Chilling text messages showcased during the trial of an Ohio man charged with being involved in the murder of an adversarial family revealed details about a tense dispute in the run-up to the tragic loss of life.
Texts showed Edward “Jake” Wagner threatening Hannah Rhoden during a dispute over their relationship and baby. In one exchange, he threatened to take the baby by force from her. Four members of the Wagner family were arrested in 2018 over the killing of eight members of the Rhoden family back in 2016.
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The text message revelations were read aloud during the trial for Jake’s brother, George Wagner IV, 30, by prosecutors on Thursday.
“Hanna I’m telling you right now make a choice and make it now if u do this it’s over and I’ll take Sophie and if I have to by force,” Jake Wagner texted Rhoden in 2013, per the New York Post. “I love u with all my heart if u love me and Sophie u will make the right choice I want u to live with me and Sophie.”
Quarreling over their daughter continued over the next two years and worsened when they split. Rhoden was unwilling to sign the paperwork to give Wagner’s brother, George, shared custody over the child.
“I don’t want to be with you. You hurt me,” she texted him in March 2015, seemingly referencing an apparent domestic altercation, according to the report.
“They will have to kill me first,” she reportedly later said in a Facebook message in December of that year.
Prosecutors allege that members of the Wagner conspired over several months to carry out an execution-style attack on the Rhoden family. Jake and George Wagner, alongside their father, George “Billy” Wagner III, and mother Angela Wagner, have been accused of killing eight Rhoden family members on April 22, 2016.
The deceased include Hannah Rhoden, 19, her brother Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16, and her other brother Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 20, as well as their parents Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40, and his ex-wife Dana Manley Rhoden, 37. Other victims included Gary Rhoden, 38, a cousin of Christopher Sr., his fiancee Hannah Hazel Gilley, 20, and Kenneth Rhoden, 44, the brother of Christopher Sr.
Authorities discovered most of the victims died from gunshot wounds and have surmised that some were targeted by the Wagners, while others were killed for essentially being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The alleged execution took place in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains across four homes in Pike County, Ohio.
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George Wagner IV is the first of his clan to stand trial. His defense has largely hinged on an argument that he was not directly responsible for the deaths and had been pressured into aiding in the killing spree by fear of what his father might do to his brother. His father, George Wagner III, has also pleaded not guilty, and a trial will likely take place after that of his son.
Jake Wagner entered a guilty plea last year and confessed to killing five of the Rhodens. Under the agreement, he won’t face the death penalty if he testifies in the trial of his father and brother, per the New York Post. Angela Wagner also pleaded guilty and similarly agreed to aid in the case against her son and husband.
