Dear Toni,
I have read your entire blog in less than 24 hours and Morgan and your family’s story has hit me so hard.
I watched the Dr. Phil show taping and read the interviews. I’ve actually been to some of his tapings myself. I am a strong supporter of Dr. Phil’s opinions and views, however this is one time I disagree with him. It is quite apparent that the efforts in the investigation are nonexistent. The primary reason this story is getting out is because of your blog and the stir it has caused. I am pleased that you didn’t let Dr. Phil convince you to take this down, (no offense Dr. Phil).
I am deeply sorry for the loss of Morgan. I am sorry your life changed the first time she heard that tapping on her window and will never be the same. I am sorry your local law enforcement completely failed you. I am sorry for the harsh realizations that have come with your 20/20 hindsight. I’m just a few months younger than your daughter and I can’t even imagine being in that situation and she was so brave and powerful.
You tried to do everything that you could in the months of her stalking. I can imagine my dad leaping from his room with the wooden baseball bat he has under his bed, doing exactly what your husband did every night something happened, just trying to catch this monster. You never left Morgan alone, maintained constant communication, you reported every bit to the police, took meticulous records, (obvious by your detailed posts), and listened to everything you were supposed to do. You spent an insurmountable level of energy, time, and money into placing technology and cameras where needed. You’re not in any security or surveillance company and put them exactly where anybody else would. I know my parents would just beat themselves to a pulp with guilt in your situation, but from my perspective and hopefully from a perspective similar to Morgan’s, you have gone so far above and beyond to protect her out of this overwhelming amount of love you have for her. I’m sure she knows you tried to do everything you possibly could. Please don’t take offense, I just know how I would feel if my parents were experiencing what you and your husband are feeling.
Your family reminds me so much of mine and I was hauntingly reminded of how this can happen to anyone. I am glad you have revealed your insights to strengthen our defenses against anybody else with severe mental distortion that would do this as well.
I’m not a parent. I’ve never experienced stalking as severe as yours. I’ve never lost a child. So it is impossible for me to say I understand. The level of frustration of knowing exactly what has happened with no one listening compares marginally to Jodie Foster’s role in Flight Plan.
I went in reading your blog knowing that Morgan had died, though it was still horribly shocking. I continued reading in hopes that some kind of hope would spring from this and I was woefully mistaken. I sincerely hope something happens and soon.
I know you are receiving large amounts of input about the case and I’m sorry to pile on more. It seems however, that you are appreciative of fresh perspectives and I hope I can contribute something. I personally suffer from depression. The signs in anybody are completely obvious in even small amounts of information. After the large amounts of information about your daughter’s life, I can conclude with absolute sincerity she did not commit suicide and I am happy you have stood by your claim. She would have withdrawn from friends LONG before a suicide, yet she maintained an incredibly vigorous social life, even under the suffocating presence of a stalker. She stayed in physical activities (ballet) and ventured out of the house often, again notably impressive with the stalker’s behavior. She didn’t want to leave Wylah even for a few days to go to her sister’s house, she wouldn’t leave her forever. If suicide is an option, easily accessible medications or alternative methods would be used before the complicated process of creating the mix found in her system. I can go on and on with the evidence against suicide.
Personal brushes with stalking (though not as severe as your case) as well as numerous psych classes, relationship studies, and personal events lead me to the next input about your case. Though I do not believe ? (I’m following your naming system) was in your house the night of your daughter’s death or the main lurker around your house, she was an accomplice in the eyes of the law because she, without a doubt, was aware of K’s activity. Her snow march was absolutely a sloppy attempt at an alibi and diversion tactic. I feel like the relationships other teenagers have with their parents are sadly much more different from your strong relationship with your daughter. Which brings me to ?’s father. I believe he is aware of his daughter’s misbehavior, but like a loving father, he tries to protect his daughter. Though the extent of knowledge about exactly what her behavior is not known, I sincerely believe he doesn’t know much, and I don’t think he wants to know. Parents with aggressively misanthropic children will oftentimes grow fearful of their own children, slipping into a denial. He may never accept the idea of his daughter being anything other than his own little angel, and who can blame him? ? is however, obviously an active woman who makes her own choices, so it is far better to hold her responsible instead of letting her father continue to try to clean up after his daughter’s mistakes.
Now we are brought to Keenan VanGinkel. Your true offender. He fits the profile of a stalker so perfectly, students in a middle school level intro psychology class would easily match him up to the profile of a stalker. Proximity, expressed fascination to peers, delusion of a relationship with your daughter, hunting skills and knowledge, a teenager with access to internet, a sense of superiority to law enforcement and the law (which is horribly and sadly slightly accurate due to his ability to evade for so long), physical capability and manipulative abilities are just qualities off the top of my head for the cover boy of a perfect stalker. He is able to manipulate his girlfriend, even after a supposed relationship split, to remain in his life and active in protecting him. His girlfriend is aware of his infatuation with another girl, your daughter, yet continued to stay with him, a sad glance into their flawed relationship. I’m not giving this lowlife any excuses, but he is obviously mentally irrational. Somehow this \”relationship\” with your daughter made sense to him. I don’t think you will ever really understand why this monstrosity happened to your family, because you will never understand the mind of this man. Which is actually a very good thing. BUT I do know you are fighting to cage him up so he can NEVER carry out another \”relationship\” like this with any other woman which evidenced by history and psychology, is absolutely inevitable whether it be now or in twenty years. I applaud you and your efforts and I absolutely believe this is exactly what the next step is.
I want you to know I care deeply and support you in your tireless efforts. You could be saving ME for all I know. Thank you from me, your readers, the people you have helped, the people you have informed, and I know your lovely daughter would thank you too. With a cute little 🙂 I really feel the world has been cheated out of a beautiful person.
21 year old University Student
I normally never leave a comment to a blog because they are my blogs but since this is a guest contributor to the blog I just would like to say to her:
Your writing and timing are both amazing, thank you so much. I was very hesitant to share this, but life for me since the one year anniversary of Morgan’s death had become so difficult I just buried myself in work to avoid thinking of it. Talking to Steve yesterday I discovered he feels exactly the same way. We have made some very important decisions in the last 48 hours. I also wanted to share that this week I visited Morgan’s college for no other reason than to return her books that were still useful to other students. I watched so many young adults like Morgan and yourself going about another day and it proved to be exceptionally emotional for me, but it also gave me something I needed. Rarely has the saying, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger”, held more meaning for me. I am stronger today, and oh how I needed to be stronger. Thank you so much for taking the time to write. You didn’t say it, so just in case, please share with as many others as you can – we want to raise awareness! Thank you so much!
Toni
Amazing!!! well said!! Toni, Steve, and Morgan in my thought’s everyday!!!
Thanks Tammy – we know you are right behind us giving us so much emotional support, and it helps us so much! Take care.
This so eloquently spilled all of the thoughts and feelings I experienced when I read your blog. I, too, read the whole thing over a weekend about two weeks before the end of the daily posts. I still check for an update every day and pray for the day I find the message that we are all waiting to see, the one I know in your heart you cannot wait to write.
Toni & Steve,
Morgan’s Army is still here, patiently waiting, and praying for you to regain your strength to continue. Looks like the kindling has been relit.
Love and Blessings
I know that you won’t approve this comment so it can be read by others, but I hope that you at least take the time to read it for yourself. Maybe it will help you.
I initially landed here when I was first prescribed amitriptyline. I wanted to know what to expect on this medication and a Google search brought me here. Ever since, I’ve been following your blog and your daughter’s tribulations. I wrote an article, in fact, about her story. But I held the stance that maybe she did intentionally/unintentionally overdose. Maybe it was as an escape from her stalkers. I just don’t know.
I honestly don’t know what to think about this case, but one thing I took away from your blog is this: I gather that you have serious negative connotations about suicide. My mother, after battling her own demons and depression, decided to take her own life in 2008. Her decision came as a totally devastating shock to me; it shattered my world. I was ignorant at the time – thinking that only weak and outwardly sad people did such a thing. I went over and over in my mind our last conversation, which came with no hints that she planned to end her life. But now I know better; I’m more educated on the subject of suicide – the bottom line is different people react differently to different things.
When you say: “If suicide is an option, easily accessible medications or alternative methods would be used before the complicated process of creating the mix found in her system. I can go on and on with the evidence against suicide,” that’s just not accurate. My mother chose hanging, which I can tell you is a much more painful alternative to other methods. My mother was a nurse – she could’ve gotten a script from any doctor for any number of pills. But she didn’t.
The summer of my mother’s death was also my junior year of college. I landed a great internship and my mother oft told me how proud she was. i decided to stay on campus, 100 miles away from home. My mother and I talked a lot through e-mail and cell. In the last conversation we had she was making plans for the week I’d be home when my internship ended and I anticipated the start of my junior year. She was excited, asking me what I wanted to eat while I was home, that we’d go shopping, she couldn’t wait for my companionship.
Two days later, she ended her life. So the statement, “I can conclude with absolute sincerity she did not commit suicide and I am happy you have stood by your claim. She would have withdrawn from friends LONG before a suicide, yet she maintained an incredibly vigorous social life” brings me back to ’08 when my perspective of suicide held many preconceived notions. In the final years of her life, my mother was my mother. She held a job, went to my sister’s parent-teacher conferences. planned family events, fulfilled her duties as a homemaker. A huge reason why suicide is so painful for the survivor is that no one can believe a person close to them decided to do this. As humans, we are constantly fighting against our own mortality.
I don’t know your daughter. I don’t know what demons she was struggling with. I don’t know if she had a stalker. I don’t know if she decided to take her own life or was murdered. You obviously believe the latter and I support that. But I invite you to take some time out and do the research on suicide, just to be educated about it. Ignorance shuts down any pathway to prevention. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem and I do not condone it, but the reason it remains such a taboo is that people deny its existence and are absolutely disgusted by it.
The fact remains that so many good people decide to take their own lives for whatever reason. It shouldn’t have to come to that, but it does. It should end at that, however. Tainting someone’s legacy by repulsion for their decision keeps the circle of pain going. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Thanks for hearing me out. God bless.
First of all I must say how truly sorry I am for the loss of your mother. The words you are quoting from are not mine, but the words of another reader that is just a few months younger than Morgan. I put her on the blog as a guest blogger, because I thought her writing was wonderful and she made good points. I did not know your mother or the circumstances surrounding her death, but I have to ask you this question…did anyone ever think she was murdered and it was made to look like a suicide? I am not trying to be cruel, and that is probably not what happened in her case, but I recently had a mother write in to me, and then we spoke over the phone (it happens quite a bit), and her son’s death had been written off as a suicide, gun still in hand when they found him although he showed no signs of being suicidal…well this mom lived with this for over a year believing her only son shot himself (even attended, and then started a suicide prevention class)…then after all their money was spent on a PI (her and her husband always had their doubts) they came to find out that her son had gotten in an altercation, fell backwards, hit his head, broke his neck, died, and the two people with him brought him somewhere, shot his already dead body in the head, wrapped him up, brought him back to his apartment and posed him with his gun in his hand for the police to find, and deem it a suicide.
There was no blood at the scene, the police could tell his neck was broken, but they said it was from the bullet rattling around in his head that broke it. The wound to his head was much smaller then his own gun would have made, and a ballistics expert said his gun had NEVER been fired, and was the wrong caliber to make that small a hole. You could tell by the wound it was done postmortem….but all this didn’t matter at the time his body was cremated and they never reopened his case. So I guess what I am trying to convey to you is #1 you did not know our daughter, #2 our daughter WAS being terrorized, and stalked for 4 months of that there is no doubt, #3 our daughter saw her stalker, #4 I saw the stalker, #5 the felony stalking detective assigned to our daughter’s case vocalized who the stalker was, #6 our daughter was killed by a MASSIVE dose of a medication she was not taking along with other medications she had never taken and were never in our house, #7 we have much more evidence that we can not release on this blog so I am sorry to have to say these things to you because I know you are hurting but I am not trying in any way shape or form trying to taint someone’s legacy by repulsion – I would never do that. I want to make sure the people we all love are being correctly investigated when they die, because if not we are all doing the world a huge disfavor!
Suicide is a horrible thing and it leaves a family traumatized I’m sure, but I firmly believe that there are suicides in our world that are not really suicide, there are people that do murder and try to make it look like a suicide…should that go on? I don’t believe so and will not allow it to in Morgan’s case. If this person gets away with it I guarantee it will happen again to another innocent – would you want that on your conscience?
God bless!
and there are lazy or incompentent investigations that pronounce suicide when in reality it’s murder! Right now some parent has a dead child and the parents are sitting there in shock still not knowing what to do. Not being able to take charge or knowing that they should because the cops are supposed to know what to do and they dont in most states. So many cases will never be solved, so many murderers on the loose just living their lives because of ill performed investigations. Makes me sick!
It makes me sick too – and sad…sad because when these killers get away with it most likely they will do it again and another innocent life will be lost. They only get better with time when it comes to covering their tracks so it gets even harder to catch them.
Toni,
You replied to her, what I was thinking…if there was no sign anywhere that her mother was suicidal, how does she know it wasn’t homicide? If my mom suddenly took her own life under those same circumstances, I would be investigating her death. As a nurse, knowing there are so many things that can go wrong with hanging, that would be my last choice.
I agree that’s why I answered her/him not sure if it is a male or female that wrote in, but I sure as heck would not have just accepted it without an investigation if she had no signs.