Morgan was stalked for 4 months, it was a felony stalking case run by the Garfield County Sheriff’s office, a felony stalking detective was assigned to her case, then only 2 days before her murder we were warned by this detective that he believed her stalker was going to escalate so he would be assigning extra patrols on our home. Morgan was killed during an active investigation into her stalking only 4 days before she was supposed to testify on camera about her stalkers.
Does anyone really believe that the disposal of a witness to save ones own skin should be allowed? What kind of world is this? This is just all too wrong! Is this how our nation would like to see it’s victims of stalking treated? Are victims just disposable?
Morgan has gone out of the darkness and into the light, but for others left behind it is still painful and very dark, knowing that her murderer(s) are still running free and they can do the same thing again – and odds are they will do the same thing again.
This was the perfect storm of life-changing proportions. You can be as hyper-vigilant as you can but there is always that crack…the crack, the perfect storm, whatever you would like to call it when things go wrong and your guard is let down, and these stalkers creep in to your space and destroy everything…they creep, they slime, they move quickly undetected because they are sick – they are cowards – they are criminals. As the mother of the female accomplice once complained to her friend, her daughter has no soul…I think this mother knew something was very wrong with her daughter, even back then. It’s hard for me to think of a mom that can tell her friend that she is worried that her daughter has no soul. Maybe she could tell her daughter did not have feelings like most humans? I am sure this mom (and she knows exactly who she is) knows her daughter was involved in the stalking and murder of Morgan. I wonder how she sleeps at night? I wonder if she, just like her daughter, has no soul?
Not one day goes by that my husband Steve and I don’t think about Morgan. Today was another hard one. I miss her, I wish she were still here. She would have graduated college, taken her LSAT’s, applied to law school, and been doing an internship by now. She would look so grown up and would have loved to go camping on the beach with her little niece and nephew. Today my granddaughter showed me a picture of Morgan. It was a picture Morgan had taken for her graduation invitations. My granddaughter asked how old Morgan was in the photo. I told her she was 19 and it was for her graduation invitations because she had completed her first 2 years of college and received her AA degree. My smart little granddaughter knew I had been crying on and off all day as the pain of missing Morgan was just too much and she said to me, “Nana think about what Morgan looks like right now because she’s older now, she is so beautiful.” I think she was trying to cheer me up and direct me to remember that Morgan is still here and always will be, just not the way she was before.
I am so very grateful to have such loving and wise grandchildren. They keep my heart from totally disappearing at times when the heaviness of this world seems to be crushing down upon it.
Going forward, if any of you have any wonderful ideas about how to raise even more awareness please write in to me and let me know…forward movement is the best medicine for my soul. Thank you!
Dear Toni, I am sorry for what you and your family are suffering. It is terrible to lose a loved one and especially when you feel like they were taken from you. My stepson was taken from us at age 18. He was possibly set up by a friend, had just dropped off his 3 month old daughter and was shot dead in his car – which local TV broadcast on a show called MPD as part of entertainment. When his father and I protested seeing our dead son drug from his car like a dead deer we were told it was public information and could and would be broadcast. We were able to have his murderers brought to trial not quite a year later and after the strong possibility of a hung jury – we were warned by the judge – we got a conviction of 20 years to life for both. GREAT, right? Now the reason I am writing. It doesn’t end there. Most cons serve 1/3rd of their sentence before they come up for parole. And if it is denied they come back up for parole in three to five years depending on the parole board. They don’t come up at the same time. We have been there four times already to protest parole. We have been notified just before holidays and had to take time off from work to appear in court. When they’ve reached 20 years they will be released anyways, we have already been told by the Parole Board. The last time we met, one of the family members was filming my step daughter with a cell phone. Yes, I notified the court and the victim’s advocate. I am telling you all of this to let you know that no matter what you do it never ever ends. NEVER. We are constantly reminded of our son’s death – he, too, was extremely popular and much loved. We constantly have to fight to keep his murderers behind bars. We have to watch our backs. And we have to live with the knowledge that they will be released and resume a life, one that our son will never get back. His daughter will never know him. We miss him as much as ever. Nothing changes, Toni. He is still gone. They will be released. I just wanted you to understand that is what you are facing even if someone decides Morgan was murdered and brings anyone/everyone to trial. Fighting now, yes you are, and you will never stop fighting because you won’t be given that option. That is what you are facing and I am sorry for you. It NEVER ends.
Dear Sherrill – I know you have written in many times, and I have not put most of your comments through, because you talk about things in our daughter’s case that are down right not true. I can only guess that you get your information from the small group that anonymously goes out on the Internet. The group (and we know who they are) that is determined to spread incorrect information about our daughter’s case. Things like why would we leave our windows open at night if our daughter was truly being stalked…the truth is I never said we left our windows open at night during her stalking – that would have been crazy if it were true, but it wasn’t. I wrote in my blog that we believed her stalker(s) was listening in to our conversations at night when Steve & I went to bed because we had our bedroom window open to cool down the room at night. That is true…our window in our master bedroom, right next to our bed, was open for to cool down the room, but ONLY when we first went to bed and were talking in bed and winding down from all the stress. Before we actually went to sleep that window was closed and locked – always, just like all the windows in the house were kept locked. And how do we know we were being spied on? The officers found more footprints outside of our bedroom window in the dirt and told us. This was so extremely creepy!
Now the next thing I would like to say to you is putting all that aside, I am truly sorry for the loss of your son and the horrible reality your family as co-victims has to continue to live with. Our justice system should be called something other than justice, because it really isn’t justice – it is just decisions…the criminals still seem to receive most of the rights, not the victims, and sentences don’t seem to fit the crime, especially when someone intentionally takes another’s life. Again, I am truly sorry for all you have had to endure. Wishing you and your family light, love and peace. Take care.
Toni, thank you for printing my letter and addressing me with respect. We are part of the same terrible club and I am so very sorry for it. I appreciate the way you have handled this and I truly wish only the best for you and the rest of your grieving family. Light, love and peace to you and yours.
Thank you so much for your kind words Sherrill. Wishing you light, love and peace as well to you and yours. Take care.