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Speaker 1: He just walked around shot all the black people. The
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Speaker 1: out how to go on and how to compete. I
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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
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Speaker 1: this guy's a wacko. He shouted to the point went unconscious.
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Speaker 1: Friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. You know Andy, in our twenty two
Speaker 1: years of friendship, this has to be the most bizarre
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Speaker 1: Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to
Speaker 1: The Pikedon Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios.
Speaker 1: Somebody pretty important in Ohio once asked me why I
Speaker 1: was so vested and interested in this case and in
Speaker 1: sex trafficking. I had to be honest with myself and
Speaker 1: I had to say when I first heard it, I
Speaker 1: didn't believe it. I didn't think it was widespread. And
Speaker 1: ever since then it's been like, these women aren't lying
Speaker 1: and they deserve all of our attention. This is the
Speaker 1: Piketon Massacre. Returned to Pike County season two, Episode nine,
Speaker 1: twenty five miles South, Part two. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a
Speaker 1: television producer at Katie Studios with Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane.
Speaker 1: Throughout the series, we've examined abuses of power by authorities
Speaker 1: in Ohio, from law enforcement officials to city councilmen. Investigative
Speaker 1: reporter James Pilcher drew a through line in cases of
Speaker 1: Pike County Sheriff of Charlie, Reader Michael Moran, and the
Speaker 1: corruption that has infiltrated the Southern Ohio criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: Why do I think this is happening in these kinds
Speaker 1: of counties so much either a you had ineffectual or
Speaker 1: corrupt or both law enforcement right you had a community
Speaker 1: or a culture of lawlessness that has descended on upon
Speaker 1: many places in rural America. And I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons nobody's watching, nobody cares to watch, not
Speaker 1: to you know, enhance or blow up importance of journalists.
Speaker 1: But if you don't have some kind of watchdog or
Speaker 1: somebody holding officials accountable, it doesn't always work well. In
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, reporter Nicki Blankenship uncovered an affidavit filed by
Speaker 1: the Drug Enforcement Agency. The document detailed an FBI investigation
Speaker 1: into a Portsmouth, Ohio lawyer and former city councilman named
Speaker 1: Michael Moran. It's and supported stories Nicki had long heard
Speaker 1: from area women who claimed that Moran was involved in
Speaker 1: sex trafficking and prostitution. It should be noted that Michael
Speaker 1: Moran has strongly denied the allegations. So when I got
Speaker 1: this affidavit, I immediately took it to my publisher, my editor,
Speaker 1: and they want to prove that it was real, it
Speaker 1: was authentic, and all of this was real, and so
Speaker 1: I contact our private investigators that I knew, had them
Speaker 1: look into the document. Further. I called people in course
Speaker 1: systems that I knew and had them looking into it.
Speaker 1: I verified it over and over and over, and ultimately
Speaker 1: they said that no, we're not going to publish. I
Speaker 1: gave my letter of resignation that day and I said
Speaker 1: ethical differences and I left. During the course of her
Speaker 1: reporting on sex trafficking in southern Ohio, the issue had
Speaker 1: become personal for Nicki. She often spoke with the families
Speaker 1: of Portsmouth women that had fallen into prostitution and others
Speaker 1: whose family members had gone missing or been murdered. After
Speaker 1: her resignation, Nikki had a crucial decision to make. I
Speaker 1: had made a promise to the families. I'm tearing up
Speaker 1: a little bit, but I promised these families and I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have, as a journalist, promised them, but I did.
Speaker 1: I promised them that I was going to scream until
Speaker 1: someone listened. And so when I felt like I was
Speaker 1: just repeatedly being shut down, I felt very helpless. I
Speaker 1: had to do something. I had to put it out
Speaker 1: there some way, and social media's last way. I knew,
Speaker 1: even if only local families were able to see that.
Speaker 1: I thought it might help them in some way and
Speaker 1: give them something. And as a local journalists, a lot
Speaker 1: of people locally were on my Facebook page. So I
Speaker 1: went ahead and I published it and I went to sleep.
Speaker 1: When I woke up the next morning, I had hundreds,
Speaker 1: probably thousands of lights on that close already, not thousands
Speaker 1: of shares and messages from everyone. But Carna went crazier
Speaker 1: than I expected it too. When you saw the Daffi David,
Speaker 1: what ran through your head? I was not a bit stunned,
Speaker 1: And people they want me to be stunned, but I wasn't.
Speaker 1: That's Katie Lancaster speaking with producer Chris Graves. Katie's best
Speaker 1: friend and sister in law, Megan Lancaster, went missing in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen. Katie alleges that Megan worked for Michael Moran
Speaker 1: as a prostitute. Moran denies these allegations. What went through
Speaker 1: my head is, oh, my gosh, like I'm not the
Speaker 1: only one that sees this, you know, like the FBI
Speaker 1: sees it. Like it was just so just a sense
Speaker 1: of relief. News of the Affi David's spread. It soon
Speaker 1: caught the attention of Cincinnati Enquirer investigative editor Bob Strictly,
Speaker 1: who had once worked for the newspaper The portsmith Dale Times,
Speaker 1: initially was a sports editor in Portsmouth and was elevated
Speaker 1: to managing editor. And during my time there, there were
Speaker 1: always these rumors about Michael Moran and the women that
Speaker 1: he was around and the circles he ran in, and
Speaker 1: it just at the time, early in my career, it
Speaker 1: just seems so far fetched. Portsmouth, if nothing else, is
Speaker 1: a rumor mill. So a lot of things get tossed
Speaker 1: around without substantive evidence to back it up. But it
Speaker 1: was quite surprising to receive word that there was something
Speaker 1: that could actually back this up. We got a copy
Speaker 1: of it ourselves and verified it through various attorneys and
Speaker 1: our own legal counsel. And I went back and looked
Speaker 1: through notes that I had taken, and because I never
Speaker 1: throw away a notebook from my time working in Portsman,
Speaker 1: I was like, Man, a lot of the tracks and
Speaker 1: here's a government official saying so, and it's in a
Speaker 1: sworn affter David, So it's time for the chips down
Speaker 1: on the table and get involved. It's too big of
Speaker 1: a story to ignore, even if it is a place
Speaker 1: that is not traditionally in an area where my paper
Speaker 1: covers it. I don't know if it initiated a sense
Speaker 1: of responsibility as much as it triggered a pretty huge
Speaker 1: amount of guilt that motivated me to go pitch the
Speaker 1: story to our bosses, despite the paper being two and
Speaker 1: a half hours away from the subject that we were covering.
Speaker 1: And luckily my bosses were hospitable enough to allow us
Speaker 1: to explore and then go dig real deep in this
Speaker 1: story and turn over some rocks that needed to be
Speaker 1: turned over decades ago. Reporter James Pilcher was writing for
Speaker 1: The Inquirer at the time. My boss came to me,
Speaker 1: because I was the investigative reporter, and said, well, what
Speaker 1: do you think about this? Do you want to take
Speaker 1: a look. Is this guy trafficking women all over the
Speaker 1: country from this little town, this burned out shell of
Speaker 1: a town. It's known as the epicenter of the opioid epidemic?
Speaker 1: Is he doing this? Is it true? Can we prove it?
Speaker 1: I really thought there was no way, There was no
Speaker 1: way this could be going on for so long and
Speaker 1: nobody did anything about it. The other interesting thing was
Speaker 1: that the paper who got this wouldn't publish it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a federal affidavit, and they still wouldn't publish it
Speaker 1: right there in the hometown of Michael Moran. It takes
Speaker 1: a big city newspaper from two hours away in Cincinnati
Speaker 1: to come in and do this investigation. Now, granted, we
Speaker 1: had the resources of USA Today behind us, but why
Speaker 1: not if that had been published, or if the local
Speaker 1: newspaper had been truly an independent arm or an independent eye,
Speaker 1: would some of this stuff have gone on? I don't
Speaker 1: think so. The first time I went to Portsmouth, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to expect, and they partnered me full
Speaker 1: time with the photographer who was also bylined on the story.
Speaker 1: Is she and I were just shooting some footage out
Speaker 1: at the US Shoe factory and there was graffiti there
Speaker 1: talking about prostitution and drugs and things like that, and
Speaker 1: this guy rides up on a bicycle saying, what you
Speaker 1: guys doing. We just kind of telling them it was
Speaker 1: so by the way, do you know Michael Moreney says, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that guy runs women. At that point, We're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, everybody in town knows this. The guy on
Speaker 1: the street knows this guy. We didn't even ask. In
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Pilcher began the difficult task of locating area
Speaker 1: women and asking them to open up to him about
Speaker 1: their alleged experiences with Michael Moran. June of that year,
Speaker 1: I got the first woman to come forward and say,
Speaker 1: here's exactly how he did it. And then by July
Speaker 1: we had one or two on the record. And if
Speaker 1: these allegations proven true, this guy was in the seed
Speaker 1: of power. He had these vulnerable women coming to him
Speaker 1: for help from a legal perspective, and he offered them
Speaker 1: the other way out. Do this and maybe I can
Speaker 1: get these charges lesson for you, we heard that story
Speaker 1: over and over again. Do this and you won't go
Speaker 1: to jail. And how much of a worse abuse of
Speaker 1: power could there being? You started this story not believing
Speaker 1: this as possible. How does that make you feel? Six
Speaker 1: seven to forty, I look like a cop, got a
Speaker 1: big black coute where a black fedora. I'm not warm
Speaker 1: and cuddley, and people don't immediately warm up. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: a good conversationalist, but I was the government kind of
Speaker 1: accountability reporter and getting women to open up and tell
Speaker 1: me these awful things that happened to them. That was
Speaker 1: eye opening, and it was a new skill that I
Speaker 1: had to learn. I also had to be the reporter.
Speaker 1: I also had to be the objective reporter. And the
Speaker 1: hard part was I also had to fact check all
Speaker 1: these women. I couldn't just take their word for it.
Speaker 1: My publication's reputation was on the line. My reputation was
Speaker 1: on the line. I had to believe would be skeptical.
Speaker 1: So when they would tell me, oh, I remember that
Speaker 1: I got arrested in this particular place, and I have
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, where when, what can you tell me?
Speaker 1: I'd have to go look up the court records, all
Speaker 1: of those things and try to make sure that the
Speaker 1: timelines matched. Ever since then, it's been like, you know,
Speaker 1: these women aren't lying and they deserve all of our attention.
Speaker 1: The more Pilcher investigated, the deeper the ties into the
Speaker 1: Portsmouth legal system grew. We reported several times the women
Speaker 1: were saying that Moran would brag about his relationship with
Speaker 1: former Yota County Common Police Court judge William Marshall. Now
Speaker 1: William Marshall was one of the Marshall Boys. He and
Speaker 1: his brother were the son of the former Judge Marshall
Speaker 1: in that county. So Bill Marshall took his dad's place
Speaker 1: as one of two common Police Courts judges, which has
Speaker 1: oversees all the serious cases and all the felonies and
Speaker 1: all the high end civil cases at a county level.
Speaker 1: It's an elected position. There were allegations that Moran was
Speaker 1: guiding them to have relations, promoted parties with Judge William Marshall.
Speaker 1: It should be noted that Judge William Marshall has staunchly
Speaker 1: denied these allegations or any illicit ties to Michael Moran.
Speaker 1: Though a judge is mentioned in the Affidavid Marshall has
Speaker 1: repeatedly insisted he is not the judge referred to as
Speaker 1: working in collusion with Moran and has not been charged
Speaker 1: in connection with that probe. But the allegations made by
Speaker 1: area women didn't stop at a local judge. One of
Speaker 1: the women who did go on the record for that
Speaker 1: first story told that she partied with the former police chief,
Speaker 1: she partied with former members of the police department, all
Speaker 1: because Moran set it up. These women came forward and
Speaker 1: said these guys used their position to either traffick me.
Speaker 1: One lady got sent up to Chicago not knowing what
Speaker 1: she was getting into, and then turned into a prostitute
Speaker 1: up there. And then other women were talking about how
Speaker 1: the probation department, his brother, the guy ran the probation department,
Speaker 1: was using his position to lessen her probation. That's how
Speaker 1: deep this went. One of the best lawyers and a
Speaker 1: politician and a sitting judge all possibly involved in this network.
Speaker 1: And that's when we knew we needed to get more
Speaker 1: women who had been through this experience to talk about
Speaker 1: what they'd been through. The following is audio from an
Speaker 1: interview The Cincinnati Enquirer did with a woman named Heather Boots.
Speaker 1: She claimed to have been a sex trafficking victim in Portsmouth.
Speaker 1: She went on the record about her alleged association with
Speaker 1: Michael Moran lives if this isn't happening for decades because
Speaker 1: the judges and the corruption here throw all of them.
Speaker 1: It's another fact any but you can stop at any
Speaker 1: house in the sale and that will tell you everything,
Speaker 1: like it's a no secret. James Pilcher began further exploring
Speaker 1: the Megan Lancaster case. Katie Lancaster thinks very strongly that
Speaker 1: Michael Moran lured Megan into this life and it's his
Speaker 1: fault she's dead or missing. Now whether he actually was
Speaker 1: directly involved, all we know is she left behind a
Speaker 1: heck of a lot of notes about all of her
Speaker 1: different liaisons and all the people she would go to
Speaker 1: for money. She kept all of it. Katie found it.
Speaker 1: She has copies of everything. We called every single number
Speaker 1: in that book. Some people acknowledge yeah, about sex from
Speaker 1: her and she became like a slew of women went
Speaker 1: Singer got killed that were addicted prostitutes, sex workers up
Speaker 1: in Ross County and chill A Coffee, which is two
Speaker 1: counties to the north. I mean, we're talking a dozen
Speaker 1: more women so Megan. A lot of people theorize that
Speaker 1: Megan might have been wrapped up in something that got
Speaker 1: those women killed. But there's a lot of thought and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of theory or rumor that know that
Speaker 1: that was separate from what happened to her, and what
Speaker 1: happened to her points back to possibly Michael Marian. Michael
Speaker 1: Moran has denied any involvement or responsibility in Megan Lancaster's disappearance.
Speaker 1: Moran has stated numerous times in interviews that the only
Speaker 1: involvement he had with Megan Lancaster was in a case
Speaker 1: involving a former client where Lancaster acted as an informant.
Speaker 1: He has said that he had no other relationship with
Speaker 1: her and that she did not work for him. Additionally,
Speaker 1: authorities have not brought any charges against him in the
Speaker 1: case at this time, it's unclear whether they have questioned
Speaker 1: him in the matter. Throughout twenty nineteen, the Cincinnati Enquirer
Speaker 1: published a series of articles by James Pilcher and his
Speaker 1: colleagues about Michael Moran and his allegedized to human trafficking.
Speaker 1: Everything that was in that affidavit, we reported it out
Speaker 1: as a rageous as it sounds. Allegations that he was
Speaker 1: running women all over the country, he was promising women
Speaker 1: drugs for sex, he had relationships with judges and with
Speaker 1: members of law enforcement, all of it. So those allegations,
Speaker 1: all of this is in the federal document, and yet
Speaker 1: they never moved on Moran. Now, the DA says we
Speaker 1: handed all the stuff about human trafficking over to the FBI.
Speaker 1: The FBI says we're not going to comment on any
Speaker 1: potential or ongoing investigation. So you can see how frustrated
Speaker 1: we were with, like, Okay, why doesn't anybody move on him?
Speaker 1: What's going on here? Bob strictly shared Pilcher's frustration. A
Speaker 1: very important thing that the press does, when it's done
Speaker 1: well is to shine lights and you know, and to
Speaker 1: offer a vehicle for those people stepping forward, right do
Speaker 1: you find a sense of kind of responsibility of making
Speaker 1: sure those voices are heard? What said this one apart
Speaker 1: was just the amount of women that stepped forward and
Speaker 1: said something about this to us and talk to us
Speaker 1: about it. And then also the apparatus that has to
Speaker 1: exist around a person Michael Moran for an operation, as
Speaker 1: we reported on, to exist in the first place, a
Speaker 1: lot of people have to turn their heads. Kind of
Speaker 1: the damnability of people who just turned the other way
Speaker 1: and don't care about what's going on right in front
Speaker 1: of them in their community is more prevalent than maybe
Speaker 1: we all realized initially. We're going to take a quick
Speaker 1: break here. We'll be back in a moment. I'm Carol Fisher,
Speaker 1: and I'm hosting a podcast called The girl Friends. Back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties in Las Vegas, a few of
Speaker 1: us dated the most eligible bachelor in town, Bob he
Speaker 1: spoke several languages, he did medical missionary work, and he
Speaker 1: was Jewish. He was perfect on paper. But he wasn't.
Speaker 1: He really wasn't, he shouted into the point she went unconscious.
Speaker 1: Bob could lie about anything, but only takes the one
Speaker 1: time when somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for Bob, us
Speaker 1: girlfriends know how to fight back. I wanted him to
Speaker 1: pay for his crime. He needed to be put to justice.
Speaker 1: I'll 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,
Speaker 1: perryopause exactly, our whack periods, boob issues, and so much more.
Speaker 1: Listen to my vagina said, what podcasts on the iHeartRadio app,
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Speaker 1: As part of his reporting, Pilcher tracked down Michael Moran
Speaker 1: to get his side of the story. Moran vehemently denied
Speaker 1: all the allegations about being involved in any prostitution or
Speaker 1: sex trafficking rings. I've talked to Michael Moran three times
Speaker 1: at length. We first talked to him because said, are
Speaker 1: you a sex trafficker? People have said you're a sex trafficker.
Speaker 1: It says here in this affidavit you're a sex trafficker.
Speaker 1: What do you say to that? He tried to play
Speaker 1: the dumb country lawyer. The following is an audio recording
Speaker 1: from that interview with Michael Moran. I don't even know
Speaker 1: what to say. Give me the definition of a sex trafficker.
Speaker 1: So then we get all these women lined up. Would
Speaker 1: come back to him and say, Okay, we've got these
Speaker 1: women now saying that you're the guy, and he says okay,
Speaker 1: and then he was more angry. He would not go
Speaker 1: on camera with us a second time. During one conversation,
Speaker 1: Pilcher asked Moran specifically about Megan Lancaster. Moran denied being
Speaker 1: her pimp or being involved in any of that kind
Speaker 1: of activity, but when James Pilcher brought up the possible
Speaker 1: whereabouts of Megan Lancaster, he got a shocking response. Pilcher
Speaker 1: relaid the story to producer Jeff Shane. He joked with me, Hey,
Speaker 1: maybe season in my basement. Maybe season in my backyard.
Speaker 1: He thinks it's a joke because he knows what the
Speaker 1: rumors are. Wait, what so you asked him directly about it? Oh? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I said, you have anything to do with Megan Lancaster
Speaker 1: and he said no, but you can check my basement.
Speaker 1: Everybody else wants to, you can check out him back.
Speaker 1: He said, I've invited the cops in to take a look. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to surmise whether he's trying to get
Speaker 1: away with anything, because I don't know whether or not
Speaker 1: he had anything to do with her disappearance. I really
Speaker 1: don't are reporting didn't lead down those paths. But he
Speaker 1: had this attitude that he thought he was smarter than you,
Speaker 1: that he thought he was smarter than anybody. And I
Speaker 1: think what probably from my reporting in my history on
Speaker 1: all this is that I read a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: about him and leading up to him, and I'd see
Speaker 1: stories here and there, But nobody but NICKI Blankenship kept
Speaker 1: at him. Nobody kept on him. And I can tell
Speaker 1: you that we never went away. The photographer person that
Speaker 1: I worked with, was always in the courtroom bugging him,
Speaker 1: you know, was bugging him that she was there. She
Speaker 1: was always taking pictures or getting video of him in
Speaker 1: action in the courtroom. We just never went away. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, authorities finally made their move. Police rated the
Speaker 1: home of a well known lawyer suspected of running a
Speaker 1: national sex trafficking ring for years. March twenty fifth, state
Speaker 1: and local police raid Michael Moran's house with a search
Speaker 1: warrant in dave Yos. The Attorney General was personally present
Speaker 1: for that en Portsmouth. When you get the state Attorney
Speaker 1: General showing up to serve a search warrant, you know
Speaker 1: that there are some very important people watching this case.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the story I did, and you can
Speaker 1: see Moran is sitting on his porch in his stocking
Speaker 1: seat while police are searching his office slash house. Now
Speaker 1: the thing you got to remember too, which is interesting.
Speaker 1: He has his brick two story house that sits on
Speaker 1: the corner right across from the courthouse and right across
Speaker 1: the Catycoiner from the local prosecutor's office. So he literally
Speaker 1: can walk back and forth from his house slash office
Speaker 1: to the courthouse and walk right in front of the
Speaker 1: prosecutor's office. Just seven months later, it all came crashing
Speaker 1: down from Michael Moran. Now, longtime defense lawyer and former
Speaker 1: city councilman, has been arrested in an alleged sex trafficking operation.
Speaker 1: So on Friday, October twenty three to twenty twenty, stayed
Speaker 1: in local police teamed up and arrested Michael Moran. This
Speaker 1: comes nearly seven years after that initial affidavit issued by
Speaker 1: the DA for Nicky Blanketship. It was a day that
Speaker 1: marked the culmination of years of tireless work and a
Speaker 1: victory for dozens of Portsman women when my friend was
Speaker 1: arrested on October to my third He was arrested on
Speaker 1: the eighteen charges that included sex trafficking, racketering, co copelling,
Speaker 1: and promoting prostitution. When that came out, that was a
Speaker 1: really exciting day for me. I was screaming. I read
Speaker 1: for the house, screaming because I worried that no one
Speaker 1: was ever going to check. No one wasn't really ever
Speaker 1: going to look into it. I really worried. I know
Speaker 1: that the Cincinnati enquire they had to do their own investigation,
Speaker 1: but it was approximately a year before they started releasing things,
Speaker 1: and when they released things, I still didn't know if
Speaker 1: anything was ever going to happen. And so finally I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, at least somebody's finally checking. Did it
Speaker 1: kind of validate the journey you had started on? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it definitely did. There were also a lot of people
Speaker 1: who were saying he's a great man, and I worried
Speaker 1: about that. I'm like, did I make a mistake? Am
Speaker 1: I wrong? And there's no way I could have seen that.
Speaker 1: I was at this point, I'm like, I have so
Speaker 1: much evident, but still I can't. I don't want to
Speaker 1: hurt anyone's I like that. So yeah, I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: something it was valid and everything I've worked on for
Speaker 1: for a decade. Is valid. Yeah. Katy Lancaster also felt
Speaker 1: a great sense of relief and was struck by the
Speaker 1: uncanny timing of Marian's arrest. Mariana was arrested October twenty
Speaker 1: third of twenty twenty, the day before Megan's thirty third birthday.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was on my way to Columbus and
Speaker 1: I about jumped out of the damn car while it
Speaker 1: was moving. I couldn't speak, I couldn't talk, I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell anybody what was going on. I was just like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, oh my gosh, Like I just couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it. And before that happened, the day that it did,
Speaker 1: it was almost like a sense of Okay, now I
Speaker 1: know this is a god thing, Like this happened the
Speaker 1: day before Megan's birthday, almost eight years into it, Like
Speaker 1: it could not have come at a better time. It
Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, we did it. We got
Speaker 1: this far, Megan, look what you have done. Like I
Speaker 1: so just wanted five minutes with her to say, book
Speaker 1: that you've done. Let's stop here for another quick break.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment. Just three days after
Speaker 1: his arrest, Michael Moran appeared in court. He was arraigned
Speaker 1: on October twenty six, implied not guilty, and then he
Speaker 1: posted a three hundred thousand dollars bond and was released
Speaker 1: five days after his arrest. He was also suspended by
Speaker 1: the state Bar Association, so he's not allowed to practice
Speaker 1: law at all, both from the bar perspective but also
Speaker 1: from his bond agreement. But that didn't stop Moran from
Speaker 1: trying to pull off an audacious legal maneuver. So Michael
Speaker 1: Moran actually initially filed to defend himself in court. He
Speaker 1: had the intimate knowledge things that these women would never
Speaker 1: want to know publicly, and he could cross examine them
Speaker 1: on the witness stand. So I actually talked to the
Speaker 1: Attorney General about this, and he said there's no way
Speaker 1: they were going to let them do that. They strongly,
Speaker 1: strongly objected, and Moran has since backed off of that.
Speaker 1: He hired an attorney. It didn't take long for Moran
Speaker 1: to violate his bond agreement. As it turns out, Moran
Speaker 1: represented somebody against the court order. He represented somebody in
Speaker 1: municipal court and filed paperwork for somebody in municipal court
Speaker 1: in Portsmouth. As part of his bond agreement, he was
Speaker 1: supposed to have not represented anybody. Now the State Attorney
Speaker 1: General's office, under the direction of Dave Jos the State
Speaker 1: Attorney General, is prosecuting this case against Moran in association
Speaker 1: with a prosecutor, Shane Keiman. So when they got this
Speaker 1: they immediately filed with the court to have his bond agreement.
Speaker 1: I don't think he takes anything seriously, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think the court is really pushing him to
Speaker 1: have to take any of this very seriously either, because
Speaker 1: even though he violated the conditions of his bond, instead
Speaker 1: of sending him back to jail, they put him on
Speaker 1: the house arrests. Currently, Michael Moran is a waiting trial,
Speaker 1: though a date has not been set. He continues to
Speaker 1: maintain his innocence. If these allegations proven true, this wasn't
Speaker 1: a one off, you did this many times and was
Speaker 1: part of a network. This was a part of a
Speaker 1: repeating pattern of criminal activity. He's looking at seventy years
Speaker 1: or more if convicted. In their concurrent sentences. I think
Speaker 1: in small communities like in southern Ohio that has just
Speaker 1: been beaten with poverty, and drug addiction and so many things.
Speaker 1: I think that it is just so easy to feel
Speaker 1: helpless and powerless against these kind of men. Men like
Speaker 1: us can get by with us and do whatever they want.
Speaker 1: And I think people and areas pray on the community
Speaker 1: areas like this. I think I've always said that all
Speaker 1: the way down to the drug epidemics, that people come
Speaker 1: in offering to help and really is they're just looking
Speaker 1: how they can profit. And there's a lot of wolves
Speaker 1: in sheep's clothing. It makes it very hard to trust
Speaker 1: your officials, your local government, your local law enforcement, because
Speaker 1: those people are supposed to be there to help you.
Speaker 1: They promise to be there to help you and to
Speaker 1: fight these problems with you, and really they're taking advantage
Speaker 1: and profiting as much as they possibly can offer the
Speaker 1: issues that the rest of us have to battle every day.
Speaker 1: If Megan was sitting in front of you right now,
Speaker 1: what would you say to her? I would say to her, Megan,
Speaker 1: we love you so much and we've missed you so bad,
Speaker 1: and oh boy, he's so wonderful. Boy he's doing great.
Speaker 1: He's doing great things just like you. Or you play
Speaker 1: sports just like you did. You need to know the
Speaker 1: great things or the great changes that you've prowed in
Speaker 1: Saturda County and in Ohio and in the world for
Speaker 1: that matter. Your story has reached London, England. You've done
Speaker 1: great things and you will continue to do them because
Speaker 1: I will continue to for you, and we love you
Speaker 1: and we miss you always. Next week on The pikes
Speaker 1: And Massacre Returned to Pike County. On December ninth, two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, someone got into Curtain Jenny's home and
Speaker 1: shot a mother, both in the bed. On a special
Speaker 1: bonus episode, a double homicide leaves another Pike County family
Speaker 1: searching for answers. After fourteen years of being told we've
Speaker 1: went as far as we can go with this case,
Speaker 1: you feel like you're never going to get justice, and
Speaker 1: then that turns into kind of aggravation. Why isn't anything
Speaker 1: being done? Why isn't this case parton? Why is it
Speaker 1: my family important? More on that next time. For more
Speaker 1: information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. The piked In Massacre Returned
Speaker 1: to Pike County is executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker and
Speaker 1: me Courtney Armstrong, editing and sound designed by executive producer
Speaker 1: Jared Aston, Additional producing by Jeff Shane, Andrew Becker, and
Speaker 1: Chris Graves. The piked In Massacre Returned to Pike County
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.