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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: SHOCKING SENTENCE - Possible Parole for Architect of Piketon Massacre · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:01
Speaker 1: Body dyes, but Joseph's gotten more. Close your eyes for
0:07
Speaker 1: a second, and as you close your eyes, think about
0:13
Speaker 1: being in a dark room with only your smart tom
0:18
Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about. I know we're all
0:20
Speaker 1: guilty of it, even though they say we're not supposed
0:23
Speaker 1: to do it. Laying there in bed in the darkness,
0:26
Speaker 1: and that gloe it illuminates your face. As a matter
0:29
Speaker 1: of fact, sometimes Kim will roll over and say, Honey,
0:31
Speaker 1: puts the one down. Go sleep, But just for a moment,
0:37
Speaker 1: imagine laying in a totally darkened bedroom and that glow
0:44
Speaker 1: seeps out and illuminates only that small part of your face.
0:49
Speaker 1: It illuminates it to the point where the killer that
0:54
Speaker 1: has just walked into your room is able to make statement.
1:03
Speaker 1: She looked up and made a gasping noise. Then I
1:09
Speaker 1: shot her. That comes from the lips of Jake Wagner
1:16
Speaker 1: as he shot Dana Roaden while she was in her
1:22
Speaker 1: bed having worked an entire day as a nursing assistant,
1:28
Speaker 1: and her newborn grand baby is right down the hall,
1:31
Speaker 1: along with her daughter that has just been murdered, and
1:35
Speaker 1: along with her sixteen year old son that has just
1:37
Speaker 1: been murdered as well. Let that sink in, because today
1:44
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the quote unquote punishment that
1:51
Speaker 1: the Wagner family has been given. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
1:57
Speaker 1: and this is bas as old preachers like to say, Dave,
2:08
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, I come to you today with a
2:10
Speaker 1: heavy heart. I got to tell you I couldn't believe
2:18
Speaker 1: my ears. I really, I really couldn't when I found
2:24
Speaker 1: out about the sentencing to tow of my friends uh
2:30
Speaker 1: uh Gigi from pre Little Lives and Albis and and
2:36
Speaker 1: uh my friend uh Anjeanette Levy from Long Crime Network
2:44
Speaker 1: work covering the sentencing of the Wagoners in real time yesterday.
2:49
Speaker 1: I've used this term before. Most Americans don't understand what
2:52
Speaker 1: it means. But the British have a term that I love.
2:54
Speaker 1: It's called gob smacked. Where I you know you you
2:58
Speaker 1: have this expectation of this culmination of all of this
3:03
Speaker 1: work that has gone into discovery, investigation, presentation of a case,
3:10
Speaker 1: and Dave, it has druggne for years, for years, since
3:17
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. And this is what you wind up with.
3:24
Speaker 1: One year for every life that was taken that night,
3:29
Speaker 1: one year for all eight of those individuals that were
3:34
Speaker 1: systematically executed in their own homes in four locations in
3:39
Speaker 1: one night, and this is what you give us. I'm
3:44
Speaker 1: still dumbfounded by the structure of the sentencing that was
3:51
Speaker 1: meeted out by the judge, Judge Hein, you know, up
3:57
Speaker 1: there in Ohio, and I still don't fully understand, nor
4:00
Speaker 1: do I appreciate the depth and breath. Maybe he sees
4:04
Speaker 1: something and he knows something that I don't know. I
4:08
Speaker 1: don't know. I know that yesterday when I called you,
4:14
Speaker 1: because you and I have covered the piping mask for
4:17
Speaker 1: so long, I could hear you almost draw a breath
4:22
Speaker 1: on the other end of the line, and you were like,
4:24
Speaker 1: you're joking, You're kidding me. This is what happened.
4:29
Speaker 2: I have missed it when I was working on something else,
4:33
Speaker 2: and I just I missed the sentencing because Billy Wagner
4:38
Speaker 2: still hasn't gone through the process yet, and I really
4:41
Speaker 2: wondered why they wouldn't just wait until they've got all
4:45
Speaker 2: the convictions or what have you, you know, go through the
4:48
Speaker 2: adjudication and then do sentencing on those who rolled over.
4:54
Speaker 2: But that didn't happen. Judge Hin, as you mentioned, decided
4:57
Speaker 2: to go ahead and last some sentencing. When you told
5:00
Speaker 2: me what it was, it was horrific. The Pike town
5:04
Speaker 2: or piked in massacre. It's called the Pike County Murders,
5:07
Speaker 2: piked in Massacre, and a few other things. There have
5:11
Speaker 2: been dozens of podcasts, true crime podcasts. There have been
5:16
Speaker 2: television shows, documentaries because, as you mentioned, Joe four Locations
5:22
Speaker 2: one Night, and it is a story of two families,
5:27
Speaker 2: the Wagner's and the Rodents, Jake Wagner and Hannah Rodin. Now,
5:31
Speaker 2: Jake Wagner is who we're actually really talking about today,
5:33
Speaker 2: along with his mother, who was the huh, the clean
5:39
Speaker 2: of planning.
5:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, she's Metallica's got a great song everybody
5:47
Speaker 1: knows out there. You hear bands play it all over
5:49
Speaker 1: the place called puppet Master, And yeah, that's that's the
5:56
Speaker 1: that's the that's the thing here. You know. I think
6:00
Speaker 1: I don't want to get too far off into religion.
6:01
Speaker 1: I think people view Satan as a puppet master. I
6:04
Speaker 1: submit to you that it's it's people that have this
6:07
Speaker 1: kind of evil in their heart where they can find
6:11
Speaker 1: it very easy to dismiss the pain and suffering of
6:14
Speaker 1: others and still drive on with this plan, this ultimate plan,
6:18
Speaker 1: and she's Angela Wagner is the person in fact that
6:25
Speaker 1: was behind the planning. She drew, she drew the roadmap
6:31
Speaker 1: for it. And here's another aside that I think that
6:35
Speaker 1: that we're maybe forgetting here. She her mother was involved
6:42
Speaker 1: in US as well, Rita NUKEM. And she was sentenced
6:45
Speaker 1: yesterday as well. And guess what she was a sentence
6:47
Speaker 1: to nothing misdemeanor obstruction. I think she has to pay
6:52
Speaker 1: like a five hundred dollars fine.
6:53
Speaker 2: And she's kind of actually fifty dollars year.
6:56
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry forgive me seven hundred and fifty dollars.
6:59
Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of recompense exists therein however,
7:04
Speaker 1: I am I'm still you know, that's emblematic. I think
7:09
Speaker 1: of what went down yesterday, and you're right, Billy uh
7:15
Speaker 1: still has yet well, first off to go to trial.
7:17
Speaker 1: His trial is being moved. And look, I'm no fan
7:23
Speaker 1: of Billy Wagner and the you know, the death penalty
7:30
Speaker 1: for him is off the table. We just found out
7:32
Speaker 1: and we haven't done an episode since then. I don't
7:34
Speaker 1: think about about picking, but you know, he the death
7:38
Speaker 1: penalty has come off the table for Billy. Now, I
7:42
Speaker 1: don't think that they're going to make him the scapegoat
7:44
Speaker 1: and all this. There's too much evidence that points back
7:47
Speaker 1: to this kind of confederacy that was going on and Billy,
7:52
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, Billy is innocent until proven guilty,
7:56
Speaker 1: but he's kind of adult, if you will. He's not
8:00
Speaker 1: the sharpest tool in the shed and easily easily driven.
8:04
Speaker 1: And he's driven. You ever been around somebody Dave that
8:09
Speaker 1: you knew that. I'm not saying you would ever do this,
8:12
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying you knew that if you could
8:14
Speaker 1: make somebody angry enough, you knew which buttons to press,
8:19
Speaker 1: they're easier to control because their anger becomes predictable many times,
8:23
Speaker 1: and there's people that are highly skilled at doing that.
8:26
Speaker 1: I think that that's probably what Angela did with Billy.
8:31
Speaker 1: You know, her son, Jake is no fool. I mean
8:35
Speaker 1: he you know, he's relatively articulate when he you know,
8:39
Speaker 1: when he goes to speak. He's the one. He's kind
8:43
Speaker 1: of the lynchpin in this whole case that you know,
8:46
Speaker 1: held forth on the you know, actually one went down
8:49
Speaker 1: that night. He talked about it in great detail and
8:53
Speaker 1: rendered a confession you know, and it was based upon Okay,
8:57
Speaker 1: the death penalty's off the table for you guys, and
8:59
Speaker 1: a lot people forget this, but you have to confess,
9:02
Speaker 1: and if anybody refuses to roll over on this, then
9:05
Speaker 1: we're going to reevaluate. The death penalty will be back.
9:09
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, Dave, I'm not a huge
9:11
Speaker 1: fan of the death penalty. You and I've had this
9:15
Speaker 1: discussion off air, But there are certain cases. There are
9:22
Speaker 1: certain cases where, particularly when great planning goes into them,
9:28
Speaker 1: that element of premeditation, and I know Nancy's kind of
9:33
Speaker 1: fallback position as always well, pre meditation can be formed
9:36
Speaker 1: in the twinkling eye. She loves to say that, and
9:39
Speaker 1: I understand why she says it. But we're talking about
9:42
Speaker 1: a premeditative event involving a multiple homicide that took a
9:49
Speaker 1: very long time to be planned, Dave, and I beg
9:54
Speaker 1: you please explain to me how this is. This does
9:59
Speaker 1: not qualify for the death penalty. I just don't. I
10:01
Speaker 1: don't understand it. It doesn't make sense to me. And look,
10:06
Speaker 1: if you want to stuff them away and throw them
10:09
Speaker 1: in a cell and forget that they ever existed, I
10:12
Speaker 1: guess that's fine. But even that didn't happen in this case.
10:15
Speaker 2: Dave, that's the shocking reality, Joe. For those of you
10:19
Speaker 2: who are not that familiar, just to give you an overview,
10:23
Speaker 2: this actually is a story of two families, the Wagners
10:27
Speaker 2: and the Rodents. Jake Wagner and Hannah Roden began dating
10:30
Speaker 2: when Hannah was thirteen and Jake was eighteen. Now, most
10:35
Speaker 2: of us know that at thirteen year old is underage,
10:39
Speaker 2: an eighteen year old is an adult. So when a
10:42
Speaker 2: thirteen year old and an eighteen year old are dating,
10:45
Speaker 2: even if the parents approve, there are still some illegal
10:48
Speaker 2: activities taking place if the couple has sex. I'm just
10:52
Speaker 2: throwing that out there to tell you.
10:53
Speaker 1: Well, hang on, yeh, remember what you've always told me.
10:57
Speaker 1: Thirteen year old is not capable of having sex.
10:59
Speaker 2: Or they're raped. That's it.
11:01
Speaker 1: You're right, go ahead, And that's some of the most
11:03
Speaker 1: that's when you told me that statement. I don't know
11:07
Speaker 1: how long ago, that was one of those epithantal moments
11:09
Speaker 1: from me because I'd never viewed it that way, and
11:12
Speaker 1: I know I probably deep down to my heart, but
11:14
Speaker 1: you explained it in such an earnest way to me.
11:17
Speaker 1: It really, you know, scales kind of fell off my
11:19
Speaker 1: eyes at that point.
11:20
Speaker 2: It's crazy, but the reality is, if you're not of age,
11:24
Speaker 2: then if you're not capable in the eyes of the law,
11:28
Speaker 2: of making a consensual decision when it comes to sexual relations,
11:33
Speaker 2: then you cannot have sex, you cannot make love, you
11:37
Speaker 2: can only be raped. So and by the way, that
11:40
Speaker 2: works for males and females when you're dealing with boys
11:43
Speaker 2: being raped by teachers in school. Yep, So back to this.
11:47
Speaker 2: Hannah's thirteen, Jake is eighteen. Hannah becomes pregnant with Jake's
11:50
Speaker 2: baby when she's allegedly fifteen. Baby Sophia is born, and
11:56
Speaker 2: both families loved her. Those who knew Jake Wagner and
12:00
Speaker 2: Hannah Rodin said that Jake Wagner was very controlling and
12:03
Speaker 2: had been verbally and physically abusive to Hannah. Hannah Roden
12:06
Speaker 2: broke up with Jake Wagner and they both dated other people.
12:09
Speaker 2: Hannah had a child with another man, and Jake Wagner
12:13
Speaker 2: married another woman briefly. The Wagner family won a custody
12:17
Speaker 2: of Sophia and accused Hannah Rodin of dating men that
12:20
Speaker 2: might sexually assault Sophia. There was no proof that this
12:24
Speaker 2: was the case, but it fueled the rage in the
12:28
Speaker 2: Wagners towards Hannah Rodin. When the Wagners tried to force
12:33
Speaker 2: Hannah Roden to sign papers to turn custody of Sophia
12:36
Speaker 2: over to Jake Wagner, she refused and posted a message
12:40
Speaker 2: on Facebook that she would quote never sign papers ever.
12:45
Speaker 2: Unquote they'll oh no, maybe back up, that's not the
12:49
Speaker 2: full quote quote never sign papers ever. They will have
12:54
Speaker 2: to kill me first. Unquote never. She would never see
13:00
Speaker 2: sign papers. They would have to kill me first. That
13:03
Speaker 2: apparently is when the Wagner family decided to kill Hannah
13:06
Speaker 2: Rodin as well as her relatives so that custody would
13:10
Speaker 2: fall to them, Because you see, if Hannah Rodin is dead, well,
13:14
Speaker 2: her mom, dad, any other relatives could lay claim to
13:18
Speaker 2: being a custodial parent. But if the entire family is obliterated,
13:23
Speaker 2: the only people you have lest left is the paternal
13:25
Speaker 2: side of the family, and that would be Jake Wagner
13:27
Speaker 2: and his family. Jake Wagner allegedly allegedly began that relationship
13:35
Speaker 2: with Hannah at thirteen. Only I am putting it out
13:38
Speaker 2: of there because I believe that is very important when
13:41
Speaker 2: you look at everything that goes into this case, that
13:45
Speaker 2: from its very basis that whenever I see a young
13:49
Speaker 2: man consistently dating younger girls, yeah that are I'm not
13:55
Speaker 2: talking about pedophilia here, I'm talking about younger girls who
13:59
Speaker 2: are right. It's a control issue.
14:03
Speaker 1: I think, I think it is. It's like the you know,
14:05
Speaker 1: I think back to my high school years and believe
14:08
Speaker 1: it or not, I don't know if you got to
14:10
Speaker 1: do this, but in my high school, we actually had
14:13
Speaker 1: to going to the front line of the lawn of
14:14
Speaker 1: the school and at lunchtime and eat outside. Can you
14:18
Speaker 1: imagine them doing that today? Dude?
14:19
Speaker 2: When I was in high school, we got to leave.
14:21
Speaker 1: Leave, yeah we yeah, there were those among us that could.
14:24
Speaker 1: But this was one of the things that was always
14:26
Speaker 1: so creepy to me. There would be guys that would
14:30
Speaker 1: cruise around the campus that had graduated from high school
14:34
Speaker 1: like five and six years earlier, that would be in
14:37
Speaker 1: their cars circling the perimeter of the of the high
14:41
Speaker 1: school and they would park like up in the senior
14:45
Speaker 1: parking lot, and of course, you know, they've they've got
14:48
Speaker 1: a little money now, they've got these nice cars, and
14:50
Speaker 1: the girls would go and speak to them out there,
14:53
Speaker 1: and you're thinking, why are you here? Why aren't you off,
14:56
Speaker 1: you know, working on a trade or learning something.
15:00
Speaker 2: Five year old man have in common with a sixteen
15:03
Speaker 2: year old girl.
15:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, and even you know. And now you
15:07
Speaker 1: look at this age disparity with Jake and Hannah, and
15:13
Speaker 1: you think about a thirteen year old is so easily manipulated.
15:17
Speaker 1: A thirteen year old is easily dave intimidated, and a
15:21
Speaker 1: lot of us hold the driver behind all this is intimidation.
15:27
Speaker 1: How does I've thought about this before? And I wanted
15:31
Speaker 1: to throw this out to you. How does this child
15:34
Speaker 1: who has now and she's gotten a little bit older,
15:38
Speaker 1: you know, with the birth of the baby, She's still
15:41
Speaker 1: a child in my eyes, how does she muster up
15:45
Speaker 1: the intestinal fortitude to say no, to say no? I know,
15:50
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, she'll go one better. She says,
15:53
Speaker 1: what was it you said? What was your the quote,
15:56
Speaker 1: you'll have to kill me. I don't know that that
16:01
Speaker 1: I ever recall hearing hearing those words stated by somebody
16:08
Speaker 1: so young. I know that when I was that age,
16:11
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would have ever have said that.
16:13
Speaker 1: I probably would have knuckled under. However, I can tell
16:17
Speaker 1: you this. Hannah died that night as her baby still
16:25
Speaker 1: suckled at her breast because Jake, after he killed her,
16:30
Speaker 1: said he didn't want the baby to starve, so adjacent
16:34
Speaker 1: to her lifeless body, he placed that newborn child so
16:39
Speaker 1: that that child could suckle during the night. I can't
16:43
Speaker 1: measure the depths of it, David. When our kids were little,
17:02
Speaker 1: we my wife and I Kim, we tried to get
17:06
Speaker 1: them to stop saying the word sorry. I'm sorry. It
17:13
Speaker 1: has several different connotations to it, but it seemed many
17:18
Speaker 1: times inappropriate, or it lacked some measure of remorse, if
17:25
Speaker 1: you will, because you can say I'm sorry and it
17:31
Speaker 1: just kind of water off a duck's back. You know,
17:33
Speaker 1: if they've done something horrible, I want them to be
17:36
Speaker 1: able to explain to me because it's about learning. You
17:39
Speaker 1: know what, what have you learned from this decision that
17:43
Speaker 1: you made. I don't like saying you know it was
17:47
Speaker 1: a mistake. You know, a mistake is like I left
17:50
Speaker 1: my keys in the car, or I locked my keys
17:53
Speaker 1: in the car. It's not a mistake. There's a word though,
17:56
Speaker 1: that I love, Dave, and that word the root the
18:02
Speaker 1: word of the root of the word is actually contrite.
18:06
Speaker 1: But I love the term contrition because when you you
18:10
Speaker 1: say that you know you are contrite, that you will
18:15
Speaker 1: you will go and you will make a statement where
18:18
Speaker 1: you actually throw yourself down and say I'm so sorry
18:24
Speaker 1: for what I've done. You throw your feet, yourself at
18:27
Speaker 1: the feet of the court, you throw yourself at the
18:30
Speaker 1: feet of the family members. You express some kind of
18:33
Speaker 1: remorse for what you've done. That's that's true recognition. I
18:37
Speaker 1: think at least you might disagree. I don't know, But
18:40
Speaker 1: for me, there's something about contrition being being willing to
18:44
Speaker 1: do that. You know, the old idea, the the rending
18:48
Speaker 1: of clothing and you know, wearing sackcloth and ashes, and
18:52
Speaker 1: you know, really submitting yourself to the idea that that
18:57
Speaker 1: you know that you've done great harm, Dave. That does
18:59
Speaker 1: not exist in this brother.
19:02
Speaker 2: Not even a little bit, Joe. This was a total
19:06
Speaker 2: plan from the beginning to massacre and wipe out another
19:09
Speaker 2: family with the express purpose of getting a grandchild, getting
19:16
Speaker 2: a child, you know, away from another family. This is
19:20
Speaker 2: at its base out now murder to attain something that
19:27
Speaker 2: you wouldn't share because they didn't like what was going on. Look,
19:30
Speaker 2: if you've ever had a child dating another person, you know,
19:33
Speaker 2: when they're of age and they're dating and you don't
19:35
Speaker 2: like the person they're dating, or you don't like what
19:37
Speaker 2: happens afterwards. Or if you've ever had a child that
19:40
Speaker 2: was going through a divorce and your children involved, your
19:43
Speaker 2: heart breaks for everybody, and oftentimes the couple in the
19:47
Speaker 2: moment they're going through the breakup, they fight over everything
19:50
Speaker 2: from shoelaces to children. It's just the way things are,
19:54
Speaker 2: and I get that this is a lot different. Going
19:57
Speaker 2: back to her statement, Hannah Talma Hannah for a moment
20:00
Speaker 2: when she said I'm never signing any papers. She didn't
20:04
Speaker 2: say Jake will have to kill me. She said, day
20:08
Speaker 2: they will have to kill me. This was an entire
20:11
Speaker 2: family that she knew she was up against, and she
20:14
Speaker 2: also was stating it for herself, but laying it out
20:17
Speaker 2: there that her family. Because these families knew one another,
20:21
Speaker 2: they were close. There was not we're not we're talking Hatfield's, McCoy's,
20:25
Speaker 2: Romeo and Juliet. The families knew each other.
20:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, but there's not like the the population
20:31
Speaker 1: sample is not. You don't have a lot to sample
20:35
Speaker 1: from because it's so and I think over the years
20:38
Speaker 1: the population has contracted in that area greatly. You know,
20:42
Speaker 1: people have gone on to try to find other jobs.
20:44
Speaker 1: I've been up there several times, and I got to
20:46
Speaker 1: tell you, I'm glad I went up there because I'd
20:48
Speaker 1: never I've been to Appalachia before, I've lived in Appalachia,
20:51
Speaker 1: I've never been to that part of our country, and
20:56
Speaker 1: I came away just thinking, oh my gosh, it's beautiful.
20:58
Speaker 1: It's like a combination of let me see, it's kind
21:01
Speaker 1: of like a combination so that I can describe it
21:05
Speaker 1: to you if if anyone has ever seen The First
21:14
Speaker 1: the first iteration of the Lord of the Rings, that
21:17
Speaker 1: movie where they portray where the Hobbits live, the shire
21:21
Speaker 1: rolling Bucolic hills. There's agriculture that's going on, but it's
21:25
Speaker 1: just those rolling hills. It's like a combination of bluegrass
21:28
Speaker 1: country in Kentucky where the horses all are, and then
21:32
Speaker 1: you know you're right in the foothills of the Appalation Mountains.
21:34
Speaker 1: It is absolutely exquisite. You know, it's like, Okay, I
21:38
Speaker 1: could have a home here, but if you have a
21:41
Speaker 1: home there, what the heck are you gonna do? For
21:43
Speaker 1: a job because there's not there's not. And actually when
21:47
Speaker 1: I was up there, Dave and you know, as you
21:49
Speaker 1: well know, I've been on the podcast, the Piked and
21:52
Speaker 1: Masker podcast and as well as the Oxygen the Oxygen
21:58
Speaker 1: television series about about these events. One of the things
22:07
Speaker 1: that really struck me was a comment that one of
22:10
Speaker 1: the locals made to us. They said that now in
22:14
Speaker 1: this area, the more it's made up more of people
22:22
Speaker 1: that are at retirement age, that it's like a retirement
22:27
Speaker 1: area to you know, that people will seek out. And
22:30
Speaker 1: we saw evidence of that some of the developments that
22:34
Speaker 1: have been built. But you know, for the people that
22:37
Speaker 1: are there, the salt of the earth, you know, as
22:39
Speaker 1: they say, the common clay that occupy that space and
22:42
Speaker 1: have occupied it for generations. It was a hand and
22:44
Speaker 1: mouthed existence in that environment. And so these two families
22:48
Speaker 1: knew each other, they went to church together, they did
22:53
Speaker 1: you know, farmers markets, you know, where they would see
22:55
Speaker 1: one another. There's even some indication that, you know that
23:00
Speaker 1: both families were aware the legal weed operations grow operations
23:04
Speaker 1: said both were engaged in.
23:06
Speaker 2: That's a that's a big issue both. Yeah, it was
23:10
Speaker 2: unless you could if you're going to rat on somebody.
23:12
Speaker 2: You're talking about mutual destruction, and that's why, you know,
23:16
Speaker 2: we know what you're doing. You know what we're doing.
23:18
Speaker 2: Everybody shut up. Okay, Yeah, but you know you mentioned
23:21
Speaker 2: they did know one another. These families were connected by geography,
23:29
Speaker 2: by relationships. I want to point out that, according to
23:35
Speaker 2: what we found out in court documents later on, the
23:38
Speaker 2: Rodent family, uh said the Wagoners were trying to force
23:42
Speaker 2: Hannah into signing over the parental rights of her of Sophia,
23:47
Speaker 2: who was not a baby then she was at three
23:49
Speaker 2: at the time and then toddler, because Hannah had moved
23:53
Speaker 2: on Jake. You know, we mentioned earlier that while Jake
23:55
Speaker 2: and Hannah broke up, Hannah was the one that broke
23:58
Speaker 2: up with Jake, and it was Hannah who had the
24:01
Speaker 2: child with Jake. But she realized he's a controlling, immature
24:05
Speaker 2: jerk with no future, so I'm kicking him to the
24:08
Speaker 2: curb and she ends up having a child with another person.
24:11
Speaker 2: Jake meanwhile, starts a relationship with another woman who also
24:14
Speaker 2: kicks him to the curb because he's a controlling, jealous,
24:19
Speaker 2: horrible person with no future. So it's like once Hannah
24:25
Speaker 2: put Jake on the road. Jake, regardless of what relationship
24:28
Speaker 2: status he had with anybody else, began threatening Hannah about
24:32
Speaker 2: their child together, about Sophia, and once Hannah had the
24:35
Speaker 2: other baby, it was like, well you've got that one,
24:38
Speaker 2: let me have Sophia. And his family apparently felt the
24:40
Speaker 2: same way. The Wagoners were like, right, she's got a
24:42
Speaker 2: baby with somebody else, now let us have Let us
24:45
Speaker 2: have Jake's baby. You know you don't need it. And
24:47
Speaker 2: when she wouldn't do it and said, hey, you want it,
24:51
Speaker 2: they will have to kill me. Well, they are the Wagoners,
24:54
Speaker 2: and that's exactly what they did. Four locations in one night. Joe,
25:01
Speaker 2: who was the person behind putting all this together, This
25:04
Speaker 2: is a big undertaking four different locations in the middle
25:07
Speaker 2: of the night. You know, you can't see what's going on.
25:11
Speaker 2: You have to plan something like this. And somebody actually
25:16
Speaker 2: thought to say, hey, we're gonna do this, we need
25:20
Speaker 2: to make sure that we don't leave any any.
25:23
Speaker 1: Trace anything behind.
25:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one of those is footprints. Don't leave any
25:28
Speaker 2: footprints that can be tracked back to you. So what
25:31
Speaker 2: did she do, Joe.
25:33
Speaker 1: Well, we're talking about obviously, we're talking about Angela. And
25:36
Speaker 1: I'll say this just very briefly. Jake is vacuous. He's
25:41
Speaker 1: an empty He's an empty suit. If you will, you know,
25:46
Speaker 1: any any manifestation of anger and all those sorts of things.
25:50
Speaker 1: I know you're supposed to take personal responsibility, but I'm
25:52
Speaker 1: telling you that that's projected from Angela through him, just
25:55
Speaker 1: like the just like the husband. I think. Now, wow,
26:01
Speaker 1: the other Yeah, that's what I think. I think that
26:04
Speaker 1: it all stems from her. She is that root, if
26:08
Speaker 1: you will, She's that concentric point in this and kind
26:12
Speaker 1: of radiations. Now, I will tell you she's a puppet master. Yeah,
26:16
Speaker 1: she is a puppet master. Now, I think that Jake
26:20
Speaker 1: over probably being rather contemplative now, you know, having been
26:26
Speaker 1: seated in this jail cell for some time, he began
26:30
Speaker 1: having some original thoughts of his own, and he realized
26:33
Speaker 1: he'd been hung out to dry, I think, and that's
26:35
Speaker 1: why he agreed, along with his mother to roll over
26:38
Speaker 1: on all this to provide testimony against his brother who
26:42
Speaker 1: has now since been convicted and is serving tom And
26:46
Speaker 1: of course they have agreed to testify against Billy the dad.
26:50
Speaker 1: Now just imagine this dynamic. But going back to Angela,
26:53
Speaker 1: and just with the shoes alone. This is how much
26:57
Speaker 1: she had thought this out. And this goes to remember
26:59
Speaker 1: what I'd meant just a moment ago about forming forming premeditation.
27:07
Speaker 1: She saw she had the ability to think at least
27:12
Speaker 1: outside of the box and begin to think about, well,
27:15
Speaker 1: I wonder what are some of the forensic considerations here. Well,
27:20
Speaker 1: I know that what might happen that night is that
27:24
Speaker 1: if they go in there, they're going to walk through
27:26
Speaker 1: the dirt outside the trailer, which I have stepped foot
27:29
Speaker 1: on the same surfaces, and it is dirty. You could
27:34
Speaker 1: leave impressions in the soil. We know that killing is
27:41
Speaker 1: going to take place, so if they track in blood
27:43
Speaker 1: or track blood out, then it's going to be on
27:47
Speaker 1: soles of their feet. So I know what I'll do.
27:49
Speaker 1: I'm going to run over a Walmart and I'm going
27:52
Speaker 1: to pick up several pairs of shoes, brand new shoes,
27:57
Speaker 1: so that they're not worn in any particular away you can't.
28:01
Speaker 1: That's going to throw them off scent. Relative to the
28:04
Speaker 1: principle that we talked about in forensics called individualization, You
28:07
Speaker 1: know how we walk, pronate, superinnate, all those sorts of things,
28:11
Speaker 1: Because there won't be any established wear pattern that gives
28:14
Speaker 1: you an insight, I think into the workings of her mind.
28:18
Speaker 1: And of course she's got you know, she's surrounded by
28:21
Speaker 1: her guys and the family, and lord only knows what else.
28:25
Speaker 1: You know, her mother was involved in relative to all
28:28
Speaker 1: of this, this Rita and maybe some other peripheral actors
28:33
Speaker 1: as well that I don't feel real comfortable going into
28:37
Speaker 1: at this point. But we'll just say that Angela is
28:41
Speaker 1: that she's that lynch pin. She's that point right there
28:46
Speaker 1: that everything hinges on because she's the one that wanted Sophia.
28:50
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that Jake didn't, but she wanted Sophia
28:53
Speaker 1: because she could mold and craft Sophia in her own
28:57
Speaker 1: image and direct her and all these sorts of things.
29:00
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, she'd been doing this with
29:02
Speaker 1: the whole family for years and years. Wow. And I
29:05
Speaker 1: will tell you this, and I've made the statement over
29:08
Speaker 1: and over again on the record. And the one thing
29:11
Speaker 1: that was a big tell to me, Dave that I
29:13
Speaker 1: came up with, that I came away from with the
29:18
Speaker 1: Wagner case was the comment that had been made about
29:23
Speaker 1: Angela and her interaction with her husband, Billy Billy again,
29:30
Speaker 1: fierce anger. He never knew when he was going to
29:33
Speaker 1: go off, big hulking man. And when I say big
29:35
Speaker 1: and hulking guys, I'm telling you, my friends out there,
29:38
Speaker 1: please go take a look at this guy. He's massive.
29:41
Speaker 1: He's like six ' eight. He looks like the stuff
29:44
Speaker 1: of nightmares when you see. He would blow up at
29:49
Speaker 1: any given time. But he knew in his kind of
29:53
Speaker 1: in his mind that his wife loved baskets, and he
29:59
Speaker 1: would go and he would purchase a basket. Every time
30:02
Speaker 1: she would get they would get into a fight, a
30:04
Speaker 1: tete a tete, if you will. And it is said
30:08
Speaker 1: that when you walked into their family home there on
30:12
Speaker 1: that beautiful piece of land that they had, it looked
30:14
Speaker 1: like an old Victorian style farm home. You go into
30:18
Speaker 1: her kitchen, the walls are covered with baskets that she
30:22
Speaker 1: had hung, almost as if to memorial loss every little
30:26
Speaker 1: conquest that she had made in battling with her husband.
30:44
Speaker 1: I suspect that there are people out there that believe
30:46
Speaker 1: that sentencing in any kind of case, but sentencing is
30:53
Speaker 1: almost like when you're negotiating these things. It's almost like
30:57
Speaker 1: negotiating to purchase a rain of car. What do I
31:00
Speaker 1: have to do to put you in this car today?
31:04
Speaker 1: It doesn't work like that. You have guidelines that you
31:06
Speaker 1: have to adhere to, and Dave, when it comes to
31:17
Speaker 1: the sentencing of Rita's kind of Grita Newcomb is kind
31:23
Speaker 1: of secondary, but she's emblematic of something. I think you
31:26
Speaker 1: know in this case that it's you know that she's
31:30
Speaker 1: part and parcel perhaps of a bigger conspiracy. But yet
31:33
Speaker 1: she's given the seven hundred and fifty dollars spot fine.
31:39
Speaker 1: But what Angela and Jake got is a real slap
31:46
Speaker 1: in the face, I think to the remnant of the
31:50
Speaker 1: Rodent family, and not just that remnant, but the children
31:58
Speaker 1: that are left behind. You know, it's possible, Dave, It's
32:03
Speaker 1: certainly possible in Angela's case, because if I'm not mistaken,
32:09
Speaker 1: she was originally told that she was going to serve
32:12
Speaker 1: thirty years. She gets to court and it winds up
32:18
Speaker 1: being twenty six, and the judge said, well, we'll give
32:25
Speaker 1: you credit for Tom served, and what you know, six
32:27
Speaker 1: years Tom served. So she's got to do twenty years
32:30
Speaker 1: and she's out. So she's still going to be out
32:36
Speaker 1: and about. In Sophia's life, just let that sink in
32:42
Speaker 1: just for a second. Now, when Sophia gets old enough,
32:45
Speaker 1: it's going to be up to her as to whether
32:47
Speaker 1: or not she wants to have contact with, you know,
32:49
Speaker 1: her paternal grandparent or not. But she, Sophia is going
32:55
Speaker 1: to bear this burden. And I haven't even mentioned the
32:58
Speaker 1: other children. You know, Hannah's newborn, Uh, that was covered
33:02
Speaker 1: in bed.
33:03
Speaker 2: I forgot about that. Yeah, she was covered in blood.
33:05
Speaker 2: And that's the one, that little baby that she had
33:08
Speaker 2: just given birth to. That was the you mentioned in
33:10
Speaker 2: the beginning, Jake Wagner actually placing the baby at her
33:15
Speaker 2: breast so the baby could feed. She's dead, but he
33:18
Speaker 2: didn't want the baby to starve, so he put the
33:19
Speaker 2: baby right there.
33:21
Speaker 1: So she could suckle. And you've got two other kids
33:25
Speaker 1: as well. Uh, you know, you've got these two, these
33:30
Speaker 1: two children who one infamously came to the door on
33:35
Speaker 1: the morning of killing when the Frankie Frankie Rodin's trailer,
33:42
Speaker 1: the finder, who who's actually the sister in law, former
33:46
Speaker 1: sister in law of mister Rodin, knocked on the door
33:52
Speaker 1: and the three three four year old was sleeping on
33:57
Speaker 1: the sofa and came to the door. And said mommy
33:59
Speaker 1: and already played in zombie. And again you had another
34:04
Speaker 1: small child that was laying, an infant that was laying
34:07
Speaker 1: in between the two bodies, and again that child was
34:11
Speaker 1: covered in blood as well. What about those kids? What
34:15
Speaker 1: about those kids? And then if you expand this out,
34:17
Speaker 1: and look, I could go on forever, it's almost geometric.
34:20
Speaker 1: I think the way it kind of expands out. You
34:23
Speaker 1: have all of the other family members, the cousins and
34:26
Speaker 1: the aunts and the uncles and all those people that
34:28
Speaker 1: occupy that beautiful area of the country up there, and
34:32
Speaker 1: then you have the community at large. This is something
34:35
Speaker 1: that has scarred this place. I mean, there are not
34:38
Speaker 1: too many places that can say, yeah, we had a
34:41
Speaker 1: quadra an octuple forgive me an octuple homicide on one
34:46
Speaker 1: night and four locations that we had an entire family
34:52
Speaker 1: that was wiped out. We're talking about a significant portion
34:56
Speaker 1: of that familial line, that genetic line. Just think about that,
35:01
Speaker 1: and you know, I could wax philosophical here and talk
35:04
Speaker 1: about all the you know, the people that had been
35:06
Speaker 1: wiped out as a result of this killing. But it
35:09
Speaker 1: has impacted and yet this is the best you can
35:12
Speaker 1: do when it comes to sentence. This is how they're
35:16
Speaker 1: going to have to spend their time paying for what
35:18
Speaker 1: they did. I don't know, it's it feels to me
35:21
Speaker 1: as if they've come up short.
35:22
Speaker 2: Dave, you, I think that is beyond shocking that such
35:29
Speaker 2: a massacre could be thought up and carried out when
35:35
Speaker 2: all I could think of was the Charlie Manson case.
35:37
Speaker 2: You know, Manson's argument was I wasn't there, right, you know,
35:40
Speaker 2: I didn't do it. These people did it on their own.
35:43
Speaker 2: And Manson was in our lifetime, convicted of murder even
35:47
Speaker 2: though he didn't do the murder himself. In this particular case,
35:51
Speaker 2: Angela Wagner was the mastermind. She had everything. I keep
35:56
Speaker 2: going back to the shoes. The shoes just really strikes
35:59
Speaker 2: me because that is really thinking out all of the
36:03
Speaker 2: possibilities that could happen to tie you back to this.
36:07
Speaker 2: I don't know anybody else that would that's not in
36:10
Speaker 2: police investigations and things, that would even think about shoes.
36:15
Speaker 2: I certainly didn't until this case even consider it.
36:18
Speaker 1: Joe. Yeah, And there's so many Yeah, and there's so
36:20
Speaker 1: many little bizarre things that come up in this case. Forensically,
36:23
Speaker 1: I think, and you just think about the weapons. Who
36:26
Speaker 1: there was a kind of a half hearted attempt. I
36:29
Speaker 1: guess you could say to chop these weapons up, bury
36:34
Speaker 1: them in concrete, and use them as anchors for a
36:40
Speaker 1: goosebox out in the middle of a little pond. H
36:43
Speaker 1: You're not getting much separation between yourself and the evidence
36:46
Speaker 1: at that point, Tom, because access and ability. You know,
36:50
Speaker 1: if you're going to search some someplace, Oh where the
36:52
Speaker 1: goosebox came from? Oh, yeah, we created for our grandmother.
36:55
Speaker 1: Yeah it's new. Well, you know, all it took was
36:59
Speaker 1: Jake to roll over were on it and said, yeah,
37:01
Speaker 1: that's where they are. Now. I'm not saying they ever
37:02
Speaker 1: would have found those, but that goes to prep. You've
37:05
Speaker 1: got a suppressor that was used in this case. It
37:10
Speaker 1: would seem as though every every I guess, every possibility
37:15
Speaker 1: was considered. It happened in twenty sixteen, they don't get
37:19
Speaker 1: arrested for months and months later. So and you had
37:23
Speaker 1: the police chasing their tails, not really chasing their tails.
37:26
Speaker 1: That's that's I shouldn't say that they were. They were
37:30
Speaker 1: trying to exhaust every potential, every potentiality, because you know,
37:34
Speaker 1: the big thing in you and I have talked about
37:36
Speaker 1: this on a previous episode day the you know, the
37:41
Speaker 1: you know they thought the drug cartel was involved in
37:43
Speaker 1: those right at first? Yeah, at first they did, you know,
37:46
Speaker 1: And maybe it was.
37:47
Speaker 2: Because of the day. It was because of the murders,
37:49
Speaker 2: because of how they were carried out in one night,
37:52
Speaker 2: in four different locations, and how thorough the massacre was,
37:55
Speaker 2: and there was we being grown and there were rumorge
37:59
Speaker 2: and things like that. Makes sense that they would have
38:01
Speaker 2: to go through that.
38:02
Speaker 1: But the one key I think Dave to all this
38:05
Speaker 1: is it has been alleged and I have no experience
38:07
Speaker 1: with this sort of thing, but it has been alleged
38:09
Speaker 1: that if this, in fact had been a cartel hit,
38:13
Speaker 1: perhaps those babies would not have survived.
38:15
Speaker 2: Right, They would have killed They would killed.
38:17
Speaker 1: Every every living creature in there. And that so that
38:21
Speaker 1: tells you something about the individuals that were involved in this.
38:25
Speaker 1: So you're talking about that there's somebody that's capable of
38:28
Speaker 1: mercy in this. What why did they spare the children?
38:32
Speaker 1: I think is the one thing. And you think about
38:37
Speaker 1: the geographic kind of distribution of these of these of
38:42
Speaker 1: these killings, you know, three of the scenes were immediately
38:45
Speaker 1: adjacent to one another. I think the greatest distance was
38:48
Speaker 1: between Dana's house and and mister Rhaden Senior's house. And
38:55
Speaker 1: I don't know, it felt to though when I was
38:56
Speaker 1: out there that I could have set up a tideless
39:02
Speaker 1: one and take my driver out then drive drive a
39:06
Speaker 1: ball to her house from his front yard. Might fall short,
39:09
Speaker 1: But it's you know, that's how close these were. Now,
39:14
Speaker 1: Kenneth the other brother, you know, he's he's found in
39:18
Speaker 1: his own trailer house. It's almost seven miles away.
39:21
Speaker 2: It was like a camper trailer, it was.
39:23
Speaker 1: But you know, he had built a little porch. He
39:25
Speaker 1: was a single dad. He didn't require much. He worked,
39:28
Speaker 1: he was a day laborer, and he had his own
39:30
Speaker 1: personal stash of weed that he was growing for his
39:33
Speaker 1: own personal consumption. It's like a couple of plants, you know.
39:37
Speaker 1: But yet they went out to kill him as well.
39:40
Speaker 1: And I don't you know, it's hard to take the
39:42
Speaker 1: measure of it. And I know that I always say that,
39:44
Speaker 1: but hard to take the measure of these horrific things
39:47
Speaker 1: that we try to describe on body backs. But I
39:50
Speaker 1: think about this, and I think, you know, just understanding
39:54
Speaker 1: the links that the wagoners went to in this case,
39:59
Speaker 1: and this is the best you're going to do.
40:01
Speaker 2: And after all the years they spent, they moved to
40:05
Speaker 2: they being the Wagner's. You know, they actually went to Alaska,
40:09
Speaker 2: uh and set up shop there for a little while.
40:11
Speaker 2: And while they were there, another woman involved with Jake
40:15
Speaker 2: Wagner had to get away from him, you know, didn't
40:18
Speaker 2: she escape from his car on the middle of the road.
40:21
Speaker 1: Well, she winds up in a parking lot up there,
40:24
Speaker 1: and she but she told the tale that she she
40:28
Speaker 1: was expected to give over all of her passwords for email,
40:32
Speaker 1: all her social media and that all guess where it
40:35
Speaker 1: had go to go to Angela. Unbelievable that she could
40:37
Speaker 1: keep track of it. So we're developing a thread here
40:40
Speaker 1: that we can see along the way.
40:42
Speaker 2: I missed that, Joe, I missed that, Yeah, telling me
40:46
Speaker 2: that it didn't hit me till right now that that
40:48
Speaker 2: went that it went to Angela and not Jake.
40:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, and and I think that you know,
40:53
Speaker 1: the message was passed along visa v Jake, you need
40:58
Speaker 1: to do what we say to do. Are you going
41:01
Speaker 1: to die? And that was like, again one of those
41:06
Speaker 1: horrific episantal moments, if you will, that that young lady
41:10
Speaker 1: had and she's like, I gotta, I gotta get out
41:12
Speaker 1: of this. What have I you know, have I taken
41:15
Speaker 1: leave of my senses? What am I involved in? That?
41:18
Speaker 2: Can never hit me till right now, Joe.
41:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, you you can't just appreciate. If you
41:23
Speaker 1: go to a museum, you know, and you're looking at
41:25
Speaker 1: a beautiful mural that's hanging on the wall, you can't
41:29
Speaker 1: just look at the center of it. You have to
41:30
Speaker 1: look at everything and to contextualize everything, to take it
41:33
Speaker 1: in and understand, you know, what the artist is trying
41:37
Speaker 1: to get across. In this case, Angela was Certainly she
41:41
Speaker 1: was a master of manipulation, I'd have to say that,
41:44
Speaker 1: and planning.
41:45
Speaker 2: And apparently a master negotiator too. Yeah, here what we
41:48
Speaker 2: get for sentencing, Joe. You've got the woman who planned
41:51
Speaker 2: everything and then pushed and prodded her entire male family
41:55
Speaker 2: members to go out and do this heinous massacre. The
41:59
Speaker 2: guy who's star had it all Jake also, by the way,
42:04
Speaker 2: rolling over on your family, Jake was the leader of
42:07
Speaker 2: the pack there along with Angela. They both negotiated very
42:10
Speaker 2: complicated deals, and I'm guessing that Angela probably was the
42:14
Speaker 2: one negotiating because these are very complex deals that were
42:18
Speaker 2: done to take the leader of the pack and the
42:21
Speaker 2: guy who originates everything, and they get they get a
42:25
Speaker 2: deal that is beyond comprehension. Joe, how much? What were
42:30
Speaker 2: they sentenced to? What are we looking at for Jake
42:32
Speaker 2: and Angela?
42:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we you know, I mentioned Angela earlier. She'll
42:36
Speaker 1: be she's she her sentence will be done in twenty years.
42:40
Speaker 1: But with Jake, he's got the possibility of parole in thirty.
42:47
Speaker 1: He's a young man, so he's he's still got he's
42:50
Speaker 1: still got life to live, you know, at this point,
42:53
Speaker 1: and there was an interesting reaction on his part. You
42:57
Speaker 1: could there was like obvious surprise. There's a still shot
43:04
Speaker 1: of him that I saw in local news and he's
43:10
Speaker 1: you can see, it's like he didn't expect that coming.
43:16
Speaker 1: So how how do you know? How do we make
43:22
Speaker 1: sense out of what the judge's decision is the One
43:24
Speaker 1: thing that I've heard about judge Hint is that he
43:28
Speaker 1: does not like to sentence anybody to any punishment that
43:35
Speaker 1: involves no possibility of parole. And so if that's going
43:41
Speaker 1: to be your blanket statement as a jurist, I would
43:45
Speaker 1: think that I don't know. I would question. I would
43:48
Speaker 1: question that because what you're saying is is that one
43:51
Speaker 1: of the cures, Because you look at sentencing, Dave, Sentencing
43:56
Speaker 1: is not just for the punishment of the individuals that
43:58
Speaker 1: have committed a crime. It's you're setting an example. It
44:03
Speaker 1: is a remedy for crimes. So you know who else
44:08
Speaker 1: is going to be motivated to perhaps do something that
44:11
Speaker 1: is equally as dastardly as as what the wagoners participated
44:16
Speaker 1: in that night. Uh. And now you've you've set a
44:20
Speaker 1: precedent here. You know, it's okay day to go out
44:25
Speaker 1: and commit what has been stated the worst mass homicide
44:32
Speaker 1: in the history. It just grab hold of this in
44:35
Speaker 1: the history of the state of Ohio. And there's a
44:43
Speaker 1: chance you're going to be breathing free air at some
44:48
Speaker 1: point in time, with the sun shining down on your.
44:50
Speaker 2: Face, holding hands, walking down the beach with your daughter.
44:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And it's it's a terrifying prospect to me.
44:58
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's gonna be sun that will be shining.
45:02
Speaker 1: It'll be shining on all of the graves of the
45:05
Speaker 1: road and family and little flowers will pop up and
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Speaker 1: maybe people will go out to take care of those graves.
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Speaker 1: Maybe people will look back and they will grieve, you know,
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Speaker 1: the empty chair at Thanksgiving and Christmas. But you can't
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Speaker 1: bring them back. They're not going to get a second
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Speaker 1: chance at life. But for Angela and Jake, they will.
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Speaker 1: It might not be much of a life inside of
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Speaker 1: those cold stone walls, but they're not dead in a
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Speaker 1: graveyard somewhere. They're still living and they've still got hope.
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Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Backs O.