There are the choices you have, and the choices that are made for you.  When Steve and I need a room painted, or some gardening done we do it ourselves. But what about all the others who hire someone for the task?  It is always nice to have at least one glowing recommendation before you hand over the job.  And what about a babysitter?  Someone trustworthy, and competent enough to watch your most precious youngster in your absence.  That requires far more looking into than the painter or gardener, doesn’t it?  Can’t be too safe with a decision like that.

Then comes a decision you would have never thought you would have to make, and you quietly find out it is not your decision at all, it is made for you, with no discussion or input from you at all.  Our daughter was dead, and people I had never met were streaming in to our home, I could have assumed whatever I wanted about these people, but in reality I knew nothing, nothing at all about their qualifications to do what they were about to do – this at a time when their actions will easily have a profound effect on the rest of our life.

A long time law enforcement investigator in this valley explained his feelings, and knowledge of Morgan’s death scene investigation.  He felt that when limited to just the local talent in this County there was no way Morgan would have a “microscopic” investigation.  Which basically means things would have been missed.  Perhaps a tiny piece of evidence that could have set the wheels in motion to apprehend Morgan’s killer, as I see so often on crime TV, that would not happen and that evidence would go uncollected, and forever lost.

The obvious becomes that I never had the choice, the decision was made for me, as well as Steve, Morgan’s brother and sister, and of course Morgan, that she did not need to have microscopic evidence collected.  OK, so they do not have the expertise, or capability to collect really tiny pieces of evidence, but what about the larger, more obvious pieces of evidence?  Or what about things that should be there, but are missing, and don’t even require collection at all, just a report on the missing item(s), what about those?

Steve talked to Morgan before she went to sleep, and she was dressed in PJ’s as she always was, to sleep in.  He remembers the PJ’s and we have talked about them with investigators many times, just never an investigator from Garfield County.  We might have told them about this problem, but an effort was never made to determine exactly what she was wearing when she went to sleep.

In the importance of little things that don’t add up Morgan was wearing PJ’s when Steve last saw her, and street clothes in the morning after she was dead.  Now she could have changed at some time on her own, so the real unexplained problem is what happened to her PJ’s?  They were not to be found when we packed up the room.  It is a big item to be missing, and to be completely overlooked.  This goes way beyond the microscopic aspect.  I’m not sure what exactly to call it, but if there were PJ’s the night before that she was wearing, and after her death there were none, how did they get out of her room?  And who took them?  And why?  Three questions that could be answered, should be answered, but never were answered.

There was a period of time that Steve thought, just because it made sense to him in the context of an investigation, that her PJ’s were collected as evidence, and the contracted pathologist or the Coroner had them.  It was something I didn’t question, that is how our minds worked in the shock, and grief of what had just happened.  We are parents – not investigators and the “investigators” should have asked.

I was however, very strong in my conviction that Morgan looked staged, and I told the officers at the time, she was posed in a position I would never have found her in.  If I place myself into the position I found her in – it is uncomfortable, it is not a position I would ever sleep in.  Plus she was on the opposite side of the bed from which she always slept.  All little things that should be in the Sheriff’s reports (like her PJ’s) are not in any of the Sheriffs reports, and I have not been able to find them yet in any reports.  No evidence collection required, not microscopic or otherwise, just notes.

Steve’s memory of her position seems a little less razor-sharp than mine is.  But he remembers vividly being focused on signs of life, a twitch, an eyelid flutter, he was administering CPR from the instant he could not get a response from her, and felt she was not breathing.  So it’s natural that I feel that his memory focus would be different from mine, because he was focusing on different things than I was.

At the time we did not really want to focus on anything, we just wanted to get through this somehow, someway, with little discussion Steve and I assured each other that certainly the Sheriffs were focusing on all these little things that came to nag at us.  I would never have imagined that where we assumed there was something there was nothing.  No focusing at all.  How is that possible in a “suspicious death?”  A death that was also labeled, “a mystery,“ on the day Morgan was found, a death that required an autopsy, and after four months of stalking that was conjectured to become, “more intense,” just two days before her death by the stalking case detective, with no reason given.  And no, I did not ask, because at that second in time I was quite taken aback to hear this, and wondering what it meant for the investigation now that the Detectives were 100% sure it was Keenan VanGinkel who was responsible for the stalking of Morgan.

All this still leaves missing PJ’s, and we all know they can’t just disappear, not without help from someone.  They were never spoken of after that morning, officially that is.  When you have a “suspicious death,” and then articles of clothing worn, when the victim was last seen, are now completely gone – I believe you have a big problem, a big clue, that has to be explained.

Because then the issue of how did she get into street clothes goes from a possibility that Morgan changed at night in response to sounds outside, to possibilities far more sinister.  And the actions of the death scene detectives become far more important.

Over time, as the evidence was looked at again by other professionals, some perhaps for the first time, it becomes all so important that way back on day one when they had the chance to collect all the evidence they wanted to, that they chose to collect none.  I believe they absolutely had a duty to collect evidence, or stand aside and let someone capable of doing it to take over, but they did not. If they were not capable they should have called in the very capable State agency, the CBI that morning – it was an option they did not choose.

This morning on my drive I was passed by a Colorado State Trooper.  On the back of his patrol car were two brief sayings, one on each side – “Honor to Serve,” and, “Duty to Protect.”  As chance would have it I also was passed by a Garfield Sheriffs SUV a bit later – it had no saying printed on the back, nothing.

I know it’s just words printed on the back of a car, but to me it makes a difference that two little promises are printed on the back of the State Troopers, they see them, they know what it says back there, and oh how I wish Morgan had been blessed with a little more “Honor to Serve,” and “Duty to Protect.”

And if anyone is wondering about yesterday – my Mother’s Day was beautiful, thanks to my family, friends, and my children – all of my children…