Cold Blooded

Pike County Season three, episode nine, Cold Blooded. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at Katie Studios with Stephanie Leidecker and Jeff Shane. Over the last two seasons, we've covered a few local stories that we believed were unrelated to the massacre. Turns out we may have been mistaken. This episode is dedicated to tying up the loose ends of these stories that have new endings or new developments. We're also exploring the intersection between many of the main players who also

have ties to the Roden murders. The connections are undeniable. The Roden murders of April twenty sixteen, earth shattering as they were, have pushed law enforcement in southern Ohio to the limit. It's left their relatively small ranks hyper extended. As a result, As local cold case advocates like Angie Montgomery point out, many other local homicides have gone ignored. In fact, there are at least nine other murder cases in Pike County dating back to two thousand that have

iced over without resolution or even charges issued. In light of the county's population of only fifty eight thousand, this number is staggering. Tray Evans won the election, and he called me in January when he ran into office and told me that he was going to try his best with the case. Who could do the best he could with it. He's got in contact with the BCI and they were looking on some things. Speaking as Angie Montgomery,

a Piked and mother of four and spiritual adviser. Once her kids were grown, Angie decided to dedicate her life to being a cold case advocate. Here she is talking about Sheriff Tracy D. Evans, who took over the Pike County Sheriff's office in twenty twenty. This was after Sheriff Charles Reader, who spearheaded the Road and investigation, pled guilty to corruption charges. Reader is currently facing a three year sentence at the Toledo Correctional Facility. Here's Stephanie and Jeff.

Just as a reminder, Sheriff Charlie Reader was the sheriff at the time of the road and murders, and he's never been directly associated with the murders, but he, alongside former DA Mike DeWine, we're very public talking about it at the time, and after a very thorough investigation, Reader agreed to be suspended in July twenty nineteen, and shortly after was indicted on eighteen counts that included also racketeering.

Beloved Sheriff Charlie Reader was accused of stealing more than fourteen thousand dollars from the Sheriff's office and seized drug money. What he would do was go into these evidence envelopes that were in his possession, take out money, go gamble with it, and then put the money back before anyone noticed, and allegedly he repeated this process numerous times before anyone

even caught on. In September twenty twenty, Reader pled guilty to two counts of theft, one count of tampering with evidence, and then also one count of conflict of interest another matter that doesn't necessarily relate to this, but is just another strike against Sheriff Reader's morality. Is the story from twenty twenty one that he was sued by county officials over collecting salary and benefits that they say he improperly collected while he was suspended as they were investigating all

this other stuff that he had done. According to the lawsuit, Charlie Reader collected over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars from the city. It's not clear the exact status of this litigation, but it is just another strike against the sheriff. Here again, Angie Montgomery, we had a meeting with Tracy Evans in June, myself and Curtis smother and Jenny's sisters, and he told us that if the BTI decided not to assist with the case, that he was going to

wash his hands with him. It's important to note that this is Angie Montgomery's recollection of events. We've reached out to Sheriff Tracy Evans for comment but did not receive a response. The Curtis and Jenny Angie is referring to are her cousin, Curtis Francis and his fiance Jennifer Burgett.

The pair were found dead in their bed December ninth, two thousand and six, in their home at one hundred and twenty four Hopper Road in piked hon Thirty four year old Curtis and thirty year old Jennifer were each at once while asleep. The killings became known as the Hopper Road murders. According to Angie, Curtis and his fiance Jennifer were excited to get married. They both loved hunting and fishing, and Chris was a jovial guy known for

playing practical jokes. Curtis had just had shoulder replacement surgery and had a supply of pain medications, so one early theory was that the killers were after his pills. In the sixteen years since the murders, the case has been opened and closed several times without a single arrest. It's currently a cold case. Sheriff Evans, who during his campaign promised voters to improve resources for victims, has deflected Angie's

passionate please to reopen the case. He was done with it. Basically, there was nothing more they could do that we would have to turn to the media if we wanted to get help with the case, which was kind of heartbreaking because you know, he gets elected and tells us that he's going to do everything he can, but then he's flipping it around and saying, if the BCI does, they helped, and I'm just going to wash my hands with it.

So you kind of contradicting what she told me. Kind he gave us like false hope, like this guy's really going to dig into it and do something, and turns around and says if the BCI doesn't do anything, he's not going to do anything. And he also said that he didn't want kIPS called into the sheriff's pernament, which I thought was very odd. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation or BCI, has offered no new support. Here's investigative

reporter and journalism professor James Pilcher. Unfortunately, the Francis and Burgette case has been ruled a cold case now by both of the pact prosecutor in the Aisle Storney General's office. That happened about two years ago, so now it's on the shelf. There's no answers and unless family members can come forward to new evidence or something just pops up or somebody walks in off the street and says I did it. And that's pretty much what's going to happen

for anything to move on this case. For Angie. This case has been a long and frustrating series of missed opportunities and snaffoos. In twenty sixteen, investigators discovered a hidden well at three twenty four Wind Road, five minutes from Hopper Road. This well contained a saddle gun, a lever action eighteen shot that is what Curtis and Jenny were

killed with. There was also a pistol sunk in the swampy well, but according to reports, in the process of trying to flood the evidence out of the well, the fire department blew an eighty foot hole in the well and washed the guns away. And then there was the issue of the lost nine one one call. Here again, Angie Montgomery, and then they tell me that they lost a nine one one call. They're not very efficient with things.

You would think that that would be one of the main things you would keep ahold of in a double homicide. So it kind of worries me that they did turn everything over that they have to the BCI, to BC I might look at it and face there isn't anything here we can work with. That's where it falls back on all these cases, all these cases that are unsolved, it's the same thing. It's repetitive. All stammlies I talk to, they go through the same thing you go through, which

is they lost this or they don't have this. And why doesn't a shriff keeps coding to the sheriff's office. You know you got twelve documented until thomicides in your county. Why aren't you asking the public for help for these cases? It's like they're just shoved to the side. That's how the cases become cold. Angie is still holding out hope that the BCI will reopen the cold case and look

at it with fresh eyes. It's actually their cold Case unit, which is through the Ohio Attorney General's Office, and they are amazing. They just solved a forty seven year old homicide. They're really good. So if they do take it on and assist, I think that will get an arrest because they're good at what they do. But I'm also worried about what all Pike County has given them. What ultimately stands in the way of the Francis case finding resolution?

Is it incompetence, apathy, like the killer behind this awful crime. It remains a mystery. I've got someone in Curtain Junie's case that gave a statement back in two thousand and six when it happened, and he was the last person to see Kurtisen Jennifer alive, and he went to the sheriff's office and gave them a statement that he was there, and those people they never called him back, They never

followed up with him. And I had him go again and make another statement with mister Evans, the new sheriff and turning in and I asked him every day and they have not called him. They have not followed up with him. So to me, that makes me think that they don't care, period because that's a pretty big guilts someone saying they were the last person to see two people alive that were murdered, and you're not going to call him back and talk to him. It's eerie the

way things are done around here. We don't know where the Francis case will go, But there's yet another Pike County case, this one involving a young man named Jacob Lansing that has had its own investigative issues in January of twenty eighteen, Pike prosecutors thought they had their man. Paul Detti, thirty one, was all set to face trial and in Pike County Common Pleas Court charged with aggravated murder for the twenty twelve death of Jacob Lansing. But

then prosecutors suddenly reversed course. Newly uncovered evidence exonerated Detti, and the death penalty case was dismissed. Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk, who's overseeing the road and trials, described this case as one of the weirdest he'd ever seen. On October twenty seventh, twenty twelve, Jacob Lansing's body was found underneath the vehicle at his River Road home. Authorities thought it was an unfortunate accident in which the suv the twenty five year old had been working fell on him,

but his mother, Maureen was incredulous and took action. The fact that Jacob wasn't dressed in his usual coveralls while working on his car did not wash here again, Stephanie and Jeff. Rob Junk is one of the main prosecutors against the Wagners, and as we've come to learn over the years, he was involved with both Reader brothers. All of these names kind of keep coming back to each other.

He had a very public social media spat with Sheriff Charlie Reader where Sheriff Reader was threatening to take Rob Junk down, or, as he put it, take the quote unquote Junk out. It turns out it was Rob Junk who would end up being an integral part in getting both Charlie and Brian Reader removed from their posts. A lot of people have theorized that the main reason that Brian Reader was removed from office was because of his

handling of the lancing case. However, it's been reported on that Brian Reader was terminated over attendance records and sick time. This is according to Pike County Commissioner Blaine Beakman. As for Rob Junk in January of twenty nineteen, he noted that his office as an outwill employer, and he can quote let somebody go if I don't like the color of their socks. Here again, Angie Montgomery, he never worked on his hickle engine work, clives. That's what was bug

and her. There was the pack of cigarettes beside him, and he didn't smoke, so she got a private investigator did it behind the CoP's back and got her own evidence and took all of her evidence into Rob Junk, and Rob said, well, we'll look at it. This was a rare instance where an insistent family member was able to move the dial with the prosecutor's office. Jacob's mom, Marine never believed that his death was an accident. Now, finally, in late twenty sixteen early twenty seventeen, she got Brian

Reader to listen up. Ryan was the chief investigator at the time with the Pike County Prosecutor's Office. That's Rob Junk, who is now part of the prosecution team overseeing the prosecutor of the Wagoners. He opened an investigation and even had the body exhumed and an autoxic perform and that revealed that he had been beaten and strangled to death.

This means that Jacob Lansing's killer took his dead body, placed it under his suv, and then precipitously dropped the vehicle to make it look like Jacob was crushed a freak accident, but based on the new evidence, the death

was ruled a homicide. Bryan spent months and months following the leads and doing interviews to find these suspects, Zerian and on a man named Paul Michael Allan Detty, who arrested in May of twenty seventeen, But in January of twenty eighteen, a week before Debty's trials to begin, Rob johnk, who I mentioned before he was a prosecutor, dismissed the case without prejudice and Debti was released. He cited new evidence that popped up that affected the case, but he

never told us what that evidence. A year later, in twenty nineteen, Rob Young fired Brian Reader. Investigator. Brian Reader, who had been spearheading the probe, was let go from the prosecutor's office in twenty nineteen. He is the brother of Charlie Reader, the disgraced former Pike County sheriff. Apparently, Reader's payroll records and personnel files were under investigation by the state auditor for some time. Due to Reader's firing and the general lack of viable leads, the Jacob Lansing

case stalled. No further arrests were made. In November twenty twenty, Jacob's mother, Marian Lansing, issued an eight thousand dollars reward for information about her son's murder. It has yet to be collected. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in a moment. What happened to Megan and Katie Sancaster. This is the harrowing story of two young sisters in law, one missing and one dead. This happened in a small town called Portsmouth, Ohio, one hundred miles east of Cincinnati.

It's a town of twenty thousand people on the north bank of the Ohio River. Here again, James Pilcher. I believe Meghan Lancaster got involved with some bad people, like the people that have been thought to have killed some women up narrow Chill a coffee and she got involved in that ring, or whether or not she just something went sideways with one of her clients or whatever. I think. Meghan is buried somewhere in those hills of Scioga County.

It's not like Pike County because you get down south of Pike County, you start hitting where the glaciers came through to create the Ohio River. It's very, very, very hilly, and there's all these hollers and valleys and woods and forests, and there's a lot of places to hide body. And I think she's buried or they dumped her somewhere and

she's gone. Megan Lancaster, a mother and former high school softball player, was twenty five when she disappeared on the evening of April third, twenty thirteen, dressed in jeans in an Ohio State sweatshirt. She'd spent the evening with friends. Megan called her mother at about seven thirty to say she'd be home soon. There was no communication from her after that. Meghan's white Mustang was located a few days later at a Rally's Hamburger in Portsmouth. Her wallet was

found on the front seat. She left behind her seven year old son, whose name was tattooed on her shoulder. Portsmouth Police detective Steve Brewer spearheaded the missing person's investigation, but no one looked for Megan more intensely than her sister in law and best friend, Katie Lancaster. Megan had been scraping by as a sex worker and had fallen into a life of addiction, so the search led Katie

into the vast and shadowy underworld of sex trafficking and Portsmouth. Undeterred, Katie threw herself and defining her sister in law victims out of a Kid. Angie Montgomery, who helped Katie and her search efforts, describe Katie's fearlessness and determination. Their pursuit began with scouring back page, which sex workers often used

to advertise their services. When I first started to hanging with Katie, we would sit for hours with our laptops and go through that website back page looking for her. Hours like we would get babysitters so we could sit and go through. She would send his pictures like Megan Scott. I remember she said a birthmark about her vlly button. So we would look through the pictures of these girls. Mostly they wouldn't show their faces and we would look for that birthmark. Just hours and hours and hours of

doing that. So in the beginning I kind of did because she had a couple of leaves. She sent me a video one time of a girl in Columbus on Sullivan Avenue. It was a traffic cam that looks a lot like Megan Kanye would get in the car. She would get in the car and go to strip joints and she would talk to pimps. She would talk to drug dealers. She was not scared to do that and In the beginning, I didn't think she might be out there somewhere, but I don't think so. Now I don't

think she's here anymore. Angie says that Katie's fierceness inspired her own efforts to keep fighting to solve Curtis and Jennifer's double homicide on Hopper Road. I started to tell her a little bit about Curtis and Jennifer, and she's someone that told me to be a squeaky wheel because you'll get the most grief. I mean. She would go on television and talk and I would watch her and I'm like, thing, she's so brave, and she would sit and talk with me and tell me, you gotta do this.

You gotta be a voice. Nobody else is going to do this. You have to do this. You know. She's the reason why I fight so hard. I watched how relentful she was, how passionate she was, and she was kind of like my hero because there are a lot of bad guys in this area and she was not afraid to stand up against the powers that be. Katy was well aware that there could be consequences for ruffling

too many feathers, with her insistent please for justice. She would always say, you know, if something happens to me, make sure you look into it. I'm sure you find out that that's really what happened to me. Because when you do go up against the people, and you know, the small enforcements or attorneys or judges, there's always that fear of they might retaliate against you. And she knew that. But she also always said, you know, I'm on social media, I'm on TV. I'm saying what I need to say

about these people to these people. That way, if something does happen to me, people will know to look in to it, you know, instead of being quiet about it. So that's always stuck with me more she kind of pumped me up the louder I got. Katie believed fervently that her sister in law got cut up with Michael Moran. Moran was a prominent local attorney who was later indicted on eighteen sex trafficking related charges. We covered his story

in season one of this podcast. The indictment accused Moran of engaging in sex trafficking from two thousand and three to twenty eighteen, with at least six victims being involved. Here's reporter Bob strictly who covered the story for The Cincinnati Enquirer. Michael Moran is an attorney that's been practicing for several decades. He's originally from Ironton, Ohio, which is

just up the river from Portsmouth. He operates of an office that is right across the street from the Scarta County Courthouse, and he was appointed to fulfill a term on from city council and continued until recently to practice criminal defense law until his law license was suspended after he was charged with different sex trafficking related crimes. Here again, Stephanie and Jeff. Morant's focus as a lawyer was Portsmouth's underworld, which gave him easy access to things like sex workers

and drug dealers. He also has a connection to the Wagners and just as a reminder, Pug Carter is actually Angela Wagner's father and George and Jake's grandfather, and he was allegedly using his pawn business to rip people off back in the day. He was also a frequenter of

this nefarious place called Big Bear Lake. It's a location we've heard about for years but haven't been able to speak about it until now, and it appears to be a place that intersects Michael Moran, Sheriff Charles Reader, the Wagners, as well as the road Ins. It may be a key factor in the trials ahead. Big Bear Lake could hold deep secrets that pertained to the case. We'll get into that a little more next week. Here's James Pilcher speaking about Michael Moran and his connection to Pug Carter.

I gotta tell you, he would represent anybody that came in his door, and he specialized in low level crime and drug offenses and DUIs and all of that. That was his specialty. That's how he made his living. The fact that a guy like Plug Carter came across his bow and he represented him was not surprising to me at all, because that's what he specialized in. But now he was facing possibly career ending allegations from a half

dozen women. Here again, Bob, strictly, I would say that the women had stepped forward or was at the forefront. It just took somebody hitting me over the head with a fish that'd actually start paying attention to it in regard that it demands. What set this one apart for me, It was just the amount of women that stepped forward and said something about this to us and talk to

us about it. And then also the apparatus that has to exist around a person like Michael Moran for an operation as we reported on to exist in the first place, a lot of people have to turn their heads. I think, if anything, over the years of working on this particular story, it's kind of the damnability of people who just turned the other way and don't care about what's going on right in front of them in their community is more

prevalent than maybe we all realized initially. The charges against Moran included three counts of trafficking in person, five counts of compelling prostitution, nine counts of promoting prostitution, and one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity. His arrest was orchestrated by Human Trafficking Task Force under Ohio Attorney General Debat, combining the forces of the BCI and several other agencies. Moran was the first domino to fall.

Multiple other people are still under investigation. Meghan Lancaster had a color coded notebook in which she kept track of clients. The entries included scribbles such as quote dance for and quote men who give money and included Moran's name and number, along with the notation of eighty dollars. Again, Bob strictly. There were rumors about Lancaster's disappearance being related to Moran

for several years. Her sister in law provided us with her little address like slash fun number book with different numbers in it, Dozens and dozens and dozens of different numbers of men. Moran was listed in there. We called all of those people to see what their associations were with Lancaster and came back with We came back with, but she's still missing, and I give her credit for

continuing to keep the issue forefront. According to investigators, there were at least six women entangled in his exploditive ring. Moran denied all allegations. Was Megan Lancaster just another piece of his disposable merchandise. After years of probing, the Megan Lancaster case when cold, in May of twenty twenty one, eight years after her disappearance, the Ohio BCI issued an age advanced rendering of Megan as a forensic tool to

reignite interest in finding her. Soon after the case was turned over to the BCI Cold Case Unit, Katie was hopeful, but nothing came of it. Meanwhile, Moran remained business as usual. Michael Moran was out on bond, and part of his bond agreement was not to practice law, and he was under investigator, an impossible suspension by the Bar Association, and he still showed up trying to defend a client in municipal court. So they rescinded his bond agreement and they

put him on house arrestle of the bracelet. But that shows you that he was arrogant to the end. Then in October of twenty twenty one, the tragedy deepened when Katie Lancaster, then thirty three, was found dead in a residence on the fourth block of Portsmouth. Angie Montgomery was devastated. I remember who told me. Somebody sent me a message about it. Of course, the first thing I did was cry my head off because she was one of my really good friends. She's the reason that I fight so hard.

As reporter James Pilcher tells us Katie's death was a possible overdose, possibly induced by the stresses of relentlessly searching for her missing sister in law, but no one knows for sure. Being the advocate, it can really wear on you. There's only so much fuel in the tank, There's only so much emotional fuel in the tank, or something like that. And the funny thing is is that she wasn't really other than being her sister in law, she wasn't really

technically related to her. She was really good friends with her, and then to lose her to possibly a drug overdose, given all of what's going on in Seoda County, in Pike County, it was just such a tragic, tragic thing to hear given everything that that family has been through. As tragical as it is that she's gone, the fact that she kept going as long as she did and brought attention to this is one of the reasons why we had the story that we did. Angie has her

doubts about the apparent overdose. Infiltrating the sex trafficking world like she was, could Katie have been silenced? I'm going to be honest with you. She was easy and I didn't know it. Around this aready ways to meet people, quiet like at first, when I found out that it was just supposed to overdose, I was like, no, something's wrong. There's been people here in Pike Canopy that have guided

as apparent drug overdoses and everybody knews better. As brutal as the fate of these two women is, it did raise awareness of the struggle of women living in the margins Bob strictly, it certainly is taking an Epstein Weinstein sort of story and saying, yeah, it can happen here too. There's positions of power littered throughout our society that are in a spot where they can abuse where they stand

because they're marginalized people who nobody will listen to. This is a small town example of a lot of really brave women stepping up and telling their stories and hoping that something changes. James Pilcher points out that small town cases of sex abuse are systemically no different from anywhere else. The one thing that this did was made me so much more aware and so much more interested in telling the stories of all these women all over the country.

It doesn't matter if there was a small town Portsmouth, Ohio or suburban Chicago. I've spoken to girls who got trapped into it by their uncles, and they've lived in pretty affluent suburbs of Seattle. This sex trafficking is an onerous, evil thing that is going on everywhere. It's never going to stop until you make it harder on the men for buying the sex and going after the sex than it is for the women selling the sex, who most likely, more than likely highly likely are being coerced into it.

It's never going away. I will say that's one thing that I took away from that whole experience is just how wide my eyes were opened to this whole semi underbelly of American society. Let's stop here for another break. In November of twenty twenty one, Michael Moran, who had a number of health issues, died while Adam Bond after a brief hospital stay. His case was then dismissed, but Moran might have left behind a more wide ranging network

of abuse and exploitation. James Pilcher. The women whose lives he ruined are not getting a shot to face him in court, in face person that did this to them. But there's so much more to that story than just Michael Moran. There's so much more what was going on in Portsmouth and how his operation had created all of these webs into branches of government. I really think that there are people that do not want it to go any further now. That Moran is dead, You're opening a

whole can of worms. I mean, they had opened an investigation into all of the previous convictions and trials overseen by William Marshall, the judge who was known to pal around with Michael Moran, who was possibly named in the federal affidavit. The first turn to sawn to the Morans story and that other women said that they slept with

him and that Marian set it up. According to an article published in April of twenty twenty by The Daily Independent, in twenty nineteen, more than two thousand and seven hundred cases judge William Marshall oversaw were reviewed by the state. This happened after it was revealed that he was potentially involved with Michael Moran's sex trafficking ring, among other allegations. He has never commented on these controversies, and she describes her reaction when she learned Moran was dead. I turned

my phone on and was blowing up. I was like, oh God, had something happened and I've seen it And I was like, that's so of a bitch. That's horrible to say about someone passing away. But I got me and he got away, and he took all the secrets with him, because there's way more than him involved in all that. I'm hoping that he stilled the beings and told the whole story before he passed away, But I

don't know. He was an awful evil man. There were other people involved and they need to be prosecuted for that. There's women that are dead because of that, and women are missy because of what he did. For years he denied it, that everybody knew what he was doing. It surprised me that it took that long for something to be done about it. It's a long time. People have

been talking about that for fifteen years. But as Angie says, in the end, Moran will still meet his maker and maybe there's a reason to hope for a brighter future again. James Pilcher, Portsmouth is actually better off than Pike County. There are new people in positions of authority. Now they've got a new police because they've got a new mayor. I mean, you still have the poverty. It's still one of the places in Ohio with the highest rate of

overdose steps and opioid addiction. But as for the town moving on from the corruption and all of the things, were happening when Moran was there. I think they're trying to turn a corner. More on that next time. If you're enjoying The Piked and Massacre, listen to our other hit series, Crazy and Love. New episodes there every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. For more information and case photos,

follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. The Pike Did Massacre is produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Greaves, Alan Wheaterer, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Tis, music by Jared Aston, audio mixing by Ken Novak. The Piked and Massacre is a production of Katie Studios and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.