Is our family angry that Morgan has not received justice yet? YES
Is our family upset that the truth has not gotten out yet? YES
Are we, and so many others furious at the way the system is treating & failing other stalking victims, by not following the laws that are already on the books? YES
This all has to change, and it needs to change NOW!!! I am mad as hell – just how much is one family expected to take?
I haven’t been writing lately because I have had writer’s block – it has been very emotional for Steve and I as the days led us to the second anniversary of the day we found Morgan’s lifeless body on December 2, 2011. The images faced that morning were certainly bad enough, and they added to all that has come out since then, and has become immeasurable to Steve and I – it is so very hard to put all those awful images, that keep popping into my head, behind me. In-between those images I see beautiful and happy images of Morgan – I keep thinking that once her investigation gets opened, and arrests are made, that the horrible memories of her stalking, and murder will start to dissipate…but right now we have no closure what-so-ever. Someone has still gotten away with murder at this time.
How can a parent have closure after their youngest daughter is stalked for four months, then murdered, and the Garfield County Sheriff’s office does everything in their power to cover it up? We have been forced to endure the pain of losing Morgan, at the same time trying to get her case opened so justice can be served, and the truth of her life restored in spite of those few who wish so wickedly to only tarnish it with lies. We know the people engaged in the lies are connected to the murderer – we thought at first that this was crazy, but it isn’t, of course they are doing everything in their power to protect a murderer, but we have since found out that this is actually a practice that has happened to many victims over the years…sick as it seems this does happen, so the facts, and only the facts of the case need to come out, not lies and speculation, only the truth. People that never knew Morgan, never knew what happened, never knew anything, have been acting like they know it all, and they lie, and lie and lie, hoping people will believe them. The truth never changes, and the truth will come out, please know this is true – it will not be covered up forever.
There is a further truth that without the story of Morgan’s murder seeing the light of day, and changes being made, another innocent victim, and their entire family will suffer the same fate… that is not some long shot possibility, it is a fact! If Morgan could be stalked and murdered, and those elected, empowered and sworn to uphold laws do the opposite of what they should have done in her case then it will continue to happen to others. There is more than the need for more education in order to protect victims, and save lives – this will involve the people that are sworn to uphold the law to have the ethics and morality to do just that. It is an answer to the question of why do they behave as they do? And I am not referring to the perpetrators who were, and are heinous enough to deal with, but I am also referring to law enforcement, and others within the county who have a program that is unknown to me, but does not involve upholding the law, or protecting the victims.
The State of Colorado understands the seriousness, but somehow not the sheriff’s of Garfield County. They need to know how serious stalking is, and have accountability when it comes to a murder, but apparently they do not, not yet. The state of Colorado states that immediate intervention is required, so why does Garfield County feel that arbitrarily waiting six or seven weeks is effective intervention? If the victim was murdered after only four months then your intervention was anything but effective. And to cover up that lapse by calling it not related to the stalking, and not a murder, when just a few too many experts in crime scene investigation who have now seen the images of Morgan’s crime scene can not begin to understand why there was no investigation, there is a very huge problem lurking. Perhaps it begins to explain why the law of common decency, and not murdering your fellow citizens applies less, and less in the state of Colorado. Why shootings and murders are so common place that someone should be concerned by now. In fact quite a few should and are!
An excerpt of the law as written says; “The general assembly hereby recognizes the seriousness posed by stalking and adopts the provisions of this part 6 with the goal of encouraging and authorizing effective intervention before stalking can escalate into behavior that has even more serious consequences.” Which I think spells it out quite well, if they had written, “and by the way, four months is a bit too long to wait,” would Garfield County have been more serious? If they had written, “if you are dealing with a predatory stalker then everything has to be taken far more seriously,” then would Garfield County have reacted with something stronger, instead of the nothing Morgan received? Oh I forgot, first they need to know that there are many different types of stalkers (different typologies) and there is a different protocol that needs to be used in the different cases. Education – education – education…and law enforcement needs to follow the Federal and State laws as written. Citizens have to follow the law, ignorance of the law is not allowed for the citizens, so why should it be okay for law enforcement agents?
When responding to a crime, say there is a single perp with a knife, the sheriff’s would evaluate the facts and react to how much back up to call in, but say it is not one, but two, or maybe three perps, and the police or sheriff is not even at the scene yet, what if the perps have automatic assault weapons, even body armor? Now the level of back-up called in to the police or sheriff’s goes way up, as well it should. So why is this logic not used when a crime is called in by a victim of an ongoing stalking situation? Why is every stalker, and every stalking situation given the same response? The situation as it stands right now is absolutely hopeless for victims in Garfield County, as well as many other places.
Morgan was murdered just over two years ago – she did not deserve to be stalked and murdered. She loved life more than anyone I have ever met in my life. Just driving in the car with her was a treat – she would always notice and remark on the beauty of a mountain, or river, or bird flying in the sky. Seeing it herself made her want to capture it to share with the world, so she took her camera everywhere with her for that simple, yet so profoundly beautiful reason. So she could capture the beauty of the world and share it with others – she did not want to leave this life, but she was taken from this world much too soon.
I do know she helped more people, and made more changes in this world in her short 20 years of life than I have in all the time I have been allowed to live on this earth. Morgan may have completed what she was sent down to earth to do, but she did not want to leave yet. She made so many plans for her future – she was really excited and happy that she was going to finish college, have a career, and someday a family with children (she wanted 3, she always said, she had picked out their names already), and even knew where she wanted to retire someday… quite a far reaching plan for such a young adult to imagine for her future. Maybe that is what made her sudden, completely unexpected, and horrific death was so hard to bear. Loosing Morgan in this way has created a deep, deep pain in my heart, that creeps out on a daily basis, and causes a guttural cry from deep within me. I know that I will always grieve for Morgan, but I also know that pushing forward towards justice will help that intense guttural pain subside – I feel as though that pain is the pain of knowing the person that tortured and killed our loving daughter is still out there to do it again, and because of that Steve and I have no closure.
Morgan would have been able to do everything she imagined, because she always met and fought through every challenge in her life, worked extremely hard, and achieved everything she set out to do – she NEVER gave up. Morgan loved to journal, so not only did she verbalize her dreams, but she also wrote them down, along with a list of what she still needed to accomplish in order to get there. She was an amazing young woman. The hardest part of this whole nightmare has been trying to put some semblance of sanity into the path that led to her death, and the fact that she can no longer be with us, through no choice of her own. Steve and I now need to be Morgan’s voice – we want justice for Morgan!
The system that is Garfield County not only completely failed Morgan over two years ago, but continues to fail her in her death – I want people to know the truth about stalking, and what stalking victims go through…here are just some of the things Morgan went through in those short four months before her murder, as do so many other stalking victims that I have spoken with – they experience these things as well:
- Denial, confusion, self-doubt, questioning if what is happening is unreasonable, wondering if we were all over-reacting
- Frustration
- Guilt, embarrassment, self-blame
- Apprehension, fear, terror of being alone or that they, others or their pets will be harmed (she verbalized that she was afraid for her puppy Wylah May, and discussed ways to keep her puppy safe)
- Feeling isolated and helpless to stop the harassment
- Anxiety
- Inability to sleep – nightmares, ruminating (Morgan wanted to sleep at her friend’s houses or have friends sleep over as much as she could in order to feel safe, and be able to actually get some sleep)
- Irritability, anger
- Emotional numbing
- Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder e.g. hypervigilance (always on the lookout), flashbacks of frightening incidents, easily startled.
- The feeling that someone is stealing your life from you – your life is now not the same as it had always been. You can no longer spend your days without fear or stress (think about this happening to you every day – never knowing when you stalker will show up or what will happen next)
- Fatigue from difficulty sleeping (she was being startled awake constantly by her stalker and extremely exhausted as were Steve and myself), forced into being constantly on guard and then living with the knowledge that all you had to give was not enough.
- Effects of chronic stress including headaches, hypertension
- Gastrointestinal problems
- Loss of appetite
- Development of a rash due to stress and fright (in the beginning of Morgan’s stalking, when she was so frightened she was sleeping in my closet at night she developed a rash on her chest from the stress – at that time we had no idea who was doing this to her – it was like some strange bogey man, and so terribly frightening for her)
- Dizziness
- Shortness of breath which brought about pain in her chest
- Heart palpitations and sweating
Does this sound like horrific torture to you? It was horrific torture! Horrific for Morgan, and for us to watch our youngest daughter go through. Just imagine what it is like for many, many other stalking victims, every day to go through this kind of torture. These are just some of the symptoms that stalking victims experience – stalking causes victims extreme distress.
Why is it so hard for a stalking victim to reach out for help?
- Not understanding that what is happening to them is stalking and/or illegal – in the very beginning Morgan was trying to come up with logical explanations for the strange taps on her windows right when she would get ready to jump in the shower or go to bed.
- Trying to pretend that it is not really happening wanting to wake up the next day and they are no longer being stalked (it doesn’t stop, but they hope it will)
- Believing that they should be able to deal with the situation, thinking that the stalker will see reason, or just stop (they don’t)
- Fear that others will think they are over-reacting or that they will be blamed for somehow having encouraged the stalker in the first place. (Similar to how rape victims perceived, and hid the fact that they had been raped)
- Fears about how the stalker will respond either to them or those that they love or care for (Morgan verbalized to many others that she was worried that if she moved he would follow her, and if she took out a restraining order he would become more violent (we had all read the article about Vonnie Flores who was murdered by her stalker on July 7, 2010 after receiving a TRO on June 24, 2010 http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15466250) – but Morgan was still determined to get a restraining order, after discussing this with the detective in charge of her case the detective asked if she could hold off a little longer in order to give them more time to “catch the stalker in the act” which did not happen and would never have happened with the type of protocol they were using.
- Direct threats from the stalker
- Feeling isolated in their plight, believing that there is nothing that can be done to help them, or not knowing who to go to. (At one point Morgan was so angry she believed that the sheriff’s were never going to catch her stalker, she didn’t think they wanted to, they were making excuses for the stalker every time she told them of her sightings of the stalker. She was so upset that they were never going to do anything to stop it and one day she came home from school, and grabbed a baseball bat, wanting to go hunt him down herself)
- Previous requests for help being ignored (Morgan was so frustrated because after the worse, and most frightening incidences that she reported the sheriff’s they did nothing they promised to do about it – we reported almost everything to them during that four month period of stalking, and almost a year and a half after Morgan’s murder, when we finally saw the sheriff’s reports, almost all of the serious incidents that were reported to them by Morgan and myself, and documented were not in the reports so Morgan was obviously intuitive enough to know that something was seriously wrong with the felony stalking investigation that was ongoing at the time)
- Limited options in respect to changing their situation e.g. relocation to safer housing (just weeks before she was murdered Steve and I finally talked Morgan into moving – we told her we found a place that would be much harder for the stalker to terrorize her, if he found out where she was – she was excited about the move, started packing some things, told her friends about it, but you all know by now that we did not move in time – it was too late for Morgan – she was murdered before we could get out)
Morgan’s story needs to get out to everyone. People need to know that this is not acceptable, and demand that something is done to right this wrong, get the truth out and get a murderer off the street.
Please share her story with anyone you know – it will help to raise awareness about the seriousness of stalkers, and could save a life.
Steve and I will never give up the fight to have Morgan’s case opened, investigated, and watch justice handed out to those involved. I know there are thousands of you out there that have written in and want to help…I am working on a draft letter that can go out to the legislators of Colorado (the ones that pushed through the excellent laws in this State) to make them aware that passing the laws was a very good thing, but if individual law enforcement agencies in the State of Colorado choose to ignore those laws then the laws do the victims no good at all. There needs to be a system in place that has reprocussions for law enforcement agencies that decide to go “rogue” and not uphold that laws of this great Nation, and the State of Colorado!
Steve and I know Morgan will have justice. We are sure as well that positive changes will be made. How could we be so sure you might wonder…because we believe in the power of the people, and we believe there are more good people in this world than bad. You can’t be straddling the fence any longer in this world – you need to be on the side of good, or the side of evil, and when on the side of good people need to individually stand up and create the changes that need to be done. People should never “accept” something when they know it is wrong, whether it is something they see or know is happening that is harmful to another human being. I trust in the Universe and I trust in humanity. I believe people will find their power within to do what they know is right. It is never easy, but it can happen. We can all make positive changes and make this a better world.
