At 5:09 am I send a text to Morgan, “Are you awake?” She didn’t answer me – I had been woken up, from some sound, so I got out of bed and did my rounds inside the house to make sure everything was OK. It has been hard to understand why our big dog, Tessi (she is a 160 lb. Newfoundland, a Landseer), has never reacted to any of the noises that the stalker has made. The only time she barks or goes crazy is if she actually hears someone knock on the front door – which the stalker does not do. Morgan’s puppy is too young and has never barked or growled yet. We had a little Lhasa Apso (only 14 lbs) that was the best watchdog ever, but after 16 years she died just 2 weeks before Morgan’s stalking started. She was a great watchdog, as far as alerting us to any sounds of people outside the house, before we ever knew they were there. I can’t find a reason for the noise, and none of the detectors have gone off, so I assume we are OK.
At 8:09 am Morgan received a text from her friend Tyler, “Got my computer. Skype date ASAP” Morgan texted him back, “Yessss!” Tyler said to Morgan, “When are you Skypable?” She said, “Ummm now? Haha. Whenever.” Tyler wrote back, “Now!!!” Morgan said, Yay! What’s your sn? Or is it under your real name?” Tyler wrote back, “it’s _______.” Morgan said, “You have been added.”
The day was quiet and at 7:00 pm Sheriff Deputy G. Choinkowski came over to speak to Morgan, Steve and myself, he was very thorough with Morgan, asking about past boyfriends, recent acquaintances, someone that might have ever shown anger toward her. Then we were shown a page of instructions and a photo line up of people, one of us at a time. None of us recognized any of them. He knew about the window tapping incidents in Blue Creek the past summer, and then he wondered if we had heard about a person who was exposing himself to women on the new RAFTA bike trail along the Roaring Fork River, just down the road from us. They had a picture of him, but still did not have a positive ID. None of us had heard about him either. I was shocked! Why haven’t I heard about any of this stuff before? It’s not like I never read the news.
There are not many people in a five mile radius of our house, a few hundred perhaps, and it seemed like we were having a few too many incidents in what we had always thought was a nice quiet, and safe place. We weren’t ignoring any problems that existed here, we just weren’t hearing about them. Steve wanted to know more about these deviant people that had not yet been arrested, so he could add them to the suspect list.
The deputy walked the entire block with us, and Steve pointed out what he knew so far. He had been taking really good notes about the vehicular activity whenever there was the slightest stalker issue, between that, and yesterdays sighting on the porch we had narrowed down our list. The officer took down license plate numbers off some of the vehicles that were on our most suspicious list. We also had a list of houses that the stalker could be in, also the empty houses that could be used for hiding. As summer was winding down the seasonal houses were emptying, almost a third of our street had empty homes. This all gave the deputy things to check out, and he was going to get back with us once he had done just that.
Steve’s brother was vacationing with his family in Steamboat Springs and we finalized plans to go there for a couple of days after the deputy had left – we needed to get away for a night of peace and quiet.
Morgan received a text from an old friend at 1:23 am that said, “You awake crazy lady?” Morgan texted back at 4:10 am, “Now I am?” 🙁
Morgan is excited about going to Steamboat Springs tomorrow, so Steve and I are very happy about that…we can’t wait to have a quiet weekend! Look below for the ‘suspects’ work hours as well as the sheriff’s supplemental report.
Click here to read about the 26th & 27th days of Morgan’s stalking https://morgansstalking.com/?p=821
I sent a reply yesterday, but I’m not sure if it went through. A friend of mine, Annie Uyehara, posted Morgan’s story on FB yesterday and I sat down and read your entire postings to date. I felt I was not the same person as before reading. I lived, worked and raised my daughter in the Roaring Fork Valley for over 20 years and never did I once consider this horrific possibility! Your courage, strength, honesty and love come through loud and clear. You and your husband are amazing parents and the phenomenal relationship you have (yes, present tense because I can feel her spirit through you because the love is that transcendentally strong) with Morgan is something that no one can ever take away!!! I cannot begin to imagine what you’re going through! I think I would enraged and angry beyond belief along with a deep, aching sorrow in the depths of my soul plus about a zillion other overwhelming emotions. I hope you are being gentle with yourself and allowing yourself to be however you need to be. There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY you ever could have foreseen this horrendous act taking place! You frequently mention how you would have acted differently in hindsight and hindsight in only possible afterward. Morgan’s story is a wake-up call for anyone who has the privilege of reading your posts. This is an act of love on your part and, hopefully, will result in a greater awareness and changes in the law enforcement policies. If you find yourself in Denver, I have a healing arts practice in massage, reflexology, acupressure, hot stone, etc. and would like to extend an invitation for a complimentary treatment. I also come up to the Valley to visit my daughter and her husband in Basalt on occasion and would be happy to bring my table to you as well. It seems like a paltry gesture of support, but I’m at a loss as to how to help. If you have any ideas how I can support you, I encourage you to let me know. I will continue reading the posts for as long as you’re writing them.
Jenifer – you are so very kind to say these things to us. It has been really hard, and I know I don’t do the things you mention about being gentle with myself…I know I should, but haven’t up till now. I have decided that in order to have the strength to keep going I will need to follow that advice, as there are some days that the grief just paralyzes me. I need to keep moving forward because I can now see the progress that is being made on a daily basis.
Thank you so much for your offer and I would love to take you up on it – just not sure when I can. I have been so busy between work and doing this for Morgan that I haven’t even taken the time to walk the dogs in the last few weeks – they are getting a little upset with me I’m sure.
I don’t know if Annie has told you yet, but she is going to help me with the writing end of it for the newspapers…I am really excited. We have had so many people volunteering to help from so many different areas of expertise that I feel like Morgan’s little army of earth angels is really going to do this. Yeah! Much love – Toni
You’re in great hands with Annie! Just let me know whenever you can take me up on the offer, no matter how long it takes. I will be up that way and available Mon., Sept. 3 from 4:00 p.m on if you would like me to come over. No pressure…I’ll just keep letting you know when I’m up that way and available. Today’s post (8-28-12) has to be disturbing for you. It was for me and it just makes me appreciate your phenomenal courage and love even more! And please don’t “should” on yourself, even about being gentle with yourself, just do what you can when you can. Lots of love, Jenifer
Hi, my name is Katie, I lived in the valley for 5 years until I moved back to California for high school in 2004. I also heard about your blog through Annie’s posting on facebook (I used to babysit her kids when they were teeny tiny). I just wanted to tell you that I think what you’re doing is amazing. I know it must take a lot of strength for you to relive every moment of last year. I also want you to know that you are no where near alone in your fight to end stalking and other such issues. My sister and I are both survivors of sexual assault and are now working to help educate and help as many people as possible. She is currently in medical school and started a sexual assault awareness week and I myself am a counselor at the rape crisis center in Santa Barbara. I hope you find a bit of comfort knowing that we are fighting right along side you. As a survivor myself, what you’re doing means a great deal and I plan on sharing your blog with my mother who also struggles with coming to terms with what happened to her daughters and what happens to girls all over the world. I think your actions and devotion will be an inspiration to her and I thank you in advance for this. I’ll be reading your blog every day as well as praying for your family. I pray that this guy is caught and brought to justice.You’re amazing!
Katie – thank you so much for letting me know. You and your sister sound so very amazing in your strength and actions. I hope I can help others in this situation as much as you two have.
If you don’t mind I would like to ask you a question – would you or your sister be able to give me some direction about how to start a group for people in this valley? You can always just email me at [email protected] with the answer if you would rather answer that way.
I would really like to start a group here to promote awareness, teach empowerment, give out brochures on what to do, and what not to do, if in this type of situation…sure we received a full packet the morning Morgan died from the Garfield County Victims Response Team about what to do if you are a victim of violent crime, and what to do when a loved one is murdered – well you know what, I would much rather have had a brochure when Morgan was still alive, with suggestions about what we should do when our daughter has this type of a stalker, so we could have protected her more.
I know we did everything we knew to do at the time – I even think we may have done more than most people in our situation do, but that’s the problem, there needs to be a lot of changes made. I want to be a part of the solution – I want to help others so they don’t have to go through what you and your sister went through or what our family has had to go through. Thank you so very much for all your support!
I would love to help you get started in any way I can! I have tons of resources for the area I live in but I also have some nation wide resources. I’ll go through my list of references and see what I can come up with for you! We also have TONS of brochures and hand outs at the rape crisis center I work at, if you would like I can send some your way if you want to take a look at them (just as a sample of what you might be able to or might want to hand out and distribute eventually). I’ll email you within the next couple of days and let you know what I come up with 🙂
I just found out about your heart breaking story today my mother reads all the papers and we didn’t hear a thing about the tapping on windows or the man exsposing himself on that walkway. It seems that the departments are very good at keeping things under wraps even if it is something that the public should made aware of. My heart goes out to you and yours.