A Look Back: Henry Ball Revisits Ian Ratner’s First Major Trial

Award-winning true crime author Henry Ball sits down with Ian Ratner to discuss a 1995 Gwinnett County courtroom, a financial motive theory that didn’t hold up to the numbers, and the early roots of GlassRatner

Long before GlassRatner grew into a 200+-person advisory firm with offices across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, co-founder and CEO Ian Ratner was a young forensic accountant taking the stand in a Gwinnett County courtroom.

The case was State of Georgia v. Michael Harold Chapel. The year was 1995. And the prosecution had built much of its narrative on a theory that a struggling police officer had murdered a Sugar Hill grandmother for financial gain.

Ratner was retained by the defense to do what he has now done in over 250 testimony engagements since: ignore the rhetoric and look at the records. After reviewing years of the Chapels’ bank activity, his conclusion under oath was direct. There was no unusual cash infusion. The financial patterns after the murder looked very much like the financial patterns before it.

That testimony is the subject of a new piece by award-winning true crime author Henry Ball, whose book Michael Chapel and ongoing investigative work helped trigger the habeas proceedings now playing out in Georgia three decades later.

Ball recently visited Ratner at GlassRatner’s Atlanta headquarters to discuss the original trial, the financial motive theory, and what it’s like to revisit testimony from a career-defining early case.

For GlassRatner, the conversation is also a reminder of where the firm started. Twenty-five years ago, Ian Ratner and Ron Glass founded the firm on a simple premise: do the work, follow the numbers, and tell clients and courtrooms what the records actually show. That principle carried the firm through the BP Deepwater Horizon proceedings, through the 2008 real estate restructurings, through hundreds of receiverships and bankruptcy matters, and into its current chapter as an independent advisory powerhouse following the firm’s June 2025 acquisition by TorQuest Partners and return to an independent and unified GlassRatner brand.

Different cases. Different stakes. Same discipline.

You can read Henry Ball’s full piece, “The Ghost of Christmas Past — Michael Chapel Edition,” on his Storied Press platform, and be sure to check out “Michael Chapel” and upcoming “Killing Henry” via Storied Press On-Line – Storied Press LLC