Four family members were arrested on Nov. 13, for the 2016 murders of eight people in Pike County, Ohio.
All four of the suspects are in the same family.
They are George Wagner III, 47; Angela Wagner, 48; George Wagner IV, 27; and Edward Wagner, 26, reported WKBN.
The four are suspected in the deaths of eight members of another family, the Rhoden family.
Edward Wagner, known as Jake, was involved in a custody dispute with Hanna Rhoden over their daughter, her grandfather Leonard Manley told WCPO.
The charges on Nov. 13, came about 18 months after Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader asked members of the public for information about the four Wagner family members.
The eight victims in Pike County were previously identified as Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40; his ex-wife Dana Rhoden, 37; their children Hanna Rhoden, 19, Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16, and Clarence Rhoden, 20; in addition to Clarence's fiancée Hannah Gilley, 20; Christopher Rhoden Sr.'s brother Kenneth Rhoden, 44; and their cousin Gary Rhoden, 38.
Mourners gather around caskets for six of the eight members of the Rhoden family found shot at four properties near Piketon, Ohio, on April 22, 2016, during funeral services at Scioto Burial Park in McDermott, Ohio, on May 3, 2016. AP Photo/John Minchillo, File
Autopsies indicated that most of the Rhoden family was killed in their sleep, although Rhoden Sr. was awake and shot through a door at least once, reported the Cincinnati Enquirer. The killings of the others was referred to by law enforcement officials as execution-style.
The murders had aspects of a professional hit, one expert said. "It has aspects of a professional hit, but I don't think it was a cartel hit or anything like that," said Dr. Jennifer Murray, an associate professor at Indiana State University, in September after the coroner's preliminary report was released.
Murray said the fact that most of the victims were shot multiple times, with Rhoden Sr. being shot nine times, shows additional aggression.
"It's two years later and they haven't indicted anybody. So they did a pretty good job and I don't think the average family typically knows how to do that. So there's a potential they may have hired someone," Murray said.
Information released several months after the murders showed that all the victims except one had paper bags over their hands. A former DEA agent told WCPO that whoever murdered the family may have placed the bags.
"It's to ensure that they don't leave any DNA evidence like skin, any other hairs, type of evidence that the individuals who committed these crimes could be identified later," former Philadelphia DEA agent Felix Jimenez said.
Two Left Behind
The killers left behind 6-month-old Ruger Rhoden, who was found between the bodies of his father and mother. Three-year-old Brentley Rhoden was also spared.
“I was not leaving those babies in there. All I wanted was to get those babies out of there," their aunt Bobby Jo Manley told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Thank God they didn’t take those babies, too.”
She was the first to discover the bodies. She and two other family members were questioned by police but she said she didn't kill her family.
"Not having my family with me is the hardest. Sure we had our little arguments here and there, but they still love you; you still love them,'' she said. "I won't ever see them again until I meet them in heaven or hell."
