Of course Morgan really had a stalker…what purpose is served to pretend that there was not?

Morgan reaching for hope

Morgan, reaching out

I must admit I am incredulous as I write this, but there is a question that I have been told I can’t ignore, actually four questions to be exact.  So now I will take the time to answer those four in order.  Starting with number one, “is there really a stalker?”, and is this system that we call justice going to wake up, and be there for Morgan, because the way it is going for Morgan right now, it is woefully upside down.

Was there a stalker? Really? Yes, there REALLY was a stalker (this was a felony stalking case, detectives assigned to it and everything), and did the stalker/stalkers murder Morgan?  Yes, and I have strong, very strong feelings and information about that, but I also think an investigation into many things that were in fact never investigated needs to happen.   Sorry, I’m getting ahead of my self,  First – yes, there really was a stalker.  And the following points might be a little out of order, because that takes a lot longer to go through all my notes:

  • At first the stalker taps on the window, Morgan thought it was trees or bushes, until we walked out to cut them back, and saw there were no bushes or trees near her window.  And no we hadn’t called anyone yet.
  • Taps and knocks continue, I call Garfield Sheriff’s department and I will never forget, I was admonished for waiting so long to report this.  Well, I had now reported it and they came, and yes they saw “scuffs” deeply cut into the ground in front of Morgan’s windows.  The deputy said it was obvious to him that someone had stood here, right up against the glass, for a long time.  The Deputy had suggestions, water the ground thoroughly and rake it smooth, maybe we’ll get lucky and get some prints in the dirt.  So you better believe we did that.
  • A bang on the bathroom window, and the prints we were hoping for are left.  Only now nobody cares about the prints left in the dirt, nice clear prints.  I ask in shock, “only the detectives can do that” I’m told, silly me I thought detectives were coming by later to do that.  But no, no one ever comes by to do anything with the prints.  Keep watering and raking they tell us, and we do.  We did take pictures ourselves.  Oh, and once a Deputy was practically pleading with his supervisor over the phone to be allowed to take a casting, after a while he was trying to get permission to take a picture, that too was a no go.  I guess now that I’ve seen how it works if you want to be able to claim you never saw any sign of a stalker you certainly can’t collect any evidence of a stalker.  I told the Deputy that day to not let it get him down, I’ll have Steve take pictures when he gets home.  A retired Special Agent told us that if we had cast them ourselves a Deputy would have been required to watch and oversee our efforts.  We didn’t know that back then, but want others to know in case this happens to you.  When we had a detective assigned he wasn’t quite sure what the deal was with prints.
  • I saw the stalker on the front porch, positively, twice, once turning to run and once keying in two digits of our front door code.
  • I saw him running between our cars in the driveway in broad daylight.  Now picture, if you can, a male, wearing a loose hoodie with the hood over his head and completely covering the side of his face. Spinning, head down, hands hidden, and then running, two, three strides and he’s ducking off to the side, and I can’t even tell you what kind of pants he was wearing.  Do you think you could “positively” identify him?  I wasn’t sure, Steve thought it was worth a line up to see. The Sheriffs didn’t agree.
  • We have him on video, he was hiding out behind my car and another car drove up the street, he either had to run or risk being spotted behind my car, so he ran. The video just isn’t good enough to positively identify him either.
  • We have him on video again, coming up across the back yard to the aspen tree that doubles as a ladder for him to make the “impossible” climb to the roof, yeah right, Steve is much older and has no problem climbing it.  Once again the picture that was taken in the middle of the night is not clear enough to identify him.
  • Morgan went out with her puppy in the early morning, still dark, she became aware of a male standing just on the other side of our 3’ high fence, all dressed in black.  She was badly shaken, and we never heard her scream.  Steve said he wished she had screamed loud, he wished she had started, and never stopped.
  • The stalker followed her, at least twice, first time we were completely unprepared, and it was up to Morgan to outrun him, race off in the opposite direction.  The second time we were only slightly more prepared, and we were waiting in the street as she drove up.  Only he did not follow her to the house, just to the subdivision.  Then came the plan to call 911, and have her keep driving, which I was never wild about as nothing had really worked before, so I was never very upset that we actually did not have a chance to try that.
  • There was an officer staking out the yard for the stalker, right outside our bedroom, for a half an hour.  We have him beautifully on video, and suggested if they were going to do a stake out again, first don’t wear the uniform jacket with the reflective “SHERIFF” written across the back, oh and don’t text constantly, completely lights up your face, chest and shoulders you know.
  • There is a gutter cracked in half directly over Morgan’s window that Steve assures me did not crack itself.
  • Then there are the trails worn into the berm, none out there this year, went by and looked.  They were never there in the past before the stalking.  Now there is no one  to stalk, no stalker, no stalker trails, funny how that works.
  • Of course there is the famous wildlife cam photo that I have been told someone is claiming is the most pathetic Photoshop job they have ever seen.  I know it isn’t.  I know we handed a copy to the Deputies fresh out of the camera that same night.  Wonder who she was protecting? Meaning the person that posted that it was photoshopped.
  • Then in a weird, weird sequence Steve was giving chase around the house one night and when reviewing the video cameras later, stopped, said some colorful things, and told me,  “I thought I was chasing him!”  “He was following behind me the whole time.”  He could tell by the way the motion detector lights were going off behind him and then back on.

So there were more instances/proof of a stalking, that I have been asked not to release yet.   And then for reasons I can only guess at, certain people conducted alibi appearances at our house.  Not to be too mysterious, but coming up soon in this blog is a, what can you say moment, when someone walks around our house one night practically waving their arms in front of each camera, we look, and can instantly can tell it is not the stalker, even the deputies can instantly tell its not the stalker.  And to top that off the following morning, before the snow melted there were footprints to show exactly  where they “marched” around our house, and then those footprints actually led right to Brook’s dad’s house – imagine that!   “Just a big game to them,” one of the Garfield County Deputies said after seeing the video. Maybe somehow to them, but not when our 20 year old daughter ends up murdered, no way, no how.

There was a stalker, an individual that was suspected by Law Enforcement, there was at least one other person who was a party to this and was, to our knowledge, never even questioned.  Morgan was a victim, Steve and I were victims as well.  We have read Colorado Victims Rights, and I assure you that that memo did not make it to the Garfield Sheriff’s Department.  But make no mistake there is only one thing that burns as the most important thing to me now…the protocol Steve and I had was – not good enough – likewise the Sheriff’s protocol was – not good enough –  so to watch our Sheriff stand on camera, and not promise us that he will improve, when he chose to say they were at our house at least 50 times and never saw a sign of a stalker, that was heart wrenchingly disappointing.  If you’ve seen the wildlife cam photos just tell our Sheriff to tell his Deputies to look behind them – then maybe they’ll see the stalker.  Very disappointing for the safety of other young women in this county, because I have to warn you that if they do the same for you, that they did for Morgan, that is a crime in and of itself.

September 21, 2011 – Day 51 of Morgan’s Stalking.

Morgan in the yard

Morgan outside, just catching rays

Morgan’s teacher sends her a text, answering Morgan’s text to her the night before, “Ok…..c u Thursday.”

There is a farmer’s market today in Carbondale, and I ask Morgan if she wants to go with me when I take a lunch break, or she can give me a list.  She’s juicing in the mornings, and she always likes to use organic produce, and the farmer’s market seems like such a good place for that.  Plus it’s relaxing.  Morgan passes on going with me (she has somewhere else she has to be), but has a little wish list in case I still go.

The cameras are still doing their trick, and we go to bed later than usual.  Then at 11:05 pm the motion lights, that cover the area right outside Steve’s window, go off.  We were talking in bed, and hear something outside.  We had decided early in the week that we would give full chase to anything that happened, and then replay it on the video later.  This was the first try using that theory.

Steve was out the side door, and did a big circle around the house.  Nothing.  He went back, and looked for prints, and found nothing.  He searched with the thermal imaging scope, and saw nothing.

For an hour we replayed the whole thing.  Steve showed up just fine, we could chart his progress around the house from camera to camera, but nothing else.  Steve was sure he had heard something, and was frustrated to say the least.  All he could do was look at me and say, next time, next time we’ll see something.  He’s being super cautious right now.  We knew there were areas around the house that were not covered by the cameras, and we had foolishly never even considered checking our roof :(…we only had 6 cameras to go around, but we really thought we had placed them where they could catch the stalker…

(Police reports later show the “suspect” did not work on 9.21.2011)

Today its September 19, 2012 ,  and the questions are coming faster than I can answer, so please bear with me, I will get to them all.  I just want to give each of you my undivided attention.  And the questions themselves are so provoking.  You have Steve and I going back through records, and looking for things we would never have thought of before.  He’s even hooked an old computer back up to look for some old documents on that.  And please don’t apologize for using the tip line, that is what it is for, and if I want to share some of it, I’ll always ask first. 🙂  And as always it is so wonderful all the inspiration you give me with your kind words.  Steve and I will never stop fighting to get Justice for Morgan, and it will happen.

Click here to read about the 52nd day of Morgan’s stalking https://morgansstalking.com/?p=1305

Lay of the Land – We should have known where the stalker could be hiding!

I’m going to confess that with the sudden infusion of so many amazing minds pouring over every detail, Steve and I talked and thought that piecing together Morgan’s last 24 hours would be very important.  That is my hope with the posts about Amitriptyline and no forced entry.  This is officially the third in the series.

So this first image from Google earth, and filled with my notes, was originally something I  sent to the Sheriff’s office.  After countless visits to the house, and coming up empty I wanted them to have another angle to pursue on the next stalking case they would possibly encounter and the frustration they found themselves in.  As you saw from the video, getting onto our roof without a ladder is not difficult, and couple that with this overhead shot where you can see how the roof is formed into a perfect little hiding spot for our stalker, you can almost picture him lying there…I know I can.  Steve and I had absolutely no idea this little spot existed until it was too late for Morgan.  Also, imagine that from this spot, if a person were to stand up and do a 360 degree turn, you would easily spot anything happening from our house out to miles away – Highway 82, County Road 100, or even the ranch next door. This vantage point had a commanding view of all around us.

62 Corral roof shot

The spots on our roof we should have known about!!

Just so there is no question, the spot labeled (A) was where he would have hid, Spot (B) is directly over Morgan’s window, and the place where the stress cracked gutter was, and Spot (C) is where the volunteer climbed the tree in the earlier video.  Actually many people have climbed the tree since this discovery, even Steve.  And all he could do after he did so was shake his head in disgust.  We promise we are not beating ourselves up.  Take it all as sage advice, it is meant to help.

If my math is correct there are sixteen houses total on Corral Drive, and if you were to assume that during the stalking, ten of them were actually occupied full time, that would be a good assumption.

Summarizing what is becoming my little series, we have a layout of the neighborhood with a few select spots on our house.  A few ways entry would have been gained without so much as a splinter out of place, and a brief primer on the huge dose of Amitriptyline and date rape drug cocktail Morgan could have been killed with many times over.  Next up will be a bit of a surprise/shock for those of you living here in Garfield County, just promise you won’t blame the messenger.

September 20, 2011 – Day 50 of Morgan’s stalking – Have We Scared Him Off?

I can’t believe it has now been 50 days of stalking, and it has not yet ended – we are wondering out loud now, “Have we scared him off?”

Morgan sends a text message to her teacher, “I might be a little late.”

Everything seemed a little better.  It was such a different experience for me, but now anytime I wanted, I could sit in front of the monitor, and watch outside our house in six rectangles, all sides at once, driveway, back patio, side yards.  It’s all quiet, then a bird flys by one camera, and then I see the same bird frolicking on the next camera.  This is too good to be true.  Why did we wait so long to put up these kind of cameras? This is great – I wrote in my day-runner.

At 5:08 pm Steve sends a text to Morgan, “Just left for Aspen with your Mom, she forgot her phone so I will text you when we are heading home.”  Morgan answers, “Thanks.”  At 6:21 pm Steve sends Morgan a picture of the menu from the restaurant we were in. “Would you like us to bring a salad home?” And Morgan answers, “HaHa, I love you guys, I’m good though, thanks.”

We talked to Morgan on the phone later to coordinate when she would come home. Our guard was not lowered at all, but the stress level had been cut considerably.

(Police reports later show the “suspect” was not working this evening.  On 9.20.2011 he worked from 12:58 am – 6:08 am & then from 6:38 am – 10:33 am)

Morgan outside

Morgan having a moment

 

Today September 18, 2012 – If you have been following the blog you know that a lot has been happening lately.  Our weekend was over in the snap of a finger.  Friends have been calling to see how we are holding up – we have learned to smile and tell them, “We are fine” it’s always easier then explaining how we truly feel.  Steve and I look at each other and shrug, we are not going to stop, so whatever happens we just have to find a way to welcome it.

 

Last night we did take a break.  Steve took me out to Konnyaku, a restaurant in Carbondale, it was one of Morgan’s favorite restaurants, she would never turn down an invitation from us to meet there for lunch or dinner.  It was like cheating when we wanted to steal her away from her friends for a little time to talk.

But we haven’t been there since Morgan was killed.  As you have all guessed, there have been a lot of tears for Steve and I.  We are learning to live with them much better now, and we have even begun to appreciate the “happy tears,” the ones that fill our hearts with hope, and last night was a one of the few occasions Steve and I have had a “happy tear moment” We promised each other that there will be many more.

Morgan draws a heart

Morgan drew hearts everywhere

It was really tough to be at Konnyaku at first, just like old times and yet to know Morgan would never be there in body, only in spirit, but it was really great to have some hugs, and hear kind thoughts.  The complete surprise was when they brought out a sushi roll that was not round, it was pressed into a heart shape and they called it the ‘Morgan roll’ – we all had such happy tears!  Then they wouldn’t even let us pay for dinner!  Thank you Susan and Willie, that little break was much needed and your thoughtfulness will stay with Steve and I forever.

Click here to read about the 51st day of Morgan’s stalking https://morgansstalking.com/?p=1274

No sign of forced entry? No intruder? Really?

The morning of Morgan’s death, without even asking, I was assured by the lead Detective on her felony stalking case that officers had thoroughly checked the house, and there was no sign of forced entry.  Please remember this was the morning we had just found our youngest daughter dead, and we were in extreme pain, and were not asking many questions because we were crying so hard.  After that day this point was revisited a few times, and the answer became more positive from the sheriffs to the point that they were insisting nobody could have been in the house.  So now I want to visit that point, and share with you some things.  Once again just the truth, and you decide if it was possible for her stalker to have been in the house on the night she was killed, and you see, I didn’t even say murdered, because for that we need someone to be the killer. Or who knows maybe there could be more than one.

Floorplan for Morgan's HouseFirst start with this floorplan of the house, now this is not an exact floor plan, but it is very close.  Just delete the mud room coming in from the garage, and add two more windows to the Master bedroom, along the wall that is shown as a solid wall, and that was pretty much our house.

Morgan’s room is called BEDROOM 2, and, as you can see there, there are five points of entry through doors:

  • The front door.
  • Two sliding glass doors, and another door all opening out onto the covered patio.
  • A door from the garage.

 

All of those doors had key locks in them. And if you read some earlier posts you know that the front door’s lock broke, and was replaced by a dead bolt lock that had both a key, and a numeric key pad.  Steve had one key to the front door, and the other was in a decorative stack of three dishes that sat on the kitchen bar top, and both keys were accounted for on the day we moved.

There were two codes entered into the front keypad.  One was used by Steve and Toni, and one was used by Morgan.  Not that it kept track or anything like that, it was just Morgan had her 4 digit number, and we had ours.  One time during the stalking, after a few overheard attempts to use the keypad, Morgan’s code was changed.

So my first guess of how it might be done hasn’t changed, and is the same today. Watch Morgan, or Steve, or I from a distance, and see what numbers we press to unlock the door  – maybe it takes one try or two or even ten, but eventually you have it.  At night the numbers on the keypad light up as you press them.  We were told a hunting aid called a spotting scope would make an ideal tool to do this.

And to add weight to my theory, a retired federal special agent said the door lock should have had a cowling such as is used on numeric keypads on military bases to prevent someone from having a direct line of sight to the numbers.  He felt someone from a bush across the street could have the code in a few days at most.  The same investigator felt that without regular cleaning the numbers most used would be “smudged” and far easier to detect.  Coincidentally on a  Facebook page of Keenan’s, he claims to have bagged a 5X5 buck at 288 yards, one shot – interesting, huh?  Another investigator calls this a “world class shot”, 3 football fields away.  He feels that a person capable of that could easily watch us enter, maybe only once, and know the code, we of course, would have no idea he had the code.  (Please note the use of Keenan’s name in my posts – if you read the sheriff’s own reports you will see that they considered him their #1 suspect, he was the suspected stalker and Morgan identified him multiple times as her stalker)

Not to imply whatsoever it was a Psychic Medium that figured this out, but more of an eye opener for me, and whether you choose to allow for the possibility or not, it won’t hurt my feelings, but this Intuitive (who works with law enforcement and the FBI on many missing persons and homicide cases had been 100% right on everything she had told us so far), she had never been to our house, and from over a thousand miles away, “saw a male entering our front door code”, and based on this vision was correct on the first three digits, but did not see the fourth number (which by the way was the same as one of the other numbers she had already told us so she did get all the numbers right).

The neighbor's door, but it is just like ours

This is the neighbor’s door, but it is identical to our two sliding glass doors

The three doors that lead to the covered patio, two sliding glass doors, and one swinging glass door had locks but, we never had keys for them, and they could only be locked by us from the inside.  The keys for those locks could have been lost a long time ago, or gathering dust at a realtor’s office.  But here’s a sort of long shot possibility.  Steve recalled a time when he was talking to Brooke’s dad, James Harris, who told him that as the HOA President he had an old box of keys to most of the empty houses, makes perfect sense in case something should come up, and access is needed.  This was at a time we saw him in an empty house that he should not have had access to.  So I’ll call it only a small possibility, but that is theory number two since Keenan had moved in with Brooke and James (3 houses down from us) approximately 2 weeks before Morgan’s stalking had started.

To throw in another possibility, we leased our house (for over 6 years), and as houses like to do, at the most inopportune times, things break, ours had a microwave break.  The owner thought there was a match in an empty house that he also owned, and wanted to send us the keys to that house, so we could make the swap.  Only he wasn’t sure which was the right key, so he just sent us all of his keys under the theory that we would use the right one, and send them all back.  Steve feels that the original front door key, which we never had, most likely opened the back door, and the garage door.  We never tried at the time, but that pile of keys all went to one of the eight or ten homes he owned at one time, so I’m sure you’ll agree that this incident counts as possibility number three.  Another interesting aside…this same owner owned not only our house but the house James Harris and Brooke lived in and the house across the street that Elliott and his family lived in.

There was a time following Morgan’s death that Steve and I refused to believe anyone had been in her room, it was simply too painful to allow that thought to exist in our minds.  It also wasn’t necessary when she died of “natural causes.”  But when we finally received the autopsy results and toxicology results and read that she died from a disease she did not have and the only medication showing up she did not take, we started to wonder what was going on.  As more and more doctors reviewed her findings, they became quite convinced, and told us it was a homicide, I very reluctantly crossed that threshold, but still would rather think the possibility of someone being in our house just could not be.  I was very naive at that time about the true nature of stalkers…in most cases they do get in to the victims home and most of the time there is no evidence of a break-in.  Having confessed that feeling, early on in my acceptance of someone in Morgan’s room, I felt it happened like this…all of us were gone from the house the late afternoon of December 1, 2011. The dogs were in the laundry room (locked up because the puppy had just chewed up something in the living room), and would not be able to confront someone in the house.  A person who knew the front door code could enter the house, while we were all gone, and unlock the right hand sliding glass door that we never used, (it had heavy velvet drapes over it now from the inside), and then leave. I never checked that door because we always left it locked and never used it.  Now once we were all asleep the perpetrator could enter, and exit through that door silently. That is possibility number four.

To give a nod to many comments, and tips that have in one way or another asked if someone could have been hiding in the house when we came home, or in Morgan’s closet, or better yet out in the garage, and even in the study closet? Yes, absolutely and from there they would have been easily able to wait for the right time to enter Morgan’s room, and then exit the house silently and without a key, that is a big possibility number five…and it makes me sick to even think that someone was possibly hiding in our house when we arrived home that evening and laid in wait for everyone to go to sleep in order to attack.

So do I understand when I hear that Sheriff Vallario has correctly pointed out that they had officers at our house over 50 times, and never saw any sign of a stalker?  I’m still not sure what he meant by that, guess I should write a letter and ask.  Was this a play on words?  Yes, they had officers out at our house over 50 times, and yes they never saw the stalker…the stalker did not sit out on our lawn and wait till they got there to see him.  But sign of the stalker – that’s another story…of course they saw evidence of the stalker, trail in the berm, footprints, wildlife camera captures, video captures, lots of evidence.  Of course there was a stalker, it was a felony stalking case and his own detective met with Morgan once a week!  The stalker is seen in a picture leaning on Steve’s truck, and watching the sheriff’s drive away, he had no care about leaving  footprints during the period when they did not collect them.  He was captured on the video system more than once.  How about the tress crack in the gutter directly over Morgan’s room?  He left a unique blade on the ground outside the house. Silently presented himself to Morgan one morning, dressed in black from head to toe.  He wore distinct trails into the berm behind our house. They know she was followed and she told them the second time what the car looked like and who was driving the car.

He was definitely here, outside the house, and for the million dollar question, inside?  I can’t prove that, yet.  While they maintain no allowance for the possibility, he could have, and I also know the sheriff’s department will never try to prove it.  Someone was in the house on the night of December 1, 2011.  Things happened that night that required someone else to be in the house.  Was it the stalker?  If so, did he have help?  Was it a different person altogether knowing we would assume it was the stalker?

I am going somewhere with all this, and to recount the Amitriptyline post was the first and this is the second, and the third will be along shortly.  Also, yes I was completely overloaded with suggestions today, not another set of eyes, more like a town full of eyes.  No complaints here, this is just what Morgan’s case needs – people that question, people that care.