WAVERLY, Ohio — The mother of the man accused in a 2016 mass murder told jurors that her husband hatched the plan to kill eight members of a southern Ohio family after they grew convinced the granddaughter the families shared was being molested.
Angela Wagner, 52, described her family as thieves, arsonists and drug dealers who so distrusted the child protection system, police and courts they turned to killing members of the Rhoden family to address their suspicions, which were never validated.
“We have to find some way to protect (the child),” she said her husband, George "Billy" Wagner, told his family.
His plan: "They had to be murdered.”
Wagner testified against her oldest son, George Wagner IV, 31, who faces eight counts of aggravated murder and conspiracy in the Rhoden family massacre in rural Pike County on April 21-22, 2016.
She pleaded guilty and agreed to testify in her family's criminal cases in 2021 after prosecutors dropped murder charges against her. Her testimony came just a week after her youngest son, Edward "Jake" Wagner, 29, testified against his brother, who denies he was not part of the scheme and only went along because he feared their father might hurt his younger brother. Their father, George "Billy" Wagner has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His trial is pending.
She said she was unaware her younger son changed his plea until she saw a headline on a news report:
"I felt like my heart was ripped out that day."
At the center of the case is the then-toddler daughter of Jake Wagner and Hanna Rhoden, who dated for years and had broken up at the time of the slayings. Prosecutions have said the case is about custody.
Angela Wagner denied that last week, countering that it was about protecting her only granddaughter, whose mother was not doing enough to keep the child safe.
Wagner said she loved Hanna Rhoden as a daughter, "at one point,'' but she added that changed.
"I didn't know how she could let something happen to [her daughter]," Wagner said.
Bloody footprints
Both Wagners testified that George Wagner IV left the family's Peebles farmhouse armed and with a plan to annihilate the family and anyone else who was in the home they are also accused of burglarizing that murderous night. Jake Wagner said his brother never fired a shot and did not kill anyone as he admitted to killing five of the eight victims. He testified his father killed three others.
In a key piece of testimony, Angela Wagner recounted a conversation she had with her oldest son more than a year after the homicides, during which he told her wanted to "smudge" bloody footprints left at the trailer of Christopher Rhoden, Sr. But instead, his father told him they needed to leave.
Those bloody footprints match a pair of shoes Wagner bought at Walmart two weeks before the killings at the direction of her youngest son. The prints and the shoes are two physical pieces of evidence in the mostly circumstantial case.
Wagner admitted she was involved in the planning and cover-up and conspiracy to kill the Rhodens and admitted that she agreed with the pleas in the hopes she will, one day, walk out of prison and see her sons and grandchildren again. She is required to serve a mandatory 30 years in prison, meaning she will not released until she is over 80 years old.
"I have regret. I have remorse. I'm more than sorry. But that's not enough. [Her grandchild] was a baby and she was my family,'' Wagner said.
Wagner pointed the finger at her family in questioning by Special Prosecutor Angela Canepa.
Canepa: "Who were you complicit with?"
Angela Wagner: "My husband and my two sons."
At one point, as investigators were closing in the family, Wagner testified that George said he, alone, would admit killing the Rhodens.
She testified that she told him he could not do that.
"One, they wouldn't believe him,'' she said. "And two, he was not going to do that."
'Didn't want to know details'
Wagner testified she never asked details about that night and to this day is unclear who did what to whom and exactly how her family covered up the crime, which become the most complex and costly in Ohio history.
Defense attorney Richard Nash on Friday asked her if she shocked at her husband's suggestion.
"
"But I let him make the decision," she added.
She said she asked her sons if they still wanted to go through with it, but she testified they were committed "to protect" Jake's daughter. Angela Wagner said she thought about jumping into her car to stop them after they left together in a truck bought specifically for that night. Instead, she took ibuprofen, which makes her sleepy, and went to bed as her granddaughter and grandson slept.
The next morning, she said:
“I was glad I had seen all three of them and no one was hurt,” adding that she didn't ask who killed whom or how, she said.
“I just didn’t want to know the details.”
It became real, she testified, when a breaking news alert cam on a TV news program that morning.
In his cross examination, an incredulous Nash repeatedly asked her about a letter she wrote from jail to her mother-in-law, implied she favored her younger son and said she struck the deal with prosecutors to protect herself.
Nash handed Wagner the letter she wrote her mother-in-law, Fredericka Wagner, after she pleaded guilty in the case, and asked her to read it to the jury. She pulled reading glasses out of a pocket on her striped jail uniform while her hands were handcuffed and shackled to her waist with a chain.
The letter attempted to explain her reasoning, which included that she did not want her youngest son to have to testify against her.
Nash's response: "I did not hear you (remorseful) for taking the lives of eight innocent people. Why not?"
Later, he asked if she wasn't doing/saying what she had to do in order to get a lighter sentence than life or death.
She said she was testifying truthfully and said she regretted involving her sons, a concern she took to her husband before the family's 2018 indictment and arrest.
“They’re my sons. I should have protected them as well. They wouldn’t be in this situation,” Angela Wagner said, dabbing tears from her eyes.
Canepa asked her if testifying against her son was hard.
“Do you still love your son George?” Canepa asked.
“Yes,” Angela Wagner answered.
“Do you think he loves you?” Canepa asked.
“I hope so,” responded Wagner, who fleetingly glanced at her son a handful of times while she was on the witness stand.
“How difficult has it been to testify? Canepa asked.
“Extremely,” Angela Wagner said, choking back tears.
"There are no words."
Prosecutors are expected to rest next week as the defense begins its case when the trial enters its 11th week on Monday. Jurors are expected to get the case before Thanksgiving.
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