It was coming to a close, the term, “getting close to an arrest,” was being bandied about with new meaning. In a discussion Morgan had with her doctor concerning how she was feeling about her stalker, only 36 hours before we found her lifeless body, Morgan told her doctor that she was positive, and upbeat and that the Detectives in her case felt they were very close to making an arrest. She saw the end of the nightmare, and she smiled at the thought.
On the drive home there were even giggles about the happy thoughts we focused on even though some very disturbing news to Morgan had been told to her by a friend over her cell phone. Instead of going into self-pity mode Morgan, being Morgan asked her dad for a knife for extra protection, which he stopped and purchased for her on our way home. Morgan had such courage and it never left her, even at the bitter end.
The very day before this drive (2 nights before her murder) I asked Detective Glassmire what he thought it meant, with so many upcoming events in her stalking case. About how I thought the colder weather may also turn the stalker away, as one of the Sheriff’s Patrol Officers had mentioned in the beginning of the stalking. When I think back on it now, his answer surprised me for an instant, as he said very matter-of-fact type of way that he felt, “if anything, it was going to escalate.” Just like that, he “felt it was going to escalate.”
To put it in perspective, when you are not getting sleep, watching surveillance videos until you pass out and finding great joy and relief in a trip to Grand junction for an annual gynecological appointment, the word escalate is not something your mind wants to hear, much less process into a tangible thought. Steve would have had some quick comeback, he would not have let that particular word slip by, but Steve was not there. It was only Detective Glassmire and myself, standing at the corner of the house, between Morgan’s room and a tree we would later learn the stalker used to exit the roof.
To find out now that Detective Glassmire had told the suspects about her pending formal interview, on camera, I have to ask…was he thinking that this would scare them? That knowing their goose would soon be cooked was all this case needed to end? No, he knew the answer when he told me that, if anything, there would be a reaction, an increase in intensity, it would escalate. That was Tuesday afternoon, November 30th, 2011, 2 days before Morgan would go to sleep for the last time.
Sandwiched around that day would be an interview with the on again off again prime suspect, known to be involved by the Garfield County Sheriffs Department Detectives, just not in what capacity, Brooke was, “kicked around constantly,” as the leader of the stalking, a participant alongside Keenan, and as knowing what Keenan was doing, but that was all. This was before we would find out that Brooke had a habit of threatening Morgan, telling many others that Morgan was going to get it someday. Detective Glassmire would reveal the date of the pending interview of Morgan with this suspect. Something would happen to raise the Detective’s level of certainty that Keenan was Morgan’s stalker to 100%.
Morgan did not need any more evidence, she was already 100% sure it was Keenan. She was an eyewitness to Keenan’s stalking, having seen him from a distance of less than 15 feet four times. Once getting out of her car to stand in the roadway because she was not about to tell the Deputies she was 99% sure it was him only to be told that was not good enough. Morgan was willing to risk it all to be 100% sure. She did and she was, I was 99% sure, and told Detective Glassmire that.
Keenan would know that the record of his hours working for City Market was going to be handed over the Sheriff’s department the following week. Not only did the Detective think that, “if anything, the stalking was going to escalate.” He would ask for, and receive increased patrols, an extra one or two a night. And they would all be 100% focused up on our roof. What did they find out? And why did they not share it with us?
Knowing why the extra patrols were ordered would have been far more valuable than the extra minute or two of safety the extra patrols gave. If we had known the danger level Morgan was in we would have somehow gotten her away where no one could find her – but we were not given that chance. Was critical information withheld from us? This has been eating at me for such a long time now and I really need to know. Law enforcement doesn’t want to give that up – that would look like they made a mistake so they sweep it under the rug for no one to see. How does that help the next victim? What do you tell her parents, the same lines we were fed? Accountability for your actions and changing the way things are done so it doesn’t happen again is what we teach our children – why were we not told, when our daughters life could have been at stake for all they knew those few days before she was, in fact, killed?
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