How Come I Did Not See this Sooner?

Morgan always like rocks - not one was alike...kind of like Morgan...no one was like her.

Morgan always like rocks – not one was alike…kind of like Morgan…no one was like her.

Since none of you have ever seen my timeline, I want to just share a few things.  First it has many personal thoughts in it, open questions to myself, long-held beliefs, even private thoughts about my Nana, and what she would do.  It always made it a challenge to send an update to the Detectives, it was hours of reading every word to take out the very personal stuff, and give them the facts I felt they needed.

Another big thing is question marks, lots and lots of question marks.  That was a far easier search and replace operation to remove question marks to myself.  Every question mark was information I had to fill in, like a phone number, or a time, or a full name, an address, sometimes even behind the scenes connections.  I wanted the Detectives to always be able to reach anyone important in Morgan’s Felony Stalking case.  As I remove the last of the remaining question marks now I am constantly reminded of one fact – the Felony Stalking Detectives never knew where Keenan lived.  Detective Glassmire admitted that to me long after Morgan’s death.  At one point in the case Detective Glassmire told me that he knew where Keenan’s father used to live, his father was not even a suspect, and it was a “used to live” answer.

But how in the world can that be?  How can they ask me for every address and phone number and never even know where their prime suspect lived?  What if an exigent situation presented itself?  Like Morgan missing, or signs pointing to an escalation that would possibly be quelled by a face to face at his home,  or what if she turned up dead? After they became certain Keenan was the stalker, and put Brooke behind him one notch on the probable guilt scale it would seem to me that to not even know where he lived at that point is inexcusable.  Was it because he was a man?  Really, because as I relive for the umpteenth time, with fresh eyes, I see instance after instance that with a man – instantly credible, even if criminal, and Morgan, woman – second class citizen, or worse.

I’m afraid I am still being way too generous as I reread my last sentence.  If Morgan was found dead of suspicious circumstances – three days after her stalking was, “if anything it’s going to escalate,” according to the lead Detective, and her body discovered on the morning after deputies patrolled the neighborhood numerous times, shining their searchlight up on our roof top, in a radical departure from previous patrols.  When a shocking array of facts would come to light long after the Sheriff’s investigating her death would complete their, “investigation,” of her death scene in a few hours, hop in their cars and ride away, after collecting nothing except her personal electronics, and an old journal.

Was she even treated as a second class citizen, or wasn’t the obvious, “elephant standing in the room,” called possible murder, being ignored completely?  Why would that happen?  There are really few reasons to ignore what is a possible murder, and because she was a woman has to top that very short list.

And as I remove those question marks, and replace the spot with facts I am revisiting there was another, all too obvious maneuver, that took place twice during Morgan’s stalking investigation:

First there was a Deputy that really investigated, showed Morgan, and Steve and I, a photo line up of suspects, this happened exactly once in the investigation.  It was as if he came from a different Law Enforcement Department.  It was before the case became a Felony Stalking case and he was not a Detective.  He easily came the closest to nabbing the stalker in the act, had flushed him out for all intents, and right after he almost nabbed the criminal, next time it was going to be for all the marbles, and suddenly, he was, “reassigned,” and we never saw him again.

Second, another officer, also above and beyond all others, her eyes spoke of her commitment in volumes – and in what I now can see as the darkest hours, before she was killed, Morgan told me that this officer was the only one she trusted or had any faith in anymore.  She was, “reassigned,” too.

Coincidence that the two officers most committed to Morgan’s case were both sent elsewhere, or was it part and parcel of the GarCo, “no foul play here,” two-step?

So now as I work on removing every last question mark, I relive the little details and feel like I have such a different perception.  My focus is getting much sharper.  I was told many times in many ways by so many great people who the first year or two certain things would be very hard to do, to be careful not to push so hard.  Steve and I had an almost tag team mentality of pushing until we crashed, then picking each other up to push some more.  At times their was not much really happening, but I can’t imagine any other way to deal with what happened to Morgan.

There is a Constitution for this country and a Constitution for this state.  Steve is researching those documents now, and keeps me updated on the transgressions he finds.  Which launches another round of research to really answer the question he has just raised, the bottom line is that Morgan’s Constitutional Rights were lost in her stalking and death.  They are there for a reason and the next victim will need her full complement of Constitutional Rights enforced diligently to have a different outcome.  I am certain of that.

The Morgan Ingram Foundation is very close to the beginning of that daunting task.  If it is within the capability of Steve and I, and with invaluable help from Morgan’s brother and sister, and the large dedicated band that stands with us in this cause, we will succeed in changing outcomes.  There is the cliché that if we only save one young woman we are a success, but I aim higher than that.  There is a gap that needs closing.  A gap between what so desperately needs to be available to victims of stalking, and what is currently available to victims.  That will be the focus and we will measure our collective success in the closing of that gap.

We obviously really wish we could have realized things sooner, but in Morgan’s honor to take our mistakes and turn them into something positive is what is left for us to do now.  That is the single best thing that can come from this, closing the gap.  And because I mentioned her, I’m going to thank my Nana, for always being there, and thank all of you, and I mean all of you for your kind thoughts, and sincere wishes.  To express how much that has meant to Steve and I is not possible…not even close.

To think now how the world can be a better place is so exciting for me, when there was a time not too long ago that excitement was a foreign thought, it is such a good feeling…

Was #Forced #Entry Ever Really Visited by the #Sheriffs?

Morganinknithat

It seems so subjective to me.  On one hand sometimes it’s so obvious that it’s hard to deny, like your door jamb is in splinters, then its safe to say someone may have broken in.  Otherwise, without a really obvious sign, then does that mean it didn’t happen?  What about a lock pick, stolen key, what about the fact that nobody, and I mean nobody from the Sheriff’s department ever asked us if we double checked, and are certain that every door was locked last night or to check for any missing keys.  Well, what about other signs, other clues, and yes, let’s even include those escalations of a crime already going on for four months.  What do they all mean when it comes to forced entry.

That Tuesday (2 days before Morgan was murdered) Detective Glassmire said that, “if anything it was going to escalate.”  He was talking about the stalking of Morgan by Keenan Vanginkel, or at least he was 100% certain now that it was Keenan Vanginkel.  I told him I was 99% sure that it was only Keenan, but I still waited to erase that last bit of doubt that there may not have been someone else involved.  That would come soon enough, just in the most horrific way.

The word escalate was really on my mind that week after the Detective left, it was on everyone’s mind, how could you ignore a warning like that?  I thought it was going to come while Morgan was alone somewhere in the car.  He had already been escalating in his stalking while Morgan was out in the car, even revealing himself to Morgan many times, and I feared it was not going to be only worse after hearing the Detectives words.

It’s a really tough thing when you are in a stalking situation and the Detective drops a warning that it’s going to escalate.  Steve and I were talking about it this morning and he remembered that at the time Morgan only had a few classes left before she was off for the holidays, that we had talked about sending her away to visit, anywhere but here, at her home, over the holidays.

It was painful to remember that little talk,  how we tried to find sanity in the insane actions around us.  I had not remembered the incident before, and added it to my timeline.  Which is destined to be a work in progress perpetually, until the day he is caught.  There was talk after her death, based on some inside knowledge Brooke had, that Morgan was redressed because she was not supposed to be in the house the next day.  She was supposed to disappear after she died.  Just another of the so many rumors that come and go.  It certainly would have been worse for us, if she had just been gone, and we had no idea what had happened.

The Sheriff’s would undoubtedly have called her a runaway – which would have been ridiculous.  An investigative reporter told me that the Roaring Fork Valley and Garfield County is off the charts on that kind of thing happening.  And we would never know what had happened, I get shivers thinking about it.  I feel so terribly sorry for all the other parents in this valley that it has happened to, it must be doubly devastating.

But right there, in remembering our plans for the upcoming holidays something else came back to Steve.  He was up and looking for the old door lock, soon he had it in his hands and was showing me.  We moved right after Morgan’s death, and then we moved again, it was amazing he could go right to it and in an instant I knew what is was.

When our front door lock broke, actually two door locks broke a week apart and many wrote in to express how strange that was, and how the odds must be very high against something like that happening.  Sort of like the “coincidence” of Morgan and Keenan passing right in the middle of the intersection, “by chance” during the rush of college classes at Morgan’s school emptying out, so Keenan could stare at her, over and over again.  Never ignore certified long shots happening if you are ever stalked, they probably are not long shots at all, but careful planning instead.  Placing under surveillance,  is a definition of stalking behavior.

The front door lock Steve now held was the front door lock that had suddenly broke after the stalking started. Steve replaced it with a heavy-duty key pad lock, which I will now hate forever, he put all of the pieces of the old lock in a zip lock bag, and put the bag up on the top shelf of my bakers rack by the kitchen.  First he meant to show the detectives, which he did, and then it sort of stayed there.  He also had put two keys in the bag with the lock, now the keys are no longer there.  Steve looked at me and said those same keys would have opened the garage door to the house too, which we never ever used them for.  Never even thought of until just that moment…and they were missing out of the bag he had put them in.

I wonder if it always works like this.  Bits and pieces coming up always, even years later. I guess your mind is always trying to protect itself from horrible thoughts, and our minds were probably working overtime not wanting to believe Morgan was actually dead or that some human predator could have done this to her…it was all too much at that moment. They aren’t evidence anymore I suppose, as this bag with the broken lock was not collected during their two-hour investigation of Morgan’s death under suspicious circumstances.  So they are just knowledge.  Keys that would have opened the garage door to the house went missing.  During Morgan’s stalking I used to lock that door so it’s the only time they would have been useful.

So if the stalker was able to gain entry into the garage then he could easily have had a key to get into the house without leaving a sign.  Which is just another reason it was so ridiculous for the detective to even say, “no sign of forced entry,” so no break in, no intruder?  There was a post called, No Sign Of Forced Entry? Really? That post outlined six ways to get into the house without a sign.  James Harris really took exception to one of the six, I even called it a real small possibility.  But James acted like I had accused him of the crime, animated and angry, or well rehearsed, either way I always take it as a sign that there might be more to that one,  sort of “must have hit pretty close to home moment.”

Then, here, a year and a half later, another way to get in without a sign of forced entry.  Oh and in the time between there have been two more.  These keys missing even reinforce one of those, so there are nine and counting.  Seven you know all about and two that are going to be filmed before I show them to you.

And it will be filmed just because the detectives stated an extremely frustrating thing, “That can’t be done,” it still rings in my ears.  If you are a detective or just someone who victims are counting on, please be absolutely sure before you say something like that.  Morgan was still alive when he did say it at that time, and it was in reference to getting on the roof by just climbing a tree.  He was absolutely, positively, certain that it could not be done, unless Steve left his ladder out and they used it, which Steve never did.  And that is where it was dropped.

Until months after her death when we were reviewing the cameras one time and saw the Patrol Deputies unmistakably searching the roof top the last two days of Morgan’s life.  And of course there was the suggestion made to Steve and I on a trip to visit his family that we should check up on the roof, for possible evidence, long after her death.  And Steve did check and boy was he upset, he said it was practically an elevator the first time Nathan climbed up the tree that was right up against the back of our house.  Our step-grandson was even faster, and more silent. It went from, “can’t be done,” to, “easily done,” in three months time and the knowledge could have, and should have been used to save Morgan’s life, instead of, “can’t be done.”  It’s our fault for listening, not questioning, please learn from our mistakes.

Every time the Sheriff’s thought something was not possible it turned out to be absolutely possible.  Just like the forced entry issue.  If you are ever in this situation I suggest you assume there are twenty ways to get in without leaving a mark, and if you find those twenty, then assume there are twenty more.  It would have been a far better approach than Steve and I used, trust me.

 

 

A beautiful picture & words from a supporter about how she feels about this situation…

This supporter captured this picture at the Annual Flower show she attended and it reminder her of Morgan

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.

Questions about What Happened

Miss You2

Tessi misses her Morgan – so much!

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 loved animals…all animals, so when I received this picture of Murphy the cat with a sign supporting us in our quest for justice for Morgan I just had to blog about it :)

Murphy with a sign of support!

Murphy with a sign of support!