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At least next time use the right laws – #Stalking

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imissyou

Morgan, as we all did, tried so hard to carry on with her life throughout her stalking.  She walked her puppy, visited with friends and went to school, that last semester when everything is just about taken care of, and you have to take only a few classes, but then you also take fun classes, pointe ballet, and jazz dance, just for the workout, and release, that was what Morgan did.

We all lived in a bubble where we thought the apprehension of the criminal would ultimately be by the Sheriff’s Department.  And as I look through report after report I see a problem with the approach – it goes like this.

After four months of stalking, Keenan would have been facing these charges:

  1. Third degree criminal trespass – (petty offense)
  2. Harassment (repeated communication at inconvenient hours) – (misdemeanor)
  3. Stalking – (felony)

Keenan already has two priors of criminal trespass, and it did little to stop him, because here he was, right back at it again.

Others – both Garfield officers and Private Investigators have suggested different laws enacted to deal with the crimes that were being committed, using those laws would have given the investigation more teeth, seriousness, and more chances for success, specifically:

  1. Felony Vandalism – being championed by one of the Deputies (felony)
  2. Invasion of privacy for Sexual Gratification – A sex crime which can start as a misdemeanor, and escalate to a felony.
  3. And Felony Stalking (felony)

Laws which allow for early confrontation and quicker arrest, before the crime escalates.  Read through the crime logs from any agency and I guarantee you will not see many arrests, arraignments, and high (serious) bails based on the charge of “third degree criminal trespass.”  It is a joke at best.  If you ever find yourself or anyone you love in a situation such as Morgan’s, ask about the laws, ask your victims rights coordinator about the laws, even research the laws yourself.  If the laws that relate to what is going on are not being employed, demand to know why.  Steve and I did not.  We left it all in the hands of the Sheriffs and that was a big mistake.  They of course did not want to see Morgan die, but they also were not prepared to protect us against the level of threat we were facing.

Once you have a suspect, I suggest you name him as the suspect that he or she is.  It is important for your friends and neighbors to know, who the suspect is and how dangerous is he considered!  Just so you all know I am not carelessly throwing out names, I will print a brief exchange that took place between Sheriffs concerning the suspect Keenan, and his father:

Subject of Narrative: Suspect Interview with lead Felony Stalking Sheriff’s Detective, Keenan VanGinkel

On November 16, 2011, I overheard dispatch notifying the zone one deputies to contact Wade VanGinkel reference his son being a suspect in a case.  The dispatcher advised that Wade wanted to know if there was a case open against his son.  I noted that Keenan, Wade’s son, is a suspect in this case.

I contacted Wade who was at the Sheriff’s office when he made the call to dispatch.  I offered to Wade that I could meet him and Keenan at around 1600 hours that day.  Wade told me that he had heard from his son that Keenan was being accused of stalking a girl.  Furthermore, Wade said that there was somebody on facebook.com threatening him.  Wade also said that he heard that there were some deputies at City Market, El Jebel, looking for Keenan.

This, of course, is the stalking that, James Harris, Brooke Harris’ father did not know was happening on the Dr. Phil episode and “wished we had told him.”  Actually Brooke did not speak up to correct her father about the stalking, the stalking that Brooke had heard there was video evidence that exonerated her boyfriend Keenan.  I’ve come across four instances of Keenan referring to this “video evidence that exonerated,” day when he “heard about an incident” but he was in Texas so it could not have been him.

Also, I have heard that you do not have to go out into the wild web very far to read that there are people stating now that there was never a stalking, either Morgan or me made it all up.  Does this mean if I pretend hard enough that Morgan will not be murdered?  Unfortunately I know all to well that this is not possible.  What practical purpose in the search for truth this pretending there was not a stalking serves is beyond me.  I lived through it, day by day, Morgan did her best to be brave and persevere, right up until she was killed.  Morgan’s stalking and murder was every bit the nightmare I hopefully have portrayed it to be.  And it obviously was very, very real.  Lastly, I have been assured that NOBODY has been cleared of the crimes committed against Morgan and our family.

Meanwhile it seems now that back then everyone knew who the stalker was, James Harris named Keenan as the stalker.  Brooke Harris told Steve and I in person that she “heard there was video evidence that exonerated her boyfriend Keenan.”  Very poignant choice of words “exonerated”, by the way, because it specifically means you were convicted and then later found not to be guilty.  This was in response to the videotaped march of an as of yet unidentified perp around our house.  Unfortunately for the best laid plans of those involved, most everyone who has seen the full video agrees it is a female, and all other images of the stalker are male.  Keenan names Brooke as the potential stalker.  And if you remember our neighbor Elliott, he thought the stalker, at least one of them, was James Harris.

The argument referred to by Keenan’s father Wade, on facebook.com can be found on this post from December 28, 2012 excerpts from Facebook “threats” read what Keenan has to say, and you tell me if he does not give indications of knowledge and guilt, because I think that he does.

So you can see that I name names, but everyone else is also naming names.  Actually everyone else seems to have a person to point fingers at, anyone but themselves.  Horrors for Morgan, and after her death, casts of characters all employing their own form of protection…Internet Cyber Stalking and Trolls.

Crimes were committed, horrific crimes were committed.  Situations such as Morgan and our family faced can quickly get out of hand.  The two weeks surrounding her death contained so many little events.  Taken together they point very strongly to a seriously increased danger for a victim in Morgan’s place.  And they also point strongly to the potential for an act of desperation on the part of the perps.  The lead detective even forecast it.  There has been over a year, and a half on the part of Steve and I, and so many others with far more expertise to piece it all together on a timeline.  It was all too real, and it is the truth, I will defend that fact under oath in any court in the land.

But that is not the real reason I’m writing this today.  It is for all of the victims that might happen across this and find some good advice, or a frightening parallel.  To know the true dangers of stalking, how one day we were just a happy family planning our next outing, and the next day we were victims of stalking, and a peeping tom, who turned our lives upside down.  How one day our Detective warned that he thought the stalking was going to escalate, and three days later Morgan was dead.  How out of control it becomes.  How everything you ever planned, or dreamed of is suddenly changed forever.  Steve and I will never get to give Morgan a beautiful wedding like her sister had, we will never get to play with the grandchildren she was planning on sharing with us, we will never ever get another hand squeeze that meant “I love you” from her, we will never get to hear about what her next big adventure was to be, because we no longer have Morgan with us on this earth – we will suffer her loss until the day we die.

I never want any of this to happen to another girl, another family when the resources and the knowledge exist to prevent it.  As always – in Morgan’s memory, and honor – I wish for you to have the awareness and knowledge we did not to keep you all safe from such tragedy.

To the untrained eye…

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To us everything looked wrong, horribly wrong.  Were Steve and I fighting a realization from the very first instant?  Did we see and know more than we could process?  I believe so, a year and a half later strange as it sounds I can think back on that day, and remember details that I could not at all in the first few weeks.  At the beginning Steve and I were in some internal turmoil to come to grips with the fact that our daughter was dead, and we focused immediately on her, not things around her, then came shock.  But we did register the facts, far more that we would have ever realized.  I don’t know how it is for others faced with this kind of situation, but that is how it has been for Steve and me.

After that meeting with Morgan’s doctor in Los Angeles, and homicide became a certainty in her opinion, a lot of different questions started coming up.  First was the obvious, was someone in her room?  And then questions centered on Wylah, Morgan’s puppy, a little over 6 months old that morning.  Why didn’t Wylah sound the alarm the night before if someone was in her room?  How could she have never made a sound, never barked? It seemed to rule out an intruder actually in her room that night.  I’m reading a book on crime scene investigation, and this is a common mistake.  As in MISTAKE!  We did not have an answer for months until Steve was talking with an investigator (not a Garfield County Sheriffs Department investigator), and their conversation was very slow and relaxed, detail by detail, and Steve remembered Wylah, sitting on the bed in the morning, looking dazed, and motionless as the activity by first responders was frenetic.  They rushed in and backed out of the room as Wylah looked on in silence, he pictured it perfectly.  He remembers asking a first responder if he should get Morgan’s pets out of the room for them.  He glanced at Wylah just sitting there on the bed and said no.

While that alone does not prove someone was in Morgan’s room it’s an example of how using the dog’s lack of barking to rule out an intruder was so short-sighted, and displayed poor investigative skills on our part.  Now I’ll give you another example.

A Garfield County Detective Sergeant noted in his report from the death scene some, “blanching on her chest area, and left arm as she had been reportedly found lying on her stomach.”  Morgan was found on her side, not her stomach.  Position of the body at the time of discovery – completely wrong.  Does it matter? YES!  I have been told that bodies on their side do different things and present differently than bodies on their stomach.  As more and more facts come my way it seems as if every tiny detail has significance in a thorough investigation.

I was the one that found her and Steve was there right after, and we are both absolutely sure of the position Morgan was in.  When I saw the first PER I noted the wrong body position being put in the report, among many other mistakes, and wrote around a six page letter correcting every one.

What kind of investigation can be expected when the position of the body, when first discovered, can not be ascertained from the first person who saw her, and then correctly shared with the other investigators?  Perhaps that’s just another reason the Honorable DA decided that the Sheriff’s Department had completely botched the crime scene.  Or maybe he was told the correct position, and he just forgot.  But since Morgan only had about a paragraph or two of his time he should have at least gotten the facts right.

Then came the statement that I don’t know how to respond to.  To an untrained eye such as Steve and I must possess we see signs there was a struggle in Morgan’s room, it did not look as it had the day before, or the night before.  Panic button torn from the nightstand, thrown aside with her clothes piled on top of it, jewelry boxes emptied of valuable jewelry, why were piles of freshly laundered, and folded clothes the night before all knocked over, on and on.   But to the trained eye of a Garfield County Sheriff Detective he sees one thing – “Her bedroom was in disarray, slovenly in fact. There were numerous items on the floor.”

SO – My daughter had been stalked for four months, the Tuesday before her death, only two days, our detective had proclaimed 100% certainty that Keenan VanGinkel was her stalker. He had stated the stalking was going to escalate on that same day. Officers on stepped up patrols were searching exclusively up on the roof with their search light the night of her murder. According to official reports, our Detective notes that he divulged the date of Morgan’s interview with the Sheriffs department to James Harris, AKA Jim Harris approximately a week before she was killed. This has been identified as a huge rookie mistake, endangering the victim.  James certainly talks to his daughter Brooke Harris, and she would pass this bit along to the prime suspect Keenan VanGinkel.  It is not too far of a stretch to think Keenan also knew that the interview of Morgan had the potential to sink him.  Was that more motivation to murder our daughter?

Through the ordeal that was her stalking, Morgan had lost interest in her room, remember she spent large periods of time sleeping in our closet – because she didn’t feel safe in her room – because she was suffering serious emotional distress.  The General Assembly of Colorado recognizes that stalking involves highly inappropriate intensity, persistence, and possessiveness, it entails great unpredictability and creates great stress, and fear for the victim.  Also that stalking involves severe intrusions on the victim’s personal privacy and autonomy, with an immediate and long-lasting impact on quality of life.  And remember one of Morgan’s routines was to clean her room on Fridays?

Morgan’s life has been turned completely upside down.  Victims rights promises that she will be treated with fairness, respect, and dignity.  All this and an honest to God sworn to protect us Garfield Sheriff’s Detective looks at Morgan’s room, her dead body lying on the floor and takes notes, he knows, or should have known all of the facts presented here and he produces a report that claims to provide his knowledge and insight.  He sees Morgan’s room as “in disarray,” with “numerous items on the floor.”  A struggle?   No he sees or notes no sign of one of those.  If Morgan was ever in a do or die, brief struggle for her life she might well have ended up with blood in her mouth, a thumb sized bruise on her forehead, abrasions on her hand, torn nails, and yes her room might have even gotten a little disarray, with items on the floor, whole piles of laundry knocked over onto the floor.

And not many people except the Garfield Sheriffs detectives and Kennan’s family and friends can process all this information, and find nothing wrong – no need to even open an investigation – absolutely nothing to follow up on.  And the stalker & peeping tom that for four months that terrorized Morgan and our family?  No need to catch him either, he will never do it again, the residents of the county, all the other young women who live in Garfield are safe.  And of course the stalker could not be the murderer – right?  As stalking and sexual crimes expert, Mark Wynn would say, “that is just tombstone mentality.”

But really I believe the solution lies in actions and answers before her death. Morgan needed her victims rights before she died.  A more inclusive, more thorough investigation of her stalking.  It will be a huge goal, and measure of success for the Morgan Ingram Foundation.

To Morgan’s #Stalker/s and #Murderer/s : here we come…

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Camera time again for Morgan

Camera time again for Morgan

Now it’s time to start coming out of the numbing grief that Steve and I have been living through, and doing what our life experiences up to now have taught us – by the end of this summer it will be 2 years since the beginning of the nightmare that we call Morgan’s stalking.  It has been extremely challenging for us to do that which we have managed to accomplish over this time – and we are always mindful that Morgan’s challenge was far greater than ours.

What she went through should never have to happen to another person, not any little bit of it.  Not the stalking, the terror, the peeping tom, the complete invasion of her life, as well as her murder.  What we have all gone through collectively should never have to happen to another family.  It quickly expands beyond the immediate family.  Our friends and relatives have also felt the impact, and been a part of the search for answers.

All of this we intend to change for the positive, as much as possible.  While fear can be so numbing, solutions can be liberating…

Our other kids call us the dynamic duo, but Steve and I know we are not even close.  Looking back there was so much more we could have done this past year and a half, but did not for many reasons … number one, no matter how we slice it , we were destroyed over the loss of our youngest child.  Other unexpected challenges have reared their head as well, but they are behind us now.

Steve and I have discussed how there were times we felt like we were walking through a tunnel with no feeling, no noise, just walking with no destination.  Other times we were so angry, and chose to take it out on each other.  Then there were those times, almost every day, that we suddenly found ourselves crying with a pain that was so deep we had never felt anything like it before, a pain that cannot be described.  We have lost grandparents, parents, good friends before, but loosing our child as we did was far worse, the undercurrent of complete frustration will become more of a motivating force  in the near future I predict.

The good news is thanks to our grief counselor, family, friends and supporters, (so many that we have never even met, but look forward to doing so some day), Steve and I now feel like we have the strength finally to forge forward with Morgan’s investigation… we are armed with far more facts, evidence, and expert opinions that we so sorely lacked at the beginning of our impromptu quest.  Where we struggled, and were uncertain it is far more calming to feel that now we know what to do, and we will do it.

We have become more willing to accept other people’s help – up till now I have been very un-trusting of people.  And I realize now there are so many wonderful people in the world that want to help, and have very specialized talents in order to help.  In doing what we need to get Morgan’s investigation open I truly believe the road map is largely set.  And as we are able to document the successes on our journey then others that are going through a similar situation will actually get help.  Things will change, respect for the law will change, people’s attitudes will change, and our communities will change…all for the better – actually I should say they will become much safer.

Common-sense precautions need to be put in place if we are to have the safe communities to raise our children that we all want.  Steve and I are now embarking on a path of no return.  We are now ready to bring everyone involved to task.  Stay tuned – I promise to let you in on the ride as we move along.

#STALKING: You can make a difference!

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Morgan's cat Mogwai with her Oud - we have given Morgan's Oud to one of her cousins and he is learning to play it as a tribute to Morgan

Morgan’s cat Mogwai with her Oud – we have given Morgan’s Oud to one of her cousins and he is learning to play it as a tribute to Morgan

I believe we can all individually make a difference when it comes to stalking, and horrible acts being perpetrated on innocent people.  Remember stalking isn’t something that only happens to celebrities, stalking happens to innocent young children, women, as well as men.

People need to rise up and condemn violence – remember what I said in an earlier blog – I believe there are more good people than bad in this world, and if that is true then we must all take a stand, just like our ancestors have done in the past – they stood up for what was right, and created a better world for us in so many ways.  We are not any different from our ancestors, we carry on for them, and trust me they are watching us, and cheering us on.  We can not allow the bullies, stalkers, predators, and criminals of this world to scare us in to submission with their threats. We must all take a stand and say, “I will no longer keep the truth to myself, I want to get involved!”

Sometime in the months following the start of my blog I received an email from a mother that lives in this same valley.  I have written about this in a previous blog so bear with me, I feel like this is very to-the-point…she read the blog, and went to her son’s soccer practice.  She saw a man standing off to the side watching the boys.  Normally she would not have noticed, but after reading the blog she decided that she would get involved, and started to ask all the other parents if they knew the man…they all said no.  She then told her husband to go question the man to see why he was watching the boys, her husband approached the man, asked him “nicely” if he was related to, or knew one of the boys, and at that time the man took off running.  Now maybe this was innocent “doubtful”, but she said she was so happy that she got involved…what if the practice ended, everyone left, and one little boy’s parents were late picking him up?  Could he have been abducted?  We will thankfully never know, because this amazing woman put aside her fear of getting involved, and did a positive thing.

Morgan’s stalking was a tragedy in the making, we just didn’t know it at the time.  The Forensic Pathologist Dr. Kurtzman called her death “natural” which was not the case, and this misled the Sheriff’s, so Morgan’s investigation was dropped – no victim – no stalker to arrest…very, very wrong.  Not only was the stalker not arrested, but Steve and I are victims as well, and we are still alive.  By misleading the Sheriffs this sent a dangerous message to the public – even your safety, and security will be met with virtual silence from our County.  Is this what the people want?  I don’t think so.  And if not, what should we all do about it?  I think it is time to speak up…tell everyone you know about the injustice that has been done.  Spread the word, speak your opinion, talk to people, do not let people scare you, if you hear anything that might help this investigation, or any others then get involved – we can all make a difference.

A simple search for honesty – is it that hard to find?

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Isn’t that all that it comes down to in most every crime?  Honesty? If the truth were just known, aligning the pieces would be so simple.  Conclusions would quickly follow, and a case would be solved.  I’m thinking of this today because in my loose notes that I have been reviewing for the past week is a statement made by our lead Detective that if people choose to lie to them there is absolutely nothing they can do about it.  I remember the instant he said it, our victim’s rights coordinator was standing right behind his shoulder, glaring, and nodding in approval.  She had become a very upsetting “victims rights coordinator”.  I did not believe this about lies then, and I believe it even less now.

Not every conviction comes wrapped in a confession.  I would guess that very few do, and if every criminal that lies, and never admits the crime, went free, there would not be very many prosecutions or convictions.

In the morning hours of 12/2/2011, the day Morgan’s body was found James Harris made at least one phone call to a client that we know of.  He had to cancel their appointment for the day.  Then about a week later he talked to her again, part of that conversation was to explain that he was “just trying to protect his daughter.”

I assume that would be Brooke, nice sentiment, father protecting daughter, but why would she need protecting?  Morgan was dead.  And why exactly would Brooke need someone to try to protect her, from what?  On her facebook she agreed with her friend Hannah Hurlocker, who didn’t know if she could go through with it, the day before Morgan was killed.  Hannah was staying at Brooke’s house at the time.  On the day Morgan’s body was found Brooke posted a picture of herself wearing an interesting piece of apparatus around her neck.  What was that all about?

Once again the lead Detective, was informed of, and knew all this, but chose to investigate none of it.  That is, at least as far as I know, or have seen in any report.  The only mention is of the fact that I spoke with the witness months later, and made notes about the conversation and passed it all along to our Detective.  But is that how it is supposed to work?  Are the victims of a tragedy, such as the stalking, and murder of their daughter, are those grief stricken victims supposed to be out conducting interviews, because they believe it is important evidence, and might be lost forever?  Well that was how it worked in Morgan’s case.

There was a time when I felt that the more evidence I tried to share with our law enforcement, the less interested they were.  Yet I was always assured that the case just needed more leads, and evidence, that were lacking.  Steve and I are not investigators but we were not going to give up.  If even a little rumor came along we followed up on it… why wouldn’t you?

Honesty, today, right now, every single word gains new importance.  It is absolutely amazing to me how little actual evidence was collected, both physical evidence, and by interview, and how many conclusions were draw from the little they had, so much of it completely wrong.  More like guesswork parading as an investigation.  Or wouldn’t you expect that when nothing is double checked, questions rephrased and asked again to arrive at meaningful conclusions – errors should be expected, right? – not at all a surprise.

One little incident comes to mind, actually for a couple of reasons now.  It was an afternoon where the Detective had finished questioning both Christina and Brooke Harris about the source of the stories about the stalker(s) circulating around the neighborhood.  Sometimes it was simple rumors, but far more disturbingly it was the directed, and timed, false information meant to do nothing but confuse the issue.  A little like what I am told is going on out in the vast reaches of the internet – directed and timed false information meant to confuse and distract.

In gang stalkings this is a well documented method of increasing the terror of the stalking.  False information is regularly spread with the specific intent as to discredit the victim, in an attempt to make them even question themselves as to if the stalking was really happening.  When OF COURSE the stalking was happening, of course they are frightened.  But the goal is to make the victim question everything happening.  I don’t remember right now who said, “in my experience there is no such thing as coincidence.”  But the words ring very true in the context of the misinformation campaign that was being perpetrated.

So Detective Glassmire had just returned from the conclusion of that line of questioning and told me how Brooke had said she got all her information from Christina, her mother, and then Christina said she got all her information from Brooke, her daughter.  The Detectives take was that he thought they could have at least gotten their lies straight.  He used the word lies, and I applaud that because its exactly what it was, and it was exactly what drove the insanity that was Morgan’s life for those four months – an endless string of lies.

And the lies never really stopped.  No sooner had an almost unbelievable string of people tell me that they had heard Brooke, talking about Morgan, saying, “That bitch is going to get it someday,” that I had the chance to confront her.  And Brooke denied ever having said such a thing, in front of a camera.  All those people, independently and at different times, and in different places all recalled almost the same line from Brooke, yet she said she never said it.

It’s really bad when Brooke does things like that, and then has Keenan telling the Detective, “It could be Brooke that is doing the stalking.”  But somehow, I don’t see Brooke staring at Morgan through her bathroom window.

And of course there is the saying that the, “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”  Remember James Harris claiming to not know there was a stalking in the neighborhood, again in front of a camera, actually many cameras.  The same James that evidently approached every person in uniform that neared his house to ask about the stalker and the stalking.  Whom Keenan also happens to claim was a great source of information about the stalking.  The same James Harris that had been interviewed by Detective Glassmire about the stalking while it was ongoing.

Wouldn’t all this be nothing more than lies?  Really bad ones at that and I would think when you contradict yourself completely with your own words.  Just imagine if they had the four of them, Keenan, Brooke, James, and Christina in four separate soundproof rooms, and just went from room to room asking the same question, and taking notes.  It could have been that simple, if they all agreed to it that is.  Maybe Morgan would still be alive.

Morgan just wanted to live her life, never asking for much.  Always thankful and happy with whatever she had.  Spreading love and never shying away from the chance to help someone with a problem.  What I wouldn’t give to have been able to change places, except in reality, I was being stalked and terrorized as well, but then at least she would not have been murdered.