December 2, 2011 – Day One of Morgan’s Investigation – The Crime Scene

 

Morgan at Disneyland - just before she came home to her stalking.

Morgan at Disneyland – just before she came home to her stalking.

 If you haven’t already – please click on the blog link below, “Do parents cover for their children – even when they murder?  Keenan, as well as both his parents, and stepfather, and others have gone on to LIE about where he was the night of December 2, 2011…why?  His story keeps changing. At first he told others that he was out of state – but now we have his work hours from the police report, so we know that was a lie.  Then he has said he was at work when she died – another lie.  Morgan’s body shows she was murdered BEFORE he got to work at 2:00 am in the morning on the 2nd.  He says he has proof he worked that night because the City Market cameras show he was at work…another twist of the truth.  I am sure the cameras show him at work after 2:00 am, but not before…so there goes his alibi.  Ask yourself – why would an innocent person have to change their story over and over again, and have others lie for him as well?

Do parents cover for their children – even when they murder?

Now back to the morning of December 2, 2011.  First the EMT’s arrived at our house, but they could not save Morgan.  She had been dead too long.  Just before 7 am a sheriff’s deputy parked his truck in front of our driveway and blocked off our house. The 1st responding ambulance is long gone and by 7 am there is a single piece of yellow crime scene tape stretched from the corner of the garage to a tree across the driveway.

My son Ryan arrives at 7:20 am and we are all in our house as more Garfield County sheriff’s officers arrive.  The mood is somber while some are slightly frenetic, especially the Deputy collecting pill bottles.  He is following Steve and wanting one bottle at a time, which he takes, leaves with, and then sometimes returns with and sometimes does not.

Later we will learn that Steve should have taken more control.  In the end result of what they did – I have yet to see anything that is actually correct in a police report.  If I were advising someone today I would tell them that you sit down with the person in charge and tell them, one by one, who her doctors are, the phone numbers, and the medication they prescribe, maybe current conditions going on, but that is it, stop there.

That morning there was not really one person in charge.  It was haphazard and disorganized at best.  Different people came asking different questions and the amount of information exchanged was really quite small.  I wanted answers, Steve wanted answers, anything.  But they had no answers and to say they sort of avoided us was probably the most accurate description.

Just as well because shock is a term with many meanings and many degrees, but if your child has just been found dead unexpectedly you are in shock and no matter how bad or how little, it is not the best time to be going over all of the very important details to be gone over.  Nobody really asked any of us much about anything, but then they never asked us later either.

After about twenty minutes it was time for us to leave anyway.  Our house was a “crime scene” and it had to be “processed”.  You nod at words like these at the time but, at least for me, the true significance does not come for quite a while.

So we all exited our house and left the Sheriffs department to their job.

Unfortunately for Morgan, it was all wrong. Towards the end of 2012 I had a conversation with a retired Sheriff who headed up another Sheriffs department here in the valley and he shared some thoughts about that morning with me.  Setting the tone was his opinion that we aren’t, “like the big cities”,  that there really isn’t a single person qualified to really process a homicide scene here.  But there is a solution for that, the CBI, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.  They exist for situations like this.  A sudden, suspicious death during an active felony stalking investigation?  For him the house should have been closed up and they should have been called.  But they were not.  Instead we had the Sheriffs department, which would be fine if there were officers qualified in processing homicide scenes.  I watched them conducting the “investigation” on video recently, they didn’t even wear booties or gloves during their “investigation”.  There were no sheets or pillow cases taken, there was no evidence taken, there was no rape kit.  There might as well have been no investigation at all, snap a few pictures and call it a day.  Sorry Morgan, but at this point I feel this is what happened back then.  At the time I believed, I had the highest hopes for only the truth.  That is what I worked toward and felt so strongly that at the very least Morgan deserved at least that, the truth.

Morgan’s H.I.P.A.A. privacy rights have been so completely ignored in this investigation and while I certainly don’t think I should have to, I do feel the need to at least try to get the facts straightened out.  Morgan took NO prescription medications at the time of her death.  Now remember- the toxicology report will tell about more than just the last 24 hours for most prescription medications, it could be as little as 48 hours, averaging up to 4-8 days and in some cases 14 days or more, depending on the medication or drug.  Common drugs of abuse will be less, but for regularly taken prescription medications these are the time frames I have been given.  So on Morgan’s 1st toxicology report, which is available all over the web, the girl who doesn’t take drugs, surprise, surprise, her BLOOD levels were zero on everything except amitriptyline. And on her second toxicology test the total volume is not known so actual amounts can’t be calculated.  However the presence of amitriptyline along with four other common date rape drugs are detected.  And of course in the entire course of this investigation the container that held this concoction of five date rape drugs is not found.  Disappeared.  If you think, how can this be?  Steve and I wake up every morning and ask ourselves that very question.

On Morgan’s second toxicology test the suspicions of foul play should have grown, instead they disappeared.  Another fact I should not have to be giving out, but feel in the face of all of the misinformation so far I have little choice – Morgan had not taken amitriptyline for over 18 months at the time of her death.  Steve and I checked with all of her doctors to see if she had ever requested a prescription for the drug on her own.  On the contrary she indicated an avoidance of taking any drugs, which is what she always told us.  Steve and I also checked with the local pharmacies and no hidden Morgan Ingram accounts.  On a last note for all those who are so sure they know already, the greatest dosage of amitriptyline is 300mg per day.  Dr. Kurtzman estimated she took 18 – 25mg pills, for a total of 450mg, which is NOT even a fatal dose.

We were allowed back to the house around 10:45 am to see Morgan one last time.  Steve went but I stayed behind, I had already seen my daughter for the last time.  By 11:00 am the crime scene tape was down and if you didn’t know what had happen this morning, driving by you would be none the wiser.  How quickly it all happened, last night we had my little angel, a beautiful, intelligent, unstoppable daughter – with a stalker, a small group of stalkers to be more precise.  And this morning – we didn’t, it was that fast and that complete.

Morgan’s investigation had yielded little so far. There was no sign of forced entry, no foul play, and no sign of suicide.  It was, for the time being, a mystery.  But we would get answers, Steve and I were assured.  It would take some time, but we would have answers.  I took that as reassuring.

Morgan’s door has a short piece of crime scene tape over it.  We assume we aren’t supposed to go in,

Following up on yesterday’s post here is a link to a story on the two young boys who died.

http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/heat-caused-deaths-of-jensen-boys

The article pretty much sums up the same issue that Morgan’s case began with, the manner of death for the boys was accidental and required no further investigation while Morgan’s manner of death was natural causes also requiring no further investigation.  We believed that because we had no reason to question it, the reason to question would come later, during a trip to California.  For the Jenson boys the questions came much sooner, from the District Attorney, quickly wielding an arrest warrant.

The Jensen boys had the same Forensic Pathologist that performed Morgan’s autopsy, but a different District Attorney.  The District Attorney representing Morgan, we have been told, had a closed door meeting on October 5, 2012.  And he arrived at the conclusion that it was just bad blood between Dr. Kurtzman and Dr. Doberson, no need to open a case at all.

Too bad Steve and I weren’t invited to the meeting, we could have at least told him that it wasn’t Dr. Dobersen that was the first one to tell us Morgan’s manner of death was not Natural Causes.  It was only after Dr. Kurtzman grew angry with the doctors from UCLA and insisted we get a second opinion from a forensic pathologist in Colorado that we found Dr. Dobersen through Howard of the non-profit FOHVAMP out of Denver.  Dr. Dobersen had never seen Morgan or treated her when she was alive, but he was able to review and verify most of the opinions being forwarded so far.  We are very grateful for the time he has taken out of his schedule for Morgan.  But bad blood?  No – Morgan deserves a little better than that.

12 thoughts on “December 2, 2011 – Day One of Morgan’s Investigation – The Crime Scene

  1. Oh wow, Toni…I already knew this, but Morgan was absolutely beautiful! Just so pretty, and fresh, and pure….that picture, taken before the stalking, shows just how happy and beautiful she really was.

    By the way, I hope your family had wonderful holidays. I hope this new year brings many good memories for your sweet family.

    • Thanks Misty that is really sweet. We made it through the holidays by being with our other two older children and our two grandchildren…little ones really help keep your focus on what is still so special in life.

    • Thanks Misty – I hope your holidays were wonderful and I have high hopes for this new year to bring justice for Morgan!

  2. That picture of Morgan made me cry. I just wanted to go back in time and plead with her to stay with her sister and have more fun at Disney!

  3. As I read your post I couldn’t help but think, I would have been doing exactly the same thing you and Steve did, I would have believed LE were doing what they should, and I wouldn’t have questioned anything. They are supposed to be the professionals, we are given a false sense of security, I am so so sorry. It makes me wonder why they didn’t call in CBI? Are they so insecure that they may look bad? Well they certainly didn’t dodge that bullet, they made themselves look completely incompetent after the fact. The old saying “good things come to those who wait” I think good things are going to start happening for your family 🙂 🙂 🙂

  4. I have no idea why they didn’t call in the CBI and then later on I asked the Detective if they could call them in now and he said that he could not because they would get upset if every law enforcement agency that couldn’t solve a crime called them in – it would just look like they were being lazy and that is not what the CBI is for. I then called the CBI, because it made no sense to me and was told unless they were invited by local law enforcement they were not allowed to get involved, so what is this? A catch 22? So Garfield County Sheriff’s will not call the CBI when they should, and the CBI won’t come unless they are called. Just another thing that upsets me.

    Thanks for holding out hope for good things to start happening – we can’t wait!

  5. You make a really good point with the CBI. There have been murder cases in Garfield County within the past decade, and it’d be interesting to see if the CBI was called in on those.

    • C – Seriously? We absolutely should have gotten that, among other things, in writing that very morning before we allowed her body to be taken away, because we were told they would definitely check for that (and at the same time telling us they did not see any sign of sexual assault. And by the way her pants were unbuttoned, and unzipped, and there was a suspicious substance on her chest under the UV light detected), along with other things to determine what happened to her, but they did not…was that intentional? You tell me.

      All I can say is that before they took her body away, the detective told us her death had nothing to do with her stalking – I could not believe he was saying that, and I told him so. I told him to make sure the pathologist checked for injection marks (I was told he always did, but that was not true), I asked if the pathologist would be making sure there was no sexual attack or defensive marks (I was told he always does check, but that didn’t happen either, unless he did check and just decided not to report any of it). I spoke with the pathologist over the phone about her nails and he said he never checked for DNA under them. I asked if he checked for chloroform or any poisons, he said no he did not – he said he would only do that if the sheriffs told him there was a reason to check. And it goes on and on! If anyone was to ask me now what I would do different it would be to insist that my daughter be buried in a sealed coffin so she could be exhumed if need be. But we had never lost a child before, we had never lost any loved ones to violence, and we were in shock. It is a lesson that people ought to learn so if ever faced with something traumatic like this their stored lessons could kick in and they would know what to do instead of what they are being told by law enforcement.

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