It seems so subjective to me.  On one hand sometimes it’s so obvious that it’s hard to deny, like your door jamb is in splinters, then its safe to say someone may have broken in.  Otherwise, without a really obvious sign, then does that mean it didn’t happen?  What about a lock pick, stolen key, what about the fact that nobody, and I mean nobody from the Sheriff’s department ever asked us if we double checked, and are certain that every door was locked last night or to check for any missing keys.  Well, what about other signs, other clues, and yes, let’s even include those escalations of a crime already going on for four months.  What do they all mean when it comes to forced entry.

That Tuesday (2 days before Morgan was murdered) Detective Glassmire said that, “if anything it was going to escalate.”  He was talking about the stalking of Morgan by Keenan Vanginkel, or at least he was 100% certain now that it was Keenan Vanginkel.  I told him I was 99% sure that it was only Keenan, but I still waited to erase that last bit of doubt that there may not have been someone else involved.  That would come soon enough, just in the most horrific way.

The word escalate was really on my mind that week after the Detective left, it was on everyone’s mind, how could you ignore a warning like that?  I thought it was going to come while Morgan was alone somewhere in the car.  He had already been escalating in his stalking while Morgan was out in the car, even revealing himself to Morgan many times, and I feared it was not going to be only worse after hearing the Detectives words.

It’s a really tough thing when you are in a stalking situation and the Detective drops a warning that it’s going to escalate.  Steve and I were talking about it this morning and he remembered that at the time Morgan only had a few classes left before she was off for the holidays, that we had talked about sending her away to visit, anywhere but here, at her home, over the holidays.

It was painful to remember that little talk,  how we tried to find sanity in the insane actions around us.  I had not remembered the incident before, and added it to my timeline.  Which is destined to be a work in progress perpetually, until the day he is caught.  There was talk after her death, based on some inside knowledge Brooke had, that Morgan was redressed because she was not supposed to be in the house the next day.  She was supposed to disappear after she died.  Just another of the so many rumors that come and go.  It certainly would have been worse for us, if she had just been gone, and we had no idea what had happened.

The Sheriff’s would undoubtedly have called her a runaway – which would have been ridiculous.  An investigative reporter told me that the Roaring Fork Valley and Garfield County is off the charts on that kind of thing happening.  And we would never know what had happened, I get shivers thinking about it.  I feel so terribly sorry for all the other parents in this valley that it has happened to, it must be doubly devastating.

But right there, in remembering our plans for the upcoming holidays something else came back to Steve.  He was up and looking for the old door lock, soon he had it in his hands and was showing me.  We moved right after Morgan’s death, and then we moved again, it was amazing he could go right to it and in an instant I knew what is was.

When our front door lock broke, actually two door locks broke a week apart and many wrote in to express how strange that was, and how the odds must be very high against something like that happening.  Sort of like the “coincidence” of Morgan and Keenan passing right in the middle of the intersection, “by chance” during the rush of college classes at Morgan’s school emptying out, so Keenan could stare at her, over and over again.  Never ignore certified long shots happening if you are ever stalked, they probably are not long shots at all, but careful planning instead.  Placing under surveillance,  is a definition of stalking behavior.

The front door lock Steve now held was the front door lock that had suddenly broke after the stalking started. Steve replaced it with a heavy-duty key pad lock, which I will now hate forever, he put all of the pieces of the old lock in a zip lock bag, and put the bag up on the top shelf of my bakers rack by the kitchen.  First he meant to show the detectives, which he did, and then it sort of stayed there.  He also had put two keys in the bag with the lock, now the keys are no longer there.  Steve looked at me and said those same keys would have opened the garage door to the house too, which we never ever used them for.  Never even thought of until just that moment…and they were missing out of the bag he had put them in.

I wonder if it always works like this.  Bits and pieces coming up always, even years later. I guess your mind is always trying to protect itself from horrible thoughts, and our minds were probably working overtime not wanting to believe Morgan was actually dead or that some human predator could have done this to her…it was all too much at that moment. They aren’t evidence anymore I suppose, as this bag with the broken lock was not collected during their two-hour investigation of Morgan’s death under suspicious circumstances.  So they are just knowledge.  Keys that would have opened the garage door to the house went missing.  During Morgan’s stalking I used to lock that door so it’s the only time they would have been useful.

So if the stalker was able to gain entry into the garage then he could easily have had a key to get into the house without leaving a sign.  Which is just another reason it was so ridiculous for the detective to even say, “no sign of forced entry,” so no break in, no intruder?  There was a post called, No Sign Of Forced Entry? Really? That post outlined six ways to get into the house without a sign.  James Harris really took exception to one of the six, I even called it a real small possibility.  But James acted like I had accused him of the crime, animated and angry, or well rehearsed, either way I always take it as a sign that there might be more to that one,  sort of “must have hit pretty close to home moment.”

Then, here, a year and a half later, another way to get in without a sign of forced entry.  Oh and in the time between there have been two more.  These keys missing even reinforce one of those, so there are nine and counting.  Seven you know all about and two that are going to be filmed before I show them to you.

And it will be filmed just because the detectives stated an extremely frustrating thing, “That can’t be done,” it still rings in my ears.  If you are a detective or just someone who victims are counting on, please be absolutely sure before you say something like that.  Morgan was still alive when he did say it at that time, and it was in reference to getting on the roof by just climbing a tree.  He was absolutely, positively, certain that it could not be done, unless Steve left his ladder out and they used it, which Steve never did.  And that is where it was dropped.

Until months after her death when we were reviewing the cameras one time and saw the Patrol Deputies unmistakably searching the roof top the last two days of Morgan’s life.  And of course there was the suggestion made to Steve and I on a trip to visit his family that we should check up on the roof, for possible evidence, long after her death.  And Steve did check and boy was he upset, he said it was practically an elevator the first time Nathan climbed up the tree that was right up against the back of our house.  Our step-grandson was even faster, and more silent. It went from, “can’t be done,” to, “easily done,” in three months time and the knowledge could have, and should have been used to save Morgan’s life, instead of, “can’t be done.”  It’s our fault for listening, not questioning, please learn from our mistakes.

Every time the Sheriff’s thought something was not possible it turned out to be absolutely possible.  Just like the forced entry issue.  If you are ever in this situation I suggest you assume there are twenty ways to get in without leaving a mark, and if you find those twenty, then assume there are twenty more.  It would have been a far better approach than Steve and I used, trust me.