June 23, 2021 • 36 mins
About 30 minutes away from Piketon is Portsmouth, Ohio, a once bustling community that fell on hard times and became the epicenter of the Opioid crisis. In episode seven, we talk to local journalist, Nikki Blankenship, who did a deep investigation into the issues her hometown faced, including serious allegations of sex trafficking. What she found was that Pike County isn’t the only tight knit community with secrets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The cheerleaders at a gym in Buffalo have been recording
themselves to make a new documentary where the news reporters
because one year ago a mass shooting changed their lives.
He just walked around shot all the black people. The
cheer squad, most of whom are black, had to figure
out how to go on and how to compete. I
(00:21):
wanted to win for them more than anything this season.
Listen to the embedded podcast from NPR within the iHeartRadio app,
or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carol Fisher and
I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends. It's Las Vegas,
it's the nineteen nineties, and it is time to find
a husband. There were four Jewish doctors who were felt
(00:44):
to be eligible bachelors. One of them was of the
Baron bat On paper, he was perfect, but in reality,
this guy's a wacko. He shouted to the point went unconscious.
I would call him and I would say, I know
you killed my sister. You can listen to The Girlfriends
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
(01:07):
your podcasts. On the Best Podcast Ever with Raven and Miranda,
join Raven, Simone and her partner Miranda may Day as
they and celebrity guests like Demi Levado and Megan Trainer
engage in unusual conversations. Every episode will spin a wheel
of random words, from things like animosity to something like
zodiac and whatever it lands on, that's what we're going
to talk about for around an hour. Think we can
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do it, well, then you've never heard us talk. Listen
to the best podcast ever with Raven and Miranda on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello,
and welcome to Bad Manners. This is the podcast that
takes you inside Britain's stately homes and tells all the
tales the guy books don't. My name is Tom Horton
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and I'll be your host where I'm on a mission
to find out the frightening, filthy and downright jaw dropping
stories of these stately homes and the people in there.
Listened to Bad Manners on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Piked
(02:10):
and Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. There
were always these rumors about Michael Moran and the women
that he was around and the circles he ran in.
This guy trafficking women all over the country from this
little town. It's known as the epicenter of the opioid epidemic.
It was public knowledge that was the crazy thing. Everybody
(02:32):
knew the rumors and had known somebody that knew somebody
that had worked for him. She left papers and it
said Michael Moran's name, his cell phone number. I had
all this information that really impacted our area, and so
this could have brought a lot of closure to these
families who were being told nothing by our local officials,
(02:52):
in our local enforcehood. This is the piked and massacre.
Returned to Pike Season two, Episode seven, twenty five Miles South.
I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at Katie Studios with
Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane. In episode five of this season,
we explored the allegations of corruption and the subsequent arrest
(03:15):
of Pike County Share of Charlie Reader. But his story
is just one of many that has illuminated alleged abuses
of power perpetrated by those involved in Southern Ohio's criminal
justice system. So in this episode, we want to focus
on another case that has long affected a community just
twenty five miles south of Piketon, in a town called Portsmouth, Ohio.
(03:37):
In twenty fifteen, a reporter named Nicki Blankenship began investigating
rumors of human trafficking in the town. Like many small
Ohio towns, Portsmouth has a long, rich history of industrial might,
preceding an era of rapid urban decay. Here's James Pilcher,
a reporter for Local twelve News and Cincinnati, speaking with
our producer Chris Graves. Portsmouth is the county seat of
(03:58):
Theodore County, which fit's right below Pike County, so it's
about thirty to forty five minutes south of Pike. Then
Portsmouth has this you know, rust belt, burned out industrial field.
There are half empty, two empty factories in the middle
of the city. At one point US Shoe had their
biggest plant there, and then obviously, you know the global
(04:20):
economy and we all know what happened to manufacturing in
the Midwest. It still has a small profitable steel mill downtown,
but it's barely hanging on. So it's kind of like
a city that was forgotten. Yes when the manufacturing industry
began to disappear. Portsmouth was besieged by the drug trade.
Nicky Blanketship grew up in the area and saw the
(04:42):
devastation firsthand. Your area has been really hit by the
opiate crisis, right, Yeah, we call ourselves ground zero for
the opiate ever make I've lived in Ohio since nineteen
eighty four Insider County, so yeah, I've lived here in
my whole life. Remember in high school, people around me,
(05:02):
they would start out with small pain pills and then
oxycott and hit and it was no longer recreational drug
use that people would win at parties. You were seeing
people become addicted very very very quickly. In two thousand
and eight, Nikki started writing about the issue for a
local newspaper. I started out covering the drug epidemic. I
was the first in the area to do stories on
(05:25):
oxycotton and looking at overdose rates in the area and
started asking those questions from the corner's office about how
many of these depths that we're seeing are connected to
opiate use, And then started looking into pill mills and
we ended up shutting down over twenty three pill mills
Insider County. Nikki's reporting helped shut a light on the
(05:46):
area's drug problem, but other illicit industries sprung up around it.
Nikki was there to cover it all. In twenty thirteen,
I did a series that ran for months on prostitution,
and I was walking the streets with some of these girls.
I also talked to like parents of women that were
working on the streets, and talked to officers about the
(06:08):
problem and local businesses about how it affected them. It
was interesting because when I was doing these stories, I
started seeing a lot of names come up from these girls.
The one mentioned most often was Michael Moran. Michael Moran,
he's in his mid seventies, long time defense attorney, you know,
(06:29):
d wise, drug offenses, those kinds of things. He had
his own firm in Portsmouth, and at one point in
the late two thousands he got himself appointed as a
city councilman of Portsmouth. He's a very public person, so
if there was a Red Cross banquet or something that
I was covering, he would be there. So he's been
(06:49):
around my whole career pretty much. Now. Rumors have been
circulating about Mike Moran for years. These stories about him
being involved in prostitution go all the way back to
thee than these. A lot of those stories are just
about him hiring girls dance and at local parties and
poker games. It was the secret that everyone choked about,
(07:11):
but no one really talked about, and it was pretty
common knowledge. I think I mentioned like a Red Cross
banquet I had to cover once. He was there with
a girl known to be arrested for prostitution, known to
be arrested for drug abuse, and she was there. You
could tell that she was under the influence by her behavior.
She was being very loud and on a cell phone
(07:32):
in the middle of this banquet and speaking very appropriately
for the setting, and Mike's just laughing with her, and
a city councilman at the time actually leaned over towards
me jokingly elbowed me on the side and said, there's
Mike and one of his girls. It's just always been
known as Nicky. Began exploring Moran's ties to the local
(07:54):
sex trade. The story grew much darker. I was interviewing
some people who were in an impatient treatment facility, and
I found out that one of the women over the
program was involved with a human trafficking program, and so
I started talking with her about human trafficking and she
said that when women are arrested at a certain agent,
(08:17):
Moran has been going to see them in jail and
got them charges in exchange for doing sexual favors for
him and working in prostitution. Nicky further explained the allegations
leveled against Moran by area women at the corrupt of
what he does is he offers his legal services to
(08:38):
get these women out of jail and then puts them
under his employee. Yes, he gets women out of jail,
and that basically gets them into his clutches. Other stories
are that people are hired as dog walkers or as
cleaners and and said are actually working in prostitution, and
(09:02):
affidavit filed by the DA would later support these accounts.
James Pilcher explained that this method of manipulation marks the
distinction between prostitution and human trafficking. Some people will say, oh, well,
these women knew what they were doing, They were just
trying to make money. These women were prostitutes. Well, if
you talk to the experts, it went one step beyond that.
(09:23):
It went into trafficking. Because some of those allegations Moran
was holding over them, the fact that they were drug addicts,
even he would withhold their money or withhold the wherewithal
to get drugs. So the statute says, if you withhold
or threatened to withhold money that women need for drugs
or withhold the drugs, it's trafficking because it's coercion. Anytime
(09:43):
you can prove coercion, it's trafficking both in the Ohio
law and federal level. We're going to take a quick
break here. We'll be back in a moment. Oh. I'm
Carol Fisher, and I'm hosting a podcast called The Girl Friends.
(10:06):
Back in the nineteen nineties in Las Vegas, a few
of us dated the most eligible bachelor in town, Bob.
He spoke several languages, he did medical missionary work, and
he was Jewish. He was perfect on paper, but he wasn't.
He really wasn't. He shouted into the point where she
(10:28):
went unconscious. Bob could lie about anything, but only takes
the one time when somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for Bob,
us girlfriends know how to fight back. I wanted him
to pay for his crime. He needed to be put
to justice. I'll be honest with you. If I saw
him right now, I'd spit on him. I would call
him and I would say, I know you killed my sister.
(10:50):
I will always hound you and haunt you. You can
listen to the girlfriends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast
or wherever you get your podcast. In our twenty two
years of friendship, Andy, this has to be the most
bizarre thing we've ever done. I know, I love it.
Our podcast My Vagina said, what is a podcast where
we ask our everyday Vagina listeners to pull up a
(11:12):
seat at the best Friend's table as we share our
most personal and humiliating stories and ask questions about women's bodies.
We are going to discuss all body things like what
exactly are we supposed to do with our pubs? Oh
my gosh, if you could have a heart shaped pube
that were bedazzled in pink rubies, or perrymenopause. I feel
(11:35):
right now justified. I'm going to start my own personal movement.
I'm going to start blaming anything that goes wrong in
my life on perrymenopause, leg hair too long, permau, don't
have the will to clean, Perry menopause exactly, our whack periods,
boob issues, and so much more. Listen to My Vagina said,
(11:56):
what podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, over ever
you get your podcasts. What this is the unbelievable but
true story of George Remus. You might know him as
a character from Boardwalk Empire or as the inspiration for
Jay Gatsby. He was an eccentric and genius lawyer who
figured out how to game the system during Prohibition. Remus
(12:19):
is in the whiskey business, and Remus is the biggest
man in the business, while living the life of luxury
with his clamorous and ambitious wife Imogene. Daddy, I am
so glad you are here. But George Ramis's wild existence
took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal. She
had Remis just exactly where she wanted him revenge. Feel
(12:40):
this muscle. I got this for Remus. I could crush
him like an egg. And one of the most sensational
murder trials in American history, we the jury, find the Defendant,
Join me Abbot Kaylor as we traced George Remus's transformation
from bootleg kick to alleged madman. Listen to The Mad
(13:00):
Bootleg King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Afghanistan twenty twelve. One
Quiet Night, Staffs Aren't Robert Bales left his combat outpost alone.
He walked into two villages and started shooting, killing sixteen civilians,
(13:22):
many of them children. Maybe I'm made a mistake, maybe
I am wrong, but you have to understand the way
it went down. We've conducted a series of interviews with
one of America's most notorious war criminals. They paint a
complex portrait of a man changed by the global War
on Terror. The idea of hurting a kid killing a kid.
Come on. The War Within the Robert Bales Story is
(13:45):
an investigative podcast revealing explosive information on one of the
most controversial events in American military history. Baal's actions are
merely a symptom of a broken army. Listen to The
War Within the Robert Bale Story on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Some believe
(14:15):
Michael Moran's reach goes farther than even human trafficking. In
twenty thirteen, a Portsmouth woman named Megan Lancaster disappeared. Michael
Moran has denied any involvement or responsibility in her disappearance. Additionally,
authorities have not brought any charges against him in the case.
At this time, it's unclear whether they have questioned him
(14:35):
in the matter. Megan, it's probably the case that is
closest to my heart, and that's mostly her sister in law,
Katie Lancaster, has just screamed and screamed and screamed on
her behalf. My name is Katie Lancaster and I am
the sister in law and best friend of Megan Lancaster
who has been missing from Stoda County since April third,
(14:57):
twenty thirteen. Who was Megan Lancaster and how did you meet?
We met at a it was called Soda County Joint
Vocational School. We were both taking cosmetology. And she is
a wonderful, loving, gives a shirt off her back person
that I know for a fact that if this tragedy
(15:19):
had to happen to anybody, she would have given everything
she had to save the next person. Megan and Katie
formed an unbreakable bond and soon they became family members.
I was spending about every night with Megan, pretty much
on school night. Megan would say, my brother wants to
take you on a date, So I said, okay, okay,
(15:42):
like I'll let him take me for dinner and so
on and so forth. And I did that well. I
never left. I was seventeen, and we just hit it
off and fell in love. Katie and Meghan's brother Jimmy,
were married in two thousand and five. A few months later,
(16:04):
Katie became pregnant soon after, Megan did as well. I
went into labor August thirty first, had my baby September first,
like in the middle of the night, and she had
her baby November fourth, So we were legitimately only, you know,
a couple of months apart. In two thousand and six,
(16:25):
Megan gave birth to a son named Reese. Being a
young single mother was tough, but Megan seemed to have
a bright future ahead of her. Any sports she played,
she played to the fullest. She was there for her team,
always cheering everybody. On the softball she was the pitcher.
She had a full ride scholarship to Shawnee State. I mean,
I mean, Megan couldn't have been any smarter than what
(16:47):
she was. Despite her intelligence and athleticism, Megan fell victim
to the drug epidemic that gripped the Portsmouth area She
was open that you know that she used rugs, that
she used a needle. It was rough, and I would
tell her. I would say, Megan, I would try to
play both sides, like her friend and her sister in law,
(17:10):
because I would say, Megan, you need to get help
and you need to change for you first and foremost,
but at the same time, you need to do it
for Reece because he needs you. And her answer was, Katie,
why change it now? Everybody's gonna look at me the
same way. I'm never gonna live down the things I've done.
(17:35):
I'm never gonna be able to change that opinion that
people have of me. She just couldn't see past the past,
you know, path the things that she felt people would
never forgive, and then that point took over Megan and
(17:56):
it led to more years later, a strange encounter with
Megan would leave Katie forever suspicious of one local man,
Michael Moran. I was in walmoret with Jeremy, and all
of a sudden, I see Megan come bouncing down the
aisle and I'm like, what the hell was she wearing?
It was literally Santa Lingerie. To be honest, she said,
(18:20):
I'm here to get something for this party I'm doing
for Marian it's a bachelor party, and I'm just like, okay,
but again, what why are you in here in that outfit?
Is you like, because this is what I'm wearing to
the party, and I'm like, get get whatever you're getting in,
Get the heck out of here before you get arrested
for indecent exposure? Can you describe April third, twenty thirteen.
(18:46):
April third, twenty thirteen, Megan went missing. That day, she
was with her mom. She went to her mom's early
in the morning, said Mom, I need to pay my
insurance because she had been pulled out over and cold
over card been impounded for literally like sixty dollars in
back child support or something. So her mom followed her
(19:10):
to Portsmouth. Megan got in her mom's car down in Portsmouth,
they rode down to the bonding company. They paid her insurance,
then got back in her own care her Mustang, and
they went their own ways. Later that day, Megan called
her mother, Marcy, to make arrangements to see her son.
She said, Mom, I'll be there to stay the night
(19:31):
with Reese. But that night Megan never showed up, you know,
And then the next day, Marcy tried to get a
hold of her cut and went by her apartment. Her
car wasn't there, so Mark's thought she's out running the
streets or whatever, you know, out running the road. Didn't
think much more about it. Two days later, on April fifth,
(19:55):
Megan's car was found in the parking lot of a
local fast food restaurant. She was nowhere to be found.
What stuck out about the car was the fact that
it was up on the curb, and Megan would never
have parked it like that. She especially, she might have
(20:16):
pulled in if she was in a hurry and got
out and got something, got right back in the car
and left, but she would have never pulled in there
to leave it there like that. Inside the car, police
found Megan's wallet and a small notebook that contained some
suspicious entries. She left clues as to who she'd been
working for, what's she'd been up to. Right, Yes, she
(20:37):
left papers in it. They actually said dance for and
Michael Marian's name, his cell phone number, and how much
he paid for her to dance. We know we have
this problem with missing women, and we know we have
this problem with women who have been found dead in
(20:59):
their cases. That's never their murders have never been solved.
And despite that car set our mom said Tall October
of twenty thirteen. And there's a documents where they took it,
where they took the car into evidence that are dated
showing that. And it was really Katie and Megan's family
that did all of the investigating and higher private investigators
they couldn't get in cooperation from local police. So it's
(21:23):
Megan's case really, it's the only one that has really
been made public so people can see exactly what these
women have gone through and how these things have happened.
If Maran was running a decades long sex trafficking operation,
we're talking about some serious abuse of power. What are
your thoughts on that. The abuse of power makes me
(21:44):
completely fucking sick. Excuse my language, but I don't know
how else to put it. It It makes me sick because
you know, he's in this position to help people, to
help rebuild their lives if they been in trouble once
or twice, you know, drug charge, what ever, they send
them to treatment, they do this, they do that, but
he takes it a step further and takes them like
(22:07):
buys them what they want courses them into these things,
shows them a life that they've never had before, and
then boom back on drugs, back to doing what they
were doing back in trouble. And to me, that is
sickening and there's no excuse. Sport. Do you think Mike
(22:29):
Moran is involved in Megan's disaspiance. I do believe Michael
Moran is involved in Megan's disappearance, and I do believe
that we will eventually tie Mike Moran to Megan's disappearance.
Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back
(22:49):
in a moment. Oh. I'm Carol Fisher, and I'm hosting
a podcast called The Girl Friends. Back in the nineteen
nineties in Las Vegas, a few of us dated the
most eligible bachelor in town, Bob. He spoke several languages,
(23:10):
he did medical missionary work, and he was Jewish. He
was perfect on paper, but he wasn't. He really wasn't.
He shouted into the point she went unconscious. Bob could
lie about anything, but only takes the one time when
somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for Bob, us girlfriends know
(23:32):
how to fight back. I wanted him to pay for
his crime. He needed to be put to justice. I'll
be honest with you. If I saw him right now,
I'd spit on him. I would call him and I
would say, I know you killed my sister. I will
always hound you and haunt you. You can listen to
the Girlfriends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever
(23:52):
you get your podcasts. In our twenty two years of friendship, Andy,
this has to be the most bizarre thing we've ever done.
I know, I love it. Our podcast My Vagina said,
what is a podcast where we ask our everyday Vagina
listeners to pull up a seat at the best Friend's
table as we share our most personal and humiliating stories
and ask questions about women's bodies. We are going to
(24:14):
discuss all body things like what exactly are we supposed
to do with our pubs? Oh my gosh, if you
could have a heart shaped pube that were bedazzled in
pink rubies or perrymenopause. I feel right now justified. I'm
going to start my own personal movement. I'm going to
start blaming anything that goes wrong in my life on perrymenopause,
(24:38):
leg hair too long, don't have the will to clean, perrymause,
exactly our whack periods, boob issues, and so much more.
Listen to my Vagina said, what podcasts on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What This
is the unbelievable but true story of George Remus. You
(25:01):
might know him as a character from Boardwalk Empire or
as the inspiration for Jay Gatsby. He was an eccentric
and genius lawyer who figured out how to game the
system during Prohibition. Remus is in the whiskey business, and
Remus is the biggest man in the business, while living
the life of luxury with his clamorous and ambitious wife Imogene. Daddy,
(25:22):
I am so glad you are here. But George Remus's
wild existence took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal.
She had Remus just exactly where she wanted him revenge.
Feel this muscle. I got this for Remus. I could
crush him like an egg. And one of the most
sensational murder trials in American history, we the jury, find
(25:43):
the defendant, Join me Abbot kaylor as we traced George
Remus's transformation from bootleg king to alleged madman. Listen to
remus the Mad Bootleg King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Afghanistan twenty twelve,
(26:05):
One quiet night staff Sargeant Robert Bales left his combat
outpost alone. He walked into two villages and started shooting,
killing sixteen civilians, many of them children. Maybe I'm made
a mistake, maybe I am wrong, but you have to
understand the way it went down. We've conducted a series
of interviews with one of America's most notorious war criminals.
(26:28):
They paint a complex portrait of a man changed by
the global War on Terror, the idea of hurting a
kid killing a kid. Come on. The War Within the
Robert Bales Story is an investigative podcast revealing explosive information
on one of the most controversial events in American military history.
Bill's actions are merely a symptom of a broken army.
(26:51):
Listen to The War Within the Robert Bales Story on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
What's it like to go through losing a family member
(27:12):
or a friend but not actually knowing what happened to them?
It's hell. I was talking to my mother in law
about this today. You know, people lose people all the time,
and they have a grave to go to, they have
somewhere they can go visit that they know that that
person is there, or they have ashes that they have
or whatever what have you. But we have a flipping
(27:36):
sign with missing on it that we decorate, and it
is heartbreaking and it is hard not to know whether
she's hungry, she's cold, she's being hurt, she's being abused,
or or she's dead. Not to know that is so hard.
(27:57):
I see her mama suffer daily, or importantly, I see
her baby boys suffer very badly. And I'm not saying that.
You know he cries every day or no, I'm not
saying that. But he has a lot of questions but
we can't answer. But I can guarantee you I won't
(28:18):
stop till I can answer him. I don't care if
he's twenty five, thirty, thirty five, forty, if I'm along
around that long, I'll fight until I can answer those
questions for him. In an interview, Moran claimed that he
only knew Megan as a police informant who was tied
to a drug case he tried years back. When asked
(28:39):
about what may have happened to her, Moran believed that
she may have been murdered, though he had no information
to support his statement. It should be noted that there
have been no other specific allegations tying Moran to the
disappearance of any other women. Nicki Blankenship continued her investigation
into human trafficking in Portsmouth, but her attempts to report
on the area as missing women was met with some pushback.
(29:02):
You kind of started this with the story. This seemed
to have been local knowledge that no one was reporting on. Right.
When I was first saying, let me talk about the
missing women, I was told now, and what it didn't
matter if there was proof. It was can we talk
about the missing women? Can I talk to their families?
And I was told now. Nikki didn't let that stop her.
(29:23):
So I have seen these things personally. In Cyder County.
We say that everyone's been affected because if it's not
your friend, it is or your family member, it's at
least somebody you went to school with. Everybody knows somebody
who's been affected by the drug epidemic, and everybody knows
somebody who has turned a prostitution. So this is a
pretty personal story for you. Yeah, I spent probably my
(29:47):
whole career, I feel like working on this, and nobody
was listening to their stories before or seeing them as
even human. That really made me connect with a lot
of these people in their or is living here my
whole life. These are my friends and my family members
as well. Not specifically, but I have lost so many
(30:08):
friends to overdose. I have so many friends that have
battle addiction, and a lot of people I went to
school with are gone now. I have several friends from
high schools that ended up working in prostitution. They're people,
are human, and yet they're seen as a prostitute or
an addict exactly. And that makes people not really care
(30:30):
what happens to them. That makes people assume that they
chose some lifestyle that is dangerous. It makes people just
assume that they somehow are asking for that or whatever
happens to them as a part of a lifestyle they chose,
and so they just turn a blind eye. And I
think that's another thing that has made it so easy
for it to happen, and that happened right in public,
(30:52):
is that people see them as prostitutes and addicts. Nickie
didn't give up searching for prooflinking Michael Moran to Smith's
sex trafficking industry. I was at home a lot late
at night, just going through court documents and talking to families,
because a lot of these families told me I was
(31:12):
away personally entrusted. So then for me it was like,
how do I get something more than a story from
a family member or even a girl. I need some
kind of profinding, some kind of document. In twenty seventeen,
she got it. A man named Mark Eubanks reached out
to her and passed along a copy of a sworn
(31:32):
Affidavid filed by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Mark Cubanks, he
had been reading my stories on human trafficking and on
the heroin epidemic, and he just smelled me a copy
of the sild Affidavid. It was actually a part of
his case, and had told me his story, which was
that he had been arrested on drug charges and when
(31:55):
he was arrested, he was immediately taken and given live
detective test about missing women and dead women and Mike
Moran and human trafficking. The Affidavid laid out Southern Ohio
Drug Task Force and FBI operations that had been underweigh
since twenty fifteen investigating Michael Moran and his ties to
area sex trafficking. He's accused of trafficking women all over
(32:17):
the country from New York and New Jersey to Florida, racketeering,
and compelling and promoting prostitution. Another thing that is in
the affidavit that he was working with drug traffickers and
there was a wire tap where they were able to
hear some of the conversations between Moran and drug traffickers,
and he was getting drugs from these drug traffickers in
(32:37):
order to provide to the females that he had working
for him. The Affadavid specifically talks about whom working with
local judges and law enforcement and adult probation to make
these things happen. Nikki finally had to proof she needed
(32:57):
that validated the stories told by Portsmouth's vulnerable women, but
when she brought the document to her editor, she was
shocked and they told me, no, we're not going to publish.
Michael Moran would later be arrested and charged with eighteen
(33:17):
felony accounts, including promoting prostitution and trafficking in persons. He
was released on a three hundred thousand dollar bond, which
was later revoked after he violated the terms of his agreement.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and staunchly
maintains his innocence. He is now under house arrest while
he awaits trial. We'll bring you the second part of
(33:39):
the Michael Morran story in episode nine, but next week
we'll be hearing from some of our regular contributors, who
will discuss updates from accused brother George Wagner, the four's
most recent pre trial hearing. For more information on the
case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie
Underscore Students. The Piked and Massacre Returned to Pike County
(34:03):
is executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker and me Courtney Armstrong.
Editing and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional
producing by Jeff Shane, Andrew Becker and Chris Graves. The
Piked and Massacre Returned to Pike County is a production
of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(34:25):
to your favorite shows. I'm Carol Fisher and I'm hosting
a podcast called The girl Friends. It's Las Vegas, it's
the nineteen nineties, and it is time to find a husband.
There were four Jewish doctors who were felt to be
eligible bachelors. One of them was of the spot Baron
(34:46):
bat On paper. He was perfect, but in reality, this
guy's a wacko. He choked and to the point she
went unconscious. I would call him and I would say,
I know you killed my sister. You can listen to
The girl Friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or
wherever you get your podcasts. You know, Andy, in our
(35:07):
twenty two years of friendship, this has to be the
most bizarre thing we've ever done. I know our podcast,
My Vagina said what is a podcast where we ask
our everyday Vagina listeners to pull up a seat at
the best Friend's table as we share our most personal
and humiliating body stories. We are going to discuss all
body things like what exactly are we supposed to do
with our pubes, harry menopause or wack periods, and so
(35:29):
much more. Listen to My Vagina Said what podcast on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
What these days, more often than not, the success of
a company is attributed to its founder. But that's only
part of the story. My name is Noah Callahan Bever
and I'm proud to present Idea Generations All Angles, a
Willpacker Media podcast. We'll be talking to all the key
(35:49):
players from all your favorite brains like WOUD Records, Ghetto Gastro,
and Earn your Leisure. So join me each week as
we dissect the most dynamic companies and culture. Because the
only way to truly understand success is to get it
from all angles. This new Idea Generations All Angles on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is the unbelievable but true story of George Remus.
(36:11):
He was an eccentric and genius lawyer who figured out
how to game the system during Prohibition. Remis is the
biggest man in the business, but George Remus's wild existence
took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal, revenge,
and one of the most sensational murder trials in American history.
Listen to Remus the Mad Bootleg King every Tuesday on
(36:34):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
The cheerleaders at a gym in Buffalo have been recording
themselves to make a new documentary where the news reporters
because one year ago a mass shooting changed their lives.
He just walked around shot all the black people. The
cheer squad, most of whom are black, had to figure
out how to go on and how to compete. I
(00:21):
wanted to win for them more than anything this season.
Listen to the embedded podcast from NPR within the iHeartRadio app,
or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carol Fisher and
I'm hosting a podcast called The Girlfriends. It's Las Vegas,
it's the nineteen nineties, and it is time to find
a husband. There were four Jewish doctors who were felt
(00:44):
to be eligible bachelors. One of them was of the
Baron bat On paper, he was perfect, but in reality,
this guy's a wacko. He shouted to the point went unconscious.
I would call him and I would say, I know
you killed my sister. You can listen to The Girlfriends
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
(01:07):
your podcasts. On the Best Podcast Ever with Raven and Miranda,
join Raven, Simone and her partner Miranda may Day as
they and celebrity guests like Demi Levado and Megan Trainer
engage in unusual conversations. Every episode will spin a wheel
of random words, from things like animosity to something like
zodiac and whatever it lands on, that's what we're going
to talk about for around an hour. Think we can
(01:29):
do it, well, then you've never heard us talk. Listen
to the best podcast ever with Raven and Miranda on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello,
and welcome to Bad Manners. This is the podcast that
takes you inside Britain's stately homes and tells all the
tales the guy books don't. My name is Tom Horton
(01:50):
and I'll be your host where I'm on a mission
to find out the frightening, filthy and downright jaw dropping
stories of these stately homes and the people in there.
Listened to Bad Manners on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Piked
(02:10):
and Massacre, a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. There
were always these rumors about Michael Moran and the women
that he was around and the circles he ran in.
This guy trafficking women all over the country from this
little town. It's known as the epicenter of the opioid epidemic.
It was public knowledge that was the crazy thing. Everybody
(02:32):
knew the rumors and had known somebody that knew somebody
that had worked for him. She left papers and it
said Michael Moran's name, his cell phone number. I had
all this information that really impacted our area, and so
this could have brought a lot of closure to these
families who were being told nothing by our local officials,
(02:52):
in our local enforcehood. This is the piked and massacre.
Returned to Pike Season two, Episode seven, twenty five Miles South.
I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at Katie Studios with
Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane. In episode five of this season,
we explored the allegations of corruption and the subsequent arrest
(03:15):
of Pike County Share of Charlie Reader. But his story
is just one of many that has illuminated alleged abuses
of power perpetrated by those involved in Southern Ohio's criminal
justice system. So in this episode, we want to focus
on another case that has long affected a community just
twenty five miles south of Piketon, in a town called Portsmouth, Ohio.
(03:37):
In twenty fifteen, a reporter named Nicki Blankenship began investigating
rumors of human trafficking in the town. Like many small
Ohio towns, Portsmouth has a long, rich history of industrial might,
preceding an era of rapid urban decay. Here's James Pilcher,
a reporter for Local twelve News and Cincinnati, speaking with
our producer Chris Graves. Portsmouth is the county seat of
(03:58):
Theodore County, which fit's right below Pike County, so it's
about thirty to forty five minutes south of Pike. Then
Portsmouth has this you know, rust belt, burned out industrial field.
There are half empty, two empty factories in the middle
of the city. At one point US Shoe had their
biggest plant there, and then obviously, you know the global
(04:20):
economy and we all know what happened to manufacturing in
the Midwest. It still has a small profitable steel mill downtown,
but it's barely hanging on. So it's kind of like
a city that was forgotten. Yes when the manufacturing industry
began to disappear. Portsmouth was besieged by the drug trade.
Nicky Blanketship grew up in the area and saw the
(04:42):
devastation firsthand. Your area has been really hit by the
opiate crisis, right, Yeah, we call ourselves ground zero for
the opiate ever make I've lived in Ohio since nineteen
eighty four Insider County, so yeah, I've lived here in
my whole life. Remember in high school, people around me,
(05:02):
they would start out with small pain pills and then
oxycott and hit and it was no longer recreational drug
use that people would win at parties. You were seeing
people become addicted very very very quickly. In two thousand
and eight, Nikki started writing about the issue for a
local newspaper. I started out covering the drug epidemic. I
was the first in the area to do stories on
(05:25):
oxycotton and looking at overdose rates in the area and
started asking those questions from the corner's office about how
many of these depths that we're seeing are connected to
opiate use, And then started looking into pill mills and
we ended up shutting down over twenty three pill mills
Insider County. Nikki's reporting helped shut a light on the
(05:46):
area's drug problem, but other illicit industries sprung up around it.
Nikki was there to cover it all. In twenty thirteen,
I did a series that ran for months on prostitution,
and I was walking the streets with some of these girls.
I also talked to like parents of women that were
working on the streets, and talked to officers about the
(06:08):
problem and local businesses about how it affected them. It
was interesting because when I was doing these stories, I
started seeing a lot of names come up from these girls.
The one mentioned most often was Michael Moran. Michael Moran,
he's in his mid seventies, long time defense attorney, you know,
(06:29):
d wise, drug offenses, those kinds of things. He had
his own firm in Portsmouth, and at one point in
the late two thousands he got himself appointed as a
city councilman of Portsmouth. He's a very public person, so
if there was a Red Cross banquet or something that
I was covering, he would be there. So he's been
(06:49):
around my whole career pretty much. Now. Rumors have been
circulating about Mike Moran for years. These stories about him
being involved in prostitution go all the way back to
thee than these. A lot of those stories are just
about him hiring girls dance and at local parties and
poker games. It was the secret that everyone choked about,
(07:11):
but no one really talked about, and it was pretty
common knowledge. I think I mentioned like a Red Cross
banquet I had to cover once. He was there with
a girl known to be arrested for prostitution, known to
be arrested for drug abuse, and she was there. You
could tell that she was under the influence by her behavior.
She was being very loud and on a cell phone
(07:32):
in the middle of this banquet and speaking very appropriately
for the setting, and Mike's just laughing with her, and
a city councilman at the time actually leaned over towards
me jokingly elbowed me on the side and said, there's
Mike and one of his girls. It's just always been
known as Nicky. Began exploring Moran's ties to the local
(07:54):
sex trade. The story grew much darker. I was interviewing
some people who were in an impatient treatment facility, and
I found out that one of the women over the
program was involved with a human trafficking program, and so
I started talking with her about human trafficking and she
said that when women are arrested at a certain agent,
(08:17):
Moran has been going to see them in jail and
got them charges in exchange for doing sexual favors for
him and working in prostitution. Nicky further explained the allegations
leveled against Moran by area women at the corrupt of
what he does is he offers his legal services to
(08:38):
get these women out of jail and then puts them
under his employee. Yes, he gets women out of jail,
and that basically gets them into his clutches. Other stories
are that people are hired as dog walkers or as
cleaners and and said are actually working in prostitution, and
(09:02):
affidavit filed by the DA would later support these accounts.
James Pilcher explained that this method of manipulation marks the
distinction between prostitution and human trafficking. Some people will say, oh, well,
these women knew what they were doing, They were just
trying to make money. These women were prostitutes. Well, if
you talk to the experts, it went one step beyond that.
(09:23):
It went into trafficking. Because some of those allegations Moran
was holding over them, the fact that they were drug addicts,
even he would withhold their money or withhold the wherewithal
to get drugs. So the statute says, if you withhold
or threatened to withhold money that women need for drugs
or withhold the drugs, it's trafficking because it's coercion. Anytime
(09:43):
you can prove coercion, it's trafficking both in the Ohio
law and federal level. We're going to take a quick
break here. We'll be back in a moment. Oh. I'm
Carol Fisher, and I'm hosting a podcast called The Girl Friends.
(10:06):
Back in the nineteen nineties in Las Vegas, a few
of us dated the most eligible bachelor in town, Bob.
He spoke several languages, he did medical missionary work, and
he was Jewish. He was perfect on paper, but he wasn't.
He really wasn't. He shouted into the point where she
(10:28):
went unconscious. Bob could lie about anything, but only takes
the one time when somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for Bob,
us girlfriends know how to fight back. I wanted him
to pay for his crime. He needed to be put
to justice. I'll be honest with you. If I saw
him right now, I'd spit on him. I would call
him and I would say, I know you killed my sister.
(10:50):
I will always hound you and haunt you. You can
listen to the girlfriends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast
or wherever you get your podcast. In our twenty two
years of friendship, Andy, this has to be the most
bizarre thing we've ever done. I know, I love it.
Our podcast My Vagina said, what is a podcast where
we ask our everyday Vagina listeners to pull up a
(11:12):
seat at the best Friend's table as we share our
most personal and humiliating stories and ask questions about women's bodies.
We are going to discuss all body things like what
exactly are we supposed to do with our pubs? Oh
my gosh, if you could have a heart shaped pube
that were bedazzled in pink rubies, or perrymenopause. I feel
(11:35):
right now justified. I'm going to start my own personal movement.
I'm going to start blaming anything that goes wrong in
my life on perrymenopause, leg hair too long, permau, don't
have the will to clean, Perry menopause exactly, our whack periods,
boob issues, and so much more. Listen to My Vagina said,
(11:56):
what podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, over ever
you get your podcasts. What this is the unbelievable but
true story of George Remus. You might know him as
a character from Boardwalk Empire or as the inspiration for
Jay Gatsby. He was an eccentric and genius lawyer who
figured out how to game the system during Prohibition. Remus
(12:19):
is in the whiskey business, and Remus is the biggest
man in the business, while living the life of luxury
with his clamorous and ambitious wife Imogene. Daddy, I am
so glad you are here. But George Ramis's wild existence
took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal. She
had Remis just exactly where she wanted him revenge. Feel
(12:40):
this muscle. I got this for Remus. I could crush
him like an egg. And one of the most sensational
murder trials in American history, we the jury, find the Defendant,
Join me Abbot Kaylor as we traced George Remus's transformation
from bootleg kick to alleged madman. Listen to The Mad
(13:00):
Bootleg King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Afghanistan twenty twelve. One
Quiet Night, Staffs Aren't Robert Bales left his combat outpost alone.
He walked into two villages and started shooting, killing sixteen civilians,
(13:22):
many of them children. Maybe I'm made a mistake, maybe
I am wrong, but you have to understand the way
it went down. We've conducted a series of interviews with
one of America's most notorious war criminals. They paint a
complex portrait of a man changed by the global War
on Terror. The idea of hurting a kid killing a kid.
Come on. The War Within the Robert Bales Story is
(13:45):
an investigative podcast revealing explosive information on one of the
most controversial events in American military history. Baal's actions are
merely a symptom of a broken army. Listen to The
War Within the Robert Bale Story on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Some believe
(14:15):
Michael Moran's reach goes farther than even human trafficking. In
twenty thirteen, a Portsmouth woman named Megan Lancaster disappeared. Michael
Moran has denied any involvement or responsibility in her disappearance. Additionally,
authorities have not brought any charges against him in the case.
At this time, it's unclear whether they have questioned him
(14:35):
in the matter. Megan, it's probably the case that is
closest to my heart, and that's mostly her sister in law,
Katie Lancaster, has just screamed and screamed and screamed on
her behalf. My name is Katie Lancaster and I am
the sister in law and best friend of Megan Lancaster
who has been missing from Stoda County since April third,
(14:57):
twenty thirteen. Who was Megan Lancaster and how did you meet?
We met at a it was called Soda County Joint
Vocational School. We were both taking cosmetology. And she is
a wonderful, loving, gives a shirt off her back person
that I know for a fact that if this tragedy
(15:19):
had to happen to anybody, she would have given everything
she had to save the next person. Megan and Katie
formed an unbreakable bond and soon they became family members.
I was spending about every night with Megan, pretty much
on school night. Megan would say, my brother wants to
take you on a date, So I said, okay, okay,
(15:42):
like I'll let him take me for dinner and so
on and so forth. And I did that well. I
never left. I was seventeen, and we just hit it
off and fell in love. Katie and Meghan's brother Jimmy,
were married in two thousand and five. A few months later,
(16:04):
Katie became pregnant soon after, Megan did as well. I
went into labor August thirty first, had my baby September first,
like in the middle of the night, and she had
her baby November fourth, So we were legitimately only, you know,
a couple of months apart. In two thousand and six,
(16:25):
Megan gave birth to a son named Reese. Being a
young single mother was tough, but Megan seemed to have
a bright future ahead of her. Any sports she played,
she played to the fullest. She was there for her team,
always cheering everybody. On the softball she was the pitcher.
She had a full ride scholarship to Shawnee State. I mean,
I mean, Megan couldn't have been any smarter than what
(16:47):
she was. Despite her intelligence and athleticism, Megan fell victim
to the drug epidemic that gripped the Portsmouth area She
was open that you know that she used rugs, that
she used a needle. It was rough, and I would
tell her. I would say, Megan, I would try to
play both sides, like her friend and her sister in law,
(17:10):
because I would say, Megan, you need to get help
and you need to change for you first and foremost,
but at the same time, you need to do it
for Reece because he needs you. And her answer was, Katie,
why change it now? Everybody's gonna look at me the
same way. I'm never gonna live down the things I've done.
(17:35):
I'm never gonna be able to change that opinion that
people have of me. She just couldn't see past the past,
you know, path the things that she felt people would
never forgive, and then that point took over Megan and
(17:56):
it led to more years later, a strange encounter with
Megan would leave Katie forever suspicious of one local man,
Michael Moran. I was in walmoret with Jeremy, and all
of a sudden, I see Megan come bouncing down the
aisle and I'm like, what the hell was she wearing?
It was literally Santa Lingerie. To be honest, she said,
(18:20):
I'm here to get something for this party I'm doing
for Marian it's a bachelor party, and I'm just like, okay,
but again, what why are you in here in that outfit?
Is you like, because this is what I'm wearing to
the party, and I'm like, get get whatever you're getting in,
Get the heck out of here before you get arrested
for indecent exposure? Can you describe April third, twenty thirteen.
(18:46):
April third, twenty thirteen, Megan went missing. That day, she
was with her mom. She went to her mom's early
in the morning, said Mom, I need to pay my
insurance because she had been pulled out over and cold
over card been impounded for literally like sixty dollars in
back child support or something. So her mom followed her
(19:10):
to Portsmouth. Megan got in her mom's car down in Portsmouth,
they rode down to the bonding company. They paid her insurance,
then got back in her own care her Mustang, and
they went their own ways. Later that day, Megan called
her mother, Marcy, to make arrangements to see her son.
She said, Mom, I'll be there to stay the night
(19:31):
with Reese. But that night Megan never showed up, you know,
And then the next day, Marcy tried to get a
hold of her cut and went by her apartment. Her
car wasn't there, so Mark's thought she's out running the
streets or whatever, you know, out running the road. Didn't
think much more about it. Two days later, on April fifth,
(19:55):
Megan's car was found in the parking lot of a
local fast food restaurant. She was nowhere to be found.
What stuck out about the car was the fact that
it was up on the curb, and Megan would never
have parked it like that. She especially, she might have
(20:16):
pulled in if she was in a hurry and got
out and got something, got right back in the car
and left, but she would have never pulled in there
to leave it there like that. Inside the car, police
found Megan's wallet and a small notebook that contained some
suspicious entries. She left clues as to who she'd been
working for, what's she'd been up to. Right, Yes, she
(20:37):
left papers in it. They actually said dance for and
Michael Marian's name, his cell phone number, and how much
he paid for her to dance. We know we have
this problem with missing women, and we know we have
this problem with women who have been found dead in
(20:59):
their cases. That's never their murders have never been solved.
And despite that car set our mom said Tall October
of twenty thirteen. And there's a documents where they took it,
where they took the car into evidence that are dated
showing that. And it was really Katie and Megan's family
that did all of the investigating and higher private investigators
they couldn't get in cooperation from local police. So it's
(21:23):
Megan's case really, it's the only one that has really
been made public so people can see exactly what these
women have gone through and how these things have happened.
If Maran was running a decades long sex trafficking operation,
we're talking about some serious abuse of power. What are
your thoughts on that. The abuse of power makes me
(21:44):
completely fucking sick. Excuse my language, but I don't know
how else to put it. It It makes me sick because
you know, he's in this position to help people, to
help rebuild their lives if they been in trouble once
or twice, you know, drug charge, what ever, they send
them to treatment, they do this, they do that, but
he takes it a step further and takes them like
(22:07):
buys them what they want courses them into these things,
shows them a life that they've never had before, and
then boom back on drugs, back to doing what they
were doing back in trouble. And to me, that is
sickening and there's no excuse. Sport. Do you think Mike
(22:29):
Moran is involved in Megan's disaspiance. I do believe Michael
Moran is involved in Megan's disappearance, and I do believe
that we will eventually tie Mike Moran to Megan's disappearance.
Let's stop here for another quick break. We'll be back
(22:49):
in a moment. Oh. I'm Carol Fisher, and I'm hosting
a podcast called The Girl Friends. Back in the nineteen
nineties in Las Vegas, a few of us dated the
most eligible bachelor in town, Bob. He spoke several languages,
(23:10):
he did medical missionary work, and he was Jewish. He
was perfect on paper, but he wasn't. He really wasn't.
He shouted into the point she went unconscious. Bob could
lie about anything, but only takes the one time when
somebody ends up dead. Unfortunately for Bob, us girlfriends know
(23:32):
how to fight back. I wanted him to pay for
his crime. He needed to be put to justice. I'll
be honest with you. If I saw him right now,
I'd spit on him. I would call him and I
would say, I know you killed my sister. I will
always hound you and haunt you. You can listen to
the Girlfriends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever
(23:52):
you get your podcasts. In our twenty two years of friendship, Andy,
this has to be the most bizarre thing we've ever done.
I know, I love it. Our podcast My Vagina said,
what is a podcast where we ask our everyday Vagina
listeners to pull up a seat at the best Friend's
table as we share our most personal and humiliating stories
and ask questions about women's bodies. We are going to
(24:14):
discuss all body things like what exactly are we supposed
to do with our pubs? Oh my gosh, if you
could have a heart shaped pube that were bedazzled in
pink rubies or perrymenopause. I feel right now justified. I'm
going to start my own personal movement. I'm going to
start blaming anything that goes wrong in my life on perrymenopause,
(24:38):
leg hair too long, don't have the will to clean, perrymause,
exactly our whack periods, boob issues, and so much more.
Listen to my Vagina said, what podcasts on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What This
is the unbelievable but true story of George Remus. You
(25:01):
might know him as a character from Boardwalk Empire or
as the inspiration for Jay Gatsby. He was an eccentric
and genius lawyer who figured out how to game the
system during Prohibition. Remus is in the whiskey business, and
Remus is the biggest man in the business, while living
the life of luxury with his clamorous and ambitious wife Imogene. Daddy,
(25:22):
I am so glad you are here. But George Remus's
wild existence took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal.
She had Remus just exactly where she wanted him revenge.
Feel this muscle. I got this for Remus. I could
crush him like an egg. And one of the most
sensational murder trials in American history, we the jury, find
(25:43):
the defendant, Join me Abbot kaylor as we traced George
Remus's transformation from bootleg king to alleged madman. Listen to
remus the Mad Bootleg King every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Afghanistan twenty twelve,
(26:05):
One quiet night staff Sargeant Robert Bales left his combat
outpost alone. He walked into two villages and started shooting,
killing sixteen civilians, many of them children. Maybe I'm made
a mistake, maybe I am wrong, but you have to
understand the way it went down. We've conducted a series
of interviews with one of America's most notorious war criminals.
(26:28):
They paint a complex portrait of a man changed by
the global War on Terror, the idea of hurting a
kid killing a kid. Come on. The War Within the
Robert Bales Story is an investigative podcast revealing explosive information
on one of the most controversial events in American military history.
Bill's actions are merely a symptom of a broken army.
(26:51):
Listen to The War Within the Robert Bales Story on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
What's it like to go through losing a family member
(27:12):
or a friend but not actually knowing what happened to them?
It's hell. I was talking to my mother in law
about this today. You know, people lose people all the time,
and they have a grave to go to, they have
somewhere they can go visit that they know that that
person is there, or they have ashes that they have
or whatever what have you. But we have a flipping
(27:36):
sign with missing on it that we decorate, and it
is heartbreaking and it is hard not to know whether
she's hungry, she's cold, she's being hurt, she's being abused,
or or she's dead. Not to know that is so hard.
(27:57):
I see her mama suffer daily, or importantly, I see
her baby boys suffer very badly. And I'm not saying that.
You know he cries every day or no, I'm not
saying that. But he has a lot of questions but
we can't answer. But I can guarantee you I won't
(28:18):
stop till I can answer him. I don't care if
he's twenty five, thirty, thirty five, forty, if I'm along
around that long, I'll fight until I can answer those
questions for him. In an interview, Moran claimed that he
only knew Megan as a police informant who was tied
to a drug case he tried years back. When asked
(28:39):
about what may have happened to her, Moran believed that
she may have been murdered, though he had no information
to support his statement. It should be noted that there
have been no other specific allegations tying Moran to the
disappearance of any other women. Nicki Blankenship continued her investigation
into human trafficking in Portsmouth, but her attempts to report
on the area as missing women was met with some pushback.
(29:02):
You kind of started this with the story. This seemed
to have been local knowledge that no one was reporting on. Right.
When I was first saying, let me talk about the
missing women, I was told now, and what it didn't
matter if there was proof. It was can we talk
about the missing women? Can I talk to their families?
And I was told now. Nikki didn't let that stop her.
(29:23):
So I have seen these things personally. In Cyder County.
We say that everyone's been affected because if it's not
your friend, it is or your family member, it's at
least somebody you went to school with. Everybody knows somebody
who's been affected by the drug epidemic, and everybody knows
somebody who has turned a prostitution. So this is a
pretty personal story for you. Yeah, I spent probably my
(29:47):
whole career, I feel like working on this, and nobody
was listening to their stories before or seeing them as
even human. That really made me connect with a lot
of these people in their or is living here my
whole life. These are my friends and my family members
as well. Not specifically, but I have lost so many
(30:08):
friends to overdose. I have so many friends that have
battle addiction, and a lot of people I went to
school with are gone now. I have several friends from
high schools that ended up working in prostitution. They're people,
are human, and yet they're seen as a prostitute or
an addict exactly. And that makes people not really care
(30:30):
what happens to them. That makes people assume that they
chose some lifestyle that is dangerous. It makes people just
assume that they somehow are asking for that or whatever
happens to them as a part of a lifestyle they chose,
and so they just turn a blind eye. And I
think that's another thing that has made it so easy
for it to happen, and that happened right in public,
(30:52):
is that people see them as prostitutes and addicts. Nickie
didn't give up searching for prooflinking Michael Moran to Smith's
sex trafficking industry. I was at home a lot late
at night, just going through court documents and talking to families,
because a lot of these families told me I was
(31:12):
away personally entrusted. So then for me it was like,
how do I get something more than a story from
a family member or even a girl. I need some
kind of profinding, some kind of document. In twenty seventeen,
she got it. A man named Mark Eubanks reached out
to her and passed along a copy of a sworn
(31:32):
Affidavid filed by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Mark Cubanks, he
had been reading my stories on human trafficking and on
the heroin epidemic, and he just smelled me a copy
of the sild Affidavid. It was actually a part of
his case, and had told me his story, which was
that he had been arrested on drug charges and when
(31:55):
he was arrested, he was immediately taken and given live
detective test about missing women and dead women and Mike
Moran and human trafficking. The Affidavid laid out Southern Ohio
Drug Task Force and FBI operations that had been underweigh
since twenty fifteen investigating Michael Moran and his ties to
area sex trafficking. He's accused of trafficking women all over
(32:17):
the country from New York and New Jersey to Florida, racketeering,
and compelling and promoting prostitution. Another thing that is in
the affidavit that he was working with drug traffickers and
there was a wire tap where they were able to
hear some of the conversations between Moran and drug traffickers,
and he was getting drugs from these drug traffickers in
(32:37):
order to provide to the females that he had working
for him. The Affadavid specifically talks about whom working with
local judges and law enforcement and adult probation to make
these things happen. Nikki finally had to proof she needed
(32:57):
that validated the stories told by Portsmouth's vulnerable women, but
when she brought the document to her editor, she was
shocked and they told me, no, we're not going to publish.
Michael Moran would later be arrested and charged with eighteen
(33:17):
felony accounts, including promoting prostitution and trafficking in persons. He
was released on a three hundred thousand dollar bond, which
was later revoked after he violated the terms of his agreement.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and staunchly
maintains his innocence. He is now under house arrest while
he awaits trial. We'll bring you the second part of
(33:39):
the Michael Morran story in episode nine, but next week
we'll be hearing from some of our regular contributors, who
will discuss updates from accused brother George Wagner, the four's
most recent pre trial hearing. For more information on the
case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Katie
Underscore Students. The Piked and Massacre Returned to Pike County
(34:03):
is executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker and me Courtney Armstrong.
Editing and sound designed by executive producer Jared Aston. Additional
producing by Jeff Shane, Andrew Becker and Chris Graves. The
Piked and Massacre Returned to Pike County is a production
of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(34:25):
to your favorite shows. I'm Carol Fisher and I'm hosting
a podcast called The girl Friends. It's Las Vegas, it's
the nineteen nineties, and it is time to find a husband.
There were four Jewish doctors who were felt to be
eligible bachelors. One of them was of the spot Baron
(34:46):
bat On paper. He was perfect, but in reality, this
guy's a wacko. He choked and to the point she
went unconscious. I would call him and I would say,
I know you killed my sister. You can listen to
The girl Friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or
wherever you get your podcasts. You know, Andy, in our
(35:07):
twenty two years of friendship, this has to be the
most bizarre thing we've ever done. I know our podcast,
My Vagina said what is a podcast where we ask
our everyday Vagina listeners to pull up a seat at
the best Friend's table as we share our most personal
and humiliating body stories. We are going to discuss all
body things like what exactly are we supposed to do
with our pubes, harry menopause or wack periods, and so
(35:29):
much more. Listen to My Vagina Said what podcast on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
What these days, more often than not, the success of
a company is attributed to its founder. But that's only
part of the story. My name is Noah Callahan Bever
and I'm proud to present Idea Generations All Angles, a
Willpacker Media podcast. We'll be talking to all the key
(35:49):
players from all your favorite brains like WOUD Records, Ghetto Gastro,
and Earn your Leisure. So join me each week as
we dissect the most dynamic companies and culture. Because the
only way to truly understand success is to get it
from all angles. This new Idea Generations All Angles on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is the unbelievable but true story of George Remus.
(36:11):
He was an eccentric and genius lawyer who figured out
how to game the system during Prohibition. Remis is the
biggest man in the business, but George Remus's wild existence
took a dark and shocking turn, leading to betrayal, revenge,
and one of the most sensational murder trials in American history.
Listen to Remus the Mad Bootleg King every Tuesday on
(36:34):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
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