Share and Follow
On January 1, 2021, Morgan Metzer nearly faced a tragic start to the new year.
In the early hours of that morning, an intruder wearing a mask invaded her home in Canton, Georgia. The assailant restrained, choked, and sexually assaulted her, as detailed in a statement from the Cherokee County District Attorney’s Office.
“I felt his finger on the gun’s trigger,” Morgan recounted in an interview with Fox 5. “I thought to myself, ‘This is it. I’m not going to survive this.'”
Despite the ordeal, Morgan lived through the attack, though she was left terrified and exposed on her porch. It was then that her ex-husband, Rodney Metzer, arrived at the scene and appeared to rescue her, according to the report.
However, Rodney’s actions were far from heroic. Investigators revealed that he orchestrated this heinous act in a twisted attempt to rekindle their relationship. Morgan’s harrowing experience is captured in the Lifetime movie Gaslit By My Husband: The Morgan Metzer Story, currently available on Netflix.
Here’s everything you need to know about the disturbing real-life crime:
Who Are Rodney Metzer and Morgan Metzer?
Rodney and Morgan’s love story began when she was just 14 in what she’d later tell 48 Hours was love at first sight.
According to Morgan, “It was scary how fast it was.”
Rodney treated her like a “princess,” she said, and the pair got married in 2009.
But the couple soon encountered their share of hardships. Rodney’s younger brother Kevin died of leukemia, then their first child—named in Kevin’s honor—died from a congenital heart defect just weeks after birth, the outlet reported.
After welcoming twins, Rodney struggled to hold down a job and Morgan told 48 Hours that he became physically, mentally and sexually abusive under the growing strain.Yet, Morgan said somehow Rodney always found a way to put the blame back on Morgan—even once allegedly claiming to their children that she’d thrown him down the stairs after he rolled down himself.
By 2020, she filed for divorce.
What Happened to Morgan Metzer?
With her children visiting family, Morgan decided to spend New Year’s Eve 2020 with her best friend Nichole Stabasefski. But, Morgan said she was feeling exhausted and decided to call it an early night, returning home on her own.
Then, just after midnight on Jan. 1, 2021, the Cherokee County District Attorney’s Office said a masked intruder, carrying a gun, came into her bedroom. The intruder had a low, distorted voice, which Morgan told Fox 5 was similar to Batman.
“Every woman’s worse fear is to wake up to that,” Morgan recalled to the outlet. “That voice still to this day just haunts me when I sleep.”
Prosecutors said the assailant struck her with the butt of the gun and tried to strangle her twice.
“Once to the point I barely had any breath left,” Morgan told Fox 5. “I thought it was going to be my last breath.”
The attacker tied her hands behind her back with zip ties, then sexually assaulted her. At one point during the brutal attack, Morgan told 48 Hours that the man told her, “You’re going to miss your husband.”
She explained, “I said, ‘No, don’t hurt my husband.’”
After demanding her phone and the passcode, the attacker—dressed in all black—put a pillowcase on her head and walked her out to the back porch, per the news outlet, instructing her not to get up until she heard two car honks. He then vanished into the night.
Rodney Metzer Returned to Scene to Rescue Morgan Metzer
Terrified that he’d come back to kill her, Morgan lay motionless on the porch for 40 minutes until Rodney arrived, somehow managing to find her on the back deck.
“Instantly heard Rod’s voice—‘Oh baby, what happened? What happened?’” she told Fox 5. “‘I’m so sorry.’”
Rodney called 911.
“Somebody broke in over here,” he told the dispatcher in a recording of the call replayed on 48 Hours. “She was on the back porch. Uh, and—and the back door was wide open.”
Morgan was heard in the background of the conversation pleading, “Please don’t leave, Rod.”
Law enforcement arrived a few minutes later, but they were curious why Rodney just happened at his ex-wife’s home in the middle of the night.
Police said he told authorities that he’d been getting ready for bed that night when someone had come to his window.
“He was brushing his teeth when he heard knocking on his window,” Sgt. Dakota Lyvers told 48 Hours. “That knocking was accompanied by a voice in which he could only decipher the word ‘Morgan’ was being said.”
Concerned, Rodney said he rushed to her home. When Morgan didn’t answer the door, he told deputies he went to the back porch and found her naked and terrified.
Evidence Links Rodney Metzer to The Attack
At the scene, officers separated the pair, according to the 48 Hours special. While safely away from her ex-husband, Morgan confessed that she believed Rodney may have been her attacker, especially after the assailant made that comment about her husband.
“When he said … ‘you’re going to miss your husband,’ I said, ‘no, don’t hurt my husband. I love him very much.’ And I don’t know what made me do that,” she explained to 48 Hours. “But at that exact moment is when … the mood of the room changed. I knew I was going to live.”
Investigators soon found more evidence as well. According to the district attorney’s office, zip ties matching the ones used to bind Morgan were found in his apartment, along with surveillance footage of him buying the supplies at Lowe’s Home Improvement. Officers also found a handgun in his vehicle.
During a review of surveillance footage from his apartment, they saw footage of Rodney coming home not long after the attack and then leaving a few minutes later wearing a completely different set of clothes, prosecutors said.
They also found searches on his cell phone and laptop for “how to change the sound of your voice” and “how long it takes to choke someone unconscious,” according to the statement.
Investigators learned that in the days leading up to the attack, Rodney falsely claimed that he was dying of pancreatic cancer in a bid to try to win his ex-wife’s sympathy. Initially, the ploy worked and Morgan allowed him to sleep on the couch, but on Dec. 31, she asked him to begin relying on support from other family members, 48 Hours reported.
“This man is a master manipulator,” Assistant District Attorney Rachel Ashe said in a statement from prosecutors. “In the days leading up to this attack he faked a cancer diagnosis in an attempt to gain sympathy from his ex-wife. When that didn’t work, he created a convoluted plan that the investigators in this case and our office truly believe involved a plot to kill her and then himself. When he couldn’t go through with that plan, he instead devised a new plan to rescue her. Fortunately, Sheriff’s Office investigators saw through this scheme and quickly arrested the defendant.”
Where is Rodney Metzer Now?
In August 2021, Rodney pleaded guilty to 14 charges including kidnapping, home invasion, armed robbery, aggravated assault, aggravated battery and false imprisonment in connection to the scheme, prosecutors said.
As part of a plea deal, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison and another 45 years of probation.
During the sentencing, Morgan addressed her ex in an emotional victim impact statement.
“Rod, not only will this statement be to my attacker, but it’ll also be my last words to whom I thought was the love of my life,” she said, while re-reading the statement to 48 Hours. “The last four years being married to you was like living with a monster that constantly tried to break me down and fence me in. … It was a blessing in disguise. … I can now walk with the confidence knowing the pain you have given me is turned into power.”
Rodney is currently serving out his sentence at the Baldwin State Prison, according to jail records reviewed by .