Billy Wagner returns to court Wednesday

Video taken from previous post

PIKE COUNTY, Ohio (WXIX) – The only member of the Wagner family charged in the 2016 Pike County massacre returned to court for a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at the Pike County Courthouse around 1 p.m.

The visiting judge is expected to hear arguments from both sides about the evidence they want to present during the upcoming murder trial of George “Billy” Wagner III in the April 2016 execution-style killings of eight people in Southern Ohio.

His lawyers want to move his trial to another county, arguing that “the jury pool was already tainted” at the last hearing before retired Darke County Common Pleas Court Judge Jonathan Hein.

The state was founded by Billy Wagner’s eldest son, Henry IV. He disagrees, stating that they had no problem finding jurors for George Wagner’s lengthy trial, and that they expect to do so again.

“The idea that you can’t get a fair and biased juror is unrealistic,” Special Prosecutor Angela Canepa told the judge.

The judge is expected to announce his decision in writing soon.

Billy Wagner’s trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 6, and he continues to plead guilty to all 22 charges, including eight counts of aggravated murder.

Former judge on his own case Request for change of venue was rejected from his defense late last year.

However, this new judge may reconsider the issue and discuss it upon the request of the defense.

Meanwhile, Billy Wagner, 53, remains locked up in the Pickaway County Jail in Circleville.

After being held in the Butler County Jail since his arrest six years ago this month, he moved there earlier this year to be closer to his Columbus-based attorneys.

Billy Wagner was named in multiple indictments along with three other members of his family for the murders of eight members of the Rhoden and Gilley families.

His wife and two sons were convicted and are serving prison terms for their roles in the murders of the Rhoden and Gilley families.

Two of them, the youngest son and his wife, as well as IV. He is expected to testify against her, as he did in George Wagner’s trial.

It resulted in swift “guilty” verdicts on all 22 charges.

George Wagner IV is currently serving eight life sentences and 121 years in prison for 16 other charges.

Life sentences continue consecutively.

The death penalty was taken off the table after his brother and mother testified against him on behalf of the state.

George Wagner IV recently filed an appeal to have his conviction overturned.

Governor Mike DeWine called the case “one of the longest, if not the longest, lawsuits in Ohio history.”

Estimates from state and local officials put the cost at more than $4 million, fully funded by the state of Ohio.

These taxpayer-financed expenditures, IV. It will escalate even more as George files an appeal and his father appears in court.

The victims of the April 2016 massacre were Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40; older brother Kenneth Rhoden, 44; cousin Gary Rhoden, 38; Chris Rhoden Sr.’s ex-wife Dana Lynn Rhoden, 37, and their children: Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 20, Hanna May Rhoden, 19, Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16, and Frankie’s fiancée Hannah “Hazel” Gilley, 20.

Two babies and a toddler rescued by the killers were left behind at the scene of the murder: a 5-day-old baby girl, a 6-month-old baby boy, and a 3-year-old baby boy.

Prosecutors said the motive for the killings was Jake Wagner’s custody of Hanna May Rhoden, his young daughter and one of the victims he admitted to shooting twice in the head.

The young couple started dating when he was 13 and she was 18. She became pregnant with their daughter at the age of 15.

They separated in 2015 after their daughter was born in 2013.

Jake Wagner testified during his brother’s trial that he didn’t want the relationship to end.

Hanna Rhoden had a second child, a daughter, with another man and was dating another man at the time of her murder.

When the victims were found on the morning of April 22, 2016, their baby was only five days old.

Jake Wagner testified during his brother’s trial that he shot most of the victims, including Hanna Rhoden while she was in bed breastfeeding her new baby.

On the stand, she said she placed his body after shooting him so she could continue breastfeeding her newborn baby, whose life he spared.

He also stated that he took away bullet casings and mobile phones.

But according to another account, he missed the bullet casing that investigators found under the baby’s crib.

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