Before Darkness Entered Our Neighborhood…

Here is a picture of our two beautiful babies, sitting on the lawn in front of our house.  This picture was taken a few years before the stalking started.  Back then our neighborhood was bright and peaceful – it felt safe.  We all spent as much time as we could outside.  Morgan used to walk down to the river, and ride her bike all the way into town to visit friends. Sometime she hung out by herself, under the trees, doing her oil paintings and playing with Tessi, our dog.  I was a quiet gentler time.  We all slept well, in the quiet neighborhood that we lived in.  We never had to look over our shoulder back then, and the sun always streamed in through the windows of our house…we didn’t need heavy window coverings to block out the predatory eyes of a stalker.

Then in August of 2011 all that changed…and for four months we lived in fear, first wondering who could be doing this, and then wondering how we could keep Morgan safe, until we could move, or arrests could be made.  Then Friday morning, December 2, 2011, we found Morgan, our 20-year-old daughter, dead in her bed.  We were too late, and our lives were forever changed from that moment on.

To see it the 4-part series that Crime Watch Daily filmed, first you could go to the Crime Watch Daily website. They have the story and links to all four videos here: Crime Watch Daily.com website

Why Didn’t Morgan Yell or Scream?

I have to address this one outrageous idea, that victim blamers keep repeating about Morgan’s murder, “Why didn’t Morgan’s parents hear her being attacked, if indeed she was attacked?”

Try to put yourself in Morgan’s shoes for just one moment – it won’t be easy if you have never been the target of a stalker.  But just try for a moment.  You are exhausted from four months of stalking, you are frightened and on-guard every moment of every day, just waiting for for the next attack to happen, you are hyper-vigilant, and all of a sudden you wake up and your stalker is in your room!  He is probably armed with a gun. And imagine, as we believe, he is not alone. You glance towards your panic button, but it’s not there! (the stalker has removed it), your brain races as you think of how you are going to escape.  You are looking at a weapon, more than one person, and process a verbal threat to be quiet or else… you freeze!

Victims DO report this happening to them, and that is just the ones that survive the attack.  Morgan did not survive, so we are forced to draw possibilities from the facts.  The sheriff’s investigators wrongly believed there was no intruder in her room, because we didn’t hear her scream, yet victims not resisting their attacker is a very well studied and documented FACT.  That very morning, within minutes of arriving, the sheriffs told us her death had NOTHING to do with her stalker.  They did this by ignoring the fact of a victim not resisting, and made matters worse by not treating the crime scene as a crime scene.  The same reason, for so many years, that law enforcement and the courts did not believe or pursue a rape case, if the victim of a rape did not scream or fight back at the time of an attack.  Now of course we know some victims suffered in silence for years before gathering the courage to tell of their attack.  In the case of rape and improper sexual advances, understanding and laws have changed.  Unfortunately in the case of a victim of stalking, who is found murdered in her own home, that type of archaic thinking has not changed at all.

In Morgan’s case, we don’t really know if she was even conscious at all – to not resist her attackers. There is ample evidence she never had a chance to scream out, just as there is ample evidence of intruders in her room that night.  Yet the sheriffs did not tell the pathologist to collect evidence in a rape kit, or test for chemicals that could have subdued her.  The pathologist told us that unless he is directed by the sheriffs to do these things he does not.  So NO simple blood test for any type of chloroform or substance that could have been put over her face, while she was sleeping, to subdue her, was ever made.  NO evidence was collected for a rape kit.  No fingernail scraping were taken to look for DNA, even though 3 nails were broken and there were abrasions on the top and bottom of that same hand.  None of this was done because the sheriffs told the pathologist that it was not necessary…how is that an investigation?

As a little side note to this – did we have a lead that a substance like this was used?  Yes, we did – when the first responders arrived and realized Morgan was already dead, they started to ask questions.  One of their questions was about Carbon Monoxide detectors in our home.  Steve showed them our detectors, and the one plugged into the the wall, above the counter, in the laundry room, had a one-time super high reading that night – Steve was shocked.  The sheriffs were not interested in this one-time super high reading, because it didn’t fit their “no intruder” theory, so they ignored it.  Months later, after other doctors looking at Morgan’s case were convinced it was a homicide, Steve looked up the data on our exact Carbon Monoxide detector and found, to his shock, that it is plausible for chloroform fumes to cause a one-time super high reading without triggering the alarm.  Based on that we surmise that an intruder could have poured chloroform over a cloth on the laundry room counter, before entering Morgan’s room.  We told the pathologist, as well as the sheriff of this discovery, as well as many more facts that absolutely establish the presence of at least one intruder that night, but our FACTS have always fallen on deaf ears – they did not care.  They proved this by there actions.  When too much evidence piled up showing there had to be at least one intruder, they closed her stalking case, claiming there were no more leads to follow up on. That shows they don’t care.

Now some scientific facts, showing why victims may not scream or fight back, by experts in the field…

Freezing in the context of an attack seems counterintuitive. However, tonic immobility may be the best option when the animal perceives little immediate chance of escaping or winning a fight (; ).

Why So Many Rape Victims Don’t Simply ‘Fight Back’

A new study shows it’s common for women to experience involuntary paralysis during sexual assault.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/women-involuntary-paralysis-freeze-rape-fight-back_us_5936f8e7e4b0099e7faff1dc

The following is a Washington Post article about, “Why Many Rape Victims Don’t Fight or Yell”

Quote from the article: “Countless victims of sexual assault describe just such responses. Too often police officers, college administrators, even friends and family think to themselves – and say out loud – “Why didn’t you run out of the room?” “Why didn’t you scream?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/06/23/why-many-rape-victims-dont-fight-or-yell/?utm_term=.9b6570fd54b6

IT IS NOT OKAY TO BULLY OR BLAME THE VICTIM…EVER!

This is exactly what I told Crime Watch Daily, “It’s not okay to blame victims, or to bully victims, they have had enough pain already.  Morgan always conducted her life here on earth with grace, compassion, understanding and love…and in honor of her, we will never allow these type of people to distract us from our goal, which is, #Justice For Morgan.”

Victim-blaming can be seen as an outright attack on the victims or co-victims of a crime, or anytime someone decides to question what a victim could have done differently to prevent that crime, even if that accuser doesn’t completely grasp what he/she is doing with their actions, that person is participating, to some degree, in the culture of victim-blaming.  This has been happening, not only to me and my family, but to Morgan’s good friends as well, for years now.  Sometimes it has been as minor as “questioning” why we did or did not do something, and sometimes it is an outright attack of everyone that is in support of getting justice for Morgan.

Please know that everyone who knew and loved Morgan, has at one time or another, blamed themselves…they have all verbalized to me that there must have been something they could have done to help stop her stalking, or save her that night, before she lost her life.  As her parents, Steve and I have agonized and asked the Universe, just like other parents who have lost their child to an unexpected violent death, why are we still alive, and she is gone?…we would rather be the ones gone, we would have given our lives in exchange for her life…but we were not given that choice.  and it hurts more than words can express.

Here is another interesting reason some people may become victim blamers:  “I think the biggest factor that promotes victim-blaming is something called the just world hypothesis,” says Sherry Hamby, a professor of psychology at the University of the South and founding editor of the APA’s Psychology of Violencejournal. “It’s this idea that people deserve what happens to them. There’s just a really strong need to believe that we all deserve our outcomes and consequences.”  These type of people want to hold the victim and/or co-victims responsible for the consequences of the crime.

There are many reasons people engage in victim-blaming…but the reason really doesn’t matter, the fact is, victim-blaming and bullying is WRONG!

Part Two of the Crime Watch Daily 4 Part Series on Morgan’s Death

1,130,489 Views, as of today, on just this Part 2 of 4, by Crime Watch Daily 

https://www.facebook.com/crimewatchdaily/videos/vb.831373266887467/1754588051232646/?type=2&theater&comment_id=1836573769700740&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic&notif_id=1515308631545215

 

The Sheriff’s Supplemental Reports

 This is what you will see, starting with Supplemental #1 from the Garfield County Sheriffs.

I am slowly going back through my old posts on this blog, that are from my Timeline, in order to add the Sheriff’s Supplemental Reports… – it will be a slow process so please bear with me, as it is upsetting to relive this over, and over again…but I will.

As I update the posts, if you would like to read those posts again, the ones that are dated, starting with “Day One of Morgan’s Stalking,” you will be able to see a much more complete picture of what was happening back then, and what was promised, but not happening, in this stalking case.  There were many mistakes made on the part of the sheriffs, and at this point I can only hope that they have learned from those mistakes, and will change their protocol in future cases.  We all make mistakes, BUT if we don’t learn from those mistakes, in order to get it right in the fight for justice, then the only thing that comes to my mind is that ego is more important than helping victims…and that is so not right!

When I woke up this morning, I walked around the house and I kept saying out loud, “I want you here Morgan, I want to share the magic of Christmas with you again.”  My tears kept falling, the pain in my chest was crushing, and then I said out loud, “I know you can’t be here, but I just want you here so badly sweetheart.”  Again, I know we can never bring Morgan back, which is my greatest wish, but maybe, just maybe, the lessons learned from her case can help save another innocent victim of stalking.

My wish for the New Year is to have Morgan’s case finally opened, investigated, and arrests made, as there is NO statute of limitation on murder.  I will continue my work as a Victim’s Advocate, working with the families of Missing Person & Cold Case Homicide cases, but every single day I still imagine what it would be like to finally have #Justice4Morgan – because she deserves it and we are still waiting for it come.