Ohio Man Pleads Guilty in 2016 Killings of 8 in Same Family
Edward Wagner, 28, who prosecutors said had been in a custody dispute over his daughter, apologized for the Rhoden family murders.
Edward Wagner after apologizing to the Rhoden family during a court hearing in Pike County, Ohio, on Thursday at which he pleaded guilty to killing eight of their family members.Credit.Robert McGraw/The Chillicothe Gazette, via Associated Press
April 22, 2021Updated 11:37 p.m. ET
An Ohio man pleaded guilty on Thursday to eight counts of aggravated murder in the fatal shootings of his child’s mother and seven of her family members in 2016, a crime that spurred rampant speculation that it was tied to drug trafficking but that prosecutors said had stemmed from a bitter custody dispute.
Updated: 11:43 PM EDT March 16, 2021
ROSS COUNTY, Ohio Two deputies who worked in the corrections division within the Ross County Sheriff s Office were dismissed earlier this month because of fraternization with inmates, according to the sheriff s office.
The Chillicothe Gazette reports deputies Sarah Smith and Ashley Foster were both in their first year with the Ross County Sheriff s Office. Both were dismissed after an investigation showed that Smith and Foster violated the code of ethics for jail employees.
Major William White, jail administrator for the Ross County Sheriff s Office, said he listened to some of the phone calls made by Smith to an inmate during off-hours. Officials say during the process of investigation, it was found that Foster was also talking with a separate inmate in a similar fashion.
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Samuel Chapman. (Photo courtesy of the Ross County Sheriff s Office) A Leesburg man was sentenced Monday after being found guilty of all four charges in an indictment that included one count of attempted murder, according to the Chillicothe Gazette.
As previously reported, Samuel Chapman, 41, of Leesburg was indicted by a Ross County grand jury May 8, 2020, where he was charged with one count of attempted murder, a felony of the first degree; one count of kidnapping, a felony of the first degree; one count of grand theft, a felony of the fourth degree; and one count of tampering with evidence, a felony of the third degree.