Part 4 – Misconceptions or Misdirection & Lies…

crime scene photoSorry this part has taken me so long to release.  I have spent many months now getting some important tasks completed first.  This is the last part of my “series” of factual details.

First I would like to say that I will not defend myself, as I do not feel there is any reason to do so.  I made mistakes, as did Morgan’s dad Steve, and we freely admit those mistakes.  We both made the conscious decision to share our mistakes with others in order to raise awareness, and hopefully save another victim of stalking somewhere down the line.

We lost our youngest daughter to the horrific crime of stalking and murder, so ego no longer has any place in our lives. I really don’t care what people may say about me because I know who I am, I am a mom that loves her children more than life itself, but I made mistakes thinking I could keep my daughter safe, and lost my youngest child…if I had not made any mistakes would her stalker still have been able to find Morgan and kill her?  I will never know the answer to that question.  If I had to do it all over again, with the knowledge that I have now, maybe Morgan would still be alive, but in life you usually do not get any do-overs.  What you usually get are lessons to learn from – and some lessons like this one will tear at your heart for the rest of your life. The lessons I have learned from Morgan’s stalking and murder have driven me to share them with others so that hopefully another mom and dad may be spared the indescribable pain of losing their child to a predator.

I have written these 4 parts in order to try to help the people that want to understand the truth, so they can have a better understanding about what really happened in Morgan’s case.  Morgan did not die from natural causes as the coroner tried to convince us of for 8 months…she was murdered and the wrong conclusion in her manner of death intentionally kept her case from being investigated.

Morgan also did not die from suicide, she was a victim of an active felony stalking investigation, all the evidence points to murder and she was murdered during that active investigation into her stalking.  She died only 2 days after the felony stalking detective, Rob Glassmire, told us that he believed her stalker was going to escalate!

Morgan loved life and was trying in every way she knew how to stay safe, to stay alive and to continue her life…this wrong manner of death that the coroner changed her to, approximately 8 months after her death, it was changed in order to keep us from trying to have her death investigated…and it worked!  It came after I was threatened multiple times by the forensic pathologist, Dr. Robert Kurtzman, and yes, Steve & I are both victims as well (read the sheriff’s reports), and yes there is a law against threatening victims.  The pathologist, Dr. Robert Kurtzman (no longer working in Colorado – now working in Montana after our complaint to the Colorado Attorney General was received), engaged in pure speculation, instead of using the scientific evidence and medical certainty.  I have spoken with the forensic toxicologist that actually ran Morgan’s toxicology tests, and he told me that it is EXTREMELY frustrating when pathologists take their scientific test results and interpret them incorrectly, instead using their own personal “WILD SPECULATION.”  Dr. Kurtzman has already been “smacked down” by the Supreme Court in Colorado on at least one other case that I know of, for injecting his own “speculation,” instead of using only scientific facts and medical certainty on his Post Mortem Examination Reports (re: Jensen boy’s case in Colorado).  This is EXACTLY what he did on Morgan’s Post Mortem Examination Reports – and his incorrect, unscientific “Manner of Death” conclusions, first of “Natural Causes”, then of “Suicide” were both wrong, but both kept her case from ever being investigated.  And to top it off – Dr. Kurtzman, according to Colorado law in May of 2011, made him (the forensic pathologist), responsible for the investigation – which he did not do.  He would not even accept any scientific evidence or statements of medical certainty from Morgan’s doctors, because of his arrogance, and because it was contrary to his personal non-scientific conclusion.  Instead he threatened me to stop having Morgan’s doctors and other forensic specialists contact him, or else he “could” change her manner of death…which he then did.

Morgan’s family, friends, teachers, classmates, employer, and associates were not interviewed as would normally be the case if a suicide was suspected, and an investigation would be conducted.  But this erroneous claim that Morgan committed suicide, with absolutely no evidence to back up that claim, in essence kept her case from being investigated, and kept other agencies from investigating as well, because she was not ruled a homicide, or undetermined, which is what her suspicious death should have been.  This has been done over the years in many other cases, besides Morgan’s in Colorado, and is still happening 5+ years later.  There have been more than 4 other cases since Morgan’s murder, in Colorado, that I know of personally that have been called a suicide, but the evidence indicated that they were most likely homicides.  The coroner & law enforcement in those other cases would not change those determinations and would not run the tests needed or do an investigation either.  In fact, not even once would the Garfield County Coroner, Trey Holt, ever speak with Steve or I about Morgan’s case...NEVER! What does that tell you?

A coroner in Colorado is an elected position –  the coroner is only required to have a High School Diploma and be a US citizen – he/she doesn’t need to be a doctor or have any medical training…it’s true!  State law encourages, but does not require, candidates for the office of coroner to possess knowledge and experience in the medical-legal investigation of death.  State law requires coroners to determine the cause and manner of death.  https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Coroner_Qualifications,_Referendum_C_(2002)

Steve & I continue to ask questions, continue to do our due diligence and continue to come up with more and more factual evidence that not only proves Morgan was murdered, but has also shown us that her case is much bigger than what we had ever imagined.  This was our daughter & we want answers, and boy have we gotten them.  But with all the evidence and facts we have the Garfield County Sheriff and the Coroner still refuse to ever open an investigation into Morgan’s death – why?

Remember for the first 8 months Morgan’s manner of death was being called natural causes by the Garfield County coroner.  And this is what I would like everyone to know – 20-year-olds, that are in great physical condition, with no pre-existing medical conditions, do not just up and die for no reason (there is always “something” that causes their death) – there was nothing natural about what happened to Morgan.  So we started to ask questions.  Then Morgan’s doctors started to ask questions. The Garfield County Coroner’s office would not answer these questions – they used the old ploy of avoidance to try to get us to go away, but we kept asking.  We were in shock over Morgan’s death, and we still trusted the sheriffs, so we wanted to believe what we were being told by them, but we were not being given any honest answers – only a complete runaround.

Finally forensic experts who we asked for guidance (forensic experts that would not charge us – they helped us pro bono), got involved, and they said the coroner had gotten her manner of death wrong!   She actually had died from a massive dose of a date rape drug (Amitriptyline), a drug that she did not, and could not have taken in the amount that was in her body (it would have needed to be injected, not ingested), and it looked like foul play, they said there needed to be an investigation.  At that point we could not understand, for the life of us, why Garfield County was refusing to open an investigation – then we were told by the lead sheriff’s detective, Rob Glassmire (who is now the new coroner for Garfield County) that the Garfield County Coroner’s office has NEVER, ever had a coroner’s inquest.  Then when other experts got involved the sheriffs themselves decided to close Morgan’s stalking investigation…we were told, no victim, no stalking to investigate – what were they afraid of?

We then had the new evidence forwarded to the District Attorney’s office, who was then told by the pathologist that there was nothing to investigate, it was just bad blood between him an the the other Medical Examiner, Dr. Dobersen, and that Dobersen had gotten the Ingram’s all “riled up” for no reason…and the 9th District DA at that time, Martin Beeson, bought it.

And that was just the beginning of the one-liners, one-liners that had no truth to them, being tossed about to people that questioned why Morgan’s suspicious death was not investigated.  No one was listening to the evidence – no one I should say that could “legally” get involved.  Many agencies in Colorado have wanted to get involved, but due to Colorado law those who are now covering up Morgan’s murder are the only ones that can officially allow another agency to investigate – and that isn’t about to happen as long as the sheriff, Lou Vallario, is in office.  What does this say for other victims of stalking?  What if your stalker can torment you, torture you and then end your life and get away with it, because law enforcement does not want it to be a case? What does this say about the protocol of Garfield County, in the way they handle stalking and murder cases – when they sweep them under the rug?

  • The coroner said Morgan withdrew from all her normal activities the last weeks of her life…what a blatant lie!  Morgan was exhausted & stressed from the stalking, as her father and I were as well and as would be expected, but she continued going to school (her report card was straight A’s for that semester), she went to a concert, was with friends, went into Aspen with Steve & I for Thanksgiving dinner at the Maroon Club, she was laughing and baking a cake just five nights before her death, with her cousin and a friend, started dating a new boyfriend, had many friends over to our house to socialize, was working on multiple homemade presents for her friends for the holidays, had lists of babysitting jobs in Aspen on her calendar that she planned to do over her Christmas break from school, she had her official letter acknowleging that her college credits had been transferred & accepted to the new college that she was planning on attending, she had her application for her yoga certification ready to mail, got a new hair cut, got her nails done, was working on knitting an absolutely gorgeous, all natural dyed wool blanket for her bed…she had spent the last of her money, from her part time job, to order and buy the wool.  She was very excited about it.  She was knitting a pattern into the blanket that had woodland creatures in it.  It is beautiful, but she never was able to finish it, as her life was cut short.  Does this sound like a young woman withdrawing to you?  Morgan was a very strong young woman – her stalker(s) kept ratcheting it up, but Morgan’s way to fight back was to keep going, as much as possible, as to not let them win, so for the pathologist & coroner to lie about her withdrawing from life is absolutely disgusting – but in Colorado homicides are being disguised as suicides, which in turn has allowed murderers to remain free to kill again, and again.  There are now over 1800 cold cases in Colorado, and cases like Morgan’s, which are disguised as suicides, are not even part of that statistic – I wonder what the true number really is?
  • Unlike some rumors running around, Morgan did not have a prescription for the drug they accused her of taking, and she was not missing any pills out of an old expired prescription bottle, the few pills that were not in the bottle were all accounted for.  The old prescription she had was a low strength med for chronic headaches from years before, a med that she had stopped taking, and would not have reached those levels even if she had taken all of what she had, which she didn’t because they were still in the bottle.  The lethal level she had in her body could not have been ingested because she would have died way before it could have reached that level in her blood, so it was plausably injected into her (and we do have a crime scene photo that looks like an injection wound with a bite mark around it!), and the sheriffs found nothing in her room or in the house that could have been used to administer the drug – it was obviously taken away by her murderer.  And the drugs that were found in her stomach were not found anywhere in our house – how many red flags were needed for the sheriffs and coroner?
  •  When we found Morgan’s body it was definitely a staged crime scene…she did not have a seizure that caused abrasions on both hands, wrists, inside her arm and on her breast,  She had broken nails (the pathologist said he did not check for DNA because he was not instructed to by the sheriffs), a flattened nose, matted hair and swollen lips with blood on them, as well as blood on her forehead.  Get real…if she had had a seizure there would have been an indication of that and the forensic pathologist would have seen it…also, if she had had a seizure that did that much damage to her body, then why did we find her on her right side with the blanket pulled up to her shoulder, and why was she posed as though she was peacefully sleeping?  She had minute spots that appeared on her chest under the UV light (this is in the police reports), that were never tested – they were most likely bodily fluids, an indication of a sexual assault, that someone had attempted to clean up.  These spots were never tested and NEVER mentioned in the autopsy PER.  We sent emails, certified letters, you name it we did it, in order to make sure they kept her clothes in evidence to be tested for DNA, but guess what – they went ahead anyway and destroyed the evidence, in what most people would consider destruction of evidence.  Her pants were unbuttoned and unzipped (she was not checked for rape), as well when she was found, and her lividity did not appear to have formed while her clothes were on her body – so she was plausibly redressed by her murderer and her body was moved post mortem indicating a staged crime scene. Does that sound to you like natural causes or suicide?   All of these things were seen by the sheriffs and deputy coroner the very morning that her suspicious death was supposedly being investigated.  These things show foul play, BUT were covered-up.  We kept asking questions, but were not given answers.  They just wanted us to go away.  Why?
  • We also know her body was moved after death because we found her in a completely different position than her lividity showed she died in.  The body always tells the true story – she died face down, in a strange position, as though bent over a chair, left in that position for some amount of time, which caused her lividity to fix, so her body was able to show EXACTLY what position she died in.  But we found her lying on her right side, in her bed, her right side of her head on her pillow, and her down comforter pulled up like she was sleeping naturally, but again I will say…she was not sleeping naturally – she was dead, fists clenched, arms bent, knees bent, eyes wide open, and curled up in a contorted position, a position that could not have been caused by her body just being rolled over onto her side somehow after she was dead…no, someone had to lift her and place her in the position we found her in, oh, and they were also very careful to pull her comforter up over her so it would look natural, just like in the 19 year old University of Wisconsin theatre student Jessie Blodgett’s murder http://2paragraphs.com/2016/08/jessie-blodgett-ex-boyfriend-stuffed-bloody-paper-towels-in-cereal-box/ – who was sexually assaulted and strangled in her bed, then staged as though she was sleeping peacefully, which is what her mom thought when she first went into her room. In this case again there was no sign of forced entry into the house.  Her parents NEVER heard anything while they slept in the same house as their daughter.  Please note her 20-year-old murderer was convicted of first degree murder.  And I believe (just like I believe in Morgan’s case) that he was a serial killer in the making.  Read the article or others on the internet and decide for yourself.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2729390/College-drop-20-guilty-strangling-death-19-year-old-ex-girlfriend-climbing-rope.html
  • Also, Morgan’s bottom bed sheet and the PJ’s she was wearing when she went to sleep were missing and were never found.
  • Some of her jewelry and other personal things were stolen that same night, but the sheriffs never wrote up a robbery report…starting just days after her murder and continuing for the entire first 5 months after her murder, the lead detective and I discussed the missing items – he knew about them, he knew the detailed description of these items, but never officially reported them.  And yes, the discussion about these missing items started within days of Morgan’s murder, not months later, as some people have tried to say, and yes I do have emails to and from the detective that corroborate this.  Then another Garfield County sheriff  detective, Detective Lemoine, had the nerve to call us 1 month after Morgan’s murder to ask us if our cameras had picked up anything 2 nights before her murder, when our next door neighbor’s house had been robbed!  Yes, robbed, the same exact night that Morgan had to leave our house just before 1:00 am because her stalker was being relentless, tapping on her bedroom window.  The same night when we called the sheriffs and they said it would take them probably 45 minutes to get back to our house, because they had just returned to their station after checking out our next door neighbor’s burglary (I posted the picture of the patrol officer on an earlier post, note the date and time).  I was incensed!  And guess what?  Our next door neighbor’s robbery that they were investigating showed no signs of forced entry either…but they still believed in that case that it was a burglary, and they still had an investigation, something Morgan did not – why was that?  And to top it off there was no report written about what happened to Morgan that night, they only listed it as “trespass” on the sheriff’s report and it was just 2 nights before her murder!  Why would that be all they wrote?
  • Her panic button was ripped off of her nightstand, and found in a corner of her room on the floor.
  • Her neatly folded and stacked and laundered clothes, from the night before, were scattered all around the room on the floor, vacuum knocked over, clearly showing an indication that a struggle had taken place, but instead the sheriffs wrote in their report her room was a mess.
  • Morgan’s panic button had been ripped off her nightstand and tossed i a corner, her cell phone, that she always kept in bed next to her while she slept, was tossed across the room, landing under her bathroom door, her laptop (that she was always so careful with) was tossed on it’s side off the side of the bed.  All of these were indications of a struggle.
  • Morgan had her puppy in her room, and her puppy did not make any noise that night, none that we know of anyway – it is possible that we did not hear her make any noise, because Morgan’s door was closed, and we were on the other end of the house with our door closed. Steve & I had both taken sleeping pills (we were so exhausted)…BUT I would like to point out that her puppy had NEVER barked before that, and even the next morning with strange first responders rushing into Morgan’s room with all their equipment, Morgan’s puppy, Wylah, was sitting up on Morgan’s bed, watching everyone coming and going, and NEVER barked or reacted – she seemed dazed and confused.  So to think that because Morgan had a puppy in her room, and we never heard a bark, while she was being attacked, should be somehow construed that there couldn’t have been an attack is completely absurd.  To me that is pure ignorance, spoken only by people that obviously do not know or understand dogs, or maybe they just have an agenda…
  • Contrary to what some people may think there were none of Morgan’s expired prescription pills missing out of the bottle, they were all accounted for, and she had never taken any of the other date rape drugs later found in her stomach, and we never had any of those drugs in our house…where did they come from?  How many 20-year-old girls do you know that would take a combination of date rape drugs?  If that in itself is not suspicious, I guess nothing is.  All these details were given to the sheriffs, forensic pathologist and coroner, but none of them would discuss this with us or her doctors.
  • Morgan’s toxicology results show that she died from a massive amount of a date rape drug that she could not have even ingested herself in that amount – if it had been ingested she would have died once she ingested 1,000 ng or less because of her body weight, but the amount she had in her blood was closer to 10,000 ng, when you add in the metabolite — closer to a dose for a 1,200 lb. horse. If this dose is administered by an injection then the whole amount can be put into the blood, before it causes death.  The massive amount, along with the metabolite of the drug, actually disproves the pathologist first theory that she had been taking her old medication in secret…not true.  The scientific lab results show conclusively that this was a one-time massive dose.  In addition the second toxicology results show additional date rape drugs that were put in her after she was dead or almost dead (and yes, we are pretty sure we now know how they did it) – another red flag and one that Garfield County refused to acknowledge.
  • The very morning of her murder the lead felony stalking detective on Morgan’s active stalking case told Steve & I that there was no sign of forced entry, no sign of sexual assault, no sign of a struggle, and no sign of suicide then he concluded her death had nothing to do with her stalking – he said it was a mystery and we would have to wait for the results of the autopsy & toxicology results.  News flash, this detective is now the NEW coroner of Garfield County, Garfield County Detective Robert Glassmire is now the new Garfield County Coroner.  I will tell you right here and now this detective knew for a fact that Morgan did not commit suicide – he even discussed it with us, and said in cases like hers they always look at suicide, but he told us that was not what happened in Morgan’s case.  And then 8 months later the coroner changed her from natural causes to a suicide, with no investigation or evidence of suicide.  And I will repeat this again, this was after I was threatened by the forensic pathologist to back off with all my questions and medical experts that were trying to explain to him that his assumptions were wrong (experts, not us were saying this).  What were they trying to hide or who were they trying to protect, or was this total arrogance and incompetence?  I do not believe for one moment that it was the latter. get out of jail free
  • It is now 5+ years after our daughter’s murder. Our families interactions with the Garfield County sheriff, and basically non-interaction with the coroner (solely on his part) have led us to conclude that we will have to continue to investigate Morgan’s case on our own in order to bring the perpetrator(s) to justice.  I know it’s not fair, but like my grandmother used to say, “it is what it is”…not only for us, but for other families in similar situations.  You have to be your own detective/private investigator, and you need to put together a solid case with facts and evidence that you can bring to an agency much higher up.

What Morgan suffered through for 4 months of stalking was horrible, and what she obviously suffered through before giving up her very last breath is horrifying – I will say to anybody that can sit back and make up lies about what happened to Morgan, just to make them feel important and feed their ego (the victim blamers), that you are not only doing Morgan and our family a horrible disservice, BUT you are condoning what the Garfield County sheriff & coroner did to Morgan by covering up her murder.  They obviously had their reasons for doing what they did, and it is so very wrong!  Morgan was murdered, and there is no way it can be justified, she is no longer with the ones that love her. She was horrifically stalked, and her life ended in a heinous murder.  And what does this portray for other victims of stalking, if Morgan’s stalking and murder can now be covered-up, and a murderer is allowed to run free? I do not believe she is the first, and I do not believe she will be the last, unless we all band together and say enough is enough…we want accountability, we want transparency, we want our children and the women of the county and the world to be protected against criminals, not the other way around – WE WANT THE TRUTH EXPOSED, SO PLEASE HELP US DO JUST THAT!  

Justice for Morgan in 2017!  Share this with everyone you know.  Thank you!

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5 thoughts on “Part 4 – Misconceptions or Misdirection & Lies…

  1. Toni, your family has been in my thoughts and prayers since the first year I stumbled upon this site and read every post. Your family was the one that I learned of Jennifer Schaefer from. She’s helped me in losing my friend to cancer. I pray for justice for Morgan. Don’t give up the fight!

    • Oh Ginger – thank you so much for writing into the blog to let me know…I really, really appreciate it and I am so happy that Jennifer was able to help you. Love & light to you in the New Year!

  2. First off I want to express my deepest sorrow for your loss of your daughter. I only learned of this today while watching Dr Phil June 29 2018. On this show he does not mention any of the information about the crime scene that you claim to have proof of such as the blood and missing jewelry . I found this whole story so strange that I took it upon myself to learn more. I looked on the internet and read all of your accounts of what had happened. While I do tend to believe you I still have to ask a question of you. You had said her fingers looked like she was trying to sign the killers name like a K but in another account you describe her fists as being clenched. Which is it? I also want to say that the young lady Brooke did not come across as being honest on Dr Phil, and her answers were almost snarky! Like when asked if she drugged Morgan she replied something like why would I or I don’t see why I would! Really! I would be mad as hell if someone accused me of murder, they both acted to cool a collected! I hope for your own sanity that this is fully investigated and someone is brought to justice! My heart hurts for you!

    • Linda thank you for writing in to me. When the Dr. Phil show was aired it had been less than a year since her murder and at that time our family had not even seen the police reports. We had only been given the first PER and toxicology results from the coroner stating she had died from natural causes for the 1st 9 months (which was false) and then the 2nd PER with more toxicology results stating she died from suicide (which again was false). The pathologist had threatened us to stop having Morgan’s doctors and other forensic experts contact him to show him he was wrong or he could change her to a suicide, which is what he did when we kept demanding answers. We were not able to get the police reports (although Dr. Phil was given the reports) or any other pictures or documents until 2 years later. We had been lied to by the sheriffs and coroner’s office, but the pictures and documents we finally received and were reviewed by forensic experts gave us more evidence to confirm what we already believed. https://morgansstalking.com/?p=8545 As far as Brooke goes, she is guilty and she knows it. Her father (who was on the show) is just as guilty and we believe he can’t afford for his daughter to open her mouth and tell the truth…he would go down as well. What people who watch that show don’t see is that Brooke and her father brought their lawyer with them – he was in the front row and Dr. Phil was given specific instructions as to what he could do with them and not do with them (i.e. no lie detector tests) or else they would not have been allowed on the show…sad but true.

  3. I and many other know for a fact that Kurtsman is a liar, dishonest, incompetent, evil person who has covered up many deaths AN murders. He has made intentionally a living hell for many people/families. This man will pay for the crimes of people he has let get away with their crimes and the crimes he has intentionally been involved with. He has a number of law suits against him. And that tells me it’s only a short time until he pays for all that he has done an all that he has not done intentionally.

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