Daily Archives: April 20, 2013

Friday, April 20, 2012 – A few moments with Morgan’s contracted Forensic Pathologist

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Today (last year) Dr. Kurtzman called me, by now the doctors, and professors at UCLA Medical Center had come to the conclusion that Dr. Kurtzman was not receptive at all to established medical fact.  He started the conversation by stating he cannot reclassify Morgan’s death at this time to anything, but natural causes because unless he knows for sure that she didn’t have Porphyria he can’t rule that out, and it could have killed her, even if I did not want to, “admit that”.  I was never really quite sure what he mean by that statement.

I told Dr. Kurtzman facts that doctors far more qualified to talk about Morgan medically already had.  I told him Morgan was never diagnosed with it, and then he said I was forgetting that she took Amitriptyline for her Porphyria.  I told him that was completely false.  I went on to correct the history of Morgan’s medications, and offered to get pharmacy records, her doctor’s records.  I did not question why he had not requested any of this most basic medical information for Morgan before concluding her autopsy based upon completely missing and erroneous information.  My goal was to perhaps introduce one piece of evidence at a time for him, he was very touchy if questioned about anything he had done.  Dr. Kurtzman again told me that of course she was talking Amitriptyline, it was in her labs.

I openly ask the world at this point a few things.  Sheriff’s reports, hundreds and hundreds of pages, not seventy-five, include multiple medications they say Morgan was taking, that she was not, and were not found in her “labs” either.  The Sheriff’s reports also include the condition she was taking the prescription medications for, which she was not even taking, and she never took medications for the condition they are saying she took them for, she had never been diagnosed with any of those conditions, so:

  1. Why are Sheriffs trying to compile a list of the medications that Morgan was taking, they have no right under state or federal law to access any of her actual records, in fact they are completely barred from accessing her records.  Yet they write reports as to what medications Morgan was taking, and purport to know why.  And I should not have to say this because I believe they are in violation of her HIPAA rights, but they are completely wrong about what prescriptions she took, completely wrong about what conditions she might have had, and obviously not being doctors they do not have the expertise to make these statements in their report…but that didn’t stop them, they did it anyway.
  2. I do not know if their reports were used by the Coroner or his contracted pathologist to arrive at important conclusions.  But I certainly hope that is not the case.  As we all know the Coroner or his contracted pathologist will never answer any of this so what sane way do we have to deal with these people?  Especially when they refuse to treat victims with dignity and respect.  What am I left to do about Morgan’s victims rights?
  3. Why is the contacted pathologist so hung up on a condition she never had?  You would think that if we put him in touch with her doctors, who knows she never had the Condition he is stating caused her to die from natural causes, then we could move on, but no that is not possible.  Can’t let any truth seep in here.
  4. Is there any wonder why the Honorable District Attorney feels the Sheriff’s Department has so thoroughly botched the crime scene investigation that they are not sure what can be done?        

Back to the conversation with Kurtzman, I asked him what it was going to take to move on from this Porphyria endless loop.  He said if we had her blood genetically tested, of course this would have to be at our expense, to prove she did not have Porphyria then he could take that off of his report. He said he cannot take the word of a doctor or doctors in this case anymore, that he would need to get information from another pathologist, preferably from the State of Colorado.  He said unless a pathologist tells him that she could have died from death by fright he can’t put that down on her death certificate.  He said she would need an underlying malady like QT syndrome, and then he gave me the name of a lab to look up that could do the testing, also at our expense.  He said an underlying malady could make her prone to sudden death.

He said her full manner of death is cardiac & pulmonary edema.  I did not mention that he wrote pulmonary edema on the original autopsy report.  He said the cause can’t be changed at this time.  I asked about the Amitriptyline numbers and he started to talk about Post-mortem redistribution and then got vague again.  He said once again that he found no pills or fragments of pills in Morgan’s stomach so he could not say her death was a suicide or accidental overdose.  There is a disturbing trend that whenever I mention during this conversation about Porphyria never being a diagnosis and that it should come off of his, “Natural Causes”, conclusion he brings up Amitriptyline and the specter of the very high numbers, and that he could have looked at suicide or accidental overdose except that they were not pills in her stomach.

He then went into all of the various ways we could use genetic testing to  establish sudden death.  I asked him if he tested for poisons – he said the testing is very expensive, so there are things they do not test for unless instructed to such as cyanide, etc.

Th conversation was ending and I summarized by saying, Dr. Kurtzman, “so my job this week is to get the hospital results from Children’s Hospital to see if Morgan ever had an EKG and to look up on the Internet the Labs you just told me about to see what the costs are for the testing and discuss with my husband and decide if we can afford to have her remaining blood sample tested for these genetic things that we just discussed to rule in or out and then get back to you by the end of this week.”  Dr. Kurtzman said yes please call me to let me know.

I called and left a message for Dr. Michael Dobersen to call back when he returned to his office on Monday.  A very helpful person in Denver had recommended him in case I needed a second opinion and it seemed as if we did at this point.

Am I an accuser or just stating facts?

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Am I telling of facts, or am I an accuser, there is a difference, isn’t there?  While the tag of “accuser”  has been hurled at me as if it is the most egregious transgression one can make, I know it is not true at all.  If my statements were false they may slander, they may even endanger, and I want to address this idea, and I also want to share a quote from the publisher who started the Aspen Daily News many years ago – “if you don’t want it printed, don’t let it happen” The City of Aspen, Colorado lived under this statement for decades, and still does today.

But stepping back a little, first a crime is committed, a woman is raped, beaten, and she sees her rapist, perhaps even picks him from a lineup, law enforcement is really on it.  She knows who did it.  But there has not been a trial yet.  And this woman who was raped, beaten, and saw her rapist names him.  Yes, she tells one person, or tells a thousand that she knows who did it and she knows his name.  Does she slander him? No, he raped and beat her, and all she does is say the name of the man she knows to have done this atrocity to her.

In this world of justice would you rather a man capable of such a crime to be named to warn others, or is it PC to stick with a vague description, but no name?  The criminal has rights, yes indeed.  The criminal’s rights begin to end right when he commits a crime. The right to be free before he is tried is not even guaranteed.  He will be incarcerated unless he is granted bail, as he awaits trial.  Sometimes he is allowed bail, sometimes he isn’t.  His name is put in the news before trial, people tell other people about him before he goes to trial, his name is everywhere before he is determined to be guilty, or not guilty, and this is fact.

Morgan saw her stalker (not just his car, but also his face), while she was being stalked, at an intersection, at least four times. She saw him, and reported him by name (this is while there was a felony stalking case open to help her, and catch the suspect).  And just so you know it was not just any meeting, he managed to be exactly in the middle of the intersection turning left to go down valley at the exact same time she was turning left to go up valley.  Try it sometime…pick out a random car at a busy intersection and attempt to make a left turn at exactly the same time so you can come eye to eye with the driver of that random car as you pass in the middle of the intersection.  I couldn’t do it.  There are cars in front of you that mess with your timing, if they don’t turn you can’t either.  The random car you are trying to meet up with has cars in front of it.  Some drivers are more aggressive than others. I never came close.  The driver would have had to pull over (and there is a perfect spot for it) and wait until he saw your car coming down the hill, across the highway, and then he could have timed it perfectly.

Keenan did this as part of Morgan’s stalking consecutively, and he would then engage in a cold threatening stare that Morgan said severely frightened her, causing extreme stress which would not pass in seconds, or minutes.  Morgan would still be shaking when she got home, angry and scared, and I would hold her for the longest time.  And these weren’t the only times she actually saw him and reported it.

Trying to calm a person that has been scared very badly is never easy, when it is your daughter there is another hurt that permeates, the wish to thrash out, the mothering instinct that says you have to protect your child.

Morgan named him based upon a positive identification, with certainty, to classmates, instructors, friends, her parents, Deputies, and Detectives.

Why do you think Keenan Van Ginkel was named so many times in the Sheriff’s reports? That is in the ‘REAL’ Sheriffs reports, and even they are far from correct, and complete.  But that too will come another day.

And is this why she was killed? Was Morgan murdered days before she was to give video testimony before the Detectives?  Is the state of law in Garfield County really such that if you murder your victim days before they give their testimony on camera about you, then there was no crime?  Seems to be exactly what happened in this case.  Wouldn’t you be furious?  Wouldn’t you want to give a voice to your murdered child who can no longer speak out?

And just to keep a perfect record, kind of like our murder rate here in Garfield County, do you know that none of these friends, instructors, classmates were ever interviewed during Morgan’s Stalking?  Not even a phone call.  They have spoken to me and can not understand why the Detective would not have taken their statement.  Why?  And after her death none of them including us, Steve and I, her parents were ever interviewed about actual eyewitness sightings of her stalker.  “We follow the facts and see where they lead us”.  Which part of that got left out of the investigation of Morgan’s Stalking and death?  Sometimes I feel like all of it did.