Summer Series 2025: Pike County Massacre: Part 1

Welcome to Summer Series twenty twenty five. The Roden Family Murders, also known as the Pike County Masker. We're going to be discussing the murders of Dana Roden, Christopher Roden Senior, Kenneth Roden, Gary Roden, Frankie Rodin, Hannah Hazel Gilly, Hannah Rodin, and Christopher Roden Junior. Let's go ahead and dive right into Summer Series twenty twenty five. Hey guys, Welcome to Summer Series twenty twenty five, Episode one. It's Kylie with Primetime Crime. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome. I am not going to be doing a right now in true crime. I'm only going to be doing that for my episode that comes out on Thursdays. These episodes for Summer Series are going to be released Sunday night. So I just wanted to do a little introduction and we are going to go ahead and get right on in to our summer series because we have a lot, a lot, a lot to cover. When I started the series, I did not realize how much I had ahead of me and how much planning and research and writing and all of the things that I was going to have to do. But here we are. This is what I signed up for. Everybody was so intrigued by the Pike County Massacre. A lot of people don't know about it. So I am going to tell you all about the Pike County Massacre. So let's go ahead and get into episode one. Welcome to Episode one of Summer Series twenty twenty five, The Pike County Massacre. It is crazy to me that this is my third official Summer series, but we are going to go ahead and dive right into this one. We're going to lay out the key players and what exactly happened in April of twenty sixteen in Pike County, Ohio. Eight people lost their lives violently. It is described as the largest murder investigation in Ohio to the date. This case went on for several years without any resolution. But I'm going to take you through everything that has happened and is currently happening. We are currently in the process of getting justice for these eight people and all of their family members who remain behind, children who remain behind. And we're going to talk about the four people responsible, along with many others who attempted to cover up and obstruct justice, and the biggest question why did this happen? We're going to discuss that as well, but I will tell you fair warning that this case is very involved. There are a lot of people, there's some similar names floating around, and overall, in general, the case is violent and vile, and I really want this series to be victim focused. I want to focus on the eight victims who had their lives stolen, as well as the living victims, the family of these people who are left behind trying to pick up the pieces. So let's go ahead and get to it. First thing is first, I'm going to lay out what exactly happened and how we got to where we are today. We're going to discuss the victims, their background, how they are all related, how they all know each other, and all of this is going to come into play as I get more into the story, because it wasn't random and it was all connected. On the morning of April twenty second of twenty and sixteen, two bodies were found inside of a trailer on Union Hill Road in piked In, Ohio. Those bodies were those of Christopher road And Senior, who was forty years old, and his cousin Gary Rodin, who was thirty eight, Chris's ex sister in law, Bobby Joe Manley, had arrived at the house of Chris. Although Chris and Bobby's sister Dana had divorced in two thousand and seven, the couple and family were still very close. Bobby Joe would always go to Chris's home to help him feed the chickens and the dogs. When she arrived that morning, the door was locked, which was a little unusual because Chris would usually get up knowing she was coming and he would unlock the door for her, but she didn't really think much of it. She went ahead and let herself in because she had her own key. Once she got inside, she saw a t trail of blood that led from the front room to the bedroom. Or Inside of the bedroom, she found the bodies of her ex brother in law Cress and his cousin Gary. It was a brutal scene. A nine one one call was placed at seven forty nine a m. By Bobby Joe Manley. We are now going to listen to that nine on one call. Yeah, ye, welcome, Okay, welcome, Okay email rag. Lam I go over the hell Okay, my mother, I. Think the hell of them? Okay, I want man, can he coming on call? Said, I count, It's fine, count me, you gonna be okay, okay, I need I can hang over there? Not for him? Okay, what's the name? My calling? All whole name? What's your brother? Well name? He must. What's your name? Him sing? And frank very where something that looks like a bad You think the sad? I think that, I said that. I don't think of them. Okay, I got anybody else? The the hell? No? No? What? Okay? Sooroby, okay, anybody go away? Okay, all right, okay, thank you. Obviously you can feel the emotion behind Bobby during that nine one one call. She's frantic. She doesn't even know what to do. She can't even fathom what is happening. And I can't even imagine going through that and trying to navigate that. But this was only the start of the terror for that day that this family was going to endure. So while Bobby waited for the cops to show up, she walked to her nephew's trailer, which was on the same property. Chris and Dana had a son named Frankie Rodin, and he was twenty years old. He lived in a trailer with his fiance, Hannah, who were gonna call Hazel Gilly. Hannah Hazel Gilly, who was also twenty and they had two children. Their kids were three years old and six months old, so Bobby Joe decided to walk over there to let them know what had happened, and obviously traumatized by what she had found. I can't even imagine having to try to navigate this, But like I said, this was only the beginning. When she knocked on Hannah and Frankie's door, it wasn't Frankie that answered. It was Frankie and Hannah's three year old son who answered, and he told Bobby that his dad was playing zombie, and Bobby Joe just lost it. She rushed into the bedroom to find Frankie and Hannah lying in a blood soaked bed. They had both been shot to death. They're six month old was found unharmed next to Hannah, who was curled up. Although the baby was unharmed, the baby was covered in the blood of his parents, and they believed that Hannah was likely breastfeeding her baby when she was attacked. Shortly after this discovery, Bobby Joe's brother, James, walked down a little bit of a ways to the trailer of Dana Rodin. Now Dana is Bobby's sister. Dana was previously married to Chris Senior, who they had already found. So he walks down there and he finds thirty seven year old Dana Rodin and Dana and Chris's children, Hannah May Rodin who was nineteen, and their son, sixteen year old Christopher Roden Junior dead. So we have seven people now that are all deceased, all living in the same area, on the same street, in trailer homes, all connected. Hannah May had two children, and she had also just given birth four days earlier to her baby, Kylie that laid next to her on her armed. She also had a three year old daughter named Sophia who was with her father the day of the murders and was also unharmed. So obviously this was a horrific scene. We have seven deceased people. Other members of the road and family start to gather at the local church so they could all be together as updates started to flood in. Around one twenty six pm, another nine one one call comes in and another trailer that was about ten minutes away. A family member had gone to check on his cousin, a man named Kenneth Roden, and when he entered Kenneth's home, his trailer home, he found him dead, shot in the eye, with one thousand dollars cash scattered around him. Kenneth was Christopher Senior's brother, So that is the connection there. I'm going to post a chart so it will make a lot more sense. So there we have it. Eight family members, all connected, all shot and left for dead, three small children unharmed. But what did all of this mean? Police definitely had their hands full with this one. This was a lot. This was a ginormous crime scene. They had four crime scenes. They ended up setting up roadblocks, and they began to process the trailer homes for evidence. A press conference was held and they stated that they didn't think that any part of this was a murder suicide and that it was a planned attack. They discussed some different tips that they had received and the interviews that they had conducted, along with evidence they found at the different crime scenes. They also said that the crime scenes were going to be secured in case they needed to return. They said that it was going to be the largest investigation in Pie County to date and they asked for patients. They knew that this was going to be a very long investigation. They believed that this was targeted and personal. It was a small town, small town police department and they were faced with this huge, ginormous eight part homicide and investigation. They ended up bringing in the BCI, which is the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, to assist them because they had way more to investigate than they were able to do because they were a small town sheriff's office, so obviously they started their work. They scoured the different crime scenes for evidence. And you would think that whoever did this had to have left something behind at one of the crime scenes, something that would tie a particular person or a group of people to these murders. But you also had multiple crime scenes which investigators had to comb through and scour for evidence, and they were bloody and horrific crime scenes. I can't even imagine the manpower that it took to undertake this type of investigation. We'll get more into the crime scene detail shortly, but I want to kind of sigh tangent because this is an important part of the story and it kind of is the direction that the case kind of sort of took so in processing the crime scenes, they found two marijuana growing operations at two of the four crime scenes. They found a shed behind Kenneth Roden's property that had been used to grow plants, and there was also one as well on Christopher Roden Seniors land. Now, the number of plants that they found combined was pretty large and it would have likely turned over quite a bit of profit if it was sold, so many began to speculate if this was targeted and drug related, if it was a drug retaliation drug trafficking kind of situation. Now, this area of Ohio wasn't the most financially stable area, and it was along a major highway, which definitely made sense from a drug trafficking standpoint, and the horrific nature and the type of murders that occurred here kind of alluded to targeted and possibly drug related. So this was kind of the direction everyone initially went. Was this possibly a contract hit type of situation. Also pointing in that direction was the fact that there was the one thousand dollars of scattered bills around Kenneth's body. Was someone trying to send a message to this family? That is what the investigators had to figure out. So the investigators did entertain that this was drug cartel drug related, but the fact that the children who are found alive didn't really match up with cartel vibes. They really don't care. They'll kill anyone to send a message. And there were also dogs found on the property that were alive and unharmed as well, which likely if drug cartel is going to approach a house and there's dogs outside, the dogs are going to bark because they are protectors of their property, of their people, and the cartel would have killed the dogs, and the dogs weren't harmed, So for me personally, it really begs the question, whoever did this? Were the dogs familiar with this person? Did they know the families? So the dogs really didn't put up any noise at all, so investigators very quickly dismissed the drug cartel and the drug trafficking angle because of this. The family also wasn't known at all to law enforcement, so although they might have been growing marijuana, they weren't doing anything that other families in the area weren't doing. And they didn't really think that this is what caused the eight person masacre. They thought it had to be bigger than just marijuana. Now, like I said, this was a small town and the Rodent family was very well known and they had a good reputation. They were described as nice people, always willing to lend a helping hand to those that needed it. Even the young teenagers were well liked, and Chris Junior, who was sixteen, is described as a fierce protector of others. They had a good reputation overall, and like I said earlier, they didn't have any known criminal issues. So we are now going to get in a little bit to the crime scene investigation. In total, they found thirty two bullets had been fired at the four different scenes, so you can imagine this was overkill. You have eight people that lost their lives and thirty two bullets. But unfortunately, there were no surveillance cameras functioning at the time of the murders. They were either not working or destroyed by the killer or killers, so that unfortunately was a dead end there. Christopher Roden Senior lived in his trailer home with his cousin and what is described as his best friend, Gary Rodin. There were bullet holes not only on the inside of the trailer but also on the outside. The blood evidence here was extraordinary. It did appear that Chris and Gary had been up and awake when the ambush happened, and not in bed sleeping like our other victims. It appeared to investigators that they were near the front door of the trailer during the attack, and then their bodies were dragged to the back bedroom where Bobby subsequently found them. Chris Senior was shot the most out of all of the victims, and they did believe that Chris and Gary were likely the first killed out of the eight, putting their estimated time of death around eleven pm. Chris Senior was shot six times in the face, all at close range, once in the forearm, once in the chest, and once in the stomach. This was a brutal overkill situation. They also believed that he was on the floor and not moving when he was shot in the face aka cowardly asked behavior from the shooter. In my opinion, Gary Rowden had been shot three times in the head. Crime scene number two in the trailer of Frankie Rowden and Hannah Hazel Gilly. Now Frankie is the oldest son of Chris Senior and Dana Roden. Frankie had been shot twice in the head. Hannah had been shot five times in the head. They were both asleep in bed when they were attacked. Crime Scene number three, Dana Rodin was shot four times in the head while asleep in bed. Christopher Roden Junior was shot four times in the head, and Hannah Roden was shot two times in the head. They were all asleep in their beds when the attacks occurred. Kenneth Roden was shot once through his right eye. So this whole thing definitely reeks of more than one shooter. Obviously, this person or person's going into the home of Dana Rodin and then shooting three people separately, all in different bedrooms, it would only make sense that there was more than one person that was doing the shooting. There was also the fact that crime scene number four was several minutes away from the other three crime scenes. But like I said earlier, with all of this bloodshed, there had to be some physical evidence left behind, and there was. There were two different bullets found at this scen meaning more than one shooter, likely at least more than one weapon. There was also footprints left behind. Because the scenes were so bloody, boot prints were left in the blood and there were two different sized boots found. One was a size ten and a half and one was a size eleven. They were also able to theorize that the boots were nearly purchased due to the tread not looking worn down. There was all the more evidence to the fact that there was more than one person with this, two different sized shoes, two different types of bullets, and four crime scenes. Investigators did everything they could to figure this out. In October of twenty sixteen, investigators said that they didn't believe drug cartel was involved, and that whatever this was was personal, not a professional hit, and that the killers probably were local. The fact that everyone besides Kenneth was killed by multiple gunshots proved that whoever did this was not a professional. Professionals know what it takes to go somebody and they do it as quickly and easily as possible. So with law enforcement coming out and saying that they thought it was locals that did this, it very much made everyone in the community uneasy. And there were also children that survived this, so were they still possibly in danger. Law enforcement in this case really did a great job. They were thorough. They didn't release a lot of information to the public, other than what they felt they had to. They had the task of going over the lives of these eight victims and seemingly reconstructing what was going on in their lives leading up to the murders. I think although they didn't have a case right off the bat, they kind of knew the direction in which they were looking at, and they knew that it was targeted and that the general public was not at risk for any further target They just had to take what they knew and build their case, get the evidence, and make their arrests. So I said, they had eight victims whose lives they had to dig into to look for leeds. They needed to find out what was going on in each of their lives and question people close to them to try to get to the bottom of what happened. And it all came full circle when they dug into Hannah Rodin, the daughter of Dana and Chris Senior. She had a daughter named Sophia whose father was a man named Jake Wagner. The Wagner family was another well known family in Pie County. They were a family unit. They stuck together, they made decisions together, and they were also considered wealthier than most in Pike County. The Wagner family also owned a large portion of land in Pie County, which meant that they were pretty powerful overall amongst locals. Jake's parents were George Billy Wagner all referred to him as Billy from here on out, and Angela Wagner was his mom. Jake also had an older brother named George Wagner, so this family in many any ways were connected to the Road and Family. Try to stay with me, this gets complex and confusing. Billy Wagner was friends with Chris Road and Senior, George was friends with Frankie, and Hannah had started to date Jake Wagner in twenty ten when she was only thirteen years old and Jake was eighteen. Yes, that age gap is truly wild to me that an eighteen year old is going after a thirteen year old, But as you'll learn soon, Jake Wagner is anything but an upstanding individual. Chris Senior ended up giving his blessing to them to date as they were very close family friends. But once they did start to date, Chris would often send Chris Junior along with them to make sure that Jake behaved. They started dating and soon Hannah would move in with the Wagner family, where Angela started to treat Hannah kind of like her own daughter. Hannah ended up getting pregnant at the age of fifteen and a couple. Hannah and Jake had planned on getting married. Hannah gave birth to Sophia in twenty thirteen, and the couple was headed towards marriage. But by twenty fifteen, crack started to form in the relationship and Hannah started to post things on her social media and on Facebook kind of insinuating about relationships and men not wanting to change, and before we knew it, Hannah and Jake had broken up. Jake said that they broke up because Hannah thought that Jake worked too much and that he didn't have time for her. They did go their separate ways, but they tried to co parent Sophia the best they could. Jake very much wanted Hannah back, and the Wagner family wanted custody of Sophia. Now, if you remember me mentioning earlier that Hannah also had a baby named Kylie, Jake very much thought that this baby could have been his, so well, it kind of brings us to question whether or not even though they weren't together, could they have possibly been together in some way, shape or form to conceive baby Kylie in the last nine months because Kylie was brand new, newborn baby at the point of time when they were all murdered, So there's a lot going on there. Jake very much wanted to get back with Hannah. Hannah had seemingly moved on, she had a new baby, but there was still ongoing custody disputes about Sophia. But regardless of that, Kylie was determined to not be Jake's child. Kylie actually belonged to a man named Charles Gilly, who was the brother of Hannah Hazel Gilly, the fiance of Frankie Rodin. I know, this is a giant, big web of family and it is so hard to keep up with. But regardless that is what is the case. Hannah had also been newly dating a man named Corey, and he was willing to step up and raise Kylie despite her not being his daughter. Hannah was very much making plans after the birth of Kylie to move in with Corey, and it's pretty typical when you're dealing with a mother father custody dispute that the woman is likely going to get custody unless something major is going on that would reward the father with custody. So Jake Wagner at this point is worried that he is not going to be able to have primary custody of his daughter, Sophia. So it was then at this point in time, according to prosecutors, that the Wagner family began to conspire to kill Hannah. The day that the murders occurred, Sophia was supposed to be with her mom Hannah at the road and family trailer, but Jake had reached out and said, hey, you just had a baby. Let me take Sophia for you for a few days while you settle in. All of this was of course a plan so Sophia wouldn't be present during the murders, and soon law enforcement could prove it. Following the murders, in May of twenty seventeen, the Wagner family sold their home in Pike County and moved to Alaska. Law enforcement was easily onto them at this point, and days later, on May tenth through May twelfth, agents of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation conducted an extensive search of the Wagner's fifty eight acre property before the new owners were set to move in, agents also went ahead and searched trucks and trailers at a property where the family had stored some of their belongings. So now that the Wagners had moved to Alaska, there ended up being a press release that was released in Pike County, Ohio that included photos of the four Wagner family members that they kind of had on their race and they asked anybody with information about the Roden family massacre to contact them. But around the same time as that, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation received the OKA in approval to wiretap the Wagners. Now, due to this wire tap, the investigators were able to find a photo on one of the family member's laptops, and this photo was of Jake Wagner holding a twenty two caliber gun, one that they believed was used in the road and family massacre. In November of twenty eighteen, six arrests were made in the Roden family murders. Billy Wagner, his wife Angela Wagner, their son Jake Wagner, and George Wagner were all arrested and charged with murder. Angela's mother, Rita Newcomb and Billy's mother, Fredrika Wagner, were also both arrested and charged with obstruction of justice aka the family loyalty and ties in the Wagner family really run deep. We'll get into this later, but charges against Fredrika Wagner were later dropped and Rita Newcomb was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of obstructing official business. All members of the Wagner family ended up pleading not guilty, but in a crazy, shocking turn of events, Jake Wagner, the one who allegedly orchestrated all of this, decides that he is going to testify against his parents and against his brother for the death penalty being taken off of the table. I guess the Wagner family loyalty doesn't lie all that deep. At the end of the day, we have a lot more to talk about in this case, how everything kind of comes together, the subsequent trials, and a whole lot more to dive into. But we are obviously looking here at something that stemmed from a child custody to dispute. And again, just like my summer series last year with the murder of Dan Markell. It leads to multiple people being entangled in this custody and multiple people willing to risk their lives and their freedom to help one person out. Join me for the next episode of Summer Series twenty twenty five. We're going to discuss in further detail everything that happened following the arrests of the Wagner family, and we're also going to dive into who the Wagner family is as a whole and see how we got to this point. We're also going to talk pretty much day by day about all of the trial happenings, because a lot came out during George Wagner's trial, and we are going to take it from there. We have a lot more to go. I will see you guys next week for part two of Summer Series twenty twenty five. Have a great week and I will see you then. Bye.