Morgan and a painting over her bed, blurred
There was nothing about that morning on December 2, 2011 that was like any morning in my life. Today is different. I had so many questions struggling, and swirling between thought, and emotion that finding a lucid place to start was a problem. Now I’m far more fixated on the answers that have never been very forthcoming, if they have come at all. They are for the most part simple answers, but even a simple yes or no has developed a degree of impossibility. And one small group of questions that must have answers, but do not, is what about the items that disappeared from her room on the night she was killed. Each is uniquely different, each with its own story and importance.
I’ve written about her PJ’s that were never to be found…ever, and if you missed that post it’s here – what happened to her PJ’s . Her valuable jewelry that disappeared also has been touched on in this post – Morgan’s missing jewelry , but that full story is right around the corner as the search of cash for gold stores is wrapped up. There were other items that turned out to be missing as well, but this blog is going to specifically talk about a small card that also went missing the night Morgan was killed.
It was a driver’ license, obviously Morgan’s license, she would misplace it along with her purse every so often, but she was always very quick to find it when that happened. It was one of her habits that she would not drive if she knew she did not have it, so to leave it missing was not an option for her. Her license was always in her wallet, which was always in her purse. She also kept her previous license right behind her current one. The previous one was in her wallet after her death, as always, but the current one was not.
This little fact, that Morgan’s license that she always kept in her wallet was gone, and was never to be seen again after the night she was killed is so important to a proper investigation. Her wallet was right in her room, in her purse, just minus her current driver’s license. We assumed the investigator’s took it, but much later found out they did not. And we know Morgan did not take it, so that leaves only someone else. Another of the many pieces of evidence pointing to an intruder. This fact that we finally discovered gives me the “creeps”.
It is considered a common attribute of serial killers, and other criminals, to be “trophy collectors”. Just as trophies are meant as rewards for an accomplishment in the real world, off in the sick and twisted hemispheres of some criminals, a trophy from their victim is thought to mean the same thing to them. And a driver’s license is a very often collected “trophy” to be kept after a victim has been violated, and stripped of all that ever mattered in this world…their life.
A Dean of the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University in Boston, Dr. James A. Fox, co-authored a book in 1985 titled “Mass Murder: America’s Growing Menace.” Talking about mass murders, he says that, “In all of their lives, they’ve never distinguished themselves, they’re ordinary at school, ordinary at their jobs, ordinary with their friends, but at murder, they’re extraordinary.”
The FBI considers a murderer to be a serial killer after 3 murders, with a cooling off period between each. Profiling and categorizing serial killers is a voluminous subject with the FBI as they tend to be the only agency with the manpower, and expertise to uncover and prosecute the true depth, and breadth of criminals that have been arrested, and found to have killed again, and then again…. largely discovered by accident.
Not every killer is a serial killer, but why would a proper crime scene investigation of a young woman who was found dead under suspicious circumstances not determine if common “trophies” had been taken? Starting with Morgan’s license for instance, even her PJ’s, the last clothes she had been seen wearing would be a natural to check out, undergarments are another choice, and as Morgan was redressed, we know only the undergarments she was wearing after she was found to be dead, not what she was wearing when she went to sleep the night before. Those could have been taken as well, but we do not know.
In today’s world there is always the possibility of DNA on any of these items, and it would make sense for a criminal not wanting to get caught to take them with him rather than chance leaving some identifiable trace evidence linking him to the crime. But a search was never even made for any of them.
Despite the fact that Morgan’s death was considered to be under “suspicious circumstances” the morning she was found, and despite the fact that investigators were told that when Steve had said goodnight to her the previous evening she was dressed in PJ’s. There was no effort to locate the last item of clothing she had been seen in, and subsequently her PJ’s that were missing went from a red flag to a nothing. See how easy it is to thoroughly botch a crime scene? Same as with her Driver’s license, a simple check of her wallet, and an obvious red flag jumps out, but instead it was a nothing.
Besides the evidentiary value that her license holds, Morgan was an organ donor. A status deemed safe, because she had never tested positive for any disease that would preclude her from being one. Morgan had the concern, and foresight to check with her doctor before declaring herself as an organ donor.
Her organ donor status was never checked following her death. When she was “officially”, found to have died of natural causes. It was yet another slap in the face for Morgan, and her last wishes were denied by the Coroner’s office of Garfield County, and the contracted forensic pathologist the Coroner leaves to run his office. When in reality we now know that Morgan’s blood contained a massive dose of Amitriptyline, which could have easily rendered her organs as unsuitable for donation, but no one knew it at that time. I do know that since it was her wish they should have made an attempt to honor it, or at least discuss with us the reasons why they were not going to honor her wish. Then again maybe in this one instance it was a good thing that someone “dropped the ball”. With a dose so many times over the lethal amount for her body weight, to ever term it “insignificant”, as the contracted pathologist tried, should have red flags waving everywhere, perhaps transplanting her organs would have killed the recipients too.
Wouldn’t that have been a twisted way to find out how massive a dose of Amitriptyline our daughter had been given? I am so very relieved that nothing like this came to pass. Justice will come for Morgan. It will take time, and be very tedious. That much is abundantly obvious to us, but we will never give up our quest for justice and we will never give up our efforts to raise awareness and promote change.