Morgan Metzer Was Assaulted by a Masked Man and Saved by Her Ex-Husband. Inside the Shocking Case — and When She Realized Her Ex Was Actually the Attacker By Jessica Sager

Morgan Metzer and Rodney Metzer met as teenagers and seemingly had a picture-perfect love story, marrying in 2009 and later welcoming twins, but behind closed doors, Rodney was a different person.

After enduring years of mental and physical abuse, Morgan divorced Rodney in December 2020. Just a few weeks later, she was sleeping at home in Canton, Ga., just after midnight on New Year’s Day. Instead of looking forward to a fresh start, though, Morgan was awoken by a masked intruder with a gun.

She was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted before her attacker left her bound and terrified on the back deck of her home.

When Rodney came to rescue Morgan after the assault, her relief quickly turned to suspicion that her ex was actually the masked man who had sexually assaulted and strangled her.

The case was the basis for the 2024 Lifetime original film Gaslit By My Husband: The Morgan Metzer Story starring Jana Kramer as Morgan and Austin Nichols as Rodney.

Here, find out the true story of what happened to Morgan Metzer and the real identity of the so-called “Batman intruder.”

Morgan and Rodney were childhood sweethearts, but their love story was marred by tragedy

Morgan and Rodney met when she was 14 and he was 17, she recalled on 48 Hours, and she described their connection as love at first sight.

“It was scary how fast it was,” Morgan said, adding that the beginning of their relationship was “amazing.”

“He called me ‘princess,’ ” she said. “And so he literally treated me like that.”

The couple married in 2009 when Morgan was 21 and he was 24. She said that the beginning of their marriage was blissful, but tragedy struck just eight months later when Rodney’s younger brother Kevin died from leukemia at just 19 years old.

“It really hit Rod hard,” his mother Kathy Metzer said. “I don’t think he was ever the same after that … He depended on Morgan at that point, more than he did anybody. I don’t think he left her side for more than an hour or two.”

Tragedy struck yet again when Morgan and Rodney’s first child together, a son named Kevin, was born with a congenital heart defect and died at just 18 days old.

Their luck finally turned around in 2012, when Morgan and Rodney welcomed twins, a son and a daughter.

Morgan divorced Rodney after years of abuse

While initially overjoyed at becoming parents to a healthy girl and boy, Morgan said that Rodney’s behavior started to change when their kids were about a year old.

“Probably about a year after they were born, which is right around the time that Rod lost his job, is when it started going down south from there,” she said. Around the same time, Morgan’s interior design business was thriving.

It was a Labor Day weekend when Morgan says Rodney first hit her. “I guess we had gotten into an argument about something … that’s the first night he beat me,” she said.

After the incident, Morgan called her father to pick her up and get her away from Rodney. However, Rodney convinced her family that the bruises she suffered were her own fault and that she only had them because she lost her temper and he had to restrain her.

According to Morgan, Rodney continuously gaslit her throughout their marriage, telling her that everything wrong in their marriage was her fault, even throwing himself down a flight of stairs once and telling their children that she pushed him. Morgan also alleged that he became sexually abusive.

Morgan filed for divorce from Rodney in 2020, and it was finalized that December. Her best friend and business partner Nichole Stabasefski said on 48 Hours, “You know, it was the first time I think I saw her have peace.”

Shortly after they finalized the divorce, Rodney called Morgan and told her that he had pancreatic cancer and he hadn’t told anyone else. He showed her notes from a doctor seemingly corroborating the diagnosis, and she let him stay at her house.

“I said, ‘You’re the father of my children … I’m here for you,” she recalled.

While she tried to be supportive of Rodney, she didn’t want to get back together with him, even when he begged her to reconcile. Frustrated that she appeared to be his only support system, Morgan urged Rodney to tell his family about his so-called diagnosis, but he refused. By New Year’s Eve 2020, she told him he had to leave her home and lied that she’d be sleeping at her parents’ house that night.

Rodney did leave her property, but he didn’t leave her alone, instead texting her repeatedly asking her to take him back.

A masked intruder attacked Morgan on New Year’s Day 2021

Morgan went to sleep on New Year’s Eve 2020 and woke up around 1 a.m. to a masked intruder with a gun who was manipulating his voice to sound like Batman.

Morgan told Fox 5 Atlanta, “Every woman’s [worst] fear is to wake up to that. That voice still to this day just haunts me when I sleep.”

The intruder pinned Morgan down and beat her repeatedly with a gun, then attempted to strangle her twice. He stopped before she fell unconscious, at which point he zip-tied her hands behind her back and sexually assaulted her. He put a pillowcase over her head, took her cellphone and left her on the back deck of her house, telling her not to move until she heard a car horn honk twice.

“On his way out he kept saying, ‘You messed up. You’re going to be fine but we can’t say that about your ex-husband. You’re really going to miss him,’ ” Morgan recalled.

She told The Sun that she then told her attacker how much she adored Rodney.

“Instantly the whole mood of the room changed. I wasn’t going to die,” she said. “He then decided to pretend like he was stealing jewelry or stealing bags, stealing my phone or whatnot. He started acting like an actual burglar, not a murderer.”

Rodney showed up shortly after the intruder left

Morgan stayed put on the deck with the pillowcase over her head and never heard the two car honks. Then Rodney arrived at her house about 40 minutes after her attacker fled, according to 48 Hours.

“I was just nervous that other people were sitting out there waiting for me, so I didn’t move at all,” Morgan told Fox 5 Atlanta.

She said Rodney ran over and asked her what happened and if she was okay.

“He was extremely shocked by what I looked like,” she recalled. “But not a shock of ‘Oh my gosh, who did this to you?’ but ‘Oh my gosh, look what I just did to her.’ ”

Rodney freed Morgan from her zip ties, then called 911 and consoled her until police arrived.

Both police and Morgan suspected Rodney was her attacker from the beginning

On 48 Hours, Morgan said she had a “feeling” Rodney was the masked intruder who assaulted her, noting that the way the attacker had picked her up and carried her felt “familiar” to how Rodney did when they were together.

Rodney told police that he raced to Morgan’s home after he heard someone tap on the window of his apartment and yelled her name. Investigators had serious doubts about Rodney’s story, and they also had some damning cellphone records already.

Fox 5 Atlanta reported that when Rodney was staying at Morgan’s home after they’d split, he took photos of her in the shower without her knowledge and was copying her text messages. Police arrested Rodney the same day for lying to investigators.

There was “overwhelming” evidence of Rodney’s guilt

Armed with search warrants for Rodney’s apartment, car and electronic devices, authorities found a treasure trove of evidence linking him to Morgan’s attack.

CBS News reported that when investigators searched Rodney’s home, they found an opened package of the same zip ties used to bind Morgan’s hands behind her back, with their crime lab confirming the ties were an exact match.

An officer used the bar code on the zip tie package to trace them to Lowe’s, then obtained security footage of Rodney purchasing the same zip ties from a nearby store on Dec. 30, 2020. What’s more, Rodney used his debit card for the purchase, making it even easier to tie him to the tools used in the attack.

In addition to physical evidence linking Rodney to the crime scene, he also had a copy of the book 7 Ways to Be Her Hero in his apartment, which authorities believed spoke to his motive to get her back. Even more alarming, Rodney’s internet search history included queries like “how to get sympathy from your ex” and “how to change the sound of your voice,” as well as “cancer letter from hospital.”

Fox 5 Atlanta reported that he also searched for “how long to choke someone unconscious” and that authorities found a forged hospital invoice and a suicide note in Rodney’s apartment.

Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Rachel Ashe told CBS News, “This is a prosecutor’s dream to put up because the evidence in this case was overwhelming.”

Rodney pleaded guilty to 14 counts

Assistant D.A. Ashe told 48 Hours that she spoke with Morgan about whether to offer Rodney a plea agreement or to take him to trial. They decided a plea deal would give Morgan a sense of closure more quickly, and Rodney accepted: He pleaded guilty to 14 counts.

On Aug. 4, 2021, a judge sentenced Rodney to 25 years in prison and 45 years of probation.

“This defendant planned a violent attack on his ex-wife that included breaking into her home, disguising himself and pistol-whipping her,” District Attorney Shannon Wallace said in a statement. “He left her outside on a cold winter night, face down, tied up with a pillowcase over her head. I cannot imagine how terrifying this must have been for her. This is a classic example of how the most dangerous time for a domestic violence victim is when she decides to leave an abusive relationship.”

Today, Morgan works to raise awareness for victims and survivors of psychological abuse and domestic violence.

“Everyone thought I had the perfect life,” Morgan told FOX 5 Atlanta. “We don’t lean on each other or necessarily give our friends the true light of what our life looks like. And I feel like if we did, we might be able to hear, ‘Oh, this isn’t healthy.’ ”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.

If you suspect domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.