The horrific Pike County Murders took place on the night of April 21 and 22, 2016. This tragedy took the lives of eight people. Furthermore, all the victims belonged to the same family, i.e. the Rhoden family. The location of this massacre was Pike County, Ohio. Pike County is near the village of Peebles which is 50 miles from Columbus and 60 miles from Cincinnati.
Out of the deceased eight, seven of them were adults while one was a teenager. The execution-style murders were committed in three houses and a camper.
The killers were members of the Wagner family. According to Fox 19, Jake Wagner pulled the trigger to kill five out of the eight members of the Rhoden family. His victims were, 37-year-old Dana Rhoden, 19-year-old Hanna May Rhoden, 16-year-old Chris Rhoden Jr., 20-year-old Frankie Rhoden, and 20-year-year-old Hanna “Hazel” Gilley. Furthermore, he also wounded 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr.
The Pike County Murders will be showcased in detail in the upcoming Oxygen docuseries, The Pike County Murders: A Family Massacre. It will released on Friday, November 24, 2023.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, the synopsis for The Pike County Murders: A Family Massacre reads, “Eight members of the Rhoden family are brutally murdered execution-style in four different locations on a night in 2016 by another family they consider friends. “The Pike County Massacre,” the story of the largest murder investigation in Ohio’s history, exposes an underbelly of violence, pitting family against family, mother against son, brother against brother, in a haunting story of lies, secrets and betrayal.”
Its executive producers are Stephanie Lydecker and Catharine Park.
What did Jake Wagner say in his testimony?
Jake Wagner horrifically described how he took the lives of the Rhoden family members in his October 2022 testimony.
According to Fox 19, he recounted killing Dana Rhoden by saying, “She looked up and made a gasping noise and then I shot her.” Furthermore, he even said that leaving Hanna Rhoden alive was not an option. Hanna and Jake had a 3-year-old daughter named Sophie. He said, “I had no choice. I decided to kill Hanna. If I didn’t do something, Sophie would be harmed.”
