Tessi babysitting Wylah so Morgan can get some sleep
Morgan calls me at 8:00 am and thanks me for taking Wylah, out and letting her sleep. She wants to sleep more if that is alright and I tell her certainly – go back to sleep. She needs the rest.
Our detectives are trying to come by earlier today so we can try to make some calls again. They are called pretext calls, which basically means Morgan gets on a phone that has been attached to something in Detective Glassmire’s briefcase and she picks up the phone after he has dialed the number and tries to engage the people in a directed conversation. It all sounds good and looks impressive, but unfortunately nobody on the other end has cooperated by answering yet.
Keenan had his cell phone disconnected, and they have been unable to find his new number yet, so a lot of this is shooting in the dark anyway. The calls today are started earlier in hopes we will catch someone at a different time. It starts out with promising signs, but is headed for discouraging results before long.
Steve tries to help and goes into my office to sign up for a service on the Internet that supposedly has all the answers for $20 and there are all kinds of special deals for increased access and information, which Steve accepts and we soon have names and addresses and all kinds of information to go with the numbers.
Again, this looks very promising at first. Even Detective Glassmire and Detective Alstatt are surprised by all the information that can be had on anyone. Only none of this information is working any better. Steve signs in again and tries a search on us using a number that we have had for six years, and is supposed to be private. The information comes spitting out and it is all wrong, we are not even anywhere on it. And it is our number.
We conclude the attempts of the calls, and Detective Glassmire announces he is going to stop by Keenan’s house on the way back to Rifle for a conversation – I did not know he knew where Keenan now lived. I am very hopeful of this development, and after the detectives check their cameras we say goodbye.
Morgan goes out with her puppy to take pictures, and Steve is trying unsuccessfully to get a refund from the Internet information site.
A friend calls me with information, even though we avoid talking about it now, a lot of people are trying to help us end this situation. My friend has scouted on the Internet and has some links I have to see. It is a picture of a young Keenan, decked out in complete camouflage with a deer he has successfully bow hunted lying dead alongside him. I call Steve over to see and he tells me he knows a few bow hunters, it is not an easy sport at all – requires great discipline and patience. There was also a link to a boast that he can go undetected by anyone that my friend is reading to me and I relay to Steve, he wants me to make sure that Detective Glassmire sees it.
At 5:58 pm I text Morgan, “Dad’s B-Day is tomorrow. Let’s talk when you get home.” She calls me back, and tells me about a project she is making for him. I am sworn to secrecy, and promise to let her make the cake as well – she loves to bake.
Detective Glassmire gives me an update later that Keenan was not at home, so he will try again soon. I found out this past May of 2012, that Detective Glassmire never had a real address for the “suspect,” Keenan, so I don’t know why he told me he went there and Keenan was not home…what was that all about? We have signs of momentum in positive ways and I thought after the last few embarrassing events they were trying extra hard, which was very appreciated.
After an uneventful evening the cameras in the rear yard picked something up at 4:51 am (this would now be on the 14th – the “suspect” Keenan Vanginkel was not working at all on the 14th!). Morgan heard what she called shots or bangs on her upper window and her motion detector lights were going on and off all at about the same time. Steve was up and instead of going out sat at the monitor and switched from camera to camera seeing nothing. He now wishes he had all motorized cameras with pan and angle instead of just a few. He had gotten an ad about a camera that followed motion all on its own and now he was going to check into it some more. We just kept thinking – how are we going to stop this!
That picture of the dogs is adorable. I just want you to know my heart and thoughts are with you. I am so sorry that you all had to go through this. It is one of my worst fears and like a real life scary movie. Morgan will live on in the hearts of so many people, some of whom she never knew, because of you putting her story out there. Thank you and take care.
Valerie – thank you so much! Take care. 🙂
Toni I will be sending a private email but know that I found this blog originally from a tweet from Alyssa Miliano. I am a LEO and I’m horrified at what your family has gone thru with the stalking up to Morgan’s death. I tell everyone about your blog & hope that someone gets Morgans story out there because you have suffered a great injustice at the hands of your local LE and the coroner. My thoughts are with you and your family and can’t believe your strength in this daily blog. As a mom myself I know I would do anything for my kids.
KT thank you so much for sharing the blog and the information about stalking. Take care!
The photos you have shown of Morgan the last few days are just beautiful. She is such a beautiful girl, both on the inside and out. Thank you for sharing them with us.
Thank you Bluebird that was so sweet of you to say. I had a hard time yesterday reading the last months worth of her facebook messages to and from her friends and then all the messages to her from her friends after they found out she was dead. She loved life so much and loved going places and doing things so much as well and everyone loved her – she had a smile that would light up the room. I was also remembering going shopping with her and asking her to let me know if she saw anything she thought she might like as a Xmas present or if something looked nice for her brother or sister. She was never into giving me a Xmas list, and always acted like she didn’t care about material things, but one day while shopping together she saw some cheetah patterned pajamas, and matching sleepers and said, “oh wouldn’t that be a cute present for me and (her sister), we would match! So when she wasn’t looking I quickly put those down on my list to get them for Xmas…but then Morgan died on December 2nd and I no longer wanted to shop or celebrate Xmas.
I’ve been passing along this to every friend I can, trying to get them to realize how dangerous a stalker can be. Just a thought (and it may be a very elementary one, but a thought nonetheless), have you had those names put through LexisNexis? I believe a lawyer or a paralegal could do this for you, depending on what kind of access they have to it.
No I never heard of LexisNexis – I’ll check it out…thanks Rachel!
I work at a lawfirm and they do their research, financial background, record checks, credit checks etc all through LexisNexis. Firms will pay for a certain percentage of available content-larger the firm, the larger content they can access.
http://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/about-us/about-us.page
I’m not sure who you would contact about getting access to running names through the database, but if you speak to a lawyer they may be able to help. No idea what the cost ont hat would be. Some schools/law schools may also have access to it as well. You would want to contact their library about how to get access to it. Good luck! (As a librarian, information research is my thing. 🙂 )
I’m so afraid I’ve said this before…but my son has a mini-Aussie so when I see pics of Wylan I just smile from ear to ear! They are such smart, loving, devoted dogs. When my son was deployed for 8 months, she would whine and lie down on the couch our son liked to sleep on when he stayed at our house. So, I smile when I see Wylah, then my heart aches thinking how she much miss Morgan. This pictures is especially cute–she’s telling the bigger dog that she is the boss by putting her paw on the other dogs neck! So typical of those sweet and bossy Aussies! I imagine she has comforted you a few times this past year. Give her a hug for me, please…
You are absolutely right about her – she rules the house and even the 160 lb Newf let’s her boss her around…but she is so sweet no one ever cares. We do love her and I will give her a hug from you!
I just realized that my birthday is the same as Morgan’s and my son’s birthday is the same as your husbands. I too was stalked by my ex-husband. My brother had to shoot him in self defense. It didn’t kill him BUT the stalking HAS STOPPED!! (my ex received all the charges and my brother’s charges were dismissed)
I have a question, with Keenan having his phone disconnected, did he also have his phone number changed? Would either having his phone disconnected (temporarily or permanently) or his phone number changed, make it more difficult or impossible for police to check his phone records then? Thoughts and prayers for your family!
Thank you for your prayers…we greatly appreciate them. Yes, I am sure he changed his number, in fact Morgan sent me a text that someone had told her Keenan had a new number. And you are so right – I would assume changing his number would make it more difficult and no we asked, and asked for the detective to check his phone records as well as Brooke’s records but he would not do it claiming it is so hard without a warrant to get the phone companies to do it…we now know that is not true either. The phone number that the detectives were doing the pretext call on was later said to be the phone number of one of Morgan’s friend’s dad (not a close friend but someone she knew) and the excuse was that he had replied to a group text about his daughter’s picture…so the detectives dropped it, but later on we found out that it had only gone to Morgan. Why would they not follow up on this? It is so very upsetting – there were things in the short 4 month period of her stalking that could have resulted in an arrest before she as killed, but instead she was murdered and it was swept under the rug and covered up.