That’s Sar’s best friend. We were going to have a glass of wine, stay inside, and just chill. We’re going to stay there and watch the ball drop together. But I left early. I was like, we never get to, you know, hang out. And >> just imagine this for a second. It’s New Year’s Eve, a quiet, peaceful night.
Somewhere out there, people are celebrating, lighting fireworks, laughing, living their lives. And at that exact same moment, in a dark house, a woman wakes up because she feels someone standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Silence. And then this slow, heavy, messed up breathing. She sees a figure dressed in black.
Someone who didn’t come to steal, didn’t come to scare her, but to break her. His voice is low, inhuman, like, you know, a glitching phone speaker. His hands are cold, cold like death itself. And when those plastic zip ties snap shut around her wrists, she realizes this might literally be the night she doesn’t survive.
He strangles her until she passes out, drags her into the darkness, undresses her, leaves her on the cold floor like she’s some kind of trophy, and then he disappears like he was never even there. But the scariest part isn’t even what he did. The real horror is who was hiding under that mask. Who stood in the dark holding her life in his hands? Who looked at her with the same eyes she once called her safe place.
This story isn’t about random evil. It’s about a monster who walked around wearing a human face and a woman who had to survive her own personal hell just to finally speak the truth. Before we even get into the story, I just got to ask you please support the channel, hit that subscribe button, give this video a like, and you know, if you want to go ahead and share it.
It seriously helps this project grow and lets us make even more investigations. And while you’re watching, drop a comment. Tell me what city you’re watching from and what the weather’s like over there. All right, now let’s get into the story. And trust me, this one is chilling. So, the case we’re talking about today happened on the night of January 1st, 2021 in Canton, Georgia, a quiet, peaceful little neighborhood.
Around 2:00 in the morning, a man named Rodney Mzer showed up at the home of his ex-wife, Morgan. He walked up to the front door and knocked, but nobody answered. So Rodney went around the house calling out her name. He thought he heard something in the backyard, and the moment he stepped toward the back door, he saw Morgan standing on the porch, partly undressed, her hands tied behind her back and a pillowcase pulled over her head.
He rushed up to his ex-wife trying to untie her hands, asking what happened. When he realized she’d been attacked, Rodney immediately called 911. >> >> When officers arrived, they found a woman who had been brutally beaten. Morgan told them she’d woken up in the middle of the night and saw a stranger standing in the doorway of her bedroom, his face hidden behind a mask.
The attacker hit her with the butt of a gun, kept beating her, and tried to strangle her. At one point, Morgan lost consciousness because she couldn’t breathe. And when she came to, she realized the intruder was still right there. While she was unconscious, he had undressed her and assaulted her helpless body.
He not only threatened to kill Morgan, he also mentioned her ex-husband. And even though detectives listened to her story carefully, they still felt something off. Something wasn’t adding up. Morgan Metser was a young mom of twins. She owned a successful business. She didn’t have enemies, no drama, no threats. So, like, why would someone do something this horrific to her? Who would even have a reason? But police figured out the truth pretty fast, and what they uncovered shocked everyone because nothing was what it seemed.
Morgan and Rodney Metser had been together for almost two decades. They met when Morgan was only 14 and Rodney was 17. It was literally love at first sight. They were young, overwhelmed with all those big feelings, and things between them moved fast. They seemed perfect for each other. Rodney called her his princess and tried to treat her like one.
Everyone around them thought they were the dream couple, so no one was surprised when in 2010 they decided to get married. By that time, they had been together for a few years already. Morgan was 21, Rodney was 24, young, in love, newly married. They went on their honeymoon, and everything seemed great.
But when they came back home, they got hit with that classic post-wedding crash, the sadness, the emptiness. After all, the excitement from the outside, their marriage looked totally fine. But that happiness didn’t last long. In reality, the Mets were about to face one blow after another. Less than a year after the wedding, Rodney’s younger brother died from leukemia.
He was only 19, and Rodney changed completely after that. He never recovered from the tragedy. It felt like life was piling every possible hardship onto this young couple. The next year, on March 15th, 2011, their first child was born, a son named Kevin, after Rodney’s late brother. But the baby had a congenital heart defect.
He lived a little over 2 weeks. Morgan later said that during that time she felt like she was walking through fog. She can barely remember anything. Too many tragedies hit them in such a short amount of time. And it didn’t stop there. 3 months after baby Kevin passed away. The couple learned they were expecting again twins this time. It felt like a second chance.
In 2012, the twins were born. After everything they had gone through, this should have been the happiest time in Morgan and Rodney’s lives. But it wasn’t. The tension between them kept growing. Raising two newborns at the same time was unbelievably hard. The parents were exhausted emotionally and physically.
And even though from the outside they still looked like the perfect couple, the psychological abuse inside that home had already started to grow. Looking back, Morgan later admitted that Rodney had always been a manipulator and a gaslighter. The term gaslighting refers to a form of psychological abuse and manipulation where one person constantly makes the other doubt their own feelings, memories, emotions, and even their sanity.
And that was the moment she finally realized what had been happening. Because they met so young, she used to brush off Rodney’s strange behavior as, you know, little quirks. She didn’t want to take off the rosecolored glasses, and she didn’t have any experience dating other men to compare it with. But once the kids came into the picture, Morgan finally understood the tragedy of her choice.
Rodney blamed her for literally everything. For example, he’d yell at her for forgetting to pick up the kids from daycare, even though he had said he would do it the day before. No matter what happened, Morgan always ended up being the one at fault. And after hearing it over and over again, she started believing she was a bad wife and a bad mother.
That was the beginning of the end of their marriage. When the twins turned two years old, Rodney lost his job. And even though he picked up some odd jobs here and there, his main focus was flipping and selling things, which honestly ended up losing him a lot of money. And at the same time, while his career was falling apart, Morgan’s life was going in the opposite direction.
Everything was finally going right for her. She opened her own interior design studio and quickly became the main provider in the family. Her business was doing so well that she even hired a small team, including her best friend Nicole. And she ended up winning a city award for best interior design in 2020. But the more successful Morgan became, the worse Rodney acted, the darkest parts of his personality started crawling to the surface.
Physical and psychological abuse became way more obvious. And the weirdest thing, Rodney always tried to look like the good guy. I team 7D. At least in public, he defended women’s rights, talked trash about men who were aggressive, and acted like he’d never hurt anyone. But now, he was becoming the aggressor himself.
One weekend, the Metsers were on a lake trip with friends when an argument broke out. To avoid ruining the vacation for the other couples, Morgan and Rodney went back to their cabin and the fight kept going. That night, Rodney hit his wife for the very first time. It was a complete shock for Morgan. It went against everything Rodney claimed to believe in.
He used to refuse to even watch movies if he knew the main character got beaten up. After that incident in the cabin, Morgan realized he had crossed a line you can’t uncross. Before the abuse had been yelling and blaming. Now it was fists. She knew she had to get out. She called her father and asked him to pick her and the kids up.
The strange thing was when their family and friends found out what happened, Rodney denied everything somehow. And oh my god, this is the scary part. He managed to convince their relatives and close friends that he hadn’t done anything. He claimed Morgan had injured herself. According to him, she got so emotional during the argument that she had a meltdown, started screaming, and supposedly hit herself in the face.
The only way he could have hurt her, he claimed, was by holding her too tightly while trying to calm her down, which he said might have caused bruising. Even though Morgan was tiny and fragile, Rodney insisted she acted like she was possessed, like she went crazy during the argument. And the worst part, he managed to convince Morgan herself that his version was true.
Not immediately, but slowly over time, she began believing she had somehow caused her own injuries during an emotional breakdown, and that he, the loving husband, was only trying to help her. Morgan’s best friend, who knew exactly what kind of manipulator Rodney was, felt devastated and honestly terrified for her. She didn’t know what to do or how to help.
And from that point on, Morgan’s life just started falling apart. She began doubting her own reality because Rodney kept telling her that every single problem in the family was her fault. He would start a fight and then insist that Morgan had provoked him. He also tried to convince the kids that their mom was a bad person, that she was aggressive, toxic, and only cared about herself.
During one argument, Rodney slipped and fell down the stairs. He told the kids and their relatives that Morgan had pushed him. Morgan started feeling like she was losing her mind. She knew she hadn’t done anything wrong, but Rodney kept telling her that the fall wasn’t an accident, that she really had pushed him, and then blocked it out because she supposedly didn’t want to face what she’d done.
Their family life was collapsing. Rodney controlled every step Morgan took, humiliated her, and refused to accept the word no. And if she tried to turn him down intimately, he forced her into it. No one knows how far it would have gone. But in 2020, Morgan finally understood she had to save herself and her kids.
She gathered her strength and filed for divorce, which became official in December. After the separation, she finally felt a sense of peace and started moving forward. But that didn’t mean Rodney was gone from her life completely. They still had children together. Even though they weren’t living under the same roof anymore, they tried to keep things friendly for the kid’s sake.
Right before Christmas, Morgan and Rodney drove to Florida together to drop the kids off with relatives and keep up the image of a united front. Even though Rodney clearly wanted more than just an image, they talked calmly, no fights, no tension. And then on the very first day of the new year, he found his ex-wife beaten on the back porch of her home.
Morgan Mzer had originally planned to spend New Year’s Eve at her best friend Nicole’s house. They wanted to drink some wine, make snacks, and just hang out while the kids were with family. But after a couple of glasses, Morgan started feeling really tired and decided to head home. >> That’s her best friend. We were going to have a glass of wine, stay inside, and just chill.
we’re going to stay there and watch the ball drop together, but I left early. I was like, we never get to, you know, hang out. And >> she explained that because of the twins, she was constantly sleepdeprived and could literally fall asleep at any moment. Of course, Nicole tried to talk her out of leaving at first, but eventually agreed that honestly, the best cure for stress and anxiety is just real sleep.
Her friend understood perfectly this year had drained Morgan completely. constant fights with her husband, the divorce, and two eight-year-old kids who needed non-stop attention. With a heavy heart, Nicole let Morgan go, promising they’d meet up again soon. Morgan headed home. She was so exhausted that she didn’t even want to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Instead, she went straight to bed.
At exactly midnight, she woke up to fireworks and distant cheers from neighbors celebrating outside. Morgan kissed her dog, jokingly wished herself a happy new year, rolled over, and fell asleep again. The next thing she remembered was suddenly waking up with the terrifying feeling that someone else was in the room.
Barely opening her eyes, she scanned the bedroom and saw a dark figure standing in the doorway. Her eyes snapped open in fear when she realized a tall stranger dressed completely in black was standing there. Even his mask looked like something out of Batman. He stood perfectly still like a statue with his fists clenched. His face was hidden.
The hallway light only revealed his outline. Morgan screamed so loud she scared herself. But before she could do anything, the man lunged at her, hit her across the face with the butt of a gun, flipped her onto her stomach, and cinched plastic zip ties around her wrists. It was obvious those restraints were prepared ahead of time specifically for her.
The stranger barely spoke, but then he said Morgan had done something bad and that she was going to regret it. He said it all in this weird, distorted voice. It was clear he was trying to disguise his tone, so she couldn’t recognize him like he was using some kind of voice changer. Maybe Morgan did know this person, but she had no time to think the blows just kept coming.
Then the attacker grabbed her by the throat and started squeezing. She blacked out, and when she came to, she realized her body had been violated while she was unconscious. The only thought running through her mind at that moment was, “Who’s going to take care of my kids if I die?” Morgan didn’t have a will.
She had never talked to her parents about anything like that. Her twins didn’t even understand what death was. She wasn’t ready to die. And maybe that’s exactly what saved her. Morgan tried to mentally detach from what was happening. To push away the helplessness and shame. She searched for a way to escape and tried to understand who could have done this.
Her mind felt like a computer with a thousand open tabs and none of them were loading. The truth was Morgan couldn’t name a single person who would come to her house and torture her. But one thought aided her. What if she actually knew the attacker? Something about the way he moved felt familiar. And worse, he knew specific details about her life.
Even though Morgan was home alone, the intruder told her she would miss her husband and kids at a nature. And right at that moment, something clicked. She knew exactly who was hiding under that Batman mask. Without a single doubt, it was Rodney, her ex-husband. Every new phrase he said in that altered voice only strengthened her suspicion.
And that realization is what helped her stay alive. Morgan didn’t let him see that she recognized him. Instead, she started begging him not to hurt her husband because she still loved him. It worked instantly. The attacker loosened his grip. His aggression just melted away. He even started handling her more gently.
And in that moment, Morgan realized she was going to survive. Finally, the attacker backed away from her and started rumaging through the room, searching for anything valuable. He opened drawers, checked the closets, and then demanded Morgan’s phone so he could access the security system and delete the footage from the cameras around the house.
After messing with the system and turning the whole place upside down, the intruder grabbed a pillowcase and pulled it over her head. Then he lifted her off the bed and led her into the backyard, ordering her to lie still and not move until she heard a car horn. Her hands were tied behind her back, and she was still partially undressed.
She couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t tell whether the man in the Batman suit had left or whether he was standing just a few feet away watching her, so she stayed there waiting for a signal. The pillowcase over her face made it impossible to turn her head. Time dragged on painfully slow. She had no idea if a minute had passed or hours.
The Metser house was in a pretty isolated area. Sure, the surroundings were beautiful rolling hills, great for taking the kids on walks, but there were no neighbors nearby. And for the first time ever, Morgan regretted living so far from everyone else. More than half an hour passed before she finally heard a sound. Footsteps.
Someone was approaching the back porch. Morgan tensed up, terrified that she’d been wrong, and the attacker had returned to finish what he started. But then she heard Rodney’s voice, her ex-husband, who sounded genuinely scared for the mother of his children. After a brief, panicked explanation from Morgan, Rodney called 911 and said his ex-wife had been attacked, that he found her beaten, tied up, and with a pillowcase over her head.
While they waited for the police, Rodney comforted her as she had a full-blown breakdown. She kept begging him not to leave her alone, and he honestly looked thrilled at the idea that Morgan still needed him, still loved him, still wanted his protection. But Morgan’s mind was somewhere else completely because now she was more than certain that Rodney was the one who attacked her.
Disguised in that Batman costume, Morgan didn’t want the police wasting time searching for a stranger who didn’t exist. The officers dispatched to the Metser home arrived at around 2:00 in the morning. And right away, Rodney’s behavior seemed off to them. The coincidence was just too perfect. How convenient that her ex-husband happened to show up at her house right after she was attacked.
When detectives questioned him, he explained that he’d been at his apartment since the divorce had just become official. Then he claimed someone tapped on his window and said Morgan’s name. Rodney looked outside but saw no one. And for some reason that spooked him. He tried calling Morgan but she didn’t answer.
That worried him even more, so he decided to drive over and check on her. It wasn’t difficult. Rodney lived only 12 minutes away from her home. And even though they were divorced, he said she was still important to him. A quick medical assessment made it obvious the attacker wasn’t some random burglar. The assault was violent, emotional, clearly committed by someone who had a personal connection to Morgan.
She had been beaten badly. Her face was struck multiple times. One eye was completely swollen shut. And the sexual assault showed that this crime was deeply personal. As soon as Morgan was alone with detectives, she told them exactly what she suspected. her ex-husband, her supposed hero, was actually the attacker.
Even though he had used a device to disguise his voice, Morgan recognized his words. The attacker told her she would miss her husband. And the second she played along, his entire behavior changed. And there was more. When the attacker lifted her from the bed to drag her outside, the movement felt familiar.
When she was pregnant with the twins, Rodney helped her up from bed the exact same way. She recognized his touch. They had been together for almost two decades. She knew her husband’s body language. And when Rodney suddenly reappeared in front of her as the rescuer, Morgan was terrified to let him know she had figured him out because if he realized she recognized him, she knew he wouldn’t have let her live.
Divorce, emotionally speaking, can feel a lot like the tragic death of someone close. It’s a brutal experience for both people, no matter who initiates it. But it becomes especially dangerous for the partner who suddenly loses control over the person they’ve spent years manipulating and breaking down. And that’s the moment when a woman is at the highest risk the moment she finally tries to leave her abuser.
In the last weeks of December 2020, Rodney kept getting hit with one awful piece of news after another. First, the divorce, then he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. His younger brother had died from leukemia and his father had also been diagnosed with cancer. All of this hit Rodney like a wave and he sank into despair.
He called his ex-wife and told her about the diagnosis. He even showed her the medical report. Morgan genuinely felt sorry for him and tried to help. She even allowed him to sleep on the couch in her living room because someone she once loved was in deep depression and desperately needed emotional support. That kindness made Rodney believe he’d made a mistake agreeing to the divorce.
He begged Morgan to come back to give him another chance, but Morgan told him she wasn’t interested and asked him to leave. She suggested he talk to his parents about everything because she no longer wanted to be his emotional crutch. their relationship was over and she didn’t want to give him false hope. After that conversation, Rodney returned to his apartment, but he didn’t calm down.
He kept texting Morgan over and over, insisting they needed to get back together for the kids, telling her she had to take him back. He even promised to financially support the whole family and suggested Morgan quit her job. But that was the last thing she wanted, especially after finally gaining independence.
And besides, Morgan loved her work. On New Year’s Eve, Rodney went to her house while she was at Nicole’s, and slid an envelope with a check for $60,000 under her door. Before that, he took a picture of the check, sent it to Morgan, and wrote that she deserved everything he had. But that check was never found in the house because the burglar had taken it.
Before this, Morgan had told her ex that she was spending New Year’s at her parents’ place. She even warned him she would turn off her phone if he didn’t stop messaging her. So, the check for that huge amount was nothing more than a trap, a way to lure her back home. Later, police checked Rodney’s accounts and discovered he didn’t even have that kind of money.
The check was fake and other manipulation. What Morgan feared most was that detectives wouldn’t believe her, that they’d dismiss her suspicion and treat her like she was exaggerating. This woman had spent years doubting herself. Rodney was a master manipulator. he could convince anyone, including her friends and even her family, that Morgan was unstable, aggressive, and emotionally uncontrollable.
She was shocked when the officers actually agreed with her. In that moment, she felt like she melted from relief. Someone finally listened. Someone finally believed her. That hadn’t happened in years. Nobody had seen what she’d been going through. Nobody had heard her truth. Detectives decided to dig into Rodney’s story.
First, they seized his phone and found a folder full of photos of Morgan. In some she was partially undressed, in others completely naked. She wasn’t looking at the camera and clearly had no idea she was being photographed. It turned out the pictures were taken during the week Rodney had been sleeping on the couch at her house.
He had secretly taken them on his phone while she showered or got dressed. And it got worse. He had also been checking her phone without permission, reading her messages, and photographing her screen. When Morgan learned this from the police, she was shocked. She was burning with anger toward her ex-husband. Even though Morgan had spoken up and even though police already suspected Rodney Metser, they still didn’t have solid proof that he was the one who staged the New Year’s Eve attack.
To stop him from destroying any potential evidence, officers arrested him for invasion of privacy for secretly photographing Morgan without her consent. Meanwhile, the investigation kept moving. Detectives got a search warrant for Rodney’s apartment and his car, and what they found tied him directly to the crime.
Inside his vehicle, they found a gun in his apartment. Plastic zip ties identical to the ones used during the attack. Investigators also recovered surveillance footage from a store where Rodney bought those exact zip ties. He purchased his future handcuffs on December 30th, about 36 hours before the attack, paying with his debit card, even though later he claimed he didn’t buy anything at all.
Another major piece of evidence came from his internet search history. Rodney had looked up things like how long it takes a person to die from starvation, how to change your voice, and how long it takes to strangle someone until they lose consciousness. Detectives also found a book in his apartment titled Seven Ways to Become the Man She Wants You to Be.
All of it showed premeditation a carefully planned attack. The only thing taken from Morgan’s home was her phone because that was the only way to delete video recordings from the security cameras on her property. A random intruder wouldn’t know how to access those recordings unless he was very familiar with the system.
It also turned out that Rodney’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis was fake. Just another manipulation meant to gain Morgan’s sympathy. He invented the entire thing. After his arrest, Rodney claimed he had only been trying to save the family. When the divorce became official, Morgan started pulling away from him and he didn’t want to lose her completely.
Police believed Rodney had several goals the night he attacked her. First, he wanted her to feel unsafe without him. Second, he wanted to be her hero, but countless cases show that when someone tries to force their way back into an exartner’s life, things can turn deadly, and Morgan’s story could have ended in a much darker way.
Once detectives reviewed all the evidence, they realized Rodney’s plan was far more disturbing than they first thought. He didn’t deny searching online for ways to change his voice, but he tried to explain it by saying he thought his real voice didn’t sound manly enough. Eight. He pretended to be shocked by what happened to Morgan.
He kept telling police he had nothing to do with it because he was, in his words, a very kind and gentle person. The assistant district attorney later called Rodney Mzer a master manipulator. In the days leading up to the attack, he forged medical records and faked cancer to regain Morgan’s sympathy. When that didn’t work, he created an elaborate plan to take her life.
The attack could have been even more brutal. Investigators found a disturbing note that suggested Rodney originally planned to kill his ex-wife and then take his own life afterward. He didn’t care that their children would be left without parents. For some reason, he abandoned that original plan, possibly at the moment when he heard Morgan say she still loved him.
After that, Rodney switched to his hero rescue storyline. Fortunately, sheriff’s detectives saw through the entire act. A surveillance camera at Rodney’s apartment complex filmed him returning home shortly after the attack. He looked exhausted, disheveled, and clearly in a hurry. A few minutes later, the man appeared on camera again, but now he looked completely different.
Clean clothes, a bag in his hand. Maybe that bag held evidence he got rid of on the way. Those items were never found. Eventually, Rodney Metser was hit with a long list of charges, including sexual assault, kidnapping, home invasion, firearm possession, and aggravated domestic violence. He was held without bail. People who knew Rodney were stunned.
His mother, whom he called 2 days after his arrest, was absolutely shocked and refused to believe her son could be accused of something like this. And Rodney himself kept telling her he would never do something like that and that he honestly didn’t understand why Morgan did this to him. He insisted she falsely accused him even though according to him, he only came there to save her.
And the truth is, once the worst was over, Morgan started doubting herself. Even after police had solid, undeniable evidence, she still found herself questioning everything. Years of manipulation had trained her to blame herself. She kept thinking, “What if it really wasn’t him? What if someone else did this?” She genuinely struggled to accept that the man she spent so many years with had tried to end her life.
The twins were still with their relatives in Florida. Morgan didn’t want the children to see her bruised, and she wasn’t ready to answer the questions they would definitely ask. She also needed time to prepare for a very serious conversation. How do you explain to two little kids that their father won’t be around anymore? They were only about 9 years old and losing their dad like that would be painful.
Even though Morgan survived, the emotional aftermath was devastating. She couldn’t sleep for months. She kept having nightmares hearing that distorted mechanical voice, seeing the man in the Batmanike suit suddenly morph into her ex-husband. In the first weeks after the attack, she often kept her kids at home instead of taking them to school simply because she was terrified to be alone in the house and needed the twins close to her.
At first, Rodney tried convincing police he was innocent, manipulating them the same way he’d manipulated Morgan for years. But to avoid a long trial and wrap up the case faster, he was offered a plea deal. Of course, he accepted. Eight months after the attack on August 4th, 2021, Rodney Metszer plead guilty to 14 charges connected to the assault on Morgan and the secret photos he had taken without her consent.
During the hearing, Morgan finally had the chance to say everything she had kept bottled up for years. Her statement about how the crime impacted her became her way of showing the world who Rodney truly was, to finally open people’s eyes because for years, no one noticed his manipulations and no one believed he could be a dangerous person.
Morgan said that as horrifying as the attack was, it finally revealed his true face. And in a painful way, that attack became her first step toward a new free life. Rodney Mzer was sentenced to 70 years in prison with 25 years to be served behind bars and the rest under supervision. According to the plea agreement, he refused visits for a long time because he was ashamed of what he’d done.
He was especially ashamed toward his parents. They had already lost their younger son to leukemia. And Rodney’s fake cancer story forced them to relive those old wounds. Mzer has lived with type 1 diabetes for years, and since he’s been in prison, his health has gotten significantly worse. As for Morgan, she started rebuilding her life.
She went to therapy, focused on raising her children, and dedicated a lot of time to helping others who’ve lived through similar trauma. Her story was adapted into a film called My Husband is Stalking Me, and another one titled My Gaslighter Husband, The Morgan Metser Story. Morgan wants to share her painful experience with as many people as possible.
She still receives letters from women who survived similar abuse and she tries to help them rebuild their lives. And hey, if you watch this video all the way to the end, you’re a real true crime fan. Hit subscribe, turn on notifications, and drop a like. I’ll see you in the next video.
