Above is a picture of an old cemetery in the Roaring Fork Valley – Morgan took this picture when she visited it with her friends
I wonder if anyone really thinks about what is going on in their neighborhood, I, for the most part did not. I mean, do you really know what is going on in your neighborhood? Wouldn’t you assume that if something criminal was going on you would be told about it?
Think about this…have you ever been warned about crimes going on, right in your own neighborhood? Information, so you can take appropriate precautions to protect your family? Have you ever had the police or sheriffs pass out flyers, or go door to door to warn people to be on the look-out for something or someone? Wouldn’t it be extremely helpful?
Have you ever caught someone clearly in your yard, looking in your house, at you, at night, or heard tapping or banging on your window?
Have you ever thought you might be being stalked, or actually had someone stalk you? Wouldn’t you think you should let people know about these dangers? We were specifically told in Morgan’s case not to tell anyone. And we actually did listen to that request. We now know that was wrong. Experts on stalking suggest you tell your neighbors, co-worker, fellow students, everyone.
In the real world, in most cases, people want to know what is up when they see law enforcement always showing up at a neighbor’s house, usually at night. They wonder if there is something going on they should know about. In Morgan’s case did it really help to try and keep everyone in the dark? I honestly don’t see how. I truly believe, that in the beginning, if we had let everyone know what was going on, there would have been more eyes and ears alerted that could have helped up stop the stalking before it escalated and became deadly.
Please, write to me, as a comment to this blog, or using the contact button on this website. You can share with me and the world about your experiences, if you would like, you can stay anonymous, just let me know – please don’t suffer in silence. Let people know how horrible being a victim of stalking really is. By telling your story it helps raise awareness and can help to save someone’s life.
I have had many people write in to me about their experiences, and I will start telling the readers about those stories very soon now. We can all learn from other people’s experiences, in order to protect ourselves. Law enforcement across the world can learn things too, and have already learned from some of the stories on this blog, I know because they write to me and tell me what they have learned. All that needs to happen is to want to get better, be able to admit you can improve, and you will. Close that door, and you will stay the same, for better, or more likely, for worse, forever.
I have been warned, so many times, since the beginning of Morgan’s stalking, that we have to temper what to expect out of law enforcement. They only have so much time, and so much in their budget, and I was told about the man behind the curtain who controls how much is allocated to each crime. Morgan’s detectives worked four days a week, and out of those four days there was usually a one hour slot allocated for an interview or something else on Morgan’s case. I no longer accept this because we don’t even have to guess if that was enough, it wasn’t. How much would have been needed? We will never know. Does this mean that we are not really protected – it’s all an illusion? Or, are we partially protected, and if a felon happens to have more time than the sheriff’s department, then what? I guess you are in for bad news, just be sure to not tell any of the neighbors, am I missing something here? In a criminal case, when law enforcement can not, or will not allocate what is needed then more regular citizens need to be told, so they can help.
- Alert Others – Tell trusted friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and/or your HR department to keep an eye out for suspicious activity and so they don’t mistakenly give out information to someone pretending to be a loved one.
We did always have the deputies to call on 24/7. But, there was one minor glitch – the response times. 15 minutes was unusually quick, 25 to 45 was more the norm. So, try this experiment, imagine that your daughter just screamed, because she saw someone looking in her bedroom window. She pulls the drapes, you run outside, circle the house, completely caught by surprise, you are unarmed, and even if you were armed would you shoot into the dark, where there are houses with innocent people in them so close by? But, it does not matter because you don’t see anyone – you are not trained for this, you are not fast enough. You then call the sheriff’s department. Going back into your house, you sit down and wait 25 minutes, which seems like an eternity, then a deputy arrives. Together you circle the house again, stopping many times, as the deputy shines his powerful flashlight at something nearby. Do you think it is any more likely you are going to see the intruder this time? Imagine the deputy next to you, on the minuscule chance you did see anything, do you think the two of you could run the perpetrator down on foot, or would you lose him somewhere out in the brush? I wonder if law enforcement kept stats, showing they responded to an intruder call, but didn’t see anything – check this box, or damn if he wasn’t still standing right there at the window – check this box. Do you see where I am going with this? There needs to be a protocol that would actually work. When I read from experts on stalking protocol it makes so much more sense then what our sheriffs did…
When the news played a clip on television where Sheriff Lou Vallario said they were out to our house over fifty times and never saw anyone, that is was about the most ridiculous thing he could have said. This just reinforced the insufficient protocol they used. Notice, there was no mention of the series of wildlife cam photos of the stalker or the witness sightings.
Here is a link, in case you have not yet seen the stalker watching the sheriffs https://morgansstalking.com/?p=5019 . One deputy, two deputies, and then “him”, since they never saw a stalker should we call “him” an intruder? And then there he is, the intruder, trying to knock down the camera. Deputies came flying back after we saw these images for the first time, and boy were they pissed, he was right there, practically watching them leave. Could he have been in the back of the truck? Where was he hiding? Who is he? Definitely not Morgan’s stalker, because our sheriff Lou Vallario, in the news clip and on TV, said they never saw one.
Time for a change in tactics perhaps? No way, look how close we were that time – is that what they thought? A print out in the patrol vehicles, just in case he’s spotted somewhere else? No way, they said it’s not clear enough to really tell. But, I do not blame the sheriffs, Steve and I have no one to blame but ourselves. By the time we figured out that this was entirely up to us to stop – it was too late for Morgan. We thought the sheriffs knew what they were doing. Do not make the mistake we did.
We were not alone in our experience; so far, all other victims who have written into me about their individual experiences with stalkers have said that law enforcement never saw their stalker either. But, then in Morgan’s case, to never use the dogs to track the suspect, especially when they told us they believed he was in our neighborhood, especially after telling us they would bring in a tracking dog next time, but never did, well this is wrong with a capital W.
I now know from others who have written to me, that this same peeking in and tapping on the windows happens more often than it is spoken of. It is more an invasion of privacy for sexual gratification than a misdemeanor trespass, and it has been going on in our little area of the valley for at least 4 years.
I truly believe we were dealing with a serial stalker/murderer and those type of predators do not just stop. I have had contact from girls and women who lived in subdivisions close to ours, with similar incidents and yes, these incidents were all called in to the sheriff’s department. Did the sheriff’s ever see the intruder any of those times, when these women were alone in their houses, and called up to report the crime? No! One time, and one time only, I was told that they actually put the tracking dog onto the scent, even though the responding deputies never saw the intruder, but they lost him. I also know that two of these times the woman did get a good visual sighting, and gave officers a very good description – would Sheriff Lou Vallario now say that, like Morgan’s stalker, all those incidents were a figment of their imagination? – That, just because they (the deputies) never saw the stalker, he just didn’t exist? The sheriff’s hired dogs and they tracked him, all the way to the Carbondale Mini Storage, I was told, for a total of about 1 mile, before the dog lost his scent. They had gotten good descriptions of what the guy looked like – just like Morgan gave them a description, and a name, and a car, but no arrests were ever made, and no residents were ever warned. I saw this because one of the incidents was two weeks before Morgan’s stalking reports started, same description same M.O.
I am on the GarCo warning system, and I get a text about highway closures. Would you mind if you received a text that an intruder, unidentified was reported in a certain area? If you have daughters wouldn’t you want to know?
I would think in every one of these incidents, if the officers had warned the neighborhoods close by then there would have been more eyes, and ears to assist in bringing it to an end. I would think the officers would appreciate the help, since chances are slight they could never make it there in time to actually “see” the perpetrator. Maybe this little change in tactics would have resulted in an arrest; maybe this would have saved Morgan’s life. We will never know, but going forward I think this is something to consider…very seriously.
Another thing I just remembered…the felony stalking detective, assigned to Morgan’s case, printed up a flyer that he passed out one morning to all the Garfield County Patrol Officers, as well as the Carbondale Police, with the picture of the “suspects” car, the “suspects picture,” Morgan’s picture, a map of our neighborhood, and other details, so they could all be on watch and up to speed on what was happening – now how in the world could this have been distributed, and then after Morgan is murdered the Sheriff Lou Vallario states that they never had a suspect? Once again, am I missing something here?
I also do not believe just because you live in a small town and your coroner needs to hire a subcontracted forensic pathologist (i.e. Dr. Robert Kurtzman) that you should just accept a substandard autopsy that gives out a manner of death that no other doctor in this state, or in this country has agreed with, and this lets a criminal walk free to continue to perfect their trade.
We now know, thanks to the many readers of this blog, which include 2 forensic toxicologists, many retired Medical Examiners, another prominent forensic pathologist, many medical specialists, and even pharmaceutical scientists, who have all weighed in on just Morgan’s toxicology results, and explained to us what the findings really represent. And guess what? Everyone agrees that it was a lethal dose of Amitriptyline that killed Morgan – an extremely lethal dose, and they either do not see how he (Dr. Robert Kurtzman) could have ignored it, or that he should have known it, or that he should questioned it, and most all do not see why an investigation was not launched right then and there. The extreme amount that was found in her blood stream could not have been ingested, and there was no needle left behind – this was a staged crime scene and law enforcement either incompetent and did not have the training to know this or this was covered up for some other reason…
If our “small” town cannot do the right thing with the crime scene or with the forensic findings, then they should differ to those who can, and just call in the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) – that’s what they are there for…they have the professional equipment, they would have been there that same morning – I know, I spoke with them. The morning Morgan’s body was found (our sheriff and coroner state her death was being investigated as it was a death under suspicious circumstances, and that is why they had crime scene tape around our house, and took her body for an autopsy – they state she was a victim of felony stalking, so why not call in the CBI? I still do not have an answer to that question. Did Morgan not deserve it? Was it not in the budget? I spoke with the CBI and they said they would have offered their help at no cost to Garfield County. Is there something that can be done differently next time?
I also want the answer to the question of why did Dr. Kurtzman, the forensic pathologist, change Morgan’s manner of death from natural causes (which we knew was incorrect, since she had obviously been poisoned with a massive dose of Amitriptyline) to suicide 8 months later, after running a different test that actually showed the presence of a concoction of date rape drugs, that is conveniently never mentioned in the second report? The results of the second test made her death even more suspicious. Sadly, the designation of natural causes and/or suicide give the sheriffs all the reason they need to never investigate the death.
I believe Morgan was murdered, and the evidence pointing to that fact continues to grow, even in the absence of any investigation, strictly through the efforts of people around the country helping us to seek justice for Morgan. People can say all these experts are all wrong, or I am making them up, or this is not the conclusions they are coming too, but I know better. We have accumulated documents, photos and much more – all evidence of a murder and cover up.
The truth will come out. I keep asking myself how will they try to spin it then? When the real question should be how can any decent person put a family like us through this kind of pain, because of their incompetence, and then blame us, thinking if we only went away and dropped this everything would go back to normal, and all would be good? Trust me folks not only does that not work, but it will never work. This is why the murder clearance in this country gets worse and worse every year and why so many murderers are still able to walk free and can and in most cases will murder again.