Speaker 1: You know everybody wants to paint this idyllic picture of
Speaker 1: small town America. Well, there's a CD underside to that.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have anybody watching the watchman, keeping
Speaker 1: an eye on things, keeping people accountable, things can get
Speaker 1: out of control. There's over twenty unsolved homicides in Pike County.
Speaker 1: I want the community to realize this can happen to
Speaker 1: their family. This is the Piked and massacre returned to
Speaker 1: Pike County Season three, episode nine, Cold Blooded. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
Speaker 1: a television producer at Katie Studios with Stephanie Leidecker and
Speaker 1: Jeff Shane. Over the last two seasons, we've covered a
Speaker 1: few local stories that we believed were unrelated to the massacre.
Speaker 1: Turns out we may have been mistaken. This episode is
Speaker 1: dedicated to tying up the loose ends of these stories
Speaker 1: that have new endings or new developments. We're also exploring
Speaker 1: the intersection between many of the main players who also
Speaker 1: have ties to the Roden murders. The connections are undeniable.
Speaker 1: The Roden murders of April twenty sixteen, earth shattering as
Speaker 1: they were, have pushed law enforcement in southern Ohio to
Speaker 1: the limit. It's left their relatively small ranks hyper extended.
Speaker 1: As a result, As local cold case advocates like Angie
Speaker 1: Montgomery point out, many other local homicides have gone ignored.
Speaker 1: In fact, there are at least nine other murder cases
Speaker 1: in Pike County dating back to two thousand that have
Speaker 1: iced over without resolution or even charges issued. In light
Speaker 1: of the county's population of only fifty eight thousand, this
Speaker 1: number is staggering. Tray Evans won the election, and he
Speaker 1: called me in January when he ran into office and
Speaker 1: told me that he was going to try his best
Speaker 1: with the case. Who could do the best he could
Speaker 1: with it. He's got in contact with the BCI and
Speaker 1: they were looking on some things. Speaking as Angie Montgomery,
Speaker 1: a Piked and mother of four and spiritual adviser. Once
Speaker 1: her kids were grown, Angie decided to dedicate her life
Speaker 1: to being a cold case advocate. Here she is talking
Speaker 1: about Sheriff Tracy D. Evans, who took over the Pike
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's office in twenty twenty. This was after Sheriff
Speaker 1: Charles Reader, who spearheaded the Road and investigation, pled guilty
Speaker 1: to corruption charges. Reader is currently facing a three year
Speaker 1: sentence at the Toledo Correctional Facility. Here's Stephanie and Jeff.
Speaker 1: Just as a reminder, Sheriff Charlie Reader was the sheriff
Speaker 1: at the time of the road and murders, and he's
Speaker 1: never been directly associated with the murders, but he, alongside
Speaker 1: former DA Mike DeWine, we're very public talking about it
Speaker 1: at the time, and after a very thorough investigation, Reader
Speaker 1: agreed to be suspended in July twenty nineteen, and shortly
Speaker 1: after was indicted on eighteen counts that included also racketeering.
Speaker 1: Beloved Sheriff Charlie Reader was accused of stealing more than
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand dollars from the Sheriff's office and seized drug money.
Speaker 1: What he would do was go into these evidence envelopes
Speaker 1: that were in his possession, take out money, go gamble
Speaker 1: with it, and then put the money back before anyone noticed,
Speaker 1: and allegedly he repeated this process numerous times before anyone
Speaker 1: even caught on. In September twenty twenty, Reader pled guilty
Speaker 1: to two counts of theft, one count of tampering with evidence,
Speaker 1: and then also one count of conflict of interest another
Speaker 1: matter that doesn't necessarily relate to this, but is just
Speaker 1: another strike against Sheriff Reader's morality. Is the story from
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one that he was sued by county officials
Speaker 1: over collecting salary and benefits that they say he improperly
Speaker 1: collected while he was suspended as they were investigating all
Speaker 1: this other stuff that he had done. According to the lawsuit,
Speaker 1: Charlie Reader collected over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: from the city. It's not clear the exact status of
Speaker 1: this litigation, but it is just another strike against the sheriff.
Speaker 1: Here again, Angie Montgomery, we had a meeting with Tracy
Speaker 1: Evans in June, myself and Curtis smother and Jenny's sisters,
Speaker 1: and he told us that if the BTI decided not
Speaker 1: to assist with the case, that he was going to
Speaker 1: wash his hands with him. It's important to note that
Speaker 1: this is Angie Montgomery's recollection of events. We've reached out
Speaker 1: to Sheriff Tracy Evans for comment but did not receive
Speaker 1: a response. The Curtis and Jenny Angie is referring to
Speaker 1: are her cousin, Curtis Francis and his fiance Jennifer Burgett.
Speaker 1: The pair were found dead in their bed December ninth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, in their home at one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty four Hopper Road in piked hon Thirty four
Speaker 1: year old Curtis and thirty year old Jennifer were each
Speaker 1: at once while asleep. The killings became known as the
Speaker 1: Hopper Road murders. According to Angie, Curtis and his fiance
Speaker 1: Jennifer were excited to get married. They both loved hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing, and Chris was a jovial guy known for
Speaker 1: playing practical jokes. Curtis had just had shoulder replacement surgery
Speaker 1: and had a supply of pain medications, so one early
Speaker 1: theory was that the killers were after his pills. In
Speaker 1: the sixteen years since the murders, the case has been
Speaker 1: opened and closed several times without a single arrest. It's
Speaker 1: currently a cold case. Sheriff Evans, who during his campaign
Speaker 1: promised voters to improve resources for victims, has deflected Angie's
Speaker 1: passionate please to reopen the case. He was done with it. Basically,
Speaker 1: there was nothing more they could do that we would
Speaker 1: have to turn to the media if we wanted to
Speaker 1: get help with the case, which was kind of heartbreaking
Speaker 1: because you know, he gets elected and tells us that
Speaker 1: he's going to do everything he can, but then he's
Speaker 1: flipping it around and saying, if the BCI does, they helped,
Speaker 1: and I'm just going to wash my hands with it.
Speaker 1: So you kind of contradicting what she told me. Kind
Speaker 1: he gave us like false hope, like this guy's really
Speaker 1: going to dig into it and do something, and turns
Speaker 1: around and says if the BCI doesn't do anything, he's
Speaker 1: not going to do anything. And he also said that
Speaker 1: he didn't want kIPS called into the sheriff's pernament, which
Speaker 1: I thought was very odd. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal
Speaker 1: Investigation or BCI, has offered no new support. Here's investigative
Speaker 1: reporter and journalism professor James Pilcher. Unfortunately, the Francis and
Speaker 1: Burgette case has been ruled a cold case now by
Speaker 1: both of the pact prosecutor in the Aisle Storney General's office.
Speaker 1: That happened about two years ago, so now it's on
Speaker 1: the shelf. There's no answers and unless family members can
Speaker 1: come forward to new evidence or something just pops up
Speaker 1: or somebody walks in off the street and says I
Speaker 1: did it. And that's pretty much what's going to happen
Speaker 1: for anything to move on this case. For Angie. This
Speaker 1: case has been a long and frustrating series of missed
Speaker 1: opportunities and snaffoos. In twenty sixteen, investigators discovered a hidden
Speaker 1: well at three twenty four Wind Road, five minutes from
Speaker 1: Hopper Road. This well contained a saddle gun, a lever
Speaker 1: action eighteen shot that is what Curtis and Jenny were
Speaker 1: killed with. There was also a pistol sunk in the
Speaker 1: swampy well, but according to reports, in the process of
Speaker 1: trying to flood the evidence out of the well, the
Speaker 1: fire department blew an eighty foot hole in the well
Speaker 1: and washed the guns away. And then there was the
Speaker 1: issue of the lost nine one one call. Here again,
Speaker 1: Angie Montgomery, and then they tell me that they lost
Speaker 1: a nine one one call. They're not very efficient with things.
Speaker 1: You would think that that would be one of the
Speaker 1: main things you would keep ahold of in a double homicide.
Speaker 1: So it kind of worries me that they did turn
Speaker 1: everything over that they have to the BCI, to BC
Speaker 1: I might look at it and face there isn't anything
Speaker 1: here we can work with. That's where it falls back
Speaker 1: on all these cases, all these cases that are unsolved,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. It's repetitive. All stammlies I talk to,
Speaker 1: they go through the same thing you go through, which
Speaker 1: is they lost this or they don't have this. And
Speaker 1: why doesn't a shriff keeps coding to the sheriff's office.
Speaker 1: You know you got twelve documented until thomicides in your county.
Speaker 1: Why aren't you asking the public for help for these cases?
Speaker 1: It's like they're just shoved to the side. That's how
Speaker 1: the cases become cold. Angie is still holding out hope
Speaker 1: that the BCI will reopen the cold case and look
Speaker 1: at it with fresh eyes. It's actually their cold Case unit,
Speaker 1: which is through the Ohio Attorney General's Office, and they
Speaker 1: are amazing. They just solved a forty seven year old homicide.
Speaker 1: They're really good. So if they do take it on
Speaker 1: and assist, I think that will get an arrest because
Speaker 1: they're good at what they do. But I'm also worried
Speaker 1: about what all Pike County has given them. What ultimately
Speaker 1: stands in the way of the Francis case finding resolution?
Speaker 1: Is it incompetence, apathy, like the killer behind this awful crime.
Speaker 1: It remains a mystery. I've got someone in Curtain Junie's
Speaker 1: case that gave a statement back in two thousand and
Speaker 1: six when it happened, and he was the last person
Speaker 1: to see Kurtisen Jennifer alive, and he went to the
Speaker 1: sheriff's office and gave them a statement that he was there,
Speaker 1: and those people they never called him back, They never
Speaker 1: followed up with him. And I had him go again
Speaker 1: and make another statement with mister Evans, the new sheriff
Speaker 1: and turning in and I asked him every day and
Speaker 1: they have not called him. They have not followed up
Speaker 1: with him. So to me, that makes me think that
Speaker 1: they don't care, period because that's a pretty big guilts
Speaker 1: someone saying they were the last person to see two
Speaker 1: people alive that were murdered, and you're not going to
Speaker 1: call him back and talk to him. It's eerie the
Speaker 1: way things are done around here. We don't know where
Speaker 1: the Francis case will go, But there's yet another Pike
Speaker 1: County case, this one involving a young man named Jacob
Speaker 1: Lansing that has had its own investigative issues in January
Speaker 1: of twenty eighteen, Pike prosecutors thought they had their man.
Speaker 1: Paul Detti, thirty one, was all set to face trial
Speaker 1: and in Pike County Common Pleas Court charged with aggravated
Speaker 1: murder for the twenty twelve death of Jacob Lansing. But
Speaker 1: then prosecutors suddenly reversed course. Newly uncovered evidence exonerated Detti,
Speaker 1: and the death penalty case was dismissed. Pike County Prosecutor
Speaker 1: Rob Junk, who's overseeing the road and trials, described this
Speaker 1: case as one of the weirdest he'd ever seen. On
Speaker 1: October twenty seventh, twenty twelve, Jacob Lansing's body was found
Speaker 1: underneath the vehicle at his River Road home. Authorities thought
Speaker 1: it was an unfortunate accident in which the suv the
Speaker 1: twenty five year old had been working fell on him,
Speaker 1: but his mother, Maureen was incredulous and took action. The
Speaker 1: fact that Jacob wasn't dressed in his usual coveralls while
Speaker 1: working on his car did not wash here again, Stephanie
Speaker 1: and Jeff. Rob Junk is one of the main prosecutors
Speaker 1: against the Wagners, and as we've come to learn over
Speaker 1: the years, he was involved with both Reader brothers. All
Speaker 1: of these names kind of keep coming back to each other.
Speaker 1: He had a very public social media spat with Sheriff
Speaker 1: Charlie Reader where Sheriff Reader was threatening to take Rob
Speaker 1: Junk down, or, as he put it, take the quote
Speaker 1: unquote Junk out. It turns out it was Rob Junk
Speaker 1: who would end up being an integral part in getting
Speaker 1: both Charlie and Brian Reader removed from their posts. A
Speaker 1: lot of people have theorized that the main reason that
Speaker 1: Brian Reader was removed from office was because of his
Speaker 1: handling of the lancing case. However, it's been reported on
Speaker 1: that Brian Reader was terminated over attendance records and sick time.
Speaker 1: This is according to Pike County Commissioner Blaine Beakman. As
Speaker 1: for Rob Junk in January of twenty nineteen, he noted
Speaker 1: that his office as an outwill employer, and he can
Speaker 1: quote let somebody go if I don't like the color
Speaker 1: of their socks. Here again, Angie Montgomery, he never worked
Speaker 1: on his hickle engine work, clives. That's what was bug
Speaker 1: and her. There was the pack of cigarettes beside him,
Speaker 1: and he didn't smoke, so she got a private investigator
Speaker 1: did it behind the CoP's back and got her own
Speaker 1: evidence and took all of her evidence into Rob Junk,
Speaker 1: and Rob said, well, we'll look at it. This was
Speaker 1: a rare instance where an insistent family member was able
Speaker 1: to move the dial with the prosecutor's office. Jacob's mom,
Speaker 1: Marine never believed that his death was an accident. Now, finally,
Speaker 1: in late twenty sixteen early twenty seventeen, she got Brian
Speaker 1: Reader to listen up. Ryan was the chief investigator at
Speaker 1: the time with the Pike County Prosecutor's Office. That's Rob Junk,
Speaker 1: who is now part of the prosecution team overseeing the
Speaker 1: prosecutor of the Wagoners. He opened an investigation and even
Speaker 1: had the body exhumed and an autoxic perform and that
Speaker 1: revealed that he had been beaten and strangled to death.
Speaker 1: This means that Jacob Lansing's killer took his dead body,
Speaker 1: placed it under his suv, and then precipitously dropped the
Speaker 1: vehicle to make it look like Jacob was crushed a
Speaker 1: freak accident, but based on the new evidence, the death
Speaker 1: was ruled a homicide. Bryan spent months and months following
Speaker 1: the leads and doing interviews to find these suspects, Zerian
Speaker 1: and on a man named Paul Michael Allan Detty, who
Speaker 1: arrested in May of twenty seventeen, But in January of
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, a week before Debty's trials to begin, Rob johnk,
Speaker 1: who I mentioned before he was a prosecutor, dismissed the
Speaker 1: case without prejudice and Debti was released. He cited new
Speaker 1: evidence that popped up that affected the case, but he
Speaker 1: never told us what that evidence. A year later, in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, Rob Young fired Brian Reader. Investigator. Brian Reader,
Speaker 1: who had been spearheading the probe, was let go from
Speaker 1: the prosecutor's office in twenty nineteen. He is the brother
Speaker 1: of Charlie Reader, the disgraced former Pike County sheriff. Apparently,
Speaker 1: Reader's payroll records and personnel files were under investigation by
Speaker 1: the state auditor for some time. Due to Reader's firing
Speaker 1: and the general lack of viable leads, the Jacob Lansing
Speaker 1: case stalled. No further arrests were made. In November twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Jacob's mother, Marian Lansing, issued an eight thousand dollars reward
Speaker 1: for information about her son's murder. It has yet to
Speaker 1: be collected. We're going to take a break. We'll be
Speaker 1: back in a moment. What happened to Megan and Katie Sancaster.
Speaker 1: This is the harrowing story of two young sisters in law,
Speaker 1: one missing and one dead. This happened in a small
Speaker 1: town called Portsmouth, Ohio, one hundred miles east of Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: It's a town of twenty thousand people on the north
Speaker 1: bank of the Ohio River. Here again, James Pilcher. I
Speaker 1: believe Meghan Lancaster got involved with some bad people, like
Speaker 1: the people that have been thought to have killed some
Speaker 1: women up narrow Chill a coffee and she got involved
Speaker 1: in that ring, or whether or not she just something
Speaker 1: went sideways with one of her clients or whatever. I think.
Speaker 1: Meghan is buried somewhere in those hills of Scioga County.
Speaker 1: It's not like Pike County because you get down south
Speaker 1: of Pike County, you start hitting where the glaciers came
Speaker 1: through to create the Ohio River. It's very, very, very hilly,
Speaker 1: and there's all these hollers and valleys and woods and forests,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of places to hide body. And
Speaker 1: I think she's buried or they dumped her somewhere and
Speaker 1: she's gone. Megan Lancaster, a mother and former high school
Speaker 1: softball player, was twenty five when she disappeared on the
Speaker 1: evening of April third, twenty thirteen, dressed in jeans in
Speaker 1: an Ohio State sweatshirt. She'd spent the evening with friends.
Speaker 1: Megan called her mother at about seven thirty to say
Speaker 1: she'd be home soon. There was no communication from her
Speaker 1: after that. Meghan's white Mustang was located a few days
Speaker 1: later at a Rally's Hamburger in Portsmouth. Her wallet was
Speaker 1: found on the front seat. She left behind her seven
Speaker 1: year old son, whose name was tattooed on her shoulder.
Speaker 1: Portsmouth Police detective Steve Brewer spearheaded the missing person's investigation,
Speaker 1: but no one looked for Megan more intensely than her
Speaker 1: sister in law and best friend, Katie Lancaster. Megan had
Speaker 1: been scraping by as a sex worker and had fallen
Speaker 1: into a life of addiction, so the search led Katie
Speaker 1: into the vast and shadowy underworld of sex trafficking and Portsmouth. Undeterred,
Speaker 1: Katie threw herself and defining her sister in law victims
Speaker 1: out of a Kid. Angie Montgomery, who helped Katie and
Speaker 1: her search efforts, describe Katie's fearlessness and determination. Their pursuit
Speaker 1: began with scouring back page, which sex workers often used
Speaker 1: to advertise their services. When I first started to hanging
Speaker 1: with Katie, we would sit for hours with our laptops
Speaker 1: and go through that website back page looking for her.
Speaker 1: Hours like we would get babysitters so we could sit
Speaker 1: and go through. She would send his pictures like Megan Scott.
Speaker 1: I remember she said a birthmark about her vlly button.
Speaker 1: So we would look through the pictures of these girls.
Speaker 1: Mostly they wouldn't show their faces and we would look
Speaker 1: for that birthmark. Just hours and hours and hours of
Speaker 1: doing that. So in the beginning I kind of did
Speaker 1: because she had a couple of leaves. She sent me
Speaker 1: a video one time of a girl in Columbus on
Speaker 1: Sullivan Avenue. It was a traffic cam that looks a
Speaker 1: lot like Megan Kanye would get in the car. She
Speaker 1: would get in the car and go to strip joints
Speaker 1: and she would talk to pimps. She would talk to
Speaker 1: drug dealers. She was not scared to do that and
Speaker 1: In the beginning, I didn't think she might be out
Speaker 1: there somewhere, but I don't think so. Now I don't
Speaker 1: think she's here anymore. Angie says that Katie's fierceness inspired
Speaker 1: her own efforts to keep fighting to solve Curtis and
Speaker 1: Jennifer's double homicide on Hopper Road. I started to tell
Speaker 1: her a little bit about Curtis and Jennifer, and she's
Speaker 1: someone that told me to be a squeaky wheel because
Speaker 1: you'll get the most grief. I mean. She would go
Speaker 1: on television and talk and I would watch her and
Speaker 1: I'm like, thing, she's so brave, and she would sit
Speaker 1: and talk with me and tell me, you gotta do this.
Speaker 1: You gotta be a voice. Nobody else is going to
Speaker 1: do this. You have to do this. You know. She's
Speaker 1: the reason why I fight so hard. I watched how
Speaker 1: relentful she was, how passionate she was, and she was
Speaker 1: kind of like my hero because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of bad guys in this area and she was not
Speaker 1: afraid to stand up against the powers that be. Katy
Speaker 1: was well aware that there could be consequences for ruffling
Speaker 1: too many feathers, with her insistent please for justice. She
Speaker 1: would always say, you know, if something happens to me,
Speaker 1: make sure you look into it. I'm sure you find
Speaker 1: out that that's really what happened to me. Because when
Speaker 1: you do go up against the people, and you know,
Speaker 1: the small enforcements or attorneys or judges, there's always that
Speaker 1: fear of they might retaliate against you. And she knew that.
Speaker 1: But she also always said, you know, I'm on social media,
Speaker 1: I'm on TV. I'm saying what I need to say
Speaker 1: about these people to these people. That way, if something
Speaker 1: does happen to me, people will know to look in
Speaker 1: to it, you know, instead of being quiet about it.
Speaker 1: So that's always stuck with me more she kind of
Speaker 1: pumped me up the louder I got. Katie believed fervently
Speaker 1: that her sister in law got cut up with Michael Moran.
Speaker 1: Moran was a prominent local attorney who was later indicted
Speaker 1: on eighteen sex trafficking related charges. We covered his story
Speaker 1: in season one of this podcast. The indictment accused Moran
Speaker 1: of engaging in sex trafficking from two thousand and three
Speaker 1: to twenty eighteen, with at least six victims being involved.
Speaker 1: Here's reporter Bob strictly who covered the story for The
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Enquirer. Michael Moran is an attorney that's been practicing
Speaker 1: for several decades. He's originally from Ironton, Ohio, which is
Speaker 1: just up the river from Portsmouth. He operates of an
Speaker 1: office that is right across the street from the Scarta
Speaker 1: County Courthouse, and he was appointed to fulfill a term
Speaker 1: on from city council and continued until recently to practice
Speaker 1: criminal defense law until his law license was suspended after
Speaker 1: he was charged with different sex trafficking related crimes. Here again,
Speaker 1: Stephanie and Jeff. Morant's focus as a lawyer was Portsmouth's underworld,
Speaker 1: which gave him easy access to things like sex workers
Speaker 1: and drug dealers. He also has a connection to the
Speaker 1: Wagners and just as a reminder, Pug Carter is actually
Speaker 1: Angela Wagner's father and George and Jake's grandfather, and he
Speaker 1: was allegedly using his pawn business to rip people off
Speaker 1: back in the day. He was also a frequenter of
Speaker 1: this nefarious place called Big Bear Lake. It's a location
Speaker 1: we've heard about for years but haven't been able to
Speaker 1: speak about it until now, and it appears to be
Speaker 1: a place that intersects Michael Moran, Sheriff Charles Reader, the Wagners,
Speaker 1: as well as the road Ins. It may be a
Speaker 1: key factor in the trials ahead. Big Bear Lake could
Speaker 1: hold deep secrets that pertained to the case. We'll get
Speaker 1: into that a little more next week. Here's James Pilcher
Speaker 1: speaking about Michael Moran and his connection to Pug Carter.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, he would represent anybody that came
Speaker 1: in his door, and he specialized in low level crime
Speaker 1: and drug offenses and DUIs and all of that. That
Speaker 1: was his specialty. That's how he made his living. The
Speaker 1: fact that a guy like Plug Carter came across his
Speaker 1: bow and he represented him was not surprising to me
Speaker 1: at all, because that's what he specialized in. But now
Speaker 1: he was facing possibly career ending allegations from a half
Speaker 1: dozen women. Here again, Bob, strictly, I would say that
Speaker 1: the women had stepped forward or was at the forefront.
Speaker 1: It just took somebody hitting me over the head with
Speaker 1: a fish that'd actually start paying attention to it in
Speaker 1: regard that it demands. What set this one apart for me,
Speaker 1: It was just the amount of women that stepped forward
Speaker 1: and said something about this to us and talk to
Speaker 1: us about it. And then also the apparatus that has
Speaker 1: to exist around a person like Michael Moran for an
Speaker 1: operation as we reported on to exist in the first place,
Speaker 1: a lot of people have to turn their heads. I think,
Speaker 1: if anything, over the years of working on this particular story,
Speaker 1: it's kind of the damnability of people who just turned
Speaker 1: the other way and don't care about what's going on
Speaker 1: right in front of them in their community is more
Speaker 1: prevalent than maybe we all realized initially. The charges against
Speaker 1: Moran included three counts of trafficking in person, five counts
Speaker 1: of compelling prostitution, nine counts of promoting prostitution, and one
Speaker 1: count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity. His
Speaker 1: arrest was orchestrated by Human Trafficking Task Force under Ohio
Speaker 1: Attorney General Debat, combining the forces of the BCI and
Speaker 1: several other agencies. Moran was the first domino to fall.
Speaker 1: Multiple other people are still under investigation. Meghan Lancaster had
Speaker 1: a color coded notebook in which she kept track of clients.
Speaker 1: The entries included scribbles such as quote dance for and
Speaker 1: quote men who give money and included Moran's name and number,
Speaker 1: along with the notation of eighty dollars. Again, Bob strictly.
Speaker 1: There were rumors about Lancaster's disappearance being related to Moran
Speaker 1: for several years. Her sister in law provided us with
Speaker 1: her little address like slash fun number book with different
Speaker 1: numbers in it, Dozens and dozens and dozens of different
Speaker 1: numbers of men. Moran was listed in there. We called
Speaker 1: all of those people to see what their associations were
Speaker 1: with Lancaster and came back with We came back with,
Speaker 1: but she's still missing, and I give her credit for
Speaker 1: continuing to keep the issue forefront. According to investigators, there
Speaker 1: were at least six women entangled in his exploditive ring.
Speaker 1: Moran denied all allegations. Was Megan Lancaster just another piece
Speaker 1: of his disposable merchandise. After years of probing, the Megan
Speaker 1: Lancaster case when cold, in May of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: eight years after her disappearance, the Ohio BCI issued an
Speaker 1: age advanced rendering of Megan as a forensic tool to
Speaker 1: reignite interest in finding her. Soon after the case was
Speaker 1: turned over to the BCI Cold Case Unit, Katie was hopeful,
Speaker 1: but nothing came of it. Meanwhile, Moran remained business as usual.
Speaker 1: Michael Moran was out on bond, and part of his
Speaker 1: bond agreement was not to practice law, and he was
Speaker 1: under investigator, an impossible suspension by the Bar Association, and
Speaker 1: he still showed up trying to defend a client in
Speaker 1: municipal court. So they rescinded his bond agreement and they
Speaker 1: put him on house arrestle of the bracelet. But that
Speaker 1: shows you that he was arrogant to the end. Then
Speaker 1: in October of twenty twenty one, the tragedy deepened when
Speaker 1: Katie Lancaster, then thirty three, was found dead in a
Speaker 1: residence on the fourth block of Portsmouth. Angie Montgomery was devastated.
Speaker 1: I remember who told me. Somebody sent me a message
Speaker 1: about it. Of course, the first thing I did was
Speaker 1: cry my head off because she was one of my
Speaker 1: really good friends. She's the reason that I fight so hard.
Speaker 1: As reporter James Pilcher tells us Katie's death was a
Speaker 1: possible overdose, possibly induced by the stresses of relentlessly searching
Speaker 1: for her missing sister in law, but no one knows
Speaker 1: for sure. Being the advocate, it can really wear on you.
Speaker 1: There's only so much fuel in the tank, There's only
Speaker 1: so much emotional fuel in the tank, or something like that.
Speaker 1: And the funny thing is is that she wasn't really
Speaker 1: other than being her sister in law, she wasn't really
Speaker 1: technically related to her. She was really good friends with her,
Speaker 1: and then to lose her to possibly a drug overdose,
Speaker 1: given all of what's going on in Seoda County, in
Speaker 1: Pike County, it was just such a tragic, tragic thing
Speaker 1: to hear given everything that that family has been through.
Speaker 1: As tragical as it is that she's gone, the fact
Speaker 1: that she kept going as long as she did and
Speaker 1: brought attention to this is one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: we had the story that we did. Angie has her
Speaker 1: doubts about the apparent overdose. Infiltrating the sex trafficking world
Speaker 1: like she was, could Katie have been silenced? I'm going
Speaker 1: to be honest with you. She was easy and I
Speaker 1: didn't know it. Around this aready ways to meet people,
Speaker 1: quiet like at first, when I found out that it
Speaker 1: was just supposed to overdose, I was like, no, something's wrong.
Speaker 1: There's been people here in Pike Canopy that have guided
Speaker 1: as apparent drug overdoses and everybody knews better. As brutal
Speaker 1: as the fate of these two women is, it did
Speaker 1: raise awareness of the struggle of women living in the
Speaker 1: margins Bob strictly, it certainly is taking an Epstein Weinstein
Speaker 1: sort of story and saying, yeah, it can happen here too.
Speaker 1: There's positions of power littered throughout our society that are
Speaker 1: in a spot where they can abuse where they stand
Speaker 1: because they're marginalized people who nobody will listen to. This
Speaker 1: is a small town example of a lot of really
Speaker 1: brave women stepping up and telling their stories and hoping
Speaker 1: that something changes. James Pilcher points out that small town
Speaker 1: cases of sex abuse are systemically no different from anywhere else.
Speaker 1: The one thing that this did was made me so
Speaker 1: much more aware and so much more interested in telling
Speaker 1: the stories of all these women all over the country.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if there was a small town Portsmouth,
Speaker 1: Ohio or suburban Chicago. I've spoken to girls who got
Speaker 1: trapped into it by their uncles, and they've lived in
Speaker 1: pretty affluent suburbs of Seattle. This sex trafficking is an onerous,
Speaker 1: evil thing that is going on everywhere. It's never going
Speaker 1: to stop until you make it harder on the men
Speaker 1: for buying the sex and going after the sex than
Speaker 1: it is for the women selling the sex, who most likely,
Speaker 1: more than likely highly likely are being coerced into it.
Speaker 1: It's never going away. I will say that's one thing
Speaker 1: that I took away from that whole experience is just
Speaker 1: how wide my eyes were opened to this whole semi
Speaker 1: underbelly of American society. Let's stop here for another break.
Speaker 1: In November of twenty twenty one, Michael Moran, who had
Speaker 1: a number of health issues, died while Adam Bond after
Speaker 1: a brief hospital stay. His case was then dismissed, but
Speaker 1: Moran might have left behind a more wide ranging network
Speaker 1: of abuse and exploitation. James Pilcher. The women whose lives
Speaker 1: he ruined are not getting a shot to face him
Speaker 1: in court, in face person that did this to them.
Speaker 1: But there's so much more to that story than just
Speaker 1: Michael Moran. There's so much more what was going on
Speaker 1: in Portsmouth and how his operation had created all of
Speaker 1: these webs into branches of government. I really think that
Speaker 1: there are people that do not want it to go
Speaker 1: any further now. That Moran is dead, You're opening a
Speaker 1: whole can of worms. I mean, they had opened an
Speaker 1: investigation into all of the previous convictions and trials overseen
Speaker 1: by William Marshall, the judge who was known to pal
Speaker 1: around with Michael Moran, who was possibly named in the
Speaker 1: federal affidavit. The first turn to sawn to the Morans
Speaker 1: story and that other women said that they slept with
Speaker 1: him and that Marian set it up. According to an
Speaker 1: article published in April of twenty twenty by The Daily Independent,
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, more than two thousand and seven hundred
Speaker 1: cases judge William Marshall oversaw were reviewed by the state.
Speaker 1: This happened after it was revealed that he was potentially
Speaker 1: involved with Michael Moran's sex trafficking ring, among other allegations.
Speaker 1: He has never commented on these controversies, and she describes
Speaker 1: her reaction when she learned Moran was dead. I turned
Speaker 1: my phone on and was blowing up. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh God, had something happened and I've seen it And
Speaker 1: I was like, that's so of a bitch. That's horrible
Speaker 1: to say about someone passing away. But I got me
Speaker 1: and he got away, and he took all the secrets
Speaker 1: with him, because there's way more than him involved in
Speaker 1: all that. I'm hoping that he stilled the beings and
Speaker 1: told the whole story before he passed away, But I
Speaker 1: don't know. He was an awful evil man. There were
Speaker 1: other people involved and they need to be prosecuted for that.
Speaker 1: There's women that are dead because of that, and women
Speaker 1: are missy because of what he did. For years he
Speaker 1: denied it, that everybody knew what he was doing. It
Speaker 1: surprised me that it took that long for something to
Speaker 1: be done about it. It's a long time. People have
Speaker 1: been talking about that for fifteen years. But as Angie says,
Speaker 1: in the end, Moran will still meet his maker and
Speaker 1: maybe there's a reason to hope for a brighter future again.
Speaker 1: James Pilcher, Portsmouth is actually better off than Pike County.
Speaker 1: There are new people in positions of authority. Now they've
Speaker 1: got a new police because they've got a new mayor.
Speaker 1: I mean, you still have the poverty. It's still one
Speaker 1: of the places in Ohio with the highest rate of
Speaker 1: overdose steps and opioid addiction. But as for the town
Speaker 1: moving on from the corruption and all of the things,
Speaker 1: were happening when Moran was there. I think they're trying
Speaker 1: to turn a corner. More on that next time. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying The Piked and Massacre, listen to our other
Speaker 1: hit series, Crazy and Love. New episodes there every Tuesday
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. For more information and case photos,
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. The Pike
Speaker 1: Did Massacre is produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Greaves,
Speaker 1: Alan Wheaterer, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed
Speaker 1: by Jeff Tis, music by Jared Aston, audio mixing by
Speaker 1: Ken Novak. The Piked and Massacre is a production of
Speaker 1: Katie Studios and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
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