WAVERLY, Ohio — The lead agent in the Rhoden family killings testified for the first time Tuesday, detailing the investigation's chaotic first days in 2016 and how the army of investigators and analysts narrowed their hunt for the killers.
Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Ryan Scheiderer, who has been sitting with prosecutors during the trial, told jurors he was working in his yard when he learned of the killing in Pike County the morning of April 22, 2106. George Wagner IV, 30, is charged with eight counts of aggravated murder in the 2016 killings of seven members of the Rhoden family and Hannah Hazel Gilley, 20.
Related: Who were the victims
In the five hours it took him to arrive in Piketon, where law enforcement was gathering, the victim count was rising, Scheiderer testified.
"We tried to organize. We knew we were going to be in this for the long haul,'' he testified. "It's overwhelming. It overwhelms you. Everything was coming in so fast."
However, he testified it did not take him long to focus on several key findings and presumptions: shoe prints left at two scenes, the likelihood the killers know the area and the victims, that silencers were likely used at least one of the scenes and that while marijuana grow sites were found at two locations they were not massive and nothing was removed indicating drugs were an unlikely motive.
Investigators combed through 1,143 tips from prison inmates across the nation, psychics, people who were mentally ill and even one from the recently deceased musical artist Prince.
"We had to deal with all of that."
More than 800 written reports were filed from agents, which did not include laboratory reports, he said.
Scheiderer testified that investigators put a rush on ballistics found at the scene, shoe prints impressions as well as blood found at the scenes to search for DNA to the state crime lab for analysis. Only the victims' DNA came back from the bloody scenes.
"At the time, we just did not have any leads,'' he testified. "We needed this information. This was a whodunit murder."
Enter BCI analyst Suzanne Elliott, who testified Tuesday and Wednesday. She testified that after she couldn't find impressions in large databases of shoe prints and footwear to match those found at one crime scenes, she went shopping. She eventually found a pair of Athletic Works velcro shoes at Walmart. The tread of that shoe, in sizes 10 1/2 and 11, matched those found in blood at the trailer of Christopher Rhoden Sr.
The shoes are a key piece of physical evidence in the case.
Defense lawyer Richard Nash on Wednesday asked Elliott if she could testify who was wearing the shoes during the homicides.
"You can't testify that Billy Wagner did not leave the impression, can you?"
Elliott: "No."
'Rule 'em in, rule 'em out'
Scheiderer said once Elliott identified the size 11 Walmart shoes, investigators combed through video from between 15 and 17 Walmart stores in a 50-mile radius looking for any evidence of such a purchase.
They discovered Leonard Manley, the father of Dana Manley, had bought a pair of those shoes in size 10 in either January or February of 2016 and had thrown them away. Investigators pulled trash from the trash companies disposal site and found those shoes in May 2016. Elliott tested the shoes and found they did not match the size nor tread wear of those left in blood.
Asked if he sent the shoes for analysis, he said: "Absolutely ... rule 'em in, rule 'em out."
At the time, Manley said he believed investigators were unfairly targeting his family as possible suspects. He said in interviews that he wore wide shoes and believed the shoe print impressions were not from those shoes. He also later wondered if the killers intentionally bought those shoes to lead investigators to him and his family.
On Wednesday, Elliott put the issue to rest.
Canepa: "You completely eliminated Leonard Manley's shoes?"
Elliott: "Yes."
Victims' last calls and text messages to family, establish timeline
Scheiderer told jurors that investigators worked to establish profiles of the victims in order to understand them and their actions prior to their deaths, as well as to possibly lead them to a suspect.
BCI criminal intelligence analyst Julia Eveslage testified that investigators pulled cell phone records for seven of the eight victims and were able to pinpoint their last correspondences. The text messages and phone calls, almost all to their family members, provided a timeline of the last known contacts the victims had before they were killed.
Perhaps the most poignant was a photo analysts extracted from the phone of Frankie Rhoden that showed his two sons, then age 3 and age 6 months, laying on the floor together. The children appeared to be sleeping. It was the last piece of information on his phone, taken at 10:59 p.m. April 21, 2016.
The last two phone calls made from Christopher Rhoden Sr's two phones were placed to Billy Wagner, who is the father of George and also charged in the case. Canepa has said in her opening statements that jurors will hear that Billy Wagner asked Rhoden Sr. to call his phone to locate his lost phone. However, that was a lie in order to give Wagner an alibi.
The last text message was placed from Dana Manley Rhoden's phone at 3:32 a.m. to her ex-husband.
Trail cameras and headlights
Scheiderer disclosed that investigators recovered video from surveillance cameras at homes near the roads leading to the crime scenes. In somewhat confusing testimony, Scheiderer worked to describe to jurors what the video captured.
In a series of eight video snippets taken from three vantage points on one house near the intersection of Union Hill Road and Ohio Route 772, headlights from one and then two vehicles can be seen going back and forth from 1:36 a.m. to 3:19 a.m. The first three crime scenes were on Union Hill Road.
The footage was enhanced by 200%, but it is impossible to see the kind of vehicle or a make or model.
In a separate series of three video snippets taken from a home on Left Fork Road near the camper of Kenneth Rhoden, headlights from a single vehicle can be seen passing at 2:29 a.m. and again at 2:51 a.m. At 3:51 a.m., a single vehicle can be seen going past the home away from Rhoden's property.
Scheiderer has yet to be cross examined by Wagner IV"s lawyers on the video.
However, one defense lawyer John Parker, again quizzed Scheiderer on the location of Dana Rhoden's trailer. He testified that the trailer was in Scioto County and not Pike County, a fact investigators did not know until after November 2018 when a Rhoden family member brought it to their attention.
"Did you document that?" Parker asked Scheiderer.
"No."
"You did not document that?" Parker again.
"No."
And an even more incredulous Parker: "You did not document that?"
"No,'' responded Scheiderer. "I did not document that."
Twice Parker has asked Pike County Common Pleas Judge Randy Deering, who is presiding over the case, to dismiss the case based on the location issue. Deering denied the first request; the second is pending.
Canepa asked Scheiderer if the Rhoden killing were a continuing course of conduct and as such if the homicides happened in neighboring counties they can be tried together and not in separate counties. He said that was his understanding.
But Parker in a follow-up line of questioning: "Are you aware that the Ohio Constitution — not the Ohio Revised Code — requires that a trial take place in the county where the crime was committed?"
Scheiderer: "I am not aware of that."
Deering indicated he would address the issue during jury instructions.
The trial recessed until Thursday; however, a sickness delayed the case until 9 a.m. Friday.
Questions for students
I intentionally rolled all of these elements into one story, but how might you have either broken them into separate stories or trimmed this story down? Be specific.
The testimony, which you can see here, related to the video is somewhat confusing. List two things you might do in an attempt to understand this better so you can write with clarity.
What questions do you have for me?
What questions should I be asking that I am not of officials involved in the case?
What don't you understand?
I intentionally rolled all of these elements into one story, but how might you have either broken them into separate stories or trimmed this story down? Be specific.
I would possibly break up different chunks of information with possibly more specific headlines/subheads so information or elements of the story could be found more easily.
It would need to be separated stories because each one has two much information in them to just be one. The shoe has it own story because of the footprints and those were the events after the phone and the headlights so if you were to spilt it into two then the reading wouldn't get lost in the story.
In order to split up the story, I would change it into separate stories: the shoes/footprints as one story and the phones/headlights as one story. If it doesn't get broken up the reader will most likely lose attention and stop reading before they make it to the phones/ headlights.
One way this story could be divided would be to have things like the victims' last interactions on their cell phones in a separate article focused on the victims and the timelines that are relevant to them specifically.
1. Each of these elements shows a different piece of important information that was shown during this part of the trial so these elements could be their own stories because individually they could stand alone like the Trail Cameras and Headlights because there is probably more in-depth info but this was apart of the whole picture for what happened that day in court.
2. How do you go through all the information and decide how to construct stories?