Author Archives: Toni Ingram

To Morgan’s #Stalker/s and #Murderer/s : here we come…

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Camera time again for Morgan

Camera time again for Morgan

Now it’s time to start coming out of the numbing grief that Steve and I have been living through, and doing what our life experiences up to now have taught us – by the end of this summer it will be 2 years since the beginning of the nightmare that we call Morgan’s stalking.  It has been extremely challenging for us to do that which we have managed to accomplish over this time – and we are always mindful that Morgan’s challenge was far greater than ours.

What she went through should never have to happen to another person, not any little bit of it.  Not the stalking, the terror, the peeping tom, the complete invasion of her life, as well as her murder.  What we have all gone through collectively should never have to happen to another family.  It quickly expands beyond the immediate family.  Our friends and relatives have also felt the impact, and been a part of the search for answers.

All of this we intend to change for the positive, as much as possible.  While fear can be so numbing, solutions can be liberating…

Our other kids call us the dynamic duo, but Steve and I know we are not even close.  Looking back there was so much more we could have done this past year and a half, but did not for many reasons … number one, no matter how we slice it , we were destroyed over the loss of our youngest child.  Other unexpected challenges have reared their head as well, but they are behind us now.

Steve and I have discussed how there were times we felt like we were walking through a tunnel with no feeling, no noise, just walking with no destination.  Other times we were so angry, and chose to take it out on each other.  Then there were those times, almost every day, that we suddenly found ourselves crying with a pain that was so deep we had never felt anything like it before, a pain that cannot be described.  We have lost grandparents, parents, good friends before, but loosing our child as we did was far worse, the undercurrent of complete frustration will become more of a motivating force  in the near future I predict.

The good news is thanks to our grief counselor, family, friends and supporters, (so many that we have never even met, but look forward to doing so some day), Steve and I now feel like we have the strength finally to forge forward with Morgan’s investigation… we are armed with far more facts, evidence, and expert opinions that we so sorely lacked at the beginning of our impromptu quest.  Where we struggled, and were uncertain it is far more calming to feel that now we know what to do, and we will do it.

We have become more willing to accept other people’s help – up till now I have been very un-trusting of people.  And I realize now there are so many wonderful people in the world that want to help, and have very specialized talents in order to help.  In doing what we need to get Morgan’s investigation open I truly believe the road map is largely set.  And as we are able to document the successes on our journey then others that are going through a similar situation will actually get help.  Things will change, respect for the law will change, people’s attitudes will change, and our communities will change…all for the better – actually I should say they will become much safer.

Common-sense precautions need to be put in place if we are to have the safe communities to raise our children that we all want.  Steve and I are now embarking on a path of no return.  We are now ready to bring everyone involved to task.  Stay tuned – I promise to let you in on the ride as we move along.

#STALKING: You can make a difference!

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Morgan's cat Mogwai with her Oud - we have given Morgan's Oud to one of her cousins and he is learning to play it as a tribute to Morgan

Morgan’s cat Mogwai with her Oud – we have given Morgan’s Oud to one of her cousins and he is learning to play it as a tribute to Morgan

I believe we can all individually make a difference when it comes to stalking, and horrible acts being perpetrated on innocent people.  Remember stalking isn’t something that only happens to celebrities, stalking happens to innocent young children, women, as well as men.

People need to rise up and condemn violence – remember what I said in an earlier blog – I believe there are more good people than bad in this world, and if that is true then we must all take a stand, just like our ancestors have done in the past – they stood up for what was right, and created a better world for us in so many ways.  We are not any different from our ancestors, we carry on for them, and trust me they are watching us, and cheering us on.  We can not allow the bullies, stalkers, predators, and criminals of this world to scare us in to submission with their threats. We must all take a stand and say, “I will no longer keep the truth to myself, I want to get involved!”

Sometime in the months following the start of my blog I received an email from a mother that lives in this same valley.  I have written about this in a previous blog so bear with me, I feel like this is very to-the-point…she read the blog, and went to her son’s soccer practice.  She saw a man standing off to the side watching the boys.  Normally she would not have noticed, but after reading the blog she decided that she would get involved, and started to ask all the other parents if they knew the man…they all said no.  She then told her husband to go question the man to see why he was watching the boys, her husband approached the man, asked him “nicely” if he was related to, or knew one of the boys, and at that time the man took off running.  Now maybe this was innocent “doubtful”, but she said she was so happy that she got involved…what if the practice ended, everyone left, and one little boy’s parents were late picking him up?  Could he have been abducted?  We will thankfully never know, because this amazing woman put aside her fear of getting involved, and did a positive thing.

Morgan’s stalking was a tragedy in the making, we just didn’t know it at the time.  The Forensic Pathologist Dr. Kurtzman called her death “natural” which was not the case, and this misled the Sheriff’s, so Morgan’s investigation was dropped – no victim – no stalker to arrest…very, very wrong.  Not only was the stalker not arrested, but Steve and I are victims as well, and we are still alive.  By misleading the Sheriffs this sent a dangerous message to the public – even your safety, and security will be met with virtual silence from our County.  Is this what the people want?  I don’t think so.  And if not, what should we all do about it?  I think it is time to speak up…tell everyone you know about the injustice that has been done.  Spread the word, speak your opinion, talk to people, do not let people scare you, if you hear anything that might help this investigation, or any others then get involved – we can all make a difference.

Victims of Stalking need your Compassion – it means a lot!!!

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leaves

Far – far too often in a country where stalking is usually a felony, and victims suffer untold physical, and emotional injustice, I read some variation of a stalking story that is disturbingly like the following I just received today:

“Almost everyone I have told about my Stalker / Harasser in hopes of some advise or help, seems to not believe me…& they end up turning against me instead of helping me…I just don’t understand what has happened to this world?  Because that just doesn’t make any sense to me…so now I not only have the Stalker Harassing me & doing his best to keep me in fear, but I now have others doing it as well. Great!!! :'(“

She told her friends and coworkers, she did the right thing.  A basic first step in protecting yourself is to try to tell all others around you so there are more eyes and ears and bodies watching out for you, but in her case this didn’t help.  And while I ask why, I am also reminded of a slogan – raising awareness.  And this means raising all kinds of awareness.  If you have never been stalked as the majority have not, then it is hard to know what it is like.  If you are being stalked it is hard to know the right things to do to stop it, really stop it.  And as you involve others they will most likely need to learn what stalking really is.  Of course as the Law Enforcement becomes involved, while one incident usually does not make for a stalking case, they need to become involved ASAP and you need to have the particulars as to  just when your stalking becomes rises to the level that Law Enforcement becomes involved explained to you by Law Enforcement.

A big part of raising awareness is another slogan – “Take Stalking Seriously”

For example legislative declarations usually precede actual law, and here an excerpt from the Colorado legislative declaration on stalking

(1) The general assembly hereby finds and declares that:

(a) Stalking is a serious problem in this state and nationwide;
(b) Although stalking often involves persons who have had an intimate
relationship with one another, it can also involve persons who have little or no past relationship;
(c) A stalker will often maintain strong, unshakable, and irrational emotional feelings for his or her victim and may likewise believe that the victim either returns these feelings of affection or will do so if the stalker is persistent enough. Further, the stalker often maintains this belief, despite a trivial or nonexistent basis for it and despite rejection, lack of reciprocation, efforts to restrict or avoid the stalker, and other facts that conflict with this belief.
(d) A stalker may also develop jealousy and animosity for persons who are in relationships with the victim, including family members, employers and coworkers, and friends, perceiving them as obstacles or as threats to the stalker’s own “relationship” with the victim;
(e) Because stalking involves highly inappropriate intensity, persistence, and possessiveness, it entails great unpredictability and creates great stress and fear for the victim;
(f) Stalking involves severe intrusions on the victim’s personal privacy and autonomy, with an immediate and long-lasting impact on quality of life as well as risks to security and safety of the victim and persons close to the victim, even in the absence of express threats of physical harm.

(2) The general assembly hereby recognizes the seriousness posed by
stalking and adopts the provisions of this part 6 with the goal of encouraging and authorizing effective intervention before stalking can escalate into behavior that has even more serious consequences.

The Colorado Legislature knows stalking is very real,  it is serious, it is dangerous, and it does happen to normal people, not just celebrities.  There is a growing awareness and it is largely under-reported, and ineffectively responded to by Law Enforcement.  This is why it is so important to educate yourself and then talk about it to raise awareness!

When dealing with Law Enforcement in almost all States you have victims rights to aid you, in the event that law enforcement is just ignoring you – please look up your particular States laws.

In the State of Colorado Victims Rights Act it states:

The general assembly hereby finds and declares that the full and voluntary cooperation of victims of and witnesses to crimes with state and local law enforcement agencies as to such crimes is imperative for the general effectiveness and well-being of the criminal justice system of this state. It is the intent of this part 3, therefore, to assure that all victims of and witnesses to crimes are honored and protected by law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and judges in a manner no less vigorous than the protection afforded criminal defendants.

Now if the State of Colorado (and I assume most states in our Country) wants to assure that all victims of, and witnesses to crimes are honored and protected by law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and judges then why does this not always happen with victims of stalking?  Why are people in our areas  like not believing and watching out for the victims?  I truly believe it is one of those things that people tell themselves that crime could never to happen to them, they are protected/isolated so if they turn a blind eye to it and pretend it’s not happening (the God forbid this ever happen to me theory), this person is just over reacting, this mentality helps them just go along with their everyday lives and PRETEND that everything in the world is how it should be – but THEY ARE SO WRONG!

One day we were a happy family, looking towards the future with our youngest daughter, talking about all the normal things in life (like should she stay in a dorm at CU Boulder for her last 2 years or an apartment with a roommate), and the next day we were wondering what was going on, starting to get that frightened feeling that we had to protect our daughter from some unknown evil. Then later that month our home became a dark fortress in an effort to keep out the evil that had invaded our family, and then the following month we were investing money (that should have been for Morgan’s last two years of college) purchasing things to try to catch her stalker so she would not have to continue her life in fear.  Some stalkers actually follow their victims from place to place, from state to state and Morgan did not want to always be looking over her shoulder, she did not want to live in fear.  But as we all know now after only 4 short months Morgan’s stalking ended in her murder.  I know this is not what always happens, but it DOES HAPPEN far more often than anyone would like to admit.  As parents we failed miserably to do the right things at the right times.  Not a sympathy call – just the real truth.  The Garfield Sheriff’s office failed miserably at protecting one of its citizens.  Once again just the sad truth.  And the Coroners office is up to its neck in inexcusable behavior that completely stripped Morgan of her rights to due process.

If that’s what the professionals did for Morgan then you need to learn patience with friends and coworkers, bosses and even parents.  They all need to come around and the best endings to stalking situations has come when friends and family are all helping and working together to end the stalking.

It is an honor in life to be able to help others – it is not something that should be on the bottom of anyone’s list.  Please share this one thought with everyone in your life that you come in contact with along your life’s journey…if we all help one another, evil will have a really hard time completing it’s journey.  Thank you all so very much!

And to the stalking victim that wrote in (the first paragraph of this blog) all I can say at this point is that I am so sorry that this is happening to you and I will make every effort for the rest of my life to try to educate people to not react like that to a victim…you deserve people to believe you, and try to help you for the simple reason, that is what they would want if they found themselves in your situation.

Steve and I were very uneducated about stalking when Morgan’s stalking began.  We received little or no help from the Sheriffs department. And the Coroner will still not even meet with us.

We all have to believe the outcome of Morgan’s stalking could have been turned for the better, instead of the tragedy it  became.  WE all have to believe that raising awareness and taking stalking seriously are much more that just catch phrases, they are part of the solution.

One of Morgan’s favorite movies – Where the Wild Things Are

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Morgan loved this movie so much she did an artistic design of letters cut-out and placed  across one of her bedroom walls that spelled out “Where the Wild Things Are” and each letter of that title was made to look like some kind of adorable animal.

Click on or copy the link below, and put it into your Internet URL and you will see the trailer to the movie…it is a movie full of HOPE!

http://youtu.be/01-PqqifyjA

April 26 – May 5, 2012 / A dog with a lot of love, but too old to patrol, and a lot of unanswered questions

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Joey - Ryan's old watchdog that we borrowed for a week during the stalking - unfortunately Joey was just too old and slept we couldn't wake him up when something happened - he loved Morgan and used to sleep in her room when we would babysit him but since she now had a puppy he could no longer sleep in her room

Joey – Morgan’s brother’s old watchdog – we borrowed him for a week during the stalking – unfortunately Joey was just too old and slept…we couldn’t wake him up when something happened – he loved Morgan and used to sleep in her room when we would babysit him, but since she now had a puppy he could no longer sleep in her room so guarding her was not easy for him.

Thursday, April 26th

This morning the two of us discussed what our friend, the former Federal Investigator thinks we should do in order to move the case along.  We all have our jobs, and he will get back in touch with us.  He left this afternoon late to go back to Colorado Springs.

Sunday, April 29th

Our old next door neighbor called back tonight to give us some good information about Morgan’s case.

Monday, April 30th 

Tonight at 7:38 pm I was lying on the couch in living room all by myself.  I was trying not to, I wanted to be the strong mama lion, but I just started crying my eyes out over the loss of Morgan, when my cell phone rang.  A good friend just had a feeling to call me, and we talked about Morgan for the longest time.  Steve, for some reason was still having a hard time fully accepting Morgan was a homicide, because it meant someone, and maybe more then one person was in her room that night.  As a father that wants to protect his children, can you just imagine how awful that idea felt to him?  It’s amazing what you can accept at different times, and how obvious the situation was becoming for seasoned professional investigators.  We talked about how crazy it was that local law enforcement and the contracted pathologist were so willing to accept anything, and question nothing.  And changing laws too, it was what I thought back then, laws needed to be changed!  Now as I research the subjects more and more, all I see are laws that are not being enforced, these laws were ignored as if they did not exist, as though they were not even laws of the State of Colorado…but they are!  What happens when our own law enforcement and Coroners do not follow State law?

Tuesday, May 1st

I called the Garfield County Coroner, Trey Holt’s office to set up a meeting, but the person who answered told me that I will have to call back next Monday as he is out of town till then, and she can’t make appointments for him. I made a note to myself that I was thinking it sure seems like he is out of town a lot.  In fact I have never called the Coroner’s office and had anyone there tell me that Trey Holt was in town!  We have still never been able to meet with him to this day.

Wednesday, May 2nd

Based on a suggestion, more like hounding, I forced myself to sit and review the tapes from the security cameras.  It was so hard to see anything  from back then, and as I looked at the tapes I saw the unmistakable figure of a human, it was not identifiable, but it was the stalker, or one of his accomplices.  It has been 5 months since Morgan died.  Now I had another image of a person in our yard in the middle of the night.  It was unfortunately of far worse quality than the ones the Sheriff’s had previously dismissed as, “not clear enough”.  It raised my hopes that there were certainly many more shadowy figures throughout the tapes.  I will continue to review the tapes – but it’s so very emotional.  To this day I still don’t understand why the Sheriff’s said most of our tapes are not clear enough, because when I see videos or camera shots on the Internet from other law enforcement agencies across the US that are trying to track someone down they seem to be the same resolution as ours, and they seem to get results…

Friday, May 4th

Steve was mowing the lawn when two of Morgan’s friends showed up unexpectedly.  They all came in the house and  we talked about Morgan and  shared ideas about how we could change things in the future.  It was a great afternoon.

Saturday, May 5th

Today I looked at our tapes some more.  In the afternoon I spoke with an artist who gave Morgan and Steve painting classes, I told him about what happened to Morgan and he had a suggestion about a person I should call.

The Post Independent had an article called, “Women worried about reports of naked man”.  It spoke of reports dating back to 2008 all around Carbondale, Red Hill Mushroom Rock trail north of Hwy 82, and the trail by Blue Creek Subdivision, the Rio Grand Trail, and Lorax trail.  The trail by Blue Creek Subdivision was the neighborhood across the two lane County Road from ours.  It seemed like a lot of crime in such a small area, by population it was tiny, but all the crimes had one glaring similarity – they were all unsolved.  Was our little corner of the County just ignored?  Or was the entire county infested with unsolved crime?

Today Steve and I decided on a date for the memorial to spread Morgan’s ashes, and I started checking with Morgan’s friends about the date to see when they would be back from college, etc.  So many of her friends were away at college when we had the first celebration of her life four days after she was murdered, and they were so upset that they couldn’t attend.

Later that afternoon I talked to the security person Valerie at City Market in Carbondale about what tapes she had saved from the night Morgan was killed, then Steve and I looked at our tapes some more.  There were so many cameras, so many different views (and yes Morgan’s bedroom windows were always covered by a camera), so many hours of footage, and when the real stalker, peeping tom, voyeur, sociopath or whatever I should call him would show up on one of the cameras it would be very quick, so your eyes had to stay glued to that screen at all times, and it was extremely hard from an eye strain point of view, and emotionally it was next to impossible.  But there are a lot of things about what happened to Morgan, and what has gone on afterwards that feel were impossible – but they are not…they are real, Morgan was stalked, hunted down and killed as though she were prey, and we know we can, and will do whatever it takes, no matter how long it takes, to get this case opened, and see the guilty party/parties sent to jail.  Morgan needs justice – the people in this County need justice – this world needs justice, and pretending this didn’t happen, and will not ever happen to someone else is just nonsense, it’s like putting your head in the sand.  So many people in this valley, state, nation and world support our efforts and I just want you all to know it won’t be in vain, things will change for the better and we will not stop until they do.