5. no contact

After arresting the lead suspects, officials spin a story of a family rivalry turned deadly. But with the Wagners insisting they're innocent, can the prosecution get the evidence to line up with its story?

Transcript

SPEAKER_20 0:00

It was almost exactly two years ago now that eight people were murdered in Pike County, Ohio. You said that you were confident that this murder would be solved. The killer or the killers would be brought to justice. Do you still feel very confident that someone will be brought to justice in relatively soon?

SPEAKER_32 0:16

I have been confident, confident all the way through that we were going to solve this.

SPEAKER_06 0:21

Two years after promising never to rest until he catches the perpetrators of the worst mass murder in the history of Ohio.

SPEAKER_32 0:27

I'm very confident that we're going to solve this.

SPEAKER_06 0:30

And facing polls showing him in a dead heat with his Democratic opponent for governor.

SPEAKER_08 0:34

Recent polls show the Ohio governor's race is too close to call.

SPEAKER_06 0:37

Ohio's Attorney General Mike DeWine starts making moves in the Pike County Massacre investigation. In June of 2018, less than a month after he gets those scary general election polls, Mike DeWine instructs one of his prosecutors to impanel a grand jury and get it to charge the Wagners with murder. DeWine puts his most loyal prosecutor in charge of the grand jury, and her name is Angela Kinepa.

SPEAKER_22 1:04

We are here because eight innocent victims were slaughtered, most of them in their sleep.

SPEAKER_06 1:27

Until this point, her role has been behind the scenes, writing legal briefs, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_22 1:31

All of them unarmed and unsuspecting.

SPEAKER_06 1:34

But starting a year, two years after the crimes, she's going to take over and she'll become the most important person on the case.

SPEAKER_22 1:48

This was not in a fit of rage.

SPEAKER_06 1:51

Angela Kinepa is going to run this case for the next eight years, all the way through the time I'm recording in 2026.

SPEAKER_22 1:57

It's hard to imagine that eight people would lose their lives over such a flimsy motive, but it's true.

SPEAKER_06 2:06

And she will go to extraordinary, really shocking, and possibly maybe illegal lengths to put all four Wagners behind bars for life. But all that's way ahead. At this point in the story, in fall of 2018, she's in front of a grand jury guiding it to indict the Wagners. During the grand jury proceedings, Angie Kineppa does two things that seem really minor at the time, but are going to become really important. First, Kineppa subpoenas Frederica Wagner, she's Billy Wagner's 77-year-old mother, to testify in front of the grand jury. Remember how more than a year earlier, Pike County Sheriff Charles Reeder led a SWAT team onto Frederica's horse farm and then held her and Billy's dying father, George, at gunpoint while they searched? Remember during that search they found two bulletproof vests? The ones that were unused and still in their packaging? Well, in front of the grand jury, Kineppa asks Frederica why she bought those bulletproof vests and where she got them. Frederica testifies that she bought them for her son Billy when Sheriff Charles Reeder went on TV to warn that anyone with a connection to the rodents was in danger.

SPEAKER_29 3:25

I thought they were gonna kill Billy because he was such good friends with Chris Rodin. They might come after this family too. We were terrified. Everybody was.

SPEAKER_06 3:35

Now here's the crucial detail. Frederica says she bought the vests on Amazon. So remember that. This 77-year-old tells the grand jury she bought bulletproof vests on Amazon. The second minor thing that turns out to be crucial is a little more complicated. Prosecutor Kinepa calls Angela Wagner's mother, Rita Newcombe, to testify to the grand jury. Now, Rita works as a notary public, and at the grand jury, Prosecutor Kneppa shows Rita a document that she notarized. Remember that living will that BCI agents showed Angela Wagner during her interrogation at the border? We got a notarized document in the evaluation of the death of the one Hannah Mae Roden signed when she and Jake were still a couple that said if anything happened to her, their daughter would go to Jake.

SPEAKER_13 4:29

This was printed out three weeks before murder. You see where I'm going with this?

SPEAKER_06 4:34

That's the document that Special Prosecutor Kanepa puts in front of Rita at the grand jury. The living will is signed by Hannah May, and it's notarized by Rita. And there's nothing wrong with that. Rita is a licensed notary public, and by Ohio law, she was legally allowed to notarize Hannah May's living will. Kanepa asks Rita in front of the grand jury if she notarized this document. She says she did. And they move on. Okay, so remember those two super minor details. Frederica tells the grand jury she bought bulletproof vests on Amazon. And Rita says she notarized Hannah Mae's living will. Because believe it or not, Angie Kinepa is going to use those almost forgettable facts to crush the Wagners.

SPEAKER_31 5:24

Tonight at 11, the Ohio governor's race is shaping up as one of the closest in the nation.

SPEAKER_06 5:30

While all this is going on, Mike DeWine and his Democratic opponent for governor remain neck and neck in the polls.

SPEAKER_21 5:36

The recent poll shows DeWine leading cordrain by less than 1%.

SPEAKER_06 5:40

This election really could go either way, and the campaign becomes the most expensive in the history of Ohio.

SPEAKER_12 5:47

Mike DeWine and the Democratic opponent spent only$45 million between their campaigns.

SPEAKER_06 5:53

DeWine's campaign shells out$28 million in an effort to win the governorship. And DeWine himself uses his generational family fortune to loan his campaign$4 million. As the election heads into the final stretch, DeWine's decision to move the Pike County case to a grand jury does seem to pay off. Grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret, but the Pike County one is kind of an open secret. Reporters know it's happening, and they know that its purpose is to charge the Wagners. So in the home stretch of the election, Mike DeWine doesn't have to face criticism for screwing up the state's most important criminal investigation. Instead, reporters wait breathlessly for indictments that they know will come any day now.

SPEAKER_16 6:37

Good evening, everyone. Just into the NBC Four Newsroom, NBC Four News is projecting Republican Mike DeWine to be Ohio's next governor.

SPEAKER_06 6:46

And on November 6, 2018, two years and seven months after the Pye County massacre, Mike DeWine achieves his lifelong dream. And he wins the election for governor of Ohio with 51% of the vote. The very next day, Angie Kineppa gets the grand jury to indict Billy, Angela, George, and Jake Wagner for the murders of eight members of the extended Rodin family.

SPEAKER_18 7:23

We interrupt programming for breaking news. Two years after the murders of eight family members in Pike County, we just learned that four arrests have been made in the Rodin family massacre.

SPEAKER_06 7:45

BCI agents grab Billy, George, and Jake at their jobs, and they take Angela while she's at home watching Jake and Hannah May's daughter and George's son. Yeah, hi guys. We can't remember a story like this. Four members of the same family could all be headed to death row. When they arrest the Wagner family, law enforcement takes Jake and Hannah Mae's daughter and George's son into state custody, and at least temporarily to foster homes.

SPEAKER_24 8:11

The Wagner lived in this small three-bedroom home in Keenai, Alaska. According to their landlord, they lived here about a year. Very nice. Do they seem like dangerous people to you? No, not at all. On the surface, what do they seem like?

SPEAKER_05 8:29

Normal people. And Tom, you looked into the Wagner family's background. Did you find anything as far as criminal history?

SPEAKER_24 8:35

No, nothing as far as uh, you know, crimes that would be deemed serious. I found one of the young Wagner uh guys had a speeding ticket. Not much at all in terms of a criminal history for either of these four people.

SPEAKER_06 8:48

This moment, more than two and a half years after the Pye County massacre, is obviously a huge turning point for the investigation.

SPEAKER_25 8:55

It was back in June of last year, 2017, that investigators released photos of the Wagner family and asked the public for information about them. It was clear that the Wagners were at the top of the list in connection with these uh Roden family murders.

SPEAKER_06 9:09

But I want to ask you to also think about something else that begins right here. At the moment the Wagners are arrested.

SPEAKER_21 9:17

Now that they've been arrested, the four family members sit in different county jails.

SPEAKER_06 9:21

It's something that I believe will play a huge role years later when the state finally gets confessions out of two of the Wagners.

SPEAKER_21 9:29

The prosecutor said yesterday it will likely be several years before the trials for all four Wagners will be finished.

SPEAKER_06 9:36

Because this is the last day that any of the four Wagners will have any contact whatsoever with each other. Forever. On the day of their arrest, Billy and Angela Wagner, after almost thirty years of marriage, have spent their last moment together. Forever. They will literally never see or speak to each other again. They have now spent their very last moment with their sons, George and Jake. Forever. They'll never see, hug, or speak to their children ever again. The two brothers, from this point on, will never spend another moment together. Also, from this moment on, Jake will never see or speak to his daughter again. Ever. Billy and Angela will never see their grandchildren. It starts here at their arrests and goes for the rest of their lives. Even though they're only charged, only accused, even though we're still three years away from the first confession and four years from the first conviction. Each of the Wagners is now going to a separate jail where they'll be totally isolated from each other for good. And that's because special prosecutor Angie Kinepa has them charged with conspiracy to murder. And because it's supposedly a conspiracy, she gets a judge to forbid the conspirators from having any contact whatsoever with each other. Prosecutor Kinepa also argues that even though none of the Wagners have ever been accused of a violent crime before, each of the Wagner should be held in jail until trial without bail.

SPEAKER_07 12:11

And the court agrees.

SPEAKER_06 12:12

Judge Deering sided with the state and ordered Wagner held without bond. So now, from this moment, each of the Wagners is behind bars for the first time in their lives.

SPEAKER_27 12:21

Angela Wagner says she's innocent, but she won't be able to get out of jail anytime soon.

SPEAKER_06 12:27

Each of them is totally alone, not allowed to even get updates on how any of their other family members, their children or grandchildren are doing.

SPEAKER_09 12:36

Just like what happened to his mom, a judge has now ordered George Wagner IV not to have any contact with his immediate family. No calls, no notes, nothing.

SPEAKER_22 12:45

Either directly or indirectly by writing or through phone calls or by third parties.

SPEAKER_06 12:51

And they have no idea how long their lives are going to go on like this. Because they don't know how long it'll take the case to go to trial.

SPEAKER_23 12:58

Pike County prosecutor Rob Junk knows capital murder cases against Billy Wagner, his wife Angela, and their sons George IV and Jake won't weave quickly through the justice system.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

It would most likely be several years before all these cases are concluded to trial at the court level.

SPEAKER_06 13:15

And there's something else really important to remember when you hear this breaking news coverage of the arrests.

SPEAKER_18 13:21

We expect to know more about the arrests within the next two hours. Local and state investigators will be holding a news conference.

SPEAKER_06 13:27

At the time of these broadcasts, the public doesn't know what you already know about the crime or about the rodents or the Wagners.

SPEAKER_17 13:35

All right, Hillary, the Attorney General, now Governor-elect, says child custody was the issue, not drugs.

SPEAKER_06 13:42

For example, the public doesn't know that at the time of the murders, Jake Wagner and Hannah Mae Roden had been informally and very successfully sharing custody of their daughter for almost two years. She'd spend a week at Hannah Mae's house and they'd switch on Sunday. She'd spend a week at Jake's house, switch on Sunday again, a week at Hannah May's. They didn't have formal custody papers, but they've been doing that without any real problems.

SPEAKER_17 14:05

The primary motive for the killings, again, child custody, they believe. Our team coverage continues.

SPEAKER_06 14:10

The public doesn't know that at the time of the murders, the evidence shows that Jake and Hannah May were on good terms. That about a week before Hannah May gave birth to her second child and about 10 days before the murders, Hannah Mae invited Jake over to her house to build her baby's crib. That after she gave birth, Jake brought their daughter to the hospital to meet her new half-sister. That as soon as she got out of the hospital, Hannah May brought her newborn to the Wagner's house so the whole family could meet her. So when on the day of the arrests, the Attorney General's office tells the news media this. The motive centers police say on custody, the little girl's dad was a Wagner, her mom a rodent, friction led to murder, and today, possible closure. No one's gonna question it. Prosecutors say it was the custody of a shared grandchild that set this all off. When the government tells you that's the motive, and you don't have any other information, you almost can't help filling in the blanks with your own imagination.

SPEAKER_21 15:11

Officials say Jake Wagner fathered a daughter with one of the victims, and that custody of that child was possibly the motive for the murders.

SPEAKER_06 15:18

And it'll be years before the government has to actually go to court and explain with facts what on earth it means when it says the Wagners killed eight people, including Chris Roden Sr.'s cousin, Kenneth Roden, the baby's grandfather's cousin, who lived all by himself, far from the others. Over custody.

SPEAKER_25 15:39

And the attorney general did say, as far as motive goes, he couldn't be too specific, but he said custody plays a big part of this.

SPEAKER_06 15:46

And here's something else about this moment. When the Attorney General announces these arrests, reporters and the public have no idea what evidence the state has against the Wagners. What brought them down was the culmination of a history-making investigation by Ohio investigators. Nobody who hears this news knows that in a brutal crime committed across four different houses, the state didn't find any of the Wagner's DNA, fingerprints, clothing fibers, tire tracks, etc. Only a handful of people know that the state's very best evidence is a receipt for a Walmart Jew. So when the Attorney General's office tells the media this.

SPEAKER_31 16:24

After two and a half years of avoiding prison, it appears the discovery of forged documents and tampered with cell phones were the key.

SPEAKER_06 16:33

Building blocks of a criminal investigation as intricate as the murder plot itself. Nobody's gonna question it, and it sounds like the state has an airtight case. In fact, the Attorney General's office really stretches to make it sound like it has solid forensic proof by claiming this. Police uncovered a major piece of evidence the night before Halloween of this year that they say helped lead to today's arrest. Of course, at the time, the Attorney General's office won't reveal this supposedly crucial last-minute evidence. They wouldn't say what that is exactly, at least not yet. But today we know what it is, so I'll just tell you. Investigators say that right before the arrests, they searched the Wagner's former property again. This new search comes more than a year after BCI searched the property the first time. But during this new search, BCI says it found evidence that the Wagners used gun silencers to commit these crimes. Of course, whoever committed these murders almost assuredly used silencers on their guns. The perpetrators of the Pike County massacre snuck in and out of three of the four houses and shot six out of the eight victims at close range without waking any of them up. The evidence shows that the killers got in and out of one of the houses and killed three of the victims without waking a sleeping five-day-old baby. So did BCI find a silencer at the Wagner's old property? No. Years later, the agency would have to say it found evidence of a homemade silencer at the Wagner property. What, you ask, is a homemade silencer? Well, according to BCI, it's an assortment of random junk. A rusty old flashlight, a part of an oil can, a spark plug that they say the Wagners jerry-rigged into a silencer and used in the crime. Now, did BCI find this jerry-rigged silencer that they say the Wagners assembled? Nope. It just found random junk around the property and said that at some point the Wagners must have put that stuff together, used it as a silencer, and then broke it back apart so it looked like regular old junk, and then left that stuff lying around the property for two and a half years. So at the time of the arrest, the Attorney General's office has no problem convincing the news media and the public that they've arrested the Wagners based on solid forensic evidence. But you know that in this moment they've got virtually nothing. When it comes to the evidence, Special Prosecutor Angie Kinepa is in the same position the BCI agents were in when they let the Wagners drive away from the Canadian border without arresting them.

SPEAKER_22 19:14

We have all this. If you're gonna have any chance to talk with us about what happened, it's now.

SPEAKER_06 19:20

I'm interpreting here, but I'll bet Kinepa is thinking the same thing those agents were.

SPEAKER_22 19:25

I just don't want you to miss an opportunity because you might not get this opportunity again to talk to us.

SPEAKER_06 19:29

With such weak evidence, she's gonna need confessions to get convictions. I think that explains why, shockingly, Kinepa orders two more arrests on the same day.

SPEAKER_30 19:44

And part of the reason investigators say the family got away with it for so long is because of these two.

SPEAKER_06 19:50

In addition to arresting Billy, Angela, George, and Jake, Angie Kinepa has agents go out and arrest the grandmothers. Two grandparents in that family also arrested today. Billy's mother, Frederica Wagner, and Angela's mother, Rita Newcomb.

SPEAKER_21 20:08

Frederica Wagner and Rita Newcomb are in jail in Pickaway County.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Both are grandmothers and are not charged with the actual murders of eight people, but still face felony counts.

SPEAKER_06 20:18

Why arrest these two grandmothers who have no criminal history whatsoever? Well, remember when Frederica told the grand jury that she bought two bulletproof vests on Amazon? Well, that wasn't true. She actually bought those vests on eBay. So Angie Kinepa has Frederica charged with lying to the grand jury. A crime punishable by years in prison.

SPEAKER_04 20:50

Billy's mother, Frederica, is facing one count of perjury and one count of obstructing justice. Frederica allegedly lied to the grand jury in July 2018 as police closed in on the Wagner family. When she's arrested, Frederica tries to explain.

SPEAKER_06 21:05

She's 77 years old. And at the grand jury, she's been asked without advance notice about a purchase that she made more than two years earlier. She didn't lie. She misremembered. And she said she bought them on Amazon when she meant eBay, and her eBay account backs her up. But Angie Kaneppa doesn't care. Charging a Wagner grandmother gives her a great bargaining chip to play when she tries to pressure Billy, Angela, George, or Jake to confess.

SPEAKER_04 21:33

Rita Newcomb and Frederico Wagner's arrests mean three generations of one family have been implicated in this massacre. She also files charges against Angela Wagner's mother, Rita Newcomb. Newcomb is facing four counts of forgery, one count of perjury, and one count of obstructing justice.

SPEAKER_06 21:49

Remember how Rita works as a notary public and that she notarized Haname Roden's living will? Remember how Angie Kineppa asked Rita in front of the grand jury if she notarized it? And Rita said yes. Well, according to Angie Kinepa, that's a lie. Kinepa files charges saying that Rita didn't notarize the document, claiming that Rita helped someone else forge her own signature. Wait, what? That's really confusing, right? She forged her own signature? Rita is a licensed notary public, and it was perfectly legal for her to notarize Hannah Mae's living will. Why would Rita help someone else fake her signature when there's nothing stopping her from signing it herself? It doesn't make sense. But Kinepa claims that BCI scientists have looked really closely at Rita's signature and determined it's not really her signature. But I think Angela Kinepa is up to something really clever here. And it's about creating a media narrative about the Wagners.

SPEAKER_09 22:56

Listen to this news report about Rita's arrest. Prosecutors alleged Newcomb lied to the grand jury about the case and forged custody documents. A child custody dispute is one of the motives for the massacre, investigators say.

SPEAKER_06 23:09

If you just quickly heard that report, you'd probably come away with the impression that Rita forged Hannah May's signature.

SPEAKER_30 23:16

Investigators say she lied to a grand jury and forged custody documents before the murders.

SPEAKER_06 23:21

If they're going to try to claim that the Wagners killed the rodents because of a custody dispute over Jake and Hannah May's daughter, that would fit pretty neatly. Newcomb is accused of forging custody documents. Okay, you might be thinking, Amazon instead of eBay forging her own signature? These charges are so ridiculous. Why don't Frederica and Rita just go to the media and clear things up? Well, if they did that, they'd be committing a crime. Because Angie Kineppa also gets the court to impose gag orders on them. Frederica can't tell reporters about eBay, Rita can't talk about her signature, none of the Wagners can share what they know about how little evidence the state has against them. But wait, there's even more to this. Prosecutor Kinepa gets the court to label Frederica Wagner and Rita Newcomb conspirators in the Pike County Massacre, claiming they helped Billy, Angela, George, and Jake cover up the murders by lying to the grand jury. According to Kinepa, as conspirators, the grandmothers should also be forbidden from having any contact with any of the others. And the court agrees. So in one day, Angie Kinepa and the Attorney General's office get a court to completely sever the relationships between four generations of a close-knit family. Two great-grandparents, Frederica and Rita, two grandparents, Billy and Angela, two parents, Jake and George, and two grandchildren, Jake's daughter and George's son. They are all now and indefinitely forbidden from hearing one caring word from anyone in their family.

SPEAKER_32 25:09

Well, good afternoon. We promised that the day would come when arrests would be made in the Pike County massacres. Today is that day.

SPEAKER_06 25:27

But Attorney General and now Governor-elect Mike DeWine get their trial going in the court of public opinion on the day of their arrests.

SPEAKER_32 25:35

These four individuals are now in custody for allegedly committing this heartless, ruthless, cold-blooded murder.

SPEAKER_06 25:44

Alongside someone we haven't heard from in a while.

SPEAKER_32 25:46

Let me just say that Sheriff Reeder has been a great partner.

SPEAKER_06 25:50

Pike County Sheriff Charles Reeder.

SPEAKER_15 25:52

They did this quickly, coldly, calmly, and very carefully, but not carefully enough.

SPEAKER_06 25:57

Remember him? You already know he's corrupt. And Mike DeWine's Bureau of Criminal Investigation has already heard that he's corrupt.

SPEAKER_10 26:05

I just wish we knew more about the association with Latham and the Sheriff's Office.

SPEAKER_06 26:11

But the general public doesn't know it yet. So at this press conference, Mike DeWine heaps praise on Sheriff Reeder.

SPEAKER_32 26:17

From the very beginning, literally from that morning when the sheriff called us, this has been a true partnership.

SPEAKER_06 26:23

And then Mike DeWine begins spinning his office's story about the Wagners.

SPEAKER_32 26:29

We believe that the Wagners conspired together to develop an elaborate plan to kill the eight victims and then carefully cover up their tracks. We believe the evidence will show that the suspects spent months planning the crimes.

SPEAKER_06 26:44

Mike DeWine has been in politics for more than 40 years, so listen to how skillful he is at manipulating the media right here.

SPEAKER_32 26:52

We won't be able to say much about motive, but you'll see that custody of that young child plays a role in this case.

SPEAKER_06 26:59

He tells reporters that he isn't allowed to say much about why these people who've never committed a violent crime all of a sudden slaughtered eight members of the extended Rodin family.

SPEAKER_32 27:10

Yeah, again, we have to be careful what we say, but uh there certainly was an obsession with custody, obsession with control of children.

SPEAKER_06 27:18

But listen to the way DeWine gives reporters and producers of True Crime Entertainment just enough of a hint for them to be able to run wild with speculation.

SPEAKER_32 27:30

I just might tell you this is just the most bizarre story uh I've ever seen. When the entire story uh as it will unfold at trial, uh it is just it's just amazing.

SPEAKER_17 27:42

Were this many people targeted, so there would be no one left to try to claim rights to that child?

SPEAKER_32 27:47

Well, you can draw your own conclusions to that.

SPEAKER_06 27:50

One extended family working together to murder another entire extended family over a baby? For months, these eight members of the Roden family were watched. They were being watched by their friends, the Wagner family. It's kind of perfectly suited for the true crime entertainment industry. Prosecutors say they even use their two grandmothers as accomplices. And as you probably already know, the true crime industry takes the state's story and runs with it, producing tons of speculative content about the Wagners for years before the state ever has to reveal in court what actual evidence it has against them. Because they're cut off from the outside world and their lawyers are under gag orders, we don't really know what life in jail is like for the four Wagners, as time slowly ticks by in the months after their arrests. We do know, though, that prosecutor Angie Kaneppa and others from the Attorney General's office repeatedly visit the Wagners in jail and offer them deals. Kinepa and the AG have gone to great lengths to keep us from knowing virtually anything about their jailhouse meetings with the Wagners. Kinepa will later successfully argue in court that the state doesn't have to disclose how many times they met, what they discussed. The state just keeps it all a secret. So I'm gonna use my own words here to describe what I understand to be the basics of the deal that Angie Kinepa and the Attorney General offer the Wagners. Confess. Say that you and your family slaughtered the rodents. If you do, the state will go easier on you, but more importantly, it'll go easier on the people you love most in the world. Do what we want, and we'll let your two grandmothers go free. Give us what we want, and we'll take the death penalty off the table for all of your family. We won't seek to execute your mother, your father, your brother. Or don't confess and don't cooperate. But if you insist on your innocence and you opt to fight for your freedom at a trial, we, the state of Ohio, will go hard after the other members of your family. We'll seek to have them all executed. And you've already seen what we're capable of. Hell, look where we've got you right now. And if you think that's powerful, wait until we get in front of a jury. We pretty much always win at trial. So, what do you choose? After the arrests, six months go by and basically nothing happens in the case. But now's when we get back to Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader.

SPEAKER_12 30:40

A major story developing this hour in Pike County. The Ohio Auditor's Office tells us Sheriff Charles Reeder is under investigation.

SPEAKER_06 30:49

All this time he's played the hero, but you knew eventually the public was going to find out that he's corrupt.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Pike County Sheriff Charles Reeder is under investigation by the State Auditor's Office for quote misconduct.

SPEAKER_06 31:00

Remember when BCI agents interviewed Billy Wagner? He told them not to trust Sheriff Reeder or his brother, County investigator Brian Reeder?

SPEAKER_13 31:09

I mean, Mr. Crook is this fucking county in the state of Ohio, all right. You're not the first one that's telling us that they don't trust people here locally.

SPEAKER_06 31:16

Remember Billy Wagner begged the investigators to call in the FBI and the DEA?

SPEAKER_13 31:21

How come the feds and the DEA ain't in on this? Well, because right now we're still the lead on the investigation and the sheriff's office is helping out. Well, I'm okay. You don't get like, you know, get the feds or whoever in here. It ain't gonna get done.

SPEAKER_06 31:38

Just to quickly recap what Billy Wagner said back in 2017, and again, this is what Billy and others told agents at the time. I can't corroborate this as fact. But Billy told agents that the Reeder brothers get paid to do dirty work for a powerful and violent regional drug organization that people in Pike County refer to as Latham.

SPEAKER_13 31:58

Top dog down there. Give me your brother.

SPEAKER_06 32:04

And according to Billy, Latham had a motive to kill Chris Roden Sr. Because Chris was trying to wipe out millions of dollars of their profits and take their huge marijuana distribution business for himself. And Latham had the means and the experience they would need to carry out professional assassination-style killings.

SPEAKER_13 32:28

You have no fucking clue.

SPEAKER_06 32:32

He warned them that if Pike County Sheriff Charles Reeder stayed involved in the case, they would never solve it.

SPEAKER_14 32:37

If you all don't do something, ain't nothing gonna be done.

SPEAKER_06 32:41

Because Billy implies, Latham would pay the sheriff to steer the investigation in the wrong direction.

SPEAKER_13 32:50

But you're saying that they they both worked for Latham then. Well, I ain't saying shit. You need to start saying, look, he figured his shit out, right?

SPEAKER_06 32:58

Now, Sheriff Reeder has never been charged with any of that. There's no proof he took money from Latham or that he did anything to undermine the investigation on their behalf. But in the spring of 2019, three years after the massacre and about six months after the arrests, someone sends an anonymous tip to the state office that monitors government budgets and said they should take a look at the Pike County Sheriff's Financial Records. When these auditors get a hold of the sheriff's books, they immediately notice that something is off. The Sheriff's Department makes a lot of drug busts around Pike County, but when they make these busts, they almost never arrest anybody. After these drug busts, Sheriff Reeder says over and over things like, the suspects got away. The Sheriff's Department's books, though, show that when they make these drug busts, they may not arrest anybody, but they do seize a lot of cash. So these government auditors check the sheriff's evidence room where seized cash is supposed to be held. They find that a lot of that money isn't there. The auditors go to Sheriff Reeder and they ask, where is all of this money that's supposed to be in the evidence lockers? He basically says, Oops, he accidentally brought some evidence home, but he knows where it is, and he'll bring it back the next day. And the next day, Sheriff Reeder returns a big evidence bag of cash to the locker. But the auditors aren't dumb. They can see that the bag had once been sealed according to police procedures, but then it had been opened, and then it had been crudely resealed. Some of the cash in the bag is in neat little stacks, but a lot of it is a crinkled mess. Obviously, Sheriff Reader has shoved cash back in this bag and tried to pass it off as if it's always been sealed, and he never took any of it. So at the end of June 2019, the truth finally starts to come out.

SPEAKER_30 35:01

One of the faces of the Roden murder investigation finds himself accused of a crime.

SPEAKER_06 35:06

The auditors say Reeder has repeatedly taken large amounts of cash out of evidence.

SPEAKER_09 35:13

He's accused of using money seized from drug busts to feed a gambling addiction, letting his daughter drive impounded cars, and asking for and accepting loans from staff members. Turning over his keys to the courthouse, the Pike County Sheriff pleads not guilty, his wife by his side leaving the courthouse.

SPEAKER_06 35:38

Weirdly, on the same day that Charles Reader resigns from his job as sheriff, the Pike County District Attorney fires Charlie's brother, Brian Reeder, from his job as the county's chief investigator. The Pike County DA doesn't offer any explanation for why he suddenly fires Brian Reeder the same day Charlie Reeder resigns facing corruption charges. But Brian Reeder doesn't contest his firing. And February 9th, 2019 is the last day either of the Reeder brothers will ever have a job in law enforcement. When this news about the Reeder brothers breaks, of course, reporters ask now Governor Mike DeWine and the new Attorney General how Sheriff Reeder's corruption is going to impact the case against the Wagners.

SPEAKER_09 36:28

Reader has been Sheriff since 2016, at one time a face for the investigation into the massacre of eight family members. And Dewine and the new AG basically say, Sheriff who? Joast says this case won't affect that one because Reeder, quote, played no material role in the investigation.

SPEAKER_06 36:47

Sheriff Reeder played no material role in the Pike County massacre investigation?

SPEAKER_15 36:52

We're coming. When this investigation's complete, it's going to point us in the direction that we need to go. And we'll find who did this.

SPEAKER_06 36:59

On the morning after the murders, he had full unsupervised control of the crime scenes before BCI ever showed up. Who's guarding that evidence right now?

SPEAKER_15 37:08

I'm not going to comment on who's guarding the evidence.

SPEAKER_06 37:10

It was Sheriff Reeder's idea to pick up and move the rodent houses across the county.

SPEAKER_08 37:15

Your office may have potentially jeopardized any evidence that may come in this case. I will disagree with that.

SPEAKER_15 37:20

He then left those houses unlocked and unsupervised. I'm not going to explain my security measures to you.

SPEAKER_06 37:26

And he tried to make a secret deal with the reporter to keep the public from finding out. I'm not going to answer that. I've told you that. He didn't tell anyone about reward money that had been authorized by a state agency until a journalist discovered it.

SPEAKER_19 37:38

Somehow the Crime Stopper's reward got lost in the shuffle.

SPEAKER_06 37:42

At the press conference announcing the arrest, Mike DeWine heaped praise on Reader, saying he was an amazing partner.

SPEAKER_32 37:47

This was truly, truly a collaborative effort.

SPEAKER_06 37:50

Since that press conference, Reader has gone to court for all of the Wagner's pretrial hearings. This is a death penalty case with four suspects. And each time he has sat at the prosecution's table right next to Angie Kneppa.

SPEAKER_15 38:04

We will continuously work and see it through the end.

SPEAKER_06 38:06

But Charles Reeder has no direct role in the Pike County massacre investigation.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

And breaking news just into the NBC Four newsroom, suspended Pike County Sheriff Charles Reeder has just pleaded guilty to theft in office and tampering with evidence.

SPEAKER_06 38:30

So eventually he pleads guilty to felony theft, and then he throws himself at the mercy of the court.

SPEAKER_14 38:41

Never, ever did I imagine myself on the defense side of this courtroom. I have and I now pray that the court will find mercy on me. Your Honor, please do not send me to prison.

SPEAKER_06 38:52

When he goes in front of a judge for sentencing, Charlie Reader says he stole the money.

SPEAKER_14 39:05

You're aware, Your Honor, that this has affected my mental health as well as my physical well-being.

SPEAKER_06 39:11

But the judge is having none of it. As she's about to hand down his sentence, she points out that Reader's gambling debts go way back to at least five years before the Pye County massacre. He didn't all of a sudden become corrupt because he was working too hard on the case.

SPEAKER_31 39:26

Former Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader will now spend the next three years in prison. A judge has sentenced Reader on charges of theft in office, tampering of evidence, and conflict of interest.

SPEAKER_06 39:38

This, of course, is the actual end of Charlie Reeder's involvement in the Pike County Massacre investigation and prosecution. He goes to prison for three years. And I don't know where he or his brother are now or what they're doing. But there is still a lot we don't know about what Charlie Reader did throughout the Pike County Massacre investigation. And I think it is reasonable to ask: did Charlie Reader use his position to steer it in the wrong direction? Remember that right after the murders, Mike DeWine said this?

SPEAKER_32 40:09

It was a sophisticated operation, and those who carried it out were trying to do everything that they could do to hinder the investigation.

SPEAKER_06 40:18

Well, here's something else about both Charlie Reader and his brother Brian. In the years before the massacre, they both received extensive state-funded training in crime scene investigation and forensics. If anyone in Pike County would know how to destroy a crime scene and ruin forensic evidence, it would be them. You know, they were careful. Again, I have no evidence that Charles Reeder purposefully hindered the investigation or that his brother helped him in any way. But if they did, that would go a long way towards explaining why the largest and most expensive criminal investigation in Ohio history, in which more than a hundred trained agents and analysts poured over every inch of four houses looking for forensic evidence, basically came up empty and ended up charging the Wagners based on a shoe receipt and firing pin impression analysis. And why the state put so much pressure on the Wagners to confess. Still, after the arrests, each of the Wagners spends an entire year in jail in who knows what kind of conditions, isolated, with no ability to communicate with each other, under the threat of the death penalty. And each one of them holds strong, maintaining their innocence. And then they live through another full year in jail under those conditions and those threats.

SPEAKER_07 41:47

And for the second full year behind bars, each of the Wagners continues to hold out, saying they did not do it.

SPEAKER_06 42:07

That's next.