Tag Archives: Catching a stalker

An article from the Journal of Criminal Justice – how would you react if your daughter was stalked & murdered?

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Let’s say for a moment (and I pray this will never be true in your case) that your daughter has a stalker – you want to keep your daughter safe so you call law enforcement, but at the same time you don’t just sit back and hope they protect her (you realize they can’t be everywhere all the time), you also do everything you can think of to keep her safe, while at the same time trusting in law enforcement to do their job.  You have no experience when it comes to stalking situations, you have only heard about celebrity stalkers, and you have no idea what to do or not to do.

Everyone you confide in has different suggestions – you decide to do as many as possible. Motion alarms, motions lights, cameras, pepper spray, mace with a staining solution that glows in the dark, water and rake the ground in order to get better footprints, observe what lights are on in neighboring houses or what cars are in driveways in the middle of the night when the stalker was just at your house, do your own stake-out, keep a timeline, borrow a watch dog, (we did that for a week, we love our dog, but just as a few of our readers have said that have the same breed as our dog, our dog is not a watch dog, never barked when the code on the front door was pushed, never barked when tapping happened on the windows), she only barks when she hears the doorbell ring (Morgan’s stalker did not ring the doorbell), or when she hears a loud knocking on the front door (Morgan’s stalker did not do that either), or if she sees someone through a window that she does not trust (that happened once when the stalker came up our driveway at night and she saw him through the front door window, read about that one here, October 18, 2011), but she did bark 3 times because of the stalker that I remember during that 4 month period, once which I mentioned above, once when I was in my office in the very front of the house, I had not gone to bed yet – I was waiting up to meet Morgan in the driveway, and Morgan called to say she would not be home until morning because she was sleeping at a friend’s house – she was exhausted and wanted to get a full nights sleep.  As soon as I hung up the phone something hard, and loud hit my window – I was startled and jumped, as did our dog, who was lying on the floor next to where I was standing, and she started to bark.  That was my first time to feel the absolute skin crawling fright that Morgan had been experiencing almost every day – and that was the first, and one of the 3 times our dog barked because of the stalker.  Suggestions like a bear trap, fish hooks on invisible fishing line hanging from the trees, things like that I couldn’t do – I love animals just like Morgan did, and injuring or killing an animal while trying to catch or stop a stalker did not sound like the right thing to do at the time.

Then your daughter’s stalking case becomes a FELONY STALKING case, and a detective is assigned to the case. You breathe a sigh of relief (because you trust law enforcement, you, like me, have seen some amazing heroes over the years), but you still keep trying to come up with ways to catch the stalker, as well as ways to protect your daughter, because you are a parent, and that is what parents are supposed to do…protect your child. With all the things we had tried we were still trying to add more things – wouldn’t you?  I told Morgan I would purchase a taser gun for her, she said she wouldn’t be able to use it.  Why?  She said, “Mom picture this, I am walking from the car to the house, holding car keys in one hand, along with pepper spray and my puppies leash in the other hand, how am I supposed to hold a taser and use it?”  So much for that idea…so I kept meeting her every time she drove home, in the driveway with pepper spray in my hand as well.  She would always send me a text to tell me she was on her way home, and I would wait for her and meet her outside – no matter what the weather was like, I’m sure you would do the same to protect your daughter.  Were her text messages being monitored?  I asked the detective, but he said he didn’t know of any software that could do that. Relatives said to carry a gun – we had one – and if we had to use it in the house we would have, but we lived in a neighborhood with houses fairly close together so if we saw the stalker running outside of our house and shot at him and missed the bullet could have gone right into a neighbor’s house and wounded, or even worse, killed an innocent person – that to me was not a valid option either.

Then after four months of being terrorized, the unthinkable happens…you find your daughter’s lifeless body.  You call 911 – you do CPR until the EMT’s rush into your home to take over, with so much hope and determination in their eyes, definitely heroes trying to save our 20-year-old with so much life still ahead of her, only to bow their heads in defeat. Your mind swirls thinking you must be having a nightmare.  This can’t be happening!  Please take me not her…then your mind starts up with all the questions – what happened, how did this happen, how could this happen to her?

This is now the worst pain you have ever felt in your entire life and it doesn’t end there.  That same morning you are told there are no signs of forced entry, no signs of a sexual assault, no signs of a struggle, no signs of suicide, and at this time law enforcement tells you her death is a mystery.  Your mind screams – mystery?  She is a healthy 20-year-old that has a felony stalker that has been terrorizing her for 4 months, and you were just told by the lead detective (only 2 days earlier) that in his opinion the stalker would not stop, if anything he would escalate – you start to ask question after question, hoping for some answers that make sense, but don’t get any, and all you can do now is still trust that law enforcement is really investigating, and will give you some answers.  Unfortunately you are wrong… it has now been one year, and nine months and you still have not received the information that you have requested, and deserve to have.

What would you think?  Would you think this is a cover-up?  Would you think this is just CYA because of mistakes law enforcement made, mistakes they can’t afford to admit now that your daughter is dead?  Would you think that maybe your law enforcement department was just lazy?  Would you think this is just because you live in a small town and small towns don’t have enough resources like big cities, so this is what happens – they just close the investigation?

For me none of the above reasons work, because EVERY human life is precious and deserves respect, dignity and honesty.  Families deserve answers.  Morgan’s felony stalking case was closed after she was murdered – 2 days before her murder I was told by the lead detective he was close to making an arrest then after she was gone no more follow-up, case closed.  This is after bringing the sheriff’s information, evidence to follow-up on and so much more, but only to see that they would not follow-up on anything or spend anymore time on her investigation.  What would you do when the suspects family tells you he was either working or not in state when Morgan’s stalking incidents occurred?  Number one how would they know when those incidents actually occurred considering the sheriff’s reports did not show all the reports?  And even more important than that is the fact that the sheriff’s did receive the work schedule for the suspect after Morgan’s murder and if they had actually looked at it and compared it to my timeline, like they were planning on doing before her murder, they would have seen what I saw…yes he was in the state (except when there was an intentional alibi being made or when there were no stalking incidents on my timeline).  I was shocked when I started looking over his hours – of course I was infuriated, wouldn’t you be?  And this is why the article mentioned below is so important…law enforcement doesn’t have to be super heroes they just need to be honest and do their job, most do, but not all and that is where change needs to be made.  Someone shouldn’t get away with murder, because it gets swept under the rug, or because a contracted forensic pathologist is allowed to say its natural causes for 8 months while being told that it can’t be by so many experts, and then he changes it to suicide when that is not true either and there is conclusive proof to the contrary.  When that is allowed to happen then other families will lose loved ones over and over, (because someone got away with murder), and the next time it can be anyone’s daughter.

I know that law enforcement can’t be everywhere at all times, I know law enforcement officers are just human like the rest of us and make mistakes too, but I also know that in my job (probably in yours too) I have to be honest, and accountable for the mistakes I make, correct them and do my best to make sure it does not happen again.  The only person responsible for Morgan’s murder is Morgan’s murderer, along with anyone that tried to cover up the crime – there are others who might be tried as an “accomplice” or an “accessory”, and remember there is no statute of limitations on murder.

This article (see link below) from the Journal of Criminal Justice explains very succinctly why there needs to be transparency, and honesty when law enforcement, and the judicial system deals with the family of victims of crime.

Journal of Criminal Justice 38 (2010) 880–888 click here http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics/clics2012a/commsumm.nsf/b4a3962433b52fa787256e5f00670a71/4edad3b79d32555b872579ac007e1eba/$FILE/SenJud0222AttachG.pdf to read the full publication.  I am so happy there are so many scholarly people in this world that can explain things that I think and have come to know, but can not properly articulate to others.

November 27, 2011 – Day 118 of Morgan’s stalking – Is he standing right behind Steve?

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Steve was up early, and left for work.  I was in the kitchen when Morgan walked in, it was late morning by then and she still looked tired.  She wondered if we were really moving, she knew what a job it was going to be, and hated to see us go through it, because of a stalker.  We had a great talk about how strangely enough her dad, and I had talked about it this morning before he left, and he was going to call the people we were dealing with today and start the process.

I told her how her father was very confident this was all going to work out for the best.  I didn’t tell her he was also going to move his shop at the same time so he would be a block away most every day, and his only reservation was that with our new home being so difficult to approach, the stalker would be forced into something that did not involve the house at all.  We had no plan for that yet, but Steve was insistent that we did before we moved.

Morgan had lived through enough fear, and fright for a lifetime, and then some.  I could not bear to start talking about what might go wrong after we moved, when all of a sudden she seemed to be warming up to the idea.  Obviously it had been on her mind the night before.

I made her tea and encouraged her to go back to sleep.  We had a lot of stuff coming up just as soon as the details were worked out.  Morgan went back to sleep and I spent a few hours packing up those things you know you are not going to need for the next month.  It was a really good feeling to think we were about to put an end to this stalking.  I can’t remember if I was concerned or not that we had not caught him yet.  I do remember a time when it was so important for Morgan that we did.  But right at that time I’m not sure how I really felt about it.

At 12:30 pm Steve was home from work, and his shop would be humming till late as he liked to put it.  He had a project to wrap, and he could carve out the time for a double move.  Sounded quite daunting to me, and I knew he was underestimating.  He had not gotten a call back from the bank, but thought they would be OK with the move.

Morgan had planned to come with us at 1:00 pm to a belated Thanksgiving with Steve’s brother and his family, but after her cousin Camille had to leave early, she wanted to just stay home in bed.  Her friend Nathan came over to stay with her and we felt she was very safe with him, so we left for another round of Thanksgiving and family.

Another of Morgan’s friends started texting her around 7:45 pm and she was telling them about her lingering flu.  She felt it had been going on for over a week and she was all the way up to just feeling “yickish”

Steve and I were enjoying our day, which was now turning to evening, so much and at 8:30 pm I checked in with Morgan again.  I texted her, “Any rocks or noise?”, and she answered, “Nope. We’re going out though. Nate’s sleeping over. We’re taking wyla.”  Nope, how nice that word sounded, nothing happening.  How simple it would have been if it was always like that. Steve wanted we to ask Nathan a question and since he didn’t have a cell phone yet, I texted Morgan for him, “Ok Nate’a going to work with Dad in the morning? Remember to lock the front door love you.”  Morgan answered, “Love you too.”

I asked her to have Nate check the bushes by the front of the garage on their way out.  The motion detector light kept going on and off, like the one on the corner of the house by our room had done a while back.  Steve had switched it with another light just like we had with the one by our room and the new one still kept going on and off at certain times.  It was so frustrating to have something happening, and never see what it was that was causing it to happen.

Morgan answered that “He is. :)” about Nate going to work with Steve and I told her, “Ok”

We were home before 9:00 pm and Steve immediately went to the task of putting together some motion detectors that he had been “custom” painted to match where he intended to place them, so they would blend in.  There was something going on in the front corner of the house, and he was working to catch it.  At around 9:21 pm he placed the detectors, and then called me on my phone.  He wanted me to stand by the alarms in our room and see just how close he could get before the alarm went off.  After a few tries he was satisfied with his new setup and came in the house.

At 9:46 pm the newly placed detectors were very carefully taken from their perches and placed face down on the ground.  They need heat moving to detect motion and if one were to grab them from the behind and slowly move them toward cold ground there would be no alarm.  And even if there had, Morgan’s stalker had plenty of hiding spots nearby.  He would probably have sat patiently and watched Steve show up wondering how the alarm had ended up on the ground, so quickly.  But we would not know they had been moved until after a series of events the next day.

Today is November 22, 2012 – Thanksgiving is today and it has been a long and lonely day for Steve and I.  I constantly receive screen shots by email now from some of our readers.  Little clips about what is being guessed at about Morgan around the Internet.  Some people seem to be amazingly certain of what they think they know.  My decision to tell what happened that day last year perhaps plays into this and of course free speech is free speech for all, well almost all, but don’t get me started on that.

For all of you who read Morgan’s Blog about Morgan’s stalking, at the end of the day the story I tell is for all of you, and your families.  Stalking is under reported, pervasive and lethal.  So many more know these three truths than when Morgan was being stalked – and Steve and I are so grateful for the chance to be sharing this information and raising awareness.

I will also let you all in on something most of you know already.  The people who work on Morgan’s case now are quite a different group then the Garfield Sheriff’s Department, and there are things I ache to share with the world. But I am not allowed to, not because of any court in the land, but because the investigators go over it with me, apologize for the obvious pain it has caused and remind me that this is not going on Morgan’s Blog, not yet.  I believe very strongly that even Morgan agrees with the decisions being made.  It is not to appease the court of public opinion – it is important for an eventual criminal trial.  We miss you honey, and have no idea what Thanksgiving looks like up in Heaven.

Click here to read about the 119th day of Morgan’s stalking https://morgansstalking.com/?p=2395

November 18, 2011 – Day 109 of Morgan’s Stalking – Who Was Morgan?

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Morgan gets up and makes a juice drink to bring on her way to her ballet class.  She stretches while she’s standing in the kitchen, and says good morning to us.  The bar top is treated like a ballet bar and she is concentrating on her posture and movement, as Steve and I pour coffee.

Morgan would sometimes lecture us about drinking coffee, and sometimes not say anything.  What it was this particular morning I can’t be sure.  Health was very important to her and she was always sharing something she had learned with us.  It was that time when your children are soaking up knowledge faster than you are, and you have to adjust to receiving good information with grace.

I don’t really know if it was that as parents we had already been through this twice before Morgan, with our older two children, but Morgan was not only different, she was easier.  Steve and I would always talk about her advice to us, and how we should really listen to her.

Later that day Morgan was talking to her friend between classes.  Her friend Nicole asks her, ”Is the yarn you’re using for the mitts pastel or bright colors?” Morgan tells her, “Pastel.”  Her friend Nicole answers, “Okay! Thanks!”  Morgan sends her back a heart, “<3” and Nicole asks Morgan, “Who is your favorite Disney princess?” Morgan answers, “ Ariel? Yes! Mermaid!”  Nicole ends with, “ Okay! Good to know!”

She came home from classes and rested in her room.  She did that often.  She would sit in front of her mirror and sing while she fussed with her hair.  Most days she would come out and sing while playing her keyboard.  She didn’t have a wide repertoire, just a few favorites that she worked on perfecting.

Morgan had a few favorite series she liked to watch on TV, and over the years had collected every season she could and would watch them over and over.  Buffy was a favorite, then the Gilmore Girls, and Smallville.  Between the three she was endlessly entertained.

Washing her clothes was an ongoing task.  Morgan would wash, dry and fold and then sometimes her cat would knock them over, and the task would be repeated – never seeming to bother her.

At 6:20 pm, Steve texted her, “We’re taking Joni (her little niece) to the diner, would love to have you join us.”  And a minute later she answered me that she might not make it.  That she was kinda caught up with friends.  Steve texted her again at 6:52 pm that we were finishing, and did she want anything?  Morgan said no, and we brought Joni home.

At 9:00 pm we told Morgan that we were home.  She had made arrangements to sleep at Calder’s house, which would mean the couch, and I told her OK sweet dreams.

Her life was simple and we always knew what to expect.  Steve and I could count on her to do what was needed.  Her room wasn’t the neatest, but it was never all that bad.  She was the last child living in the house with us and we enjoyed having her.

Her stalker(s) had taken so much from her.  It was not fair, and we balanced justice for Morgan with the rights of all.  We saw suspicious things and reported them as we were asked.  But I can honestly say we never faced anyone down, or accused, of blamed.  The deputies had their theories, and we would more likely ask them if they were really sure, we did not want to accuse hastily, or rush to judgment.  We wanted the truth.

I never demanded answers from anyone, but we should have.  In two weeks time Morgan will be dead.  When your daughter is twenty, and healthy it does not even enter into the realm of possibility.  Morgan was worried about taking care of Steve, and I as we grew old.  She joked about what it was going to be like for her.  What the responsibility would be for her.  Not in a pained way, but in a happy way.  The same way that Morgan took most everything that was thrown her way.  I would always tell her to knock it off – no one was going to need to take care of us…ever!  The stalker she could have done without – that, she would not be shy in professing.

Today is November 1, 2012 – it was a busy day for me.  Steve and I met with a great investigator for three hours.  Everyone brings a new perspective to this case.  New advice, a new approach, another idea we had never thought of.

Morgan has left us with so many memories that we are learning to cherish with open arms, far more than we ever thought would be possible a year ago.  Steve and I look forward to the day that the things we have learned through Morgan will be more helpful and sharing, with more solutions for others than the solving of Morgan’s case that we visit so often now.  I know that Morgan would not care so much that we work to solve this mystery any more than we have.  But for the time being Steve and I agree that it is what we must do, and so we shall.  There are those that will not welcome our attempts to solve it.  They will want to stop it, or they will not even want to hear that it is really not us forwarding the solutions, but others far better than Steve or I will ever be will solve this crime.

So it begs to be said that two weeks before the end, a day is coming when most all the evidence that these brilliant minds have put forth, as their best opinion of what really happened to Morgan, is out for all to see.  How different it is from what we thought a year ago, and more importantly why would anyone else really have an issue with the truth about what happened to Morgan being known – because I can only think of one reason – can you?

Click here to read about the 110th & 111th days of Morgan’s stalking https://morgansstalking.com/?p=2124

November 17, 2011 – Day 108 of Morgan’s Stalking – What really happened out there?

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 Morgan has rocks against her windows again.  It is early in the morning, she is not sure when, but does not want to wake up.  She wants to sleep.  Last night she thinks she drank something bad, and she felt funny at first.  Tired and very uncertain, both at the same time.  She did not like it at all and could not wait to leave where she was.  She found help leaving and getting to somewhere that she felt safe.  She had memories, but did not share them at first.  She found solace in a couch and a friend to watch over her while she recovered. Read again on the previous post – the suspect, Keenan did not work that evening.

Not knowing what had happened or who did it, she was very optimistic to be guessing at recovery times.  Morgan was so used to bouncing back from anything that she thought this would be no different.  She called last night to tell me what had happened and that she was going to be fine.  She just wanted to sleep it off and then come home.  She promised to call if anything changed.  I trusted the person that was with her very much.  I knew he would keep a close eye on Morgan and call me in an instant if anything did really seem amiss.  For the moment she was just out of it.

A little while later I had a change of heart and had her friend bring her home so I could watch over her too.  To think that her stalker or his accomplices could have slipped something into her water was not out of the realm of possibility, and I decided not to take a chance.  Morgan always had her own water bottle with her, but didn’t always watch it when she was with those she thought were friends.

In the morning Morgan did not look well. She was aware enough to know that 2 or 3 rocks had hit her windows in the early am – Morgan didn’t know the exact time because she didn’t want to wake us up – she said we would call the sheriff’s and then she would be up all night again.

I didn’t tell her that her father and I had had essentially the same talk a couple of nights before.  I told her it was important that we report every incident and that some day it will be very important.

Morgan looked at me and said, simply, “Important to who?”  We had reported so much to the sheriffs over the past months and they never changed their protocol – they were never going to change and in turn they would never catch her stalker.

I told her in the afternoon when our time slots were with Monica to get our haircuts and I asked her is she wanted to go first or after me?  She wanted to be there the whole time, because she thought I needed fashion help, and so we went together.  Studio 2 in Carbondale is quiet and relaxing.  Monica talked with us, and then when Morgan stepped into the side room for some tea  – Monica came almost running and bent over to whisper to me – Morgan looks like the life is getting sucked out of her by this f*****!

Monica knew about Morgan’s stalker and was a better judge than I, as she saw Morgan far less frequently than I.  I didn’t know how to answer and I looked at Morgan in a new light when she returned.  Se did look undisputedly like all of the pressure was wearing on her.  She certainly was not herself.  I took a picture as we left and she was so happy, so glad that we had spent the afternoon together.  She was talking  about becoming a yoga instructor to supplement her income while going to college (her classes were to start in January).   She explained how she was going to make Steve and I go to her classes.  How good it was going to be for us…

Today is October 31, 2012 – Halloween is in full swing.  Someone passes out candy and we sit in front of an inviting fire.  Friends we haven’t seen in so many months are stopping by to say hi.  I will easily admit that I tear up when I look at the picture I took of Morgan on our beauty salon day.  It was too much for her.  Being stalked is too much for anyone.  She was such a brave girl, and Steve always say now that it is not fair she had to be such a brave girl.  And he is right!  It is not fair that those who had jobs did not do them, not at all.  A stalker came to our house at night at least five times a week. The sheriffs knew who it was – knew where he worked, but could not manage to follow him or stake out a time and a place in order to have fast intervention.  They knew the stalking was escalating – what did they think the outcome would be?   Much easier now to say he never existed.  I already did a blog on that once before, don’t think I should have to again.

There is a thought that has been with me today – caught in the act.  Our stalker was never really caught in the act.  Never positively caught in the act by the sheriff’s deputies.  Does that mean my daughter Morgan or Steve & I never had a stalker?  Hardly.  Let’s talk serial killers for a moment.

The Green River Killer had 39 to 78 murders to his credit.  Served in the armed forces, was married once.  As a young child, Ridgway was tested with an I.Q. of 82.  Ever caught in the act?  No, it was DNA that caught him.

Our local murderer, Ted Bundy, did 30 murders in four years.  Ever caught in the act?  No, it was evidence found in his car that finally convicted him.

Richard Ramiriez, the night stalker, I was in LA at that time and people were really scared.  “A living nightmare, a boogey man who invaded bedrooms and tore innocent people from their dreams.”  Cases too numerous to count.  But was he ever caught in the act?  No, it was a description of his car as he fled the scene that aided in his capture.

I could go on all night with this.  Rarely are they caught in the act.  Yet Morgan, described his car with him in it – but the car was never stopped.  A neighbor described evidence in his car – but it was never searched for that evidence.  Was his DNA found in her room – no, maybe because they never looked.  Of course under the crime scene lights they saw “suspicious spots on Morgan’s chest – never seen or checked by the pathologist.  The first responders saw defensive wounds on her right hand, top and bottom – never seen or checked by the pathologist.  And all the while Steve & I thought they were doing their job – we trusted them.

A professional nail artist pointed out massive damage to her nails, never seen or checked by the pathologist.  DNA collected from Morgan’s body recovered from a room where it was obvious to all except the Garfield County sheriffs that a struggle had taken place – No, ZERO.

Secondary testing to verify the very lethal DATE RAPE COCKTAIL found in her stomach – Nope, ZERO.  Collection of “granular substance” identified in her stomach after ten months and credited with the verification of the finding of suicide – No, ZERO.  Testing of the mystery substance – No, ZERO.

Budget for the contracted forensic pathologist to do a first class job – over a half million a year.

I think they were not looking for evidence, and I would like to know why.

Click here to read about the 109th day of Morgan’s stalking https://morgansstalking.com/?p=2117

November 8 – 11, 2011 Days 99 – 102 of Morgan’s Stalking – A few quiet days before the storm…

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Morgan on a cold night

Steve is dropped by some illness, and I take him to see his doctor.  I’m not feeling so well either, and I am afraid I will go down also, but I know we can’t both afford to be sick.  Morgan seems perky, she has always had this great way of bouncing back from anything and she is happily coming, and going on her own schedule.

Two of the four days she texts me in the morning, because Wylah is up before 6:00 am, so I get up a little early to take her puppy out, the little yard is cold, but quiet now.  I always take the opportunity to venture outside the fenced part of the yard to look for anything that resembles a stalker.  It’s starting to look as if that one morning was the only time the stalker will make a visit to Wylah’s morning potty stop to terrorize Morgan.

Morgan had the following post on her computer on November 10, 2011 – she was strong and ALWAYS had a great attitude about life, even in the midst of this horrendous stalking…that is just who Morgan was.

I was writing just single words in my dayrunner during this time. Words like afraid, and chicken, and scared.  Not to describe Morgan, but rather to describe him, the stalker.  Because I was reflecting a lot over these quiet few days, even more so, because Steve was laid up with a horrible chest infection. He was on antibiotics, and bed rest, and that left me with more time to just think – much more than I usually have.

And I thought about Morgan’s stalker, how he had acted and behaved.  His real M.O.  He would do anything to avoid being caught, taking great pains to hide how he was managing to make the loud cracking noise against Morgan’s windows at night.  Taunting the sheriff’s, as he had done at the beginning, didn’t even seem to concern him any longer.  I guess the brutal truth is that if you choose to show up fifteen minutes after the crime, your deterrence effect is greatly reduced.

We had installed another wildlife camera (of our own) by Morgan’s window and it was meant just to answer the question of what was causing the noise against her windows.  So far we had caught streaks coming through the air at the time of the noises.  No person, not even an arm, just a streak through the air, and Steve was convinced now that it was not a projectile, but these streaks were attached to something as he could see the streaks, “retract, or withdraw” after every impact noise.

Steve was now guessing it was like the cracking of a whip from some distance.  Just another theory until we could catch him in the act, and that, sad to say was proving to be next to impossible so far.  We were searching for an answer with all the we had,  we had not found it yet, and what we really had going for us is that we would never give up.

On 11/11/11

Morgan sends her teacher a text that she has to miss her jazz dance class today because she has a doctor’s appt., but will see her teacher right afterwards.  Morgan posted a picture today on her FB.  She is getting ready to go out at ~8:00 pm, she doesn’t hear anything, but later camera shows motion detector goes on at this time.  She leaves to drive to Carbondale, I saw a small dark car, with blackout windows speed down the street after Morgan, so I yell for Steve.  Steve jumps in his truck to follow the car – I immediately call dispatch, dispatch says it’s one of theirs going off a “tip” so I thank them and call Steve’s cell phone…I then realize he left it behind and it is ringing in the kitchen. I later find out that Steve raced until he caught up with the car following Morgan and then got waved down at the Carbondale Mini Storage by a sheriff who tells him it’s okay, it’s one of ours.  The car continues to follow Morgan – Sheriffs staged a follow of Morgan as she drives out of the subdivision – why?  We call and tell Detective Glassmire about this incident and replies, “I have no idea what or who that was!”  There was no follow-up.  No answers – end of story.  Why did he lie? What was the “tip” they were going off of?

Today is October 25, 2012 – And little rays of sunshine have begun to peak out in Morgan’s case.  Steve always reminds our other children that stress is not caused by too many problems, it is caused by a lack of solutions.

Today is no different than a little less than a year ago was.  We had a horrific situation unfolding, and just to emphasize the point, I received a comment today from a woman who was stalked right here in Garfield County about 25 years ago, when she was the same age as Morgan, she was also 20 years old.  She recounts a story, not too unlike what happened to Morgan, but gladly, and thankfully she was not killed by her stalker.  The real point I would like to make is that nothing has changed.  Twenty-five years later and it is the same story.  I have met with and spoken with so many people who agree that this situation must change.  The United States Department of Justice developed a protocol for stalking over ten years ago.  It has proven successful, very successful, but there is a catch – you have to implement it.  But guess what? The main player here, the person or even people who’s job it is to make that change don’t seem to be interested in change.  Our District Attorney Martin Beeson and our Sheriff Lou Vallario don’t want anything to change…don’t they have children, wives, or sisters that they care about?  Or is the big blue wall and their egos more important to them?  I know only too well about that big blue wall – I grew up in Los Angeles before that big blue wall came tumbling down – so I know exactly what that looks like.

So what exactly is that telling us?  Is it that two or three murders a year are somehow acceptable, as long as you don’t call them murders?  That if a few of Garfield County’s residents meet with a grizzly end then that is OK?  Because I don’t think so, and a think a simple truth has emerged, a solution to the problem.

The solution is a realization that the answer does not lie within Garfield County.  Garfield County is comprised of a lot of great people with a problem that was evidently here twenty five years ago, and still exists here today.  I wonder what has been here for those twenty five years that has allowed this to exist?  If there was one thing, the solution might just be that simple.  I’m not sure, but I can assure you that tomorrow when I pull out Morgan’s boxes of evidence, I am going to look at them in a whole new way.  I am going to look for a new solution in there.  A solution to how my daughter Morgan, could be stalked for four months, and then murdered, because I believe 100% without a doubt in my mind she was murdered.  And sorry, but I have to say it again.  I believe this 100% not because I woke up one morning and decided it all on my own.  Quite the opposite.  First there was a doctor who saw Morgan less than two days before she died, and talked to me over the phone, and wanted to be sure they were looking into her stalker, because Morgan was in perfect health, just tired and stressed – about her stalker.  Then came another specialist, and another. Then Morgan was found to have died of natural causes.  I wasn’t questioning it, no it was everyone else that Steve, and I spoke with about this that were questioning how Morgan could have died of natural causes, the stalker had to have played some part in her death – if not being completely responsible for what happened to Morgan.  Steve and I were still in shock and were really just going through the motions, some days strong, other days not so strong.  Always helping each other to move forward.

Then I know you have all heard this before, but we traveled to Los Angeles, and asked the person we thought most qualified to answer what happened to Morgan, what her opinion was after reviewing all the records, and it was her opinion, she was 100% sure that it was not natural causes.  This was a homicide!

I truely, truely hope that none of you ever have to go through anything like this, I really do.  But after that meeting in Los Angeles there were more opinions, and every one of them were in agreement.  Morgan had met with foul play.  And we will prove that that is what happened, one step at a time.

And then I’m going to find a solution for how, as citizens of this country, Steve and I are left to prove the entire crime ourselves, so that the next set of parents, who find themselves in our situation won’t have to, because it is a nightmare no person should ever have to live through.  People have been lying, and Garfield County really doesn’t seem to care as long as they never have to have a murder on the books in their County.

Click here to read about the 103rd day of Morgan’s stalking. I can’t believe it has already been over 100 days and her stalking still remains out there to harass, intimidate, frighten and control Morgan, Steve & myself 🙁 https://morgansstalking.com/?p=2022