Change of venue motion filed in Rhoden slayings

WAVERLY, OH. (FOX19) - Attorneys for Angela Wagner filed 49 motions in her case Friday, one of which asks for a change of venue, according to Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk.

Her attorneys would like her trial to be held outside of Pike County.

As a part of those 49 motions, they asked to prohibit references to the jury that a death penalty verdict is only a recommendation to the trial judge.

That that means is they don’t want the jury to know the judge has the final say on the death sentence.

Her attorney’s also want to exclude photographs of the victims which have been filed and to exclude the evidence relating to other crimes or wrongs Angela Wagner may have committed.

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Angela Wagner, 48; her husband, George "Billy” Wagner III, 47 and their sons, George Wagner IV, 27, and Edward “Jake” Wagner, 26, all were arrested on aggravated murder charges with the possibility for the death penalty.

All have pleaded not guilty and are being held without bond at separate Ohio jails.

The arrests came more than two years after eight members of a southeastern Ohio family, the Rhodens, were massacred execution-style in their homes.

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The Rhodens were found in four separate trailers at two locations near Piketon the morning of April 22, 2016.

The slayings are considered the state’s most complex homicide investigation to date, resulting in more than 1,000 tips, hundreds of people interviewed and dozens of search warrants, officials said.

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The Wagners have blood ties to the Rhodens through a small child, the daughter of one of the suspects and the victims.

That child’s custody was a factor in the elaborately planned crime, Ohio Attorney General and Governor-Elect Mike DeWine announced last month, finally revealing at least part of a motive.

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