Rhoden case still mired in court
Family still awaits trial for suspects in 8 deaths
Geneva Rhoden sat in the front row of a Pike County courtroom on Dec. 22 and spent her 2,070th day waiting for justice.
April 22 will mark six years since the Rhoden family homicides and yet with the calendar flipped to 2022, the criminal cases against those charged with the eight killings are still mired in the court system, wending their way slowly to some eventual end. When that will come, however, is still anyone’s guess.
Even before four members of the
Wagner family were arrested in November 2018 and each was charged with eight counts of aggravated murders (and a host of other related felonies), the officials involved in this case called it the most-complex homicide investigation ever undertaken by the Ohio Attorney General’s office’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
And after the arrests, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty, it only grew more so.
But a former Franklin County prosecutor, who during his more than 17-year tenure in office tried more than 50 first-degree murder or aggravated murder cases before juries, said the amount of time ticking off the clock here is not surprising.
“Here is this massive case that gets all this national publicity, but the process for prosecuting it and defending it is the same as with any other case: You put it together in the same methodical way,” said Mike Miller. He is not involved with the Pike County cases, but brings a wellrounded perspective as a courtroom observer because after a career as both a municipal court judge and prosecutor, he now serves as a defense attorney with the Columbus law firm Kegler Brown Hill & Ritter.
The criminal cases against the Wagner family will simply take more time. “These big cases are not easy. They’re complicated,” he said. “But they’re doable.”
On the morning of April 22, 2016, Bobby Jo Manley arrived at the home of her brother-in-law and found him and a cousin dead inside their trailer on Union Hill Road in rural Pike County.
She called 911. Before the day’s end, six other bodies in three other locations would be discovered.
Killed were Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40, and Chris Sr.’s ex-wife Dana Manley Rhoden; their sons, Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16, and Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 20; their daughter, Hanna Rhoden, 19; Frankie’s fiancée, Hannah Gilley, 20; another of Tony and Chris Sr.’s brothers, 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden; and Gary Rhoden, 38, a cousin.
All had been shot to death. Attention pretty quickly zeroed in on the Wagner family, all of whom today still sit in jail, charged in the killings. Two have pleaded guilty.
George “Billy” Wagner III; his wife, Angela Wagner; and their two grown sons, George Wagner IV, and Edward “Jake” Wagner were all arrested in a coordinated takedown on Nov. 13, 2018.
Jake Wagner, 29, and Hanna Rhoden had a young daughter together, and prosecutors have said custody of the child was at the root of the homicides.
In April, on the fifth anniversary of the killings, Jake Wagner pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him, and admitted in court that he personally shot and killed five of the eight victims.
Special Prosecutor Angela Canepa said in court — a gag order remains in place that prevents any of the parties from speaking publicly about the cases other than during hearings — that Jake Wagner had fully confessed to investigators during about 12 hours of interviews over two days.
In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to remove the death penalty from the table for all four of the Wagners.
Then, in September Angela Wagner also pleaded guilty to her own charges, after offering her own confession. Prosecutors removed the aggravated murder charges against her, as she told investigators she did not go along that night and participate in the killings.
Because both Jake and Angela Wagner, 50, have promised to testify, if necessary, their sentencings won’t happen until each case is resolved. Prosecutors and the defense agreed Jake Wagner would serve eight consecutive life terms without parole, plus more than 100 years for the sentences on all the other charges. His mother’s agreed-upon sentence is 30 years.
Billy Wagner, 51, and George Wagner IV, 30, are still standing on their not guilty pleas and each will have hearings resume in the new year.
Sometimes, Miller said, the passage of time can be to a defendant’s advantage. But likely not here. “Anger and emotion tend to decrease as time goes on. But that’s not going to happen here when you have eight victims,” he said. “People who don’t even know anyone in this case will forever be incensed by this. These emotions don’t lessen.”
hzachariah@dispatch.com