Monthly Archives: August 2022

More Detail About The 1st Picture Of The Stalker

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Submitted by an avid reader of the Morgan's Stalking Blog and supporter of the fight for justice for Morgan...Team Morgan

There was a huge response to the blog I released titled Comparison of the Stalker Caught in the Driveway…it is the blog that shows a collage of pictures I was given of James Harris (Brooke’s father) from his appearance on the Dr. Phil show.  The picture in the middle was taken the very first night we hung our new wildlife camera outside over our front porch. This is a comparison that someone sent to me after watching the Dr. Phil show.

Let me know your thoughts about this comparison.

One reader wrote in to me, “This is the dad, right? Not the kid? So, there were multiple ppl?”  My answer was, “Yes, there were multiple people involved. We have been told that the stalking of our family was a “gang stalking.”

Then another person wrote in, “Oh my God, the way he holds his neck! Posture and size, and shape of face! I have goosebumps! Too much of a coincidence.. WOW”  I answered her by saying, “That is exactly what the supporter that sent this to me said…the morning after this picture was caught on the wildlife camera, our neighbor Elliott said he knew everyone in the subdivision and the picture only matched the body style of 3 people, one of which was an old man that subsequently was ruled out because he was out of town during most of the incidents of stalking, and the other 2 were Keenan Vanginkel (the main suspect), and James Harris, Brooke’s father (shown here in the pictures).  James, Brooke & Keenan all lived together in a house just 3 houses down from us when the stalking started in August of 2011. Morgan was shocked to hear Keenan had moved in with James & Brooke only weeks before the stalking started – she did not know him, but knew of him, and was creeped out by him.  We had never seen him around the neighborhood, and now Morgan was concerned.  Morgan also did not like Brooke and knew she was a bully who had it out for Morgan, with a violent temper, and she avoided Brooke’s father James as much as possible, because she thought he was very strange and creepy.  So, knowing these two had taken Keenan in to live with them, and now all 3 of them were living only three houses down from us at the time of the stalking, really concerned Morgan.  Morgan was very intuitive, but at the time I was trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt…that was my first big mistake.

And yet another person, after seeing the photo collage, wrote, “Wow. Just wow.”  My answer was, “I know, that is exactly how I reacted when I saw this compilation of pictures that was sent to me. The woman that put it together is brilliant and very intuitive, and her husband is a retired detective from back east.”

The interesting thing is the “spin” some people try to put on everything I share, including this picture.  I guess it is important for some to try and convince people that I am lying – they must have their reasons for trying to fool folks.  Makes me wonder what their motives really are…we call these people “The Others.”
I have been told by people, those who connect with me privately through this website, that one of the crazy things these “anonymous” people say is that the time the sheriffs have written in their report were at an earlier time than the picture, but the picture in our driveway is time stamped with a later time, so it couldn’t be related.  How ridiculous is that statement?  We did call dispatch when the bang on the window happened, then we had to wait until the 3 officers arrived, then the 3 officers searched the area for the stalker, all that took time, but again they did not find the stalker, so, they came back to our house, came in and spoke with us for a while, departed our house (see the series of 3 photos the camera recorded, they are all time stamped – click on the short link below. In the first picture, it shows the sheriffs leaving our house after searching the neighborhood and not seeing the stalker(s), then the 2nd picture shows the stalker watching the sheriff’s vehicles departing the neighborhood, then the 3rd picture shows the camera spinning, plausibly because the stalker was trying to knock it down…a little red light blinks when the picture is taken, so, he most likely was caught off guard (it was the first time the camera had been deployed). We were shocked when we viewed these pictures, as were the officers, after we called them back to our house and showed them the photos from the memory chip in the camera.  In fact they were really angry and proceeded to search under all the vehicles, behind all the bushes, around the whole neighborhood again for the stalker, then return back to our house again to tell us their theory about how the stalker could be eluding them.  They believed the stalker lived in our neighborhood and that is why they hadn’t been able to catch him. Steve and I were happy the camera caught a picture of the person stalking and terrorizing Morgan, but we were also furious and even more concerned at this point seeing the total lack of fear this person had towards law enforcement.  HE WAS OBVIOUSLY THUMBING HIS NOSE AT LAW ENFORCEMENT!
We still had no idea as to how to catch this person, but we thought we could.  Just like so many others in this situation, you react to what is happening as it happens.  We had never had to worry about protecting our daughter from sick, evil people before.  We had a protocol that we kept adding to day by day.  Pepper spray, baseball bat, mag light, motion alarms, motion cameras, motion lights, raking and water the ground for fresh footprints (we did this as per the sheriffs request, I have no idea why as they would never cast any of the footprints).  Morgan, in the next few weeks went quietly about taking her bed mattress off it’s frame and putting her mattress directly on the floor, taking her mirror off her wall and placing that on the floor as well.  She didn’t want the stalker to hide under her bed or peer in her upper clearstory window and see her reflection in her mirror. Then she started cutting up and sewing a dark maroon flannel sheet to hang over her existing window treatments on her windows, so they would have double coverage.  So, now her clearstory windows at the very top were also covered.  I asked her why she was doing that, because surely, no one could see in that high up unless they were flying through the sky, or up on our next door neighbors roof…she told me she just felt safer with them covered.  I believe Morgan was a lot smarter, and more intuitive than I was back then.  Putting her bed on the floor so no one could hide under it was a very intelligent.  Since her murder I have been contacted by a sheriff in another state that has helped us out – she told me about her friend’s young 13-year-old daughter who had a stalker.  That stalker had been hiding under her bed sending her text messages – luckily this person was ultimately caught before this your girl was attacked.
Here is the short link to the first photo of the stalker, taken on August 30, 2011 that I posted earlier on my blog:

Ever Wonder About Crime In Your Neighborhood?

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winterbygraveyeard

Above is a picture of an old cemetery in the Roaring Fork Valley – Morgan took this picture when she visited it with her friends

I wonder if anyone really thinks about what is going on in their neighborhood, I, for the most part did not.  I mean, do you really know what is going on in your neighborhood?  Wouldn’t you assume that if something criminal was going on you would be told about it?  

Think about this…have you ever been warned about crimes going on, right in your own neighborhood? Information, so you can take appropriate precautions to protect your family?  Have you ever had the police or sheriffs pass out flyers, or go door to door to warn people to be on the look-out for something or someone? Wouldn’t it be extremely helpful?

Have you ever caught someone clearly in your yard, looking in your house, at you, at night, or heard tapping or banging on your window?

Have you ever thought you might be being stalked, or actually had someone stalk you?  Wouldn’t you think you should let people know about these dangers?  We were specifically told in Morgan’s case not to tell anyone.  And we actually did listen to that request. We now know that was wrong. Experts on stalking suggest you tell your neighbors, co-worker, fellow students, everyone.

In the real world, in most cases, people want to know what is up when they see law enforcement always showing up at a neighbor’s house, usually at night.  They wonder if there is something going on they should know about.  In Morgan’s case did it really help to try and keep everyone in the dark?  I honestly don’t see how. I truly believe, that in the beginning, if we had let everyone know what was going on, there would have been more eyes and ears alerted that could have helped up stop the stalking before it escalated and became deadly.

Please, write to me, as a comment to this blog, or using the contact button on this website. You can share with me and the world about your experiences, if you would like, you can stay anonymous, just let me know – please don’t suffer in silence.  Let people know how horrible being a victim of stalking really is.  By telling your story it helps raise awareness and can help to save someone’s life.  

I have had many people write in to me about their experiences, and I will start telling the readers about those stories very soon now.  We can all learn from other people’s experiences, in order to protect ourselves.  Law enforcement across the world can learn things too, and have already learned from some of the stories on this blog, I know because they write to me and tell me what they have learned.  All that needs to happen is to want to get better, be able to admit you can improve, and you will.  Close that door, and you will stay the same, for better, or more likely, for worse, forever.

I have been warned, so many times, since the beginning of Morgan’s stalking, that we have to temper what to expect out of law enforcement.  They only have so much time, and so much in their budget, and I was told about the man behind the curtain who controls how much is allocated to each crime.  Morgan’s detectives worked four days a week, and out of those four days there was usually a one hour slot allocated for an interview or something else on Morgan’s case.  I no longer accept this because we don’t even have to guess if that was enough, it wasn’t. How much would have been needed? We will never know.  Does this mean that we are not really protected – it’s all an illusion? Or, are we partially protected, and if a felon happens to have more time than the sheriff’s department, then what?  I guess you are in for bad news, just be sure to not tell any of the neighbors, am I missing something here? In a criminal case, when law enforcement can not, or will not allocate what is needed then more regular citizens need to be told, so they can help. 

Stalking

  • Alert Others – Tell trusted friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and/or your HR department to keep an eye out for suspicious activity and so they don’t mistakenly give out information to someone pretending to be a loved one.

We did always have the deputies to call on 24/7.  But, there was one minor glitch – the response times. 15 minutes was unusually quick, 25 to 45 was more the norm.  So, try this experiment, imagine that your daughter just screamed, because she saw someone looking in her bedroom window.  She pulls the drapes, you run outside, circle the house, completely caught by surprise, you are unarmed, and even if you were armed would you shoot into the dark, where there are houses with innocent people in them so close by?  But, it does not matter because you don’t see anyone – you are not trained for this, you are not fast enough.  You then call the sheriff’s department.  Going back into your house, you sit down and wait 25 minutes, which seems like an eternity, then a deputy arrives.  Together you circle the house again, stopping many times, as the deputy shines his powerful flashlight at something nearby.  Do you think it is any more likely you are going to see the intruder this time?   Imagine the deputy next to you, on the minuscule chance you did see anything, do you think the two of you could run the perpetrator down on foot, or would you lose him somewhere out in the brush?  I wonder if law enforcement kept stats, showing they responded to an intruder call, but didn’t see anything – check this box, or damn if he wasn’t still standing right there at the window – check this box. Do you see where I am going with this? There needs to be a protocol that would actually work. When I read from experts on stalking protocol it makes so much more sense then what our sheriffs did…

When the news played a clip on television where Sheriff Lou Vallario said they were out to our house over fifty times and never saw anyone, that is was about the most ridiculous thing he could have said.  This just reinforced the insufficient protocol they used. Notice, there was no mention of the series of wildlife cam photos of the stalker or the witness sightings.  

Here is a link, in case you have not yet seen the stalker watching the sheriffs https://morgansstalking.com/?p=5019 .  One deputy, two deputies, and then “him”, since they never saw a stalker should we call “him” an intruder?  And then there he is, the intruder, trying to knock down the camera.  Deputies came flying back after we saw these images for the first time, and boy were they pissed, he was right there, practically watching them leave.  Could he have been in the back of the truck?  Where was he hiding?  Who is he? Definitely not Morgan’s stalker, because our sheriff Lou Vallario, in the news clip and on TV, said they never saw one.

Time for a change in tactics perhaps?  No way, look how close we were that time – is that what they thought?  A print out in the patrol vehicles, just in case he’s spotted somewhere else?  No way, they said it’s not clear enough to really tell.  But, I do not blame the sheriffs, Steve and I have no one to blame but ourselves.  By the time we figured out that this was entirely up to us to stop – it was too late for Morgan.  We thought the sheriffs knew what they were doing. Do not make the mistake we did.

We were not alone in our experience; so far, all other victims who have written into me about their individual experiences with stalkers have said that law enforcement never saw their stalker either.  But, then in Morgan’s case, to never use the dogs to track the suspect, especially when they told us they believed he was in our neighborhood, especially after telling us they would bring in a tracking dog next time, but never did, well this is wrong with a capital W.

I now know from others who have written to me, that this same peeking in and tapping on the windows happens more often than it is spoken of. It is more an invasion of privacy for sexual gratification than a misdemeanor trespass, and it has been going on in our little area of the valley for at least 4 years. 

I truly believe we were dealing with a serial stalker/murderer and those type of predators do not just stop.  I have had contact from girls and women who lived in subdivisions close to ours, with similar incidents and yes, these incidents were all called in to the sheriff’s department.  Did the sheriff’s ever see the intruder any of those times, when these women were alone in their houses, and called up to report the crime?  No!  One time, and one time only, I was told that they actually put the tracking dog onto the scent, even though the responding deputies never saw the intruder, but they lost him.  I also know that two of these times the woman did get a good visual sighting, and gave officers a very good description – would Sheriff Lou Vallario now say that, like Morgan’s stalker, all those incidents were a figment of their imagination? – That, just because they (the deputies) never saw the stalker, he just didn’t exist? The sheriff’s hired dogs and they tracked him, all the way to the Carbondale Mini Storage, I was told, for a total of about 1 mile, before the dog lost his scent.  They had gotten good descriptions of what the guy looked like – just like Morgan gave them a description, and a name, and a car, but no arrests were ever made, and no residents were ever warned.  I saw this because one of the incidents was two weeks before Morgan’s stalking reports started, same description same M.O.

I am on the GarCo warning system, and I get a text about highway closures. Would you mind if you received a text that an intruder, unidentified was reported in a certain area?  If you have daughters wouldn’t you want to know?

I would think in every one of these incidents, if the officers had warned the neighborhoods close by then there would have been more eyes, and ears to assist in bringing it to an end.  I would think the officers would appreciate the help, since chances are slight they could never make it there in time to actually “see” the perpetrator.  Maybe this little change in tactics would have resulted in an arrest; maybe this would have saved Morgan’s life.  We will never know, but going forward I think this is something to consider…very seriously.  

Another thing I just remembered…the felony stalking detective, assigned to Morgan’s case, printed up a flyer that he passed out one morning to all the Garfield County Patrol Officers, as well as the Carbondale Police, with the picture of the  “suspects” car, the “suspects picture,” Morgan’s picture, a map of our neighborhood, and other details, so they could all be on watch and up to speed on what was happening – now how in the world could this have been distributed, and then after Morgan is murdered the Sheriff Lou Vallario states that they never had a suspect?  Once again, am I missing something here?

I also do not believe just because you live in a small town and your coroner needs to hire a subcontracted forensic pathologist (i.e. Dr. Robert Kurtzman) that you should just accept a substandard autopsy that gives out a manner of death that no other doctor in this state, or in this country has agreed with, and this lets a criminal walk free to continue to perfect their trade.  

We now know, thanks to the many readers of this blog, which include 2 forensic toxicologists, many retired Medical Examiners, another prominent forensic pathologist, many medical specialists, and even pharmaceutical scientists, who have all weighed in on just Morgan’s toxicology results, and explained to us what the findings really represent.  And guess what?  Everyone agrees that it was a lethal dose of Amitriptyline that killed Morgan – an extremely lethal dose, and they either do not see how he (Dr. Robert Kurtzman) could have ignored it, or that he should have known it, or that he should questioned it, and most all do not see why an investigation was not launched right then and there. The extreme amount that was found in her blood stream could not have been ingested, and there was no needle left behind – this was a staged crime scene and law enforcement either incompetent and did not have the training to know this or this was covered up for some other reason…

If our “small” town cannot do the right thing with the crime scene or with the forensic findings, then they should differ to those who can, and just call in the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) – that’s what they are there for…they have the professional equipment, they would have been there that same morning – I know, I spoke with them.  The morning Morgan’s body was found (our sheriff and coroner state her death was being investigated as it was a death under suspicious circumstances, and that is why they had crime scene tape around our house, and took her body for an autopsy – they state she was a victim of felony stalking, so why not call in the CBI?  I still do not have an answer to that question.  Did Morgan not deserve it?  Was it not in the budget?  I spoke with the CBI and they said they would have offered their help at no cost to Garfield County. Is there something that can be done differently next time?

I also want the answer to the question of why did Dr. Kurtzman, the forensic pathologist, change Morgan’s manner of death from natural causes (which we knew was incorrect, since she had obviously been poisoned with a massive dose of Amitriptyline) to suicide 8 months later, after running a different test that actually showed the presence of a concoction of date rape drugs, that is conveniently never mentioned in the second report? The results of the second test made her death even more suspicious. Sadly, the designation of natural causes and/or suicide give the sheriffs all the reason they need to never investigate the death.

I believe Morgan was murdered, and the evidence pointing to that fact continues to grow, even in the absence of any investigation, strictly through the efforts of people around the country helping us to seek justice for Morgan.  People can say all these experts are all wrong, or I am making them up, or this is not the conclusions they are coming too, but I know better.  We have accumulated documents, photos and much more – all evidence of a murder and cover up.

The truth will come out. I keep asking myself how will they try to spin it then?  When the real question should be how can any decent person put a family like us through this kind of pain, because of their incompetence, and then blame us, thinking if we only went away and dropped this everything would go back to normal, and all would be good?  Trust me folks not only does that not work, but it will never work. This is why the murder clearance in this country gets worse and worse every year and why so many murderers are still able to walk free and can and in most cases will murder again.