The trial of George Wagner IV and his connection to the Pike County murders is expected to resume Friday morning.Proceedings were suspended Thursday due to a sick juror.Court lost a juror in the trial due to an illness. Judge Randy Deering said the jury box was disinfected. That female juror has been replaced with an alternate.Before they adjourned Wednesday, jurors heard from special agent Ryan Scheiderer with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. He's the lead investigator on the Pike County murders. "This was a whodunnit murder," Scheiderer said.He said investigating the deaths of eight people at four crime scenes was chaotic at first and complex.Early on, Scheiderer said, investigators hoped a cell phone tower dump would point them in the right direction. That's when investigators send a search warrant to a provider and ask for information about all of the devices that connected to a tower during a certain time frame."You can look for patterns, like this is the first time this device ever hit that tower. That would be suspect. That would be something we would want to investigate. The absence of a phone could be suspicious," Scheiderer said. "It works well in big cities because there's lots of towers, and you can kind of pinpoint things down. Unfortunately, here, every single person in Pike County was on those towers."Scheiderer said another hurdle was all of the tips pouring in. He said they received more than 1,100 tips. Some are from psychics and prison and jail inmates."We had tips from the death of Prince, the artist, that came in. Those were tracked down and verified, and unfortunately, when you have a big case like this, people want to interject themselves into the investigation. In this case, it just seemed like it was a magnet for that," Scheiderer said.Eventually, detectives started connecting the dots.Through cell phone records, they determined the last time the victims communicated with others.Surveillance cameras from homes near the crime scenes showed two vehicles driving through the are in the early morning of April 22, 2016.Scheiderer said they interviewed friends and family members of the victims early on, and everyone but Jake Wagner voluntarily provided their phones.Twenty-one days after the massacre, BCI agents interviewed him. Scheiderer said during the interview, his hair was a different color from his natural color.While on the stand, Scheiderer did not mention anything that tied George Wagner to the murders of eight members of the Rhoden family, and the cross-examination was brief.Scheiderer is expected to be recalled later on in the trial.WLWT will provide a live stream of the trial in the video player attached to this story or on our Facebook page.
The trial of George Wagner IV and his connection to the Pike County murders is expected to resume Friday morning.
Proceedings were suspended Thursday due to a sick juror.
Court lost a juror in the trial due to an illness. Judge Randy Deering said the jury box was disinfected. That female juror has been replaced with an alternate.
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Before they adjourned Wednesday, jurors heard from special agent Ryan Scheiderer with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. He's the lead investigator on the Pike County murders.
"This was a whodunnit murder," Scheiderer said.
He said investigating the deaths of eight people at four crime scenes was chaotic at first and complex.
Early on, Scheiderer said, investigators hoped a cell phone tower dump would point them in the right direction. That's when investigators send a search warrant to a provider and ask for information about all of the devices that connected to a tower during a certain time frame.
"You can look for patterns, like this is the first time this device ever hit that tower. That would be suspect. That would be something we would want to investigate. The absence of a phone could be suspicious," Scheiderer said. "It works well in big cities because there's lots of towers, and you can kind of pinpoint things down. Unfortunately, here, every single person in Pike County was on those towers."
Scheiderer said another hurdle was all of the tips pouring in. He said they received more than 1,100 tips. Some are from psychics and prison and jail inmates.
"We had tips from the death of Prince, the artist, that came in. Those were tracked down and verified, and unfortunately, when you have a big case like this, people want to interject themselves into the investigation. In this case, it just seemed like it was a magnet for that," Scheiderer said.
Eventually, detectives started connecting the dots.
Through cell phone records, they determined the last time the victims communicated with others.
Surveillance cameras from homes near the crime scenes showed two vehicles driving through the are in the early morning of April 22, 2016.
Scheiderer said they interviewed friends and family members of the victims early on, and everyone but Jake Wagner voluntarily provided their phones.
Twenty-one days after the massacre, BCI agents interviewed him. Scheiderer said during the interview, his hair was a different color from his natural color.
While on the stand, Scheiderer did not mention anything that tied George Wagner to the murders of eight members of the Rhoden family, and the cross-examination was brief.
Scheiderer is expected to be recalled later on in the trial.
WLWT will provide a live stream of the trial in the video player attached to this story or on our Facebook page.
