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Pike County murder trial: Dozens of guns collected in search of Flying W Farm, but no murder weapons

Before the jury was brought in Tuesday, prosecution and defense attorneys argued over the presentation of several guns and spent ammunition found by investigators that did not match any ballistic evidence found at the four crime scenes. John Parker, George's defense attorney, argued the guns were irrelevant to the case and that presenting them could unfairly bias members of the jury against George. Prosecutors said the guns were important, because of the list of guns categorized by family members who owned them found on Jake's phone. Angela Canepa, special prosecutor, said wire-tap recordings the prosecution plans to present to the jury will show George tried to mislead investigators by stating the phone list was simply a family wish list, rather than a catalogue of guns already owned by the family. MORE: https://www.wcpo.com/news/pike-county-massacre/live-pike-county-murder-trial-trial-of-george-wagner-iv-enters-fifth-week-of-testimony
George Wagner IV trial continues in Pike County
Posted at 9:03 AM, Oct 11, 2022
and last updated 2022-10-11 20:02:52-04

WAVERLY, Ohio — The trial of a man accused of killing eight people in Pike County in 2016 entered its fifth week of testimony Tuesday.

Court did not convene Monday in observance of Columbus Day.

George Wagner IV — 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.

Before the jury was brought in Tuesday, prosecution and defense attorneys argued over the presentation of several guns and spent ammunition found by investigators that did not match any ballistic evidence found at the four crime scenes. John Parker, George's defense attorney, argued the guns were irrelevant to the case and that presenting them could unfairly bias members of the jury against George.

Prosecutors said the guns were important, because of the list of guns categorized by family members who owned them found on Jake's phone. Angela Canepa, special prosecutor, said wire-tap recordings the prosecution plans to present to the jury will show George tried to mislead investigators by stating the phone list was simply a family wish list, rather than a catalogue of guns already owned by the family.

Two guns on that list, a .40 caliber Glock pistol and an SKS rifle, match ballistic evidence recovered from scenes and the bodies of the victims, prosecution pointed out.

Ultimately, Judge Randy Deering overruled Parker's request to forbid the presentation of the guns found, though he issued a caution to the jury that the discovery of guns found at the Flying W Farm should not be used as a determination of George's character, or whether the ownership of the guns indicated a propensity to commit crimes.

Testimony began with investigators describing the May 2017 execution of a search warrant at the Flying W Farm, where Billy lived during the time of the murders; the farm is owned by his mother, Fredericka. Prosecution called BCI agent Ryan Scheiterer to the stand for the third time.

First, images were shown of the Walmart shoes matching the SKU number on a receipt found in the Wagner family's belongings stored in trailers on a property on SR-41 after the family moved to Alaska in 2017.

Earlier in the trial, BCI shoeprint expert Suzanne Elliott testified that the tread on the Walmart-brand shoes matched bloody shoeprints left in the first crime scene, where Chris Sr. and Gary were found dead. Prosecution also previously showed the jury surveillance images from the Waverly Walmart showing Angela Wagner leaving the store minutes after the time printed on the receipt found by investigators.

The bulk of Scheiderer's testimony focused on the procedural details of obtaining and executing a search warrant, what kinds of details investigators withhold from media and the public to protect their investigation, and his role as lead investigator during the searches. Scheiderer said specifically investigators kept information about the ballistics evidence and possible weapons used in the murders from the public, so they could verify the credibility of tips and statements made by people who came forward with information.

During the defense's cross-examination of Scheiderer, Parker directed attention to two interviews investigators had with Jake in the months before the Wagners moved to Alaska, asking whether Jake had lied to them. Scheiderer said he couldn't remember exactly what he'd asked Jake about the murders to say whether George's brother had lied to them.

Parker also implied a possible leak from law enforcement, tipping off media to the investigation's steps through the search warrants; Scheiderer said a neighbor could have tipped media off just as easily. He said he was too busy to learn how media found out about the second search conducted at the site of the trailers on SR-41.

Next, prosecution re-called BCI agent Bryan White to the stand. White was present during the search warrant execution at Flying W Farms and documented and searched the outside spaces of the property, including barns and other outbuildings. The farm, a working horse farm, spanned nearly 2,000 acres, Bryan said, and took quite a bit of manpower to search.

While more than a dozen barns and buildings were searched, Bryan only collected a few items he thought could be of evidential value: a few .22 fired Magnum casings found outside a barn and two fired 9mm Luger casings discovered in a fenced-in area that appeared to be for livestock. Neither type of casing was found at any of the four crime scenes.

Parker asked Bryan whether he was able to determine how long the casings had been on the ground during cross-examination; Bryan said he wasn't able to determine that. Parker also asked Bryan whether it was unusual to find shell casings lying around a working farm and White agreed it was not strange.

Another BCI agent, Perry Roeser, was called to the stand next. Roeser said he was responsible for searching and documenting evidence inside the home on the property. He arrived that day at around 10 a.m. and began photographing spaces inside the house, marking and collecting evidence as he went, he said.

Dozens of different guns were collected from throughout the house, ranging from pistols found in a bedroom to rifles and shotguns found in closets. Each gun was swabbed for DNA evidence in an attempt to determine who may have handled them, Roeser said. Investigators also found a large safe in a closet.

None of the guns collected from Fredericka's home matched ballistic evidence found at the crime scenes, though prosecution pointed out earlier that BCI ballistics expert Matt White hadn't, at the time, identified all the guns he believed were responsible for casings and bullets found.

After a lunch break, prosecution presented other items Roeser collected from Fredericka's home that day, including a shipping form, bank statement and several notebooks — though prosecutor Rob Junk did not ask him about the relevance of these items. Instead, he asked whether Roeser collected items just in case they held evidence.

"If it's questionable, we'll take it," said Roeser, noting that sometimes evidence collected ends up being unimportant.

Junk also asked about a camouflage-print coat collected that day; Roeser said it appeared to have blood on it and an on-scene test was a presumptive positive for the presence of blood. He swabbed the coat and collected it as evidence; Roeser said swabs of the blood would have been sent to the lab, but he testified that he didn't know the end result of those tests.

Also collected that day was a wad of tape found in a laundry basket next to an empty gun clip.

"It looked like, many of us thought, it could be used as a makeshift silencer for a weapon," said Roeser.

Matt White re-took the stand next, and prosecution asked whether he'd known, at the time the weapons were taken from Fredericka's home, what kind of gun fired the .22 caliber bullets that killed Hannah Hazel, Frankie, Hanna May, Chris Jr. and Dana; Matt said he hadn't yet figured that out. As a result, he said he test fired every .22 caliber weapon taken from Fredericka's house to compare the shell casings and rounds to those collected from the crime scenes and victims.

He said it was his expert opinion that the same gun had fired the .22 caliber shots from the two crime scenes and the casings found at the Wagner home on Peterson Road.

Prosecution then walked Matt through all the .22 caliber guns collected from the Flying W Farm. Through microscopic comparisons of the firing pin impression — which he already testified was unique on the cartridges found at the murder scenes — he was able to rule out every gun of that caliber collected.

He said he was also given a .30 caliber weapon from Fredericka's home to test fire, but ruled it out as the .30 caliber rifle used in the first murder scene because the murder weapon created four lands and grooves on a shell casing, while the test fired weapon only had two.

Matt was then asked to compare his knowledge of which guns could have been used in the murders against the list collected from Jake's phone; Matt said there were two — an SKS rifle, which Matt previously testified was likely the culprit for the .30 caliber rounds found at the first crime scene, and a Walther Colt 1911 .22 caliber long rifle pistol. The SKS was listed under George's name, while the Colt 1911 was listed under Jake's.

On cross-examination, Parker asked whether any of the guns in the court room at that moment were used in the murders; Matt said no, they were all excluded. Parker also pointed out that, while .40 caliber rounds were used in the first and fourth crime scenes, the only .40 caliber gun listed under George's name on the list from Jake's phone was a Beretta; Matt testified that the .40 caliber rounds used in the murders had characteristics of having been fired from a Glock pistol.

Court adjourned for the day, and Deering advised the jury trial would reconvene a half-hour later Wednesday morning while he and attorneys held a hearing that didn't require their presence.

You can catch up on the day's testimony below:

Watch opening statements below:

You can read recaps of each day of the trial in our coverage below:

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