What does it take to defend yourself?

Wouldn’t it be nice to know what it would take to defend your child in a suituation of danger?  It’s an answer many would like to know. as it is very telling in how more and more now,  I’m asked the same question – just how often are victims of stranger stalkers such as Morgan had – murdered by their stalker?  And I’ve never had a good answer for them.  And once again not to frighten everyone, but to raise awareness appropriately, it would be good to have a valid number based on research.  And to know what is an appropriate response to the dangers you suddenly face.

In our own situation, which is a small sample to be sure, Morgan was stalked by a stranger stalker and she was murdered, which I say because I don’t believe that on December 2, 2011, after four months of stalking, and right in the middle of everything set in motion that last week such as, formal interviews scheduled, Keenan’s work schedule for the last six months scheduled to be collected, Morgan going to be out-of-town for three days, the detective believing the stalking would escalate, deputies now suddenly coming by our house hourly during the wee hours of the morning and searching up on the roof, and a host of other facts. I just don’t believe someone else suddenly decided that was the right night to murder Morgan.  I believe it was her stalker, I’m just uncertain as to how much involvement his accomplice(s) had in her murder.

The government has few numbers that directly correlate, but they do have numbers that are very disturbing.  The first that jumps out at me is that:

“54% of female intimate partner homicide victims reported the stalking to the police before their stalkers killed them.”

I read that to mean if you have a stalker that used to be an intimate partner – after you report him to the police, 54% of the time you will be killed.  Do you think the 54% of women killed in this statistic were ever told just how dire their danger level was?  By the police they were reporting it to?  Because if they were not, I believe that should be almost criminal all by itself.

What if the very first time you were to call 911 or dispatch you were told this fact?  Frightening? Yes.  But informed and aware? That too.  Does anyone think that being ignorant of the danger and then murdered in that bliss is preferable to being frightened yet safer, because you were aware of the true dangers?  The informed and aware becomes a very key component to safety, a very important part.  Steve and I were not, absolutely not, ever apprised of any of the real dangers by the Sheriff’s department.  We were doing more that they had ever seen someone do, yet it was not enough to save Morgan, was it?

Make no mistake, the fight against stalking could easily be called a war.  When it’s drugs they use the term war.  You know the, “war on drugs.”  They have tanks here in Garfield, and task forces, and informants, and who knows what else.  But for stalkers, it would appear there is nothing beyond flashlights.  No clear-cut plan for attack, no booklet, no warnings about how to stop it.  That part is left completely up to us, unless you count the wildlife cams supplied by the Sheriffs with dead batteries.

What we need at the very least is a plan – that includes assistance from our local law enforcement.  And a really coordinated effort that is absolutely absent right now.

That brings me to the second statistic I saw over and over again:

“76% of Femicide victims had been stalked by the person who killed them.”

Femicide was a word that I didn’t know, and the definitions vary, “the killing of women,” is in most definitions, but then they begin to vary widely.  One definition even includes, “with impunity,” which I found to be particularly upsetting.

I do try to be positive, and not the harbinger of disaster, but it’s so easy to think that only some parts of the world suffer Femicide, and we in America certainly do not.  Well I could easily make the statement that Morgan was a victim of Femicide, and it would be true.  I could also add the upsetting “with impunity” statement contained in some definitions and I would also be correct.  That is a very sad state of affairs for women in this state.

The rest of the statistic spells out – “stalked by the person who killed them.”

So 76% of women murdered as part of any retaliation, or part of a group such as stalking victims had been stalked by the person who killed them.  And as Steve is quick to point out that the 76% is probably only cases that were solved.  In Morgan’s case she would not have been killed by her stalker because there was never a case, never charges filed, and never a trial . . . yet.

I hate how this works out after having been there and pulling answers from locked jaws for over a year.  First the Sheriff’s botch the investigation, not my opinion, that’s what I am told it was, no law against incompetence and all that.  Then they come to our house and, basically, no actually,  it seems that they do their best to destroy the crime scene of our daughter’s murder.  And remember we don’t know if it is actually a crime scene or not and will not for weeks.  So the day Morgan was found would have been really premature to destroy the crime scene.  Nobody really knew if she was murdered or not on that day.  Not Law Enforcement, not the Forensic Pathologist, and certainly not us, but since it was what they called “suspicious circumstances” it should have been treated as a homicide until proven otherwise.

Then they, the Coroner and Sheriff of Garfield, one by one, close all investigations down.  Never saw a stalker, suggesting maybe there was not one?  Morgan’s dead, no one to stalk anymore, stalking happened, but now no need to follow-up on any leads.  And at the end of all these excuses sits the next young woman who will now be all on her own, just as Morgan was all on her own, with only help from her parents.  And if it was not enough for Morgan, I doubt if the help from the next young woman’s parents is going to be enough either.  More of an unfortunate prelude to the next unreported case of Femicide in Garfield County than anything else.

I know it sounds serious when I put it that way but it is serious, very serious – our daughter is dead.  I just dashed off an eight page letter full of questions that need desperately to be answered and have not as of yet.  Steve proofed it for me and said, “this is going on truth for Morgan,” and it will, I’ll reference it back to this very post.

And I have decided something, statistics are only a necessary evil, short enough to convey the situation in sound bite fashion, but so utterly shocking in the underlying information they summarize.

I want a meaningful set of statistics, one that tells the true story of a stalker, all of the different ones somehow.  One who is also a peeping tom, who is also a trophy hunter, who was also the acknowledged class bully from kindergarten on, who was sheltered and protected by no less than three people on our quiet street in the middle of Colorado as he stalked our daughter.

I want the statistic that says this combination, if not stopped, is lethal and explosive.  And I want that for the next young woman, so she knows what she is up against and how to react to save her life so she doesn’t have to end up as Morgan did.  And unless you are one of those that agrees with the Garfield County notion that nothing happened here, I hope you do the same with your child.  Really, even if you do agree with Garfield County, err on the safe side and take it very seriously if anything remotely similar were to ever happen to your child.

I feel that it is much easier to back off from reacting to nothing that to suffer the consequence of not enough reaction to something…be it your little child, or your 20-year-old daughter, you want the best, and they deserve the best – from every single person involved.