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Ohio Mass Shooting

Pike County massacre: Woman facing felonies is a fiercely protective matriarch

Max Londberg Chris Graves
Cincinnati Enquirer

PIKE COUNTY, Ohio — Mention Fredericka Wagner, 76, around Pike County and most folks have a thing or two to say.

To many, she’s the wealthy landowner who worked with her husband acquiring hundreds of acres to build a renowned horse-breeding empire atop a hill largely out of sight here.

To those who tried to buy land from her, she’s a money-hungry opportunist who takes advantage of low-income families.

To her lawyer, she’s a God-fearing, tax-paying Pike County business owner who is being wrongly accused in helping her family plot a cover-up of one of the state’s most heinous crimes.

Some things are undisputed: She is the fiercely protective matriarch of the family who stands accused in the calculated, cold-blooded killings of eight members of the Rhoden family in April 2016.

By both wealth and stature, she is an outlier in her own county.

Her arrest and those of her son, George “Billy” Wagner, 47; her daughter-in-law, Angela Wagner, 48; and her two grandsons, George Wagner IV, 27, and Edward “Jake” Wagner, 26, have shone a national spotlight on rural America where for some, land ownership symbolizes success.

From the Wagner farm, accessed through metal gates, Fredericka Wagner and her husband conducted their business operations, offering exotic animals and dozens of acres of land for sale.

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Now, Fredericka Wagner is largely confined to that farm, under house arrest as part of her bond conditions. She is even reluctant to attend church, fearing intimidation from fellow congregants, according to her attorney.

“I’m not supposed to be talking about the case,” Fredericka Wagner said in a brief phone conversation with The Enquirer. “All I can say is I’m innocent. That’s all.”

She's pleaded not guilty to felony charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

And she "passionately and fervently believes in the innocence of her son, her daughter-in-law and her two grandsons,” said her attorney, James Owen, at her arraignment earlier this month. “She’s a tough old bird and willing to express her opinions. … But right now, she’s presumed innocent.”

Fredericka Wagner, 76, of Lucasville, covers her face as she walks into the Pike County Courthouse for her arraignment Thursday, November 15, 2018.

More than 100 land contracts

Those who rented or attempted to purchase land from Fredericka Wagner described her as driven by one thing: money.

Fredericka Wagner's properties — listed under her name, a trust bearing her name or under her real estate company — are worth more than $4 million and span 1,767 acres, according to Pike County Auditor’s Office records.

Over decades, she and her late husband, George "Bob" Wagner, entered into at least 132 land installment contracts allowing the Wagners to retain deeds on the land as buyers attempted to pay off their principal and interest.

Some contracts included interest rates of 10 percent or higher, including at least three above 13 percent. 

If buyers made all their payments, they’d eventually become owners of the land.

It rarely played out that way.

Attorneys specializing in real estate say buyers in land installment contracts are often unable to obtain a traditional bank loan due to poverty.

Michael Gibbons-Camp, a staff attorney with Southeastern Ohio Legal Services, which provides legal assistance to those who can’t afford it, said some land contracts are predatory.

"The seller is just squeezing whatever money they can get out of a purchaser, knowing that they're going to get the property back and they can do it again," he said.

Pike County, on the edge of Appalachia, had a median property value about half that of the U.S. median in 2016. One in five people live in poverty here, according to Census data.

"A lot of it is just plain poor," Rhoads said of land-contract buyers who can't keep up payments. "Living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck. One little thing goes wrong and next thing you know they default on their payments."

A reward sign for the Rhoden family homicides is posted across the street from the Flying W Farms Wednesday, November 14, 2018.

The Flying W farm

Fredericka Wagner’s family farm is nestled amid hundreds of acres of open fields, largely tucked away from public view.

She and her late husband are listed as the owners of the second-largest land parcel in Pike County, at 1,003 acres, second only to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant property owned by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

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The land and buildings on the parcel were valued at $2.38 million in 2018, according to property records.

A poster could be seen last week facing the Wagner's stately gates off Camp Creek Road. It included pictures of each of the eight victims, their frozen images gazing toward Wagner land.

“Do you know who murdered us ...?” it read.

The four Wagners are accused of killing Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40; Christopher's former wife, Dana Manley Rhoden, 38; Dana and Christopher's three children: Hanna Rhoden, 19; Chris Rhoden Jr., 16; and Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20' Frankie's fiancee, Hannah Gilley, 20; Kenneth Rhoden, 44, and the older brother of Christopher Rhoden Sr.; and a cousin, Gary Rhoden, 38.

The gates guarding Fredericka Wagner's farm are flanked by low stone walls and pillars topped by silver lamp fixtures. Two signs warn of surveillance cameras.

The Flying W farm stands out from the mobile homes, trailers and one-room homes that encircle it. Located along a dirt and gravel road, the farm consists of a collection of red-roofed barns and houses. Hundreds of acres of open land separate the structures from the neighbors.

Today, the Flying W website offers American Mastiff puppies for as much as $2,100 and a kunekune pig, found in the Maori Islands, for $1,500.

The matriarch is known as an imposing figure in Camp Creek, a township of about 1,000 people. Her neighbors spoke of her vast property holdings, including a group home and church less than a mile from the farm.

She is listed as the executive director on a 2016 nonprofit tax form, called a 990, for the Crystal Springs group home. Four developmentally disabled people lived at the home, according to the filing.

Fredericka Wagner earned more than $50,000 in compensation in 2016, and nearly $120,000 total in 2014 and 2015, according to the nonprofit tax forms.

During her court appearance, Owen, her attorney, claimed she "doesn't have liquid money" because it's tied up in her farm. 

Living near the Wagners

One couple, currently buying land from Fredericka Wagner, said the matriarch has in the past delivered food baskets for Thanksgiving to some of her tenants.

Others say she’s less charitable.

Kim Parks has lived for about a decade near the Flying W farm.

“They (the Wagners) act like they’re churchgoing people, but they’re not,” Parks said. “It’s all a cover-up.”

A tenant, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of the Wagners, said Fredericka Wagner has increased her rent 25 percent since the massacre of the Rhodens.

“She don’t care what her (tenants) do, long as she gets the money,” Parks said of the matriarch.

Another tenant lives in a one-room home, an exposed toilet standing a few feet from the foot of his bed. Tom Shields recalled delivering his rent in cash to Fredericka Wagner on her farm.

Shields feels as though he’s in limbo, uncertain what will become of his home and who will accept his payments with so many Wagners facing charges.

When asked if she feels safe in her home so close to Wagner land, Parks looked back inside from her doorway.

“We keep a gun loaded,” she said. “You have to around here.”

Follow Max Londberg on Twitter @MaxLondberg; follow Chris Graves on Twitter: @chrisgraves. Contributing: Bob Strickley, Meg Vogel and Jona Ison

 

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