A man on trial in the 2016 slayings of eight current and prospective members of another family in southern Ohio testified Wednesday that he had no idea his relatives planned to kill the victims and that he would have taken action to prevent the slayings had he known about such a plan, the AP reports. George Wagner IV, 31, took the stand in Pike County and denied any knowledge of his family's involvement in the slayings of seven members of the Rhoden family and one future member of the family, which authorities have said stemmed from a custody dispute. “I never would have believed my family would be capable of doing something of this magnitude,” said George Wagner IV, whose mother and brother have pleaded guilty to roles in the case and whose father awaits trial. “Theft is one thing. Murder is an entirely different thing.” (He also testified about his family's criminal history.)
Asked by his attorney what he would have done had he known, he said “I would have never let it happen. One way or another, I would not have let it happen.” Special prosecutor Angela Canepa has not accused George Wagner IV of shooting anyone but has alleged that he took part in planning, carrying out, and covering up “one of the most heinous crimes in Ohio history.” The defense has argued that George Wagner IV is not like the rest of his family and had nothing to do with the killings. Canepa has alleged that George Wagner IV was with his brother and his father when they drove to three separate locations where all eight victims were killed, went inside with the pair and helped his brother move two of the bodies. But he says he was home sleeping at the time, and learned about the massacre, which he called "traumatizing," from TV reports.
His younger brother, Edward “Jake” Wagner, earlier testified as part of a deal that spared him the death penalty that he killed five of the eight victims and implicated the brothers' father in the other three slayings. He said he felt he had no choice but to kill the mother of his toddler daughter because he feared for the girl's safety. Angela Wagner, the mother of Jake and George, earlier pleaded guilty to helping plan the slayings but blamed the massacre on her husband, George “Billy” Wagner III. She said he believed the other family would seek revenge for the woman's death and would kill Jake "if not all of us,” so the rest of her family “had to be murdered." George “Billy” Wagner III has pleaded not guilty and likely won’t go on trial until next year. The four members of the Wagner family were not arrested until more than two years after the April 2016 slayings.
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