WAVERLY, Ohio — Elizabeth Armer, the woman who married Jake Wagner in Alaska and moved back with the family to Ohio, took the witness stand Friday, describing her time living in the family's home two years after eight members of the Rhoden family were murdered in Pike County.
George — along with his mother Angela, father George "Billy" Wagner and brother Edward "Jake" Wagner — is accused of shooting and killing the Rhoden family members "execution-style." The family's bodies were found on April 22, 2016. He faces eight charges of aggravated murder, along with other charges associated with tampering with evidence, conspiracy and forgery.
Found dead that day were 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr., 37-year-old Dana Rhoden, 20-year-old Hannah "Hazel" Gilley, 16-year-old Christopher Rhoden Jr., 20-year-old Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 37-year-old Gary Rhoden, 19-year-old Hanna May Rhoden, and 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden.
The trial is the first time a person has faced a jury for the deaths of the Rhoden family six years ago.
Prosecution called Armer to the stand Friday morning where she described her marriage to Jake and time with the Wagner family to the jury.
Armer said she grew up in a Mennonite community in Tennessee before moving to Alaska, where she met and married Jake.
She met Jake through a church she attended in Alaska; the first time she saw Jake, she said he was with Angela and his daughter Sophia and she thought they were a couple with their child. Later, she said she caught Jake noticing her and not long after that he contacted her on Facebook to ask her out.
She told him she wasn't comfortable going on a date with someone she didn't know, so Jake made a more concerted effort to speak with her at church; the pair would then spend time together — sometimes with Sophia in tow — getting food, going for walks and getting ice cream.
Armer said she didn't know anything about what the Wagners had left behind in Ohio, until the church's pastor addressed it to the congregation. The pastor told everyone he'd known the Wagner family in Ohio and that the family was bothered by news stories circulating about them, so they'd moved to Alaska to get away. Armer said the pastor told the church to ignore the attention the family was getting in the news and welcome them into the community.
Jake told her his ex-girlfriend in Ohio was murdered and that people thought he did it because he'd dated her and that, after being "hounded" by the media, the family moved.
Before the pair were married, Armer said she'd only met the rest of his family once or twice; Jake told her he wasn't on good terms with them, but that they'd fallen on hard times so he was renting space to them in his home.
Nine months after the two met, Jake proposed, she said. The plan was to remain engaged for two years while they got more comfortable with one another — Armer explained that in the community she grew up in, it was not unusual to meet someone in church, and date for under one year before becoming engaged.
The couple planned to be engaged for two years before marrying, Armer said, but Jake kept changing the terms. He moved their wedding date up multiple times and as she tried to plan, he would move it closer once more. Eventually, Armer said she was walking down the aisle just one month after Jake's proposal.
The wedding was calm, held in a friend's cabin, Armer said, though George and Billy spent the reception skulking.
That night, Jake and Armer were taken to a hotel room.
"I hadn't dated anybody and didn't have any experience with men, so I had requested in no uncertain terms that we not consummate marriage on that night — which Jake agreed to but did not honor," Armer said.
After, Jake asked her for her personal information, she said. He synced her phone with his so he could see all her cell activity and then requested her bank account numbers, social security card and phone passcode.
That same night, he also asked her to cut ties with her family. She'd told Jake previously that two of her brothers had sexually abused her as a child on separate occasions — much like Hanna confided her abuse to him and Tabitha had confided her past abuse with George — but Jake demanded she turn her back on her whole family.
The next morning, the Wagner family left Alaska, headed for Missouri, she said. She'd been told she had to go with them if she wanted to be with Jake; he told her the family had a farm in Missouri and he, Armer and Sophia would live together on the property while the rest of the family would have a house on the other end of the land.
Jake, George and Billy drove one vehicle while Angela and the children drove in another; Armer herself was left behind, because there'd been a delay in her passport. She later flew out of Alaska alone to meet the family, she said.
When she arrived, she expected to be taken to the family's farm and was, instead, shocked to learn the entire family was staying in a single hotel room; Angela and the children slept in one bed, she and Jake in another, George in a recliner and Billy slept in the truck in the parking lot.
The family stayed in the hotel for five to seven days, she said.
During that time, Armer said George left to take Billy back to the Flying W Farm in Ohio before returning to Missouri; she said she didn't know if that's actually what happened, but George and Billy left and, days later, George returned alone. While they were gone, the rest of the family drove around the area visiting farms for sale and looking for jobs, she said.
Ultimately, after Angela rejected several properties, the Wagner family decided to return to Ohio.
"I was unhappy about it because Jake had basically promised me we were never going back to Ohio because of the news story, but after being in a hotel for days on end I thought anything might be better, so I said 'ok,'" Armer said.
They moved into Angela's father's home in South Webster, next door to her mother, Rita Newcomb. Almost immediately, the family began painting the house, Armer said; red in the kitchen, brown in the living room and, specifically, one bedroom pink and other blue. The Wagners told her that was so they could say the pink room was Sophia's while the blue was Bulvine's, in case anyone questioned the children's wellbeing, she said.
Typically, Angela and Bulvine slept in one bedroom while George slept in the blue room; Jake and Armer, along with Sophie, were assigned the pink room. Billy had gone back to living at the Flying W Farm full time, she said.
George and Jake went back to driving long-haul trucks and were often gone five days a week, returning on weekends. When they were gone, Armer said she was left with Angela and the children and it wasn't long before her relationship with her mother-in-law soured.
The family coached her in the early days of their return to Ohio, impressing on her that George and Jake would never wear tennis shoes because they always preferred boots and noting to her that Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations could always be listening.
At one point, Armer said she found herself in the kitchen of the Flying W Farm with George, Jake, Angela and Fredericka — Billy's mother. They showed her a photo of a person holding a gun and asked her what she saw; she replied the hand looked like Jake's and was quickly reprimanded and made to loudly proclaim she didn't know anything about the photo, in case BCI was listening.
Armer wasn't allowed to leave the home alone, she said; the Wagners cautioned her that media or BCI agents could follow or corner her. Inside the home, the family often fought — loudly.
"I hadn't really heard people shout that loudly before in my life," she said, describing the Wagners as "stressed."
George and Jake also often talked about things they would do to various members of law enforcement if given the chance, she said. On one instance, the brothers discussed creating "some kind of electric weapon" they would use to harm then-Attorney General Mike DeWine and BCI lead agent Ryan Scheiderer. The family also extensively discussed what would be done if any of them were arrested, including who would care for Sophia and Bulvine and who would handle the family's finances.
Like George's ex-wife, Tabitha, before her, Armer said Angela butted in to her sex life with her husband — at one point telling her she and Jake shouldn't try for their own child because it wasn't a good time for Sophia.
Angela asked her if the two had sex while Sophia was in the room and suggested that behavior was inappropriate — it was a rare thing on which Angela and Armer agreed.
"I remember Jake and I having that discussion and I remember telling him that I did not think that it was appropriate — and that he did not listen," she told the jury.
Also similar to Tabitha, Armer said Angela accused her of giving the children food poisoning intentionally; Angela also leveled more serious accusations against Armer.
"There was a time when it was brought to my attention by Jake that she said I had inappropriately touched Sophia sexually," she said.
As a result, George declared he wasn't comfortable with Armer living under the same roof as his son.
Things escalated from there, she said.
As she sat in the kitchen of the house on Havener Lane, the entire family confronted her; she said Jake didn't believe she'd done it, but Angela believed it and was acting "very high and mighty, so to speak," she testified.
Her husband began questioning her and "he laid it out very clearly" that if she was guilty, "the right thing to do" would be to create Lucille — a barbed-wire wrapped baseball bat featured in the TV show The Walking Dead — before stringing Armer up in the barn and using the bat to beat her to death. Then, they would bulldoze the barn to dispose of the evidence, she said.
Jake explained to her that if he didn't do it, Angela would; if she didn't do it, George or Billy would, and on and on.
"Any of them would be willing to do this because it would be the right thing to do," she said Jake told her.
As soon as the conversation concluded, Armer said she immediately went to her bedroom and packed her bag, calling the father of a family in Alaska with which she'd lived and considered herself close. He'd been the officiant at she and Jake's wedding and was a former law enforcement officer, Armer said, and he'd told her he would help her.
"I was afraid they were going to kill me," she said.
She told her friend as much, but was met with skepticism; he thought Jake was likely not serious and told Armer she was being overly emotional and overreacting.
Armer still made plans to leave as soon as she could.
From that point on, she was not allowed to be alone with the children, making the living circumstances that much more awkward and strained, she said.
Privacy within the Wagner home was nonexistent, she said, and she was aware that her belongings were rifled through on a regular basis — including a diary she kept, inside of which she wrote letter to her deceased grandfather.
In one letter, she wrote that "even the most private of all human doings are open or discussion and comment in this family," telling the jury that Angela didn't like it when she closed doors in the house — even the bathroom. The family also spoke openly about sexual relationships, which Armer said made her uncomfortable.
Another letter laid out the 15 reasons Armer said she hated Angela, including that Angela had her hands in Jake's finances and held her childcare help over his head "like a club" and that Angela told her she would see to it that Sophia would prefer her and never accept Armer as a mother.
In the same letter, Armer laid out her "plan to crush her:"
1. Treat her only kindly & respectfully
2. Try to become her friend. She's like Rhonda so she really only respects working buddies.
3. Be nice, because I'm bigger than her.
4. Once I have her trust and friendship, slam the relationship door shut in her face.
When the family found her diary, they said it was too dangerous to keep around with the media and BCI hovering, and they made her burn it and flush the ashes down the toilet, she said.
Angela and the rest of the family still operated predominantly as a whole unit, she said; if one family member had a debt, every other family member was expected to financially pitch in toward that debt, with no choice. Angela, in particular, demanded gifts and recompense for caring for Bulvine and Sophia.
"I've never been in a group of people who had finances this way," she said.
The family made decisions together about everything, from finances to jobs to life choices. Jake told her they took turns making decisions for the family — it was now Angela's turn, because recently in Jake's turn the family hadn't been happy with the choices he made. Armer said she was told she would possibly get a turn in the future, after she'd been in the family long enough.
She didn't stick around long enough to reach that point; after hearing Jake detail how the family would be willing to kill her, Armer said she began pushing for ways to leave. George didn't want her around Bulvine and neither he nor Angela wanted her in the house, so she suggested the family send her off to college.
After discussing it in a family meeting, it was decided it would be best — especially with BCI and media attention around — that Armer leave and stay somewhere secluded temporarily.
Just three months after moving in with the family, Armer fled.
She called her father in secret during trips to the local library and concocted a plan; a woman who'd been her bridesmaid when she wed Jake also helped with the escape. Armer told the Wagner family she was going to meet her friend, who would then take her to another state where she planned to attend college.
The first week of July in 2018, Angela and Rita drove her to the Walmart in Jackson, Ohio and dropped her off. Inside the Walmart, Armer said she changed her clothes in the changing room and snuck out a back entrance through the tire section, fearing Angela might follow her. Waiting near that entrance was a rental car, her father at the wheel.
They drove side roads for miles, hiding the car for a bit to make sure they weren't followed, she said. They then drove to a restaurant where her friend picked her up in a different vehicle and drove her to Virginia. She said she's been hiding her whereabouts ever since.
Not long after she fled, however, BCI reached out; she told the court room she did cooperate with them, including calling Jake while they listened in.
During cross examination, attorney John Parker asked Armer about a brain injury she sustained. She corrected him and told the jury that, in 2020, she suffered "sudden, unprecedented cellular death in the right, prefrontal cortex" of her brain. Parker insinuated that was a traumatic incident for her; she argued that no trauma was involved in the brain damage. Parker asked if it affected her ability to remember things clearly; she responded only names, but that wasn't the case this far into her recovery.
Parker pointed out that, while Armer described the Wagners as loud and yelling often at one another, that their louder lifestyles were likely jarring to her because they were a contrast to her upbringing. Armer disagreed she was more affected than another would have been.
"I think it would be shocking to most people," she said.
Jake was a Christian — so likely having that in common drew Armer to him, Parker said, but she disagreed again.
"He professed Christianity but seemed to know very little about it," she said, explaining that Jake only knew the basics of the faith and didn't seem curious to learn more.
Parker mentioned Armer had spoken disparagingly about George, mentioning he'd joked with his father about visiting prostitutes and that he often came in at early hours of the morning. He asked if George's friends bothered her, but she said she couldn't remember many besides Chris Newcomb and his partner Randa, with whom they all spent time because they lived just next door.
Parker also asked Armer at what point, after marrying Jake, moving thousands of miles with the family and moving in with them, did she determine her marriage was not going to work out.
"When they threatened to murder me, that's when I came to understand that the marriage was not going to work out," she said.
Armer had refused to speak with George's defense attorneys before taking the stand on Friday, disallowing the prosecution from passing on her contact information — something that led Parker to object to Armer's ability to testify at the beginning of proceedings, though Judge Randy Deering overruled him.
Parker asked Armer why she'd refused to speak with them.
"Because the Wagners terrify me," she responded.
You can catch up on Friday's testimony below:
Watch opening statements below:
You can read recaps of each day of the trial in our coverage below:
- Texts between Hanna Rhoden and Jake Wagner detail ongoing custody argument
- Witnesses describe intertwined Wagner finances and a device found inside a well
- Clandestine recordings made by Jake, Wagner family finances presented
- Wire taps played for jury as court enters sixth week of testimony
- George Wagner IV's grandmother testifies
- Interview with Angela played for jury, Angela's half brother takes stand
- Texts highlight Wagner family dynamic, purchases for possible silencer
- Dozens of guns collected in search of Flying W Farm, but no murder weapons
- Jury shown evidence collected from Wagner belongings
- Evidence collected on Wagner property presented
- BCI agents testified to evidence
- Ex-wife of George Wagner IV describes 'strange and controlling' Wagner home
- Jury hears from George Wagner IV's ex-wife as fourth week of testimony begins
- Family members tearfully describe the day of the homicides
- Bloody shoe prints, cell phone records are focus
- Experts testify about ballistics, shoeprint evidence
- Third week of trial moves on to Kenneth Rhoden's home
- Evidence presented from third crime scene
- Scene where Dana, Chris. Jr and Hanna May Rhoden were killed is focus
- Testimony focuses on second of four crime scenes
- Coroner describes two of eight victims autopsied
- Forensic testimony continues into Monday
- Forensic evidence takes center stage
- Testimony centers on Kenneth Rhoden, final victim discovered
- Emergency responders testify about chaotic scenes
- Witnesses describe discovering their family members' bodies
- Opening statements detail grisly moments in the six-year-old murder case
- Read a full timeline of the Pike County murder investigation
