Update:Four members of the Wagner familywere arrested Tuesday, Nov. 13 in connection with the killings.
KENAI, Alaska — Colorful Little Tikes plastic playhouses and slides dot the Wagner family’s new backyard.
The four-wheelers are parked nearby, just off the side of the gravel driveway and out of the way of the now-emptied 40-foot trailer that hauled the family’s possessions 4,107miles from Adams County last month.
It is here — in the shadow of the Chigmit Mountains of the Aleutian Range,amid the stands of evergreens and under 20-plus hours of sunlight — where the Wagners are working to create a new home.
And perhaps there is no place better than Alaska's grand expanse to fade into the background, with its Libertarian leanings and stay-out-of-my-business mindset. Locals, without missing a beat, almost universally say they understand the allure for those like the Wagners who come here seeking anonymity.
“We get a lot of that here," said Kenai Peninsula resident Andy Billings last week duringlunch at Veronica’s Old Town Cafe. “A lot of people come to Alaska to get lost.
“And many do.”
'It followed us here'
But that is not so easy for the Wagners of Ohio.
All it takes is a ping of a new social media message that catapults Angela Wagner back to what the family had hoped to escape: Innuendo that they are involved in the Rhoden massacre, which they deny.
Eight members of the Rhoden family were shot to death in three trailers and a camper in Pike County on April 22, 2016, sparking the largest and most complex investigation in Ohio history. No one has been arrested and a motive remains unclear.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWinehas said the investigation is laser focused on the Wagner family, but he declines to call them suspects or persons of interest. And neither he nor Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader has provided details about why investigators spent two days searching the Wagners'Ohio property. Nor will they say what prompted a news release asking the public for information on Angela, 46, her husband, George “Billy” Wagner, 46, and their two sons, George Wagner, 25, and Edward “Jake” Wagner, 24. That release included four photos that appear to be taken from their Ohio driver's licenses, but that many have mistaken for mugshots.
“Really the point to moving up here was to basically get into a better environment so they wouldn’t talk about us. Sophia is getting older, so she wouldn’t hear it,” Jake Wagner said last week, standing on the family’s front porch in a cool early evening drizzle. “And then it followed us here.”
Sophia is the 3-year-old daughter of Jake Wagner and victim Hanna Rhoden, 19. Wagner has told his daughter that her mother died, but has not yet shared the details.
“No, I have not told Sophia her mommy was killed/murdered. That would be too much for her to handle right now," he wrote in an email to The Enquirer last month. “She knows her mommy is visiting with Jesus and lives in her heart whenever she needs her.
“I did this for her best interest," he wrote.
Both he and his mother declined requests forinterviews last week in Alaska. They deferred questions to their Ohio lawyer.
John Kearson Clarkhas said authorities are harassing his clients, who had nothing to do with the slayings and who have cooperated fully in the investigation.
"The authorities (using the media) want the public to believe that the Wagners are responsible and have absconded," hesaid.
The family maintains they told authorities they were moving to Alaska, a place they have occasionally visited for a decade. DeWine has steadfastly declined to confirm or deny specifics of the case.
News travels to Alaska, details twisted
The news of the Wagners'move traveled quickly to Alaskan airwaves and newspapers. The internet, even though it is glacially slow here, buzzed with speculation, especially on several Facebook pages that trackcrime and safety issues in this city of 7,600.
And Clark was correct: Many residents heard the news reports and assumed the family was on the run from authorities or wanted for questioning.
The Wagners'new neighbor even called the police to report they had moved in just down the gravel road from him. The Anchorage Police Department, which is 158miles from Kenai, said it was inundated with 911 calls after DeWine’s news release and asked residents to call Ohio with information.
Neither the Alaska State Police nor the Ohio Attorney General’s Office will say if the agencies are working together in the ongoing probe.
Salmon run, bearmaulings and a budget deficit
The local paper, The Peninsula Clarion, has carried a couple of small Associated Press wire stories about the Wagners, saidEditor Will Morrow.
But June and July is the height of the salmon run that brings tens of thousands of anglers and dipnet fishermen to the Kenai River, which is world-known for its record-sized Chinook. The river also is home to all five species of salmon and large rainbow trout, making it a fishing mecca.
And with just a handful of reporters, Morrow is focused on that story in addition to a rash of recent bear maulings that is uncharacteristic for the region, he said.
His staff also is monitoring the state’s economic downturn, how legislators will offset that state’s $3 billiondeficit and what that might mean to Alaska’s $58 billionPermanent Fund. Dividends from that fund, established in 1976 from oil revenues, provide a $1,000 check to every Alaska resident annually.
The reporters cover the 200-mile long and 100-mile wide Kenai Peninsulathat is roughly the size of West Virginia, he said, but with a population 60 times smaller.
And when it comes to crime, the area has its share of robberies and petty crimes. It, too, struggles with heroin and other drugs. Marijuana is legal here for both medicinal and recreational use. And for nearly 40 yearsAlaskan adults have had the right to use and possess a small amount of marijuana. The Alaska Supreme Court found that right protected under the state's constitutional right to privacy.
Life here is really not so different, both he and Kenai City Manager Paul Ostrandersaid, from small to mid-sized cities in the "Lower 48."
“We worry about different things here,’’ Morrow said in his wood-paneled office of the newspaper’s second-floor storefront. “Like if my kids are going to be hurt by moose walking to school.”
He is not kidding.
Ostrander is focused on managing economic growth in his city in the nation’s 49th state. Kenai and the rest of Alaska avoided the recession of 2008, but it has felt the pinch lately with oil production declining and its price crashing. He is hopeful the area is on the rebound.
“We’ve got all of the comforts that people anywhere else in the country do. We have Walmart and Safeway. We got modern homes and no one lives in igloos, certainly.”
Ostrander said he is not worried about the Ohio family who moved in just north of his city. He can’t imagine anyone bothering them.
Morrow, the editor, agreed.
“Up here we do our thing. You don’t bother me and I won’t bother you.”
Anyone with information about the killings is asked to call the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation at 1-855-224-6446or the Pike County Sheriff's Office at 740-947-2111.A $11,365reward is offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killers.
