WAVERLY, Ohio — In a series of recorded 2017 wiretaps played for jurors Monday, the man accused of killing eight members of a southern Ohio family can be heard telling his then-toddler son that law enforcement officers investigating the slayings were liars and wanted to kill the child's family.
George Wagner IV, who along with his mother, Angela; father, Billy; and younger brother, Jake were stopped at the Canada/Montana border on May 21, 2017 by Ohio authorities who had developed the family as prime suspects in the April 2016 slayings of eight members of the Rhoden family. Wagner IV's son and Jake Wagner's daughter were with the family during the stop, BCI criminal intelligence analyst Julia Eveslage testified.
"You know what they want? The people at the border who talked to you and [Jake's daughter], they want to kill your Uncle Jake, they want to kill your (inaudible), they want to kill your Papaw and me for no reason," Wanger IV is heard telling his son in the at-times difficult to hear recording agents placed in the family's truck when they were stopped at the border.
"They are bad people. They want us all to die, and they will take you away and give you to bad people. They want to take [Jake's daughter] away and give her to bad people. They are bad people. Don’t listen to what they tell you,'' Wagner IV said. "They’re liars. That’s what they are. They are liars."
The recording is one of 13 prosecutors played for jurors as the case entered its seventh week. Jurors did not hear the entire conversations of recordings also taken from taps of Wagner family cell phones. One of the intercepts included a series of text messages between Dwayne DeWeese, the new owner of their Ohio farm, and Jake Wagner. DeWeese texted Wagner after the family moved to Alaska. He told them authorities were continuing to search the 71-acre farm.
Those text messages triggered a series of calls between the Wagner family asking where the searches were happening, what agents were looking for and if DeWeese said they had search warrants. At one point, Jake Wagner tells DeWeese he should sue the authorities.
However, DeWeese said in an interview that he gave permission to BCI authorities to search the property. But, he complained he had grown weary of the searches, the last of which he said was conducted in the summer of 2021 and added that the agents left the property a mess when they left.
In two separate calls to her sons in June 2017, Angela Wagner described a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home she found for the family on four acres in Alaska that said was "perfect" for them. She told Wagner IV that she wanted to put the lease in his name and would use his credit to secure the lease. The home, which was built over a trailer, was on the market for $180,000 she said on the recordings, but the homeowner agreed to rent it to the Wagner for $975 a month for one year.
Also in June, Angela Wagner's mother, Rita Newcomb, calls her daughter to tell her about a BCI press release asking for the public help in locating information related to the Wagner family. Wagner tells her Newcomb to call the BCI tip line and tell them that the Wagners didn't kill anyone.
Instead, she tells Newcomb to point the finger at Leonard Manley, who is the father of victim Dana Manley Rhoden and grandfather to three of her children, who were also fatally shot. She tells Newcomb that to tell authorities that Manley killed them for $50,000 in insurance money.
Eveslage said Newcomb and other family members did, in fact, call BCI.
In later intercepted calls, Jake and George call their uncle an his partner telling them not to talk to anyone about the Wagners.
Eveslage also testified that she and others were able to retrieve thousands of documents, screenshots of Facebook content and private messages as well as browsing history from a laptop they seized during a search, including the Facebook Messenger message prosecutors have said was the impetus for the killing.
In the screenshot of that message, Hanna Rhoden tells a friend she would never sign custody documents related to the daughter she shared with Jake Wagner. "I won't sign papers ever. It won't happen. They will have to kill me first."
And Eveslage testified that at 11:06 p.m. on April 21, 2016, the laptop showed that Jake Wagner's phone searched "Boondock Saints 2: Ding Dong scene." [During testimony Tuesday, Eveslage testified that she erred in time reference. The time of the search was 7:06 pm.] The movie was one of Jake Wagner's favorites, friends and family have testified. The scene shows a doorbell ringing and the door opening and two brothers shooting and killing the character on the other side of the door.
Prosecutors have presented evidence that indicates the first killings were around 11 p.m. on April 21, 2016.
Wagner IV's lawyer John Parker objected repeatedly to the recordings and asked Pike County Common Pleas Judge Randy Deering to allow him to play full recordings from three of the calls during his cross examination.
Parker argued the jurors were not given the full context of each call.
Deering heard arguments after jurors left Monday and is expected to rule on Tuesday.
The ruling is important in part because prosecutors are expected to also play conversations recorded from wiretaps put in the semi-truck George and Jake drove together in 2018, that prosecutor Angela Canepa called "extremely damning stuff." She said investigators gathered four to five times more recordings during those taps.
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