Questions about What Happened

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Tessi misses her Morgan – so much!

Once, a long time ago, I woke up early, went to the blog and started answering a question, but before I knew it, it was time to get ready for work and I had written more of a blog entry then the answer to a question.  Was it the question, my mood, I’ll never know but this is the second time that has happened.  If you want to read the question, it was asked in response to – Was it Arrogance or Something Worse? Carolina on 

Carolina,

I completely agree with you that the, “investigators,” should have checked for fingerprints, DNA, hairs, etc.  However, that was not done, none of it, and it is far, far too late now.  The only investigation that morning was into Morgan, her cell phone, computer, camera, a three-year old journal, and even her ipod.  Those were the items taken into evidence to solve this crime.  Nothing that pointed to an intruder, at all.  And trust me the evidence was there, it was everywhere.  Only Steve and I are not investigators, we are not accredited death scene investigators, and we were in shock.  We wish that nobody is ever put through what we went through, and Morgan is the very first on that list.  We believed her stalker was always going to stay outside, satisfied to frighten, startle and shock.  We were dealing with him as best we could, but we were too short-sighted.  Count on your stalker to always break and enter at some point, think of it as the natural progression of stalking, at first timid, then more bold, and ever more bold, and then at some point, perhaps violent, lethal, as Morgan’s stalker was.

As parents, on the morning Morgan was found dead, we were politely asked if we had somewhere to go, we had to all leave until they were finished, “processing,” the scene, so we had no idea what was or was not done and a yellow crime scene tape was placed across her closed door when they did all leave.  Her room off-limits and that day her death was declared a mystery for the time being.

A book Steve is reading on forensic crime scene techniques starts off with, “every death scene must be processed as a homicide until proven otherwise.”  Morgan’s was absolutely not, and it was weeks later before her manner of death was found to be, natural causes, from a disease she was never diagnosed with.  There was no excuse to attempt only to rule out suicide first, which they did – “no signs of suicide they assured us,”  except they must have forgotten to tell Dr. Kurtzman, the contracted forensic pathologist who did her autopsy, that there was no signs of suicide.  After many threats to me to give up on my concerted effort at having her manner of death changed from Natural, to Homicide, or Undetermined, and then an investigation being launched, as every consulting Doctor was telling us would be the only correct way to handle this.  After eight months, Dr. K did in fact change her manner of death to suicide.  Which leaves it up to us to take him to court to restore some truth to the memory of our daughter Morgan.

You are also right about revealing the medications that were a part of her death.  We did, then the Coroner and pathologist went way beyond that, far into Morgan’s right to privacy. We had, as the Sheriff’s department well knows, one old, old bottle of a very low dose Amitriptyline in our room, not in Morgan’s room.  This bottle started with 30 pills at some time long in the past and had ~ 12 left in it.  The bottle was with other bottles waiting for proper disposal at a hospital collection day, usually held twice a year back then.  Flushing down the toilet is not advised on small, rural, septic / sewer systems.

The reason Morgan ever had those pills was not for depression, not even close to that, that would be known by looking at the mg, but you see even that brief statement should not have to be made.  I find myself saying many things about Morgan that have nothing to do with her stalking and murder, to defend her against, call them what you want, but they are simply lies.  So Dr. K does the math, 30 pills when purchased, ~ 12 left in the bottle now, so she took eighteen – #1) Not a lethal dose, not even close to a lethal dose. #2) They were not even in her room and not accessible to her at that time, same pills that were left in the same bottle from a long time ago. #3) An estimate that no one can make, according to experts that testify about drugs in trials, such as a criminal or civil trial about what this would require. #4) Unknown to all because as part of the investigation nobody ever asked, but years prior to her death, Morgan made a decision that she did not want to take prescription medications, except as really needed, so she went to a doctor for help with this goal – once again her privacy being broken by me to tell this, and correct any falsehoods – and used a combination of hyperbaric chamber treatments, a strict diet, an exercise routine, stress management principles, yoga, and more.  She was successful and was still not taking any prescription medications the day she was killed, no matter what anyone says, even the investigators at the house, they are wrong and they have to know it.  Her tox screen proves this, as the range of detection varies from at least two days for some medications on out to 30 days for other drugs.  And she had none of the drugs she was reportedly taking on the day she was killed detected in her, hello people! – except for the seven that were a part of her death, none of those seven were in her room, a container for any of them was not found in her room, a syringe for any was not found in her room. Are you beginning to see the problem?  She did not have a prescription for any of the drugs related to her death and never did in all cases except one, and that one had not been for a long time.  Due to hard work and commitment from Morgan to live life the way she wanted to.  It only gets more obvious there is a big problem the deeper you go.

Then forensic experts, not a part of her original, “investigation,”  have weighed in on the combination of drugs found, the locations, the absorption rates, the ratios, and other technical things, and contained in all these facts, they have determined that Morgan had help that night, and not in the good sense.  The why we may never know, but there were ample signs of not only an intruder by physical evidence in the room, but evidence of an intruder intertwined in all the different drugs, and their reactions before you even get to Amitriptyline in a very, very large quantity.  The crime lab that processed Morgan’s evidence even commented that it was a, “massive,” dose, along with the comment that they have rarely, if ever, seen a level that high.  Many have also said to keep in mind that it is inconceivable that she could ingest even a fraction of the total found in her blood without vomiting.

Of course the PJ’s she wore to bed are gone and this might be the answer as to why.  The suspicious spray of bodily fluids seen on her chest at the death scene could possibly have been remnants of vomit too, but as with the maddening reality of evidence in his case, it was only seen at the death scene and not by the contracted forensic pathologist at his, “hospital,” with far better equipment to detect it.  So it was not swabbed, otherwise collected, and certainly not tested.  And if, as one of the detectives opined at the scene, the spray could be an artifact of resuscitation attempts by the first responders, then I said fine, why didn’t you rule that out, because as I found out quickly, they use a gel, not a spray.

No one even went up to Steve that day, the person who administered CPR for his daughter for quite some time and said something really investigative, like, “Could you have sneezed on your daughters chest while you were performing CPR?”  As for the vomit theory, we have been told this is a, “least likely scenario,” but that it is remotely possible.  And the sneezing possibility, absolutely no, besides she was wearing a t-shirt at the time.

As for Brooke, Keenan lived at her house from the beginning of the stalking, she talked about it on Facebook and obviously knew, her father James also knew.  The Sheriff’s Deputies, at least four, came to her house one night to question Keenan during a stalking situation, and she refused them access to Keenan, claimed he was asleep, yet the deputy heard noises inside the house when Keenan was the only living thing inside the house besides her.  But Brooke denied the noise heard was anything?

The night Morgan was killed we have identified two figures outside the house on video, not sharp enough to identify, but sharp enough to know they are people and Jame’s friend who is also a criminal lawyer called me and wanted to know if we could tell if the figures seen outside our house on the fateful night were male or female, kind of a curious and revealing question wouldn’t you say?

If Brooke was in the room that night or not – that remains to be proven in court, beyond a reasonable doubt, the same goes for her complicity in the stalking, the burglary, the invasion of privacy for sexual gratification, the harassment, the eavesdropping and – the personal favorite of the Sheriff’s Department – misdemeanor trespassing, that all remains to be established in court.

The Detectives, by the way, were very torn establishing Brooke’s actual involvement in the crimes, their opinion seemed to change weekly, both how deep was she into the cascade of crimes and even if she was in fact, the leader.  The question of if she was involved at all was never even questioned, from almost the very beginning of the Detectives involvement.

And, as yet another avenue in the crimes against Morgan, consider this.  Brooke spent, judging from my experiences, a lot of time in rehab.  I say this because first, I don’t know anyone who has needed rehab for more than a week or two, then, quite unexpectedly, people who were at Brooke’s rehab center in some capacity have contacted me after discovering about Brooke and the situation that happened, anonymously at first, and then more freely, and they then unabashedly paint a picture of Brooke as being very capable of committing all of these crimes.  Following the first Dr. Phil episode airing, remarkably, a person who recalled Brooke using the exact phrase, “Where’s the proof.” in response to something she was accused of before Morgan’s death, which I found to be particularly eerie at the time i heard it.  I have verified that she actually did stay at rehab for extended periods from her, “friends,” locally, and of course Brooke talks about it on her Facebook.

Meanwhile the absolute right exists for us to believe, based on the facts that we have and know to exist, regardless if we choose to share those facts or are advised not to.  And we do have very strong beliefs based on what has transpired to date in Morgan’s case.

Lastly, as for Morgan’s ex-boyfriend, it is interesting how many tips have concerned him and Brooke as suspects, but that is for yet another blog, as this has now become.  And don’t jump to any conclusions yet, because Steve and him are very close, and have spoken candidly about Morgan very often since Morgan’s death, we never had any reason to suspect him of anything, nor did Morgan.

 

6 thoughts on “Questions about What Happened

  1. Very well stated! One thing I was wondering about earlier today as this case is still tumbling around in my mind: do you know if the evidence you and your husband bagged and preserved when you cleaned Morgan’s room could be entered into evidence should the case go to court? I certainly hope!

  2. Toni, i have a question and a comment. #1 How did the Harris’ afford a lawyer to fly out to California to be on the Dr Phil show. Lawyers charge by the hour and that would be a huge amount. It seemed to me that they were financially struggling. And #2 I feel like when this case is opened, its not gonna be a smooth road for you. I feel like you’re gonna have to constantly guide the investigators, and ask them if they interviewed this person and if they looked at all the footage and all kinds of stuff. I feel like you’re gonna be the investigator and the investigators are gonna be your assistants.

    • Good question – the only things I do know are the following:

      1. It is typical in some stalking cases that the a stalker can often use the legal system to harass and terrorise their victims, even convicted stalkers that have served time. It’s just another tool in the stalker’s toolkit to destroy their victims with. And often they can be very successful at achieving that desired goal. By pursuing a path down the legal road, the stalker lessens their perception of being an actual stalker and instead becomes someone who looks like they have a grievance against another person. But we know exactly what they are doing. And we know when all is said and done, the stalker will continue. So before the Dr. Phil show the Harris’ took a Temporary Restraining order against both Steve and I, and they used Alpine Legal Services, Inc. who claims to serve victims, seniors, youth, and low income clients (a non profit, largely donation funded, legal clinic), they request a $15 donation per consultation and state no one is denied services for lack of ability to pay. Even the fee for legal service against us by the same Garfield County Sheriff’s was waived because James Harris claimed he could not afford it. Stalkers try to financially attack their victims – we had to hire an attorney to represent us and the litigation to defend against this frivolous prosecution cost us thousands of dollars that we really could not afford to be spending at that time. Anyway, the Harris’ lawyer told the judge that his clients wanted to go on the Dr. Phil show and were not afraid of being on stage with us so he asked for the order to be withheld for that one day when we were all on the Dr. Phil show.
      2. You bring up another good question – since their lawyer worked for a non profit who paid for his hours to travel to and from Los Angeles to be on the show with his clients? Their lawyer told the judge that he needed to go with his clients to protect them from any criminal exposure – we asked our lawyer if he needed to go with us as well, and he said no, we have no criminal exposure because we have not done anything wrong.
      3.Our lawyer told the judge at the very first hearing that this was the wrong venue for this claim – the Harris’ were using this blog to say they were in fear of their lives but the Constitution upholds that my blog is Freedom of Speech – they judge agreed but said that the Harris’ attorney said that they were going on the Dr. Phil show so he could mediate and the judge said he would hold over the TRO because he is all for mediation – what BS! I asked the people at the Dr. Phil show if the Harris’ were told that Dr. Phil was going to mediate and they were appalled and said that would NEVER have been told to the Harris’ that is not what Dr. Phil does. Anyway, because of the lies from the Harris’ and their lawyer (who had to recuse himself from the case) the frivolous TRO went from November to mid February, before the judge finally dropped it – does that seem right to you?
      4. We have since found out that Jonathan Shamis (the Harris’ lawyer from Alpine Legal Services) has a daughter who is very good friends with Brooke Harris – but I’m sure (cough, cough) that that had nothing to do with it – right?
      5. You could be right about when the case gets opened that Steve and I will still have to keep investigating ourselves, but I really don’t believe that will be the case – what we have put together for law enforcement should lead their investigation to the right people and the evidence, and they can always confer with us – ask us for more information as the investigation goes on, but once it’s open I will feel so much better!

  3. Toni, I feel so upset for you when I read about people discussing drugs in relation to this case (or watching it on Dr Phil). As you’ve said, Morgan was prescribed the drug that killed her, but at such a low dose that it sounds like even the entire bottle wouldn’t have reached the amount that was in her bloodstream–not to mention the fact that pills weren’t found in her stomach!

    The scrutiny her potential involvement with “illegal” drugs gets is ridiculous too. No one saw her take cocaine, and even if she did SO WHAT? Cocaine didn’t kill her! None was found in her system. It’s completely irrelevant and seems designed to somehow discredit you and your daughter. As for the medical marijuana, that’s also irrelevant, and LEGAL.

    • I know and it is OUTRAGEOUS for anyone to treat a victim of a crime in that manner! Remember what they used to do to rape victims that came forward and wanted justice? Do these people think they can paint a person as a drug addict and that makes it OK to be stalked and murdered? Morgan was not only not a drug addict but completely the opposite – they don’t know Morgan, they don’t know all the people she helped get off drugs, go back to school, keep from killing themselves, etc., etc. She was the designated driver most of the time when others were partying it up they would call her and ask for a ride…this is so egregious what they have said and done to Morgan that I will never sit by and let this go. Her good friends all know exactly what she was like and they were never even interviewed. This whole thing makes me ill.

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