The massacre that shocked rural America, and the huge cost of putting suspects on trial

After 550 interviews and visits to 10 states, including a 10,000km round-trip to Alaska, criminal investigators in Ohio are closing in on solving one of the most horrendous, perplexing and riveting crimes the American midwest has seen.

On the night of April 22nd, 2016, eight people, including seven members of the Rhoden family, were shot dead as they slept in their homes at four locations in Pike county, a rural district in southern Ohio.

For 2½ years investigators struggled to identify suspects or establish a motive. A small marijuana-growing operation and cockfighting material were found on parts of the victims’ properties. One of the deceased, Hanna Rhoden, was killed as her five-day-old baby lay next to her, and for a time Mexican drug cartels were mentioned as possibly being involved.

The police investigation involved the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and a Swat team raid. Investigators said they believed there were instances when locals refused to divulge information that would have helped them to solve the crime. But now, more than 31 months on from the murders, prosecutors are satisfied the perpetrators are in custody.

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In November four members of one family – George "Billy" Wagner (47), his wife Angela (48) and their sons George (27), and Edward "Jake" (26) – were detained and charged with aggravated murder and an array of additional offences including corrupt activity and aggravated burglary. All have pleaded not guilty. Frederika Wagner (76) and Rita Newcomb (65), the mothers of Billy and Angela Wagner respectively, have been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice.

Victims’ movements

The Wagners are accused of monitoring their victims’ movements for months before the killings, studying the layout of their homes and buying a magazine clip, empty shell catchers and bug-detecting equipment in preparation for the execution-style shootings. If found guilty in trials that are expected to begin next year all four could face the death penalty.

Many have speculated that the motive for the murders may be related to disputed custody of a daughter, three-years-old at the time of the massacre, of Jake Wagner and victim Hanna Rhoden. Six days after the attacks, Wagner applied for custody of the daughter.

“There certainly was obsession with custody, obsession with control of the children,” said Ohio’s attorney general and governor-elect Mike DeWine. “There was an undercurrent of drugs...There’s no evidence of the speculation that this was necessarily drug-related in the sense of the motive.”

On December 20th, Jake Wagner appeared in Pike county court for a pre-trial hearing, smiling briefly while answering “no, your honour”, when asked by the judge if he faced any difficulties in jail or with his lawyers.

"Jake was very good friends and was really close to [the Rhoden] family until the custody battle came up," pastor Phil Fulton told local media in November. "Why this set them off is the mystery to me. Why you'd murder eight people because you wanted full custody over a little girl. It just blows my mind."

Crime scenes

Waverly, Pike county's largest town, which is a 20-minute drive from the crime scenes, sits on the threshold between the forested Appalachian mountains to the south and Ohio's open farmland that stretches out to the north.

Its main street is busy with traffic passing between Kentucky and Ohio, but Waverly also bears the scars of an opioid crisis that has swept through the wider American midwest – the town of 4,500 people has three drug recovery centres prominently located along its main thoroughfare.

Pike is one of the poorest of Ohio’s 88 counties, where more than one in five people live in poverty and the median house price stands at just €85,000. As the county doesn’t have a jail, the Wagners are being held elsewhere.

“[The killings,] left us in shock. This is southern Ohio – to get the biggest case in Ohio history, it’s unbelievable,” said a restauranteur on Waverly’s main strip who asked not to be named as he feared commenting could affect his business. “I don’t think the trials should be held here. I think people have already made up their minds and they’d get a fairer trial somewhere else.”

A decision has yet to be made over whether the court hearings will be carried out as a single trial that combines all four suspects, or as four separate court proceedings held at different locations.

With the Pike county prosecutor requesting that proceedings be held in Waverly, something DeWine backs, the county not only faces the difficult task of delivering justice, but the huge cost of running up to four trials. Such is the dearth in public funds that in September several senior staff at the county sheriff’s office were laid off in a round of budget cuts.

Already, the investigation has cost more than $600,000 (€526,000). The four mobile homes and camper van lived in by the victims were removed from the crime scenes and are being held as evidence in a building specially constructed at a cost of $200,000.

At the state level, officials have stepped in to help and on December 14th approved the release of $100,000 to help with litigating the cases, but experts say this is a drop in the ocean in the context of the likely final costs.

Security concerns

"A death penalty case in itself would be an expensive proposition. A process potentially involving four trials, with extraordinary security concerns and costs, or multiple trials that may have to be moved to other counties, you'd be talking in the millions of dollars in an appropriately investigated case," says Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington DC-based Death Penalty Information Center. "What we've seen over the past 20-25 years is the death penalty has disappeared in small counties because they can't afford them. This case embodies that."

A long-time Pike county resident working in property management in Waverly, and who also asked not to be identified, said she watched every minute of the trial hearings on television in November. “It put fear into a lot of people. And then there was gossip. But most of us have just continued on with our lives.”