you know, yes, if

18:53

you're an unmarried woman, all parental

18:56

rights go to you. The father does

18:58

not have any parental rights unless

19:01

he goes to court and files accordingly.

19:04

To that point, these papers

19:06

for custody were filed exactly one week

19:08

after the murders. That's pretty quick

19:10

to pull all of your custody documents together

19:12

in such a short amount of time.

19:15

I know things vary from state to state, but

19:17

it's pretty unusual to have that so tidy

19:20

so quickly. And some

19:23

reports I've indicated that that may mean that

19:25

they had been going through the process

19:27

and that Jake and the Wagner family were

19:30

compiling documents in such prior

19:33

to the murders. So it is possible

19:35

that because he didn't have any rights,

19:38

could that actually be reason enough

19:40

to go through with this crime.

19:43

Yeah. I spoke to Mike Allen. He's a

19:45

former prosecutor and now he's a criminal defense

19:47

attorney in Ohio, and he told

19:49

me about how Jake's quick custody filings

19:52

look from a legal perspective.

19:54

That's extremely strong evidence

19:56

for the prosecution. I mean

19:58

six days, less than a week after

20:00

the killings.

20:01

To go ahead and file it

20:03

can take.

20:04

Months, you know, maybe a

20:06

year, a little bit more, a little bit less. It's

20:09

not something that goes quickly at all,

20:11

and I think that that is

20:13

going to be some evidence that's problematic

20:16

for the defense doing it that quickly.

20:18

After the murders, Jake

20:22

seems determined to be a father to Sophia

20:25

and to Hannah's newborn baby. Throughout

20:27

Hannah's pregnancy and even after the birth, Jake

20:30

Wagner publicly says there's a good chance

20:32

he's baby Kylie's father. He's

20:34

so confident that shortly after Kylie is born

20:37

he checks her for a hammer index toe,

20:39

a Wagner family trade.

20:43

He still wanted to be involved

20:45

and still wanted to be there, so

20:49

it was a very emotional

20:51

time for him.

20:52

So he really wanted to be a part

20:54

of Hannah's life and Sophia's

20:56

life and Kylie's baby, Kylie's life.

20:58

Absolutely, he was still

21:01

willing, I guess, to

21:03

help with the child, help with you

21:05

know, whatever Hannah would need.

21:08

In June twenty sixteen, nearly two

21:10

months after the Rodent murders, Jake Wagner,

21:13

Charlie Gilly, and Corey Holtron all

21:15

take paternity tests. It's

21:18

determined that Charlie Gilly is Kylie's

21:20

father.

21:23

With baby Kylie going to her father, Charlie

21:26

Gilly, three year old Sophia goes

21:28

to her father, Jake Wagner, the accused,

21:30

which is interesting when you look at the

21:32

timeline of events. In fact,

21:34

on the day of the murders, Jake allegedly

21:37

picked up Sophia from the road and home.

21:40

As a result, Sophia's life was thankfully

21:42

spared. She wasn't even there. Was

21:44

that just a huge coincidence?

21:47

Was that fate or does that actually

21:49

point to a larger plot?

21:52

Well, for example, if the Wagners indeed

21:54

are the killers, then on the very day Hannah

21:56

and the rest of the Rodents that they were celebrating

21:59

the expected birth of Kylie with

22:01

the baby shower, the Wagoners were out shopping

22:03

at Walmart for items that the prosecutor

22:06

plans to introduce his evidence at

22:08

their trial.

22:09

Right, That's an important trip to Walmart that becomes

22:11

a big piece of this case. We've seen

22:13

those photographs too, from the baby shower and

22:16

everybody looks so happy. You know, it's

22:18

really staggering. Let's just say that Jake's

22:21

dream was to be a family again

22:23

with Hannah. He was in love with her. He

22:25

wanted to keep his family together. Why kill

22:28

her and guarantee that you're traumatizing

22:30

your child? It doesn't really totally make

22:32

sense.

22:33

Journalists Jodi Barr analyze the potential

22:36

motive.

22:37

The older these kids get, the more they're going to look

22:39

like their moms and dads who are murdered.

22:41

And you want that connection, and

22:44

these families are fighting over that through the court

22:46

system. And now on the back end

22:48

of this, you learned that Wait

22:50

a minute, if everything is

22:53

true that these investigators have a ledge

22:55

in these charging documents, man, this

22:57

goes much deeper, you know, as far as the

22:59

custody is involved here, if that is truly

23:01

what happened. But this is a case. I

23:04

mean, we're four years removed from this now.

23:06

I think about this every day in some respect.

23:09

I mean, if it's you know, you wonder about

23:11

those kids, you know how they're doing now? Is it gotten

23:13

any easier to accept this? Are

23:16

those kids do

23:18

they remember any part of this?

23:21

It's a whole I mean it's generations of a family wiped

23:23

out.

23:23

Yeah, then you think about, you know, in the back end of

23:26

this, I mean, those kids had to go somewhere. What

23:28

do you do with those children? What are they

23:30

telling them? You know, it's just like when

23:32

you when you think about the human end of this outside

23:34

of the investigation, Man, this

23:36

family, These are going to be hard conversations

23:39

that they have with these children. Could you imagine

23:41

explaining this to a kid when they

23:43

ask where their mom and dad are or tell

23:45

me about my mom and dad. And I mean they're

23:47

going to get on the internet one day, they're going to google

23:49

it.

23:50

I mean, you google Rodent.

23:52

The worst news possible that any human could

23:54

ever have is going to come up, and

23:56

you know, how do you prepare them for that? This is a you

23:59

know, whatever happened that morning on Union Hill Road,

24:02

you know it impacted a lot more than

24:05

just those eight people who are killed. I mean, you've got their

24:07

family members and you've got people

24:09

in that area are going to remember this forever.

24:12

This is never going away.

24:19

Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll

24:21

be back in a moment. The

24:32

legacy still lingers on with Dana's friend

24:34

Stephane quite ashamed.

24:36

You know that paina may

24:39

you know, just just had that baby

24:41

and they you know, it's

24:44

oh, it makes me sick.

24:46

It's really unimaginable.

24:48

Yes, it is.

24:50

You know, no one deserves, no

24:53

one deserves to die the way

24:55

that they did. And it breaks

24:57

my heart. It breaks my heart that they

25:00

and I'll never see her kids, you

25:02

know, grow

25:04

up to go to school,

25:06

get married, have their own children.

25:13

I'm sorry, it's okay,

25:15

it's okay to be emotional about it. I mean, it is emotional.

25:18

It's horrible.

25:20

Yes, it is.

25:25

On the one hand, you've heard I'm sure you've

25:27

heard. I've heard that like whoever did

25:29

this, you know, had like some sort

25:32

of moral code that they wouldn't hurt the children

25:34

and they wouldn't you know, harm the kids. But then on the

25:36

other hand, it's like, but they left all these kids without

25:38

a family, and so like that's almost worse

25:40

in a way.

25:42

Yes, And I

25:44

feel so sorry for the children. You know that

25:47

they will never get

25:49

to know their parents, you know, will never

25:51

grow they'll grow up without their parents.

25:58

We know that the Wagoners are in prison awaiting

26:00

trial for these murders, but also that they've

26:02

pled not guilty to all charges. It's

26:05

also important to remember that they are innocent

26:07

until proven guilty. So

26:11

if somebody else other than the Wagoners

26:13

committed this crime, who was it and

26:16

why. During

26:21

the ensuing investigation, information

26:24

started to emerge that perhaps there were several

26:26

other theories that needed to be considered closely.

26:30

Here's reporter James Pilcher, who followed

26:32

the story closely for years.

26:34

On the surface, the Rodents appeared to be the

26:37

salt of the earth, all American, very

26:40

close knit family, and there

26:42

were other things that led you to believe that

26:45

all was now as it seemed. There

26:47

had been reports of scuffles with

26:49

other people in public, there

26:51

had been reports of run ins

26:54

with law enforcement, and.

26:55

It wasn't long before authorities made a shocking

26:57

discovery that turned the case on its head.

27:00

Here's the Attorney General, Mike DeWine

27:02

at a news conference a few days after the murders

27:04

took place.

27:05

Let me go ahead, and I think it's okay

27:07

for us to confirm that

27:09

we did find marijuana in three

27:13

three locations.

27:15

There's a grow operations.

27:20

Later, it was discovered that the Rodents

27:22

had a pretty sizeable crop of marijuana

27:24

plants on their property. You

27:27

know, there were indications that they

27:29

were involved in some drug deals, in drug

27:31

trade with marijuana. That

27:35

obviously fueled even more speculation that

27:37

these were outside operators.

27:40

Possibly was as a drug deal gone bad,

27:42

or was somebody trying to take over their turf. All

27:45

kinds of rumors started flow after that disclosure.

27:54

More on that next week. Picked

27:59

In Massacre there is executive produced by Stephanie

28:01

Leidecker and me Courtney Armstrong, editing

28:04

and sound design by executive producer Jared

28:06

Aston, Additional producing by

28:08

Jeff Shane and Andrew Becker. The

28:11

piked in Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio

28:13

and Kati Studios. For more

28:15

podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio

28:18

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

28:20

to your favorite shows.