Morbid - Episode 533: The Mysterious Death of Charles Morgan

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

In March 1977, Arizona businessman Charles Morgan went missing from his home in Tucson, only to turn up three days later in the middle of the night, shoeless, traumatized, and with broken plastic handcuffs on his wrists and ankles. Unable to speak, Charles wrote that he had been drugged by an unnamed individual and kidnapped, but he refused to let his wife call the police or otherwise report the assault. Three months later, Charles Morgan’s body was discovered in the desert with a gunshot wound in the back of his head, one of his teeth wrapped in a handkerchief, and a two-dollar bill pinned to his underwear.From the outside, Charles Morgan appeared to live a very normal and decidedly unexciting life. Yet when investigators began digging into his background to find out who would have wanted him dead, they discovered a complicated and bizarre story of supposed government agents, mobsters, and a mystery that one would have expected from a Hollywood screenplay, not the life of a middle-aged Arizona escrow agent. The increasingly bizarre details of Morgan’s life and death comprise a fascinating mystery that remains unsolved to this day and endures as one of Arizona’s most baffling cold cases.Thank you to David White, of the Bring Me the Axe podcast, for research assistanceReferencesBassett, Edward, and David Dykes. 1977. "Mystery death a suicide?" Tucson Citizen, June 22: 1.Bassett, Edward, and Richard Wood. 1977. "Slain businessman's bank dealings probed." Tucson Citizen, June 27: 3.Flanagan, Ray. n.d. "Did 'hit-man."—. 1990. "Did 'hit-man' with ties to region figure in Arizona death case?" Tribune, September 25: 3.Heltsley, Ernie, and John Rawlinson. 1979. "1977 shooting ended Tucsonan's two lives." Arizona Daily Star, February 4: 1.Jordan, Tracy. 1990. "City residents asked to drop a dime on hit man." Times Leader, October 22: 3.Kwok, Abraham. 1992. "Phoenix death a mistaken 'hit'?" Arizona Republic, May 6: 10.Matas, Kimberly. 2010. "Strange evidence found in '77 on, near man's body." Arizona Daily Star, March 31: A08.1990. Unsolved Mysteries. Directed by John McLaughlin. Performed by John McLaughlin.Salkowski, Joe, and Enric Volante. 2002. "Mob faded locally long before key figure died." Arizona Daily Star, May 19: 1.Svejcara, Bob. 1977. "Sheriff finds no foul play in Morgan death." Arizona Daily Star, August 11: 13.Svejcara, Bob, and Ernie Heltsley. 1977. "Slain businessman seen during 'absence'." Arizona Daily Star, June 23: 1.Tucson Citizen. 1977. "Sheriff's probe says Morgan was a sucide." Tucson Citizen, August 11: 4.Wood, Richard. 1977. "Slain Tucson executive: solid citizen... mystery man." Tucson Citizen, June 21: 2.—. 1977. "Woman says Morgan hid, trying to buy off his life." Tucson Citizen, June 21: 1.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Morbid early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. Many put their hope in Dr. Serhat. His company was worth half a billion dollars. His research promised groundbreaking treatments for HIV and cancer. But the brilliant doctor was hiding a secret. You can listen to Dr. Death Bad Magic ad-free

by subscribing to Wendri Plus in the Wendri app or on Apple podcasts. Start the show. Start it. Hey weirdos, I'm Alina. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. Oh yeah, you said it. I did. I was going to also say this is Morbid. I was just blinking

really weird at her before. And then she said, start the show. Start the show. said it. I did. I was going to also say, and this is more than, I was just blinking really weird at her before and then she said, start the show. Start the show. Start it. And I couldn't. It made me think of Sutton when she says, nigh mum. Nigh mum. Start the show.

Start it. Start it. Nigh mum. Nigh mum. Nigh mum. Nigh mum. Oh man. Nigh mum.

We're in a place of Wiley today. Yeah. I just in a place of Wiley today. Yeah. I just had a little DC. I got my little caffeine from a DC.coke. Didn't know what that was for so I'm not going to laugh. I know. I saw you looking around the room like, what did she recently have?

I was like, what did she have that I didn't know about? And I had a little perfect bar. They make mini ones now. So it gave me a little sugar from the chocolat. Little shug shug. Little sh sugar, and I feel cuckoo. You feel and seem cuckoo. I feel Giovanni, actually. How do you feel?

Really? You're in a place of real housewives of all times. Yeah, we not established that every day on my left that I wake up. Just gotta point it out. Yeah, I mean, please, please never don't. I never won't. Never don't. I never won't. You don't have to worry.

It's a little bit of a later in the day recording, so. Yeah, you know, those can get a little wily. Yeah, we won't get wily once we get into this because whoa. But we won't, trust me, but we figure we just start you off with how wily we are. Yeah. Been through a lot of different subjects today. Yeah. Hit a lot of we are. Yeah. Been through a lot of different subjects today. Yeah. Hit a lot of different things.

Yeah. So he's been a silly kind of really. Oh. Oh. Oh. Please keep that in. Oh. Really Mikey?

You're fucking get toned with what you just said that. Really? Really? Really David? Keep it in. Keep it in. Mention it all. M Keep it in. Keep it in. Mention it all. Mention it all.

Another real help for the clock. Are you guys all right? We are not. No. I don't really think there's a way to transition to this. I'm just going to go for it. Yeah, we're never going to get there. No, we just got to get there.

So today, as you can tell from the title, we're going to be talking about the mysterious death of Charles Morgan. This is a twisty-turny case. This is a twisty-turny case. I love a twisty-turny case. It's very twisty-turny. It is unsolved. Oh. And I am not gonna tell you what I think and you're not gonna say what you think because you'll see.

Oh. Okay. So you guys can figure out whatever you think, but I don't have any thoughts. Figure it out. I'm not sharing my thoughts. I'm just telling you the case. Oh. Okay. Okay it out. I'm not sharing my thoughts. I'm just telling you the case. Oh, okay. Okay.

Okay. So, in March of 1977, Arizona businessman Charles Morgan, he went missing from his home in Tucson, Arizona, only to turn up three days later in the middle of the night, shoeless, traumatized, and with broken plastic handcuffs over his wrists and ankles. Completely unable to speak, he wrote that he had been drugged by an unnamed individual, kidnapped, but refused to tell his wife more than that and refused to let her call the police or otherwise report the assault. Okay, three months later, Charles Morgan's body was discovered in the desert with a gunshot wound

to the back of his head, one of his teeth wrapped up in a handkerchief, and a $2 bill pinned to his underwear. I have heard of this. Have you? It was the $2 bill to the underwear that made me think it. Yep. Yeah, I don't know all the details. No, I don't know all the details. I know that part. Okay. And I think that's as far as I know, but, oh. Yeah, I wanna just start you off by like really bringing you in. I'm not gonna tell you any more than that.

Right at the top, we're gonna get into some other stuff. The tooth and the handkerchief. The tooth and the handkerchief. So the thing was from the outside, Charles Morgan appeared to live a very normal and for lack of a better word, unexciting life. But when investigators started digging into his background to find out who would have

wanted him dead, they discovered a very complicated and very bizarre story of supposed government agents, mobsters, and really a mystery just straight out of a movie. Wow. But now we're going to go a little bit backwards. Let's go backwards. So let's do that. Let's go. Charles Chuck Curtis Morgan,

he was born March 16th, 1938 and ever at Washington. He was the oldest of two children born to Leonard and Doris Morgan and he was raised in Tucson, Arizona. So pretty much lived there his whole life. Yeah. In 1958, he married a woman named Ruth, and they had four daughters, Megan, Aaron, Heather, and Colleen. Friends described Chuck as, quote,

quiet and dedicated to his work, family, and Masonic lodge life. Described by his colleagues as an escrow genius, which like- Wow. That you're awesome. That feels niche. An escrow genius, it is a little niche. He took a job with the country escrow service where he worked as an agent managing accounts and working on behalf of clients to mitigate risk, offer financial advice, execute transactions quickly and smoothly, the whole nine.

This was the first of his two stints with the county escrow service. And outside of work, he continued exploring his interests in real estate finance and quote, dabbled in personal real estate deals. So he's kind of, he's got like a money mind. He understands money. Money mind. And although he was considered to be a true profession, professional, by a professional, true professional, and by most accounts, really easy to get along with, like most people liked him. In February of 1977, he did get into a rather heated argument with his supervisor at Western Tidal Insurance,

or Title Insurance, excuse me. And that resulted in his being fired for insubordination. Oh. Which seemed really abrupt. Yeah. But after his departure from Western Title Insurance, he ended up borrowing $30,000 from a Tucson-based lender in order to purchase a controlling interest in statewide escrow service with plans to build up the company.

But in order to secure the loan, Chuck took out a third mortgage on his home to use as collateral, hoping that the risk would pay off once the business started growing. But the Arizona State Banking Department flagged the transaction as suspicious and they put a hold on the transfer, which ultimately delayed the sale by more than three months. And this was for a reason. But for people who didn't know that,

the state's hold on the transfer of shares seemed pretty odd because for people who knew Chuck, they were like, he's done stuff like this before, like he's an escrow genius. He's not like a suspect kind of guy or anything. Why are they so sus of this transaction? But what was equally confusing was that the delay was followed by warnings and threats from the state baking department to deny Chuck a license to operate statewide escrow.

So now they're not only delaying the transaction itself, like the loan, but they're saying we're not even going to let you operate statewide escrow. What's going on? However, by early May it became clear that the state's interference with the transaction and the operation of statewide was an attempt to force Chuck Morgan's cooperation with their investigation into the lender that he was going through, Banco International. What the fuck? On May 4th, 1977, he was actually subpoenaed by the district attorney to testify against

three Banco officials the following week. Whoa. This escalated very quickly. Didn't it? And after his testimony, they released their hold on the statewide share transfer and the sale was approved. So it was very clear that the whole reason they had done this was like, we're not going to let you have this until you testify.

He did and he got the loan. Now the case involved what amounted to insider trading and other acts of fraud committed by at least three Banco officials with whom Chuck Morgan had close Relationships and following his secret testimony provided in May Chuck told several individuals quote that he feared for his life Damn insider trading is pretty fucking scary. Yeah, that shit can get really really wild Get super wily. I don't wanna know. No, not worth it, my friends. I don't wanna know anything about it.

I don't wanna know anything about anything. Are you trading inside? I don't know anything. Keep me out of it. Trading inside? I don't even know outside. I don't know any of it. Don't even do that.

Don't just, shh. Don't worry about me. I don't know. I don't know. Hush. But however, when state officials offered physical protection for Chuck and his family, Chuck declined the protection and rarely spoke of the matter again.

Huh. Now, it's interesting that he would decline the offer of protection because now we're going to go back a little bit here. Sorry, we're kind of doing like forward, backward, forward, backward, but we're going backward here before he testified. On the morning of March 22nd, 1977, Chuck said goodbye to his wife, Ruth, and left the house to drive their daughters to school just like he did every other morning. No one knew it at the time, but the state banking department was breathing down his

neck, pressuring him to testify in this Banco case. It turned out that the case against Banco was only one of the secrets that Chuck was keeping at the time. Journalist Don Devereaux told producers from Unsolved Mysteries in 1990. Exactly. That's the one. So Don Devereaux told them. He was around the edges of a couple very large organized crime groups in Arizona at the time.

It was very easy to get in over your head. He was doing, perhaps, upwards of a billion dollars of escrow work in Boulion and Platinum. These were transactions that only existed on paper. He was a straight businessman that probably got a little too close to the flame. He flew too close to the sun? Yeah, and that's not good. So basically he's saying he's involved in Shady Soprano's type shit.

Yeah, that's like high level Shady stuff. Oh, you just wait. It gets higher level. Like I can see why he was scared. Yeah, absolutely. Because he's like, I know what I've dipped into. Right, allegedly. Perhaps. Allegedly he was like,

I'm a little worried about what I allegedly possibly dipped myself into. Exactly. Allegedly. Perfect way to say that. I think that was very smooth. I think that was great. Not clunky at all. Nope at all.

So when Chuck failed to return home that evening, his wife Ruth obviously became worried and she continued to worry as one day turned into two and there was still no sign of Chuck. But finally on March 25th, three days after he'd left the house, Ruth was awoken by a loud thump at the back door in

the middle of the night. And she remembered she was laying in bed and the dog started barking. Chuck had come home. But it wasn't that simple. Ruth was obviously super relieved that Chuck was home now, but once she took a look at him, her relief slowly started to fade away. She said, I got up, went to the door, and opened it, and there was Chuck. He was missing a shoe and had one plastic handcuff around one ankle and a set around his hands. When he motioned to his throat and didn't say a word, I asked him, can you talk? Can you write? He shook his head, yes, that he could write.

So I went and got a tablet and a pen. He wrote that his throat had been painted with a hallucinogenic drug and that the drug could drive him irrevocably insane or destroy his nervous system and kill him. I wanted to call a doctor and the police, but he was adamant that that would be signing a death warrant for the entire family. His throat had been painted

with a hallucinogenic drug. With a hallucinogenic drug that could drive him insane. Yup. Or kill him. Or just like blow up his nervous system. And he's like, don't get a doctor. Nope. We're just gonna wait this one out.

We're just gonna see what happens here. And Ruth obviously like wanted to call a doctor. Of course she did. Wanted to call the police. But then she's scared, what does that mean? But he's sitting there saying, like, if you do that, our whole family is going to die. So she's like, OK, I guess I won't, but like, what the fuck?

I hate this. Yeah. How do you paint someone's throat? I don't really want to know, personally. That was my first question. Yeah, that was mine too. And then I said, don't ask yourself that. I got to stop asking questions.

You should, for sure. But I still have that question. Yeah, I think against their will is the best answer. Oh my goodness, I'm upset. Yeah. Yeah, I don't like this at all. But according to Chuck, he'd been kidnapped and the kidnappers had tortured him before administering this mysterious drug.

But he refused to elaborate on who they were, quote unquote. Ruth insisted that they needed to go to a hospital at the very least and report the assault to the police. But Chuck was like, nope, that will put me, you, and all four of our daughters at serious risk for further harm. So Ruth was like, okay, like I guess I won't do that. And she just nursed him back to health at home. Holy shit.

And he ended up recovering. My weekends are my me time because the week is just like really, really busy. It's super go, go, go. But one thing about me during the week is I always hydrate. I'm pretty good about it. But then I get to the weekend and Drew and I are running errands, just running amok all over the place and I forget to hydrate myself. So when it's time to start another big week, I like to celebrate hydration Monday with Liquid IV. I absolutely love Liquid IV. It's super easy. I like to start my morning with it personally. So I just bop right into my

pantry. I open my little liquid IV stick and I bop it right into my water bottle. And then I know that I'm starting my morning off hydrated from the jump. Honestly, all of their flavors are delicious. They have strawberry lemonade. They have white peach, green grape, lemon lime. Right now I'm a strawberry lemonade girly

and Drew is a strawberry lemonade boy-ee. He loves it. Super convenient packaging that I absolutely love because if for some reason I forget to take it in the morning or make my little drink with it in the morning, I can just bop it right into my lunchbox and have it for lunch. And one stick and 16 ounces of water

actually hydrates better than water alone. It's got three times the electrolytes of the leading sports drinks and no artificial sweeteners, plus zero sugar in the sugar-free version. It's got eight vitamins and nutrients and it's non-GMO, so it's free from gluten, dairy, and soy. Weekends are for going wild.

Have a game plan for Monday with Liquid IV. Grab your Liquid IV hydration multiplier, sugar-free and bulk nationwide at Costco, or get 20% off your first order when you go to liquidiv.com and use code Morbid at checkout. That's 20% off your first order when you shop superior hydration today using promo code morbid at liquidiv.com.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. A common misconception about relationships is that they have to be easy to be right. But sometimes the best one happens when both people put in work to make them great. Therapy can be a great place to work through the challenges you face in all your relationships, whether that's with friends, people you work with, your significant other, or anyone. I personally am the biggest proponent of therapy. I think that

everybody should try out therapy. I think it works when you're in a good time in your life, because you can focus on like keeping things good. And I think it works when you're not at the best point in your life, because you can work and make little steps toward getting back to you again. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, it's designed to be convenient, flexible,

and suited to your schedule. All you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Be your own soulmate, whether you're looking for one or not. Visit betterhelp.com slash morbid today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help H-E-L-P dot com slash morbid. Now, a short time later, once his voice had started to come back, which like his voice took a little while to come back, Ruth said. And you wonder if it really was what he said, what they had told him it was, you know what

I mean? Or if it was a scare tactic. Yeah. And they did something else that, you know, fucked him up for a little while. That was just like, made you lose your voice. Who knows? Like, what does that? I just, I don't know.

This is upsetting. It's so upsetting. But once his voice had started to come back, he claimed that his captors, he had escaped them near Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport, but he would not go any further than that. He just said he got away from them. But he would make vague illusions to his being some sort of a secret agent for the US government. Later Ruth Wattell unsolved mysteries. He wrote, they took my treasury identification.

That was the first I'd heard of it. Then he told me he'd been working for them for about two or three years and that was it. But the only other bit of information that Chuck imparted to his wife was that, quote, a $2 bill he always kept with him was temporarily taken in the kidnapping. And remember, I said, when Chuck is eventually found dead,

a $2 bill is attached to his underwear. What the fuck? And he said to her, this first time that he was kidnapped and allegedly escaped his kidnappers and came home that they temporarily took it. And why did he say the word temporarily? Like they're going to give it back to me? Right. Like you're going to me up with these people again somehow? Or like, are you're gonna try and go get it back?

Sounds to me like they made it seem like they were gonna see him again and give him that. That's what it sounds like. Like maybe it was, and this is me totally speculating cause obviously I have no fucking clue what's going on. No. That perhaps they told him like he had to do something and once he does it, he gets that back.

His $2 bill and maybe like identification. Yeah, like those are being held as collateral for something else and maybe he didn't, he wasn't able to do the thing. I think that's a pretty good speculation. I hate this. It's crazy. This is very upsetting. It's crazy.

I know I keep saying that but it is. It's upsetting me. No, it's crazy. I just keep saying it's crazy. I just feel bad for this family. Like wow. It's upsetting me. No, it's crazy. I just keep saying it's crazy. I just feel bad for this family. Like, wow. I feel so bad for this family because they never got answers. Yeah.

Ever. Oh, that's awful. But what Chuck didn't tell his wife, but later told his friend and employee, Jeff Tuberville, was that his kidnappers had stolen several platinum, excuse me, seven platinum bars from the trunk of his car worth approximately $50,000. You know, he's had those in his car? I literally wrote, you know, the kind that everybody has laying around in their trunk. Yeah. Like what?

This was the first of multiple strange and unusual statements that Chuck made to family and friends after this alleged kidnapping. In the weeks that followed, Chuck, who always was completely clean-shaven and kept his hair tidy and short, started growing his hair out and letting his beard grow. And he also started telling his wife and his close friends that he, quote, had damaging, potentially embarrassing information on prominent Tucsonans and that area put politicians involving escrow and land deals and laundering money. He had all that kind of information on people.

Most of the time, those vague illusions made no sense to anybody around him. Like the time he told Jeff Tuberville that an unnamed employer of his was quote, somehow messed up in the mafia and had threatened his family. But there wasn't any direct evidence of anybody having threatened him. But still, Chuck became hyper-vigilant and paranoid about his safety. He started carrying around a gun on him at all times and always had at least one gun in the car. He also started wearing a bulletproof vest everywhere he went and refused to let his daughters leave the house unescorted and never allowed strangers in

the house or near the children. I mean, which like, yeah. I can't say I blame him. I don't blame him at all. After that? But despite the lack of evidence and the fact that one doesn't immediately think of Tucson, Arizona in regards to organized crime, Chuck's vague statements about the mafia and the land fraud are at least somewhat rooted in history, actually. In the early 1960s, New York City crime boss Joe Bonanno

moved to the Phoenix area, and he remained somewhat active in organized crime while he was out there. In 1960, Tucson police discovered the body of Arizona real estate promoter, Louis Sarota, in the trunk of his car, strangled to death with the ropes still around his neck. Holy shit.

And his murder was the first of very few gangland style murders in the Tucson area. But it was suggested that while not totally common to the region, there were some organized crime related murders in this area. So it wasn't completely out of the frame of the possibility. Around the possibility kind of thing. Exactly.

And in fact, in his 1999 autobiography, Joe Bonanno's son, Bill, claimed, quote, he ran a crew of 25 to 30 men in Arizona that was into gambling and shy locking, but never admitted to any crimes of violence. Damn. So that's from the family. Yeah, I didn't know that that was all happening there. I didn't know either. Who knew?

Who knew? Now, the Bonanno crime ring wasn't the only criminal operation running in Tucson or Phoenix at the time. There was also a number of gangs and small-scale rings running drugs across the border and using Arizona real estate to launder the money. Throughout the 1970s, Arizona actually had laws and regulations that allowed land to be purchased through a blind trust, which meant that the actual owner couldn't be traced, making it kind of the perfect arrangement for money

laundering. And these deals would almost certainly require an escrow agent in the buying process, making that escrow agent a participant willing or unwilling depending on the circumstance. And they would be involved in fraud and money laundering. Oh damn. Which is actually kind of ironic because the entire idea behind having an escrow agent in the first place is to avoid fraud. Exactly. Something goes wrong with the deal.

So it's funny that it's like this is actually showing fraud? Yeah, but you could actually find yourself wrapped up in it. Yeah. Like even completely unwillingly. Yeah. But and then at that point, there's nothing you can do. Yeah, what can you do? You're involved. Exactly. Damn. Now, it should be noted that there were rumors about Chuck having done escrow work for

the Bonanno family and Ned Warren, another known criminal, but investigators didn't make any mention of it in their reports. And there's no direct information in the contemporary reporting of this, so that's all alleged. Okay. But people do say that, there are rumors. Okay. Now, if Chuck was paranoid after his disappearance in March, he became decidedly more so after testifying in the Banco International case in May.

Because remember, the state was breathing down his neck and he agreed to testify, but before the time he testified, that kidnapping took place, that alleged kidnapping. Then he testifies in May. And afterwards he's like super freaked out. He continued wearing a bulletproof vest nearly everywhere he went, continued to carry guns on his person

and keeping them in the car. And he also had his car equipped with a CB radio and a police scanner that allowed him to monitor all kinds of criminal activity and law enforcement in the area. Like just so he always knew what was going on. Yeah, just knew what was happening. His car had also been fitted with a special lock

that unlocked the doors from a release under the front fender of the car. Huh. Yeah. Now, on the afternoon of June 7th, 1977, Chuck went to a work meeting around lunchtime and called his office a little before 1 p.m. to let the office know that he was on his way back and he'd be there in about a half hour. But he never returned to the office that day or any other. After what happened the first time Chuck disappeared, Ruth this time didn't waste any time reporting this second disappearance to the police.

But the problem is that there's no laws preventing an adult from completely abandoning their responsibilities without telling anyone and there was no evidence of a crime, so there really wasn't anything they could do to go find Chuck. Oh, that must have felt so helpless. Especially with what she woke up to in the middle of the night, like a couple months earlier. She knows what happened there. Although she doesn't know what happened there, but she saw the aftermath. Yeah, and she's like, I know that you had said,

like if I reported this, people were gonna come after us. Have they come after you anyway? Yeah, and it's like, are they now going to come after us? Yeah, you're probably just imagining like all worst case scenarios. What do you do in that scenario? I have no idea. But Chuck had been missing for nine days when Ruth received a mysterious call at home from an

anonymous caller. Ruth recalled that this, she said, this woman said, Ruthie? I said, yes. She said, Chuck is all right. Ecclesiastes 12, one through eight, and then she hung up. Which that's like a verse from the Bible. I was just going to say, is that a Bible? Yeah, Clasioastes 12, 1 through 8. As far as Ruth knew, that particular passage had no special meaning or relevance to her or Chuck, but one section jumped out at her. The woman said, and this is a quote, Men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road. Remember him before the silver cord is broken

and the golden bowl is crushed. Then dust will return to earth as it was and the spirit will return to God who gave it." Okay. So she just receives this, I have chill saying this, this weird ass phone call. And she's sitting there trying to pick apart what this message means.

This is a nightmare. An absolute nightmare. Now, two days later, around 8 o'clock in the morning, Chuck's body was discovered. He was found by two teenagers alongside Arizona of Route 86, about 15 miles east of Sel's Arizona. When they arrived at the scene, investigators found Chuck lying about 10 feet away from his car, which had been pulled off the road.

His body was faced down on the desert floor with a large hole in the back of his head that appeared actually to have been made with his own 357 magnum, which was lying by his left hand. Strangely, his eyeglasses, which he always were, more excuse me, were attached to his left wrist and he was wearing a black belt that concealed a large knife. But there wasn't any evidence that he had tried to draw the knife at any point.

Otherwise, there didn't appear to be any struggle at the scene and there weren't any footprints to be found. What the fuck? Mm-hmm. When officers searched his car, they found weren't any footprints to be found. What the fuck? Mm-hmm. When officers searched his car, they found that CB radio in the police scanner, as well as, quote, large amounts of ammunition and several weapons. But one of the more disturbing discoveries came when technicians found a piece of one of his teeth in the backseat of the car wrapped in a white handkerchief with no idea how it ended up there. What? It's like, so did he have like injuries? Like he had been in a fight?

No. Like somebody punched him? No. Because to me that feels like it's like you get punched and break a teeth, break a teeth, break a teeth, break a tooth and like, I don't, I'm trying to like wrap my brain around this. None that were listed. Because they, like what the fuck? Or maybe just broke his tooth.

And wrapped it in a white anchor chiff and threw it in the back seat of his car. I don't know. That's fucking weird. I mean, this whole thing is weird. I have no idea. I'm trying to find any kind of normalcy in here. There's none, don't even look.

Wow. The tooth and the back seat of the car is very strange to me. No idea. I'm trying to find any kind of normalcy in here. There's none. Don't even look. Wow. The tooth in the backseat of the car is very strange to me. Very strange. The piece of the tooth, I should say. But the strange discoveries continued once the scene had been cleared and the body was taken away to be processed. The pathologist determined that Chuck had been dead no more than 12 hours, meaning that he had been alive nearly the entire time he'd been missing.

So when that person called and said Chuck is fine, they were telling the truth. They were telling the truth. He was still alive. And now the bullet had entered, quote, the top back of the head and launched in the soft palate behind Chuck's front teeth. Okay. So there's, that doesn't explain the tooth in the backseat. That just explains where the gun, the bullet lodged. And you wonder like, because it's like, it doesn't sound like there was any blood spatter in the car to indicate that he was killed in a car. Nope.

And it's like, you wonder if there was blood spatter on the ground at the scene. I think I would say that there was some kind of blood spatter, but... Because it sounds like an execution style. Yeah, and that's the thing. And even more strange, there were no fingerprints on the 347 magnum, but there was gunpowder residue on Chuck's left hand, indicating that he had fired a gun, at the very least, very recently, though not necessarily the gun used in his death.

Now, this fact struck Ruth as among the strangest elements of the case because according to her, Chuck was right-handed and she said he could do practically nothing with his left hand. Hmm. Strange. Yeah, like that this gun, this GSR on his hand. Right.

And on his left hand? On his left hand. Okay. Indicating that he had fired a gun recently, but maybe not necessarily this one with his left hand. But his wife is saying, no, he can't do anything with this. And it's like, did they make, did they put their hand around his hand and make him essentially do it with their help? And maybe there's no, that's why there was no fingerprints on the gun. But it's like even that's such a strange angle too, because. Oh, it's such a strange angle.

Doesn't make any sense. But it's like, I don't know. Yeah. The top and that's well, I guess the top back of his head. So that's not that strange of an angel. It's still a weird angle. It's weird. But if you're...

But doable. You know? Yeah. It is doable. We're both sitting here like trying to make it work with... This is... Wow, this is a weird one. It is. And I would love to know like the...

The analytics of like the crime scene. Yeah, like the... Like any blood spatter and like what direction it looked like it was going in, because it's like, did it look like he was looking this way, did it spatter that way, did it... Right. Because it's like, that is an easier way to do it if you turn your head to the side. Yep. Then doing it back there, because then your angle gets weird. You got kind of like,

You can kind of like, You can kind of like, You can kind of like, ...smushed off. ...mush this, your angle's a little more. Yeah. And if somebody was holding your hand to make it look like you did it, kind of thing, that's an easier angle to go about it, but...

Mm-hmm. That's the only reason I could think of that he has GSR on his left hand. Right. Which he doesn't use. Right. And that there's no fingerprints on the gun, because maybe they just wiped it down. I guess, yeah. And maybe they wore gloves.

Right. Because then the only fingerprints would have been his. Mm-hmm, which obviously makes sense if the gun is found in his hand. Well, it only gets stranger. Oh, good. So finally, and perhaps strangest of all, the pathologist discovered, like I said at the top of the story, a $2 bill pinned to his underwear.

Mm-hmm. It was unclear whether this was the same $2 bill that Chuck kept with him at all times, and he claimed had been taken by his kidnappers in March. But somebody had marked the bill significantly. On the front of the bill, there were seven Spanish names beginning with letters A through G, and above them the note was Ecclesiastes 12. Oh. Yeah. So that really was someone calling. Absolutely. On the back of the bill, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were each numbered

one through seven, and there was a crudely drawn map that led to an area between Tucson and Mexico, quote, to the towns of Robles Junction and Salasiti, both known for smuggling. Oh. So it's like, is this some kind of map to say like he was involved in some fucked up shit? Yeah, like what is this? Now the crime scene, if that's what it was even, because at this point they don't know,

was deeply strange and mysterious. But as far as everybody could tell, like investigator wise, there was no evidence of a murder. Even the county pathologist couldn't say whether Chuck's death had been homicide or suicide. So law enforcement officials luckily pursued it as though it could be either. They didn't rule one or the other out. I'm glad. For the Pima County Sheriff's Detectives, the mystery surrounding the case was more

frustrating than anything else. Because on one hand, the incredibly bizarre circumstances surrounding Chuck's disappearance and death suggested a conspiracy right out of a fiction novel. It really did. Or a movie. This seems like something you would see in the first scene of some wild new crime show. Yeah. You know, a wild new crime movie. And then you go back and figure it all out.

And then you go back and figure it all out. And you figure out what happened there. And it's like, how is this real? Right. And all these weird weird strange details. Symbolism and the Bible being involved and stuff. It's like, what's going on here? The Bible, the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

And they're numbered? They're numbered one through seven. What does that mean? I have no idea. And then there's, because all the signers are numbered, and then there was also seven Spanish names that were A through G written on the front of the bill. I wonder if anybody, I hope I'm assuming someone has like tried to find some kind of pattern here.

Absolutely. But on the other hand, the physical evidence strongly supported the theory that Chuck's death had been a suicide, a strange and elaborately planned one, but a suicide. They were like,ately planned one, but a suicide. I mean, it's possible. We could see both sides of this. According to one sheriff's deputy, Morgan could have pulled the revolver's trigger with his thumb, even though it would have been awkward, and

blood and dirt found on the gun could account for its lack of fingerprints. Okay. Which, like, I guess, but like, fired it with his thumb? Did we know if the handwriting on the bill? Was not his like they knew it was not his I don't know anything about the handwriting on the bill actually So maybe I would assume if it was like similar to his that would be like a that would be kind of like that Would kind of be the thing that it's like okay. He wrote this yeah, exactly, but I'm wondering like what who wrote that Because I'm like I I could buy the, because I, he seemed like he was in a big state of paranoia. Yes. Like,

rightfully so with what he had gone through. And he had all this stuff kind of closing in a little bit. So it's like, you wouldn't be shocking. It would be very tragic, but it wouldn't be wouldn't be like the craziest thing in the world. You can kind of, you could see why that could be the outcome. Right. But like, then you look at the, that $2 bill and stuff, it's like, In the fact. Who wrote on that and somebody calling. That's the thing, the fact that the writing on the $2 bill correlates with a woman calling

Ruth and referencing the same Bible passage. And that's the thing, it's like, so we know he wasn't just like out there, you know, going through it and then ending it this way. It's like he was, obviously he could have been going through it, but obviously he was with other people. Like obviously somebody knew where he was to call and do that. Exactly.

So it's like, this is just a really, this is a wild one. It's a strange one. And the suicide theory held no weight with Ruth or any of Chuck's close friends and associates. They all insisted he was, quote, just not the kind of person who would kill himself. Of course, we know that people don't usually believe their loved one would take their own life.

But in this case, the evidence was not that of a man on the verge of ending his own life, at least how Ruth and close people to him saw it. Yeah, I mean, they're the ones who know him. Yeah. And family friend Ronald Newman told reporters he had everything going for him. He was a family man and real active in the lodge. He had just acquired a new business, which he had been trying to do for a long time.

He had finalized one of his goals. Yeah. And just driving that point home even further, in the months between his disappearance in March and his death in June, Chuck definitely seemed very deeply concerned for his own safety to the point that he never went anywhere without being heavily armed.

So they're saying, why would he go so hard on this safety thing? To protect himself. To protect himself only to end it. Yeah. Which I could see people saying, well, like maybe that just got to be too much and he couldn't handle it anymore.

And if anybody was gonna end his life, it was gonna be him. Like you could make that argument. But he was going so hard. And why go for such a strange angle to do it? Like that, I can't get over that. Like they're saying, like, oh, he could have done it with his thumb. Why though? Why go for such a strange angle to do it? Like that, I can't get over that. Like they're saying like, oh, he could have done it with his thumb.

Why though? Why would he do that? Right. Like why would he do that? What would the point be? Like this is an awful thing to think about, but it's like why would he not just do the, you know, unfortunately, like a lot of times,

like the gun in the mouth. Or yeah, or side of the temple even. Or in the, you know what I mean? Like as awful as that is to think about, why would you pretzel yourself like that and make it difficult? And do it with your left hand. And randomly out in the middle of the... And beforehand, pin a $2 bill to your underwear

with strange writing all over it. And when you look at the writing, because you can find a picture of the $2 bills, so you can see the writing if you look it up, it's clear that person tried to disguise their writing because they write all in capital letters. Right. So, and that's an easier way to disguise. So it makes sense. It feels like somebody trying to disguise their writing.

Right. Alright. Most of you have probably heard me saying the praises of pros and their truly custom made to order hair care. Switching to a custom routine from pros was one of the best things that I've ever done for my hair, and the results that I've been seeing just keep getting better. I have been using pros for like multiple years at this point, I think we're honestly, it was one of our first sponsors, so I wanna say like three to four years.

Pros knows that there's more to you than just your hair type. They've given over one million consultations with their in-depth hair quiz, which is exactly how I got started. All you have to do is take this quiz, you're gonna answer questions to like, your zip code, your eating habits, your damage level,

so they can get an idea of what your hair journey looks like. And by analyzing over 85 personal factors, Pro's hand picks clean, sustainably sourced ingredients that get you closer to your hair goals with every single wash. My favorite feature is Pro's review and refine tool, which actually lets me tweak my formula for any reason in case I change up my address, my hair color, even my diet. I remember when I went

vegetarian, one of the first things that I did was log on to pros and let them know that I had updated that and they tweaked my formula a little bit because your diet heavily influences your hair. And you know, if you're moving, you might have different water that's going to affect your hair differently. So that's a great feature. Custom Made to Order Haircare from Proz has your name all over it. Take your free in-depth hair consultation and get 50% off your first subscription order today. Plus 15% off and free shipping every subscription order after that. Go to pros.com slash morbid.

That's P-R-O-S-E dot com slash morbid for your free and depth hair consultation and 50% off your first subscription order. It is time to talk some more about the delicious juices at squeeze.com and I actually just got a shipment from them so perfect freaking timing. As I was stocking up the fridge this week with their yummy delicious juices, Drew was helping me and he was also making fun of me at the same time. He goes, cashew milk. And let me tell you, those were fighting words to me

because you know how much already that I love the juices but the cashew milk and I have become great friends. If you're feeling like you need almost like a treat at the end of the day or after a workout, you're feeling a little burned out, cashew milk. Something about it just energizes me right up and has my belly feeling full and happy. I feel like after a couple times of using the juice cleanses from Squeeze.com, I've

broken some of my not-so-healthy eating habits like late-night snacking because I'm actually fueling my body-audi-audi during the day instead. And I told you those genes are fit and right. If you want your body-audi-audi to feel fueled and fit, head to Squeeze.com and enter code Morbid for free same-day feel fueled and fit, head to squeeze.com and enter code Morbid for free same day local delivery or fast free delivery nationwide. There's so many strange little, yeah,

none of this is making sense. I don't, right now to me, it just doesn't feel like it makes much of the most sense as a suicide, but I don't know. There's just a lot of bizarre details. There's a lot of bizarre details. And this is so sad. Yeah, I mean, he had four daughters and a wife. That's the thing.

And like, this family obviously had no idea what was going on. And they have no answers. And you don't even know what he knew what was going on. It's like, what the hell's going on here? And then like we said beforehand, like is Ruth just spending the rest of her life thinking people are going to come after her and her kids at this point, you know? Yeah. But the first lead in the case came just a couple days after the body was discovered

and it only made things even fucking weirder. When Pima County Sheriff's detectives received a call from a woman who called herself Green Eyes, that's when the first lead came in. According to the caller, Green Eyes, she was the person Chuck had gone to meet on the afternoon that he went missing, and she was the one who called Ruth and gave her that Bible passage. Green Eyes told the detectives that Chuck had met her at the motel, where he showed her a brief case containing thousands of dollars in cash, telling her, quote, that the money would buy him out of a contract the mob had put on his life.

Huh. Now, the story Green Eyes told detectives was for sure very unusual and would likely have been considered a prank call or grouped in with tips from unreliable callers, except that Green Eyes seemed to know quite a lot about Chuck's whereabouts and his personal life, to the point that Chief Deputy Sheriff Clarence Dubnick believed her to be credible.

He told reporters this proves that Morgan was not really missing. And that's because Green-Eyes explained that she had met Chuck about a month before his death and she had, quote, been seeing him socially from time to time. She said she'd seen him at least four times in the time since he had been missing from his home and she had visited him at the EZ8 motel, which is where he showed her that briefcase of cash. So investigators followed up on the information that they'd been given and they confirmed that he had been staying at the EZ8 motel the whole time he was missing.

What? And that briefcase that supposedly contained thousands of dollars was discovered in his car, but when they discovered it, quote, it only contained business cards. So all the cash was gone if there had been an anniversary place. The call from GreenEyes gained further credibility

when the sheriff received a call from a man who referred to himself as the husband of Green Eyes. And this man told him, quote, Morgan and his associates were involved in buying gold bars and gold coins in Mexico. The man wouldn't answer any more questions from the sheriff, and unfortunately, investigators were never able to identify either caller. What?

But they had all this weird information that was then some of it at least validated. What do you mean? They were never able to come on. Because it was the 70s, I guess they didn't. Oh, I didn't even think of that. I'm sitting here like, what? They couldn't like trace it back.

Oh my God. This was 1977 when he went missing. Or excuse me, when he was killed. Or anchors. Yeah, yeah. Wow. So to everybody that knew Chuck, Or excuse me, when he was killed. Or- This is so bonkers. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So to everybody that knew Chuck, the details of his death and the leads coming from anonymous

caller seemed wildly off the mark. Yeah. As far as they knew, he was just this mild-mannered escrow agent, dedicated family man, not some kind of like government agent- Yeah. ...treating in gold and silver across the Mexican border. What the hell? Like what? But the more and more that investigators dug into Chuck the Mexican border. What the hell? Like what?

But the more and more that investigators dug into Chuck's affairs, the more the tips from callers like GreenEyes seemed potentially legitimate. Wow. Going through his personal papers and records, detectives discovered that he was what they called, quote, a collector, a man who collected records and notes of every type. According to investigators, he had been keeping notes and records on prominent people in and around Tucson, quote, as well as very detailed notes on his alleged gold and land deals. So he was presumably involved in gold dealings.

Yeah, because he was keeping record of it. He was keeping record of it. While the purpose of the notes would remain a mystery, they did seem to corroborate what Chuck had told Ruth about his being targeted as a result of what he knew about powerful people. Yeah. So while the notes about people in and around Tucson and Phoenix didn't seem to be connected to anything in particular, the notes about gold and land deals may have been significant. A few weeks after Chuck's death, investigators got information from the US Customs Service regarding an investigation that they had launched in 1973. According to their report,

customs officials had received a tip that Chuck himself and two associates had been involved in what they called a scam to sell non-existent gold. Also, according to that customs report, investigators weren't able to find enough evidence to secure a federal indictment, and the US Attorney's Office decided not to pursue a case. What the fuck?

Which makes you wonder, like, was somebody involved? Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I was like, what's going on here? Now, this is interesting to me. Investigators thought it seemed unlikely that this was connected to Chuck's death, which I'm like, I actually feel as though it's very related to his death. I'm going to have to disagree with these people here. If it was a murder, then wouldn't that be a perfect motive?

He has all this information. He's involved in shady dealings and people are pissed off about it. Like, I think that actually sounds like the very beginning of a murder. That's the motive. Exactly. So they felt like it was unlikely that it was connected.

Yeah. But at the very least, it was a possible explanation. They felt for the voluminous records, telegrams, notes, and figures about buying and selling millions of ounces of almost pure gold. That Chuck had been exchanging with people as far as Mexico, Switzerland, and England. Damn, that's deep.

Like, you don't think that's connected? Like, that's deep. That is rolling very deep, my friend. Right? Yeah. So by the end of the month, the Pima County Sheriff's Office was starting to put together a timeline of Chuck's movements from when he disappeared, quote unquote, on June 7th to when his body was found.

Ruth Morgan had described her husband as missing for this period of time, but Greeneyes had referred to it as Chuck being and hiding. But from what investigators could tell, while he may have been staying in a motel, he didn't exactly appear to be hiding. He registered at the motel under his own name, and several people reported seeing him as he quote, conducted routine business in the city in a normal fashion. Huh. So he's just not going home and calling his wife during this period of time, which is

strange because people know him as a dedicated family. But he supposedly was checked into this motel under his own name and people said that they saw him in the city, which we know I witness accounts or not. So that makes me wonder, was that Chuck who was checked in? Yeah, or is that somebody? Checked in his Chuck trying to make it seem like Chuck is in a motel this whole time. Yeah, he's around. He's fine Huh, but then at the same time we're doing weirder and weirder And it will only continue to but then at the same time was it Chuck that was

and it will only continue to. But then at the same time, was it Chuck that was registered at that motel? Because remember, when he was found, he'd been missing all this time, but they presumed that he was only dead about 12 hours when they found him. Yeah, that's true. So, was it him? So, it's like, where was he before that if he wasn't there? Right. And he was like... It does make sense. Maybe he was at the motel.

Possibly that that was him. Yeah. Because like, again, where would he be? Yeah. If he wasn't, like where was he all that time if he wasn't in the place where he's registered at? And even stranger, the same appeared to be true for his disappearance in March

when he claimed that he had been kidnapped and drugged. According to investigators, quote, the day after the abduction was alleged to have taken place, he was seen in Tucson when he was supposed to be in Phoenix. So it didn't look like he had gone into complete hiding. It appeared that for some reason or another, he was hiding from his family and his friends. I wish I could put these pieces together in any way.

The only thing that I can think of is why he's staying away from his family and his friends is because he feels like his status as a target has heightened and he doesn't want them wrapped up in it. That's honestly the only thing I could think of too. Right? Was like, you know, going with that, you know, dedicated father and dedicated husband and like family man, he's trying to keep it away from the people like he cares about the most

That's the only thing I can think of but then he returns home in the middle of all that but maybe he thinks He should has like died down because it's like whatever that like two dollar bill thing was or like maybe he was supposed to do something And they were like, you know, we'll leave you alone or whatever do this and you'll get it back And it's like so maybe he had to go back to start that process of whatever it is they were having him do or wanted him to do. Yeah. And maybe that's the only reason he went back

because he thought he was going to end up helping his family in the long run by like getting this taken care of, whatever this is. And remember if he did think that he was taking care of it, maybe that explains the briefcase full of cash, but he thought it was going to get him out of this because it's like a legit hit on his life. Maybe this was supposed to be like, you get this, we do this,

you'll get all your shit back at the end of it. Like we're holding it for collateral. Right. So he goes away from his family and everything to try to keep them out of it, but then he comes back to try to do whatever it is he needs to do, goes back or doesn't do it in time. But it sounds more like he just went back

to finish off the deal. Cause he had that, if he had that briefcase full of money and was at that motel, maybe it's like he was there cause he was told to go there. Maybe that was part of the thing. Like you go to this hotel, you check in. I want you to have a briefcase full of this much money in this denomination kind of thing, you know, like when you see in the movies. And it was like, and then we will meet you here, you will meet us here with that briefcase.

With that money. And then we will send you on your way. Right. And maybe that's what he thought was going to happen. And maybe they did everything, they took that money from him because, and they killed it. They killed it.

Yeah. Whoever it is. Maybe. And then it's like the $2 bill of it all is so weird because they're keeping a $2 bill for collateral. Well, and it's like the writing on it. Right. What the fuck does that mean?

And the fact that GreenEye said she's the one who called Ruth and alluded to that same Bible passage that's then written on the $2 bill. It doesn't, yeah. But then was like, that's all I'm gonna tell you about. And it's like, was she scared? Was she trying to like?

I don't know. I don't know. This is bonkers. This is just such a weird one. It really is. So, and the problem with all these fantastical leads, if you can even really call them that, coming into the Sheriff's office was while they were certainly interesting and compelling as we're sitting here trying to dissect them, they didn't seem to go anywhere. That's the thing.

They would chase down a lead and then they'd be like, okay, what next? Like, we're stumped. Because even if you're sitting there, coming to the whole, like, okay, maybe he had to go do something and they wanted him to have this money and he was supposed to meet them somewhere. Who's them? Who's them? You don't even know where to begin. You're like, who the fuck is them? Yeah. And rumors and stories of him buying and selling gold and silver bars could have gone a long way to explaining his murder, if that's what it was, but they never were anything more than rumors. And similarly, the stories of Chuck having gone into hiding seemed to be somewhat exaggerated

because it's true he had checked into a motel, but it seemed at least to the investigators, like if he was trying to hide from somebody, he wasn't trying very hard using his own name and being seen in public. Yeah, that's the thing. Potentially. Like, it really doesn't feel like that's what it was. So rather than focusing on the majority of, excuse me, focusing the majority of their attention on things they couldn't improve, investigators toward their attention toward the evidence and leads that were more likely to be fruitful.

As far as anybody could tell, Chuck's paranoia and his very strange behavior began around March, shortly after he left Western title and set out to purchase that majority share and statewide escrow service. It was that decision that led him to Banco International, where he had eventually secured a loan, but it was that relationship that led to his being pressured to testify

in the state's case against Banco and several of its agents. The testimony in that case was confidential and has actually never been released to the public, but the documents and information that is available to the public indicates that the case was related to several instances of fraud on the part of three members of Banco's board who were trying to buy majority stake in the bank. And because the case involved Chuck's former employer, Western Title, and because one of the board's members in question was a man who was actually representing Chuck

in the purchase of a majority stake in statewide, his testimony was essential in securing the conviction. So that tells you something. Interesting. Like Chuck was a key witness for this case. So I mean, that's something right there. And that's going to put you in danger. You have all these higher ups and these big companies doing insider trading and fucking

all kinds of shit that I don't understand. I was going to say all kinds of shit that I can't even wrap my brain around. Yeah, like I can barely do simple division. But I know it's, I know it doesn't, it probably doesn't bring a lot of great people around you. And I'm not trying to fucks with that. No. But the case was eventually settled out of court

and then in August of 1977, and two investigators, they didn't think that that was related to Chuck's death. Huh. Which is weird, because I'm like, come on. It sounds to me like it could be. I mean, that sounds like, again, another perfect motive for someone. Another shady dealing.

You know? What is going on here? So, the death of Chuck Morgan started out as a case obviously shrouded in mystery and intrigue, but with each passing week, investigators drew closer and closer to what they felt was a more plausible explanation. He had taken his own life. They thought that was way more plausible. Which to me, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I'm not gonna say one way or the other, but it doesn't seem like the most plausible. Yeah, that does not seem like the most plausible thing. When we get to the end, it still won't. Get closer to the best you. Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app. You'll always find the best of what you love or something new to discover. There are tons of wellness categories for you to choose titles on Audible like physical,

mental, spiritual, social, motivational, occupational, and financial wellness. You're going to find voices that motivate to spark you to take action, sounds to soothe so that you can focus, reduce stress, and sleep better. There are stories to inspire so you can dream big again, plus personalities to encourage and enlighten so you'll always have a partner on your journey. As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. Actually the title that I chose to pick I was talking to you guys about last time I was telling you about Audible. It's Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown and just brought

me back to myself I feel like. New members can try Audible Free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500-500. That's audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500-500 to try Audible Free for 30 days. Audible.com slash morbid. By the end of June, there were a number of factors in the case that were causing Sheriff's detectives toward the suicide theory. These included the location where Chuck had been discovered, the fact that it was very public and, quote, did not indicate that somebody was trying to cover up a murder. Okay.

Which is like, okay, but then also, is it a show of like, don't fuck with us? Yeah. Like, it could very much be that. They might not be trying to cover it up. And so you're saying he decided to end his life in a very public setting, like in a very public area. I don't know. I don't know.

They said if Morgan had been killed because of something related to a land deal or money laundering, the killer likely would have rifled through his car or belongings to remove any incriminating evidence, but all of his papers and business documents appeared to be untouched, which that's strange. That is strange.

And he was known to push himself professionally and had been known to regularly overwork himself, quote, until he had a nervous breakdown and had to take the week off. So they were like, did he just work himself up into a nervous breakdown? I mean, possibly. And this was the end of it. Maybe.

And so while those closest to him flatly refused to accept that possibility that he could have taken his own life, others who did know him, not like super close in a circle, but knew him well enough, they were less certain that he wouldn't have done that. Several colleagues and friends told reporters that Chuck often struggled with social relationships and, quote, was an insecure man who seemed to need the approval of others more than most. According to one friend, Chuck, quote, tended to create a crisis once in a while just so he could solve it. And although Morgan appeared to be a brilliant man, he always seemed to be in financial difficulty. And others who knew Chuck echoed those sentiments. According to Pat Baldwin,

who took over Chuck's position at statewide after he died, quote, the entire board of directors resigned once they knew he was buying the firm. Whoa. But I'm also like, there were also people that still worked there that were probably involved in some shady shit that he testified against or they just worried. So is this all just wrapped up in some shady shit that he testified against. So are they just worried?

So is this all just wrapped up in that, like that part of it? Right. You know, like that could be a whole different kind of scenario? Exactly. Or was it that like... Yeah. Because also he was known as an escrow genius. So you're gonna leave, I don't know.

I don't know. Because he's involved. Like it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. But a little over a month into the investigation, no new evidence had been found and all the leads had dried up. So with no evidence to support a murder case and no new tips coming in from the public, the Sheriff's Department issued a statement on August 10th announcing that based on the evidence and statements collected from those who knew him, Chuck's death was being considered a suicide. Wow. In his statement to the press, the sheriff's sergeant, Joe Jett, said,

we have found no evidence that anyone took part in the death but himself. And Jett went on to say that the biggest factors in labeling the death of suicide was one, all the finger, and these are all quotes, all the fingerprints and footprints at the scene were Morgans. There was no sign of a struggle of any kind.

Two, the bullet that killed Morgan was fired at very close range from his own.357 Magnum revolver, which lay inches from his body. And large deposits of gunshot residue on his left hand indicate that he held the revolver barrel in that hand when he fired into the top of his head. And three, Morgan was in deep financial trouble at the time of his death. Records indicate that he had cash assets of about $400 and debts of more than $40,000 including a third mortgage on his east side home. Wow. Which like, that's a lot.

Yeah. And this is interesting. So the Sheriff's Department is like, we're gonna go ahead and rule this a suicide. The county pathologists didn't didn't challenge the Sheriff's Department conclusion, but they declined to classify the death as a suicide. Huh. And Chuck Morgan's death on paper with the pathologist remains classified as unknown. Interesting. That to me is very interesting.

That's very interesting because it's like, if the pathologist isn't willing, then that gives me pause. Yeah, and it's like is there war that maybe wasn't released to the public That's what I'm wondering. The pathologist has access to that maybe just wasn't really interesting Yeah, because when they when a pathologist refuses to to bend to the sheriff or somebody else with that I'm like, what's going on? Like what else is there? What kind of feeling did you have? What did you see?

Yeah, initially what did you think that made you question it? Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I thought so too. Wow. And the sheriff's decision to label the death as a suicide came as a big surprise to Ruth Morgan,

Chuck's wife and those closest to the family who remain convinced that Chuck was murdered. And I feel really bad for them because it's like- Because then you don't have any answers. To not know. Yeah. Ruth told unsolved mysteries in 1990. There's no way Chuck would have committed suicide.

And if he had even contemplated suicide, he would have left a letter for his girls and for me. And I can understand her thinking that. Yeah. And I mean, obviously I don't know Chuck from a hole in the wall, but- Yeah. Wouldn't you like just based off of the descriptions of how much he, obviously I don't know Chuck from a hole in the wall, but yeah Wouldn't you like just based off of the descriptions of how much he like he wouldn't even let his children leave the house Unprotected he wouldn't let strangers in the house Yeah, Ruth go to the police because it was gonna endanger the family

Yeah, to me it seems like and for her to say that for her to say there's no way something wouldn't happen without him Leaving communication for me and for his girls. there's no way something wouldn't happen without him leaving communication for me and for his girls. That's her saying like, I know him as a man and as a father and as a husband. And I know that he wouldn't have left this world without talking to us with a note. At least giving us like something. You know, just giving us some kind of communication for why. And it doesn't, I don't think from what she's saying again,

I also don't know, Chuck, I don't know this family, but I don't know, it just doesn't seem like he would have wanted to leave all this mystery for his children and his wife. I agree with that. Cause that's a lot to grapple with for them to have to wonder. So what she's saying, I think makes the most sense to me,

which is he would have left notes for us. I think so too. Explaining what was going on and what happened. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And journalist Don Devereux, who I mentioned earlier, he agrees with the family's theory. He said, I've never seen in all my years as a journalist, a fellow take himself out in the desert wearing a bulletproof vest and shoot himself in the back of the head. That's true. He's wearing a bulletproof vest and he shoots himself. That doesn't make any sense.

And Devereux cites the statements from Greeneyes and the man who identified himself as Greeneyes' husband as compelling evidence to support the theory that maybe he was, maybe he was involved in organized crime and that he was working as an agent of the government, perhaps. That makes the most sense to me, to be honest. Right, and he elaborated saying, there's a great likelihood that Mr. Morgan

was in fact doing something with the government. I think this was a guy who was extremely naive about a lot of things. I think somebody blew his cover and he got killed. Damn. Which I don't know. I don't know, I mean, honestly, all of these theories, you could say that makes sense. Yeah.

All of them. Exactly. Now, sadly, Ruth Morgan unfortunately passed away after battling cancer in 2006. But according to their children, she remains steadfast in her belief that Chuck was absolutely murdered. Their daughter, Megan, told reporters in 2010, my father had a lot of information about people here in Tucson that could have been very detrimental. There was a lot of information about politicians, people who are still alive that work in our government.

He had a lot, he had that information and they wanted to silence him. That's awful. Which I have chills even just reading that. Yeah, that's awful to even think about. Now the 1990 segment of Unsolved Mysteries featuring Chuck's story actually generated a light flurry of interest in the case and resulted in, quote, more calls than any other in the show's history up to that point. Oh, man.

Unsolved Mystery was the way to go, man. Oh, hell yeah. You want to get a case out there? That was the way to go. Especially the original one. Oh. So creepy. But among those tips was one from an anonymous source that, quote, pointed to a paid hitman,

then living in the Wilkes Bar Scranton region, who may have traveled briefly to Arizona to carry out a murder contract. According to this anonymous caller, the hitman supposedly, quote, shot a Tucson businessman in the head in 1977 because he knew too much, and then came back to Pennsylvania loaded with money. That's why it's wild to me that they're like, I don't know, this got like, it doesn't seem like somebody who would murder someone would leave the scene like this.

And I'm like, I don't know, a hitman would. Like he just goes and does his job and then leaves. Plenty of people would. Like they just peace out. They're not worried about like staging a crime scene here. They're just, they're doing what they were paid to do and then they're out. A job that they've done countless other times too.

Likely, yeah. Which is like, why didn't you find much probably. Yeah. Now a second airing of the Unsolved Mysteries episode a few months later generated more calls, some of which were actually routed to the sheriff's department and generated

a new potential suspect. According to Sergeant Dave Thomas of the County Sheriff's Department, investigators interviewed at least one former Wilkes Barr area resident but are not releasing the suspect's name for legal reasons. Interesting. He noted that the case was never closed and investigators were following up on leads as they received him. But he added that in the absence of any further good witnesses, he said we probably won't be able to go any further with this.

Which that is such a concrete statement. Like I don't think we'll be able to go any further with this. Nope, probably not, bye. I don't know. Now, despite the activity and interest generated by the unsolved mystery segment, the leads unfortunately went nowhere, and Chuck's case was put back on the shelf. But the case popped up in the news again two years later when 35-year-old Tucson computer

technician Doug Johnston was found dead in his car from a gunshot wound to the head. Investigators were unable to find the gun, but without evidence to support a murder theory, the case was labeled a possible suicide. And detectives cited his mounting debt as a possible reason. And the case was closed. Don Devereux, on the other hand, believes that the death, and this is fucking crazy, was the result of a mistaken hit that had been meant for him. What?

According to Devereux, Johnston drove a car very similar to his own, and the two men looked generally similar to one another, resulting in Johnston receiving a bullet meant for Devereux in order to stop him from further investigating Chuck's story because he was going like deep into it. What? Trying to get answers. What? Nevertheless, Devereux hedged, I'm not here to tell you for certain that the bullet Johnston took was meant for me, nor that there's a known contract out on me for looking into

the conspiracy, but I do know that I'm concerned and that they will probably come around again, and this time they'll make it look like an accident. I have no idea what happened, and I'm not gonna look any further into it. That's the thing, I didn't look super deep at anything. I don't know what happened. We just looked very surface level into this. But wow. And those are just the facts of the case.

But as of now, the death of Charles Morgan remains an open and unfortunately inactive case with the County Sheriff's Department and no new leads or suspects have been identified since the early 90s. And I don't know anything. I don't know anything. Isn't that a crazy tale? What a wild, wild case. A wild story.

I feel for his family not having any answers. And I feel for Ruth, she went, she lived the rest of her life with all these questions. Yeah. But luckily she was safe for the rest of her life at least. And I'm glad that his daughters were unharmed and jeez. But it's a spooky one. Very spooky. And one I will never read any further into.

Nope, me either. And so with that being said, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But that's where you're looking further into this case. Love you so much, bye. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and add free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.

I love a good parasocial relationship with a celebrity who will probably never know my name. I mean, honestly, who knows? Don't count yourself out. But my favorite part about these feuds is how they're ignited by the tiniest things. Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane too. Can't wait to see it. I accidentally laminated my brows too much. It starts small and then it gets so big. We honest Naomi, I'm fearful of you to this day. I don't know her. We all just have to admit, we're addicted. Everybody has opinions, everyone picks sides.

Liam Britney Spears alone right now. From Wondery, I'm Sydney Battle. And I'm Matt Bellassai. And this is Dis and Tell, where we unpack why we get so invested in these feuds. And whether or not our attention only makes the whole thing worse. Follow Dis and Tell wherever you get your podcasts.