WAVERLY — The Rhoden family huddled together in a conference room at the Pike County sheriff’s office late Tuesday and watched with a measure of numbness a closed-circuit broadcast coming from the next room, where authorities announced that four people had been arrested and charged in the murders of seven family members and a fiancee in April 2016.

Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty in the cases filed against George "Billy" Wagner III, 47; Angela Wagner, 48; 27-year-old George Wagner IV; and Edward "Jake" Wagner, 26, all of South Webster, in what authorities said Tuesday was the most complicated and extensive homicide case ever in Ohio, a case they now say centered on the Wagner family’s “obsession” over custody of children.

The two elder Wagners are married, and the younger men are their sons.

The Rhoden relatives, who had been quickly summoned to the Pike County Courthouse earlier Tuesday, were taken on a county bus to the sheriff’s office. There, they were told the news just moments before everyone else, and they were still trying to absorb the shock of it all Tuesday night.

More than 2 1/2 years they had waited for some justice, for answers. When they came, it was almost too much.

Video: Murders weighed on new sheriff

Video: Highlights from DeWine, Reader news conference

“We just don’t know what to think,” said Tony Rhoden, who lost two brothers in the slayings and counted his nieces and nephews among the dead. “We’re just trying to process it all. It’s a lot to take in.”

Among those huddled with him was his mom, 75-year-old Geneva Rhoden, who lost so much that fateful day. David Dickerson, the victim advocate for Pike County who has been by the family’s side through the whole ordeal, said the Rhodens’ emotions were raw and roiling, but that they found an inkling of comfort in the fact that they had some answers.

“Miss Geneva especially,” he said, “is as tough as anyone I’ve ever seen.”

The Wagners are charged with spending months planning and calculatedly carrying out the killings of 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden; 37-year-old Dana Manley Rhoden, the ex-wife with whom he had reconciled; their daughter, 19-year-old Hanna May Rhoden; their sons, Christopher Rhoden Jr., 16, and Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden, 20; Frankie’s fiancee, Hannah Gilley, 20; Chris Sr.’s brother, Kenneth Rhoden, 44; and Gary Rhoden, 38, a cousin to those two men.

>>Photos: See photos of the Rhoden family victims

All the victims were discovered slain in three mobile homes and a camper in four locations in rural Pike County. All had been shot to death and, with the exception of Kenneth, all had been shot multiple times. The first bodies were discovered by Dana's sister early in the morning on April 22, 2016; she called 911.

Since then, state and local officials have worked tirelessly on the case that many speculated would never be solved.

Ohio Attorney General and Gov.-elect Mike DeWine, Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader and Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk announced the arrests together.

“We promised this day would come, that arrests would be made in the Pike County massacre. Today is that day,” DeWine said at the start of the news conference Tuesday. Those arrested, he said, committed “heartless, ruthless, cold-blooded murder.”

>>Video| Watch the press conference

He called it the most complicated case he has ever seen, and he said he wished he could share more details but that he couldn’t as the cases now head to the courts, where they’ll likely take years.

Jake Wagner is the father of one of Hanna Rhoden's children, a girl who was 3 at the time of the killings and was the only young child of any of the victims who was not in any of the homes when the killings happened. Jake was also one of three men who submitted claims of paternity for Hanna's other daughter, an infant who was found unharmed at the crime scene, but it was later determined through paternity tests that he was not.

The charges against the four include aggravated murder with death-penalty specifications, aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence, engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, unauthorized use of property, interception of communications, conspiracy and unlawful possession of a dangerous ordnance. They are also charged with forgery for forging documents related to Jake’s custody case.

Billy Wagner was arrested in Lexington, Kentucky, without incident. A TV station in that area said he was found hiding inside a horse trailer attached to a pickup truck on property near an equine farm.

Angela Wagner was arrested at her home in Scioto County, and Jake and George Wagner were arrested in a traffic stop in Ross County.

Later Tuesday, two others — Fredericka Wagner, the mother of Billy Wagner, and Rita Newcomb, the mother of Angela Wagner — were arrested and charged with helping to cover up the crimes. DeWine said repeatedly that there is no evidence that anyone else other than the Wagners who are in jail were involved.

DeWine said evidence showed the Wagners started planning the homicides in January 2016, and that their apparent motivation all along was the children.

"There certainly was obsession with custody, obsession with control of children," DeWine said. "This is the most bizarre story I've ever seen."

>>Read more: Family investigated in Pike County slayings say they are being harassed

The authorities said the Wagners were calculated, and learned the movements and habits of the victims, knew the layouts of each home, knew where each person slept. It was meticulous, DeWine said.

Then, after the murders, the suspects tampered with the victims’ cellphones and surveillance cameras on the property.

But the killers made mistakes. Sheriff Reader said the Wagners left behind clues such as the parts to build gun silencers, clues on their own cellphones and "all the lies" they told investigators.

DeWine said no one ever gave up on solving the case, and that the Wagner family, who had moved to Alaska sometime after the homicides but returned to Ohio a few months ago, had been prime suspects for awhile. Reader said patience in piecing together a solid case was key.

“We’ve been patient when it was painful to be,” he said.

The Wagners' attorney said the family wants its day in court.

"The Wagners do eagerly look forward to their trial and to have their day in court so they can vindicate their names. The Wagners are also ever hopeful that in the ensuing months there will be a thorough vetting of all the facts. Moreover, we look forward to the day when the true culprits will be discovered and brought to justice for this terrible tragedy,” John Kearson Clark Jr. wrote in a statement.

Tens of thousands of man-hours already have been put into the case, but the process of prosecution is just beginning, Prosecutor Junk said. He said it likely will be several years before all the cases go through trials and reach conclusions. No arraignments for anyone involved have been set; all six suspects are being held in separate detention facilities.

Arrangements will be made for all six defendants to have their initial appearances in court within the next several days.

As the word spread like wildfire through southern Ohio Tuesday, people stopped — pretty much everywhere and instantly — to watch television reports, read news stories and talk about the long-awaited arrests.

>>Read more: A year after the slayings, few answers in Pike County murders

"Everyone just huddled around the TV," said Courtney Ward, who worked with Dana Rhoden at a nursing home in neighboring Adams County.

Dana Rhoden was much loved at the small nursing home, where she was known as a hard worker who doted on her patients.

"She was just a wonderful, wonderful person," Ward said.

Few neighbors along Camp Creek Road south of Waverly, where the Wagner family owns a rural property known as Flying W Farms, wanted to talk about the case.

Two who did declined to give their names but said they first noticed law enforcement checking out the farm just a few months after the murders. There was an extensive three-day search in May 2017.

Scrutiny of the Wagners seemed to ebb and flow, they said, until an explosion of activity early Tuesday.

"Big vans, sheriff's trucks all heading up there," said one of the men, who said he want to school with Chris Rhoden Jr.

John "Ozzy" Osborn, owner of Ozzy's Barber Shop in Waverly, said the arrests seemed to take the case full circle. The volatile relationship between the Rhodens and Wagners wasn't exactly a secret.

"Those two families were tight — until they split," he said.

Still, for a time, many of his customers had been reluctant to think the killers could be from the area. Talk of violent drug dealers, assassins and MS-13 gang members flourished.

"I had old guys coming in here with big guns strapped to their sides," Osborn said. "They had to take 'em off just to sit down."

It didn't take long for people throughout the country to start thinking of Pike County as a crime scene, he said.

"When you're on social media talking to people and say where you live, people are like, 'Oh, that's the place where eight people got murdered."

Sheriff Reader said Tuesday that those thoughts and feelings have hopefully been erased.

"Now we're the place that doesn't let cowardly murderers get away with their crimes under cover of darkness," he said during the news conference, adding later. "Now we're the place where people know that no one rests until a family gets justice. This has always been about the Rhoden, Gilley and Manley families. Every minute of every day has been for them."

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