Counting the days,
We have hopes, Steve and I, and realistic expectations. The Blog is quiet, but we are working hard, and the United States Postal Service, and FedEx deliver letters, with plenty of documents for us. We want Morgan’s case opened, we want the truth to come out, and we want justice for Morgan.
Morgan is, and will always be on our mind, along with the next young woman whom we so fervently work to prevent a repeat of what happened to Morgan, and as it turns out this week – another young woman who disappeared, under suspicious circumstances, in Garfield County, only to have her family receive a quick, “no foul play here,” from our Garfield County Sheriffs department.
Sound Familiar?
Her remains were discovered close to where she initially went missing and, thanks to the CBI, oh what I would not give for their presence at Morgan’s death scene, the remains were identified, and our most heartfelt condolences goes out to her family. It is a day even I can only imagine what it is like as they were wishing it were not true.
Her story of the moment is here, Young woman’s remains found near where she went missing have been identified. And with two young children left at the wayside, and wondering, I can only pray that the long overdue justice for a missing young woman, that was both a mother, and a daughter, comes swiftly and atoning for the callous undeserved treatment of the past.
Garfield County again displays its indifference to Crimes Against Women and what a total lack of regard for Constitutional rights goes on, unless it involves a gun, portending nothing encouraging for all the women, young and old, who live here.
On the morning Morgan was found, dead, to err on the side of too much, instead of too little, should have come with no question. Instead it did not come at all for Morgan, and how long it takes for grieving parents to fully realize that is just amazing. I have recently taken delivery of the “FBI handbook of crime scene forensics,” and once again get to read about all of the essential actions that did not take place at Morgan’s crime scene, so far they are innumerable.
They, being the Garfield County Sheriffs Department, could have made one phone call, to the CBI, the agency that Pitkin County, a Garfield neighbor that takes crime seriously, would call without question, in fact it is not only without question, it is protocol, the rules. For a microscopic evaluation of a suspicious death scene that Morgan deserved after four months of stalking, and a worry on the mind of her felony stalking Detective who warned us, “if anything her stalking will escalate,” and three days later, Morgan is found dead.
Months later I deal with the threats of the contracted forensic pathologist to change her cause of death to suicide, but he couldn’t find any pills or residue of pills in her stomach, threats which are ignored when I report this to the Coroner who hired this man, and the Sheriffs who, actually I don’t really know what they do, except to stand up for your right to bear arms. Even write essays about it.
But you know what? When your daughter is murdered and the Sheriffs and Coroner ignore the threats you are reporting; but detectives run, two at a time, to record the report of your gnome gone from your porch, but still refuse, yes blatantly refuse, to report the burglary of Morgan’s jewelry on the night she was killed – something is not right. When that is your reality – the right to bear arms becomes but soft whisper in the far distance.
It did not take a gun to protect Morgan, as her stalking was expected to escalate. It took something that Garfield County did not have, and does not have today, it took simply the knowledge of how to effectively deal with stalkers, especially the kind that was stalking Morgan, one of the most dangerous typologies.
I have recently read protocols that explain what to do if the first attempt to catch the stalker failed, how attempts could be completely changed for the next stalking incident. Morgan’s protocol was based on the lie that some unwritten law in the State of Colorado required seven weeks, 49 days, before it could be considered a stalking case.
As if that lie was not bad enough, in the non-attempt to protect Morgan, it was actually 68 days before I received a phone call from the Detective that was finally assigned to the case. Even with their total misconception of the laws they are sworn to uphold, they thought somehow 49 days being the requirement, it became over 70+ days before we even had a case number, and so then the fact that Morgan was a stalking victim was not a complete shock to the new Deputy arriving to answer a call of yet another stalking incident. A call not to 911, as this was not necessary, they answered a call from the Sheriff’s dispatch number.
If my math is correct that was three weeks longer than their incorrect knowledge of Colorado Law, the ones they were sworn to uphold. Ten weeks of stalking, ten weeks of oh, we are not allowed to collect evidence until a Detective is assigned to the case. Ten weeks of complete terror for Morgan. Then at the end, three days before she was killed it was, “if anything it was going to escalate.” And Morgan was dead, of natural causes, until her doctors told me it was all wrong, and I told the contracted forensic pathologist, “Excuse me, due to this fact, and that fact, a few very prominent doctors in the country think you might have made a mistake here?”
A Mesa County Investigator shook his head and told me, “Oh Dr. Kurtzman does not like to be wrong.” And I say, what about Morgan? What about my 20-year-old daughter that was killed – according to what every other single person reviewing her autopsy is telling me. I say that is not denial!!! Not a mother who can’t accept! It is simply the truth, and it never changes. Her Amitriptyline blood level of 7,909 will not change. It will always be very, very astronomical. Morgan weighed 115 pounds. So in another report a woman who weighed 171 pounds was the highest yet recorded, would Morgan’s blood level (if you took into account her weight and the fact that her blood was drawn approximately 12 hours after her death) not be the equivalent of 11,863+? Absolutely one of the highest levels ever recorded at a top lab in the country. But it was being called insignificant according to the contracted forensic pathologist who did her autopsy. A fact that the officials in Garfield County chose to ignore. Then let’s add in the five date rape drugs found in her gastric fluid, seven months later, and those numbers or detectability of the drugs present will not change. The astounding malpractice of the contacted forensic pathologist to jump into this evidentiary quagmire that exhausted her sample, when the truth is supposed to be somewhere within his scope, or sphere of influence, just has everyone asking why?
And, why oh why, does a contracted forensic pathologist suddenly take it upon himself to run more tests on a, “closed case.” After threats to me that he could do just that, and another prominent forensic pathologist assured me that he can not. But out of fear, and worry I reported to the Sheriffs department, and the Coroner his threats, then he carries through on his threats. Is there justice for Morgan somewhere in all that? Because if there is I must have missed it…completely.
And last week another set of bones was discovered (see the link above), a young woman labeled as, “no sign of foul play.” And NOW there is an investigation, eight years after her death. Why don’t they just amend the Garfield County sign on the highway to include the warning that if you are a woman, you might want to keep driving, because you are not very safe here?
If you are missing you will be called a runaway (even if you have never run away before, even if you are a straight A student – doesn’t matter they won’t look in to it), unless you are 22 with 2 children, then it will simply be called no sign of foul play, so no investigation, basically the same thing. If that is not blatant discrimination against women, then what would it take? Really, what would it take to correctly label what is going on here?