Morgan cooking in the kitchen, wearing her great-grandmother’s apron – she loved to bake.

Monday, April 23, 2012

I received a call back today from Dr. Dobersen, who had been referred to me by Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons (FOHVAMP) to give a second opinion of Morgan’s death, if it turned out that we needed one.

Just to be absolutely clear here, at this point in time I had not sent Dr. Dobersen Morgan’s PER or Toxicology results yet, I was just asking him some general questions earlier in the day.  I still felt very protective about Morgan, and was not at all willing to just start handing out all her information.

Surprisingly Dr. Dobersen had been able to tell me quite a lot with very little information.  He assured me that Dr. Kurtzman (the forensic pathologist that did Morgan’s autopsy) could not put Porphyria down as a cause of death if Morgan had never been diagnosed with it by a medical doctor in her lifetime, it was required, and of course she was had not been diagnosed with it.  After finding out that the cost of genetic testing would easily be over $12,000, the day had been very upsetting up until that very moment.

I have never, to this day, gotten an answer to the question of why Porphyria was a cause of death for Morgan.  Her doctors and referred specialists at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles were shocked to hear that it was on her PER, because she never had it.  And her doctors here in Colorado also disagreed completely.  Once again it was Kurtzman vs. the medical community of the country, and nobody was agreeing with his opinion.

The next really great news was that if an arrhythmia was suspected, Dr. Kurtzman should have taken a frozen slide of her heart.  The actual simple question of did you, or did you not take histilogical samples has never been answered by Dr. Kurtzman.  I have been told it is a requirement of Colorado Statutes, but can I assume this was done, doubtful.  Anyway there was a research study underway at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester – and they would test Morgan’s histological samples at no charge as part of their ongoing study to improve knowledge.  Dr. Dobersen had offered to handle the transfer of Morgan’s samples to the Mayo Clinic for study in case Dr. Kurtzman was not familiar with the process.

Then Dr. Dobersen told me that based upon what little I had told him, Morgan’s death should have been listed as “ undetermined”, at the very least, until an investigation had determined what had killed Morgan, especially with the ongoing stalking, and terror situation that she was living in.  Believe me, I was pinching myself at the moment to make sure this was not a dream.

Dr. Dobersen was a Board Certified Forensic Pathologist, Coroner/Medical Examiner for Arapahoe County, Colorado, and past president of the Colorado Coroners Association.

He was polite, answered every question, and made sense.  He is well respected within the state of Colorado, and I can tell you from personal experience, he is also well respected across the country.  It was such a great gift that I will never question when I was referred to him for a “few questions.”  Dr. Dobersen has been called the physician for the victim, he has helped tell the story for so many victims that can no longer speak for themselves – he makes sure he gets ALL the facts straight when he does a complete autopsy.

My attitude about Morgan’s investigation or should I say lack of an investigation started to change.  I felt she deserved more than she had gotten, and I believed asking and pointing out deficiencies would be the way to approach it.  I felt that our law and order wanted the best for its citizens, they just needed help.  And I had found a few sources.

Then, out of the blue, I asked Steve why were Morgan’s down comforter sheet, and 2 pillow cases not collected?  Or the knife she had just asked Steve to buy her the night before, when she was so scared (it was lying in bed by her side when I found her) – why wasn’t it taken to be tested for finger prints?  Where are the pajamas Morgan was wearing when Steve said good night to her?  We haven’t found them and nobody cares.  Can the clothes she was found in still be tested for fluids?  What about testing for the dye from the massive dose of Amitriptyline found in her body verses the old pills that she still had in a bottle in our room?  Was this even possible?  Did the sheriff’s find any container or syringe in her room when they went through it? The first responders and the sheriffs told us they did not find anything like that – and we did not either.  There was suddenly hope, there was a scientific path to Morgan’s death, there were questions that could be answered.

And then Steve looked at me and said, “I’m sure the sheriff’s have thought of all these things, and have done them”…unfortunately, right at that second, I believe Steve was wrong.  I believed that he was guilty of that same thing I had been guilty up until that second, believing the authorities 100% and not questioning.  I asked him to think that statement through again, slowly…

Now, today, in 2013 we believe that the sheriff’s, and the coroner’s office did not want to look for anything suspicious, they did not want a homicide, no, no, not in Garfield County – why couldn’t we just believe them and go away like good little parents who have lost their healthy 20-year-old daughter, who was being stalked, and had suddenly died?  Are they serious?  Did they really think we would succumb to our deep, tremendous grief, and become ghosts ourselves?  There is absolutely,  NO WAY!  Our family is not like that, Morgan never gave up, we never give up…it is not in our DNA!  And when I say family I mean family…this has by far been the biggest challenge our family has ever faced, but we face it together.  We may all deal with it differently, but just like our oldest daughter, and our son have both said over and over again, “We trust you and support you Mom & Dad, and don’t ever give up on this, Morgan was far too special.”

Their encouragement, along with Steve’s family, my family, Morgan’s friends, and all of our friends, have kept us going this whole time, even on days that were so hard we could barely get out of bed knowing we had to keep reliving the loss of Morgan over and over again in order to tell her story.  This has become so multi-layered, and so complex now as we have come to find out more, and more things about this case about our daughter being murdered, and its relationship to other cases of parents that have lost their children to murder, and where the investigation was completely dropped.

I don’t care if the excuse is lack of funds, lack of manpower, lack of training, lack of interest, trying to keep the stats low, whatever the excuse is, we are talking about someone that was extremely loved, that has now been taken from this world – there should be no excuse for lack of an investigation.  If any of you were ever killed you would assume that your death would deserve a complete and thorough investigation.  You would expect and deserve the complete opposite of what Morgan was given, every human being is worth it.  Because without that simple expectation being true, law and order is but a farce.  And if there is still a murderer out there, can anyone guarantee you that it will not happen again to someone else, and their family, nobody!

We intend to never stop seeking justice for Morgan through legal channels, in order to show others a road map to follow in the future – we have made so many mistakes in during her stalking, and in our attempts to seek justice, but if we are transparent about our mistakes, I hope it will help others from making the same mistakes, just like any successes we make along the way, if shared, will show others what may work for them.

Wednesday, April 25^th

Our good friend and retired Federal Investigator came over today.  Being a former Federal Investigator when he went out on a case, every case was resolved…it was expected.  He met with Detective Rob Glassmire @ 6:30 pm in Glenwood to verbally review all the evidence and discuss what they were doing now, then came back to our house, had dinner, and discussed the case with us.  We stayed up for hours and went through it with him very thoroughly.  He asked us questions as though he were doing a Federal case, including all the questions they would ask if there were any chance it could be a suicide.  He knew Morgan for years, and did not think it could be a suicide, but he said if he didn’t know her, and this was his case that would always be one of the first things he would need to rule out.  Now remember at this the forensic pathologist had determined she died of natural causes, but because he was a top investigator in his time he asked all the questions he would ask in a case where he did not know the victim.  We answered truthfully every question he asked.  Now why were we never asked these questions from our detective?  It was now determined by our friend that she did not commit suicide, that the death scene was bungled, and it was extremely easy to gain access to our home undetected.  We were extremely upset, but not surprised.  He gave us a road map of what he considered we should do to try to find more answers, and move the case along.  And our journey continues…for the love of our daughter and other daughters as well.

Today (last year) Dr. Kurtzman called me, by now the doctors, and professors at UCLA Medical Center had come to the conclusion that Dr. Kurtzman was not receptive at all to established medical fact.  He started the conversation by stating he cannot reclassify Morgan’s death at this time to anything, but natural causes because unless he knows for sure that she didn’t have Porphyria he can’t rule that out, and it could have killed her, even if I did not want to, “admit that”.  I was never really quite sure what he mean by that statement.

I told Dr. Kurtzman facts that doctors far more qualified to talk about Morgan medically already had.  I told him Morgan was never diagnosed with it, and then he said I was forgetting that she took Amitriptyline for her Porphyria.  I told him that was completely false.  I went on to correct the history of Morgan’s medications, and offered to get pharmacy records, her doctor’s records.  I did not question why he had not requested any of this most basic medical information for Morgan before concluding her autopsy based upon completely missing and erroneous information.  My goal was to perhaps introduce one piece of evidence at a time for him, he was very touchy if questioned about anything he had done.  Dr. Kurtzman again told me that of course she was talking Amitriptyline, it was in her labs.

I openly ask the world at this point a few things.  Sheriff’s reports, hundreds and hundreds of pages, not seventy-five, include multiple medications they say Morgan was taking, that she was not, and were not found in her “labs” either.  The Sheriff’s reports also include the condition she was taking the prescription medications for, which she was not even taking, and she never took medications for the condition they are saying she took them for, she had never been diagnosed with any of those conditions, so:

1. Why are Sheriffs trying to compile a list of the medications that Morgan was taking, they have no right under state or federal law to access any of her actual records, in fact they are completely barred from accessing her records.  Yet they write reports as to what medications Morgan was taking, and purport to know why.  And I should not have to say this because I believe they are in violation of her HIPAA rights, but they are completely wrong about what prescriptions she took, completely wrong about what conditions she might have had, and obviously not being doctors they do not have the expertise to make these statements in their report…but that didn’t stop them, they did it anyway.
2. I do not know if their reports were used by the Coroner or his contracted pathologist to arrive at important conclusions.  But I certainly hope that is not the case.  As we all know the Coroner or his contracted pathologist will never answer any of this so what sane way do we have to deal with these people?  Especially when they refuse to treat victims with dignity and respect.  What am I left to do about Morgan’s victims rights?
3. Why is the contacted pathologist so hung up on a condition she never had?  You would think that if we put him in touch with her doctors, who knows she never had the Condition he is stating caused her to die from natural causes, then we could move on, but no that is not possible.  Can’t let any truth seep in here.
4. Is there any wonder why the Honorable District Attorney feels the Sheriff’s Department has so thoroughly botched the crime scene investigation that they are not sure what can be done?        

Back to the conversation with Kurtzman, I asked him what it was going to take to move on from this Porphyria endless loop.  He said if we had her blood genetically tested, of course this would have to be at our expense, to prove she did not have Porphyria then he could take that off of his report. He said he cannot take the word of a doctor or doctors in this case anymore, that he would need to get information from another pathologist, preferably from the State of Colorado.  He said unless a pathologist tells him that she could have died from death by fright he can’t put that down on her death certificate.  He said she would need an underlying malady like QT syndrome, and then he gave me the name of a lab to look up that could do the testing, also at our expense.  He said an underlying malady could make her prone to sudden death.

He said her full manner of death is cardiac & pulmonary edema.  I did not mention that he wrote pulmonary edema on the original autopsy report.  He said the cause can’t be changed at this time.  I asked about the Amitriptyline numbers and he started to talk about Post-mortem redistribution and then got vague again.  He said once again that he found no pills or fragments of pills in Morgan’s stomach so he could not say her death was a suicide or accidental overdose.  There is a disturbing trend that whenever I mention during this conversation about Porphyria never being a diagnosis and that it should come off of his, “Natural Causes”, conclusion he brings up Amitriptyline and the specter of the very high numbers, and that he could have looked at suicide or accidental overdose except that they were not pills in her stomach.

He then went into all of the various ways we could use genetic testing to  establish sudden death.  I asked him if he tested for poisons – he said the testing is very expensive, so there are things they do not test for unless instructed to such as cyanide, etc.

Th conversation was ending and I summarized by saying, Dr. Kurtzman, “so my job this week is to get the hospital results from Children’s Hospital to see if Morgan ever had an EKG and to look up on the Internet the Labs you just told me about to see what the costs are for the testing and discuss with my husband and decide if we can afford to have her remaining blood sample tested for these genetic things that we just discussed to rule in or out and then get back to you by the end of this week.”  Dr. Kurtzman said yes please call me to let me know.

I called and left a message for Dr. Michael Dobersen to call back when he returned to his office on Monday.  A very helpful person in Denver had recommended him in case I needed a second opinion and it seemed as if we did at this point.

Mark Your Calendar and

Join us for a Milestone Celebration!

Please join us during National Crime Victims’ Rights Week as we honor Colorado’s Victims and Victim Advocates in a unique and historic event celebrating the 20th anniversary of

Colorado’s Victims’ Rights Act

Celebration will include honoring victim advocates and the work that they do everyday as well as a special presentation recognizing the Aurora Police Department’s Victim Services Unit for they work they did with the victims of the Century Theater tragedy.

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013

11:30 am-1:00 pm

Wellington Webb Building

201 West Colfax, Denver, 80202

Light refreshments will be served

Fairness, Respect, Dignity …20 Years of Victims’ Rights

1993-2013

Honoring the Past, Appreciating the Present,

Looking Towards the Future

A community event sponsored by: Colorado Division of Criminal Justice: Office for Victims Programs, COVA, Denver District Attorney’s Office, Denver City Attorney’s Office, Denver Police Department: Victim Assistance Unit, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Voices of Victims, Parents of Murdered Children