Morgan gets her dad’s old iPhone to replace her broken phone. She is very happy, and I am very glad that she will be safer with a cell phone that works.  She takes her new puppy to the vet at 10:30 am.

Later that day, after work, Steve and I have leave Morgan home alone for a couple of hours (I was very nervous about it, but we had borrowed our son’s lab/Shepard mix dog Joey; he used to be an amazing watch dog, and now there were 3 dogs at our house, so I felt like Morgan could relax at home, while we were gone for just a couple of hours before dinner.  But I guess I was wrong, she was nervous.   I sent Morgan a text, “How’s it going?”  We are just leaving Eagle.”  Morgan sends a text, “Good.  Super hyper.  Might leave.”  I sent her a text back, “Noooo, I still want to go to Aspen with you.”  Morgan writes back, “Dude…You’re not going to be home until too late, you left me hyper at home and you’ll need to feed dad too.”  I texted her, “He ate, if you take his truck and be home by 6:00 pm we will eat salmon and go to Aspen.”  Then Morgan wrote back, “I’m staying.  But grumpy.”  I wrote, “Noooo not Grumpy!  Dad would like you to look up Apple TV to see the difference between the one for $99 and the one for $119 thanks.”  Morgan writes back, “Dude, you guys suck.”  Then I responded, “Just because he asked you to look up the TV?  Dad says he’s mortally injured. :(“  We are always joking back and forth – I love our relationship, it’s fun.

After we have completed our list of people, in and around our neighborhood, we have 55 “suspects” (can you believe it?), and while we knew it would be easy to eliminate some very quickly, the full list seems daunting. We realize it will take a lot of time to whittle it down to the goal of no more than three or four. So, we draft the first plan of who to watch and how. We grapple with what is suspicious and what is not, and how long it will really take to get through 54 suspects.  It’s amazing what happens when you look at people while thinking maybe they could be the stalker – innocent little things suddenly become strange actions, strange behaviors.  I start to do research about the profile of stalkers.

Morgan doesn’t want to be involved in going over the list of people – it’s too upsetting for her…she just wants this to all go away.  I don’t blame her, but realize this is naive thinking.

There are two houses that we know are empty and abandoned by their owners, because of foreclosure.  We are concerned about them, so we thoroughly checked those houses out to make sure some homeless person isn’t crashing out in one of them.  Those houses could be used at night to lay low and watch undetected.

One of the patrol officers told us he did a little experiment, and parked in the raft launching parking lot by the river on County Road 100, and then walked to our house – he told us it’s an easy walk, so someone could be parking there and walking to our house very easily and concealed.  After dinner Morgan leaves to go see a friend, and Steve sets up a new plan with Morgan for her to text at least a half hour before she is supposed to drive home, Steve sneaks out of the subdivision on foot and hides in a tall pine tree across the County Road to observe the surrounding area when Morgan drives home.  He wants to see if any car drives up and parks and someone goes into our subdivision, while Morgan is on her way home – in case the stalker somehow is not in our neighborhood, but is just getting tipped off that she is on her way home, and they get there before her in order to get in position.  Steve found out the hard way that the sprinklers come on late at night (same time he was crouched in the tree), causing Steve to come home very wet.  🙁

Click here to read about the 18th day of Morgan’s stalking https://morgansstalking.com/?p=654

I go to the doctor in the morning in Glenwood Springs.  Morgan goes into town with her puppy while I am gone.  Morgan is really frustrated with everything going on – too much drama.  She likes to avoid drama.  She throws herself into dance – comes home after I get back, and plays the piano, and shows me her new dance steps, on her toe shoes, that she is working hard on perfecting.

Later this afternoon we start a list of suspects – we write down every single person in neighborhood on a legal pad, including people living at the ranch behind us, so we can start watching and eliminating people.  This was a tactical day.  We decided every time something happened Steve would jump in his truck and drive around the neighborhood to see whose car was in their driveway, and who was gone. Some of our neighbors are part time residents, with vacation homes, and we will continually cross them off the list as they are proven not to be involved. It’s unnerving to think of all the neighbors as “suspects” but it seems logical at the same time.

Morgan is still sleeping in our closet, except when she is staying at a friends house.  Her sister, Godparents, friends and other family members have all offered to have her come stay with them in order to get her out of state, but Morgan does not want to leave her puppy, she doesn’t want to miss a semester of classes and most of all she does not want this stalker to force her to change her life.  She thinks if she leaves he wins.  I understand where she is coming from, and her father and I are doing everything we can think of to keep her safe, but ultimately we did not have the information or experience in this sort of thing to make the right decision for her at the time.

Looking back on this day I know we should have hidden her out somewhere safe, with her puppy, and not continued on with life as though no one could take her from us…this was ultimately the worst decision we could have made.

Click here to read about the 17th day of Morgan’s stalking https://morgansstalking.com/?p=633

Photo credit Max Barbanell