This supporter captured this picture at the Annual Flower show she attended and it reminder her of Morgan
She wrote this to me, and I wish her husband had been our Detective on Morgan’s case – violence against women is not a joke – it is serious and should ALWAYS be taken seriously:
It is terrible that we live in a society where there is corruption and cover ups and where stalking and abusive against a woman is a hush, hush thing. I know from my husband that domestic violence calls are one of the most frequent calls they go to, and can be the most dangerous ones. I also know that when stalking is happening that the stalker escalates more each time it is done, and ultimately in so many cases they end up killing the person they are stalking. Again being a wife of cop I can not grasp my mind around officers who are not only sworn to protect all citizens but who take that oath and badge lightly and who (especially when it comes to these types of circumstances) take it all with a grain of salt. Such as “she is over reacting”, “she is reading into it”, “it’s not that bad”, “she is making a mountain out of a mole hill”, etc. I know personally when my husband swore that oath over 16 years ago that he meant every word of it, and lives by it while on the job, and off.
Once, a long time ago, I woke up early, went to the blog and started answering a question, but before I knew it, it was time to get ready for work and I had written more of a blog entry then the answer to a question. Was it the question, my mood, I’ll never know but this is the second time that has happened. If you want to read the question, it was asked in response to – Was it Arrogance or Something Worse? Carolina on
Carolina,
I completely agree with you that the, “investigators,” should have checked for fingerprints, DNA, hairs, etc. However, that was not done, none of it, and it is far, far too late now. The only investigation that morning was into Morgan, her cell phone, computer, camera, a three-year old journal, and even her ipod. Those were the items taken into evidence to solve this crime. Nothing that pointed to an intruder, at all. And trust me the evidence was there, it was everywhere. Only Steve and I are not investigators, we are not accredited death scene investigators, and we were in shock. We wish that nobody is ever put through what we went through, and Morgan is the very first on that list. We believed her stalker was always going to stay outside, satisfied to frighten, startle and shock. We were dealing with him as best we could, but we were too short-sighted. Count on your stalker to always break and enter at some point, think of it as the natural progression of stalking, at first timid, then more bold, and ever more bold, and then at some point, perhaps violent, lethal, as Morgan’s stalker was.
As parents, on the morning Morgan was found dead, we were politely asked if we had somewhere to go, we had to all leave until they were finished, “processing,” the scene, so we had no idea what was or was not done and a yellow crime scene tape was placed across her closed door when they did all leave. Her room off-limits and that day her death was declared a mystery for the time being.
A book Steve is reading on forensic crime scene techniques starts off with, “every death scene must be processed as a homicide until proven otherwise.” Morgan’s was absolutely not, and it was weeks later before her manner of death was found to be, natural causes, from a disease she was never diagnosed with. There was no excuse to attempt only to rule out suicide first, which they did – “no signs of suicide they assured us,” except they must have forgotten to tell Dr. Kurtzman, the contracted forensic pathologist who did her autopsy, that there was no signs of suicide. After many threats to me to give up on my concerted effort at having her manner of death changed from Natural, to Homicide, or Undetermined, and then an investigation being launched, as every consulting Doctor was telling us would be the only correct way to handle this. After eight months, Dr. K did in fact change her manner of death to suicide. Which leaves it up to us to take him to court to restore some truth to the memory of our daughter Morgan.
You are also right about revealing the medications that were a part of her death. We did, then the Coroner and pathologist went way beyond that, far into Morgan’s right to privacy. We had, as the Sheriff’s department well knows, one old, old bottle of a very low dose Amitriptyline in our room, not in Morgan’s room. This bottle started with 30 pills at some time long in the past and had ~ 12 left in it. The bottle was with other bottles waiting for proper disposal at a hospital collection day, usually held twice a year back then. Flushing down the toilet is not advised on small, rural, septic / sewer systems.
The reason Morgan ever had those pills was not for depression, not even close to that, that would be known by looking at the mg, but you see even that brief statement should not have to be made. I find myself saying many things about Morgan that have nothing to do with her stalking and murder, to defend her against, call them what you want, but they are simply lies. So Dr. K does the math, 30 pills when purchased, ~ 12 left in the bottle now, so she took eighteen – #1) Not a lethal dose, not even close to a lethal dose. #2) They were not even in her room and not accessible to her at that time, same pills that were left in the same bottle from a long time ago. #3) An estimate that no one can make, according to experts that testify about drugs in trials, such as a criminal or civil trial about what this would require. #4) Unknown to all because as part of the investigation nobody ever asked, but years prior to her death, Morgan made a decision that she did not want to take prescription medications, except as really needed, so she went to a doctor for help with this goal – once again her privacy being broken by me to tell this, and correct any falsehoods – and used a combination of hyperbaric chamber treatments, a strict diet, an exercise routine, stress management principles, yoga, and more. She was successful and was still not taking any prescription medications the day she was killed, no matter what anyone says, even the investigators at the house, they are wrong and they have to know it. Her tox screen proves this, as the range of detection varies from at least two days for some medications on out to 30 days for other drugs. And she had none of the drugs she was reportedly taking on the day she was killed detected in her, hello people! – except for the seven that were a part of her death, none of those seven were in her room, a container for any of them was not found in her room, a syringe for any was not found in her room. Are you beginning to see the problem? She did not have a prescription for any of the drugs related to her death and never did in all cases except one, and that one had not been for a long time. Due to hard work and commitment from Morgan to live life the way she wanted to. It only gets more obvious there is a big problem the deeper you go.
Then forensic experts, not a part of her original, “investigation,” have weighed in on the combination of drugs found, the locations, the absorption rates, the ratios, and other technical things, and contained in all these facts, they have determined that Morgan had help that night, and not in the good sense. The why we may never know, but there were ample signs of not only an intruder by physical evidence in the room, but evidence of an intruder intertwined in all the different drugs, and their reactions before you even get to Amitriptyline in a very, very large quantity. The crime lab that processed Morgan’s evidence even commented that it was a, “massive,” dose, along with the comment that they have rarely, if ever, seen a level that high. Many have also said to keep in mind that it is inconceivable that she could ingest even a fraction of the total found in her blood without vomiting.
Of course the PJ’s she wore to bed are gone and this might be the answer as to why. The suspicious spray of bodily fluids seen on her chest at the death scene could possibly have been remnants of vomit too, but as with the maddening reality of evidence in his case, it was only seen at the death scene and not by the contracted forensic pathologist at his, “hospital,” with far better equipment to detect it. So it was not swabbed, otherwise collected, and certainly not tested. And if, as one of the detectives opined at the scene, the spray could be an artifact of resuscitation attempts by the first responders, then I said fine, why didn’t you rule that out, because as I found out quickly, they use a gel, not a spray.
No one even went up to Steve that day, the person who administered CPR for his daughter for quite some time and said something really investigative, like, “Could you have sneezed on your daughters chest while you were performing CPR?” As for the vomit theory, we have been told this is a, “least likely scenario,” but that it is remotely possible. And the sneezing possibility, absolutely no, besides she was wearing a t-shirt at the time.
As for Brooke, Keenan lived at her house from the beginning of the stalking, she talked about it on Facebook and obviously knew, her father James also knew. The Sheriff’s Deputies, at least four, came to her house one night to question Keenan during a stalking situation, and she refused them access to Keenan, claimed he was asleep, yet the deputy heard noises inside the house when Keenan was the only living thing inside the house besides her. But Brooke denied the noise heard was anything?
The night Morgan was killed we have identified two figures outside the house on video, not sharp enough to identify, but sharp enough to know they are people and Jame’s friend who is also a criminal lawyer called me and wanted to know if we could tell if the figures seen outside our house on the fateful night were male or female, kind of a curious and revealing question wouldn’t you say?
If Brooke was in the room that night or not – that remains to be proven in court, beyond a reasonable doubt, the same goes for her complicity in the stalking, the burglary, the invasion of privacy for sexual gratification, the harassment, the eavesdropping and – the personal favorite of the Sheriff’s Department – misdemeanor trespassing, that all remains to be established in court.
The Detectives, by the way, were very torn establishing Brooke’s actual involvement in the crimes, their opinion seemed to change weekly, both how deep was she into the cascade of crimes and even if she was in fact, the leader. The question of if she was involved at all was never even questioned, from almost the very beginning of the Detectives involvement.
And, as yet another avenue in the crimes against Morgan, consider this. Brooke spent, judging from my experiences, a lot of time in rehab. I say this because first, I don’t know anyone who has needed rehab for more than a week or two, then, quite unexpectedly, people who were at Brooke’s rehab center in some capacity have contacted me after discovering about Brooke and the situation that happened, anonymously at first, and then more freely, and they then unabashedly paint a picture of Brooke as being very capable of committing all of these crimes. Following the first Dr. Phil episode airing, remarkably, a person who recalled Brooke using the exact phrase, “Where’s the proof.” in response to something she was accused of before Morgan’s death, which I found to be particularly eerie at the time i heard it. I have verified that she actually did stay at rehab for extended periods from her, “friends,” locally, and of course Brooke talks about it on her Facebook.
Meanwhile the absolute right exists for us to believe, based on the facts that we have and know to exist, regardless if we choose to share those facts or are advised not to. And we do have very strong beliefs based on what has transpired to date in Morgan’s case.
Lastly, as for Morgan’s ex-boyfriend, it is interesting how many tips have concerned him and Brooke as suspects, but that is for yet another blog, as this has now become. And don’t jump to any conclusions yet, because Steve and him are very close, and have spoken candidly about Morgan very often since Morgan’s death, we never had any reason to suspect him of anything, nor did Morgan.
Morgan fought to the end – If She was Disappointed, She had Every Right to Be.
We know that Morgan was killed. The doctors, the specialists, and the professors who’s pleas to Garfield County that fell on deaf ears have assured us of that fact.
We know the history the Ingram family now has with the contracted forensic pathologist hired by the Garfield County Coroner.
He found Morgan’s manner of death from a disease she was never, ever diagnosed with.
In his contracted capacity as the forensic pathologist, he is required by statute to manage the death scene, which he did not.
He threatened me, more than once, I reported this to the Detective, and to the Coroner, and neither one ever answered me. Say something they don’t like to hear, even if true, and they ignore you.
Doctors helping us wanted to run tests on Morgan’s remaining samples, to help prove other possible manners of death. The contracted pathologist knew this, but still ordered tests on samples in secrecy, violating our victims rights, and completely exhausting the samples remaining. Why would he do this?
Based on results that only further proved foul play, the pathologist found her death a suicide based on the theoretical ingesting of a quantity of pills that would not even be a fraction of a lethal dose.
Every day brings us closer to protracted litigation at a staggering cost as our only alternative to giving up.
On the first episode of Dr. Phil, the death scene evidence establishing the presence of someone in her room was not mentioned due to ongoing investigation on our part, as the Sheriff’s Department had given up the morning she was found dead. This included –
Morgan’s room was, for many reasons, very noticeably and completely disheveled from previous afternoon, and evening.
Her panic button, which rang a chime in our room, was torn off its mount on her nightstand, and found later on the floor under clothes.
Morgan was dressed in street clothes, and she never slept in street clothes. These clothes she was found in were not the same clothes that she wore home the night before.
Morgan’s PJ’s she was wearing that night when going to sleep were gone.
A suspicious spray was detected on Morgan’s chest under blacklight, the most primitive means of examining for this, yet the contracted forensic pathologist found nothing on her chest. A spray of dots does not disappear.
Morgan had wounds on her right hand not seen the night before, and consistent with defensive wounds.
She had a small red spot on her forehead, the size of a thumb that was not seen the night before by her father.
She had a small quantity of blood at edge of her lips.
There was a burn on the inside of her wrist. There are two quite sinister reasons for this, but a Medical Examiner has not had a chance to comment on what he believes it means. I do know that it was new and it was not seen the night before.
Her eyes were wide open and sold black, consistent with bleeding before she died and then the blood turning black over the course of the night.
The nails on her right hand were damaged when we saw her body again at the viewing and this is when they were first noticed by us. The contracted pathologist said he did not touch her nails, the detectives say they looked fine to them. The Coroner refuses to give us copies of the pictures taken at her death scene to really know when the damage occured – wouldn’t that be a huge question as it would show that she fought someone off? A big question mark for the time being.
Morgan was found on the opposite side of bed from where she always slept, facing the opposite direction from where she usually faced.
I felt her body looked posed when I first saw it, I told the detectives that the same morning, there was no mention of this exact fact.
Every report and opinion says the indications are simply that she was lying on her stomach, yet I found her on her side, and until Steve moved her to her back, that is how she was lying. She was never on her stomach that morning, not even for an instant.
Morgan’s lights in her bathroom, attached to her bedroom, went on sometime after midnight, Morgan never slept with lights on. If she were still alive then, she could have turned them on, but she would have turned them off again. The person who observed the lights wanted to explain this, and other things he had observed, but was never questioned by the Sheriff’s department.
All of Morgan’s jewelry of value went missing from her room sometime that night and was never found again. Keenan had a warrant issued for his arrest (and was arrested just weeks after her murder) for selling jewelry, in person, at a, “cash for gold store.” The Detective insisted I produce a photograph of every piece of Morgan’s jewelry first, and refused to give me even a list of what the stolen pawned jewelry contained. Further the proprietors of the cash for gold store instantly recognized Keenan from a Facebook picture as a regular customer.
A knife Steve had just purchased for Morgan was in her bed, in an odd place, still in the box, with a happy face drawn on it by Steve.
A very recent and important gift to Morgan was taken from its box, the box left and the gift never found.
Morgan’s camera was taken into evidence and returned by the Sheriff’s. When it was returned from evidence, it was missing the memory chip from the camera. The Sheriff’s department has not been able to locate that memory chip or a copy that they would have made if there was a memory chip in it.
Morgan’s driver’s license was missing from her purse. Her instruction permit which she normally kept in her purse right behind her license was still there, but her current drivers license was missing and has never been located.
Other doctors helping with Morgan’s case found that she died from a massive overkill, one time dose of Amitriptyline early on in their examination of her toxicology results. The contracted forensic pathologist finally backed off his stance that she died from a disease she was never diagnosed with, and backed off to partially agree with this same conclusion after eight months. He really had no choice as he was clinging to a non-defensible position. A container or any syringe to hold, and administer this very lethal dose was never found in her room, or anywhere in her possessions.
At least three other pieces of evidence exist that point to an intruder in her room that night, but are being withheld at this time. One of these is something taken from the house that was not discovered until just weeks ago. Following every lead to the end will mean taking the video surveillance recorder back out and reviewing all six cameras for another day. So as you can see the investigation never really stops, and useful evidence is constantly refined, our knowledge of what really happened that night will never be 100%, but it is always improving. The real question is, if it was not Keenan in Morgan’s room that night, then who was it?
Now for those of you who do not know her, Morgan was a fighter, ask any of her friends and they will tell you that Morgan would not have gone down without a fight. However, backing up for moment first, and imagining Steve and I when Morgan was first found, then at that moment in time when her cause of death was being called Natural Causes. We did not think anyone was in her room initially and did not thoroughly search for indications. We researched her manner of death to safeguard our grandchildren from some unknown malady. As far as I can tell the Garfield Sheriff’s Department never did any search for an intruder. And as it became more and more obvious someone had to have been in her room, we fought the idea, I believe because it was just too painful to believe. It was quite some time before we could fully accept it.
The first question then became her puppy, Wylah, why would she not have barked? It was a quandary. Then came a possible solution, Steve was being questioned by an investigator, recreating the moment when the first responders were there, at least three big men, all strangers to Wylah. Steve remembers clearly that she just sat on the bed and did not make a sound. That was a good enough solution for the investigator, but I still wonder if there wasn’t some other way that she was subdued, some way that would carry over to subduing Morgan also.
Some have conjectured that she could have been threatened, assured she was not going to be killed, and threatened that one peep and Morgan’s puppy dies, or her cat, or even Morgan’s parents. I could see this happening. Morgan would have been compelled to go along.
Then think of drugs, there were five date rape drugs found in her stomach, none of them ever absorbed into her body, and a massive dose of amitriptyline in her bloodstream, one of he highest doses ever seen at the national crime lab her samples were tested at. Then, what about one more drug to sedate her. The only Tox screens that were run were very basic, and many drugs that would easily have knocked her out would not be detected at all. And not to be mysterious, but there is now a third possibility being checked out that will not be on the blog real soon, but it will find its way here as soon as it’s thoroughly checked out.
And that cry for help, it was real and it was meaningful, if only we had fully understood its importance….
I feel like I am re-writing the entire stalking case for the third time! First I compiled what evidence we collected into a timeline, day-by-day because Morgan’s stalking was not once a month – it was almost every day, and sometimes two or three times a day. Then a year later, I wrote a blog from my notes. And after all that, with help from the Honorable DA to enforce the Colorado Open Records Act, I finally got Sheriff’s reports, and I was sickened. But rather than explain that – let me give you an example, just one single example.
It was early November, after 68 days of nothing but different Sheriff’s Patrol Officers coming to our house every time we had an incident, never taking evidence, when Colorado law calls for quick intervention before stalking can escalate into something more serious, we were finally assigned a Felony Stalking Detective and a case number. We were always encouraged to call dispatch, and not 911, whenever anything happened, because it was easier for them, and so we did. Now I know why – but that is for another blog. Keenan VanGinkel, and Brooke Harris were the suspects, a fact known through the neighborhood, to Morgan, as well as by the Sheriff’s Department. And if you ever watched Brooke’s dad, James Harris on the Dr. Phil show exclaim that he knew nothing about a stalking – click here – for my response. And now, on to that single example.
Keenan was traveling to a hunting trip in Texas, a fact we would find out from neighbors soon enough, and it would be a busy night in our neighborhood. After nightfall a person walked from the back door of the house James, and Brooke Harris were living in, along the edge of the berm in our backyard, turning and coming up to the corner of the our house, right where an Aspen tree stood against the back corner of our house – we would later learn it was used to climb up onto the roof – and then this person doubled back over the berm, stopped to send a text message or two, and then came back over the berm, walked alongside our house, across our driveway and front yard, across our next door neighbor’s driveway and front yard, to just before the Harris’ house. Then a car (seen on our camera) left the neighborhood from the direction of Brooke’s house.
How do I know this? Or, where’s the proof…as Brooke would say. Well that is simple. It snowed that night, starting an hour before the walk, or march as it became known as, about two to three inches of thick, heavy snow. A very odd storm actually, as if it happened just to catch the events of the night. Our video surveillance camera mounted up on the eaves was high enough to clearly show the person texting from behind the berm. (Please note that I told our Felony Stalking Detective about the text caught on camera and showed him, and asked right then and there if he could get Brooke’s cell phone records, because our camera caught the exact time of the text, and he could see who she sent the text to – and if it was her on camera, but he told me it is almost impossible to get those kind of records, and he would not be able to obtain them). Other cameras would show the person, whom everyone who has seen the camera footage believes is a female, and not Keenan. So not only did we have the footprints with a very visible trail the next day, but our cameras captured good footage of the event as well as a car departing at the end of the “march” or can we say alibi? Evidence.
This series of events included everything except the usual terror. No tapping or banging on Morgan’s window. No footprints up against the house while the predator tried to peer into Morgan’s windows, only footprints right up to our Master bedroom window. No scraping noises, no beeping of the front door lock. Steve and I slept through it all, as did Morgan, and until I saw the tracks through the snow in the morning we didn’t even know it had happened. Then it became more and more sinister, from every angle.
I called dispatch and then Steve, and he came home from work, easily arriving twenty minutes before the responding Garfield County Deputy. Enough time (before the footprints melted) to start on a map of the trail (from a safe distance) that the footprints took – from start to finish, including the tire tracks. He finished the map with the Deputy after he finally came to our house, while walking with the Deputy around the entire trail, absolutely no doubt that it started at the Harris’s house, and then went to various places at our house then circled the front and stopped where a car had been parked. If fact here is a second map Steve drew up for the Detective after the map he gave the Patrol Deputy was, “misplaced.” Map given to Detective Glassmire.
After the Deputy looked and nodded he left, but nothing else. Not so much as a knock on the Harris’ door to ask about this trail that started at their back door, in the middle of a felony stalking case at the house the trail led to, and circled. But all was not lost, I realized that the Sheriff’s wildlife camera had just been moved to the perfect spot to catch this walk, right along the berm, it could not have missed. I called Detective Glassmire to tell him the very potentially revealing news and expected he would come right over to retrieve the pictures of this suspect, but he would not, saying he was very busy and he would do it when he came on his regular Sunday meeting. He would later cancel the regular Sunday meeting for a week, which meant not reviewing the camera pictures for another week also. Then the day finally came and we were excited that we were going to see the pictures on the Sheriff’s camera. The moment Detective Glassmire looked down at Steve and I from atop our ladder and said there were no pictures, the batteries must be dead, we just crumbled – how could this be?
A few days after the walk recorded in the snow, Keenan, all the way in Texas still, officially no longer dating Brooke for many weeks, and moved out long before this happened, was on a facebook conversation and said he had, ”heard,” about the stalker at our house, but it could not be him because he was in a truck headed for Texas at the time it happened.
Just days after that, Steve and I pulled alongside our subdivision road for a rather impromptu conversation with Brooke and her friends, as they walked down the street, we were talking about the stalker – now, for the record, this would be exactly the only time ever, we were talking to Brooke in the subdivision, about anything – and Brooke just had to tell us that she had “heard” that there was new video evidence that exonerated her boyfriend Keenan as the stalker. And I have to say it – the stalker that she didn’t know that we had, and wasn’t dating, and was not being harassed by as her father James thought, that was someone else. ????
So, sinister, malfeasance, incompetence. guilty as guilty can be, you decide.
But:
The trail started right at the Harris’ back door, at the beginning of month four of a Felony Stalking case, and nobody, Deputy or Detective questions anybody about anything related to this incident?
There are tire tracks preserved in the snow, and nobody, Deputy, or Detective orders or makes a cast of them?
Keenan knows about the, “stalking incident that proves it’s not him,” within hours of the event and brags about it on Facebook – all relayed to the Detective, but no questions, no report, no copies of what was said, nothing.
Brooke knows there is new video evidence that exonerates her boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, before Steve and I have even had a chance to review all the footage, and send it on to the Sheriff’s Department, as was our normal procedure. How did Brooke know about this so soon after? Who told her? Was she the one on camera like I suspect?
Why does the Detective in a Felony Stalking case not rush out to review the camera for timely evidence, and a possible arrest, or at least come the next day, but instead he waits almost two weeks only to find out the batteries are dead in his camera and there is nothing?
Why did our batteries in every wildlife camera we purchased last the entire four months of the stalking before being recycled into another use with plenty of life left in them, and the Sheriff’s batteries went dead in a few weeks?
Whatever happened to the first map that Steve drew for the Deputy, and reviewed on scene that same day with the Deputy, before the snow melted? I mean should he have had the Deputy sign a copy and we maintain all the evidence ourselves?
Why were phone records for the suspects for that day never even requested? If Brooke wanted to prove her innocence it would be a great start. It would be a tiny part of their records because we could tell right to the second when the person behind the berm was texting.
AND, why is there no Garfield County Sheriff’s Department official report of this stalking report???
And remember this is just one example, just one.
Were it not for the keen memories of Brooke talking to us in the subdivision, and Keenan talking about it on a private message to one of Morgan’s friends on Facebook – it’s as if it never even happened. Except it did happen, Steve and I were there. Morgan was there too, only our daughter Morgan is now dead…
The days are long and I am not sure myself if, like Steve, the realization that she is really gone is stronger now than it has ever been…
There is however, one big shining glow that both of us have to acknowledge – even just yesterday, one of Morgan’s friends expressed, “You should remember that Morgan inspires me to this day to do my best, she was my mirror, reflected who I was when I couldn’t see.” I thought that was so beautiful and I just wanted to share that with you all. More than anything in the world, Morgan CARED. She cared about everyone, she loved so many people, and wanted to help the world.
To all of you who have expressed in some private moment how much Morgan changed your life – for the better, forever – I just want you to know as parents, Steve and I will cherish those very meaningful feelings always, and we love you all for your willingness to tell us about our daughter.
