Jury gets Wagner case with 2 versions of crimes
To deliberate on events involving 8 deaths in ’16
WAVERLY, Ohio – The jury in the murder trial of George Wagner IV begins its deliberations with two versions of what happened on an April night in 2016 when eight members of the Rhoden family were discovered shot to death in their homes.
In six hours of closing arguments spread over two days, lawyers working to defend and convict the 31-year-old Wagner IV stuck with the themes they laid out when the trial began Aug. 29 in the Pike County Common Pleas Court.
The prosecution said Wagner IV is complicit in the eight homicides, having helped his father, mother and younger brother plan, carry out and cover up the killings.
The defense maintained that Wagner IV did not know that Billy, Angela and Jake Wagner killed the Rhodens and came to believe that investigators were framing them for the crimes without evidence.
Prosecution: Wagner IV’S mother, brother place him at crime scenes
Lawyers for both sides focused on the testimony of Angela and Jake Wagner, both of whom switched their pleas to guilty last year. Under their deal with the state, they agreed to testify in Wagner IV’S trial and the state agreed to drop the possibility of death sentences for the entire family.
Neither was what Wagner IV attorney John P. Parker called star witnesses, Ohio Special Prosecutor D. Andrew Wilson told jurors Tuesday.
Of Jake Wagner, who admitted to killing five of the eight victims, Wilson said: “He’s a terrible, terrible human being. He’s going to spend the rest of his miserable life locked in a cage.”
But, Wilson said, Jake and Angela Wagner corroborated each other’s testimony. Importantly, both said Wagner IV traveled to all four crime scenes on April 21-22, 2016, with his father and brother, but did not fire a weapon.
Under Ohio law, Wilson told jurors, that is sufficient to convict him of complicity in the homicides. “He didn’t have to pull the trigger once to be guilty of these aggravated murders,” he said, walking the jury through 20 ways Wagner IV was involved in the crimes.
“If you aid, abet and assist in any way, you’re on the hook.”
Wilson also reminded jurors of evidence establishing Wagner IV’S close ties to his family. “There’s no way George was sitting on the sidelines. He was coming and he was bringing hell with him.”
Defense: Family testimony should not be believed
For his part, Parker used his closing to paint Jake and Angela Wagner as “liars, con artists and thieves” whose testimony should not be believed. “They’ve got nothing other than the word of a lying brother and their mother,” he said.
Jake Wagner, in particular, described a timeline about the killings that contradicted
other testimony and evidence, Parker maintained.
The prosecution did not present
enough evidence to convict Wagner IV, Parker said. “What they said about George cannot be proven or disproven,” he said.
No Wagner fans among lawyers
None of the lawyers had a kind word about the Wagners.
“There’s nothing on this planet that excuses him,” Special Prosecutor Angela Canepa said about Jake Wagner in her Monday closing statement.
Parker called Jake Wagner psychotic, sick and disturbed. He called Angela Wagner manipulative and unreliable. Billy Wagner “is not going to win father of the year,” he added.
Wagner IV, arrested with his family in 2018 but the first to face trial, did not take part in their plan to kill the Rhodens to win custody of the 21⁄2-year-old daughter Jake Wagner shared with victim Hanna May Rhoden, Parker said.
“George didn’t kill anybody and he didn’t go along,” he said.