Rhoden Family Massacre: The Allegations Are Stacking Up

The 2016 murders of eight members of the Rhoden family sent shock waves through their rural southwest Ohio community. In late August, the first member of the Wagner family will go on trial for their deaths. In a lengthy piece for the Washington Post, Chris Graves writes that it's the culmination of the state's "most costly and complex criminal investigation"—and one that's been tight-lipped. While a gag order remains in place and almost every related document is sealed, Graves has managed to glean plenty from the motions and hearings that followed Jake Wagner's April guilty plea (he'll serve eight life sentences without parole as part of a plea deal). Wagner, his father, and his brother George (whose trial begins Aug. 29) are accused of executing the family in order to gain custody of the daughter Jake Wagner had with Hanna Rhoden. The other two men have pleaded not guilty.

In Graves' telling, special prosecutor Angela Canepa describes the family as "insular" to the extreme: from their home-school days to working together as adults and allegedly committing crimes, including arson and drug dealing, together. Canepa alleges their controlling nature translated into violence against the women who entered their orbit. Both Jake and his brother have ex-wives who allegedly fled the family and will likely testify for the prosecution. Canepa alleges the seeds of the crime started when mom Angela Wagner—who allegedly bought her sons new shoes to wear the night of the massacre—hacked into Hanna Rhoden's Facebook account and found a message to George's ex-wife's mother saying the only way the Wagners would get custody of her girl was if they killed her. (Read the full story here for much more.)