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Canton mother of two brutally beaten in her own home
A masked intruder with a mechanically-altered voice nearly strangled to death this Canton mom, viciously pistol-whipping her while she struggled in her bed to fight him off. Then her ex-husband arrived to save her. Or did he
CANTON, Ga. - Canton resident Morgan Metzer said she woke up early New Year's Day to a masked man in her bedroom, his voice somehow mechanically altered. She said he zip-tied her hands and threw a pillowcase over her head after beating and choking her.
Her husband Rodney, who she recently divorced, came to her rescue. But Cherokee County Sheriff's Office investigators had doubts about Rodney Metzer's story as they talked to him New Year's morning. Rodney Metzer eventually pleaded guilty to all charges including kidnapping and aggravated assault.
On Sunday night, Discovery+ will air the next episode of its series, "Evil Lives Here," which is in its 12th season. The latest episode features Morgan Metzer, who the FOX 5 Atlanta I-Team interviewed in 2021 about her New Year's Day nightmare.
In a trailer cut with security footage that shows investigators interviewing Rodney Metzer, Morgan explains through tears why she believes her ex-husband's actions were pre-meditated.
"They found the zip ties in his apartment," Morgan Metzer says in the trailer for the episode. "They had found his computer that was showing he was Googling how to kill somebody."
The FOX 5 I-Team reached out to check in with Morgan Metzer but has not heard back.
Morgan Metzer describes New Year's Day assault, kidnapping
Morgan Metzer said her 2021 got off to a terrifying start.
She told the FOX 5 Atlanta I-Team she awoke to see a silhouette standing in her bedroom doorway. The person's voice was distorted.
"Every woman’s worse fear is to wake up to that," she said. "That voice still to this day just haunts me when I sleep."
She said she screamed, and the intruder beat her with a gun. She said she thought the intruder would shoot her, but then they began to strangle her — twice.
The intruder allegedly zip-tied Morgan’s hands behind her back, sexually assaulted her then put a pillowcase over her head before dumping her on a sofa on the back deck.
"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.’"
The intruder told her not to move until she heard a car horn honk twice. She said she never heard the signal.
Ex-husband Rodney Metzer plays ‘hero’
Morgan and Rodney Metzer were married for 10 years but divorced less than a month before the attack.
Morgan and her ex-husband Rodney had divorced one month before the attack but maintained a friendly relationship because of their 9-year-old twins. They were married for 10 years. Rodney had occasionally been to the home and spent the night on the couch, Morgan said.
Minutes after the attack, security cameras showed Rodney first going to the front door, then the back deck.
Morgan still had the pillowcase over her head.
"Instantly heard Rod’s voice — ‘Oh baby, what happened? What happened? I’m so sorry.’"
"He was extremely shocked by what I looked like," she remembered. "But not a shock of ‘Oh my gosh, who did this to you?’ but ‘Oh my gosh, look what I just did to her.’"
Investigation of Metzer assault, kidnapping
Cherokee County sheriff's investigators had doubts about Rodney Metzer's story as they talked to him early New Year's morning in 2021.
The intruder stole Morgan's cell phone, authorities said, to delete any of the security videos showing him getting into the house. But the system continued to record what happened afterward.
Once he freed Morgan, Rodney called 911. As they waited for deputies to arrive, the security video shows him sitting close to his hysterical ex-wife, putting his arm around her. Comforting her.
"He was choking me," Morgan told the first deputy on the scene. "Staring at me."
"Did you see his face?" the deputy asked as Rodney looked at her.
"No, he had something over it," Morgan told him.
As Cherokee County sheriff’s investigators arrived in those first hours of 2021, Rodney explained how he raced to check on Morgan after someone mysteriously tapped on his apartment window and yelled her name.
"Even though we’re not married I’m supposed to try to protect her," he explained.
The FOX 5 Atlanta I-Team reported investigators found images on Rodney’s cellphone showing he had been copying his ex-wife’s text messages, taking photos of her in the shower when she wasn’t looking during the time she had allowed him to sleep on the sofa.
Still, he stuck to his story: He was there because someone had threatened to hurt his ex-wife.
"I know what I know," he stressed. "I told my truth."
Investigators didn't believe him.
"There’s no way in Hell that somebody knocks on your window and said her name, and you immediately come over here because you’re going to check on her," Sgt. Robert Haugh told Rodney at the scene that night. "And she happens to be bound with a pillowcase over her head by a man who’s disguising his voice."
Authorities arrested Rodney Metzer for allegedly lying to investigators.
Deputies later found store security video that showed him buying the same zip ties authorities say were used to bind his ex-wife’s hands behind her back. They said an open bag of zip ties in his apartment matched the ones at the scene.
Rodney’s online search history included suspicious phrases: "how long to choke someone unconscious" and "how to change the sound of your voice."
They also found a suicide note and a forged hospital invoice used to trick Morgan into thinking he had cancer. That’s why she had earlier let him sleep on her sofa.
Rodney Metzer agreed to a 70-year sentence, 25 in prison.
Domestic violence conviction
The case is peculiar for many reasons, one being its resolution, according to the prosecutor who handled the case.
"Honestly, in a lot of domestic violence cases we don’t see this kind of sentencing," said Cherokee County assistant district attorney Rachel Ashe. "This was something that was so heinous and so egregious, that had he not agreed to that he could have been facing more than that."