Author Archives: Toni

Checks and Balances…

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Starting at the top, the highest law in the land, the American constitutional system includes a notion known as the Separation of Powers.  Three Branches of government – each one having powers to rein in the other, keeping everything in balance.  In the stalking case and death of Morgan Ingram what did it take in Garfield County for her right to due process to be stripped away, and her tormentors – the stalker(s), the peeping tom(s), the intruders, and the jewelry thieves to all go free – sadly for us all, not very much at all.

A meeting was held behind closed doors, which should always be a tip-off that some right is about to be stripped from someone.  Steve and I knew about this meeting only because we knew the legal team that had set it up.  They had high hopes that this meeting would bring the start of justice for Morgan.

It would have been nice if Steve and I had been made aware of the meeting through the promise of the Colorado Constitution to treat Victims with fairness, respect and dignity.  But we were not, the premise sounds good, but in Garfield County the notion is to be avoided at all costs, even by the representative of Victims Rights.  Trust me I stood and endured her wrath, at an earlier time, as I tried to introduce a medical fact into the investigation.

As we were not present at the meeting to decide the fate for our daughter and the criminals who attacked her, I do not know exactly what was said.  I was given a synopsis of how it ended though.

As the County Coroner has never spoken with us or granted a meeting I seriously doubt he was even there.  Perhaps one of the Deputy Coroners whom I am told are not real Deputy Coroners due to the way they choose to conduct official state business, including following Colorado Revised Statutes for Deputy Coroners, was at the meeting, but I do not know one way or the other.  I do know that they know how to ignore conflict of interest laws and unabashedly promote the Mortuary they all work for.  Checks and Balances?  For the President, Congress, The Senate, and the Supreme Court – definitely.  For Coroners in Garfield County – not so much.

I am told the FBI was represented, and I do not know if someone was there to protect Morgan’s or our interests.  The contracted Forensic Pathologist was there, in person or over the telephone, I am not sure, but his voice to give weighty evidence was there.  The contracted Forensic Pathologist has this way of completely disregarding the opinions of others in the medical field, no matter what their credentials.  I know this from past events.

A team of doctors, not one doctor, but a team of doctors at the Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA in Los Angeles saw Morgan to evaluate a situation.  At the conclusion of their evaluation they were satisfied with their findings.  After Morgan’s death one of the doctors on this team shared the findings with the contracted Forensic Pathologist Garfield County had hired for Morgan’s autopsy.  This doctor told the pathologist that Morgan did not suffer from Porphyria, which of course created a problem because the pathologist had already listed Porphyria as her cause of death, perhaps he should have asked someone who knew first.

The pathologist had told Steve and I on the phone once that he did not have much experience with Porphyria, and he would welcome input from a large respected University Hospital out on the coast.  Out of concern at the time we did ask him if he had seen something during the autopsy or perhaps ran a test on Morgan that led him to conclude Porphyria was Morgan’s cause of death, and he told us he had not and did not.

Evidently this welcoming of input from a source such as staff from the Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA in Los Angeles was only good until they gave him input which was in conflict with his findings, and it caused a real problem for a case he had already given his professional, “with a great deal of medical certainty ???”, opinion on.  The pathologist none – the – less had a simple solution for his apparent snafu.  It was not, change the mistake he had made, if that is what you thought.  He instead took the position that he suddenly knew more about Porphyria than they did.  Most everyone else in the world for that matter.  Now really, if you were told by your doctor you possibly could have Porphyria – would you:

  1. Schedule an appointment with your local Forensic Pathologist, and see if he could see you between autopsies?  OR…
  2. Schedule appointments with a team of doctors at UCLA MEDICAL CENTER, including specialists in this kind of thing to determine what was really wrong with you and what to do about it?

It just boggles my mind is that I can write this, and it is absolutely the truth.  But this is not the absolute gem that the contracted forensic pathologist said at the closed-door meeting that really crossed the line, really defies credulity.

The issue was raised by someone at this closed-door meeting that the “Ingram’s” seemed to believe there could be more to Morgan’s death than just simple natural causes, and it could actually be a homicide instead.  That such a question could actually be asked is once again beyond me, when Morgan was in the midst of a horrific felony stalking, at her house, out on the streets, she had lived in fear everywhere for four months and then was found dead, days before she was to be officially interviewed about her stalker.  But the contracted forensic pathologist had a whole different opinion about Morgan’s death, and he handled it in quite a surprising way for a professional in a room of professionals.

The contracted forensic pathologist is reported to have simply written the whole matter off to, “Bad Blood”, between him and the Medical Examiner who had given the second opinion.  Was he accusing him of lying or misrepresenting facts due to a personal disagreement?  Beyond shocking! Yet in that room of Law Enforcement, on that day, it was enough.  Never mind that among the many opinions the Medical Examiner gave in his second opinion was the fact that he did not see how the contracted forensic pathologist could overlook a blood level of amitriptyline of 7,909, in fact calling it insignificant in determining the cause of death.  This statement had gotten the Ingram’s all riled up and that was the problem.  This blame of “Bad Blood” from the Forensic Pathologist is all it took to have the past DA and the Sheriff to decide Morgan’s case did not rise to the need for justice.  Checks and Balances – Stalker, Murderer, Thief, Intruder, Peeping Tom VS “bad blood” – all even in Garfield County.

I have said it many times now, but I will say it again.  It is the professional opinions of doctors, forensic experts, investigative specialists that I base my opinion as to what happened to Morgan on.  I am only restating what I am told, not voicing my own, nor Steve’s opinions, and certainly not stooping to blame “Bad Blood”.  We are not doctors, forensic experts, or investigative specialists.

Is that really all it took to end Morgan’s right to due process?  Bad Blood?  Are professionals not able to talk and work out glaring differences?  If the lab that tested Morgan’s blood regularly tests blood samples from all over the county every day and says 7,909 is the highest level they have ever seen – how does it get swept away due to bad blood?  A level of 7,909 being the highest they remember is a fact, that could very justifiably get the parents of a daughter they had been told died from natural causes all whipped up!

Are we all honestly so busy bickering here in Colorado that nobody can get justice?  Or does this “bad blood” defense only work in closed-door meetings in Garfield County?

That brings me back to a basic premise that binds the county – Checks and Balances.  The United States has them, but Garfield County finds it easier to conduct business without them, no worries if justice gets lost in the process.

Morgan only wanted to help people, and she did.  She also did not want to go, not at the age she was taken, and certainly not in the way she has been taken from us – of this I am absolutely certain.

“Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building, it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society.  It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists…it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.”  – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, Jr

Equal justice should stand for all – victims included, and why am I not seeing this day after day, email after email, call after call from other victims?  We are all citizens, and should be able to receive equal justice, but we are far from it in this case, and things need to be rectified!

Working in one degree of separation…

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MorganarmsupA play was written by John Guare, based on a theory by Frigyes Karinthy that there are six degrees of separation, an idea that everyone is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world.  Strange as it sounds at first, on average, it really holds up, so that a chain of “friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps.

In other words you meet someone, and they know someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, and six people later, viola, that person knows you!  And why is this important you ask?  Well once you get this idea there is another one to ponder.

We live in a small, very contained valley, so small that Steve has a theory that we live with one degree of separation.  Maybe he’s right, and at times it sure seems like everyone you meet knows at least one friend of yours.   And this cuts so many ways in Morgan’s Stalking.

For example:

  1. James Harris confesses to a client (the same morning we find Morgan’s body) that he knows who the stalker is, and that person he confessed to turns out to be friends with a very good friend of mine.  But then the detectives never investigate, never question this witness.
  2. The detectives interview Keenan’s boss at work (since Keenan was the prime suspect), Keenan gets a glowing review, hard working clean nosed young man, our detectives get the idea at that time that maybe he is not the stalker, and they are wrong about him.  Except the detective does not know that the manager is Keenan’s Uncle, by marriage.  Nor does he know that at least three other relatives of Keenan work at the same store.  The truth was being hidden to confuse this poor detective?  Certainly possible.  As we all know it was just weeks later that Keenan was arrested on a warrant for theft by receiving, I am told Keenan is the one who walked into the cash for gold store, and fenced the goods, and I believe it.  During the stop his car was taken to the station, and a stash of drugs prepackaged for sale were found inside – so much for the clean nosed young man, wouldn’t you say?
  3. James Harris claims to have not known there was a stalker when questioned on the Dr. Phil show, and said he wishes we would have told him so he could have taken appropriate measures. This was on a TV show where he came with the intention of defending himself with the truth, one might assume.  And over the past weekend another connection just jumped out.  During Morgan’s stalking the President of the HOA (not James) wanted to do something to stop this situation, and decided one of our next door neighbors had let his yard get quite overgrown (a good place for the stalker to hide) and his plan was to organize a work party of board members to trim it all down.  Hopefully give the stalker fewer places to hide, as the stalker was doing so successfully up till then.  Don’t we all remember the stalker wandering out and leaning on Steve’s truck to watch the Sheriffs drive away?  Guess who was a part of that work party to reduce hiding places for the stalker?  You guessed it, James Harris spent a good part of his weekend trimming, and raking and cleaning our neighbor’s yard, because of the stalker we had in our neighborhood – but I guess he must have forgotten all about that.  Then, just months later James claims, with a straight face, and actually feigning surprise, that he knew nothing about a stalker.  This just gets deeper and deeper, doesn’t it?  This latest memory lapse that he had is in addition to all his conversations with the Detectives and the Deputies that came to his house, or that he approached in the street during the 4 months of stalking to ask about the stalker, and James also chooses to completely forget he was interviewed, as well as his daughter Brooke, a face-to-face interview he was at! – a fact he must have forgotten all about as well.  Part of this amazing changing memory was posted on April 4, 2013 – “Definition of Accuse.” Click on it if you want to read it again.
  4. In the months following Morgan’s death many individuals independently came up to me and shared something they had heard Brooke Harris say before Morgan died that troubled them.  At different times, and worded slightly different, they all reported hearing her say either, “That bitch is going to get it someday”, or just, “That bitch is going to get it.”.  Of course when confronted on stage in TV land she denied ever saying that, and not stopping there she claimed to be a friend of Morgan’s and why would she ever say that?  She exclaimed.  Just a last tidbit on this, when Keenan was asked if he knew about the “keying” of Morgan’s car, the word ‘Bitch’ scraped into the driver’s door, right down to the metal, Keenan said he did not know about it, but told the detective he either thought “Brooke could have done it,” or “that’s her style, so it is very possible that she did it.”  I wasn’t there during his interview with the Detective so I am not sure of the exact wording, but basically that is what I was told that he said to the Detective.
  5. Everyone wanted me to talk to the ranch next door, and I mean everyone, one by one, they told me about things at the ranch.  So thanks I guess to the one degree of separation theory he’s a few more disclosures.  The ranch had most, but probably not all, of the seven drugs found in Morgan’s system, and responsible for her death.  Keenan’s sister worked her community service at the ranch.  Brooke’s mother worked at the ranch.  Brooke visited the ranch for reasons unknown to me.  Keenan was at the ranch at times.  Elliott’s two daughters took riding lessons at the ranch, under the watchful eye of Elliott.  At this point all that needs to happen is for James to stop by to pick up one of his daughters or drop something off for his ex and do you realize that every player from the neighborhood in this mystery was at the ranch in the room where the drugs are stored at one time or another?  And yes, this connection has also never been investigated by the Sheriff’s department.
  6. Oh, and as to the seven drugs – as I have not mentioned that in a while, because that part of the investigation is pretty much closed from where I sit.  Let me, however, say this; Morgan’s labs confirm the existence of seven drugs of importance, some of these seven drugs can be a synthesis of others, but they can also exist, and can be administered independently, that is a very important detail.  As it has been explained to me, EVERY one of those seven drugs has to be analyzed, and evaluated both independently, and then together to approach the true story of what happen to Morgan that night.  Focusing on one or two, and dismissing the rest is a sure path to introducing erroneous conclusions.  So you can rest assured that the conclusion arrived at by the contracted pathologist is indeed erroneous, of that I have been assured.

Quite fascinating, these varying degrees of separation, especially when you attempt to harness them in order to solve a crime.  When the truth never changes, and you have a statute of limitations of forever when it comes to murder, only your tenacity to stay the course becomes the limiting factor in a search for justice.  For whom the bell tolls, or the clock ticks in this case, we shall see in the end.  Human nature is hard to overcome for most, impossible for others.

In Morgan’s memory Steve and I want to help others, it is the most satisfying task for us now.  Research has led us to believe that there are laws to prevent such tragedies as Morgan and our family suffered, they have already been written, and are part of our State law.  Now we just need to find out what happened to that memo.  I’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile look for these laws to be posted in their entirety at the State of Colorado to help stalking victims understand the laws at their disposal to protect them…we were not given any of this information during Morgan’s stalking, and I dearly wish we had been given it.  It breaks my heart to continually hear from victims that are not being protected due to lack of enforcement of laws that are already in place to protect them.  When I travel to Denver I want to be sure to address this very question with as many people in office as I can.

Friday, April 20, 2012 – A few moments with Morgan’s contracted Forensic Pathologist

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Today (last year) Dr. Kurtzman called me, by now the doctors, and professors at UCLA Medical Center had come to the conclusion that Dr. Kurtzman was not receptive at all to established medical fact.  He started the conversation by stating he cannot reclassify Morgan’s death at this time to anything, but natural causes because unless he knows for sure that she didn’t have Porphyria he can’t rule that out, and it could have killed her, even if I did not want to, “admit that”.  I was never really quite sure what he mean by that statement.

I told Dr. Kurtzman facts that doctors far more qualified to talk about Morgan medically already had.  I told him Morgan was never diagnosed with it, and then he said I was forgetting that she took Amitriptyline for her Porphyria.  I told him that was completely false.  I went on to correct the history of Morgan’s medications, and offered to get pharmacy records, her doctor’s records.  I did not question why he had not requested any of this most basic medical information for Morgan before concluding her autopsy based upon completely missing and erroneous information.  My goal was to perhaps introduce one piece of evidence at a time for him, he was very touchy if questioned about anything he had done.  Dr. Kurtzman again told me that of course she was talking Amitriptyline, it was in her labs.

I openly ask the world at this point a few things.  Sheriff’s reports, hundreds and hundreds of pages, not seventy-five, include multiple medications they say Morgan was taking, that she was not, and were not found in her “labs” either.  The Sheriff’s reports also include the condition she was taking the prescription medications for, which she was not even taking, and she never took medications for the condition they are saying she took them for, she had never been diagnosed with any of those conditions, so:

  1. Why are Sheriffs trying to compile a list of the medications that Morgan was taking, they have no right under state or federal law to access any of her actual records, in fact they are completely barred from accessing her records.  Yet they write reports as to what medications Morgan was taking, and purport to know why.  And I should not have to say this because I believe they are in violation of her HIPAA rights, but they are completely wrong about what prescriptions she took, completely wrong about what conditions she might have had, and obviously not being doctors they do not have the expertise to make these statements in their report…but that didn’t stop them, they did it anyway.
  2. I do not know if their reports were used by the Coroner or his contracted pathologist to arrive at important conclusions.  But I certainly hope that is not the case.  As we all know the Coroner or his contracted pathologist will never answer any of this so what sane way do we have to deal with these people?  Especially when they refuse to treat victims with dignity and respect.  What am I left to do about Morgan’s victims rights?
  3. Why is the contacted pathologist so hung up on a condition she never had?  You would think that if we put him in touch with her doctors, who knows she never had the Condition he is stating caused her to die from natural causes, then we could move on, but no that is not possible.  Can’t let any truth seep in here.
  4. Is there any wonder why the Honorable District Attorney feels the Sheriff’s Department has so thoroughly botched the crime scene investigation that they are not sure what can be done?        

Back to the conversation with Kurtzman, I asked him what it was going to take to move on from this Porphyria endless loop.  He said if we had her blood genetically tested, of course this would have to be at our expense, to prove she did not have Porphyria then he could take that off of his report. He said he cannot take the word of a doctor or doctors in this case anymore, that he would need to get information from another pathologist, preferably from the State of Colorado.  He said unless a pathologist tells him that she could have died from death by fright he can’t put that down on her death certificate.  He said she would need an underlying malady like QT syndrome, and then he gave me the name of a lab to look up that could do the testing, also at our expense.  He said an underlying malady could make her prone to sudden death.

He said her full manner of death is cardiac & pulmonary edema.  I did not mention that he wrote pulmonary edema on the original autopsy report.  He said the cause can’t be changed at this time.  I asked about the Amitriptyline numbers and he started to talk about Post-mortem redistribution and then got vague again.  He said once again that he found no pills or fragments of pills in Morgan’s stomach so he could not say her death was a suicide or accidental overdose.  There is a disturbing trend that whenever I mention during this conversation about Porphyria never being a diagnosis and that it should come off of his, “Natural Causes”, conclusion he brings up Amitriptyline and the specter of the very high numbers, and that he could have looked at suicide or accidental overdose except that they were not pills in her stomach.

He then went into all of the various ways we could use genetic testing to  establish sudden death.  I asked him if he tested for poisons – he said the testing is very expensive, so there are things they do not test for unless instructed to such as cyanide, etc.

Th conversation was ending and I summarized by saying, Dr. Kurtzman, “so my job this week is to get the hospital results from Children’s Hospital to see if Morgan ever had an EKG and to look up on the Internet the Labs you just told me about to see what the costs are for the testing and discuss with my husband and decide if we can afford to have her remaining blood sample tested for these genetic things that we just discussed to rule in or out and then get back to you by the end of this week.”  Dr. Kurtzman said yes please call me to let me know.

I called and left a message for Dr. Michael Dobersen to call back when he returned to his office on Monday.  A very helpful person in Denver had recommended him in case I needed a second opinion and it seemed as if we did at this point.

A year ago this week was a busy time.

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012 – I went down to the Glenwood Springs Police Station to ask for a copy of Keenan’s arrest warrant for 12/23/2012.  I ended up standing at the counter for the longest time and finally they could not find the report in the system, which they said was odd, and had no explanation for, so they gave me paperwork to fill out and sent me to the District Attorney’s office.

Oddly again the DA’s office could not find the paperwork, so I gave them the abbreviated version of Morgan’s story and asked them to have the arresting officer call me.  I also asked them to call me when they find the report so I can pick up a copy of the report.  I asked them if this meant that if an officer called in to find out if Keenan had been arrested on that day there would be nothing, he would show up as “clean”.  The person from the DA’s office just stared at me and said they did not know, it was just a simple clerical error.  I thought it was important, and it seemed to me as if criminals here in Colorado were being treated very loosely.

I want to point out that very recently here in Colorado an inmate was released about four years early on a clerical error.  He was then implicated in the murder of a pizza delivery person and soon after that, ironically dressed in the pizza persons delivery clothes, implicated in the murder of the Colorado Prison Chief.  So sad, such a horrible double murder, but there is an answer to this and I do not believe it involves shrugging your shoulders,

Wednesday, April 11, 2012 – A former FBI agent who was very involved in the successful prosecution of the Oklahoma Bombing tragedy called and said he will call the two possible referrals he had and have them call me.  He said either one would be the kind of investigator who digs deep for the answer.  His opinion was that so far we had only had surface scratchers, and that was not going to get the job done.

Today was the day Steve stopped by the old neighborhood to do a favor for our next door neighbor there, and noticed that all the grass on the berm behind all of the houses had been mowed down to the dirt, for the first time in over 6 years that we knew of – they never even mowed it the years following the big fire.  Steve said, “Gee, I wonder who’s idea it was to go through all that trouble, mowing down the wildflowers, all the wild grasses and everything?”  Who?  He also for some reason reviewed the pictures from the original wildlife camera and saw that the perp had tried to knock down the camera – now at least we knew it was broken.  A criminal lawyer who saw the sequence of pictures many months later looked at that one photo and said, “that one image right there takes the, oh I was just there on accident, completely out of the excuse”.

Thursday, April 12, 2012 – I called the Glenwood Springs DA’s office – now the story on Keenan’s arrest reports is that if there is any public record on Keenan’s arrest, I will need to get a copy at the courthouse room 104, then I spoke with the DA’s investigator Ed Picalo, and told him my story, and he said he would forward the information to Detective Rob Glassmire, I told him Rob already knew about the missing jewelry.  Oh well.

Friday, April 13, 2012 – Steve spoke with friends of his that have a cash for gold shop, and they told him the state requires them to take a picture of the person selling the gold to them, along with a picture of the gold jewelry, they put pictures on jump drives.  So they thought we should be able to check every place he could have gone with Morgan’s jewelry to see if we can identify any of the missing pieces.  There are pictures on their computers.  It sounded very encouraging at the time, but as you know it turned into another instance of people not following the laws.

I spoke with a Neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who had written articles on excitement-induced deaths.  He was quoted in an ABC News article on the subject a few years ago.

A few acquaintances of Brooke had heard about the incident that occurred with the LR3 Morgan had parked in Carbondale, when she went in to one of her college classes and the word “Bitch” was keyed in large letters on the driver’s door, and then scraped down to the metal all along one side.  The Carbondale police officer that took pictures of the car and wrote up the report said when a car is keyed down to the metal like that it takes a lot of anger or someone on drugs.  They had heard Brooke say about Morgan “that bitch is going to get it” behind her back just before that, and believed Brooke definitely could be the one that keyed the car.  Detective Rob Glassmire said that Keenan had told him the same thing about Brooke.

Saturday, April 14, 2013 – I spoke with records at Children’s Hospital in Denver to get some important old records of Morgan’s.  An earlier fax had been aborted and they said would try again.

Sunday, April 15, 2012 – Detective Rob Glassmire said he will call today to discuss in-depth what is going on.  He called and spoke with Steve and told him that he had spoken in person with the registered owner of a truck we had noticed in the neighborhood many times before Morgan’s murder.  The answers did not jive with what had happened and Steve wondered where we go from here.  Rob was going to think it over first before doing anything else.

Out of more frustration Rob told Steve the address of the Cash for Gold place in Glenwood and wondered if we could try to find out anything.  Rob asked Steve if he could find out from them the requirements that they have, Rob wasn’t sure if he was allowed to talk to them.  Steve got the revised statutes from his friend and sent them on to Rob.  I had verbally told Rob a couple of times about the most specific pieces that had disappeared out of Morgan’s room.  Steve asked Rob if it was OK if we just went by there as parents to see what we could find out.

Monday, April 16, 2012 – We went to the Glenwood Springs Cash for Gold with a recent picture of Keenan.  I know all too well how Keenan’s family and friends try to spin this one meeting into anything but the truth, so this only tells me there is something here they would really rather had not happened.  The woman there immediately recognized Keenan as a regular customer – A REGULAR CUSTOMER – at the – CASH FOR GOLD SHOP – all Morgan’s valuable jewelry is missing on the night she was killed – can Keenan, or I, make it any more obvious?  Pictures of any specific pieces were not available at the time.  What if he jewelry was brought in at another time other than the time referred to in Keenan’s arrest report?

At this particular cash for gold shop Keenan’s partner in crime admits to stealing the goods, then giving them to Keenan to sell.  This one time!!!  And they do not have an inventory or pictures so we don’t really know what he sold – do we?  And then what about all of the other times – he is a REGULAR CUSTOMER.  I have received very accusatory emails from individuals claiming to know Keenan, claiming to be family members, etc., etc. and claiming to know that Morgan’s jewelry was not in the “batch” (their word not mine) he sold that time.  I would like to know how it is that they know this, with such certainty, under oath preferably.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012 – tonight right as I turned off the bedroom lights to go to sleep what sounds like a rock hits the master bedroom window.  I tell Detectives Glassmire and Alstatt about it, along with a lot of information from a day of meetings with people and walking around.  The term “flatfoot” to describe investigators really makes sense now because my feet feel like they have been mildly steamrolled from all the days events.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012 – at 2:18 pm Detective Megan Alstatt responded back about my text from yesterday and said, “I did get this, and I spoke to Rob just FYI. Take care”  I texted back, “great appreciate it”.

Just after lunch Steve and I met with two investigators that would love to work Morgan’s case.  They know a lot of the “players” already.

In the early evening a very good friend who works in counter terrorism called and had a game plan for me.  In a suggestion that sounded almost innocent at the time he said I should really think about doing a website and a blog about Morgan.  Even though he warned me about many frustrating times to come I decided to take his advice on every point and he was ever so right about the advice he gave me that evening.  A few parts of it are yet to play out, and I’m anxious to see if he is going to be as right about those suggestions too.

Oh, and one more thing – he did not tell me anything about all the wonderful, supportive people I would meet along the way.  Just as life for Steve and I has been changed forever I also feel strongly that Morgan’s story, her memory, has forever changed other’s lives as well.

The professionalism on which victims depend – what happens when it fails?

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In a statement that was about as condescending as could be the contracted pathologist
intimated that in order for Morgan to be killed
with Amitriptyline she would have had to be subdued by
her assailant. And there were no signs of her being subdued
so – it did not happen. Excuse me, but of all the boatloads
of crap floating around in the explanations of Morgan’s stalking,
and murder that never was – this has to take a prize. A few days
ago I wrote about the Jessica Ridgeway murder, and dismemberment,
and her accused/admitted assailant who now awaits his trial.
He also admitted to an attack on a female jogger. The
jogger reported that the attack began with an attempt to put a rag
that smelled of chemicals over her mouth. A rag that smelled
of chemicals, remember that because it’s an important clue. It is
now rumored / released information that the alleged assailant
admits to going on the internet and finding out how to make
chloroform and then attempting to use it to subdue the female
jogger before he did whatever vile acts he contemplated next. I
also seem to remember a quite notorious case in Florida recently in
which the accused killer, found not guilty, frequented a house
where a computer had been used to research chloroform, including –
allegedly – instructions on how to make it. I have never done
the same, but it does not seem to be all that hard and sort of
commonplace these days. If a seventeen year old youth in
Colorado was able to do it, then could Morgan’s nineteen year old
suspect have been able to? Or Brooke Harris, his girlfriend /
not girlfriend, could she have done it? I mean go on a
computer and research how to make Chloroform. So to complete this
loop I have a question, and an anger, and an observation, all at
the same time. How can the forensic pathologist
condescendingly imply that Morgan was not subdued when:

  1. She had a bruise on her forehead.
  2. Blood on the edge of her lips
  3. She was not given any test that would have indicated the presence of
    CHLOROFORM, which does seem to be popular these days.

If you were a professional, concerned with the truth,
concerned with apprehending criminals, wouldn’t this be ruled out
before you carried through on threats to the victim’s mother, a
victim herself, and changed Morgan’s manner of death from natural
to suicide?  Especially because she was a felony stalking
victim?  Is it just me or is there a very obvious
possibility being overlooked by those hired to look?  I really
just want people to do their jobs, assemble the facts and arrive at
the truth, not just for Morgan but for every other victim. When you
did not even test for chloroform at a time that it’s being sloshed
on rags and being used to subdue victims and attempt to subdue
victims across the country then, sorry, you did not do your
job. And to sit back and tell me that Morgan could not have
been subdued is a farce.  I believe my daughter deserved
better than. I believe in Colorado, the Victims Rights Act
demands more than that.  When the female jogger was attacked and an
attempt to put a rag that smelled of chemicals over her mouth was
made, I have to ask, do you think she was tested for the
presence of CHLOROFORM?  How many other reasons could there be
for an attacker to try to cover your mouth with a rag that smells
of chemicals?  My wild guess would be that none of them are
good and if Chloroform is not the only chemical, then that is just
my lack of expertise showing and if there are others then test for
those too. Because when a victim is successfully subdued by their
attacker the result is most likely going to be very bad.
Victims are taught at a young age to kick and scream, do
anything you can to get away. But what about caught in your
sleep, with a rag sloshed in chloroform placed over you mouth,
before you have a chance to react, perhaps a thumb placed on your
forehead to keep you still for that few seconds until you go under,
one bruise, that’s all.