Monthly Archives: September 2013

An article from the Journal of Criminal Justice – how would you react if your daughter was stalked & murdered?

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Let’s say for a moment (and I pray this will never be true in your case) that your daughter has a stalker – you want to keep your daughter safe so you call law enforcement, but at the same time you don’t just sit back and hope they protect her (you realize they can’t be everywhere all the time), you also do everything you can think of to keep her safe, while at the same time trusting in law enforcement to do their job.  You have no experience when it comes to stalking situations, you have only heard about celebrity stalkers, and you have no idea what to do or not to do.

Everyone you confide in has different suggestions – you decide to do as many as possible. Motion alarms, motions lights, cameras, pepper spray, mace with a staining solution that glows in the dark, water and rake the ground in order to get better footprints, observe what lights are on in neighboring houses or what cars are in driveways in the middle of the night when the stalker was just at your house, do your own stake-out, keep a timeline, borrow a watch dog, (we did that for a week, we love our dog, but just as a few of our readers have said that have the same breed as our dog, our dog is not a watch dog, never barked when the code on the front door was pushed, never barked when tapping happened on the windows), she only barks when she hears the doorbell ring (Morgan’s stalker did not ring the doorbell), or when she hears a loud knocking on the front door (Morgan’s stalker did not do that either), or if she sees someone through a window that she does not trust (that happened once when the stalker came up our driveway at night and she saw him through the front door window, read about that one here, October 18, 2011), but she did bark 3 times because of the stalker that I remember during that 4 month period, once which I mentioned above, once when I was in my office in the very front of the house, I had not gone to bed yet – I was waiting up to meet Morgan in the driveway, and Morgan called to say she would not be home until morning because she was sleeping at a friend’s house – she was exhausted and wanted to get a full nights sleep.  As soon as I hung up the phone something hard, and loud hit my window – I was startled and jumped, as did our dog, who was lying on the floor next to where I was standing, and she started to bark.  That was my first time to feel the absolute skin crawling fright that Morgan had been experiencing almost every day – and that was the first, and one of the 3 times our dog barked because of the stalker.  Suggestions like a bear trap, fish hooks on invisible fishing line hanging from the trees, things like that I couldn’t do – I love animals just like Morgan did, and injuring or killing an animal while trying to catch or stop a stalker did not sound like the right thing to do at the time.

Then your daughter’s stalking case becomes a FELONY STALKING case, and a detective is assigned to the case. You breathe a sigh of relief (because you trust law enforcement, you, like me, have seen some amazing heroes over the years), but you still keep trying to come up with ways to catch the stalker, as well as ways to protect your daughter, because you are a parent, and that is what parents are supposed to do…protect your child. With all the things we had tried we were still trying to add more things – wouldn’t you?  I told Morgan I would purchase a taser gun for her, she said she wouldn’t be able to use it.  Why?  She said, “Mom picture this, I am walking from the car to the house, holding car keys in one hand, along with pepper spray and my puppies leash in the other hand, how am I supposed to hold a taser and use it?”  So much for that idea…so I kept meeting her every time she drove home, in the driveway with pepper spray in my hand as well.  She would always send me a text to tell me she was on her way home, and I would wait for her and meet her outside – no matter what the weather was like, I’m sure you would do the same to protect your daughter.  Were her text messages being monitored?  I asked the detective, but he said he didn’t know of any software that could do that. Relatives said to carry a gun – we had one – and if we had to use it in the house we would have, but we lived in a neighborhood with houses fairly close together so if we saw the stalker running outside of our house and shot at him and missed the bullet could have gone right into a neighbor’s house and wounded, or even worse, killed an innocent person – that to me was not a valid option either.

Then after four months of being terrorized, the unthinkable happens…you find your daughter’s lifeless body.  You call 911 – you do CPR until the EMT’s rush into your home to take over, with so much hope and determination in their eyes, definitely heroes trying to save our 20-year-old with so much life still ahead of her, only to bow their heads in defeat. Your mind swirls thinking you must be having a nightmare.  This can’t be happening!  Please take me not her…then your mind starts up with all the questions – what happened, how did this happen, how could this happen to her?

This is now the worst pain you have ever felt in your entire life and it doesn’t end there.  That same morning you are told there are no signs of forced entry, no signs of a sexual assault, no signs of a struggle, no signs of suicide, and at this time law enforcement tells you her death is a mystery.  Your mind screams – mystery?  She is a healthy 20-year-old that has a felony stalker that has been terrorizing her for 4 months, and you were just told by the lead detective (only 2 days earlier) that in his opinion the stalker would not stop, if anything he would escalate – you start to ask question after question, hoping for some answers that make sense, but don’t get any, and all you can do now is still trust that law enforcement is really investigating, and will give you some answers.  Unfortunately you are wrong… it has now been one year, and nine months and you still have not received the information that you have requested, and deserve to have.

What would you think?  Would you think this is a cover-up?  Would you think this is just CYA because of mistakes law enforcement made, mistakes they can’t afford to admit now that your daughter is dead?  Would you think that maybe your law enforcement department was just lazy?  Would you think this is just because you live in a small town and small towns don’t have enough resources like big cities, so this is what happens – they just close the investigation?

For me none of the above reasons work, because EVERY human life is precious and deserves respect, dignity and honesty.  Families deserve answers.  Morgan’s felony stalking case was closed after she was murdered – 2 days before her murder I was told by the lead detective he was close to making an arrest then after she was gone no more follow-up, case closed.  This is after bringing the sheriff’s information, evidence to follow-up on and so much more, but only to see that they would not follow-up on anything or spend anymore time on her investigation.  What would you do when the suspects family tells you he was either working or not in state when Morgan’s stalking incidents occurred?  Number one how would they know when those incidents actually occurred considering the sheriff’s reports did not show all the reports?  And even more important than that is the fact that the sheriff’s did receive the work schedule for the suspect after Morgan’s murder and if they had actually looked at it and compared it to my timeline, like they were planning on doing before her murder, they would have seen what I saw…yes he was in the state (except when there was an intentional alibi being made or when there were no stalking incidents on my timeline).  I was shocked when I started looking over his hours – of course I was infuriated, wouldn’t you be?  And this is why the article mentioned below is so important…law enforcement doesn’t have to be super heroes they just need to be honest and do their job, most do, but not all and that is where change needs to be made.  Someone shouldn’t get away with murder, because it gets swept under the rug, or because a contracted forensic pathologist is allowed to say its natural causes for 8 months while being told that it can’t be by so many experts, and then he changes it to suicide when that is not true either and there is conclusive proof to the contrary.  When that is allowed to happen then other families will lose loved ones over and over, (because someone got away with murder), and the next time it can be anyone’s daughter.

I know that law enforcement can’t be everywhere at all times, I know law enforcement officers are just human like the rest of us and make mistakes too, but I also know that in my job (probably in yours too) I have to be honest, and accountable for the mistakes I make, correct them and do my best to make sure it does not happen again.  The only person responsible for Morgan’s murder is Morgan’s murderer, along with anyone that tried to cover up the crime – there are others who might be tried as an “accomplice” or an “accessory”, and remember there is no statute of limitations on murder.

This article (see link below) from the Journal of Criminal Justice explains very succinctly why there needs to be transparency, and honesty when law enforcement, and the judicial system deals with the family of victims of crime.

Journal of Criminal Justice 38 (2010) 880–888 click here http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics/clics2012a/commsumm.nsf/b4a3962433b52fa787256e5f00670a71/4edad3b79d32555b872579ac007e1eba/$FILE/SenJud0222AttachG.pdf to read the full publication.  I am so happy there are so many scholarly people in this world that can explain things that I think and have come to know, but can not properly articulate to others.

TODAY (September 25th) IS NATIONAL DAY OF REMEMBRANCE FOR MURDER VICTIMS

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NATIONAL DAY OF REMEMBRANCE FOR MURDER VICTIMS
September 25, 2013
Please join COVA, the Victim Assistance Unit of the Denver Police Department, MADD, the Front Range Chapter of POMC, Voices of Victims, and Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons as we pause to remember all victims of homicide, for the 7th Annual National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims.Families of murder victims are encouraged to bring a picture of their loved one to display.  A representative from each family may present the name of their loved one, date of birth, and date of death at the microphone.  The media is expected to be in attendance.
Time: 11:00AM-1:00PMLocation: 1371 Cherokee Street(Plaza in front of the new Denver Crime Lab)

Featured Speaker: Jayann Sepich, Founder, DNA Saves

 

After the 2003 brutal rape and murder of her firstborn, Katie, Jayann and her family established DNA Saves, a non-profit organization dedicated to the passage of arrestee testing laws, in December of 2008.  Jayann, along with her family made it their mission to see legislation passed in all 50 states to mandate taking DNA upon felony arrest, called “Katie’s Law”. Colorado passed Katie’s Law in 2009.

 

Jayann says that she is an ordinary woman placed in an extraordinary circumstance.  She believes that through DNA testing of arrestees, lives will be saved and crimes prevented, and families spared the pain of burying a loved one.
The annual National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims allows the opportunity to remember those lost to homicide, and honor their memories.  September 25th was chosen to honor POMC founders Robert and Charlotte Hullinger of Cincinnati, Ohio, whose daughter was murdered on that date in 1978.

A little more about Morgan…her stalker can’t take away all the beautiful times she spent on this earth

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Morgan's birhtday

Morgan’s birthday

Who was Morgan – really?  I am not quite sure why I feel the need to write this down right now, but remember how I said you should always go with what your intuition is telling you?  Well mine is telling me that even though I know who Morgan was, even though her whole family, and her friends know who Morgan was, not everyone knew her.  I have tried, throughout this blog, using her text messages, and daily events that happened to her to give everyone a look into who she really was, but now my intuition is telling me to explain more.

Morgan was 19 when her stalking started.  She turned twenty about 2 weeks later – she was born in August, she was a Leo – that should explain to some of you about her drive and her inner courage.  She was not shy about speaking out when she thought someone was being unjustly persecuted.  Morgan always stood up for her own rights as well, and enjoyed her freedom.  After raising two other children, and being involved in so many other children’s lives over the years I knew that at age 20, I could not even begin to tell Morgan what to do, I could only explain to her why I would like her to do things like, text me on her way home, always let me know where she was, and who she was with, and always carry pepper spray on her – but this was only during her stalking – we never had to employ any of this before her stalking began, as some people have suggested.  We actually thought we lived in a safe place, but I now know no place in this world is safe from evil.  Morgan was such a sweet and loving soul that she never argued about my suggestions, she knew I was worried about her, and she did not want to cause me, or her father or anyone else any additional stress so our beautiful and kind daughter took my suggestions willingly…she was frightened too, and as other stalking victims have said to me over, and over again about how they felt while being stalked, Morgan said the same thing – she just wanted it to stop, she just wanted to believe it was over…they all do.  Morgan tried to tell herself, as did I, if it was quiet for a day or two that maybe it was over…but it wasn’t.

shadowfigure

Morgan was our youngest child, one of three.  Her older sister and brother adored her.  She was a twin, but I lost her twin during my pregnancy, and Morgan (our little Leo) hung in there, she was tough.  When Morgan was only 11 years old she was exposed to chronic Carbon Monoxide for a year – it was horrible!  She went from feeling like she had the flu to being so sick she started to lose her hair – she was pale and would shake all over.  Steve and I have great insurance so we brought her to Children’s hospital, and every specialist we could think of in Colorado, but they could not figure out what was wrong with her.  Morgan was so brave, and so happy when we finally found out what was causing the problem. We got her out of that house immediately, it was hard because it was the middle of winter in a ski town so there were not many places available, but she never complained – not even once, again she was very tough.  She was so happy to be feeling better and to be back in school with her friends – unfortunately at that time we had no idea that the Carbon Monoxide would cause her more problems down the line…but what did Morgan do?  It would have been easy for her to let it hold her back, let her fade into the background, but Morgan said she was happy about all the problems she had suffered through, because she felt that it had made her stronger and even more driven.  She wrote, and did two speeches about it – she wanted to get her story out so others would know the dangers of Chronic Carbon Monoxide poisoning…not just Acute Carbon Monoxide poisoning like we sadly read about in the paper, after a whole family dies.

She was not materialistic, she loved going on “road trips” with her father and I – she always kidded us that we were a “crack-up”, as did some of her friends that we would invite along, all these trips and outings have left us amazing and happy memories that I wouldn’t change for anything.  As a family we always loved having kids in the house, we sponsored hockey kids for a year, had various cousins live with us at times, enjoyed having big holiday dinners and BBQ’s.  Morgan always enjoyed all the holiday craft times, egg dying, Christmas ornament making, and in her last two years became enamored with baking desserts for everyone.

Morgan even made heart shapes out of parmesan cheese :}

Morgan even made heart shapes out of parmesan cheese :}

Morgan had just finished her first two years of college and transferred her credits to CU Boulder so she could finish up her last two years and receive her BA.  Morgan wrote the following just before she was murdered, she thought she was going to get the chance to finish up her last 2 years of college and then go on to law school. She loved Philosophy and couldn’t wait to do even more good things with her life…now we are all going to help her fight for woman’s rights, as well as the right for all humanity to be treated equally. Change will be made – we are all here to help see this through Morgan.

Morgan wrote: About to spend the next two years overdosing on Philosophy in an amazing way. Also, anyone interested in perhaps making a grassroots effort to make a difference for woman’s rights? Anyone?

Her other passion, besides learning was her pets.  She loved all animals, and they always loved her.  Her cat Mogwai loved sleeping in her suitcase.  Whenever he heard her come home from school but not come in her room he would yell out, “,Ma, Ma”  he was a total Mama’s boy.

Mogwaiinsuitcase

Her horse TC love her so much – they were like brother and sister.  He knew when she was killed.  I went to tell him later that same day and when he saw me he reared up, threw his head from side to side and yelled out.  You could see in his eyes that he already knew and was extremely upset.  He would not come to me and he always comes to me.  I just cried and told him how sorry I was that I didn’t protect her.  No one in this world could tell me animals don’t know.  I was there and saw how her horse reacted that day and I am here to tell you he has never done that in his life…he knew, and he was very angry that this had happened to someone so dear to his heart, someone he could communicate with, someone who was so caring and gentle.  I also would like to tell you that horses NEVER forget.tc2

 

 

 

Morgan and her puppy Wylah May – Morgan adored this little one.  Morgan worked very hard on a movie in California in the beginning of that summer and spent all her hard-earned money on that puppy.  Made her special food, took her down to the river, the parks, took her for play dates with other dogs…this little dog was like a baby to her.  Wylah was about 5 months old when Morgan was murdered.  She is now an older, wiser, and beautiful dog.  She is sweet and loving and great with other dogs but very weary of certain people – even if they are far away when she is on a walk she observes people around her and actually growled at a strange-looking man just a week ago.  I guess she is a hyper-vigilant dog now.

Morgan and Wylah with bubbles

Morgan and Wylah with bubbles

She loved her little happy ferrets – they always made us smile.

Morgan's ferret Mocha peeking out of a bag

Morgan’s ferret Mocha peeking out of a bag

And Tessi missing Morgan coming through the front door, and while petting her always called her beautiful. Tessi and Morgan would always be together on the couch when Morgan was watching television.  She seemed to like all the movies Morgan liked.  Tessi misses Morgan so very much!

mjtessipuzzle

 

And of course I could go on for years writing just this one post about Morgan because there are so many wonderful things about her I could never put them in one post but I hope throughout the entire blog you will get the true “sense” of who Morgan was.  She is the most beautiful, and gentle soul I have ever met, and I am truly proud to have been her mother.  We will get justice and we will make changes…count on it.

 

Understanding the stalker, and the responsibilities of being a good parent, and a good human being

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As the world grows it learns.  The FBI has begun to further understand the intricate nuances of stalkers and their multifaceted dangers.  Click here for a great article to read about predatory stalkers. 

Keenan Vanginkel stalked and escalated, as predicted that he would.  The lead detective assigned to Morgan’s felony stalking case knew the escalation was coming, and tried to warn us only two days before Morgan’s murder, at the same time he said he felt he was getting very close to making an arrest.  I do not think the detective knew what kind of escalation it would be, but he did say he felt it would escalate, and sadly for our daughter Morgan it was all too little, and too late.  She is now dead, and after the unspeakable travesties of Garfield County, Steve and I are stuck in a gut-wrenching, and never-ending rut of correcting those who should have been protecting Morgan, and her rights (before, and after her murder), but were not…

An afternoon in Santa Fe

An afternoon in Santa Fe

The last words of the detective, before Morgan was killed, was not only that her stalking was going to – “if anything it’s most likely going to escalate,” it was also that he wasn’t sure if Keenan’s girlfriend Brooke was not involved at all – OR, as he had begun to think more so lately, that she was very involved.  When your daughter is murdered somehow the who was more involved loses some of its fire.

So many lies have been uncovered that it is hard, really hard, not to point fingers at those who knew, and chose to pretend they did not.  Such as even the father of Brooke.  He confessed on the morning that Morgan’s body was found, to a client and certainly, by his own admissions,  knew enough to put a stop to it, but chose not to.  Instead he found it more important to protect his daughter.

There is a trend unraveling in Colorado these days, parents exposing the crimes and culpability of their children so others will not suffer.  It is an in-depth and complex idea.  Just the slightest word from a parent to law enforcement, that is willing to listen, has solved some of the shocking crimes that plague Colorado of late.  But you see there are two parts to the equation.  First there is a parent willing to give up the knowledge, and then there is law enforcement willing to listen. Here are some examples recently in Colorado:

1. His mother called 911 on Oct. 23, saying he wanted to confess to the Jessica Ridgeway Murder: Austin Sigg, teen suspect in slaying of 10-year-old Colo. girl Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/12/colorado-teen-pleads-not-guilty-in-murder-10-year-old-girl/#ixzz2dt6rZTJR

2. In a plot to kidnap, beat a man and then dump him in the woods to starve, the parents of some of the boys that were plotting this crime turned over information about the alleged plot to the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office and Basalt Police Department. Read more: http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20120420/NEWS/120429983

In Morgan’s case there was neither.  On one hand the parent was, “just protecting his daughter,”  and on the other hand there were county officials that wanted to ignore what was, and had happened.  There was the Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario stating on camera for CBS Channel 4 that he would “never open this case.”  At least he knew it was a case.  And the contracted Forensic Pathologist was busily threatening me to stop having Morgan’s doctors, as well as other specialists tell him that she did not die of natural causes.  That at the very least (especially under the circumstances of felony stalking) Morgan’s case should have been written up as undetermined (open an investigation) or homicide (open an investigation).  Who threatens a mother to give up the quest for justice for their daughter?

The only thing that has changed is not where I end, but rather where I start.  You see I have never had to suffer the loss of a murdered daughter before.  And I have never been left with the task of trying to squeeze justice from those that just want us to just go away.  The unbelievable has unfolded within this blog many times.  I now think it is about to take a turn for Morgan.  And if anyone deserves a turn at justice, it is our daughter Morgan.  She cared, and loved, and wanted only to help others.  That much is without doubt.  She was also viciously murdered, and suffered through every attempt that Garfield County has done to hide that fact.

I so dearly wish I could share her smile with the world just one more time, but instead I will have to settle for letting everyone see what really happened to her. And hope that in so doing many more will be saved.  Stalking needs to be taken seriously by all offices of law enforcement (not just some), by all judges (not just some) and no more excuses, no more hidden agendas, we want transparency.  We miss you Morgan, but we will never give up the quest for justice.