Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Family of 8 massacred off rural road

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Family of 8 massacred off rural road · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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1:23
Speaker 1: this is making me sleepy. Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
1:37
Speaker 1: It's horrible. I don't I don't know how to described.
1:40
Speaker 1: It's horrible for the whole family. That's how a family
1:43
Speaker 1: friend described the deaths of eight family members back in
1:47
Speaker 1: April of two thousand sixteen. It's a mystery that has
1:50
Speaker 1: captivated the state and has apparently puzzled authorities. Now a
1:55
Speaker 1: little more is being revealed about the deaths of the
1:57
Speaker 1: members of the Rodent family. We knew the family had
2:00
Speaker 1: been shot to death, but now we are learning graphic details.
2:04
Speaker 1: You're hearing from our friends at ABC. That was Tom
2:06
Speaker 1: Bosco with ABC six. How did an entire family? And
2:13
Speaker 1: and I say this with great pride that I also
2:15
Speaker 1: went from the middle of nowhere, a family of eight
2:20
Speaker 1: murdered in the middle of nowhere. And I say that
2:26
Speaker 1: with great love and wonderment and incredulity because in an
2:32
Speaker 1: area like Pike County. You don't expect a crime to
2:37
Speaker 1: take place uh in the middle of Pike County, Ohio,
2:42
Speaker 1: but especially a mass murder and execution style form. A
2:51
Speaker 1: family of eight all shot dead, most of them as
2:56
Speaker 1: they lay sleeping in their bed, except for one, the senior,
3:00
Speaker 1: who had defensive wounds, showing that he tried to fight back.
3:04
Speaker 1: Let's start at the beginning. Joining me right now, Karen Start,
3:08
Speaker 1: New York psychologists joining us from Manhattan. Also Ashley Wilcot,
3:12
Speaker 1: judge lawyer, founder of child Crime watch dot com. And yes,
3:16
Speaker 1: there are three surviving children to think about. Ashley Joseph
3:20
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan, Professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, death investigator
3:25
Speaker 1: and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and
3:29
Speaker 1: renowned medical examiner Dr Michelle Dupre out of South Carolina.
3:33
Speaker 1: But joining me right now. Crime Online dot Com investigative
3:36
Speaker 1: reporter Nicole Pardon. Nicole, I really don't know where to start,
3:41
Speaker 1: but let's start where every homicide investigation starts. We'll start
3:47
Speaker 1: with the timeline and specifically the murders themselves. What can
3:52
Speaker 1: you tell me about the crime scene. Here's what we know.
3:56
Speaker 1: Nancy it's the largest homicide investigation in Ohio history. Sometime
4:02
Speaker 1: in the early morning hours of April, all eight family
4:06
Speaker 1: members were killed in that rural area of Pike County three.
4:11
Speaker 1: Right a minute, Nicole, Nicole, I hate to interrupt you,
4:15
Speaker 1: but I want to clarify something, because every single fact counts.
4:20
Speaker 1: You say the early morning hours for timeline purposes, can
4:25
Speaker 1: we narrow that down at all? We're being told sometime
4:30
Speaker 1: between the hours of two a m. And six AM. Okay,
4:33
Speaker 1: that's important. That's important to me because that means that
4:37
Speaker 1: someone was intending to do this. And it's over three
4:43
Speaker 1: different homes. These eight family members, they weren't all sleeping
4:47
Speaker 1: and like the Walton's, the Walton family and one big
4:51
Speaker 1: family home. Uh, this was a big farm covering multiple properties,
4:56
Speaker 1: and there were different homes across the property for the
5:00
Speaker 1: various family members to live in. They were adults. So
5:05
Speaker 1: Nicole parton sometime after to a m. Right when everybody
5:09
Speaker 1: is really getting into the deep r E M sleep.
5:12
Speaker 1: What happens? We know that a killer or killers entered
5:16
Speaker 1: into these three homes and viciously murdered these family members.
5:21
Speaker 1: Also traveling about three miles away to a camper home
5:25
Speaker 1: where an additional family member lives, killing them as well.
5:28
Speaker 1: You know this person didn't stop with just one home,
5:32
Speaker 1: going to three separate properties to murder in the middle
5:36
Speaker 1: of the night. Let's start with so many investigations. Start
5:39
Speaker 1: with the nine one one call um, Okay, given me
6:01
Speaker 1: his seat here, man, man going on? There's black all
6:10
Speaker 1: over the house. Okay, my brother in lawson says, he
6:14
Speaker 1: looks like I think the hell I love them, okaycause
6:21
Speaker 1: all parts. Maybe can you coming with county? That's then
6:25
Speaker 1: it is my down, it's my county. Okay, okay, how
6:32
Speaker 1: do you do to get out of the house? Thank you?
6:36
Speaker 1: Drive over there? Nice idea. Okay, what's your name, Mike?
6:41
Speaker 1: What's your brother in law's name? What's your brother in
6:45
Speaker 1: law's name? Dam Yeah, what's your name? Chris Burnsing, Garry
6:54
Speaker 1: Ray Rank and Gary Broad First, I's in here, looks
6:58
Speaker 1: like the dad think you're both dead. I think you bad? Okay,
7:05
Speaker 1: anybody else in the house. I don't know us. Okay,
7:11
Speaker 1: the door was lawful. We got here, but I hope
7:14
Speaker 1: we see herr leting on the bloord. I need let
7:19
Speaker 1: out of the house and now okay to stay out
7:24
Speaker 1: of the house. Don't let anybody going there playing. Yeah,
7:27
Speaker 1: all right, we don't Deputies on the way, Okay, I
7:30
Speaker 1: say you. You're hearing a brutal nine on one call
7:43
Speaker 1: by a sister, a sister in law Chris Rodin trying
7:46
Speaker 1: to describe to the operator of the scene of blood
7:49
Speaker 1: spatter and bodies, both men dead. She and other adult
7:55
Speaker 1: family relatives have been ruled out to Nicole. Parton Crime
7:59
Speaker 1: Story is investigative reporter Dr. Michelle Duprie, Joe Scott, Morgan,
8:03
Speaker 1: Ashley Wilcot, and Karen start joining me from Manhattan to you.
8:08
Speaker 1: Ashley Wilcot, the way the bodies were found, the fact
8:15
Speaker 1: that the adults were killed, three little children survived. One
8:19
Speaker 1: was lying between the two adult parents. What does that
8:23
Speaker 1: say that they would come in? And another thing I
8:27
Speaker 1: noticed is that these gunshots didn't wake anybody up. So
8:31
Speaker 1: did the purp or purps use silencers, which suggests a
8:35
Speaker 1: professional hit, But leaving the child asleep between the two
8:40
Speaker 1: dead parents in the same bed, Ashley, what does that mean?
8:44
Speaker 1: You know, Nancy, this is so hard to imagine that
8:47
Speaker 1: they would come in and commit this heinous, heinous crime.
8:50
Speaker 1: Why would they leave that child sleeping. I don't know.
8:52
Speaker 1: Maybe because the child was asleep didn't wake up, they
8:55
Speaker 1: felt like it wasn't a threat. But the other thing
8:58
Speaker 1: is that this has been described as a very methodical crime,
9:02
Speaker 1: and so I believe that in this particular case, it
9:05
Speaker 1: was someone that had the motive to say, we're gonna
9:08
Speaker 1: do it in a methodical way. These are the people
9:11
Speaker 1: were killing. These are the people were going to kill
9:13
Speaker 1: in this particular order, and that's how they executed this
9:16
Speaker 1: family the way they did. Straight back to Joseph Scott Morgan,
9:21
Speaker 1: death investigator, author of Blood Beneath My Feet way in Hey,
9:25
Speaker 1: you know, Nancy, Uh, we keep using plural uh they
9:29
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. I gotta tell you. You mentioned
9:32
Speaker 1: three locations. I have to imagine at least I'm imagining
9:36
Speaker 1: that there was more than one perpetrator potentially involved in this,
9:41
Speaker 1: that this would be coordinated. In this world that we
9:43
Speaker 1: live in, where we've got all these abilities to communicate
9:46
Speaker 1: with one another, I don't see how you could pull
9:48
Speaker 1: this off without having multiple shooters uh involved in this event.
9:53
Speaker 1: And also to you, Dr Michelle Dupree, medical examiner renowned
9:58
Speaker 1: pathologies joining us from South Carolina. The way the people
10:03
Speaker 1: were murdered, an entire family wiped out. What does that mean, Santia?
10:09
Speaker 1: That means that they the reason that these people were
10:11
Speaker 1: killed is because they knew something or potentially could say something.
10:15
Speaker 1: The children that didn't recognize these people or didn't know
10:18
Speaker 1: anything they were, they were spared. But the adults, they
10:22
Speaker 1: all must have known something or seen something that could
10:24
Speaker 1: have told on someone. There's so many clues left behind.
10:29
Speaker 1: Take a listen to this nime on one call. Yeah,
10:33
Speaker 1: I need amy amount to post. Okay, uh, it's all
10:40
Speaker 1: that stuff. It's going to move. I just found just sound.
10:44
Speaker 1: My cousins was against don't wound, so okay, No, I
10:55
Speaker 1: don't know what his address is. You don't You don't
10:58
Speaker 1: have a boss, you don't have a Okay, I'll be
11:03
Speaker 1: staying out my very way going. What do you think? Yeah, okay,
11:16
Speaker 1: how does the house? I'm I'm out of the house
11:20
Speaker 1: right now. I just went in hard night and checked
11:26
Speaker 1: and he had a game shop wind reonder, when would
11:30
Speaker 1: you want people to know about your daughter? Well, she'd
11:33
Speaker 1: give you a short we're back. She will work hard
11:38
Speaker 1: and she took oh old people in nursing home. The
11:43
Speaker 1: people's houses, I mean if you want to eaything with
11:48
Speaker 1: my daughter, go to pebbles after anyone how close the
11:53
Speaker 1: family was. But I mean, you know, but you know
11:58
Speaker 1: that a lot of things have been covered up, Biggar
12:00
Speaker 1: and Pat Kelly Leondard. What's been covered up? What are
12:04
Speaker 1: you figured? No, No, I can't say that. Yeah, that
12:07
Speaker 1: was how you found out the news about your daughter. Well,
12:12
Speaker 1: my daughter feed them animals out there every morning, and
12:17
Speaker 1: Babba Joe the one made the nine one one call
12:21
Speaker 1: and she got to keep the place. She went in.
12:25
Speaker 1: My grand son and his girlfriend. Dad went down and
12:28
Speaker 1: thought my brother as a sudden law and his cup dad,
12:31
Speaker 1: and then she come out and got me and I
12:35
Speaker 1: went out there and my boy went to my daughter's
12:40
Speaker 1: house and they felt them and my daughter, her daughter
12:46
Speaker 1: and her son whose home was her? Whose home was
12:49
Speaker 1: your daughter in? She and her home? She is in
12:51
Speaker 1: her home. They was They just booked, They just bought it.
12:55
Speaker 1: All the victims in this case reported to be asleep
12:58
Speaker 1: when they were gunned down dead, except for Christopher Senior,
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Speaker 1: who is understood to have been awake. There were bullets
13:06
Speaker 1: fired through his bedroom door, and he has defensive wounds
13:10
Speaker 1: on his arm in hand to Nicole Parton, Crime online
13:13
Speaker 1: dot Com investigative reporter Nicole Parton, I understand that this
13:19
Speaker 1: place had multiple security cameras, yet they were all dismounted
13:27
Speaker 1: and taken by the killers when cops got there E. M.
13:31
Speaker 1: T's got there, all the security cameras were gone. That's
13:35
Speaker 1: what we're being told, Nancy. No security, no surveillance, nothing
13:39
Speaker 1: that they can look at to see who or how
13:43
Speaker 1: many people came in, when they came in, why they
13:46
Speaker 1: came in. But we are being told that even the
13:49
Speaker 1: mobile homes, the trailer holmes themselves were moved into warehouses
13:53
Speaker 1: so that the investigation could continue and they could comb
13:57
Speaker 1: through every ounce of evidence that was available on I mean, now,
14:00
Speaker 1: Dr Michelle Dupre, Dr Dupree, what can we learn from
14:04
Speaker 1: the positioning of the body and the trajectory paths of
14:08
Speaker 1: the bullets, Stancy, we can tell where those people were
14:10
Speaker 1: when they were shot. The interesting thing is is you
14:13
Speaker 1: mentioned an apparent defensive wound, so that does indicate that
14:17
Speaker 1: this person did try to fight back to some extent.
14:20
Speaker 1: The others apparently don't show that they very well may
14:23
Speaker 1: have been asleep, which begs the question why didn't someone
14:26
Speaker 1: else and the and the residence here the gun shot on.
14:29
Speaker 1: You know, I want to go down to Kieran start
14:32
Speaker 1: New York psychologists joining us. I noticed that, for instance,
14:36
Speaker 1: with Christopher Rodent Senior um he was shot twice in
14:41
Speaker 1: the head, a third time in the face. And the
14:43
Speaker 1: autopsy report, which, by the way, he's breaking now. The
14:46
Speaker 1: autopsy reports have just been released. The autopsy report says
14:50
Speaker 1: a muzzle stain was left on his head. That means
14:56
Speaker 1: that the shot was fired with the gun pressed up
15:01
Speaker 1: against his head. He wasn't the only one, So these
15:06
Speaker 1: were murders of an entire Family's been two years, it's
15:10
Speaker 1: still unsolved. A thousand tips, five hundred interviews processed, over
15:15
Speaker 1: a hundred pieces of evidence. Still we don't know who
15:18
Speaker 1: did it. What does the point blank shootings mean to
15:23
Speaker 1: you as a psychologist. To me, it means that it's
15:27
Speaker 1: a personal vendetta that whatever was going on there, each person,
15:32
Speaker 1: from what I could tell, was shot in the face,
15:35
Speaker 1: one was shot in the eye, somebody in the cheek.
15:38
Speaker 1: So you have to be very close intimate to do that,
15:44
Speaker 1: and that's pure anger and revenge. I don't believe that
15:48
Speaker 1: these were strangers. These are people who are out to
15:52
Speaker 1: get this family, wanted to make a point, took away
15:57
Speaker 1: the security cameras. Obviously this property knew where they were
16:03
Speaker 1: and really we're seeking revenge and vengein too just got
16:08
Speaker 1: Morgan death sing investigator. What does that mean when the
16:11
Speaker 1: autops he says, quote muzzle staining, Well, it means that
16:15
Speaker 1: the that the weapon, the tip of the muzzle was
16:18
Speaker 1: in close proximity to to the skin. And I think
16:22
Speaker 1: that this is is a salient point, Nancy. The reason
16:25
Speaker 1: is is that Chris Sr. Was shot, Uh was shot
16:30
Speaker 1: multiple times. He had defensive injuries. However, However, the other
16:35
Speaker 1: person that was in the trailer with him UH was Gary.
16:40
Speaker 1: Gary is the one that actually had uh the muzzle
16:43
Speaker 1: imprint on the side of his head. And I really wonder, Nancy,
16:47
Speaker 1: if Gary might not have been the target for this.
16:50
Speaker 1: It's very difficult. It's very difficult to it's I'm not
16:56
Speaker 1: gonna say that's rare, but it's it's difficult to have
16:59
Speaker 1: someone were the pressed. And I don't know if this
17:02
Speaker 1: is pressed, but it's kind of implying that it might
17:04
Speaker 1: be a press gunshot one to the side of the head.
17:07
Speaker 1: If they shot this guy in as he was awake, Uh,
17:11
Speaker 1: that is the cousin where they had attempting to extract
17:14
Speaker 1: information from him. They've killed the older fellow in the trailer,
17:18
Speaker 1: and then they come after this guy. Uh. And considering
17:22
Speaker 1: that we do not know what exact position they were in, UM,
17:26
Speaker 1: I'd like to know more information. Just got Morgen. We
17:28
Speaker 1: know that the homes were actually moved, much of the homes,
17:34
Speaker 1: the rooms were moved to gather evidence. How much evidence
17:39
Speaker 1: was lost by doing that? Uh, you know, I think
17:42
Speaker 1: that things can rattle around a bit. You know, we've
17:44
Speaker 1: done this in the past, where we have cases inside
17:48
Speaker 1: of vehicles, where we have people shot in cars will
17:51
Speaker 1: essentially flatbed car into the crime lab. However, I think
17:56
Speaker 1: there's much more to be gained, much more to be
17:59
Speaker 1: gained by removing these uh, these trailers to a secured
18:04
Speaker 1: location where you can methodically take your tom. The big
18:08
Speaker 1: tie back here, Nancy, the big tie back for me
18:11
Speaker 1: is hopefully keeping as many people away from these things
18:15
Speaker 1: and looking for trace elements such as touch DNA in
18:18
Speaker 1: all of these cases. I want to go back to
18:20
Speaker 1: Nicole parton crimal Line investigative reporter, Nicole, tell me what
18:24
Speaker 1: else you've learned about the crime saints. It's just hard
18:27
Speaker 1: for me to believe an entire family and three separate
18:30
Speaker 1: properties can be broken in on, all of them murdered,
18:34
Speaker 1: except the tiny children and the people the killers walk
18:37
Speaker 1: aways scot free. Well, we know that the crime scene
18:41
Speaker 1: was gruesome. We know that there were multiple gun shot
18:44
Speaker 1: wounds to each victim. Christopher Roden Senior nine gun shot wounds.
18:50
Speaker 1: We know that these surviving children five days though, six
18:54
Speaker 1: months old and four years old, two of them sleeping
18:57
Speaker 1: between their parents covered in blood. Parents deceased, but the
19:01
Speaker 1: children survived, with a four year old sleeping on the sofa,
19:05
Speaker 1: yet he was not wounded or injured. We know that
19:08
Speaker 1: it was calculated, it was vicious, and it was just
19:11
Speaker 1: downright evil. We were talking about an entire family, the
19:14
Speaker 1: road in family wiped out in a rural area in
19:19
Speaker 1: Pike County, and then interestingly, their next door neighbors pick
19:25
Speaker 1: up and move to Alaska right after being questioned. But
19:29
Speaker 1: take a listen to this. You came in like thieves
19:32
Speaker 1: in the night and took eight lives, some being children,
19:40
Speaker 1: the most horrific way I've ever seen in my twenty
19:44
Speaker 1: plus years. We are getting closer. We will find you
19:57
Speaker 1: but the family and the victims well have justice. One day.
20:03
Speaker 1: We are coming. The countdown is on big announcement on Monday,
20:09
Speaker 1: and we're all very excited about it. I can't say
20:13
Speaker 1: much yet, but I will say if you're a parent,
20:15
Speaker 1: you will not want to miss this. We are taking
20:19
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21:01
Speaker 1: Grace dot com. Please go there now. I'll be looking
21:03
Speaker 1: forward to speaking to you. This was a pre plan
21:09
Speaker 1: execution of eight individuals. It was a sophisticated operation and
21:20
Speaker 1: those who carried it out were trying to do everything
21:23
Speaker 1: that they could do to hinder the investigation and their prosecution.
21:32
Speaker 1: And I just state that because, as the sheriff is indicated,
21:37
Speaker 1: we would anticipate that this could be a lengthy investigation.
21:43
Speaker 1: This is not your case where someone's got mad at
21:47
Speaker 1: somebody else they shot him. There's a witness to witnesses.
21:53
Speaker 1: It is very, very, very different type case you're hearing
21:58
Speaker 1: from Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine describing a horrific mass murder,
22:04
Speaker 1: entire family wiped out. But there is a fly in
22:09
Speaker 1: the ointment, Nicole Parton. This family had quite the business
22:13
Speaker 1: going on, didn't they. They did, that's correct. Um. They
22:17
Speaker 1: were busy in the lumber business, busy building, doing things
22:21
Speaker 1: like that. And it's been told to us that they
22:24
Speaker 1: had ties to the Wagner family that have now moved off.
22:27
Speaker 1: What do you mean by ties? We're being told that
22:30
Speaker 1: Billy Wagner, the father, husband of the fourth four family
22:33
Speaker 1: members that moved away to Alaska, was somewhat a business
22:37
Speaker 1: partner to Mr Roden Senr. And that just before this
22:40
Speaker 1: crime took place, they had had a huge falling out.
22:43
Speaker 1: To what extent we don't know, but there had been
22:45
Speaker 1: some sort of disagreement within their business plans together. Bottom line,
22:49
Speaker 1: Jesse Scott Morgan, author of Blood Beneath My Feet death Investigator.
22:53
Speaker 1: They ran a plot farm, a big pot farm. There's really,
22:57
Speaker 1: you know, no nice way to say it. Joe Scott
23:00
Speaker 1: oh uh, and Hell followed with them, the scope of
23:03
Speaker 1: this thing is mind blowing. Nancy to be able to
23:06
Speaker 1: recreate this thing is going to be um, it's it's
23:10
Speaker 1: going to be very difficult. Uh. And here here's what
23:13
Speaker 1: I believe. I I truly believe that this is highly coordinated.
23:16
Speaker 1: I would not even be surprised if people were not
23:20
Speaker 1: brought in from the outside in order to facilitate something
23:24
Speaker 1: like this. Karen and talked just a moment ago about
23:26
Speaker 1: how personal these cases are. Also, there is an intimacy
23:30
Speaker 1: involved here. You had alluded to the fact that all
23:34
Speaker 1: that all of the surveillance equipment has been removed. And
23:37
Speaker 1: what's curious about this is that this would require an
23:40
Speaker 1: intimate knowledge of the property itself, the going on, how everything,
23:44
Speaker 1: the day to day operations. And so I think there
23:47
Speaker 1: will be tie backs to two local people obviously, and
23:51
Speaker 1: h yeah, if they're in the drug trade, lord only
23:53
Speaker 1: knows how far the tentacles of the same extent. Nancy,
23:56
Speaker 1: this is actually this is like a hit right, all
23:58
Speaker 1: of the criteria, all the elements, all of the pieces.
24:01
Speaker 1: It's so methodical and all of those specific steps. It's
24:04
Speaker 1: like someone there was aware of the surveillance in the
24:07
Speaker 1: house and the property, but all the other items are
24:10
Speaker 1: classic for a hit on this family. I think there's
24:14
Speaker 1: absolutely a hit. And what I don't understand is why
24:17
Speaker 1: now two years have passed and nobody seems to have
24:20
Speaker 1: a clue. I want to talk for a moment about
24:23
Speaker 1: the Wagner family. These are the neighbors. The next real
24:26
Speaker 1: neighbors is very rural area that took off and moved
24:30
Speaker 1: to Alaska, to the point where local law enforcement in
24:33
Speaker 1: Ohio there in Pike County sent out a notice, if
24:36
Speaker 1: anybody knows where the wagoners are, please tell us we
24:40
Speaker 1: want to talk to them. A neighbor up in Alaska
24:44
Speaker 1: had stopped in on his brand new neighbors to say hello.
24:48
Speaker 1: He realized they were the wagoners, and he called the
24:51
Speaker 1: police when he found out about it. So I'm concerned
24:54
Speaker 1: as to why they are being questioned. To Karen Start,
24:58
Speaker 1: New York psychologist, it could be any mixture of things
25:01
Speaker 1: when neighbors don't get along, but the fact that they
25:04
Speaker 1: just got up and left and moved and left everything behind.
25:07
Speaker 1: And I mean, come on, you moved from the Lower
25:09
Speaker 1: forty eight to Alaska. I mean that clearly says I
25:15
Speaker 1: don't want to be found. For whatever reason it might be.
25:18
Speaker 1: Maybe they were afraid that whoever killed the road and
25:21
Speaker 1: family would come after them too, or they were a
25:24
Speaker 1: part of what happened. And it's just so hard to
25:27
Speaker 1: believe that they would move all the way to Alaska
25:30
Speaker 1: and not think that that would look extremely suspicious. And
25:34
Speaker 1: from what I'm hearing, they feel like they're being hounded
25:38
Speaker 1: as a result of this. They were in a business together,
25:42
Speaker 1: and it was a business where you could attract a
25:46
Speaker 1: lot of nefarious characters, and because of the nature of
25:50
Speaker 1: the crime stancing, because it's so close up and personal
25:53
Speaker 1: and revengeful, you really wonder how much they were involved
25:57
Speaker 1: in this and what should be done to get them
25:59
Speaker 1: to be investigated when they live in Alaska. You know.
26:03
Speaker 1: Another issue is that we believe some of the gunshot
26:06
Speaker 1: wounds were inflicted post mortem. Dr Michelle Dupre, what does
26:10
Speaker 1: that mean? Fancy? Again, that just points back to how
26:13
Speaker 1: personal this was. They were making a statement they didn't
26:17
Speaker 1: just want to kill these the families, they wanted to
26:19
Speaker 1: make a statement to anyone who found the bodies as well.
26:22
Speaker 1: That sends a message. You know, another issue too, Ashley Wilcott.
26:26
Speaker 1: You know they had a pitbull and another dog or
26:30
Speaker 1: two that didn't raise a paw during all of this.
26:34
Speaker 1: What does that mean? I don't know what does that mean?
26:36
Speaker 1: Did she know something? Was there some reason that that
26:39
Speaker 1: she didn't say anything, didn't didn't raise the ball. It's
26:43
Speaker 1: it's I don't know. It doesn't necessarily make sense. But again,
26:46
Speaker 1: I think in terms of the aspect of this crime
26:49
Speaker 1: that makes it sound like a hit. They had a
26:51
Speaker 1: very clear plan as to who they were going to kill.
26:53
Speaker 1: The patriarch was killed first by all accounts, and they
26:56
Speaker 1: were going to do it in a specific order. And
26:58
Speaker 1: I think they'd already predetermined who they were going to
27:00
Speaker 1: kill them who they weren't unless someone resisted or caused
27:03
Speaker 1: an issue or could identify. Well, it's horrific is these
27:06
Speaker 1: murders were of the Rodent family. Professional assassins usually don't
27:12
Speaker 1: draw the line at children. If they think there's a
27:15
Speaker 1: way they're going to be identified, they'll go ahead and
27:17
Speaker 1: kill the children too. These three children were allowed to live. UM.
27:23
Speaker 1: At first, the the general speculation wise the cartel was
27:27
Speaker 1: somehow involved the Mexican drug cartel and these murders because
27:31
Speaker 1: who would have thought it, But apparently El Chapo out
27:34
Speaker 1: of Mexico had strong connections to the Ohio drug trade.
27:40
Speaker 1: M M. I'm not I'm not convinced this is a
27:43
Speaker 1: cartel move. What I do know, Joseph Scott Morgan, is
27:47
Speaker 1: that as someone intimately familiar with not one, not two,
27:51
Speaker 1: but three separate properties, rural properties, you gotta know how
27:56
Speaker 1: to get there, how to find the locations, how to
27:59
Speaker 1: get into the homes, how to remove the surveillance cameras,
28:04
Speaker 1: how to kill these family members without waking the others up,
28:09
Speaker 1: to know their habits, to know who lived where. I
28:13
Speaker 1: find that very telling, Joe Scott. But what Yeah, it
28:17
Speaker 1: has a real intimacy to it, doesn't it, Nancy, that
28:19
Speaker 1: you would have this much familiarity, uh, to know these
28:22
Speaker 1: little details. This is another curious thing. Uh. You know,
28:26
Speaker 1: this county is located just north of the southernmost border
28:30
Speaker 1: of Ohio. It's in rural Appalachia. You know, weed pot
28:36
Speaker 1: up in that area has become the new Moonshine there
28:38
Speaker 1: are a t F agents that go through these areas
28:40
Speaker 1: and state law enforcement agents that go through these areas,
28:43
Speaker 1: such as like down in the Daniel Boone National Forest
28:46
Speaker 1: that's just below this, where they have to look out
28:49
Speaker 1: for booby traps, all kinds of things that are planted
28:51
Speaker 1: on these pot fields that are down there. This is
28:53
Speaker 1: high dollar business. These people are highly they are very violent.
28:57
Speaker 1: There's a ton of money tied up into this, and
28:59
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of it has to do with
29:01
Speaker 1: this is a way. You know, we're talking about how
29:03
Speaker 1: rural it is. This is a way that some of
29:05
Speaker 1: these people may make money up there. This is their
29:08
Speaker 1: livelihood and people take it very seriously. And boy, they
29:11
Speaker 1: really brought the wrath of God with them. They make
29:13
Speaker 1: money and a lot of it. But it seems to
29:16
Speaker 1: me whoever did this absolutely knows the family. And those
29:21
Speaker 1: were words also declared by Leonard Manley, who lost his
29:24
Speaker 1: daughter Dana and two grandchildren, Hannah nineteen, Christopher sixteen. The
29:30
Speaker 1: victims for ages sixteen to forty four. Eight people dead
29:35
Speaker 1: on an old dirt road and Pike and that's Pike County, Ohio.
29:39
Speaker 1: Two dogs were there that would chew you up, but
29:44
Speaker 1: they didn't raise a paw. Also, mercy was shown to
29:49
Speaker 1: the babies and the dogs, that indicates this was not
29:53
Speaker 1: a professional Yet, how can an entire family be wiped
29:56
Speaker 1: out and still no arrests. Inside the same trailer, Gary
30:00
Speaker 1: Roden was shot three times in the head and face,
30:02
Speaker 1: including one shot that left a muzzle stamp on his temple,
30:06
Speaker 1: indicating a point blank shot. Next do her, a couple
30:10
Speaker 1: shot while in their bed with their week old baby
30:12
Speaker 1: between them another child on the floor. Frankie Roden was
30:17
Speaker 1: shot three times in the head and face. His girlfriend,
30:20
Speaker 1: Hannah Gilly, was shot five times in the head and face.
30:23
Speaker 1: One of the shots was through her eye. Both baby
30:26
Speaker 1: and the young child left unharmed. Just down the road,
30:30
Speaker 1: three more killed Dana Roden, Chris Sr's ex wife. She
30:34
Speaker 1: was shot five times across the forehead and in the temple,
30:38
Speaker 1: then up through the chin. Chris Roden Jr. He Was
30:42
Speaker 1: sixteen shot four times, including two through the top of
30:46
Speaker 1: his head, and his sister Hannah was shot twice in
30:49
Speaker 1: the head and in a trailer a few miles away.
30:52
Speaker 1: Kenneth Roden he was shot once through the right eye.
30:55
Speaker 1: Since the entire road and family was asleep, at the
30:58
Speaker 1: time of their execution. It seems to suggest hatred varying
31:04
Speaker 1: amounts of hatred for each family member, as opposed to
31:09
Speaker 1: trying to subdue members of the family that were most
31:12
Speaker 1: likely to fight back, which is what you would expect
31:15
Speaker 1: at a mass killing. This takes a lot of thinking.
31:19
Speaker 1: To Joe Scott Morgan, death investigator and author, you would
31:24
Speaker 1: have expected for some of the family members to be
31:27
Speaker 1: fighting back and to be shot during the struggle. That
31:30
Speaker 1: did not happen. They were all in their beds, and
31:34
Speaker 1: these properties was a huge, sprawling hundreds of acres of farmland.
31:39
Speaker 1: These three properties were a couple of miles apart each,
31:43
Speaker 1: so someone had to know to go. You couldn't just
31:46
Speaker 1: look across the field and see the other home. They
31:49
Speaker 1: were miles apart, so someone had to have been surveilling
31:53
Speaker 1: or know the area intimately to know how to get
31:57
Speaker 1: to each of the three homes. Joe Scott More, Yeah,
32:00
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, and Nancy, you and I both grew
32:02
Speaker 1: up in kind of rural areas, and the old saying
32:05
Speaker 1: you can't see your hand in front of your face
32:06
Speaker 1: is so dark outside. You would have to have very specific,
32:10
Speaker 1: very specific knowledge of the area, or sophisticated equipment like
32:14
Speaker 1: night vision goggles, that sort of thing, in order to
32:17
Speaker 1: move around into pitch black darkness. Remember what we said
32:20
Speaker 1: when we talked about how this apparently took place. This
32:23
Speaker 1: apparently took place between two am and six am. If
32:26
Speaker 1: I'm if I'm getting my time's right there, So we
32:28
Speaker 1: got a four hour window. You've got the cover of
32:31
Speaker 1: darkness that this is all occurring. This took planning, they're
32:33
Speaker 1: thinking about doing it and then moving about. And then
32:36
Speaker 1: this brings us to the big issue. And i gotta
32:39
Speaker 1: tell you, I'm not a big I'm not a big
32:41
Speaker 1: person when it comes to things like muzzle suppressors and
32:44
Speaker 1: all this sort of thing. However, I'm scratching my head.
32:48
Speaker 1: How did nobody react to this? They were all many
32:52
Speaker 1: of them, not all, but many of them were found
32:54
Speaker 1: in their bed as if they had been sleeping. And
32:56
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm baffled by this. We can't ignore the
33:00
Speaker 1: marijuana trade, Okay. People think it's innocent, it's harmless. It's not.
33:04
Speaker 1: It is not. There in that area of Ohio is
33:09
Speaker 1: extremely economically distressed. This is where the road and murders
33:13
Speaker 1: took place. Many people in that region have relied on
33:17
Speaker 1: growing marijuana for years to support themselves. Um, it is
33:21
Speaker 1: illegal there, but maybe that's why marijuana is such a huge,
33:27
Speaker 1: huge cash crop. Drugs are so prevalent there. At the highway,
33:34
Speaker 1: signs give numbers to report impaired impaired drivers, not drunk drivers.
33:42
Speaker 1: And the day of this massacre, all along Main Street
33:46
Speaker 1: in Piketon, that's the county seat of Pike County. There
33:50
Speaker 1: were trucks and vendors. It was the annual Dogwood Festival,
33:56
Speaker 1: t shirts, candy, popcorn, corn dogs, elephant ears, selling things
34:03
Speaker 1: out of boxes, socks with marijuana leaf printed on them.
34:08
Speaker 1: So that's the the atmosphere in which the murders took place. Now,
34:16
Speaker 1: when I talk about a dogwood festival and the vendors
34:19
Speaker 1: in the streets, there's something behind that. El Chapo, El Chapo,
34:24
Speaker 1: the drug lord and his Cinelo, a cartel had infiltrated
34:31
Speaker 1: the area. It wasn't just your rural pop grower anymore,
34:35
Speaker 1: but the cartel was there. Nicole Parton joining me Crime
34:41
Speaker 1: Online investigative reporter Nicole. Many people, including myself, I believe
34:46
Speaker 1: this may have been a mass murderer. May to look
34:51
Speaker 1: as if the cartel had done it. That's true, Nancy.
34:54
Speaker 1: And it's also interesting to point out, going back to
34:57
Speaker 1: the Wagner family that the son Jake w There had
35:00
Speaker 1: been a long time boyfriend to Hannah Road who one
35:03
Speaker 1: of those who were murdered in the home there. They
35:06
Speaker 1: actually shared a daughter together and had just finalized in
35:09
Speaker 1: agreement for a custody battle that had been ensuing over
35:12
Speaker 1: their child. So there was a custody battle going on
35:16
Speaker 1: for the baby. That is part Road, part Wagner just
35:19
Speaker 1: finalized the custody battle. The Road and family saying that
35:22
Speaker 1: it was tumultuous, the Wagner family saying that, oh no,
35:25
Speaker 1: it was an agreement that was settled peacefully. So we
35:28
Speaker 1: don't know all of the details, but we do know
35:30
Speaker 1: that the son, Jake Wagner, one of those who fled
35:33
Speaker 1: to Alaska, was actually a longtime boyfriend to Hannah Roden's
35:36
Speaker 1: who was murdered. Interesting, now you gotta wonder why two
35:40
Speaker 1: years have passed and nobody has been able to crack
35:42
Speaker 1: this case. Think about it. This is about eighty miles
35:45
Speaker 1: south of Columbus. People are afraid. You see eight people
35:49
Speaker 1: asleep in their beds, mass murdered. It looks like it
35:53
Speaker 1: may have been professionally done. There are no fingerprints, there's
35:57
Speaker 1: no security camera footage because killers had the wherewithal to
36:02
Speaker 1: remove all the surveillance video. No witnesses have come forward
36:06
Speaker 1: if there is one. Uh, the neighbors took off to Alaska.
36:11
Speaker 1: So what do you expect to happen to? Dr Michelle Dupre,
36:15
Speaker 1: South Carolina medical examiner and author of a field guide
36:20
Speaker 1: to homicide investigation. So how often the murders remain unsolved
36:26
Speaker 1: because people are afraid to come forward? And Nancy being
36:29
Speaker 1: afraid to come forward is is very common, but typically
36:31
Speaker 1: there are things that we do find. We find physical evidence.
36:34
Speaker 1: This case is so interesting because there isn't any. And
36:37
Speaker 1: another interesting part about this is when we look at
36:40
Speaker 1: this crime scene, it was well organized. That means that
36:42
Speaker 1: the perpetrator themselves was well organized. It was planned out,
36:46
Speaker 1: they were comfortable in their surroundings. You discussed how they
36:49
Speaker 1: knew what the security cameras were. This leaves a lot
36:53
Speaker 1: of thought in my mind anyway, but there was somebody
36:56
Speaker 1: very close to this family. They knew the ins and
36:58
Speaker 1: outs of this. It's it's not a wonder that it's
37:01
Speaker 1: not foved yet. Take a listen to our friend at
37:03
Speaker 1: w LWT needs five Brian hamering. Eight people murdered inside
37:08
Speaker 1: four Pike County homes. The case was so shocking it
37:11
Speaker 1: made national headlines tonight. The mystery of who's responsible grows
37:15
Speaker 1: even deeper with new details about the brutal nature of
37:19
Speaker 1: the murderers. The Corners preliminary report shows Christopher Roden Senior
37:23
Speaker 1: was shot nine times, including five times in the phase,
37:27
Speaker 1: three in the torso, and once in the arm. He
37:29
Speaker 1: appears to be the only one of eight with defensive wounds,
37:32
Speaker 1: indicating he may have been a week when the attack
37:35
Speaker 1: happened and was most likely the first one killed. If
37:38
Speaker 1: you have information related to these brutal murders leaving three
37:42
Speaker 1: children orphaned, please called Southern Ohio Crime Stoppers seven four
37:47
Speaker 1: zero seven seven three tips seven four zero seven seven
37:51
Speaker 1: three eight four seven seven Anonymous tips are being taken
37:55
Speaker 1: at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation eight five five
37:59
Speaker 1: two two four six four four six eight five five
38:05
Speaker 1: two two four six four four six. There's a nearly
38:08
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollar Crimes Stoppers reward. Nancy Grace crime story
38:15
Speaker 1: signing off goodbye friends,