In the early morning hours of New Year’s Day 2021, a Georgia woman woke up to a masked intruder in her bedroom.
What first seemed like a nightmare to Morgan Metzer quickly became real when the shadowy figure in the doorway suddenly lunged and attacked her.
The intruder, who disguised his voice to sound like Batman, restrained her with zip ties, beat her and sexually assaulted her before leaving her on the porch with a pillowcase over her head.
A short time after the attacker left, Morgan’s ex-husband, Rodney “Rod” Metzer, arrived at the house in what appeared to be an act of heroism.
But investigators soon uncovered shocking revelations that left them questioning whether Metzer was the hero of the story – or the villain.
Morgan’s harrowing attack is the focus of this week’s all-new 48 Hours episode, The Batman Intruder, which airs at 10/9c Saturday on CBS and Paramount+.
Night of the attack
Deputies with the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office responded to Morgan’s home in Canton, Georgia on the morning of January 1, 2021. They’d received a 911 call from her ex-husband who said he had discovered her tied up on the porch, according to an August 2021 release from the Office of the District Attorney for the Blue Ridge Judicial Circuit.
She recalled the harrowing attack to the authorities.
“I saw the shadow of a man’s body standing there, you know, all in black and just lit up by the light in the background,” she said. “He had a mask on.”
After the man jumped on her, “that’s when he started pistol-whipping me,” Morgan said.
As Morgan struggled, the intruder growled at her: “You’re gonna regret this, you’ve done really wrong now,” she recalled him saying, adding that he kept trying to make his voice low and gravelly.
“It was the sound of Batman’s voice,” she said.
The man then used zip ties to constrain her wrists before sexually assaulting her and strangling her nearly unconscious twice, she said.
Morgan was left on the back porch, which was connected to the bedroom, with a pillowcase over her head.
Ex-husband to the ‘rescue’
Morgan was on the porch for about 40 minutes when she heard someone walking toward her.
She worried the assailant had come back to finish her off, but this time, she heard a familiar voice. It was her ex-husband.
“Oh honey, what happened?” Morgan said he said to her.
The former couple had finalized their divorce just weeks before the attack, ending a 20-year marriage. Morgan said the decision to file for divorce came after years of what she described as mental and physical abuse from her husband.
Metzer had moved out of the house and into his own apartment but the two continued to co-parent their nine-year-old twins, who were spending a few days with Morgan’s sister in Florida when the attack happened.
Despite the divorce, Morgan said that her ex was constantly trying to get back together with her. But she told him she had no interest in reconciling.
Just days before the attack, Morgan said he called her with shocking news that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
“And so I rushed to go see him,” Morgan told 48 hours. “He showed me doctors’ notes and whatnot.”
She then invited him to stay at their house to help him cope with his diagnosis.
“I needed to be supportive still because it’s the father of my children,” she explained.
But on the morning of New Year’s Eve, a day before the attack, she told him that he needed to tell his parents about his diagnosis, which sparked an argument.
“He said, ‘No, absolutely not. I’m not telling anybody.’ And that’s when I was like, ‘OK, get out,’” Morgan recalled to 48 Hours.
Metzer left the house, but continued to text her throughout the day. Morgan became fed up with his antics so she said she lied to him about going to stay at her parents’ home that night for New Year’s Eve.
After the attack, investigators questioned both Morgan and Metzer at the scene.
Metzer told police that after Morgan ordered him to leave, he did, and had planned on spending the night at his apartment. But then he heard someone knock on his window and say Morgan’s name. Worried about her, he said he called but there was no answer. So he drove to her house to check on her.
When asked why he didn’t go to her parents’ house, where she said she’d be, he claimed that he drove to her home out of habit.
Investigators became suspicious of Metzer’s story as they looked into how he knew Morgan was at her home that night when she said otherwise, as well as the coincidental timing of his arrival just after the attack.
And then things took a bizarre turn.
An unexpected twist
After questioning the couple at the scene, investigators ordered search warrants for Metzer’s apartment, car, and his cell phone and laptop.
What they found was a slew of odd internet searches on his browsing history.
The searches included, “How to get sympathy from your ex” and “How to change the sound of your voice.”
Other searches included, “How long before you starve to death” and “how long it takes to choke someone unconscious.”
There was one search that really stood out to investigators: “cancer letter from hospital.”
Investigators then discovered that Metzer had created a fake email account and posed as a doctor in order to send himself the cancer diagnosis letter that he had shown Morgan.
“He had created a bill for a doctor’s office to show that he was being treated for pancreatic cancer,” said Rachel Ashe, the deputy chief assistant district attorney for Cherokee County.
She said that Metzer “did all of this in order to convince Morgan that he had pancreatic cancer” and that it was “in an attempt to gain sympathy from his ex-wife.”
Investigators said he had “created a convoluted plan that the investigators in this case and our office truly believe involved a plot to kill her and then himself,” and that “when he couldn’t go through with that plan, he instead devised a new plan to rescue her.”
The investigation found that it was Metzer who had attacked Morgan in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day.
A handgun was found in his car and zip ties that matched the ones used in the assault were found in his apartment.
Investigators also obtained surveillance footage showing Metzer purchasing zip ties from Lowe’s Home Improvement.
Where is Rodney Metzer now?
Rodney Metzer pleaded guilty to 14 counts related to the attack, including kidnapping, sexual battery and aggravated assault, according to court records.
He was sentenced to 70 years in prison, with the first 25 years to be served in confinement and the remaining 45 years on probation.
Metzer remains behind bars at the Augusta State Medical Prison in Grovetown, Georgia, according to online records from the Georgia Department of Corrections.
The ‘Batman’ Intruder airs at 10/9c Saturday on CBS and Paramount+.
