Until their daughter screamed…

I was contacted again by another mother that wanted to share her story of horror.  This story had a better ending then ours and I am so happy their daughter was saved.  It is so important to share your stories in order to educate others about the realities of true crime. Some armchair sleuths seem to think it is impossible for someone to come into your house and do unspeakable things without the family hearing – unfortunately that is not reality…it really does happen.

About 16 years ago at 4:30 am, my husband and I were  awakened by our daughter’s scream.  “Daddy, there’s a boy in my room.”  My husband grabbed his Billie stick and raced down the stairs.  The man had fled.  While my husband looked for the man, I called the police.  When the police came, I asked if it could have been a dream.  The detective knew there had been an intruder. Footprints were left in the dew-covered grass and 10 cigarette butts had been left in a pile behind our house in the garden.  We had accidentally left the garage door open giving the man easy access into our home.  The man walked through our house, opened a liquor cabinet, and walked by our open bedroom door to gain entry into our daughter’s bedroom.  We never heard him and in September, our house was light, not dark.  Whenever I hear police question parents about noise an intruder makes, I become enraged.  No one in our family of five heard anything until our daughter screamed.  Later we learned, the man had tried to stick something in our daughter’s mouth.  I’ve always wondered if if was a substance to make her pass out.

Two weeks later this man was caught.  He had repeated the same crime, following the same pattern in a house three blocks from our home.  It was a neighbor I had never met.  He lived behind us through a short patch of woods.  His rap sheet at 19 was longer than my arm…and he was charged mostly as a juvenile delinquent for earlier crimes.  I never told our three kids that “he” lived behind our house.  They had a difficult time adjusting after the break-in.  He was convicted of the two break-ins and served a sentence of 18 months in jail.  By the time he was out of jail, his parents had moved.  My son still sleeps with a knife under his pillow and my daughter has a protective dog.

I am relaying my story because our daughter had been stalked.  This person knew which bedroom was hers.  He entered our home without anyone hearing him.  Our detectives were wonderful.  They were most bothered by the fact that adults were in the house when he entered both houses..  The detectives worried that this person would become even more brazen if he were not caught.

I urge you to continue to push for the reopening of the case.  In my experience, my faith in the detectives resulted in a resolution and capture.  Although your life is shattered, your goal is to find the killer(s).  Keep the spirit of your daughter in your heart and save your anger for the perpetrator(s).

I wish you and your husband peace of mind.  I wish I had known Morgan.  God bless you and keep up the fight.

6 thoughts on “Until their daughter screamed…

  1. We all get busy and get lax with securing our lives. We never know the evil that lurks, waiting for us to make mistakes. I have made mistakes about my own security as well. Thank God this man was caught in this story, but that does not mean that when he gets out that he will not keep stalking this girl. He probably will. She and her family can not be too careful.

    • I completely agree with you Rita. I have heard so many stories over the past few years about other families that have had evil enter their homes, just like in our own daughter’s case when it became the perfect storm…if someone is always watching, surveilling, lurking and stalking you they will find that crack to crawl through when you let your guard down, or as you put it when you make mistakes in your own security. The odds are that you won’t always be perfect – none of us are. Stalking is a crime and it needs to be stopped as soon as possible before serious consequences occur. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

  2. HELLO TONI, FIRST I AM SO VERY SORRY FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO MORGAN. I PERSONALLY DID NOT KNOW MORGAN BUT FROM WHAT IVE READ SHE WAS AN AMAZING PERSON. I FIRST LEARNED OF YOUR STORY ON THE I.D. CHANNEL,I WATCH THE PROGRAMS ON THIS CHANNEL DAILY AND NEVER NOT ONCE HAVE I THOUGHT TO FOLLOW UP ON ANY SHOW IVE SEEN….SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR STORY IS VERY INTRIGING AND WISH THAT I COULD HELP. I BELIEVE YOU 100% YOU YOURSELF ARE A STRONG AMAZING PERSON AND I HOPE MORGAN GETS THE JUSTICE SHE SO DESERVES!!!!! IT WILL HAPPEN …AFTER SEEING THE DR.PHIL SHOW [ IVE NEVER WATCH AN EPISODE UNTIL NOW] I BELIEVE YOUR ON THE RIGHT PATH AND JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED!!!! AGAIN IM SO TRULLY SORRY,THE WORLD LOST AN AMAZING PERSON WHEN IT LOST MORGAN!!!

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