Angela Wagner, one of the defendants charged with helping murder another family in Pike County, Ohio, over a custody dispute, is scheduled to appear in court on Friday. Two co-defendant relatives are on the record as agreeing to testify against her. Court is set to begin at 3 p.m. You can watch in the player above.
Wagner, her husband, George Wagner III, and their adult sons George Wagner IV and Edward “Jake” Wagner are accused of shooting and killing eight members of another family in four locations across Pike County: 38-year-old Dana Manley Rhoden, 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr., 20-year-old Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 19-year-old Hanna May Rhoden, 16-year-old Christopher Rhoden Jr., 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden, and 38-year-old Gary Rhoden. Clarence’s 20-year-old fiancée Hannah “Hazel” Gilley was also killed.
Jake Wagner pleaded guilty in April, agreeing to testify against his co-defendant family members. The motive behind the grisly murders, prosecutors have said, was so the Wagners could get full custody of Jake’s daughter with ex-girlfriend Hanna Rhoden. In return for his guilty plea of eight counts of aggravated murder, the state agreed to take the death penalty off the table.
He is not the only co-defendant relative willing to testify against Angela Wanger. Wagner’s mother Rita Jo Newcomb, a notary, pleaded guilty last December to a misdemeanor count of obstruction, saying she lied at Wagner’s behest in claiming to sign three custody documents.