Judge rules Billy Wagner’s murder trial won’t be heard in Pike County

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PIKE COUNTY, Ohio (WXIX) – A change of venue request from Billy Wagner’s defense team has been granted, according to online court filings.

George “Billy” Wagner III, 53, is the only member of the Wagner family to be charged in the 2016 Pike County massacre.

The defense team sought to move the trial to another county, arguing that “the jury pool was already tainted” at a previous hearing before retired Darke County Common Pleas Court Judge Jonathan Hein.

Given the scope of the Wagner family cases, the judge said “bias is assumed” and “no jury could accurately answer that they had no prior knowledge of the horrific facts of this case.”

The State of Ohio wrote in a Nov. 20 court document that they became aware of previously unknown information following an Oct. 7 hearing.

The state wrote:

The state argued that Cincinnati’s “tracker coverage” only extends as far north as Adams County.

Judge Hein wrote in his decision that the media are more than just over-the-air broadcasts.

“As a result of internet proliferation, social media distribution, and subsequent ‘crime show’ publicity related to this case, additional media penetration exceeds traditional over-the-air media distribution.

Special prosecutor Angela Canepa tells FOX19 NOW it’s still unknown where the trial will move.

Meanwhile, the 53-year-old 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’s trial is scheduled to begin on January 6.

He continues to plead not guilty to all 22 charges, including eight counts of aggravated murder, in the April 2016 execution-style killings of his son’s ex-girlfriend and seven family members.

Final Decision

Judge Hein announced that he was suspending the possibility of the death penalty for Wagner until both his defense and now two special prosecutors can agree on how to handle it to move the case more quickly.

“I’ve stopped waiting,” the judge told the lawyers.

Special prosecutors and Jake Wagner defense team reaches plea deal in 2022: If Jake and Angela Wagner If she appeared to testify honestly against both Billy Wagner and his eldest son, George Wagner III, then the death penalty would be off the table for everyone.

Before this gets into Billy Wagner’s trial, Jake Wagner and Angela Wagner no longer have any obligation to testify truthfully against him.

“What happens legally to the state’s ability to enforce plea agreements if you punish the defendants?” Angela Canepa, one of the special prosecutors, asked the judge with obvious frustration.

He stated that only the state will decide whether Jake Wagner testified honestly.

He argued that the court could not reject death penalty specifications without a request from the state or defense.

Judge Hein told the court the state needed to make a deal by September or October. He then noted that state law gives the court the authority to explain the judge’s reason for dismissing the case.

“‘We’re getting there, we’re getting there’; it was like someone was playing a record today,” the judge told Canepa. “I say that when the defense is not ready, we will not proceed with the trial on a death penalty specification because the state is not ready. “I’m not making excuses, I’m saying time is up.”

“Why are you trying to sabotage this case right now?” Canepa replied to this.

“It’s my duty to finish this case,” the judge told him.

FOX19 NOW legal analyst Mike Allen said he wasn’t sure the judge could deny the death penalty.

“That’s the $64,000 question,” Allen said. “Unless he has some discretion and thinks he does, he will be bound by the decisions the previous judge made.”

Canepa later said the court was “totally biased in this case.”

He also said he objected to “everything” the judge said at the hearing.

Now he and newly appointed Special Prosecutor Ron O’Brien must make a new deal.

O’Brien joins the state’s case with a lifetime of prosecutorial experience, particularly in complex, high-profile and death penalty cases.

He was the longest-serving Franklin County Prosecutor at 24 years and only left until his seventh term in office after losing re-election in November 2020.

O’Brien also previously served as an assistant county prosecutor, Columbus City Attorney and city attorney.

Billy Wagner’s 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 imprisonment 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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