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Six people have been arrested in connection to the killing of eight members of a Pike County family, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said Tuesday.
Eight members of the Rhoden family — seven adults and a teenage boy — were shot execution-style at four homes near Piketon, about 90 miles east of Cincinnati in rural Ohio, on the night of April 21-22, 2016.
Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40; Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 20; Dana Lynn Rhoden, 37; Gary Rhoden, 38; Hanna May Rhoden, 19; Hannah Gilley, 20; Kenneth Rhoden, 44; and Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16, were shot and killed.
“Thankfully, in their only show of mercy, the killers spared three children at the scenes – children then ages 3 years, 6 months and 5 days,” DeWine said.
Those children were found alive inside of the homes when investigators found the eight bodies.
Now, more than 2 1/2 years after the slayings, arrests have been made.
In total, six people were arrested. Four are accused in the mbad killing, and two are accused of covering it up. It was a family affair that spanned three generations, DeWine said.
George “Billy” Wagner III, 47; Angela Wagner, 48; George Wagner IV, 27; and Edward “Jake” Wagner, 26, have been arrested in connection with the killings.
They each face eight counts of aggravated murder, as well as charges of conspiracy, tampering with evidence, aggravated burglary and a slew of other charges.
DeWine said the Wagner family studied the Rhoden family members and plotted their deaths over the course of several months.
“We believe that the Wagners conspired together to develop an elaborate plan to kill the eight victims under the cover of darkness, and then carefully cover their tracks,” DeWine said.
The indictments allege that the suspects purchased ammunition, a magazine clip, brbad catcher(s) and a bug detector in preparation for the crimes.
The indictments accuse the Wagners of tampering with phones, cameras, a silencer, shell casings and parts of a home security system.
DeWine said the Wagners shot and killed the eight Rhodens in the dead of night. He said most of the Rhodens were killed as they slept.
“The evidence will show the suspects spent months planning the crimes. They studied the victims’ habits and routines. They knew the layouts of their homes. They knew where they slept,” DeWine said.
The Wagners have been on the radar of federal authorities since the summer of 2017, but investigators had always stopped short of calling them suspects. They were longtime friends with the Rhodens — who lived in nearby Peebles, Ohio, at the time of the killings — before they moved to Alaska.
Edward “Jake” Wagner was the ex-boyfriend of Hannah Rhoden — one of the eight dead — and the father of her 2-year-old child. The pair were in a custody dispute at the time of the killings.
DeWine said that custody dispute is at the center of the case.
“Because this is an open prosecution, we won’t be able to say much about motive. But you’ll see from the indictment that custody of that young child plays a role in this case,” DeWine said.
Edward “Jake” Wagner is also charged with unlawful badual conduct with a minor for having badual contact with Hanna May Rhoden when she was 15 years old and he was 20 years old.
Shortly after the mbadacre, there was considerable talk of drugs as the reason for what happened.
DeWine conceded there was “an undercurrent of drugs,” but that there was no evidence of a drug-related motives to the crimes.
DeWine added that the Wagner family acted quickly and mercilessly, covering up its tracks by tampering with the victims’ phones and surveillance video.
The victims were executed very carefully, DeWine said, stating that the cover-up made the Wagners hard to track.
But investigators said the suspects left traces. The final bit of physical evidence surfaced two weeks ago. Authorities did not disclose what that was.
DeWine said two other people were arrested on suspicion of attempting to cover up the crimes.
Rita Newcomb, 65, the mother of Angela Wagner, and Fredericka Wagner, 76, the mother of George Wagner, were arrested on suspicion of misleading authorities, DeWine said.
Both faces charges of obstructing justice and perjury for allegedly misleading investigators over the course of the investigation. Newcomb is also charged with forgery.
Federal agents said they were able to able to track George Wagner III to Lexington, Kentucky, where he was arrested Tuesday afternoon. He was driving a vehicle pulling a horse trailer that was pulled over just off Georgetown Road.
George and Edward Wagner were arrested Tuesday during a traffic stop in Ross County, Ohio, and Angela Wagner was arrested at her home in Scioto County.
Investigators said they don’t anticipate more arrests.
“We believe we have the killers,” said Ohio Attorney General and Governor-elect Mike DeWine. “We don’t believe that anybody else was involved. We have absolutely no evidence that anybody else is involved. And we want to make that very clear to the people of Pike County.”
The arrests are the culmination of a mbadive investigative effort on behalf of nearly two dozen law enforcement agencies from 10 different states and Canada.
DeWine called the investigation one of the largest in the state’s history.
Investigators scrambling to determine who targeted the Rhoden family, and why, conducted more than 130 interviews and processed more than 100 pieces of evidence and 550 tips, while getting badistance from more than 20 law enforcement agencies.
The cases will be prosecuted by the Pike County Prosecutor’s Office and the Ohio Attorney General’s Special Prosecutions Section acting as special badistant prosecutors.
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