[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
What a horrifying twist ending to this poor woman’s real-life nightmare…
A new Lifetime movie starring Jana Kramer hit televisions and streaming services over the weekend, telling the horrifying story of Morgan Metzer, who barely survived a scary home invasion. The shocking part of this woman’s story, though, is that it was all too real! And it starts when her marriage to her now ex-husband Rodney Metzer started falling apart.
While speaking to The US Sun before the release of Gaslit By My Husband, Morgan broke down what exactly happened between her and Rodney, and where it all started to go wrong. Married in 2001, the childhood sweethearts went through a devastating loss when one of their children died of congenital heart failure just weeks after being born in 2011. While mourning the loss of their baby, the husband — who was a financial trader — also lost a huge sum of his inheritance that year.
Eventually, the pair were able to give birth to twins, but it didn’t fix the deep-rooted problems this couple was already dealing with. Eventually it led to them filing for divorce in December 2020, but this is where Morgan said things changed with Rodney:
“He got stalkerish, real fast.”
At the time, she said he’d make “weird” comments and ask her out on dates despite their estrangement. He still had hopes of winning her back, she figured, but she was not on the same page. The couple went to Florida that year around Christmastime to drop their kiddos with some family to “show them we were a united front.” But when they got back home, she says, this is when Rodney really snapped.
Related: ‘Bogeyman’ Burglar Found Hiding Under Little Boy’s Bed — And Wearing His Clothes!
He called his estranged wife and told her he’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer — a total bombshell! But the bigger shock? It wasn’t true. She would come to find out all of it was part of a huge web of lies he’d woven:
“He even forged the documents. It was his last straw to try and get me back.”
On the night before New Year’s Eve 2020, Morgan let her ex crash on the couch. But she was determined to start 2021 with a new life, so she kicked him out on New Year’s Eve. She went to bed early that night, rang in the new year when she was awoken by fireworks just before midnight, and went back to sleep. Thirty minutes into 2021, though, she heard a creak and rolled over to find someone standing in her doorway…
A masked home invader who was using a voice distorter that “sounded like something out of Batman” jumped into action. She recalled:
“A downstairs lamp was on so there was light coming from behind him. I screamed so loud, it’s a scream that I don’t think I can ever do again. It was so painful. Soon enough, he was on top of me.”
So creepy! And here’s where things get truly horrific. He started beating her with a pistol, and with each blow she was left wondering if this could be Rodney or someone else — but those thoughts didn’t stay in her head for long. She was more concerned with her life:
“At that point, I knew I was going to die.”
The invader reportedly punched her and beat her for HALF AN HOUR before he started to strangle her. She said adrenaline made the blows given to her body less painful, thankfully, but “the strangling was the worst feeling in the world”. She could only see her attacker’s eyes, so she couldn’t identify him, as “he was wearing a mask which made him look like Batman, it even had the ears which angled up a bit”. (Something tells us the Lifetime movie is going to leave out the trademarked Warner Bros character.)
Morgan identified her assailant without seeing his face before he left, though. She recalled he said on his way out that she was going to miss her family and husband:
“That’s when I went, ‘Wow, it’s him.’ Why would somebody randomly say you’re going to miss your husband?”
The attacker dragged a half-naked Morgan outside and destroyed any potential evidence against him before fleeing the scene. Coincidentally, Rodney showed up a little over an hour after the attacker broke in. He claimed someone told him about a break-in at his ex wife’s house:
“I had told him that night that I was going to be at my parents’ house. So why would he come to the house?”
WILD!
Why would someone tell him instead of immediately going to the cops?? Why wouldn’t he go to the cops after hearing someone broke in?? This guy was digging himself a hole already!
Morgan vehemently accused her ex-husband of being the attacker, which caused him to panic as cops arrived. It didn’t take long for police to put together the pieces, and Rodney was arrested within hours. Despite the emotional turmoil of being attacked by a man she’d known and loved since she was a child, as well as watching the father of her children be dragged away for such a heinous crime, she admitted she found some solace in him being unmasked, so to speak:
“No one had ever believed he was a bad person, it was a relief. He would always blame stuff on me too, to make me think like I was in the wrong. That was the gaslighting … Finally everyone could see his true colors.”
After being arrested, Rodney was hit with a whopping EIGHT felony charges, and was originally looking at 70 years behind bars before a guilty plea got him reduced to 25 years. Morgan recalled having to explain to her children “dad had done something bad”. The entire ordeal left her with permanent scars, as she said:
“The first few months, I didn’t sleep at all, period. I would sit in the corner of my son’s room and just stare at that doorway. Doorways scare me now. If there’s someone that stands in the middle of a doorway it triggers me so bad … I probably kept [my kids] home from school probably way more than I should have.”
Heartbreaking… We can’t imagine the betrayal and emotions she was feeling. You think you know someone…
Morgan has been continually working with a therapist, as well as finding some relief in telling her story in the movie. She’s also working on a book:
“I want to raise awareness for people who are suffering silently. I want women to learn to speak in a circle together of people they trust. I didn’t realize how toxic my situation was, and how much lighter life could be.”
Absolutely unimaginable. We’re so glad Morgan got out of that situation and lived to tell her story. We hope she continues to heal and find peace amidst all the turmoil.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available. Consider calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788, or go to https://www.thehotline.org/.
[Image via Cherokee County Sheriff]
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