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Tag Archives: COVA
Victims of Stalking need your Compassion – it means a lot!!!
Far – far too often in a country where stalking is usually a felony, and victims suffer untold physical, and emotional injustice, I read some variation of a stalking story that is disturbingly like the following I just received today:
“Almost everyone I have told about my Stalker / Harasser in hopes of some advise or help, seems to not believe me…& they end up turning against me instead of helping me…I just don’t understand what has happened to this world? Because that just doesn’t make any sense to me…so now I not only have the Stalker Harassing me & doing his best to keep me in fear, but I now have others doing it as well. Great!!! :'(“
She told her friends and coworkers, she did the right thing. A basic first step in protecting yourself is to try to tell all others around you so there are more eyes and ears and bodies watching out for you, but in her case this didn’t help. And while I ask why, I am also reminded of a slogan – raising awareness. And this means raising all kinds of awareness. If you have never been stalked as the majority have not, then it is hard to know what it is like. If you are being stalked it is hard to know the right things to do to stop it, really stop it. And as you involve others they will most likely need to learn what stalking really is. Of course as the Law Enforcement becomes involved, while one incident usually does not make for a stalking case, they need to become involved ASAP and you need to have the particulars as to just when your stalking becomes rises to the level that Law Enforcement becomes involved explained to you by Law Enforcement.
A big part of raising awareness is another slogan – “Take Stalking Seriously”
For example legislative declarations usually precede actual law, and here an excerpt from the Colorado legislative declaration on stalking
(1) The general assembly hereby finds and declares that:
(a) Stalking is a serious problem in this state and nationwide;
(b) Although stalking often involves persons who have had an intimate
relationship with one another, it can also involve persons who have little or no past relationship;
(c) A stalker will often maintain strong, unshakable, and irrational emotional feelings for his or her victim and may likewise believe that the victim either returns these feelings of affection or will do so if the stalker is persistent enough. Further, the stalker often maintains this belief, despite a trivial or nonexistent basis for it and despite rejection, lack of reciprocation, efforts to restrict or avoid the stalker, and other facts that conflict with this belief.
(d) A stalker may also develop jealousy and animosity for persons who are in relationships with the victim, including family members, employers and coworkers, and friends, perceiving them as obstacles or as threats to the stalker’s own “relationship” with the victim;
(e) Because stalking involves highly inappropriate intensity, persistence, and possessiveness, it entails great unpredictability and creates great stress and fear for the victim;
(f) Stalking involves severe intrusions on the victim’s personal privacy and autonomy, with an immediate and long-lasting impact on quality of life as well as risks to security and safety of the victim and persons close to the victim, even in the absence of express threats of physical harm.
(2) The general assembly hereby recognizes the seriousness posed by
stalking and adopts the provisions of this part 6 with the goal of encouraging and authorizing effective intervention before stalking can escalate into behavior that has even more serious consequences.
The Colorado Legislature knows stalking is very real, it is serious, it is dangerous, and it does happen to normal people, not just celebrities. There is a growing awareness and it is largely under-reported, and ineffectively responded to by Law Enforcement. This is why it is so important to educate yourself and then talk about it to raise awareness!
When dealing with Law Enforcement in almost all States you have victims rights to aid you, in the event that law enforcement is just ignoring you – please look up your particular States laws.
In the State of Colorado Victims Rights Act it states:
The general assembly hereby finds and declares that the full and voluntary cooperation of victims of and witnesses to crimes with state and local law enforcement agencies as to such crimes is imperative for the general effectiveness and well-being of the criminal justice system of this state. It is the intent of this part 3, therefore, to assure that all victims of and witnesses to crimes are honored and protected by law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and judges in a manner no less vigorous than the protection afforded criminal defendants.
Now if the State of Colorado (and I assume most states in our Country) wants to assure that all victims of, and witnesses to crimes are honored and protected by law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and judges then why does this not always happen with victims of stalking? Why are people in our areas like not believing and watching out for the victims? I truly believe it is one of those things that people tell themselves that crime could never to happen to them, they are protected/isolated so if they turn a blind eye to it and pretend it’s not happening (the God forbid this ever happen to me theory), this person is just over reacting, this mentality helps them just go along with their everyday lives and PRETEND that everything in the world is how it should be – but THEY ARE SO WRONG!
One day we were a happy family, looking towards the future with our youngest daughter, talking about all the normal things in life (like should she stay in a dorm at CU Boulder for her last 2 years or an apartment with a roommate), and the next day we were wondering what was going on, starting to get that frightened feeling that we had to protect our daughter from some unknown evil. Then later that month our home became a dark fortress in an effort to keep out the evil that had invaded our family, and then the following month we were investing money (that should have been for Morgan’s last two years of college) purchasing things to try to catch her stalker so she would not have to continue her life in fear. Some stalkers actually follow their victims from place to place, from state to state and Morgan did not want to always be looking over her shoulder, she did not want to live in fear. But as we all know now after only 4 short months Morgan’s stalking ended in her murder. I know this is not what always happens, but it DOES HAPPEN far more often than anyone would like to admit. As parents we failed miserably to do the right things at the right times. Not a sympathy call – just the real truth. The Garfield Sheriff’s office failed miserably at protecting one of its citizens. Once again just the sad truth. And the Coroners office is up to its neck in inexcusable behavior that completely stripped Morgan of her rights to due process.
If that’s what the professionals did for Morgan then you need to learn patience with friends and coworkers, bosses and even parents. They all need to come around and the best endings to stalking situations has come when friends and family are all helping and working together to end the stalking.
It is an honor in life to be able to help others – it is not something that should be on the bottom of anyone’s list. Please share this one thought with everyone in your life that you come in contact with along your life’s journey…if we all help one another, evil will have a really hard time completing it’s journey. Thank you all so very much!
And to the stalking victim that wrote in (the first paragraph of this blog) all I can say at this point is that I am so sorry that this is happening to you and I will make every effort for the rest of my life to try to educate people to not react like that to a victim…you deserve people to believe you, and try to help you for the simple reason, that is what they would want if they found themselves in your situation.
Steve and I were very uneducated about stalking when Morgan’s stalking began. We received little or no help from the Sheriffs department. And the Coroner will still not even meet with us.
We all have to believe the outcome of Morgan’s stalking could have been turned for the better, instead of the tragedy it became. WE all have to believe that raising awareness and taking stalking seriously are much more that just catch phrases, they are part of the solution.
One of Morgan’s favorite movies – Where the Wild Things Are
Morgan loved this movie so much she did an artistic design of letters cut-out and placed across one of her bedroom walls that spelled out “Where the Wild Things Are” and each letter of that title was made to look like some kind of adorable animal.
Click on or copy the link below, and put it into your Internet URL and you will see the trailer to the movie…it is a movie full of HOPE!
April 26 – May 5, 2012 / A dog with a lot of love, but too old to patrol, and a lot of unanswered questions
Joey – Morgan’s brother’s old watchdog – we borrowed him for a week during the stalking – unfortunately Joey was just too old and slept…we couldn’t wake him up when something happened – he loved Morgan and used to sleep in her room when we would babysit him, but since she now had a puppy he could no longer sleep in her room so guarding her was not easy for him.
Thursday, April 26th
This morning the two of us discussed what our friend, the former Federal Investigator thinks we should do in order to move the case along. We all have our jobs, and he will get back in touch with us. He left this afternoon late to go back to Colorado Springs.
Sunday, April 29th
Our old next door neighbor called back tonight to give us some good information about Morgan’s case.
Monday, April 30th
Tonight at 7:38 pm I was lying on the couch in living room all by myself. I was trying not to, I wanted to be the strong mama lion, but I just started crying my eyes out over the loss of Morgan, when my cell phone rang. A good friend just had a feeling to call me, and we talked about Morgan for the longest time. Steve, for some reason was still having a hard time fully accepting Morgan was a homicide, because it meant someone, and maybe more then one person was in her room that night. As a father that wants to protect his children, can you just imagine how awful that idea felt to him? It’s amazing what you can accept at different times, and how obvious the situation was becoming for seasoned professional investigators. We talked about how crazy it was that local law enforcement and the contracted pathologist were so willing to accept anything, and question nothing. And changing laws too, it was what I thought back then, laws needed to be changed! Now as I research the subjects more and more, all I see are laws that are not being enforced, these laws were ignored as if they did not exist, as though they were not even laws of the State of Colorado…but they are! What happens when our own law enforcement and Coroners do not follow State law?
Tuesday, May 1st
I called the Garfield County Coroner, Trey Holt’s office to set up a meeting, but the person who answered told me that I will have to call back next Monday as he is out of town till then, and she can’t make appointments for him. I made a note to myself that I was thinking it sure seems like he is out of town a lot. In fact I have never called the Coroner’s office and had anyone there tell me that Trey Holt was in town! We have still never been able to meet with him to this day.
Wednesday, May 2nd
Based on a suggestion, more like hounding, I forced myself to sit and review the tapes from the security cameras. It was so hard to see anything from back then, and as I looked at the tapes I saw the unmistakable figure of a human, it was not identifiable, but it was the stalker, or one of his accomplices. It has been 5 months since Morgan died. Now I had another image of a person in our yard in the middle of the night. It was unfortunately of far worse quality than the ones the Sheriff’s had previously dismissed as, “not clear enough”. It raised my hopes that there were certainly many more shadowy figures throughout the tapes. I will continue to review the tapes – but it’s so very emotional. To this day I still don’t understand why the Sheriff’s said most of our tapes are not clear enough, because when I see videos or camera shots on the Internet from other law enforcement agencies across the US that are trying to track someone down they seem to be the same resolution as ours, and they seem to get results…
Friday, May 4th
Steve was mowing the lawn when two of Morgan’s friends showed up unexpectedly. They all came in the house and we talked about Morgan and shared ideas about how we could change things in the future. It was a great afternoon.
Saturday, May 5th
Today I looked at our tapes some more. In the afternoon I spoke with an artist who gave Morgan and Steve painting classes, I told him about what happened to Morgan and he had a suggestion about a person I should call.
The Post Independent had an article called, “Women worried about reports of naked man”. It spoke of reports dating back to 2008 all around Carbondale, Red Hill Mushroom Rock trail north of Hwy 82, and the trail by Blue Creek Subdivision, the Rio Grand Trail, and Lorax trail. The trail by Blue Creek Subdivision was the neighborhood across the two lane County Road from ours. It seemed like a lot of crime in such a small area, by population it was tiny, but all the crimes had one glaring similarity – they were all unsolved. Was our little corner of the County just ignored? Or was the entire county infested with unsolved crime?
Today Steve and I decided on a date for the memorial to spread Morgan’s ashes, and I started checking with Morgan’s friends about the date to see when they would be back from college, etc. So many of her friends were away at college when we had the first celebration of her life four days after she was murdered, and they were so upset that they couldn’t attend.
Later that afternoon I talked to the security person Valerie at City Market in Carbondale about what tapes she had saved from the night Morgan was killed, then Steve and I looked at our tapes some more. There were so many cameras, so many different views (and yes Morgan’s bedroom windows were always covered by a camera), so many hours of footage, and when the real stalker, peeping tom, voyeur, sociopath or whatever I should call him would show up on one of the cameras it would be very quick, so your eyes had to stay glued to that screen at all times, and it was extremely hard from an eye strain point of view, and emotionally it was next to impossible. But there are a lot of things about what happened to Morgan, and what has gone on afterwards that feel were impossible – but they are not…they are real, Morgan was stalked, hunted down and killed as though she were prey, and we know we can, and will do whatever it takes, no matter how long it takes, to get this case opened, and see the guilty party/parties sent to jail. Morgan needs justice – the people in this County need justice – this world needs justice, and pretending this didn’t happen, and will not ever happen to someone else is just nonsense, it’s like putting your head in the sand. So many people in this valley, state, nation and world support our efforts and I just want you all to know it won’t be in vain, things will change for the better and we will not stop until they do.
Fairness, Respect and Dignity … Powerful Promises for the Victims of Crime
Today in Denver a historic even is
taking place, honoring Colorado’s Victims and Victim Advocates
celebrating the 20th anniversary of Colorado’s Victims’ Rights Act.
Which begins with the promise that all victims should be
treated with fairness, respect and
dignity. This was a community event
highlighting Fairness, Respect, and Dignity… 20 Years of Victim’s
Rights and celebrating the new Victims Rights Act. This
celebration was sponsored by: Colorado Division of Criminal
Justice: Office for Victims Programs, COVA, Denver District
Attorneys Office, Denver City Attorneys Office, Denver Police
Department, Victim Assistance Unit, Mothers Against Drunk Driving,
Voices of Victims, and Parents of Murdered Children.
With all the laws that have been passed, and all the passionate advocates of victims rights what happens when law enforcement in your community just
doesn’t get the memo and follow those laws? What are people
supposed to do? Are they supposed to write certified letter
after certified letter asking kindly that the Sheriff and Coroner
do their job? Should victims of crime make endless phone
calls to try sdto set up meetings with elected officials that never
take place? Do they try to raise awareness, and get the
community involved? Do they start a blog to chronicle the
truth about a horrific event that took place in their life, day by
grueling day, because the Sheriff, and the Coroner’s office did not
do their job? Is there really an answer to reconcile such a
chasm?
Today,
ironically on the day to honor Victims Rights – Garfield Counties
finest chose to roll out their tank and have combat drills.
So what about all the victims they have chosen to run over in
their preparedness? The last thing Steve and I would do
now is call the Garfield Sheriff’s office for protection, they
instill fear, not fairness. And as for Respect, if you
have to ask, you have not read the blog. And what about
Dignity? Not one single drop, not
for Morgan, not for Steve, and not for I.
I’m not so sure what you would do here
if you had a stalker, or a peeping tom, or a murderer. Where
there are not answers, we must find solutions. Steve and I
have chosen to do anything, and everything within our power to get
the state of Colorado to wake up to some atrocities that lie
lurking. Nothing so massive as to need the battering ram of
an enormous tank, rather the education and awareness to take crimes
against the person more seriously. It would be nice to think
we can find officials to open our daughter’s investigation, not
only to get justice for Morgan, but to also get a dangerous
predator off the streets so this will not happen to another
family.
I know what
it’s like to feel like nothing bad will ever happen to “our”
family…it’s just something you read about in the newspaper or see
in a flash online. Especially in our beautiful Roaring Fork
Valley – in the 70’s we never even locked our doors, except when
Ted Bundy was running loose. Well haven’t things changed,
evil has arrived and our lives will forever be different. Has
law enforcement kept pace with the task? Perhaps not.
Honor and respect victims or have a drill with your tank, and
if priorities told the story maybe a new protocol is in order here,
soon.
We lost our
precious daughter, the world lost an amazing young woman that would
have certainly helped to better the world. And I know in my
heart that we are doing the right thing. Some days are harder
than others to keep going, but we have no choice…this is now our
purpose in life, and I know we will live up to it.
There are so many out there that just
need all of us – a community to watch out for each other, speak
out, ask questions, be involved. Take stalking seriously,
Colorado has the laws. Take Invasion of privacy for sexual
gratification seriously, Colorado also has those laws. The
rain gutter over Morgan’s window was split in two where he
obviously laid and leaned over to ogle and terrorize our daughter
and the detective would not even come see it, photograph it, write
a report about it. How much safer is that neighborhood
now?
It is up to us to
demand and take a few moments for the safety of all. Just 5
minutes out of your day and you might see something suspicious, and
by your actions a small child may be saved from what would have
been an abduction, or a young girl could be saved from her murder.
Don’t live in fear, live with awareness. If you hear
something that you know in your gut doesn’t sound right – tell
someone. It doesn’t matter who you tell, just know it has
gone from two eyes to four, then eight, then sixteen.
There have been some horrible
things happening lately in this country, but I believe the people
in this country are strong, they want to protect it’s people, and I
believe we are all waking up to the same understanding that it is
up to all of us if we want to be a strong Country again and protect
it’s citizens.