Wylah is helping Morgan’s friends get ready for the Carbondale Mountain Fair
Tag Archives: was Morgan murdered by stalkers
Is it Too Much to Ask to Err on the Safe Side?
Morgan deserves answers, not denial – Is that too much for her to ask???
Counting the days,
We have hopes, Steve and I, and realistic expectations. The Blog is quiet, but we are working hard, and the United States Postal Service, and FedEx deliver letters, with plenty of documents for us. We want Morgan’s case opened, we want the truth to come out, and we want justice for Morgan.
Morgan is, and will always be on our mind, along with the next young woman whom we so fervently work to prevent a repeat of what happened to Morgan, and as it turns out this week – another young woman who disappeared, under suspicious circumstances, in Garfield County, only to have her family receive a quick, “no foul play here,” from our Garfield County Sheriffs department.
Sound Familiar?
Her remains were discovered close to where she initially went missing and, thanks to the CBI, oh what I would not give for their presence at Morgan’s death scene, the remains were identified, and our most heartfelt condolences goes out to her family. It is a day even I can only imagine what it is like as they were wishing it were not true.
Her story of the moment is here, Young woman’s remains found near where she went missing have been identified. And with two young children left at the wayside, and wondering, I can only pray that the long overdue justice for a missing young woman, that was both a mother, and a daughter, comes swiftly and atoning for the callous undeserved treatment of the past.
Garfield County again displays its indifference to Crimes Against Women and what a total lack of regard for Constitutional rights goes on, unless it involves a gun, portending nothing encouraging for all the women, young and old, who live here.
On the morning Morgan was found, dead, to err on the side of too much, instead of too little, should have come with no question. Instead it did not come at all for Morgan, and how long it takes for grieving parents to fully realize that is just amazing. I have recently taken delivery of the “FBI handbook of crime scene forensics,” and once again get to read about all of the essential actions that did not take place at Morgan’s crime scene, so far they are innumerable.
They, being the Garfield County Sheriffs Department, could have made one phone call, to the CBI, the agency that Pitkin County, a Garfield neighbor that takes crime seriously, would call without question, in fact it is not only without question, it is protocol, the rules. For a microscopic evaluation of a suspicious death scene that Morgan deserved after four months of stalking, and a worry on the mind of her felony stalking Detective who warned us, “if anything her stalking will escalate,” and three days later, Morgan is found dead.
Months later I deal with the threats of the contracted forensic pathologist to change her cause of death to suicide, but he couldn’t find any pills or residue of pills in her stomach, threats which are ignored when I report this to the Coroner who hired this man, and the Sheriffs who, actually I don’t really know what they do, except to stand up for your right to bear arms. Even write essays about it.
But you know what? When your daughter is murdered and the Sheriffs and Coroner ignore the threats you are reporting; but detectives run, two at a time, to record the report of your gnome gone from your porch, but still refuse, yes blatantly refuse, to report the burglary of Morgan’s jewelry on the night she was killed – something is not right. When that is your reality – the right to bear arms becomes but soft whisper in the far distance.
It did not take a gun to protect Morgan, as her stalking was expected to escalate. It took something that Garfield County did not have, and does not have today, it took simply the knowledge of how to effectively deal with stalkers, especially the kind that was stalking Morgan, one of the most dangerous typologies.
I have recently read protocols that explain what to do if the first attempt to catch the stalker failed, how attempts could be completely changed for the next stalking incident. Morgan’s protocol was based on the lie that some unwritten law in the State of Colorado required seven weeks, 49 days, before it could be considered a stalking case.
As if that lie was not bad enough, in the non-attempt to protect Morgan, it was actually 68 days before I received a phone call from the Detective that was finally assigned to the case. Even with their total misconception of the laws they are sworn to uphold, they thought somehow 49 days being the requirement, it became over 70+ days before we even had a case number, and so then the fact that Morgan was a stalking victim was not a complete shock to the new Deputy arriving to answer a call of yet another stalking incident. A call not to 911, as this was not necessary, they answered a call from the Sheriff’s dispatch number.
If my math is correct that was three weeks longer than their incorrect knowledge of Colorado Law, the ones they were sworn to uphold. Ten weeks of stalking, ten weeks of oh, we are not allowed to collect evidence until a Detective is assigned to the case. Ten weeks of complete terror for Morgan. Then at the end, three days before she was killed it was, “if anything it was going to escalate.” And Morgan was dead, of natural causes, until her doctors told me it was all wrong, and I told the contracted forensic pathologist, “Excuse me, due to this fact, and that fact, a few very prominent doctors in the country think you might have made a mistake here?”
A Mesa County Investigator shook his head and told me, “Oh Dr. Kurtzman does not like to be wrong.” And I say, what about Morgan? What about my 20-year-old daughter that was killed – according to what every other single person reviewing her autopsy is telling me. I say that is not denial!!! Not a mother who can’t accept! It is simply the truth, and it never changes. Her Amitriptyline blood level of 7,909 will not change. It will always be very, very astronomical. Morgan weighed 115 pounds. So in another report a woman who weighed 171 pounds was the highest yet recorded, would Morgan’s blood level (if you took into account her weight and the fact that her blood was drawn approximately 12 hours after her death) not be the equivalent of 11,863+? Absolutely one of the highest levels ever recorded at a top lab in the country. But it was being called insignificant according to the contracted forensic pathologist who did her autopsy. A fact that the officials in Garfield County chose to ignore. Then let’s add in the five date rape drugs found in her gastric fluid, seven months later, and those numbers or detectability of the drugs present will not change. The astounding malpractice of the contacted forensic pathologist to jump into this evidentiary quagmire that exhausted her sample, when the truth is supposed to be somewhere within his scope, or sphere of influence, just has everyone asking why?
And, why oh why, does a contracted forensic pathologist suddenly take it upon himself to run more tests on a, “closed case.” After threats to me that he could do just that, and another prominent forensic pathologist assured me that he can not. But out of fear, and worry I reported to the Sheriffs department, and the Coroner his threats, then he carries through on his threats. Is there justice for Morgan somewhere in all that? Because if there is I must have missed it…completely.
And last week another set of bones was discovered (see the link above), a young woman labeled as, “no sign of foul play.” And NOW there is an investigation, eight years after her death. Why don’t they just amend the Garfield County sign on the highway to include the warning that if you are a woman, you might want to keep driving, because you are not very safe here?
If you are missing you will be called a runaway (even if you have never run away before, even if you are a straight A student – doesn’t matter they won’t look in to it), unless you are 22 with 2 children, then it will simply be called no sign of foul play, so no investigation, basically the same thing. If that is not blatant discrimination against women, then what would it take? Really, what would it take to correctly label what is going on here?
Was #Forced #Entry Ever Really Visited by the #Sheriffs?
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 Cry for Help – #stalkingvictims
Morgan fought to the end – If She was Disappointed, She had Every Right to Be.
We know that Morgan was killed. The doctors, the specialists, and the professors who’s pleas to Garfield County that fell on deaf ears have assured us of that fact.
We know the history the Ingram family now has with the contracted forensic pathologist hired by the Garfield County Coroner.
- He found Morgan’s manner of death from a disease she was never, ever diagnosed with.
- In his contracted capacity as the forensic pathologist, he is required by statute to manage the death scene, which he did not.
- He threatened me, more than once, I reported this to the Detective, and to the Coroner, and neither one ever answered me. Say something they don’t like to hear, even if true, and they ignore you.
- Doctors helping us wanted to run tests on Morgan’s remaining samples, to help prove other possible manners of death. The contracted pathologist knew this, but still ordered tests on samples in secrecy, violating our victims rights, and completely exhausting the samples remaining. Why would he do this?
- Based on results that only further proved foul play, the pathologist found her death a suicide based on the theoretical ingesting of a quantity of pills that would not even be a fraction of a lethal dose.
Every day brings us closer to protracted litigation at a staggering cost as our only alternative to giving up.
On the first episode of Dr. Phil, the death scene evidence establishing the presence of someone in her room was not mentioned due to ongoing investigation on our part, as the Sheriff’s Department had given up the morning she was found dead. This included –
- Morgan’s room was, for many reasons, very noticeably and completely disheveled from previous afternoon, and evening.
- Her panic button, which rang a chime in our room, was torn off its mount on her nightstand, and found later on the floor under clothes.
- Morgan was dressed in street clothes, and she never slept in street clothes. These clothes she was found in were not the same clothes that she wore home the night before.
- Morgan’s PJ’s she was wearing that night when going to sleep were gone.
- A suspicious spray was detected on Morgan’s chest under blacklight, the most primitive means of examining for this, yet the contracted forensic pathologist found nothing on her chest. A spray of dots does not disappear.
- Morgan had wounds on her right hand not seen the night before, and consistent with defensive wounds.
- She had a small red spot on her forehead, the size of a thumb that was not seen the night before by her father.
- She had a small quantity of blood at edge of her lips.
- There was a burn on the inside of her wrist. There are two quite sinister reasons for this, but a Medical Examiner has not had a chance to comment on what he believes it means. I do know that it was new and it was not seen the night before.
- Her eyes were wide open and sold black, consistent with bleeding before she died and then the blood turning black over the course of the night.
- The nails on her right hand were damaged when we saw her body again at the viewing and this is when they were first noticed by us. The contracted pathologist said he did not touch her nails, the detectives say they looked fine to them. The Coroner refuses to give us copies of the pictures taken at her death scene to really know when the damage occured – wouldn’t that be a huge question as it would show that she fought someone off? A big question mark for the time being.
- Morgan was found on the opposite side of bed from where she always slept, facing the opposite direction from where she usually faced.
- I felt her body looked posed when I first saw it, I told the detectives that the same morning, there was no mention of this exact fact.
- Every report and opinion says the indications are simply that she was lying on her stomach, yet I found her on her side, and until Steve moved her to her back, that is how she was lying. She was never on her stomach that morning, not even for an instant.
- Morgan’s lights in her bathroom, attached to her bedroom, went on sometime after midnight, Morgan never slept with lights on. If she were still alive then, she could have turned them on, but she would have turned them off again. The person who observed the lights wanted to explain this, and other things he had observed, but was never questioned by the Sheriff’s department.
- All of Morgan’s jewelry of value went missing from her room sometime that night and was never found again. Keenan had a warrant issued for his arrest (and was arrested just weeks after her murder) for selling jewelry, in person, at a, “cash for gold store.” The Detective insisted I produce a photograph of every piece of Morgan’s jewelry first, and refused to give me even a list of what the stolen pawned jewelry contained. Further the proprietors of the cash for gold store instantly recognized Keenan from a Facebook picture as a regular customer.
- A knife Steve had just purchased for Morgan was in her bed, in an odd place, still in the box, with a happy face drawn on it by Steve.
- A very recent and important gift to Morgan was taken from its box, the box left and the gift never found.
- Morgan’s camera was taken into evidence and returned by the Sheriff’s. When it was returned from evidence, it was missing the memory chip from the camera. The Sheriff’s department has not been able to locate that memory chip or a copy that they would have made if there was a memory chip in it.
- Morgan’s driver’s license was missing from her purse. Her instruction permit which she normally kept in her purse right behind her license was still there, but her current drivers license was missing and has never been located.
- Other doctors helping with Morgan’s case found that she died from a massive overkill, one time dose of Amitriptyline early on in their examination of her toxicology results. The contracted forensic pathologist finally backed off his stance that she died from a disease she was never diagnosed with, and backed off to partially agree with this same conclusion after eight months. He really had no choice as he was clinging to a non-defensible position. A container or any syringe to hold, and administer this very lethal dose was never found in her room, or anywhere in her possessions.
At least three other pieces of evidence exist that point to an intruder in her room that night, but are being withheld at this time. One of these is something taken from the house that was not discovered until just weeks ago. Following every lead to the end will mean taking the video surveillance recorder back out and reviewing all six cameras for another day. So as you can see the investigation never really stops, and useful evidence is constantly refined, our knowledge of what really happened that night will never be 100%, but it is always improving. The real question is, if it was not Keenan in Morgan’s room that night, then who was it?
Now for those of you who do not know her, Morgan was a fighter, ask any of her friends and they will tell you that Morgan would not have gone down without a fight. However, backing up for moment first, and imagining Steve and I when Morgan was first found, then at that moment in time when her cause of death was being called Natural Causes. We did not think anyone was in her room initially and did not thoroughly search for indications. We researched her manner of death to safeguard our grandchildren from some unknown malady. As far as I can tell the Garfield Sheriff’s Department never did any search for an intruder. And as it became more and more obvious someone had to have been in her room, we fought the idea, I believe because it was just too painful to believe. It was quite some time before we could fully accept it.
The first question then became her puppy, Wylah, why would she not have barked? It was a quandary. Then came a possible solution, Steve was being questioned by an investigator, recreating the moment when the first responders were there, at least three big men, all strangers to Wylah. Steve remembers clearly that she just sat on the bed and did not make a sound. That was a good enough solution for the investigator, but I still wonder if there wasn’t some other way that she was subdued, some way that would carry over to subduing Morgan also.
Some have conjectured that she could have been threatened, assured she was not going to be killed, and threatened that one peep and Morgan’s puppy dies, or her cat, or even Morgan’s parents. I could see this happening. Morgan would have been compelled to go along.
Then think of drugs, there were five date rape drugs found in her stomach, none of them ever absorbed into her body, and a massive dose of amitriptyline in her bloodstream, one of he highest doses ever seen at the national crime lab her samples were tested at. Then, what about one more drug to sedate her. The only Tox screens that were run were very basic, and many drugs that would easily have knocked her out would not be detected at all. And not to be mysterious, but there is now a third possibility being checked out that will not be on the blog real soon, but it will find its way here as soon as it’s thoroughly checked out.
And that cry for help, it was real and it was meaningful, if only we had fully understood its importance….