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Relative to Have no Calls with Suspects in Rhoden Family Massacre
By: Associated Press
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WAVERLY, Ohio (AP) – A judge says the mother of a woman charged in a Pike County family’s slaying must stop talking with her jailed daughter and have no phone calls with her or three other relatives charged in the case.
The mother, 66-year-old Rita Newcomb, isn’t charged in the 2016 slayings of eight people from the Rhoden family but pleaded not guilty to forging documents in a related matter.
Prosecutors argued Newcomb violated conditions of her own house arrest by discussing the case with her jailed daughter, Angela Wagner, in taped phones conversations this summer.
A Pike County judge last week decided against revoking bail and jailing Newcomb but told her to have no more calls with her relatives charged in the shootings : her daughter, son-in-law and two adult grandsons.
They’ve pleaded not guilty.