Morgan’s #murder discussed on the show Calling Out with Susan Pinsky

Today was the airing of the first episode of the new season of Calling Out with Susan Pinsky.  CALLING OUT, CRIMES: Sideshow Network Premiere Show: Co-Hosted by Podcast Pioneer Lynette Carolla

Please listen to the show, and share with others if you can.  Morgan’s case is discussed in the 3rd segment.  Her part starts at around the 32.30 mark.  My good friend Jennifer Shaffer is on the show, along with Rebecca Fearing who I had never spoken to before this show.  I am very grateful to Rebecca for her insight about Morgan, and Morgan’s case as well as much gratitude to Susan Pinsky for having Morgan’s case discussed on her first episode of this new season.
Announcing the airing of this show gives me the perfect opportunity to say something I don’t think I have mentioned up until now.  If law enforcement is investigating a crime and they interview someone off the street in order to get information to see if there is anything they “saw” or “heard” or anything out of the ordinary that may have happened this is known to be good police work.  Many times the things they hear or the people that call in with a “tip” don’t amount to anything,  but sometimes the “tip” about where to look for evidence or a description of someone actually leads to solving the crime.  A lead is a lead no matter where it comes from.  If that lead actually produces the physical evidence needed, or helps to locate a missing person then I am all for law enforcement using this method as a tool in their investigations.  Getting rid of the uneducated “stigma” about psychics is very important if the end goal is to solve a crime.  I feel that information that comes from a “credible proven” psychic should be looked into just as they would look into a regular citizen giving information.  There are psychics that work with the FBI and law enforcement throughout this country, and have for years, but there is still much resistance and prejudice against these types of “tips”.  It is very unfortunate that potential tips are dismissed like  that – a “tip” or information that comes from a psychic cannot be used in court, but it can be used to look for evidence, find missing persons, used as a guide for law enforcement as it has been throughout the years.  Just like with someone off the street that law enforcement might interview – it is all about following the leads…some leads are very good while others may not even be close, but law enforcement should use all methods available to them when trying to solve a crime, especially a heinous crime like Morgan’s…unless there is a reason that they do not want that crime to be a crime, and if that is the case then that in itself is a crime.
I just listened to the show for the first time from the link below on sound cloud – I just signed up with my email address and clicked through – it brought me right to the recording of the show.  As you can probably tell I was unable to hear some of what was being said during the recording so I sound a little hesitant when I answer, but I truly felt comfortable with the show and I think Susan’s show Calling Out is a wonderful program to listen to.  It is fun at times, and also very enlightening.
Here are the posted links for the newest episode of Calling Out with Susan Pinsky and the show’s debut on the Sideshow Network. Please promote any of the links below on social media as a means for listeners to check out the show and share amongst themselves. The Soundcloud link is preferred as it creates an embedded player in Twitter and FB posts but feel free to use any of the links:
Here is a link to Susan’s website about the podcast http://wp.me/p4aH1k-nD please click on to the site to read what Susan has written about Morgan’s case.
I will continue to pursue the opening of Morgan’s investigation with law enforcement as well as continue to do blog casts and radio shows until her case does get opened.  I want to raise awareness in all areas of stalking, and murder as well as criminal justice.  Please help me make a difference for victims of stalking… share with as many people as you can. Together we will be able to make a difference in many lives. I continue to believe there is so much light from the goodness in this world that even with the darkness that exists, justice for Morgan, and all others will come through love & perseverance…never give up!
Thank you so very much.
Toni

Another story that needed to be heard

“Knowledge is the antidote to fear.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Toni – This is an email from someone that watched us on the Dr. Phil show, and then read the website and blog about Morgan – she sent this to me right after watching the Dr. Phil Show.

D – I commented earlier, right after seeing the show. I was about to leave for work and didn’t have a lot of time. You are so gracious to thank Dr. Phil after being on the show. It was good that you got to share your story, or I would have never known. But, honestly, that is all the thanks Dr. Phil deserves. He tried to make you look like a bad person. He implied your daughter used alcohol and drugs. If she did, would that justify what happened to her? Of all the people supporting your blog, he found and AIRED one critic. He barely asked the other people any questions that would explain their relationship to your family. 
I am a 41 years old teacher. I was stalked and my entire family was terrorized when I was 23 years old. It went on for a year, until one female judge finally got the case in her court and put my stalker away for a year. For one year of punishment, I have a lifetime of emotional damage. You and your family need justice AND psychological healing. Dr. Phil did not appear to offer you either one. Your airing is and was the last time I watched his show.

Toni – I then sent her an email to make sure it was OK to post her words and yes graciously said yes (see below) and she is very right to bring up the point about counseling – Steve and I have been going on a weekly basis since Morgan was murdered and to be honest with you I don’t think we would be here today, still trying to get Morgan’s case opened, and trying to help other victims, if it was for our counselors help – she is truly another of Morgan’s army of earth angels!

D – You are welcome to use the comment. When I went through my ordeal, there was little known or done about stalking.  Most of the judges I encountered chalked it all up to a man pursuing a woman. That is why I am so angry about what happened to Morgan. This NEVER should have happened in the 21st century. What ever happens with this case, I hope you and your family receive counseling. My family recovered from my stalking, even if I suffer the residual effects. They recovered because I survived it. Your loss guarantees that you will have the residual effects. For that, my heart goes out to you all.

Toni – All the people that are giving me permission to post their experiences with stalkers (which I call sexual predators) are very brave and strong people.  I want to thank them all, whether I post their stories here for others to learn from, and to raise awareness of the problem, or if I am the only person that reads those stories – you are all heros!  Thank you!

 

In addition to the last post more information from the same writer – please read

I wrote and shared my story — in some form at the 8 month point out from it — with Band Back Together’s website, so I don’t have an issue with this at all. Since my message to you, the stalker’s boss (and my supposed friend) has defriended me on Facebook, choosing to side with the stalker because the creep is so sociopathic that he has convinced everyone he is a saint, the event where I met the man almost 6 years ago is no more (my boss took the fall because I chose to not sit quietly and tolerate the behavior — but she still sides with me) and it was, fittingly enough, a year ago today that the creep admitted his decision to research my life — hence come forward about the stalking, which I know went on for years before it was brought to my attention. The link in my e-mail to you is to my butterfly story of recovery. The link to my Band Back Together, trying to make sense of it all, story is:http://www.bandbacktogether.com/post/3412, if that helps.

They come in all shapes and sizes, in romantic relationships and not, and the more awareness that can be made, the better off women everywhere (and men affected by obsessive women too) will be. My sickness became worse when realizing that he was successful in his efforts to convince Clear Channel’s HR that I stalked him (despite the screenshots of e-mails, his handwriting on the box, the tracking information from the box to prove he shipped it to me, etc.) but I realized then too that sociopaths are very good at hiding what they are and that he is using his company as pawns, just like he uses everyone else. I don’t take it personally any longer and I am healing. Getting to February 20 and the year anniversary of my “don’t contact me again” e-mail (and Lord knows how much behind the scenes research he did beyond that) will be huge for me. I’m lucky. I escaped with emotional scars, humiliation and pain; too many, like your daughter, aren’t that lucky and that’s what needs to change. I think from my end of things, I’ve wanted to get the message out there that yes, it happens in romantic breakups, but it happens with strangers, work cohorts, etc. I had seen this man in real life — twice, for the grand total of 8 hours and that did not stop him. Having only seen me for 3 hours and having had a mere 10 minute, tops, conversation with me, six years ago on Valentine’s Day, was enough for him to Google search and contact me. It’s scary. It’s a problem. And it should not be written off as humor, regardless of how minuscule it may seem to an outsider. I know you know that all too well.

Have a great day and I’ll continue praying that you find some justice for your daughter. While – in my situation – I am a little sad my boss took the fall because I took a stand for what is right, I’m not sad that the creep won’t have a chance to videotape a wedding this year. In a small way, that is justice for me, even if it will never be enough.

Other stalking victims speak out to raise awareness, that this is not going away and needs to be changed – we need victims to be taken seriously and protected!

I happened across Morgan’s story and website while researching stalkers, stalking and my own situation with sexual harassment, cyberstalking and sexual coercion at the hand of a man that is twice my age. My heart absolutely broke as I read Morgan’s story, because her life sounded so common to the life I live on an every day basis. I am now 32 years old, but at the age of 26 while volunteering my writing (I’m a writer too) to a radio station in Houston, I met one of the station’s employees — a disc jockey, then 52, who spoke 5 or 6 sentences to me and that was all. That afternoon when I arrived home, I found an e-mail from the man that had been sent within an hour of meeting me. He talked about how he thought I was hot, how he left his first wife for the second one, etc. It was odd and a strange conversation for someone you’d literally just met, but always wanting to see the good in everyone, I blew off the oddness and thought “well, maybe I’m just cold” (it was cold that day) and “overreacting.”Over the next 4 years, various e-mails and things happened. The man’s mother died and since I volunteered where he worked, I offered condolences. Little things. Scattered in the little things, however, were comments about him and me in a May-December romance (I always laughed, thinking he was joking and blew it off). A couple of years into the nightmare (keep in mind that to this day, I’ve seen the man twice in my life for the grand total of 5 hours at corporate functions), he was arrested for having marajuana on school property (his other job was as a videographer for the school district). The charges were dropped and throughout that ordeal, he turned to me with his story. I wanted to believe he’d just had a run of bad luck.In 2010, he began suggesting how I’d look great in black lace, how he — then laid off from Houston schools — could make porn films and I’d be the perfect star in them. I never took any of it seriously. I never thought I should. Here’s a man with a daughter who is my age and three granddaughters. He hardly ever spoke about family or anything in his life.In early 2011, he invited me to his lakehouse. I refused — the second strong warning bell that screamed “weird.” I’m sure this infuriated him that I would not visit and I don’t even want to think about what would have happened to me had I gone.

A year ago today, he told me that his live-in girlfriend of 3+ years was making his life hell by becoming an iceberg in the bedroom. (Again, sob story) He told of how she was evil and how much I’m a sweetheart: kind, caring, etc. A year ago this Friday (Dec. 28), the man suggested going lingerie shopping for me. I deleted the suggestion without a reply — which I thought was good enough for a No. Really, who would seriously do this?

On New Years’ Eve/midnight New Year’s morning, he texted me with a Happy New Year, Sweetheart comment. Later on New Year’s morning, he peppered my e-mail with 30 or 40 eBay links to lingerie ads, vibrator ads, etc. I began deleting them unread and I first noticed feeling smothered. On January 6, a box showed up at my house with his handwriting and address on it. Inside, three thong panties, a lacy teddy, a vibrator and batteries. I immediately let him know — realizing all of a sudden that all of this WAS serious — that I didn’t know what I ever did or said to make him think I was interested in him, but I’m not and the shipment was inappropriate. His comment to me: “I mean no harm. I’m just a friendly pervert who thinks you’re hot and I’m living out a fantasy in my head.” But, he was doing harm.

After that conversation, I felt trapped. By then, I’d left my volunteer role with the radio station but had begun working for a company that collaborates with the radio station on one event per year — the same Valentine’s Day event where I’d met the man, years before. So, I decided — for my job — I needed to suck it up and deal with it. (Wrong move.) After his “friendly pervert” comment, the man began plugging me on the air, every morning he worked; one morning, the same weekend of the pervert comment, he plugged me and immediately e-mailed me to see if I was awake yet.

For the next week after the pervert comment, he harassed me via e-mail, phone, text, etc. for pictures of me in my “gifts.” I felt more and more trapped all the time and I was starting to have trouble sleeping. On Jan. 11, 2012, he said, “Jill, if you just put on the lingerie and give me what I want, the calls, the texts, etc. will stop.” Beaten down by almost 5 years of his torment, the loss of my father and hurricane repair 4 years ago, and my Mother’s ongoing illness on that day and still, I did. Did it stop? Of course not. All that did was to get him asking for more.

On February 3, 2012, his boss (who incidentially also read the piece of writing I shared with the event where I met the man in 2007 and who has always had such respect for me) e-mailed to say that my boss (the minister that performs this radio wedding) would not be able to bring her own guests, including me, because of space. He mentioned how the weekend jock (my stalker) would light the studio and how it would be hard to move around. The minute his boss said that, I groaned. The boss said, “Problem?” I said, “Yes, I’m having a problem with him.” The boss, Marc, very kindly said, “Anything I can do to help?” I — at a loss for how to summarize the exhaustion of 5 years and really not knowing where to begin — said, “I’m handling it.” Marc said, “Are you sure?” I said, “Yes.” Marc said, “Okay” but I could tell, just by his tone, that he knew something was very wrong.

Later that night, I could not sleep at all. Everything in my heart that is good and that my late father — who was a disc jockey and sheriff’s deputy — had taught me said that I needed to cast aside embarassment and tell Marc what was going on, but how and where to start. There was so much to cover and I had buried some of it because it was simply too painful to face. (It took me nearly 4 months in therapy before I could face the pain I buried.) That night, I wrote Marc an e-mail in which I told him everything I could remember. The stalker had so terrorized and brainwashed me now (as I now realize it) that I actually feared he might get into trouble. (This is so NOT me, but neither was posing in lingerie or the other “requests” this man made.) The night after I e-mailed Marc — and I asked Marc how he’d feel if his own 19 year old daughter had been 31 and this happened to her — the stalker e-mailed me saying that he needed to save money to buy more lingerie and he put a winky face emoticon on it. I screenshot the e-mail and sent it to Marc to further prove my issue.

Marc spoke with the stalker (who for simplicity I’ll name by first name, Howard). Howard was instructed to leave me alone, that the path he was taking was not a good one, etc. After that conversation, Howard e-mailed me asking to research friends and family of mine because he was “curious” and how he wanted to know where they lived, where all I’ve lived, etc. (I had once lied to him about being in a relationship when I wasn’t, trying to see — back then — if that would make him leave me alone.) I knew then that he either was stalking me or had plans to start. I blocked his e-mail to protect myself, giving no thought at all to my work relationship. I informed my boss and told her I could not attend the event and would not have wanted to have been there anyway. On February 11 — one month to the day of the lingerie pictures — I felt weird. I was exhausted, emotional, and I couldn’t put my finger on why, back then. I logged onto the internet to an online therapist’s page and communicated with her about the parts of this mess that I could — at the time — remember. She agreed that I am not to blame. That he is the one at fault and that I did the right thing by coming forward. She told me to go ahead and contact the police because he was ramping it up. I did. They basically told me that unless there was a physical threat to my life, then they could do nothing.

The Valentine’s Day event came and went. After my boss recorded the ceremony for playback, she called me and the next day, I listened to the playback on air. Afterwards, I was sent via e-mail, a photo of Howard and my boss from the event. I was asked to Facebook post it for our business; I did, but I called Lynn — my boss — back and cried for an hour opening up about all of it. I had my second therapy session that night in which my therapist suggested unblocking Howard, telling him that he’s scaring me and to not contact me again. I unblocked him and waited to see how long it would take him to contact me. It took him less than 45 minutes and he asked why he’d been blocked, so I know he’d contacted me while blocked — or tried it.

Once he was ordered to no contact, the toll that the 5 years had taken really began to sink into my mind and I became very ill. I began digging sores on myself, making them bleed thinking that if I did, he’d not think I’m beautiful anymore. I never thought he would leave me alone. For several months, he did leave me alone. Marc, still very concerned about his employee’s behavior, launched an HR investigation into the activity that had taken place on the work computer (including the typing of a dream Howard had about me walking naked from my shower as he hid behind a door to startle me). The dream had entailed other more graphic elements which I was told he ‘could not share” on a work computer. Instead, he had called me that night to tell me about them; I ignored the call.

As the HR investigation into Howard’s behavior went onward — into Sept and Oct. — Howard began telling others in Houston media about how I’m sick, crazy, a liar, etc., but the one thing he could never explain were the screenshots of his words, his handwriting on the box, etc. By using an HR defense of “Jill lied to me about being in a relationship once,” he had to admit that he did, indeed, research me and apparently, stalk me. And yet, he remains on the job to this day because the company’s policy states they must built a file of wrongdoing before anyone is fired. He is proud of what he has done. He has even stated to others in writing that he loves “working for the company because they’re so short on managers that he never does anything wrong but if he did, he could get away with it.”

I know I did the right thing by coming forward and exposing him. I know this is his fault and not mine and even if I had “gone along with it” to some degree, it WAS out of fear or the belief it would stop. I have suffered aches, pains, sleep interruptions, an inability to do my social media job — because we work with him once per year — emotional meltdowns, panic attacks, etc. I cry for no reason. I lash out at people for no reason. In March, I made myself bleed, picking scabs and mutilating my skin thinking if I wasn’t “Hot” as he called me for many years, I would be free. I never wanted to believe that when he was ordered to no contact that he would stop. The fact he still lashes at me to others now, he still hasn’t stopped.

I sleep all night and wake up exhausted, all while he continues to earn a paycheck. And now that he is lashing out about me with lies and half-truths to others, I really don’t know what he is capable of doing. I’ve been in therapy for 10 months over this and with all the year anniversaries coming in the next few weeks, I’m feeling it. But, I know I’m not alone. I know my life is very precious and worth it.

I hope I didn’t ramble too much in sharing my story. I’m incredibly moved by the stories of anyone impacted by any stalking activity, cyber or offline stalking. Every victim deserves justice. It took me until this past weekend, but I wrote a story. I wanted to share it with you, because I am that moved by Morgan’s story and the fact she loved writing:  While I haven’t really gotten any justice, I’m trying everything in my power to stay positive about this and not let it beat me down more than it already has.

My thoughts and prayers are with you and God bless you in your journey for justice!

Public Service Announcement – there are some people that don’t want to look at the facts

Obviously stalking is a much bigger problem then most people believe.  I point to the circulation of this blog – which deals with stalking.  As of yesterday this blog is now being viewed in over 100 countries, and has had over 60,000 views per day.

It’s important to remember as we search globally for an answer to the not so easy to solve problem of stalking, that those hardest hit by stalking are the VICTIMS of stalking.  Just as obviously there are so many victims both in this country and around the world, our daughter Morgan herself was a VICTIM of stalking, victims rights is becoming a huge issue, and it is well past the time for this to happen!  In fact this year a constitutional amendment will most likely be passed dealing with victims rights on a national level.

Having been a victim of stalking as a parent, and watching my daughter be a stalking victim, and forced to pay the ultimate price, the one thing I can tell you without doubt is how her right to decency and fairness has been repeatedly trashed.  Even after her death, the Forensic Pathologist, after repeated threats to me, changed Morgan’s manner of death from natural to suicide – he did this while completely ignoring that the test he ran in complete secrecy, in hopes of justifying his reclassification of death, found not only amitriptyline, as anyone would logically think would show up if you did another test, since it showed up in the 1st test that was run, but the 2nd test also found 5 other date rape drugs in Morgan’s system – so now it’s called a suicide…am I missing something here?  Is this a common occurrence that a girl would commit suicide with a date rape cocktail?  If so the rapists of the world have little to fear…especially in Garfield County!  And of course this is after she steals all her own jewelry, and gang stalks herself for 4 months, follows herself in her car twice, and I am not sure how she managed to get people to show up in the middle of the night on our video surveillance cameras, or show up in our backyard in the dark while she was putting her puppy out to go potty, or having me witness the stalker on our porch, in our front yard, etc., etc.  The point I am really trying to make here is that we have to find room in our hearts for the VICTIMS of STALKING, my family has lived through it, and it is horrific in every sense of the word.  And there is one simple truth that I wish for all of you to remember – one day we were not victims of stalking and the next day we were –  it happens that fast, that completely, and it may take years to put your life back together, as I have heard from other victims.

Part of the solution for stalking will always be caring, and compassion for the victims.  If you know anyone that is a victim of stalking give them any help you can, because they desperately need it, and always remember that one day it could easily be YOU that is suddenly the victim of a stalker.

Steve and I, in our personal fight against stalking, will hold every government official accountable for what they did, or did not do, to prevent a crime that affects so many.