WAVERLY, Ohio — George Wagner IV’s new appeals lawyers have filed a brief this week requesting that his murder convictions related to the Pike County massacre be overturned due to several potential errors during his 2022 trial.
Wagner is one of four family members accused of killing eight individuals, including seven members of the Rhoden family and Hannah Gilley, in a single night in April 2016. His brother, Jake Wagner, pleaded guilty to all charges and testified against George, while his mother, Angela Wagner, pleaded guilty to lesser charges and also testified against her son.
Their father, George “Billy” Wagner III, has maintained his not guilty plea and is scheduled for trial next year.
The victims included Chris Rhoden, his ex-wife Dana Manley Rhoden, their children Chris Rhoden Jr., Hanna Rhoden, and Frankie Rhoden, Frankie’s fiancée Hannah Gilley, and Chris Rhoden Sr.’s brother Kenneth Rhoden and cousin Gary Rhoden.
The brief, filed Monday, lists nine possible errors in the original trial, including:
- Failure to dismiss the death penalty specifications against Wagner before the trial.
- Failure to dismiss several jurors who possibly knew the victims or their families and allowing the presentation of gruesome images that might have influenced those jurors.
- Admission of evidence of other crimes and misdeeds not directly related to the murders.
- Permitting Jake and Angela Wagner to testify as part of “coercive plea deals.”
- Blocking the defense’s attempts to access Jake Wagner’s medical records.
- Allowing the prosecution to accuse George Wagner of lying and his defense attorneys of coaching him.
Angela Canepa, the special prosecutor, delivered the opening statement in George Wagner IV’s trial at the Pike County Common Pleas Court in Waverly, Ohio, on September 12, 2022. Wagner faced 22 counts, including eight counts of aggravated murder, connected to the April 21-22, 2016, slayings. Images of each victim were displayed during Canepa’s statement.
All victims were shot in the head and body, with several shot as they slept. Prosecutors contended the killings stemmed from a custody dispute involving Jake Wagner’s daughter with Hanna Rhoden.
A jury convicted George Wagner IV on all counts in late 2022, concluding the longest and most expensive criminal trial in Ohio history.
Wagner announced his intent to appeal in early 2023, but this brief provides the first insight into his new defense team’s potential legal strategy.
There is no scheduled date for the appeals hearing, which will be heard by the Ohio Fourth District Court of Appeals.
