Tag Archives: Stalked

Investigating your Stalker

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mtnsky

Morgan had a stranger stalker, Keenan was a person not known to her, rather his identity was deduced over months.  He was also very likely a serial stalker as well.  This I added after discovering many stalking and peeping tom incidents within a few mile radius dating back for years.

As I research solutions to these types of terrorizing some of it is very straightforward, such as the findings that stalkers are often socially maladjusted, emotionally immature, insecure and jealous by nature.  Like perpetrators of domestic violence, who often stalk their partners, they seek to exert power and control over the victim.  According to James Harris, his daughter Brooke complained of Keenan being possessive, and she ended their relationship because of it.  An objective look at mannerisms is a good tool to ID your stalker.

At the beginning we had few if any tools to deduce who the stalker was and were limited for a while into seeing which cars were home, and which weren’t, of which lights were on in which houses as ours…only tools.  If we could have included a read of mannerisms of the suspects, no matter how crude it might have been.  That would have been an improvement in identifying him earlier.

Other advice i read is downright frightening to me.  Such as the majority of stalkers are not mentally ill; however a minority, usually stranger stalkers, suffer from mental health disorders (such as paranoid schizophrenia or manic depression) and exhibit delusional thought patterns or behaviors.  I would think if this little bit of observation were in the material the Deputies and Detectives had about stalkers they would have been better able to deal effectively with Keenan than they did.  Actually they had no material on stalkers of stalking so, anything would have been an improvement really.

There is advice suggesting you should approach the stranger stalker (just once), and tell them firmly to stop, then attempt to involve family members to assist.  I question both of these thoughts, as I have been told that his father Wade was quick to bring him to the Sheriff’s office to answer questions, but also quick to opine that he had not done anything wrong.  I wonder how he could be so sure and I doubt he would have been receptive to talking his son out of his stalking obsession.

His mother, Jennifer Johnson, to this day will not even admit he was pretty much the schoolyard bully back in grade school, when that fact is well known up and down the valley.  So I really don’t see how an attempt to involve the parents would have really been very productive.  Most likely the opposite.

His parents and friends are pretty intent on protecting him by whatever means they can, and don’t seem ready to admit Keenan could ever do anything wrong.  This I am sad to say is something that has played out many times in cases of stalkers – many, many times they have family members, friends, even people that don’t really know them that well make up excuses, alibis and lies for them.  Sometimes I would assume because they want to keep them out of trouble, other times possibly because they themselves don’t want to believe something like this could really happen, and then there are always friends that have been warned not to be “snitches”, or else,  as in this case.

Which brings up the third piece of advice which I have found to be a very informative, and a useful tool – that is to get the criminal records of the stalker, especially a stranger stalker.  As the claims that he has never been in trouble in his life grow ever louder from all of his family, the list of charges, for a twenty-one year old seem very, very, long.  And most all of the charges he has been found guilty of portend to a serious problem if connected with a stranger stalker, as they are in Morgan’s case.

In fact after having had a chance to look over criminal records for all the immediate family and friends, I can see why this is suggested in a stranger stalking situation.  I don’t know if the Sheriffs are at liberty to run these records and share them with victims, but I believe it would be a big help.

I think it would be safe to say that successful criminals research their victims first, just as hunters research, and stalk their prey before a successful kill.  So in the victims interest – why would you not want to arm yourself with research and facts on those that are threatening to do you harm, as stalkers obviously do.

In all of the people claiming to be friends of the families that have contacted me, I found one to be very telling.  He claimed to be a good friend of James Harris, and wished to vouch for his integrity.  And then in the next sentence he admitted that Brooke was probably not one to be trusted.  Very telling indeed when even Jim’s friends know a thing or two about Brooke and her checkered past.

Selective Evidence? – Part 1 on Morgan’s stalking and death scene investigation

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pillbottle

The morning of 12/2/2011 was ruled by emotion.  Steve and I look back on that morning, and know there was nothing that was right.  No place to sit, nothing to say, no advice to hear that made any sense.  We were guided, and led by others far more than making any cognizant decision.

For law enforcement, the Sheriff’s department, and whoever else was there I would have to say chaos was the defining word.  There was surprise, shock, emotions to the state of tears, but the overwhelming feeling I remember is that they were acting as if they just really did not know what to do.

Questions to me of any consequence were very few.  Both Steve and I fully expected there would be an investigation in the coming weeks and months, which would include detailed questioning about all the important things surrounding Morgan’s death…but it never came, never happened.

The two Detectives who were assigned to her stalking case, Megan Alstatt, and Rob Glassmire kept up with the stalking case, they gave us time to adjust, and heal.  But as for an investigation into her death, it became a grey area.  No real person in charge, no one sure who we should talk to, how we should react to a Postmortem Examination Report that had more mistakes than truth.  An answer later on to us was, “Why would there be an investigation into her death, the Pathologist called it natural causes?”  It would be easy to call it surreal, but it was our daughter, and we wanted the truth about her death, and it seemed that was not much of a priority in this system.

Even in the smallest detail, like medications Morgan may have been taking, caused chaos.  It sounds so simple, parents know the prescriptions of their daughter, at least Steve and I certainly do.  If not us, there is her doctor, Steve had this theory that no matter how many different doctors you see over time, if there were any prescriptions they should always come from one doctor, it really is a safety measure, and something he’s always insisted on.  Morgan did the same, so any current medications would be at a single source, not hard at all to find out.

Then if we as her parents, and the doctor chosen to monitor all of her medications as part of his responsibilities, didn’t qualify for that kind of information, there was always the pharmacy, same one we had used for many years (of importance yet to be determined – it was the same pharmacy located in the City Market that Keenan worked in).  But none of these seemingly obvious means to determine if Morgan was taking medications was used.  Instead a rather arbitrary, actually almost unbelievable method was used.  It seems that Garco Sheriffs department personnel searched Morgan’s room, and if a prescription bottle was found, no matter what the date on that bottle was it then became a medication that Morgan was using in their opinion.  Not only were they wrong, but these medications did not show up in Morgan’s tox results, only one…go figure, probably because she wasn’t taking them and hadn’t for a really long time.

Little details such as if it had been filled for the last time over two years ago, the bottle was empty, the prescription was expired, and never renewed, did not seem to matter in this search for Morgan’s correct, if any medications.  All of the bottles I found in her room after her death, and after the chaos were empty.  Some officers report they were full (the actual count not given, just full), while other officers report they were empty.

Here is a really important clue that may have helped them.  In the midst of this chaos, an officer walked up to me with Morgan’s pill holder from the car, and wanted to know if I knew what was in it.  I explained to him the pills that were in it, the reason they were there, even the doctor who could verify it all, if needed.  I was assured that was not necessary and right along with everything else they were compiling on their own, the information I gave that officer was twisted, misconstrued, and incorrectly reported.  How hard can it be?  I would have written it all down for him if that is what it took to get it correct.

Fighting to have the mistakes of that morning corrected has taken exponentially more time then it took them all to make the mistakes, and it really is a fight that continues to this day, maybe they are not really interested in the truth, at some point I have to really wonder.

The very amazing fact is that I told that officer that inquired about the pill holder from the car that Morgan was not really taking any medications, not on a regular basis, the few pills in that pill minder were put in the car just in case of emergency.  Think of it like a bottle of Tylenol you keep in your glove compartment in case you are away from your house and you get a horrible headache…that is the same nature of keeping that pill holder in the car. She wasn’t using it, but I wanted it there just in case.

He did not question me about the fact she was not taking any medications.  He did not ask to speak with her doctor, who would have also known.  He did not ask to see a copy of pharmacy records.  Yet I read now in the reports from that morning, the morning of her death, all sorts of medications they say she was taking, for reasons that I have to assume they just made up, because there is no truth to any of them.  Morgan had a tox screen and none of these medications they list as ones she was talking were found in her system.  Except one.

Also mixed in were five other drugs in the date rape cocktail found in her stomach was amitriptyline.  In her blood was found none of the prescription medications the GarCo Sheriff’s department reported she was taking, I’ll mention again the medications they assumed she was taking that were not in her blood were supposedly taken by Morgan for reasons absolutely unknown to me, because they are all wrong, and would have known that if they had asked us instead of playing doctor.  Could you possibly screw it up any more than this?  The contracted forensic pathologist looked it all over, and had a simple solution.  List the amitriptyline, and ignore everything else, and he’ll call it insignificant.

None of this seemed to bother anyone.  Is it any wonder that a year later the DA said the Sheriff’s department had so thoroughly botched Morgan’s death scene investigation.  And all this was just on Morgan’s medications!  On the list I had printed out by the pharmacy, none had been filled since May of 2009, which would be 2 and a 1/2 years before her death.  Meaning any medication they found was over 2 1/2 years old – at least 2 1/2 years old, bottle empty, and from that they construct a list of medications, and erroneous reasons for Morgan to take those medications.

I will share something with you that I have been told many times since Morgan’s death by doctors reviewing her records.  It’s been unanimous that all these doctors felt this case would only get better from here, always saying, “don’t worry”, “they can’t change to that” or “they can’t say this”, while adding that the proof is all here in black and white.  And I don’t blame their optimism that sanity would prevail one bit, because it was obvious to us too, but unfortunately my “gut” was warning me again that there just was something wrong here.

Well they did just that, the actual thing I was concerned about, they came to all the wrong conclusions, GarCo’s finest, it is deflating, hurtful, and disgusting to see so little effort be put forth in any suspicious death.  If it is you daughter, you have to make sure the correct doctor is on hand to correct ridiculous mistakes, because it only gets worse.

If I had to explain any part of this to Morgan, I truly do not know what I would say.  I taught her to trust, and try to see the best in all.  To be calm, and let justice takes its path, let the truth shine – and now she has lost her life, because in this case it wasn’t the best advice.

For the investigation into something so pathetically simple as Morgan’s medications to end up so completely upside down, and backwards is without excuse.  To refuse any attempt to correct egregious errors that have risen to a point that you’d think they had been chiseled into stone.  Of course, this is without adding the fact that Morgan’s blood level, perhaps 12 hours after death, of amitriptyline was 7,909 ng/ml.  I asked, and I asked, and I  asked again, and that was one of the highest levels ever seen at the large national crime laboratory that tested her samples.  The contracted pathologist had a simple solution for that too, he just called it insignificant.  The highest level they had ever seen was listed and represented as insignificant.  Am I the only one who sees a problem with that?

The answers are all right here for Morgan’s case.  That the crime scene was so thoroughly botched by the Sheriff’s department can be overcome by other evidence that has presented itself.  Isn’t solving the crime still important at some point?

Justice for Morgan has to still be in play, she really hasn’t been treated with fairness, respect, and dignity – has she?  Nobody charged with the responsibility is really standing up for her right to due process – are they?

The FBI reminds me that there is no law against incompetence, but I still believe a failure to protect, under color of law was present here, along with the requirement for officers to act in compliance with the law.

Does it seem that Morgan’s civil rights, were vaporized by a stalker and sexual pervert, aided by the Sheriffs department, the Coroner and of course his contracted forensic pathologist?  What are we all willing to do for the next victim suffering a similar fate?  At this point I can’t see how it will go any better for the next victim unless GarCo changes how they do things.  We have to remember after all, this stalker/murderer still runs free…

Victims of Stalking need your Compassion – it means a lot!!!

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leaves

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

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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!

http://youtu.be/01-PqqifyjA

April 26 – May 5, 2012 / A dog with a lot of love, but too old to patrol, and a lot of unanswered questions

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Joey - Ryan's old watchdog that we borrowed 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

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.