WAVERLY, Ohio (WXIX) – Confessed Pike County killer Jake Wagner will return to the witness stand Wednesday and testify for the third day in a row against his brother, George Wagner IV. On Tuesday, Jake Wagner told jurors how his brother and their dad helped him get rid of the guns and other items they used in the April 2016 execution slayings of eight people. Pike County Massacre: Full Trial Coverage Jake Wagner will take the stand around 10 a.m. after hearing first from witnesses like him who want to testify off camera. Jake Wagner, a confessed killer of at least five people who is a co-defendant on trial for his brother’s murder, has been allowed to testify off-camera all week. Their mother, Angela Wagner, is expected to testify against George Wagner IV next week. Their testimony against George Wagner is part of their plea deals with the state. When witnesses are excluded, only the people in the courtroom can see and hear it. Many other witnesses have testified on camera, including both George Wagner and Jake Wagner’s ex-husbands, some Roden family relatives who cried on the stand at times as they recounted harrowing memories of their slain loved ones, all agents from the Ohio Bureau Criminal Investigation and the Deputy Coroner at the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office, who performed autopsies on all the victims. On Tuesday, Ohio’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals released a ruling ordering Pike County Common Pleas Court Judge Randy Deering to allow all witness statements to be recorded in camera unless he first holds a hearing to consider why the witness must be allowed to recuse himself. The prosecutor and media lawyers can present their arguments for and against the hearing. The appeals court’s ruling came after Jake Wagner already testified off-camera all day Monday, describing in vivid detail how the massacre was planned and executed, and continued to testify off-camera again on Tuesday. After a long lunch break, the judge announced he would hold a hearing at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday to consider the grounds for off-camera witness testimony. Court then resumed for the afternoon with Jake Wagner continuing to testify off camera. He told jurors his family agreed to tell law enforcement they were all at home watching TV when it happened. “I think my father said don’t offer profits,” Wagner recalled on the stand. Under questioning by Special Prosecutor Angela Canepa, he said he and his family never talked about the murders or custody of his daughter, who is believed to be the motive in what has become his biggest and most expensive murder case Ohio to date. “No. I couldn’t without feeling enormous guilt…I decided to erase the memory completely.” On Monday, Jake Wagner nonchalantly described committing crimes such as arson and theft for years with his family and spoke just as calmly about shooting most of the eight members of the Rhoden and Gilley families. Jake Wagner describes the carnage: “She looked up and made a gasping noise and then I shot her.” Prosecutors say the Wagners planned the execution-style killings for months so that Jake Wagner would have sole custody of his daughter, Sophia, born in 2015 to one of the victims, Hannah Mae Roden, 19. The other victims are her father, Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40; his older brother, Kenneth Rhoden, 44. his cousin, Gary Rhoden, 38; his ex-wife, Dana Lynn Rhoden, 37, and their sons: Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 20, Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16, and Frankie’s fiancee, Hannah “Hazel” Gilley, 20. The legal analyst talks about the latest developments in the Pike County trial During a sideline in court Monday, Jake Wagner looked at several of the victims’ relatives in the courtroom and appeared to say the words, “I’m sorry.” George Wagner IV, 31, is the first of the Wagners to stand trial. He has pleaded not guilty to 22 charges, including eight counts of aggravated murder, along with his father, Billy Wagner. George Wagner didn’t shoot or kill anyone, but prosecutors say he can and should be convicted of aggravated murder for conspiring with his family to plan and carry out the massacre. Jake Wagner told a jury Monday that his brother was supposed to shoot Chris Roden Sr., but he froze and Jake pulled the trigger. Jake Wagner and his mother pleaded guilty to their roles in the massacre last year. Jake Wagner then led investigators to the weapons and vehicles used in the killings. On Monday, Jake Wagner told the jury he used a Walther Colt 1911 .22 caliber handgun. His father, Billy Wagner, was armed with a .40 caliber Glock. An SKS rifle was also used in the attack. Jake Wagner testified Tuesday that he cut at least two of those three guns in half with a grinding tool. He said his brother helped him, describing George Wagner as “strong as a bullock.” Jake Wagner told jurors he used a torch to melt the pins and serial numbers to prevent the weapons from being traced back to the crimes. Jake Wagner dumped the ashes in a Rumpke dumpster on the Peterson Road property. He said he also burned several items in an old metal feeder. Everything burned until nothing was left and the ashes were dumped in a Rumpke dumpster on the family’s property. He said it burned:
The clothes and shoes they wore The DVR was taken from a marijuana grow house owned by Chris Rhoden Sr Cell phones collected from victims’ rooms after they were shot to death Caps in some of the filming scenes
Prosecutor Canepa asked Jake Wagner if he planned to destroy the weapons before the massacres. “I did,” he replied. He also admitted on the witness stand that he and his brother dug a hole under a new barn on their land, placed the broken gun parts in a bag and buried it under the barn. Jake Wagner said he and his father later dug through the closet, removed the gun parts and placed them in 5-gallon buckets filled with concrete, along with Jake Wagner’s hunting knife. He used the knife to try to open the door to one of the victim’s locked trailers, but the knife broke. The buckets of gun parts were then filled with cement and set in the water as anchors for a goose house that the brothers would give their grandfather as a Father’s Day or birthday present. Their grandfather used it on his pond at Flying W Farms in Lucasville. Jake Wagner told the jury his brother initially helped him build the goose house. After the gun parts were buried under the barn, Jake Wagner told jurors that he and his father, Billy Wagner, dug them up and put them in those concrete-filled bins. Jake Wagner’s grandfather tied a goose house to float on the lake at Flying W [email protected] @Fox19_Mike pic.twitter.com/r1HXrJXJm9 — Jennifer Edwards Baker (@jbakerohio) October 25, 2022 Discovery filed in the case in Pike County Common Pleas Court on June 21, 2021, shows that the state entered several items into evidence against George Wagner IV after Jake Wagner helped them recover them. The discovery report includes “Contents of Concrete Bin”, “Glock Comparisons”, “Walther Comparisons” and reports from dive teams in Franklin and Ross counties that searched the pond at Flying W Farms. Canepa showed Jake and the jury an aerial photo of the lake at Flying W Farms. He pointed to the upper right part of the pond and said that the goose’s house was in that position. In her opening statement, Canepa briefly referred to BCI weapons expert Matt White reassembling the guns after they were recovered. More testimony about this evidence and how the BCI weapons expert literally put the weapons back together is expected in the coming days. The jury sees an aerial view of the lake at Flying W Farms where Jake Wagner testified earlier his family hid broken pieces of murder weapons in buckets filled with cement. These buckets used as anchors for the floating goose house they gave Jake Wagner’s grandpa as a [email protected] pic.twitter.com/kezks7GSYf — Jennifer Edwards Baker (@jbakerohio) October 25, 2022 The jury will also hear 2018 wiretaps of the Wagners that prosecutors say will bolster their conspiracy charge against George Wagner IV. The judge overseeing this murder trial, Pike County Common Pleas Court Judge Randy Deering, allowed each witness to decide before testifying under oath whether he wanted to go on camera or recuse himself. J Prosecutor Canepa asked him about his ex-wife, who testified Friday, and George Wagner’s ex-wife Tabitha Claytor, who took the stand earlier this month. Both women told jurors they fled the family home after separate incidents years apart in which they feared for their lives. The ex-spouses recounted disturbing details about life with the Wagners, describing a household of constant shouting and hitting. They said they were left out of family meetings and had to deal with a mother-in-law who ran the show and hurled baseless accusations at them, resulting in the final showdowns that ended both short-lived marriages. Claytor said she fled the family home in 2014, leaving her young son behind, after George Wagner slapped her in the face and then her mother-in-law threw a large wooden plank at her and “told George she was going in to get a weapon.” Claytor testified that she hid under a truck, telling jurors, “I didn’t want to get shot.” Canepa asked Jake about the night George’s ex-wife left. He said he was there when the fight broke out and remembered it happening a day or two before his birthday around November 10 or November 11. He made the following allegations: She was sitting in the kitchen at the time and looked directly into the couple’s bedroom, where Claytor claimed George Wagner IV hit her. Jake Wagner said he didn’t see his brother hit her. “She was hysterical.” He also described her as “in an emotional frenzy.” He said he “walked into the kitchen” while…
