Speaker 1: The cheerleaders at a gym in Buffalo have been recording
Speaker 1: themselves to make a new documentary where the news reporters
Speaker 1: because one year ago a mass shooting changed their lives.
Speaker 1: He just walked around shot all the black people. The
Speaker 1: cheer squad, most of whom are black, had to figure
Speaker 1: out how to go on and how to compete. I
Speaker 1: wanted to win for them more than anything this season.
Speaker 1: Listen to the embedded podcast from NPR within the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carol Fisher and
Speaker 1: I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends. It's Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: it's the nineteen nineties, and it is time to find
Speaker 1: a husband. There were four Jewish doctors who were felt
Speaker 1: to be eligible bachelors. One of them was of the
Speaker 1: Baron bat On paper, he was perfect, but in reality,
Speaker 1: this guy's a wacko. He shouted to the point went unconscious.
Speaker 1: I would call him and I would say, I know
Speaker 1: you killed my sister. You can listen to The Girlfriends
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. On the Best Podcast Ever with Raven and Miranda,
Speaker 1: join Raven, Simone and her partner Miranda may Day as
Speaker 1: they and celebrity guests like Demi Levado and Megan Trainer
Speaker 1: engage in unusual conversations. Every episode will spin a wheel
Speaker 1: of random words, from things like animosity to something like
Speaker 1: zodiac and whatever it lands on, that's what we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about for around an hour. Think we can
Speaker 1: do it, well, then you've never heard us talk. Listen
Speaker 1: to the best podcast ever with Raven and Miranda on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Bad Manners. This is the podcast that
Speaker 1: takes you inside Britain's stately homes and tells all the
Speaker 1: tales the guy books don't. My name is Tom Horton
Speaker 1: and I'll be your host where I'm on a mission
Speaker 1: to find out the frightening, filthy and downright jaw dropping
Speaker 1: stories of these stately homes and the people in there.
Speaker 1: Listened to Bad Manners on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Piked
Speaker 1: and Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. There
Speaker 1: were always these rumors about Michael Moran and the women
Speaker 1: that he was around and the circles he ran in.
Speaker 1: This guy trafficking women all over the country from this
Speaker 1: little town. It's known as the epicenter of the opioid epidemic.
Speaker 1: It was public knowledge that was the crazy thing. Everybody
Speaker 1: knew the rumors and had known somebody that knew somebody
Speaker 1: that had worked for him. She left papers and it
Speaker 1: said Michael Moran's name, his cell phone number. I had
Speaker 1: all this information that really impacted our area, and so
Speaker 1: this could have brought a lot of closure to these
Speaker 1: families who were being told nothing by our local officials,
Speaker 1: in our local enforcehood. This is the piked and massacre.
Speaker 1: Returned to Pike Season two, Episode seven, twenty five Miles South.
Speaker 1: I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at Katie Studios with
Speaker 1: Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane. In episode five of this season,
Speaker 1: we explored the allegations of corruption and the subsequent arrest
Speaker 1: of Pike County Share of Charlie Reader. But his story
Speaker 1: is just one of many that has illuminated alleged abuses
Speaker 1: of power perpetrated by those involved in Southern Ohio's criminal
Speaker 1: justice system. So in this episode, we want to focus
Speaker 1: on another case that has long affected a community just
Speaker 1: twenty five miles south of Piketon, in a town called Portsmouth, Ohio.
Speaker 1: In twenty fifteen, a reporter named Nicki Blankenship began investigating
Speaker 1: rumors of human trafficking in the town. Like many small
Speaker 1: Ohio towns, Portsmouth has a long, rich history of industrial might,
Speaker 1: preceding an era of rapid urban decay. Here's James Pilcher,
Speaker 1: a reporter for Local twelve News and Cincinnati, speaking with
Speaker 1: our producer Chris Graves. Portsmouth is the county seat of
Speaker 1: Theodore County, which fit's right below Pike County, so it's
Speaker 1: about thirty to forty five minutes south of Pike. Then
Speaker 1: Portsmouth has this you know, rust belt, burned out industrial field.
Speaker 1: There are half empty, two empty factories in the middle
Speaker 1: of the city. At one point US Shoe had their
Speaker 1: biggest plant there, and then obviously, you know the global
Speaker 1: economy and we all know what happened to manufacturing in
Speaker 1: the Midwest. It still has a small profitable steel mill downtown,
Speaker 1: but it's barely hanging on. So it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a city that was forgotten. Yes when the manufacturing industry
Speaker 1: began to disappear. Portsmouth was besieged by the drug trade.
Speaker 1: Nicky Blanketship grew up in the area and saw the
Speaker 1: devastation firsthand. Your area has been really hit by the
Speaker 1: opiate crisis, right, Yeah, we call ourselves ground zero for
Speaker 1: the opiate ever make I've lived in Ohio since nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four Insider County, so yeah, I've lived here in
Speaker 1: my whole life. Remember in high school, people around me,
Speaker 1: they would start out with small pain pills and then
Speaker 1: oxycott and hit and it was no longer recreational drug
Speaker 1: use that people would win at parties. You were seeing
Speaker 1: people become addicted very very very quickly. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, Nikki started writing about the issue for a
Speaker 1: local newspaper. I started out covering the drug epidemic. I
Speaker 1: was the first in the area to do stories on
Speaker 1: oxycotton and looking at overdose rates in the area and
Speaker 1: started asking those questions from the corner's office about how
Speaker 1: many of these depths that we're seeing are connected to
Speaker 1: opiate use, And then started looking into pill mills and
Speaker 1: we ended up shutting down over twenty three pill mills
Speaker 1: Insider County. Nikki's reporting helped shut a light on the
Speaker 1: area's drug problem, but other illicit industries sprung up around it.
Speaker 1: Nikki was there to cover it all. In twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: I did a series that ran for months on prostitution,
Speaker 1: and I was walking the streets with some of these girls.
Speaker 1: I also talked to like parents of women that were
Speaker 1: working on the streets, and talked to officers about the
Speaker 1: problem and local businesses about how it affected them. It
Speaker 1: was interesting because when I was doing these stories, I
Speaker 1: started seeing a lot of names come up from these girls.
Speaker 1: The one mentioned most often was Michael Moran. Michael Moran,
Speaker 1: he's in his mid seventies, long time defense attorney, you know,
Speaker 1: d wise, drug offenses, those kinds of things. He had
Speaker 1: his own firm in Portsmouth, and at one point in
Speaker 1: the late two thousands he got himself appointed as a
Speaker 1: city councilman of Portsmouth. He's a very public person, so
Speaker 1: if there was a Red Cross banquet or something that
Speaker 1: I was covering, he would be there. So he's been
Speaker 1: around my whole career pretty much. Now. Rumors have been
Speaker 1: circulating about Mike Moran for years. These stories about him
Speaker 1: being involved in prostitution go all the way back to
Speaker 1: thee than these. A lot of those stories are just
Speaker 1: about him hiring girls dance and at local parties and
Speaker 1: poker games. It was the secret that everyone choked about,
Speaker 1: but no one really talked about, and it was pretty
Speaker 1: common knowledge. I think I mentioned like a Red Cross
Speaker 1: banquet I had to cover once. He was there with
Speaker 1: a girl known to be arrested for prostitution, known to
Speaker 1: be arrested for drug abuse, and she was there. You
Speaker 1: could tell that she was under the influence by her behavior.
Speaker 1: She was being very loud and on a cell phone
Speaker 1: in the middle of this banquet and speaking very appropriately
Speaker 1: for the setting, and Mike's just laughing with her, and
Speaker 1: a city councilman at the time actually leaned over towards
Speaker 1: me jokingly elbowed me on the side and said, there's
Speaker 1: Mike and one of his girls. It's just always been
Speaker 1: known as Nicky. Began exploring Moran's ties to the local
Speaker 1: sex trade. The story grew much darker. I was interviewing
Speaker 1: some people who were in an impatient treatment facility, and
Speaker 1: I found out that one of the women over the
Speaker 1: program was involved with a human trafficking program, and so
Speaker 1: I started talking with her about human trafficking and she
Speaker 1: said that when women are arrested at a certain agent,
Speaker 1: Moran has been going to see them in jail and
Speaker 1: got them charges in exchange for doing sexual favors for
Speaker 1: him and working in prostitution. Nicky further explained the allegations
Speaker 1: leveled against Moran by area women at the corrupt of
Speaker 1: what he does is he offers his legal services to
Speaker 1: get these women out of jail and then puts them
Speaker 1: under his employee. Yes, he gets women out of jail,
Speaker 1: and that basically gets them into his clutches. Other stories
Speaker 1: are that people are hired as dog walkers or as
Speaker 1: cleaners and and said are actually working in prostitution, and
Speaker 1: affidavit filed by the DA would later support these accounts.
Speaker 1: James Pilcher explained that this method of manipulation marks the
Speaker 1: distinction between prostitution and human trafficking. Some people will say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: these women knew what they were doing, They were just
Speaker 1: trying to make money. These women were prostitutes. Well, if
Speaker 1: you talk to the experts, it went one step beyond that.
Speaker 1: It went into trafficking. Because some of those allegations Moran
Speaker 1: was holding over them, the fact that they were drug addicts,
Speaker 1: even he would withhold their money or withhold the wherewithal
Speaker 1: to get drugs. So the statute says, if you withhold
Speaker 1: or threatened to withhold money that women need for drugs
Speaker 1: or withhold the drugs, it's trafficking because it's coercion. Anytime
Speaker 1: you can prove coercion, it's trafficking both in the Ohio
Speaker 1: law and federal level. We're going to take a quick
Speaker 1: break here. We'll be back in a moment. Oh. I'm
Speaker 1: Carol Fisher, and I'm hosting a podcast called The Girl Friends.
Speaker 1: Back in the nineteen nineties in Las Vegas, a few
Speaker 1: of us dated the most eligible bachelor in town, Bob.
Speaker 1: He spoke several languages, he did medical missionary work, and
Speaker 1: he was Jewish. He was perfect on paper, but he wasn't.
Speaker 1: He really wasn't. He shouted into the point where she
Speaker 1: went unconscious. Bob could lie about anything, but only takes
Speaker 1: the one time when somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for Bob,
Speaker 1: us girlfriends know how to fight back. I wanted him
Speaker 1: to pay for his crime. He needed to be put
Speaker 1: to justice. I'll be honest with you. If I saw
Speaker 1: him right now, I'd spit on him. I would call
Speaker 1: him and I would say, I know you killed my sister.
Speaker 1: I will always hound you and haunt you. You can
Speaker 1: listen to the girlfriends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcast. In our twenty two
Speaker 1: years of friendship, Andy, this has to be the most
Speaker 1: bizarre thing we've ever done. I know, I love it.
Speaker 1: Our podcast My Vagina said, what is a podcast where
Speaker 1: we ask our everyday Vagina listeners to pull up a
Speaker 1: seat at the best Friend's table as we share our
Speaker 1: most personal and humiliating stories and ask questions about women's bodies.
Speaker 1: We are going to discuss all body things like what
Speaker 1: exactly are we supposed to do with our pubs? Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, if you could have a heart shaped pube
Speaker 1: that were bedazzled in pink rubies, or perrymenopause. I feel
Speaker 1: right now justified. I'm going to start my own personal movement.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start blaming anything that goes wrong in
Speaker 1: my life on perrymenopause, leg hair too long, permau, don't
Speaker 1: have the will to clean, Perry menopause exactly, our whack periods,
Speaker 1: boob issues, and so much more. Listen to My Vagina said,
Speaker 1: what podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, over ever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. What this is the unbelievable but
Speaker 1: true story of George Remus. You might know him as
Speaker 1: a character from Boardwalk Empire or as the inspiration for
Speaker 1: Jay Gatsby. He was an eccentric and genius lawyer who
Speaker 1: figured out how to game the system during Prohibition. Remus
Speaker 1: is in the whiskey business, and Remus is the biggest
Speaker 1: man in the business, while living the life of luxury
Speaker 1: with his clamorous and ambitious wife Imogene. Daddy, I am
Speaker 1: so glad you are here. But George Ramis's wild existence
Speaker 1: took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal. She
Speaker 1: had Remis just exactly where she wanted him revenge. Feel
Speaker 1: this muscle. I got this for Remus. I could crush
Speaker 1: him like an egg. And one of the most sensational
Speaker 1: murder trials in American history, we the jury, find the Defendant,
Speaker 1: Join me Abbot Kaylor as we traced George Remus's transformation
Speaker 1: from bootleg kick to alleged madman. Listen to The Mad
Speaker 1: Bootleg King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Afghanistan twenty twelve. One
Speaker 1: Quiet Night, Staffs Aren't Robert Bales left his combat outpost alone.
Speaker 1: He walked into two villages and started shooting, killing sixteen civilians,
Speaker 1: many of them children. Maybe I'm made a mistake, maybe
Speaker 1: I am wrong, but you have to understand the way
Speaker 1: it went down. We've conducted a series of interviews with
Speaker 1: one of America's most notorious war criminals. They paint a
Speaker 1: complex portrait of a man changed by the global War
Speaker 1: on Terror. The idea of hurting a kid killing a kid.
Speaker 1: Come on. The War Within the Robert Bales Story is
Speaker 1: an investigative podcast revealing explosive information on one of the
Speaker 1: most controversial events in American military history. Baal's actions are
Speaker 1: merely a symptom of a broken army. Listen to The
Speaker 1: War Within the Robert Bale Story on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Some believe
Speaker 1: Michael Moran's reach goes farther than even human trafficking. In
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, a Portsmouth woman named Megan Lancaster disappeared. Michael
Speaker 1: Moran has denied any involvement or responsibility in her disappearance. Additionally,
Speaker 1: authorities have not brought any charges against him in the case.
Speaker 1: At this time, it's unclear whether they have questioned him
Speaker 1: in the matter. Megan, it's probably the case that is
Speaker 1: closest to my heart, and that's mostly her sister in law,
Speaker 1: Katie Lancaster, has just screamed and screamed and screamed on
Speaker 1: her behalf. My name is Katie Lancaster and I am
Speaker 1: the sister in law and best friend of Megan Lancaster
Speaker 1: who has been missing from Stoda County since April third,
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen. Who was Megan Lancaster and how did you meet?
Speaker 1: We met at a it was called Soda County Joint
Speaker 1: Vocational School. We were both taking cosmetology. And she is
Speaker 1: a wonderful, loving, gives a shirt off her back person
Speaker 1: that I know for a fact that if this tragedy
Speaker 1: had to happen to anybody, she would have given everything
Speaker 1: she had to save the next person. Megan and Katie
Speaker 1: formed an unbreakable bond and soon they became family members.
Speaker 1: I was spending about every night with Megan, pretty much
Speaker 1: on school night. Megan would say, my brother wants to
Speaker 1: take you on a date, So I said, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: like I'll let him take me for dinner and so
Speaker 1: on and so forth. And I did that well. I
Speaker 1: never left. I was seventeen, and we just hit it
Speaker 1: off and fell in love. Katie and Meghan's brother Jimmy,
Speaker 1: were married in two thousand and five. A few months later,
Speaker 1: Katie became pregnant soon after, Megan did as well. I
Speaker 1: went into labor August thirty first, had my baby September first,
Speaker 1: like in the middle of the night, and she had
Speaker 1: her baby November fourth, So we were legitimately only, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of months apart. In two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: Megan gave birth to a son named Reese. Being a
Speaker 1: young single mother was tough, but Megan seemed to have
Speaker 1: a bright future ahead of her. Any sports she played,
Speaker 1: she played to the fullest. She was there for her team,
Speaker 1: always cheering everybody. On the softball she was the pitcher.
Speaker 1: She had a full ride scholarship to Shawnee State. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, Megan couldn't have been any smarter than what
Speaker 1: she was. Despite her intelligence and athleticism, Megan fell victim
Speaker 1: to the drug epidemic that gripped the Portsmouth area She
Speaker 1: was open that you know that she used rugs, that
Speaker 1: she used a needle. It was rough, and I would
Speaker 1: tell her. I would say, Megan, I would try to
Speaker 1: play both sides, like her friend and her sister in law,
Speaker 1: because I would say, Megan, you need to get help
Speaker 1: and you need to change for you first and foremost,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, you need to do it
Speaker 1: for Reece because he needs you. And her answer was, Katie,
Speaker 1: why change it now? Everybody's gonna look at me the
Speaker 1: same way. I'm never gonna live down the things I've done.
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna be able to change that opinion that
Speaker 1: people have of me. She just couldn't see past the past,
Speaker 1: you know, path the things that she felt people would
Speaker 1: never forgive, and then that point took over Megan and
Speaker 1: it led to more years later, a strange encounter with
Speaker 1: Megan would leave Katie forever suspicious of one local man,
Speaker 1: Michael Moran. I was in walmoret with Jeremy, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I see Megan come bouncing down the
Speaker 1: aisle and I'm like, what the hell was she wearing?
Speaker 1: It was literally Santa Lingerie. To be honest, she said,
Speaker 1: I'm here to get something for this party I'm doing
Speaker 1: for Marian it's a bachelor party, and I'm just like, okay,
Speaker 1: but again, what why are you in here in that outfit?
Speaker 1: Is you like, because this is what I'm wearing to
Speaker 1: the party, and I'm like, get get whatever you're getting in,
Speaker 1: Get the heck out of here before you get arrested
Speaker 1: for indecent exposure? Can you describe April third, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: April third, twenty thirteen, Megan went missing. That day, she
Speaker 1: was with her mom. She went to her mom's early
Speaker 1: in the morning, said Mom, I need to pay my
Speaker 1: insurance because she had been pulled out over and cold
Speaker 1: over card been impounded for literally like sixty dollars in
Speaker 1: back child support or something. So her mom followed her
Speaker 1: to Portsmouth. Megan got in her mom's car down in Portsmouth,
Speaker 1: they rode down to the bonding company. They paid her insurance,
Speaker 1: then got back in her own care her Mustang, and
Speaker 1: they went their own ways. Later that day, Megan called
Speaker 1: her mother, Marcy, to make arrangements to see her son.
Speaker 1: She said, Mom, I'll be there to stay the night
Speaker 1: with Reese. But that night Megan never showed up, you know,
Speaker 1: And then the next day, Marcy tried to get a
Speaker 1: hold of her cut and went by her apartment. Her
Speaker 1: car wasn't there, so Mark's thought she's out running the
Speaker 1: streets or whatever, you know, out running the road. Didn't
Speaker 1: think much more about it. Two days later, on April fifth,
Speaker 1: Megan's car was found in the parking lot of a
Speaker 1: local fast food restaurant. She was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 1: What stuck out about the car was the fact that
Speaker 1: it was up on the curb, and Megan would never
Speaker 1: have parked it like that. She especially, she might have
Speaker 1: pulled in if she was in a hurry and got
Speaker 1: out and got something, got right back in the car
Speaker 1: and left, but she would have never pulled in there
Speaker 1: to leave it there like that. Inside the car, police
Speaker 1: found Megan's wallet and a small notebook that contained some
Speaker 1: suspicious entries. She left clues as to who she'd been
Speaker 1: working for, what's she'd been up to. Right, Yes, she
Speaker 1: left papers in it. They actually said dance for and
Speaker 1: Michael Marian's name, his cell phone number, and how much
Speaker 1: he paid for her to dance. We know we have
Speaker 1: this problem with missing women, and we know we have
Speaker 1: this problem with women who have been found dead in
Speaker 1: their cases. That's never their murders have never been solved.
Speaker 1: And despite that car set our mom said Tall October
Speaker 1: of twenty thirteen. And there's a documents where they took it,
Speaker 1: where they took the car into evidence that are dated
Speaker 1: showing that. And it was really Katie and Megan's family
Speaker 1: that did all of the investigating and higher private investigators
Speaker 1: they couldn't get in cooperation from local police. So it's
Speaker 1: Megan's case really, it's the only one that has really
Speaker 1: been made public so people can see exactly what these
Speaker 1: women have gone through and how these things have happened.
Speaker 1: If Maran was running a decades long sex trafficking operation,
Speaker 1: we're talking about some serious abuse of power. What are
Speaker 1: your thoughts on that. The abuse of power makes me
Speaker 1: completely fucking sick. Excuse my language, but I don't know
Speaker 1: how else to put it. It It makes me sick because
Speaker 1: you know, he's in this position to help people, to
Speaker 1: help rebuild their lives if they been in trouble once
Speaker 1: or twice, you know, drug charge, what ever, they send
Speaker 1: them to treatment, they do this, they do that, but
Speaker 1: he takes it a step further and takes them like
Speaker 1: buys them what they want courses them into these things,
Speaker 1: shows them a life that they've never had before, and
Speaker 1: then boom back on drugs, back to doing what they
Speaker 1: were doing back in trouble. And to me, that is
Speaker 1: sickening and there's no excuse. Sport. Do you think Mike
Speaker 1: Moran is involved in Megan's disaspiance. I do believe Michael
Speaker 1: Moran is involved in Megan's disappearance, and I do believe
Speaker 1: that we will eventually tie Mike Moran to Megan's disappearance.
Speaker 1: Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back
Speaker 1: in a moment. Oh. I'm Carol Fisher, and I'm hosting
Speaker 1: a podcast called The Girl Friends. Back in the nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties in Las Vegas, a few of us dated the
Speaker 1: most eligible bachelor in town, Bob. He spoke several languages,
Speaker 1: he did medical missionary work, and he was Jewish. He
Speaker 1: was perfect on paper, but he wasn't. He really wasn't.
Speaker 1: He shouted into the point she went unconscious. Bob could
Speaker 1: lie about anything, but only takes the one time when
Speaker 1: somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for Bob, us girlfriends know
Speaker 1: how to fight back. I wanted him to pay for
Speaker 1: his crime. He needed to be put to justice. I'll
Speaker 1: be honest with you. If I saw him right now,
Speaker 1: I'd spit on him. I would call him and I
Speaker 1: would say, I know you killed my sister. I will
Speaker 1: always hound you and haunt you. You can listen to
Speaker 1: the Girlfriends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. In our twenty two years of friendship, Andy,
Speaker 1: this has to be the most bizarre thing we've ever done.
Speaker 1: I know, I love it. Our podcast My Vagina said,
Speaker 1: what is a podcast where we ask our everyday Vagina
Speaker 1: listeners to pull up a seat at the best Friend's
Speaker 1: table as we share our most personal and humiliating stories
Speaker 1: and ask questions about women's bodies. We are going to
Speaker 1: discuss all body things like what exactly are we supposed
Speaker 1: to do with our pubs? Oh my gosh, if you
Speaker 1: could have a heart shaped pube that were bedazzled in
Speaker 1: pink rubies or perrymenopause. I feel right now justified. I'm
Speaker 1: going to start my own personal movement. I'm going to
Speaker 1: start blaming anything that goes wrong in my life on perrymenopause,
Speaker 1: leg hair too long, don't have the will to clean, perrymause,
Speaker 1: exactly our whack periods, boob issues, and so much more.
Speaker 1: Listen to my Vagina said, what podcasts on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What This
Speaker 1: is the unbelievable but true story of George Remus. You
Speaker 1: might know him as a character from Boardwalk Empire or
Speaker 1: as the inspiration for Jay Gatsby. He was an eccentric
Speaker 1: and genius lawyer who figured out how to game the
Speaker 1: system during Prohibition. Remus is in the whiskey business, and
Speaker 1: Remus is the biggest man in the business, while living
Speaker 1: the life of luxury with his clamorous and ambitious wife Imogene. Daddy,
Speaker 1: I am so glad you are here. But George Remus's
Speaker 1: wild existence took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal.
Speaker 1: She had Remus just exactly where she wanted him revenge.
Speaker 1: Feel this muscle. I got this for Remus. I could
Speaker 1: crush him like an egg. And one of the most
Speaker 1: sensational murder trials in American history, we the jury, find
Speaker 1: the defendant, Join me Abbot kaylor as we traced George
Speaker 1: Remus's transformation from bootleg king to alleged madman. Listen to
Speaker 1: remus the Mad Bootleg King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Afghanistan twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: One quiet night staff Sargeant Robert Bales left his combat
Speaker 1: outpost alone. He walked into two villages and started shooting,
Speaker 1: killing sixteen civilians, many of them children. Maybe I'm made
Speaker 1: a mistake, maybe I am wrong, but you have to
Speaker 1: understand the way it went down. We've conducted a series
Speaker 1: of interviews with one of America's most notorious war criminals.
Speaker 1: They paint a complex portrait of a man changed by
Speaker 1: the global War on Terror, the idea of hurting a
Speaker 1: kid killing a kid. Come on. The War Within the
Speaker 1: Robert Bales Story is an investigative podcast revealing explosive information
Speaker 1: on one of the most controversial events in American military history.
Speaker 1: Bill's actions are merely a symptom of a broken army.
Speaker 1: Listen to The War Within the Robert Bales Story on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1: What's it like to go through losing a family member
Speaker 1: or a friend but not actually knowing what happened to them?
Speaker 1: It's hell. I was talking to my mother in law
Speaker 1: about this today. You know, people lose people all the time,
Speaker 1: and they have a grave to go to, they have
Speaker 1: somewhere they can go visit that they know that that
Speaker 1: person is there, or they have ashes that they have
Speaker 1: or whatever what have you. But we have a flipping
Speaker 1: sign with missing on it that we decorate, and it
Speaker 1: is heartbreaking and it is hard not to know whether
Speaker 1: she's hungry, she's cold, she's being hurt, she's being abused,
Speaker 1: or or she's dead. Not to know that is so hard.
Speaker 1: I see her mama suffer daily, or importantly, I see
Speaker 1: her baby boys suffer very badly. And I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: You know he cries every day or no, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that. But he has a lot of questions but
Speaker 1: we can't answer. But I can guarantee you I won't
Speaker 1: stop till I can answer him. I don't care if
Speaker 1: he's twenty five, thirty, thirty five, forty, if I'm along
Speaker 1: around that long, I'll fight until I can answer those
Speaker 1: questions for him. In an interview, Moran claimed that he
Speaker 1: only knew Megan as a police informant who was tied
Speaker 1: to a drug case he tried years back. When asked
Speaker 1: about what may have happened to her, Moran believed that
Speaker 1: she may have been murdered, though he had no information
Speaker 1: to support his statement. It should be noted that there
Speaker 1: have been no other specific allegations tying Moran to the
Speaker 1: disappearance of any other women. Nicki Blankenship continued her investigation
Speaker 1: into human trafficking in Portsmouth, but her attempts to report
Speaker 1: on the area as missing women was met with some pushback.
Speaker 1: You kind of started this with the story. This seemed
Speaker 1: to have been local knowledge that no one was reporting on. Right.
Speaker 1: When I was first saying, let me talk about the
Speaker 1: missing women, I was told now, and what it didn't
Speaker 1: matter if there was proof. It was can we talk
Speaker 1: about the missing women? Can I talk to their families?
Speaker 1: And I was told now. Nikki didn't let that stop her.
Speaker 1: So I have seen these things personally. In Cyder County.
Speaker 1: We say that everyone's been affected because if it's not
Speaker 1: your friend, it is or your family member, it's at
Speaker 1: least somebody you went to school with. Everybody knows somebody
Speaker 1: who's been affected by the drug epidemic, and everybody knows
Speaker 1: somebody who has turned a prostitution. So this is a
Speaker 1: pretty personal story for you. Yeah, I spent probably my
Speaker 1: whole career, I feel like working on this, and nobody
Speaker 1: was listening to their stories before or seeing them as
Speaker 1: even human. That really made me connect with a lot
Speaker 1: of these people in their or is living here my
Speaker 1: whole life. These are my friends and my family members
Speaker 1: as well. Not specifically, but I have lost so many
Speaker 1: friends to overdose. I have so many friends that have
Speaker 1: battle addiction, and a lot of people I went to
Speaker 1: school with are gone now. I have several friends from
Speaker 1: high schools that ended up working in prostitution. They're people,
Speaker 1: are human, and yet they're seen as a prostitute or
Speaker 1: an addict exactly. And that makes people not really care
Speaker 1: what happens to them. That makes people assume that they
Speaker 1: chose some lifestyle that is dangerous. It makes people just
Speaker 1: assume that they somehow are asking for that or whatever
Speaker 1: happens to them as a part of a lifestyle they chose,
Speaker 1: and so they just turn a blind eye. And I
Speaker 1: think that's another thing that has made it so easy
Speaker 1: for it to happen, and that happened right in public,
Speaker 1: is that people see them as prostitutes and addicts. Nickie
Speaker 1: didn't give up searching for prooflinking Michael Moran to Smith's
Speaker 1: sex trafficking industry. I was at home a lot late
Speaker 1: at night, just going through court documents and talking to families,
Speaker 1: because a lot of these families told me I was
Speaker 1: away personally entrusted. So then for me it was like,
Speaker 1: how do I get something more than a story from
Speaker 1: a family member or even a girl. I need some
Speaker 1: kind of profinding, some kind of document. In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: she got it. A man named Mark Eubanks reached out
Speaker 1: to her and passed along a copy of a sworn
Speaker 1: Affidavid filed by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Mark Cubanks, he
Speaker 1: had been reading my stories on human trafficking and on
Speaker 1: the heroin epidemic, and he just smelled me a copy
Speaker 1: of the sild Affidavid. It was actually a part of
Speaker 1: his case, and had told me his story, which was
Speaker 1: that he had been arrested on drug charges and when
Speaker 1: he was arrested, he was immediately taken and given live
Speaker 1: detective test about missing women and dead women and Mike
Speaker 1: Moran and human trafficking. The Affidavid laid out Southern Ohio
Speaker 1: Drug Task Force and FBI operations that had been underweigh
Speaker 1: since twenty fifteen investigating Michael Moran and his ties to
Speaker 1: area sex trafficking. He's accused of trafficking women all over
Speaker 1: the country from New York and New Jersey to Florida, racketeering,
Speaker 1: and compelling and promoting prostitution. Another thing that is in
Speaker 1: the affidavit that he was working with drug traffickers and
Speaker 1: there was a wire tap where they were able to
Speaker 1: hear some of the conversations between Moran and drug traffickers,
Speaker 1: and he was getting drugs from these drug traffickers in
Speaker 1: order to provide to the females that he had working
Speaker 1: for him. The Affadavid specifically talks about whom working with
Speaker 1: local judges and law enforcement and adult probation to make
Speaker 1: these things happen. Nikki finally had to proof she needed
Speaker 1: that validated the stories told by Portsmouth's vulnerable women, but
Speaker 1: when she brought the document to her editor, she was
Speaker 1: shocked and they told me, no, we're not going to publish.
Speaker 1: Michael Moran would later be arrested and charged with eighteen
Speaker 1: felony accounts, including promoting prostitution and trafficking in persons. He
Speaker 1: was released on a three hundred thousand dollar bond, which
Speaker 1: was later revoked after he violated the terms of his agreement.
Speaker 1: He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and staunchly
Speaker 1: maintains his innocence. He is now under house arrest while
Speaker 1: he awaits trial. We'll bring you the second part of
Speaker 1: the Michael Morran story in episode nine, but next week
Speaker 1: we'll be hearing from some of our regular contributors, who
Speaker 1: will discuss updates from accused brother George Wagner, the four's
Speaker 1: most recent pre trial hearing. For more information on the
Speaker 1: case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie
Speaker 1: Underscore Students. The Piked and Massacre Returned to Pike County
Speaker 1: is executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker and me Courtney Armstrong.
Speaker 1: Editing and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional
Speaker 1: producing by Jeff Shane, Andrew Becker and Chris Graves. The
Speaker 1: Piked and Massacre Returned to Pike County is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. I'm Carol Fisher and I'm hosting
Speaker 1: a podcast called The girl Friends. It's Las Vegas, it's
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties, and it is time to find a husband.
Speaker 1: There were four Jewish doctors who were felt to be
Speaker 1: eligible bachelors. One of them was of the spot Baron
Speaker 1: bat On paper. He was perfect, but in reality, this
Speaker 1: guy's a wacko. He choked and to the point she
Speaker 1: went unconscious. I would call him and I would say,
Speaker 1: I know you killed my sister. You can listen to
Speaker 1: The girl Friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. You know, Andy, in our
Speaker 1: twenty two years of friendship, this has to be the
Speaker 1: most bizarre thing we've ever done. I know our podcast,
Speaker 1: My Vagina said what is a podcast where we ask
Speaker 1: our everyday Vagina listeners to pull up a seat at
Speaker 1: the best Friend's table as we share our most personal
Speaker 1: and humiliating body stories. We are going to discuss all
Speaker 1: body things like what exactly are we supposed to do
Speaker 1: with our pubes, harry menopause or wack periods, and so
Speaker 1: much more. Listen to My Vagina Said what podcast on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1: What these days, more often than not, the success of
Speaker 1: a company is attributed to its founder. But that's only
Speaker 1: part of the story. My name is Noah Callahan Bever
Speaker 1: and I'm proud to present Idea Generations All Angles, a
Speaker 1: Willpacker Media podcast. We'll be talking to all the key
Speaker 1: players from all your favorite brains like WOUD Records, Ghetto Gastro,
Speaker 1: and Earn your Leisure. So join me each week as
Speaker 1: we dissect the most dynamic companies and culture. Because the
Speaker 1: only way to truly understand success is to get it
Speaker 1: from all angles. This new Idea Generations All Angles on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: This is the unbelievable but true story of George Remus.
Speaker 1: He was an eccentric and genius lawyer who figured out
Speaker 1: how to game the system during Prohibition. Remis is the
Speaker 1: biggest man in the business, but George Remus's wild existence
Speaker 1: took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal, revenge,
Speaker 1: and one of the most sensational murder trials in American history.
Speaker 1: Listen to Remus the Mad Bootleg King every Tuesday on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,