Morgan had routines in her life and she was pretty amazing at following them.  On days when there promised to be photographic opportunities the next morning everything would be set the night before.  Camera batteries all charged, memory chips cleared of files, tripod with the backpack, everything ready to go.  A great picture did not wait, did not come find you, and had to be planned and sought out, and Morgan knew all that very well.  She would even go to bed early, just to be up in time for the particular shot she was after.

Of course I am just a biased mom, but I really think her photos show how much effort she put into them, a lot of little things you never see.  A reader of the Morgan’s Stalking blog wrote in to tell me that if you Google “clouds” and go to the images of clouds a few in the first batch you get are Morgan’s, she was a gifted photographer.  And speaking of Google and Morgan, I don’t know how Steve found this, but the evening before Mother’s Day he showed me that if you Google “Mother’s Day oil painting” the first image was a painting Morgan made for me – for Mother’s Day!.  Seeing it was such a gift, the hair stood up on my arms.  Now I think you have to click on images first, but it is still there, just amazing how this all works!

Well another of Morgan’s routines was her room.  Every Friday she straightened and cleaned, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, but always some level of attention was given, she liked how it started her weekend off.

If she was going to be traveling, as she had plans that weekend to go babysitting for Military couples on retreats, she did extra wash during the week to make sure everything she would need for the trip was ready to pack.  The last week of November, 2011 was no exception.  She had a few extra piles of laundry ready to go by Thursday evening, folded and stacked in her room and waiting for Friday, to be packed for the trip or put away.  A few of the routines Morgan developed and lived by.

In the weeks following her sudden and tragic death Steve and I, with help from family and friends really packed away everything the Morgan never had a chance to on her normal Friday clean up day.  I tried to move quickly, it helped to blur the difficult thoughts, and as I’m sure you can imagine that emotions don’t get much higher than they were…

I came across something that froze me for an instant, then I called out to Steve, (actually yelled out to him, as he was not in the room right then), I wanted him to see exactly what I thought I was seeing.  I picked it up and placed it carefully on the top of her hutch.  Steve walked in and started to say, “I wish you had not done…” but stopped.

I don’t mind saying we were especially raw that fist month, it was as if we were re-learning life and even how to live together after 35 years of marriage.  There was obviously a lot of things we did wrong as we went through the process we had been thrust into.

Months before, in one of our attempts to blunt the terror of the stalking, invasion of privacy – and let’s not forget the Garfield Sheriffs Department’s notion that all this was misdemeanor trespassing for far, far too long.  So in one of our attempts to possibly make Morgan feel safer Steve thought of a simple wireless door bell.  It consisted of a normal looking door bell button meant to be placed at your door and a “receiver” that plugged in and chimed whenever the button was pressed.  The button was attached to Morgan’s nightstand, the side she always slept on naturally.  And the receiver that chimed was in our room, right by our bed.

More than once Morgan had pressed the panic button that sent Steve running for her room.  Morgan really did not like to ever feel like she was giving in to her tormentor, that he was dictating her life in any way.  Morgan was completely against moving and even now, knowing more of the pros and cons, I’m not sure what the right thing to do is.  But that button that summoned daddy was quietly accepted, and Steve felt it did help her feel safe, even though we all know she was not, really.

There it was now, right on top of the hutch, just picked up off the floor by me, found in a rather unique place, far from where it had been mounted, and under a few pieces of clothing – her panic button.  I don’t even remember a thought coming at the instant I found it.  Later, much later, I was certain that whoever was in her room that fateful night, had torn it from her nightstand, and hid it where I found it.  When I think back on it now, that instant was like your mind denying to realize certain things that it should, sort of akin to aspects of shock.

An excellent investigator, (not a Garfield County Sheriff’s officer), who slowly had me recall events once, suggested that it could also have been done earlier, perhaps that day, or even the day before.  One thing is quite sure – Morgan is not the person who removed that button from her nightstand.

In a perfect world, the investigators would have found it during the “investigation” of Morgan’s death scene (how I hate that phrase), they would have been wearing gloves of course, and booties to prevent contamination of the scene. It would have been carefully placed in an evidence bag and Steve and I would have seen it sometime later, when we were not in complete shock, and finally able to think clearly.  I would have said, “that look’s like Morgan’s panic button, was that on her nightstand?” Or something like that, and the fact that her panic button had been torn from her nightstand would be established as a… clue.

But Steve and I do not live in a perfect world, far from it.  It was instead found in a unique place, under a few pieces of clothing.  It was found by me, and the facts passed along to the Detectives, the answer, other than to completely discount the event as having any importance, I don’t remember exactly.  Just like the crack completely down one side of the rain gutter centered right over Morgan’s window.  Or the blade from the animal skin scrapping blade company found out in the yard, at the base of the tree that would have been used to climb down from the roof.  Those were of no importance either.

Actually, why hold back, the entire stalking by Keenan VanGinkel, 100% certain of his identity at one point, had nothing to do with her death either, no connection at all.

As for her death scene, in the world in which we lived, it’s safe to say a few things that seemed important to me.  Items and events that I have a very hard time explaining as anything but proof positive the someone or even more than one were in Morgan’s room the night she died.  Clues.  Were not viewed with the same importance as Steve and I found in them.  Today, I feel that the investigation that day was completely lacking at the very best and most generous I can be.  Perhaps that is why the Honorable DA terms Morgan’s death scene investigation as “So Thoroughly  Botched,” by the Garfield Sheriff’s Department.

I could maybe understand this if there were items and events that were clues to me, and Steve, who are not investigators, but then every other investigator agreed with the Garfield Sheriff’s office… maybe then I would understand.  But in a chilling replay for me, every person who is a qualified investigator in their own right has been completely shocked at facets of the investigation that did take place and evidence they feel had to be “investigated to the very end”, that was instead completely dismissed at first blush.  But over a year and a half later that is how it has shaped up, over and over again.  Until the Sheriff himself stood on the evening news and declared he would never open this investigation.

I wish there was a way to look up in the sky and explain this all to my daughter, but there is not.  At least not any that I have been able to find.  I know she wants me to help other victims of stalking prevail over their tormentors, and I want justice for my daughter, and this is just another reason that will help to drive me on forever.

I hope people understand what I meant during the first year after Morgan’s murder when I said, I don’t know exactly how she was murdered, but things do not add up for me.”  And now I know they didn’t add up for quite a lot of people besides me.  Now after all this time Steve and I have been able to find the missing pieces that I didn’t know in the beginning but have become very clear now.  We know Morgan was murdered, we know who did it, and we will continue our quest for justice until the day it happens for Morgan.  All we want is to have a law enforcement agency open her case, do a thorough investigation, as in find out where their prime suspect lives and visit him there, at least once.  I do not think Morgan ever did anything to warrant being swept under the rug as she has been.  An investigation into her sudden, unexplained death after four months of stalking…not much to ask.

There are the choices you have, and the choices that are made for you.  When Steve and I need a room painted, or some gardening done we do it ourselves. But what about all the others who hire someone for the task?  It is always nice to have at least one glowing recommendation before you hand over the job.  And what about a babysitter?  Someone trustworthy, and competent enough to watch your most precious youngster in your absence.  That requires far more looking into than the painter or gardener, doesn’t it?  Can’t be too safe with a decision like that.

Then comes a decision you would have never thought you would have to make, and you quietly find out it is not your decision at all, it is made for you, with no discussion or input from you at all.  Our daughter was dead, and people I had never met were streaming in to our home, I could have assumed whatever I wanted about these people, but in reality I knew nothing, nothing at all about their qualifications to do what they were about to do – this at a time when their actions will easily have a profound effect on the rest of our life.

A long time law enforcement investigator in this valley explained his feelings, and knowledge of Morgan’s death scene investigation.  He felt that when limited to just the local talent in this County there was no way Morgan would have a “microscopic” investigation.  Which basically means things would have been missed.  Perhaps a tiny piece of evidence that could have set the wheels in motion to apprehend Morgan’s killer, as I see so often on crime TV, that would not happen and that evidence would go uncollected, and forever lost.

The obvious becomes that I never had the choice, the decision was made for me, as well as Steve, Morgan’s brother and sister, and of course Morgan, that she did not need to have microscopic evidence collected.  OK, so they do not have the expertise, or capability to collect really tiny pieces of evidence, but what about the larger, more obvious pieces of evidence?  Or what about things that should be there, but are missing, and don’t even require collection at all, just a report on the missing item(s), what about those?

Steve talked to Morgan before she went to sleep, and she was dressed in PJ’s as she always was, to sleep in.  He remembers the PJ’s and we have talked about them with investigators many times, just never an investigator from Garfield County.  We might have told them about this problem, but an effort was never made to determine exactly what she was wearing when she went to sleep.

In the importance of little things that don’t add up Morgan was wearing PJ’s when Steve last saw her, and street clothes in the morning after she was dead.  Now she could have changed at some time on her own, so the real unexplained problem is what happened to her PJ’s?  They were not to be found when we packed up the room.  It is a big item to be missing, and to be completely overlooked.  This goes way beyond the microscopic aspect.  I’m not sure what exactly to call it, but if there were PJ’s the night before that she was wearing, and after her death there were none, how did they get out of her room?  And who took them?  And why?  Three questions that could be answered, should be answered, but never were answered.

There was a period of time that Steve thought, just because it made sense to him in the context of an investigation, that her PJ’s were collected as evidence, and the contracted pathologist or the Coroner had them.  It was something I didn’t question, that is how our minds worked in the shock, and grief of what had just happened.  We are parents – not investigators and the “investigators” should have asked.

I was however, very strong in my conviction that Morgan looked staged, and I told the officers at the time, she was posed in a position I would never have found her in.  If I place myself into the position I found her in – it is uncomfortable, it is not a position I would ever sleep in.  Plus she was on the opposite side of the bed from which she always slept.  All little things that should be in the Sheriff’s reports (like her PJ’s) are not in any of the Sheriffs reports, and I have not been able to find them yet in any reports.  No evidence collection required, not microscopic or otherwise, just notes.

Steve’s memory of her position seems a little less razor-sharp than mine is.  But he remembers vividly being focused on signs of life, a twitch, an eyelid flutter, he was administering CPR from the instant he could not get a response from her, and felt she was not breathing.  So it’s natural that I feel that his memory focus would be different from mine, because he was focusing on different things than I was.

At the time we did not really want to focus on anything, we just wanted to get through this somehow, someway, with little discussion Steve and I assured each other that certainly the Sheriffs were focusing on all these little things that came to nag at us.  I would never have imagined that where we assumed there was something there was nothing.  No focusing at all.  How is that possible in a “suspicious death?”  A death that was also labeled, “a mystery,“ on the day Morgan was found, a death that required an autopsy, and after four months of stalking that was conjectured to become, “more intense,” just two days before her death by the stalking case detective, with no reason given.  And no, I did not ask, because at that second in time I was quite taken aback to hear this, and wondering what it meant for the investigation now that the Detectives were 100% sure it was Keenan VanGinkel who was responsible for the stalking of Morgan.

All this still leaves missing PJ’s, and we all know they can’t just disappear, not without help from someone.  They were never spoken of after that morning, officially that is.  When you have a “suspicious death,” and then articles of clothing worn, when the victim was last seen, are now completely gone – I believe you have a big problem, a big clue, that has to be explained.

Because then the issue of how did she get into street clothes goes from a possibility that Morgan changed at night in response to sounds outside, to possibilities far more sinister.  And the actions of the death scene detectives become far more important.

Over time, as the evidence was looked at again by other professionals, some perhaps for the first time, it becomes all so important that way back on day one when they had the chance to collect all the evidence they wanted to, that they chose to collect none.  I believe they absolutely had a duty to collect evidence, or stand aside and let someone capable of doing it to take over, but they did not. If they were not capable they should have called in the very capable State agency, the CBI that morning – it was an option they did not choose.

This morning on my drive I was passed by a Colorado State Trooper.  On the back of his patrol car were two brief sayings, one on each side – “Honor to Serve,” and, “Duty to Protect.”  As chance would have it I also was passed by a Garfield Sheriffs SUV a bit later – it had no saying printed on the back, nothing.

I know it’s just words printed on the back of a car, but to me it makes a difference that two little promises are printed on the back of the State Troopers, they see them, they know what it says back there, and oh how I wish Morgan had been blessed with a little more “Honor to Serve,” and “Duty to Protect.”

And if anyone is wondering about yesterday – my Mother’s Day was beautiful, thanks to my family, friends, and my children – all of my children…

Morgan had a stranger stalker, Keenan was a person not known to her, rather his identity was deduced over months.  He was also very likely a serial stalker as well.  This I added after discovering many stalking and peeping tom incidents within a few mile radius dating back for years.

As I research solutions to these types of terrorizing some of it is very straightforward, such as the findings that stalkers are often socially maladjusted, emotionally immature, insecure and jealous by nature.  Like perpetrators of domestic violence, who often stalk their partners, they seek to exert power and control over the victim.  According to James Harris, his daughter Brooke complained of Keenan being possessive, and she ended their relationship because of it.  An objective look at mannerisms is a good tool to ID your stalker.

At the beginning we had few if any tools to deduce who the stalker was and were limited for a while into seeing which cars were home, and which weren’t, of which lights were on in which houses as ours…only tools.  If we could have included a read of mannerisms of the suspects, no matter how crude it might have been.  That would have been an improvement in identifying him earlier.

Other advice i read is downright frightening to me.  Such as the majority of stalkers are not mentally ill; however a minority, usually stranger stalkers, suffer from mental health disorders (such as paranoid schizophrenia or manic depression) and exhibit delusional thought patterns or behaviors.  I would think if this little bit of observation were in the material the Deputies and Detectives had about stalkers they would have been better able to deal effectively with Keenan than they did.  Actually they had no material on stalkers of stalking so, anything would have been an improvement really.

There is advice suggesting you should approach the stranger stalker (just once), and tell them firmly to stop, then attempt to involve family members to assist.  I question both of these thoughts, as I have been told that his father Wade was quick to bring him to the Sheriff’s office to answer questions, but also quick to opine that he had not done anything wrong.  I wonder how he could be so sure and I doubt he would have been receptive to talking his son out of his stalking obsession.

His mother, Jennifer Johnson, to this day will not even admit he was pretty much the schoolyard bully back in grade school, when that fact is well known up and down the valley.  So I really don’t see how an attempt to involve the parents would have really been very productive.  Most likely the opposite.

His parents and friends are pretty intent on protecting him by whatever means they can, and don’t seem ready to admit Keenan could ever do anything wrong.  This I am sad to say is something that has played out many times in cases of stalkers – many, many times they have family members, friends, even people that don’t really know them that well make up excuses, alibis and lies for them.  Sometimes I would assume because they want to keep them out of trouble, other times possibly because they themselves don’t want to believe something like this could really happen, and then there are always friends that have been warned not to be “snitches”, or else,  as in this case.

Which brings up the third piece of advice which I have found to be a very informative, and a useful tool – that is to get the criminal records of the stalker, especially a stranger stalker.  As the claims that he has never been in trouble in his life grow ever louder from all of his family, the list of charges, for a twenty-one year old seem very, very, long.  And most all of the charges he has been found guilty of portend to a serious problem if connected with a stranger stalker, as they are in Morgan’s case.

In fact after having had a chance to look over criminal records for all the immediate family and friends, I can see why this is suggested in a stranger stalking situation.  I don’t know if the Sheriffs are at liberty to run these records and share them with victims, but I believe it would be a big help.

I think it would be safe to say that successful criminals research their victims first, just as hunters research, and stalk their prey before a successful kill.  So in the victims interest – why would you not want to arm yourself with research and facts on those that are threatening to do you harm, as stalkers obviously do.

In all of the people claiming to be friends of the families that have contacted me, I found one to be very telling.  He claimed to be a good friend of James Harris, and wished to vouch for his integrity.  And then in the next sentence he admitted that Brooke was probably not one to be trusted.  Very telling indeed when even Jim’s friends know a thing or two about Brooke and her checkered past.