Trial begins after 8 members of rival family massacred ‘execution-style’ in rural Ohio

A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions rocked rural Ohio in 2016. Now, the family at the centre of a cold-blooded massacre will soon appear in a trial that prosecutors hope will finally give concrete answers to a small community torn apart by violence.

On April 22, 2016, seven adults and one teenager, all members of the Rhoden family in Pike county, Ohio, were shot in their sleep, “execution-style,” according to prosecutors. The assailants had broken into the family’s compound of trailers and left alive a toddler and two newborns.

When the bodies of the family were discovered, the children were found covered in blood and one of the newborns was trying to nurse on her dead mother.

Exactly five years after the murders, a man pleaded before a judge that he was guilty of the killings. His name was Edward “Jake” Wagner and one of the victims, Hanna Rhoden, 19, was the mother of his 2-year-old child.

To avoid the death penalty, Jake pleaded guilty to 23 charges in connection with the massacre of the Rhodens. He not only implicated himself, but also agreed to testify against his entire family.

Jake’s mother, Angela Wagner, has ended up also pleading guilty to conspiracy, evidence tampering and other charges related to the homicides. But Jake’s father and brother, George Wagner III and George Wagner IV, respectively, have maintained their innocence.

Even Jake’s grandmother was wrapped up in the plot, with Rita Newcomb pleading guilty to a misdemeanour obstruction charge. Jake’s other grandmother, Fredericka Wagner, initially had charges laid against her but they have since been dropped.

In a small community in Appalachia where everyone knows everyone and family ties run deep, the Wagners seemingly took things a step further. According to the Washington Post, they are an insular, close-knit family that homeschooled their kids.

“There certainly was obsession with custody, obsession with control of children,” then-Ohio attorney general Mike DeWine said at a press conference at the time.

Prosecutors will argue before a 12-person jury that the Wagners planned the massacre of the Rhoden family for months in order to secure custody of the daughter Jake had with Hanna when she was underage.

DeWine, now the state’s governor, called this case the biggest criminal investigation in Ohio’s history “by far.”

“This was calculated, planned out. It just chills you to think about,” DeWine said last year, adding that the killers acted in “cold, cold, cold blood.”

Special prosecutor Angela Canepa said of the case, “This is very much a family affair,” during a hearing in May. “All for one and one for all.”

The incident has been named the “Pike County Massacre.”

The murders

Bobby Jo Manley was on her way to visit her ex-brother-in-law when she stepped into a bloodbath.

She had driven to the Rhoden compound of trailer homes to visit Chris Rhoden Sr., 40, when she discovered him dead and bloodied along with the bodies of his cousin Gary, 38, and ex-wife Dana, 37. Chris and Dana’s children, Hanna, Chris Jr., 16, and Clarence, 20, were all dead too. Clarence’s fiancée, Hannah Gilley, 20, had also been murdered.

According to prosecutors’ narrative of events, some of the victims were collateral damage, “killed because they happened to be there,” Canepa said.

The only survivors left were Clarence’s three-year-old son, Clarence and Hannah Gilley’s infant, and Hanna Rhoden’s new baby (her child with Jake was not staying at the compound when the murders happened).

On the same day, Chris Sr.’s brother Kenneth, 44, was also found murdered at his home 15 minutes away from the trailer complex.

When investigators arrived at the Rhoden compound they found a grisly and chaotic scene. Law enforcement ended up hauling away the trailers whole in order to preserve the evidence.

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