In a special episode of Body Bags, host Joseph Scott Morgan and co-host Dave Mack break down the senseless Piketon County murders, which left eight people dead, despite a close friendship between the suspects and victims.
The Rhodens and the Wagners lived next to each other for years in Piketon County, Ohio, leading to an early-blooming romance between two of the neighbors. Jake Wagner and Hannah Roden began dating when Hannah was just 13. Jake was 18. By the time she was 15, Hannah became pregnant.
Hannah gave birth to a daughter, Sophia, but the relationship ultimately ended and Hannah became pregnant by another man.
“Both families loved her. Those who knew Jake Wagner and Hannah Roden said that Jake Wagner was very controlling, and had been verbally and physically abusive to Hannah,” Body Bags co-host and CrimeOnline investigative reporter, Dave Mack, said.
“Hannah Roden eventually broke up with Jake Wagner. That’s when the problems began. As Hannah Roden moved on with her life and started dating other men, she became pregnant with another man’s child.”
Jake Wagner not only wanted custody of Sophia, but he also wanted his name on the birth certificate of Hannah’s child, despite him not being the father. According to court documents, Jack Wagner threatened to “put [Hannah’s] body where it would never be found,” after an argument broke out between the pair.
“(I’ll) never sign papers ever. They will have to kill me first,” Hannah allegedly wrote on Facebook.
Four days later, Hannah and seven of her family members were dead.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, eight victims were found shot execution-style at three campers and a trailer on a property in Piketon in April 2016. The victims were murdered at night across four different crime scenes.
The victims were later identified as Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40, and Dana Rhoden, 37; their three children, Hanna, 19, Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16, and Frankie Rhoden, 20; Frankie’s fiancee, Hannah Gilley, 20; the three children’s uncle, Kenneth Rhoden, 44; and the children’s cousin, Gary Rhoden, 38.
In 2018, numerous members of the Wagner family were arrested in connection with the murder, including:
- George Wagner IV
- Billy Wagner
- Rita Newcomb
- Jake Wagner
- Angela Wagner
- Fredericka Wagner (charges dropped)
“I became so involved in the investigation and coverage of these deaths, that I found myself many evenings after doing a taping session, crying,” Morgan said. “I’m not ashamed to admit that because this goes to the heart of everything that I place value on in my life. Namely, family.”
Jake Wagner landed on police radar after they learned about the custody dispute. In 2018, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said that the defendants then conspired and created “an elaborate plan to kill the eight victims under the cover of darkness and then carefully cover up their tracks.”
Prosecutors confirmed that a custody dispute was at the center of the slayings and that the Wagners planned the murders for months in advance.
“It really comes down to two teenagers that have a child, they break up and as they’re moving on to different relationships,” Mack explained. “The boy doesn’t like the girl dating some of the guys and he uses his daughter to say she’s going to put my daughter in harm’s way and that escalates.”
Eric Evans, host of the true-crime YouTube show “The Docket,” told CrimeOnline that according to court documents, Billy Wagner stopped and asked two family members, Jake and George, if they wanted to back out, shortly before the killings began.
Jake Wagner, Court Docs Hea… by Leigh Egan
Morgan explained that once the killings started, the suspects pushed on and carried out the sinister plan to murder the entire family.
“Their adrenaline is pumping,” Morgan said. “Now they’ve got to go to the next one and then the next one. What do you say to one another in those quiet moments? Maybe you’ve got a bit of blood on your clothes. Maybe you can still smell the burned gunpowder on yourself.”
“Maybe, maybe, just for a second, you can hear a scream that still echoes in your ear or hear someone begging for their life.”
Join Joseph Scott Morgan on the Oxygen Channel for the “Pike County Murders: A Family Massacre,” airing November 24 at 8 p.m. EST.
[Feature Photo: FILE – In this May 3, 2016, file photo, mourners gather during funeral services at Scioto Burial Park in McDermott, Ohio, around caskets for six of the eight members of the Rhoden family found shot April 22, 2016, at four properties near Piketon, Ohio. A divided Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017, rejected requests for the unredacted autopsy reports from the unsolved slayings. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)]
