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Hi, CrimeGenkies. I have a special treat foryou, hence why I'm popping into your feeds on aThursday.
I don't know if you knowthis, but this summer marks five years since we started the Crime Genkie fanclub.
We don't really plug it superoften.
We might mention that you can see a pick in theapp.
But clearly I'm doing a terrible job of keeping you in theknow.
And I know this because while I was at thisauthor, true crime event in the Hamptons thisspring, I met a group of lovelyladies, helloladies, who were superfans.
They listened everyepisode.
They run with me in their ears everyweek.
And they've been doing this foryears.
And they said they wished we had moreepisodes.
And Isaid, what we do in the fanclub.
And they had no idea what I was talkingabout.
So if you're in the sameboat, let me fill youin.
Back in2019, I started in Patreon because I heard so many of our crime junkies asking formore, moreepisodes, more ways to connect withus, more casevisuals.
And while we were onPatreon, I also spent years building our own customapp.
And that's where our fan club livesnow, the Crime Junkieapp.
You can download it on your phone in any appstore.
All the episodes you regularly hear aread-free.
The case pictures and documents are timed and pop up as you're listening to theepisode.
So you can follow along and see exactly what me and Brit are lookingat.
And fan club members get first access to merch and tourtickets.
Hint,hint, something'scoming.
The top tier of our fan club also gets help deciding what organizations and causes we donateto.
And we've started even adding other shows like my Serious XM Radio show Crime JunkieAF.
And the most importantthing, there is so much crime junkie bonuscontent.
Fullepisodes, manyepisodes, episodes where we talk about true crimeheadlines.
Brittany even recently did a supernatural typeepisode.
And I am always shocked by thisquestion, which I get all thetime.
But what are the episodeslike?
Boo, they're exactly the same as what we give you every singleMonday.
You think I'm skimping out on the fans who pay thebills?
Absolutelynot. Everymonth, the $5 tier gets a full-lengthepisode.
The $10 tier gets the full-length episode plus a miniepisode.
And the $20 tier gets the full-lengthepisode, the miniepisode, and a special piece of content that's different everymonth.
So, to answer the question once and forall.
But what are the episodeslike?
For the rest of thesummer, in celebration of thefans, everyThursday, we're going to be releasing an episode from the fan clubVault.
If you like what youhear, go to the link in the show notes and try itout.
If you sign up directly through ourwebsite, you can use code freesummer.
And new members get to join whatever tier you want forfree, all of July andAugust.
Sotoday, I'm going to give you one of our most recent full-length fan club episodes so you can see what you're missing outon.
Enjoy.Hi, CrimeJunkies.
I'm yourhost, AshleyFlowers.
And I'mBrett. And not to spoil theending.
But this story ends with me not knowing what tobelieve.
This is the story of Charles ChuckMorgan.
In February of1977, Ruth Morgan is getting concerned about her husbandChuck.
He's not missing ordead.
She sees him everyday, but something is up with him and he won't tell herwhat.
And it's little things or little to heranyway.
Like, oneday, he comes home with a bulletproofvest, carrying two newly purchasedguns.
Now, Ruth knew that he was on the rifle team back incollege, but he hadn't carried guns on him inyears.
And the vest just seems like a little over thetop.
Atfirst, she just kind of chalks it up to maybe this new job he just got in as president of statewide escrow serviceInc.
inArizona. This new role is like a hugedeal, but with all the newresponsibilities, Chuck seemsstressed, maybe even a bitparanoid.
Are there a lot of security risks that come with thisjob?
Not that Ruth knowsof, but there's like nothing else she can point to that she thinks would make him afraid for hissafety.
Okay, it could just be him picking up an oldhobby, whoknows.
Like, is that he didn't want to talk aboutit, so she just kind of let him do his ownthing.
And things in the home were a littletense,sure, but they stuck to their normal routine and operated as best theycould.
So some time was going by and I'm sure things that once stood out as odd just kind of became their new norm and faded into thebackground, that is right up untilTuesday, March22nd, when Chuck dropped off two of his daughters for school and then justvanished.
He doesn't show back up Wednesday orThursday.
And did Ruth report him missingthen?
No, which at least to me is especially surprising in light of his recent purchases and changingbehavior.
And I tried to find something from Ruth explaining why she didn't callpolice, but I can't find any instance where she talks aboutit.
So I don't know what's going through her mind or if Chuck is prone todisappearing, but the next couple of days she just kind of tries tolike, youknow, keep lifemoving.
She's got kids to worry aboutwhatever.
Well, fast forward toFriday, March25th, Ruth is asleep in bed when she is woken up by herdog, barking at around two in themorning.
So she getsup, she walks to the back door of her house inTucson,Arizona.
And before she even getsthere, she hears this thumpingsound.
So she opens the door and there with his hands tied together by some plastic handcuffs is her 39 year old husbandChuck.
He has another cuff around one of his ankles and he's missing ashoe.
Imean,frankly, this guy looks likehell, but he'salive.
He'salive. But he's frantically pointing to his neck and he won't speak aword.
Now Ruth's having a hard time taking all thisin.
In her 2a.m. sleep filledhay, she asks if he can talk and he shakes hishead,no.
So sheruns, she grabs a pen and paper and he writes down that his captors had put some kind of hallucinogenic drug on his throat and that if heswallowed, it could cause irreversible damage to hisnerves.
What? Iknow. Like just when you think you've heard atall, some cases can still surpriseyou.
Yeah. Now Ruth islike, Fthis, I don't know how to handle thissituation.
I'm calling thepolice.
But according to an unsolved mysteriesepisode, Charles shakes his head and he picks up the pen again and he writes down that if shedid, she'd bequote, signing a death warrant for the entirefamily.
And that stops Ruth in hertracks.
She and Chuck have four daughters together and she's not willing to do anything that puts them indanger.
So now her only priority is to make sure her husband doesn't swallow whatever this hallucinogenic drugis.
Okay, buthow? Patience and an eyedropper?
Questionmark? Apparently she's giving him water with an eye dropper trying to make sure that the drug doesn't cause any seriousharm.
But hallucinogenic drugs don't cause nerve damage and even if itdid, couldn't it still be getting into hisbloodstream?
There's a lot about this part I don'tunderstand.
There's no indication in any of the source material I have of what this drug is or how it's like painted on or coated on to doso.
I truly have no idea like what they're even trying to do with this eye droppermethod.
I guess she's like testing if it'sreal, like seeing him maybe like if small amounts go down histhroat, does he have any kind ofreaction?
And it seems like he doesn't because he makes it through the rest of that firstnight.
And while Ruth spends the next week making sure he isn't affected by this drug longterm, she starts thinking back on all of that odd behavior from the few weeksprior.
So in all these little notes he'swriting, he hasn't told her what'sup?
No, notyet. And I have to believe that like Ruth and Chuck have a very different relationship than me andEric, because I'd have beenlike, I'm not eye droppering that out of your throat until you pick up that goddamn pen and tell me what the hell is goingon.
Yeah, especially if our family could be indanger.
What? Iknow. And I'm sure it's not she neverasked.
I'm sure shedid, but apparently Chuck couldn't speak atall.
And the only things he'd written down were reallyvague.
vague things like he worried about them doing something to his family without ever actually telling Ruth who theywere.
Well, at least that's how itstarts.
But about a week into all ofthis, Chuck finally drops a bomb on Ruth that sends herspiraling.
He tellsher, or youknow, writes down on his littlepaper,whatever, that he is not who she thinks heis.
He writes that he's an agent for the federal government and he's been working for them for almost threeyears.
And Ruth isreeling. Imean, she's trying to process what he's writing sayingwhatever.
Imean, she's rethinking their entire 18 year marriagetogether.
Yeah. But even if this istrue, it doesn't totally explain away his odd behavior because what he's saying doesn't makesense.
Before his voice is back tonormal, he writes down another claim that confuses Ruth evenmore.
He writes that they took my treasuryidentification.
And when Ruth presses on what hemeans, he doesn'telaborate.
Infact, he never gives Ruth anything else to go offof.
So whatever Chuck is involvedin, it isn't newapparently, but Ruth says she knows nothing aboutit.
Andunfortunately, once Chuck isbetter, he doesn't really give her any moreinformation.
What? Iknow. I don't know if he tells her it's for her ownsafety.
Oragain, if this is just like old schoolmarriage, Imean, when I say this happened in the70s, I'm alwayslike,oh, this is like 30 yearsago.
No, this was 50 yearsago.
Like women couldn't even open a bank account without their husband's signature until three years before this wholething.
So we're not considered equal partners in the home at thistime.
You know what Imean? So basically make the meals look pretty and pretend everything'sfine,Ruth.
And that's kind of what shedid, even when her whole world seems to be fallingapart.
Even though Chuck continues acting strange and keeping things tohimself.
So as you canimagine, things are tense in the Morganhousehold.
Chuck seems to be growing even morenervous.
He's always watching hisback.
He's on edge about his girls going toschool.
After the kidnapping or his disappearance orwhatever, he implements this new rule that only he can take their daughters toschool.
He doesn't trust anyone else to do itanymore.
Which probably has Ruth stressedA.F.
especially because during thistime, he's also changing up hisappearance.
He lets his beard grow out even though he's always kept his faceclean,shaven.
And I can imagine her stress reaches an all-time high when on May4th, Chuck is subpoenaed to testify for the state inPhoenix, seemingly out ofnowhere.
At least forRuth. But when he gets thissubpoena, he still won't tell her what is goingon.
He just says that it is a very secretprobe.
And that'sit. He gives nothing about the investigation or how he's involved init.
Imean, I know it's a bit of a trope for like when men want to tellsecrets, they just say they're in the CIA and no one asks them anyquestions.
Butlike, is that what's actually going onhere?
I don'tknow. And I don't know even when you're in theCIA.
Like, doyou, doyour, do your family really not know what your lifeis?
I feel like they know you work for theCIA.
They might not get to knowanything.
Butthat's, that's the hard part for me to wrap my headaround.
I,again, if you want to get reallyconspiratorial, which I always tend to like gothere, not that I like staythere.
But I'mlike, does Ruth know what's goingon?
But like sheis, is like in full family protectionmode.
She's also kind of working for the CIA by not sayinganything,right?
Yeah, we'renot, we're not telling the story about Chuck because it ended well forhim.
Like, maybe she's justlike,listen,I'm,I'm, I'm going to pretend I knownothing.
But nothing has ever indicated that Ijust, to yourpoint,like, I don't know if he's working for some bigagency.
And I don't know how that infiltrated hislife.
Butanyways, he gets thissubpoena, the followingweek, he goes totestify.
But after he getshome, he's more on edge thanever, but still just as tight lit over the course of about amonth, Chuck's doing who knowswhat?
Like, literally who knows because I can't exactly find in the source material what he's doing during thistime.
But his behavior is getting moreerratic.
And Ruth notices that he's always like scribbling away on thesepapers, seemingly making records of things or taking record of everything he's doingseeing.
I don'tknow. And she doesn't get to see thepapers.
Like the only tidbit ofinformation, Chuck gives her is that he's been keeping tabs on politicians in Tucson and he's got a lot ofdirt.
And he says that's why the family needs to be extracareful.
If she could just take a peek at thosepapers, maybe she would finally understand what was goingon.
Or if she should be more worried than she alreadyis, even though that doesn't even feelpossible.
But it ispossible. According to the TucsonCitizen, on June7th, at7am, Ruth watches Chuck leave to take one of their daughters toschool.
Butthen, just like almost three monthsbefore, he never comeshome.
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Thatnight, Ruth goes to bedworried.
Worried about Chuck and worried about calling the police since he told her thatthey, whoever theywere, would have killed the whole family if she'd called last time hedisappeared.
But something in her tells her to report him missinganyway.
So, I'm assuming that this isn't explicitly said in the sourcematerial, that she is the one who goes to the Tucson Police Department the nextday, which would have beenWednesday, June8th.
After they take thereport, all she's left to do is wait and hope that he shows up like lasttime.
But three days come and go and Chuck's still notback.
Fourdays,five, then nine days after hisdisappearance, Ruth gets a strangecall.
The woman on the other end never identifiesherself.
Infact, all she saysis,quote,Ruthie, Chuck isalright.
Ecclesiastes12, one througheight.
Embray, I'm gonna need you to do what Ruth does when that callends.
Like, I'm gonna need you to go get your Biblegirl.
Okay, you told me to bring it to this recording and I waslike, I havequestions.
There'sa,again, there's a lot offirsts.
Okay, so this passagegoes, remember your creator in the days of youryouth.
Before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you willsay, I find no pleasure inthem.
Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark and the clouds return after therain.
When the keepers of the house tremble and the strong menstoop, when the grinders cease because they are few and those looking through the windows growdim.
When the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grindingfades, when people rise up at the sound ofbirds, but all their songs growfaint.
When people are afraid of heights and of dangers in thestreets, when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags itself along and desire no longer isstirred, then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about thestreets.
Rememberhim, before the silver cord is severed and the golden bowl isbroken.
Before the pitcher is shattered at the spring and the wheel broken at the well and the dust returns to the ground it came from and the spirit returns to God who gaveit.
And then the final verse justsays,meaningless, meaningless says theteacher, everything ismeaningless.
Now if you could translate thatplease.
Sure, so Ecclesiastes is like this book of reckoning and wisdom that's kind of being passed on and this passage specifically is kind of like a return to God before you growled and also return to God before the world ends kind ofpassage.
Okay, so again this woman calls shesays,Ruthie, Chuck is all right and then basically return to God before the worldends.
Like,yes, that'sthe, Imean, I guess I'm notasking, I'm tellingyou, butlike,right, so she called herRuthie.
You haven't called her Ruthie atall.
Is that like a pet name that Chuck has for her or like a nickname that only like her friends and family would callher?
I don't know about family or closefriends.
I do know that Ruth tells the two's on citizen later that Chuck never called herRuthie.
She says he never even really called herRuth, like he would call her honey ordeer.
So maybe this woman's just pulling it out ofnowhere, but it doesn't makeRuth, at least from what Iwrite, it doesn't make Ruth seem like this woman like really knowsher, you know what Imean?
Right, like calling her Ruthie isn't making Ruth feel more comfortable or at ease or anything likethat.
Yeah, and honestly like nothing about this calldoes.
Imean, itis, it almost means nothing toher.
It's socryptic.Well, and she's not just taking this woman's word that Chuck's okaythough,right?
Like she's calling thepolice, telling them about thiscall.
She just filed the missing persons report like lastweek.
Yeah,no, that's not whathappens.
She didn't actually tell anyone about this call at thetime.
Imean, she didn't even want to report him missing in the first place because she's so afraid for her familysafety.
So and Imean, to befair, like getting thiscall, you could argue it eitherway.
Like some people could saylike, Imean, it seems like ahoax.
It seems like it doesn't meananything, but she doesn't tell the police in theend.
She's still justwaiting, hoping that police are onit, like they're figuring out what's goingon, then she'll hearmore.
And theyare, even without knowing about the phonecall, investigators are taking Chuck's disappearanceseriously.
According to the Tucsoncitizen, bynow, detectives have learned that he was last seen at around 1240 pm on the7th.
So about five and a half hours after he left hishouse, and like when he was dropping the girl off herschool, he was seen near North KrakrachtRoad.
They talked to one of his co-workers who must have told them that Chuck was out thatway.
And they said that he had called them to give him a heads up that he's going to be back in 30minutes.
But then his co-workers say that he never showed backup, and that's the last time they heard fromhim.
So pretty quickly detectives are at a deadend,too.
They know when he was lastseen, but that's kind ofit.
I'm not sure what else theydid, but their mystery was about to get a little bit of abreak.
It's been 10 days since he was reportedmissing, and onSaturday, June18, police get a call about a body that has been found on the side of theroad.
Passerbyes say that they came across a deceased male on the highway right off of US86, about 40 miles west ofTucson.
When police arrive on thescene, they see that the man is wearing asuit, he's wearing a bulletproofvest, and cowboyboots.
Now, I don't have anything in the source material about how he'sidentified, but it seems like prettyquickly, they know that they found ChuckMorgan.
And it appears that he's been shot in thehead, and he's lying right near hisvehicle, which might actually be how they identifyhim, but I don'tknow.
How long has he been lyingthere,though?
Well, actually notlong,because, Imean, this is a remotearea,yeah, but it was still a mainhighway, and Imean, I'm guessing people traveled along itfrequently, and even just the state of the body tells them that whatever happened here actually was prettyrecent, so it's not like he's been out there the full 10days, but they will have to wait for the medical examiner to give them like a real time ofdeath.
Now, what they can tell is tothem, it looks like he'd been killed right there at thescene.
There's a 357 magnum revolver lying near his lefthand, with an obvious gunshot wound at the top of hishead, and as they lookaround, they find a pair of sunglassesnearby, andabout $10.
I'm assuming in his wallet orpocket, but it doesn'tsay.
And then when they search hiscar, they find two CBradios, a policemonitor, and a fewweapons, including a sawdoth shotgun and apistol.
And then in the back of thecar, detectives find a package of plastichandcuffs.
A plottwist?Yeah, but that's notall.
Reporting for the Arizona Daily Star says detectives find something that looks like a piece of a tooth inside of a white hankerchief in the back of hiscar, but they don't know if it belongs to Chuck or someoneelse, which to me is like a bigquestion,like, can't we just open his mouth and see if he's missing a piece of atooth?
That was my firstthought.
Yeah. And then they also find an assortment of like scribbled notes all over Chuck'scar.
Some of the notes appear to be telegrams fromSwitzerland,England, and Mexico regarding the purchasing and selling of millions of ounces ofgold.
Is that what Ruth saw him writingto?
Imean, I don't know forsure,maybe.
I don't thinkso,though, because I think the telegrams would have beentyped,right?
Or am I making thatup?Like,sure, I don't know nothing abouttelegrams.
Well, eitherway, the things that they don't find are any clothes or toiletries or anything that would make it seem like he plan to be away for 11days.
And you said that it didn't look like he'd been out there verylong.
Right.So, where has hebeen?
And how has he been taken care ofhimself?
Does he haveany,like, defensive wounds that they cansee,like, are there signs of a struggle around thecar?
No signs of astruggle, and I was actually just about to get to what the Emmyfound.
So to answer yourquestion, there were no defensivewounds.
His all-topsies show that he hadn't even been dead for 12 hours when they foundhim.
And he had died from a gunshot wound to thehead.
The medical examiner finds that he was shot in the back of the head and that the bullet lodged in hismouth.
But the bullet is too damaged to determine through initial testing if it came from the weapon detectives found next toChuck.
So they have to send it off to the FBI crime laboratory to see if they could gather anyresults.
But that angle he was shotat,like, in the back of the head means that his death clearly looks like ahomicide.
Now there's really nothing else of no found when examining hisbody.
But they did find something when preparing his body forexamination.
The Emmy found it when they were undressingChuck.
So there was this $2 bill pinned to hisunderwear.
And it hadwriting, Iknow, it had writing on bothsides.
And on thefront, just to theleft, there is this list of Spanish lastnames.
And they're listedalphabetically.
Acevedo,Bejarrano,Cajero,Duarte,Encinas,Fuente, andGradias.
And I keep reading that Ecclesiastes 12 is written at the top of thatlist.
But I actually have a picture of thisbill.
I'm going to put it in the blogpost.
I can maybe see Ecclesiastes and then maybethere's,again, it was really hard for me tosee.
I had to have like other people trying to point thisout.
There's maybe this little 12 right under theE.
And then there are these arrows pointing to a number one and a number eight on the bill's serialnumber.
What is up with this Biblepassage?
I believe that this is like referencing it because it's sobonkers.
Buthonestly, my biggest question hereis, why has this pinned to hisunderwear?
Dude, I know this is what Ilike, couldn't letgo.
It had to be in my mind done byhim.
Like something he wants to keep safe because there's other cash that they find like at thescene.
It's not with the othermoney.
It's not with othernotes.
I don't think it's about themoney.
I think it's about what was written onit.
He wanted to have like some messagethat, Imean, he clearly thought something was going to happen to him in his lastdays.
And he didn't want people findingthat.
Butlike, then why couldn't you have written on a normal piece ofpaper?
And there's notes all over hiscar.
Yeah. Or those not alsocryptic.
Is this one morecryptic?
Like, what's thedifference?
Iknow. This writing and thatwriting.
What are thesenames? Oh mygod.
I feel or youknow, there's someone who pinned it because they were trying to send a messageafterwards.
I truly don'tknow, but the fact that it ispinned, you could go eitherway.
And I can talk about thisforever, but I need to keep going to the story because I still have a lot to tellyou.
And things only get stranger andstranger.
So buckleup. So that's on the front of thebill.
On theback, there's what looks like a map questionmark.
Like, there's some road names and lines drawn onit, which basically point to the spot where Chuck isfound, which is in southwestTucson.
And detectives confirm with Ruth that the writing on the bill is Chuck'shandwriting.
So Imean, it doesn't help me atall.
I know that it tome, it goes back to like him being the one to pin it on his ownunderwear.
And like wanting to have thisinformation, like not just withhim, but like onhim.
But no one seems to know what itmeans.
Sowhy?Like, what's thepoint?
Who's supposed to findit?
And what does itmean? So if the map is to where he wasfound, maybe he wrote the map to where he was going to meetsomeone.
I don't know what the Bible verse has to do withit.
And why do you keep the mat like you're headedthere?
Why are you pinning it to yourown?
I cannot figure itout. Like Isaid, I have to moveon.
So I don'tknow. No one knows it to make with this note on hisunderwear, but they look at all the notes found in the car trying to determine if they were written by Chuck or someoneelse.
Like Isaid, I don't know if they weretyped.
They determine that most of the scribbled notes are in his handwritingtoo.
But police still plan to send themoff, not to see if they're hishandwriting.
They're prettysure, but they are looking for a psychological evaluation to help try and understand Chuck's mindset and emotional attitude at thistime.
But before they get thoseresults, guess whocalls?
Mystery Bible woman isback.
Bingo. And she refuses to give them her real nameeither.
She only identifies herself to them as greeneyes.
And she wants to talk to someone aboutChuck.
When she's deputy dupe Nick gets on the phone withher, she has a lot tosay.
And a lot of it helps account for those 11 days that Chuck wasmissing.
Green eyes claims that she had met with Chuck many times before hedied.
She said they met at a local motel a fewtimes, and that Chuck told her that he was in serioustrouble, but he had some kind ofplan.
He told her that there was a contract out on his lifefor $90,000, and it was increasing by $5,000 every day that he was stillalive.
So he basically had come up with this plan to pay them off whoever they were so he could stayalive.
She says he even opened this briefcase he had and showed her that it was filled with a bunch ofcash.
And he told her that there were thousands of dollars inthere.
Okay, I don't think that's how contracts for your lifework.
But besidesthat, no one's ever put one out onme.
It just seems like if someone wants youdead, they want youdead.
You can't pay them off to convince them not to killyou.
Does that makesense? Imean, you can't pay themoff, but you can pay the people they hireoff.
Like they're doing everything formoney,right?
Iguess. But that's not even the beginning of my actualquestions.
Okay. How did Chuck and Green eyesmeet?
When did they firstmeet?
Like what are they doing in a motel roomtogether?
That seems like a meetup point that wasdecided.
How did they figure thisout?
I need way more backstory on Greeneyes.
Yeah, greatquestions.
Not a whole lot of info on Greeneyes,though.
Ofcourse. She tells detectives that she met with Chuck at a motel for different times during the 10 days span that he's reportedmissing.
She says that she was seeing himsocially, which I don'tknow.
I don't know if that means something different back in the 70s or truly they're just likefriend, like it'ssocial.
It's not into I don't know what itis.
Okay. But she basically says that she was Chuck's confidant that he told everything toher, like way more details than he ever seemed to tell hiswife.
So what she's saying is someone or someone's maybe put a hit out onChuck.
Well, she's saying that Chuck told herthat,yes.
Okay. But this is where it gets tricky because she doesn't clarify who the mystery they are that he keepsmentioning.
And she says that's because he wouldn't tell her thatpart.
Imean, how do they even verify that she's telling thetruth?
I don't know that theycan.
Imean, in true Chuckfashion, everything is very hushhush.
But according to another article for TucsonCitizen, the woman gave investigators enough information that I guess made them confident that she was telling the truth because I had the same firstthought.
Like what if she's what if she really is just some lady who called Ruth and is calling police because she's super involved in a case that she has nothing to do with inserts herself into aninvestigation, not like we've ever seen thatbefore.
Yeah. But I think that whenever information she had that they're clearly notsharing, they're convinced that she was connected to him in someway.
So Green Eyes tells the chief that the last time she saw Chuck was at the motel the Wednesday before he was founddeceased.
And the last time she talked to him was Thursday when he asked her to call his wife and tell her that he wasokay.
Yeah, I feel like Green Eyes isn't like amistress, isn't like another woman if you're asking her to call your wife to checkin.
Also, if you can call Green Eyes to tell her to call yourwife, why can't you just call yourwife?
Youknow, the question's about in thiscase.
Yeah.Well, speaking ofRuth, remember they haven't heard anything about the call shegot.
So they reach out to her and they'relike,hey, this woman said that she was told by your husband to callyou.
Did you get a call like that you didn't tell usabout?
And she'slike,yeah, I did in fact get thatcall.
So after speaking with Green Eyes over thephone, I'm sure that detectives are even moreconfused.
And all of this is starting to sound reallybonkers.
But then they get a call from a government agency that may just confirm Chuck was involved in somesketchy.
The US Custom Service calls detectives and says they've got information on ChuckMorgan.
They tell him that back in1973, customs agents worked on a criminal investigation involvingChuck.
They said their investigation was related to a scam selling non-existentgold.
However, they didn't have enough evidence to bring anyindictments.
Butapparently, Chuck knew about the investigation because detectives learned that he told the colleague that he was always looking over his shoulder and would be until the statute of limitations ranout.
Butagain, no more information onthat.
This guy was pretty vague and probably sounded incredibly paranoid to hisfriends.
So is Chuck really an undercover agent for the USTreasury?
Or is he someone who's mixed up with some illegal goldscams?
Rightnow, it's hard totell.
Chuck'sstory, at least to hiswife, was that he was on the governmentside.
And maybe the fact that he was killed supportsthat, but please aren't sosure.
They're wondering if maybe Chuck was the bad guy andmaybe,honestly, this wasn't a homicide afterall.
They begin to wonder if Chuck's death was actually self-inflicted because they start uncovering even more unusual behavior by Chuck during his firstdisappearance.
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So detectives had learned all about the abduction or alleged abduction that had happened before Chuck eventually disappeared and waskilled.
But what they find in their own investigation of that doesn't quite align with the version of events that Chuck toldRuth.
During those few days in March that Chuck said he'd been heldhostage.
There were actual witnesses that had spotted him in Tucson when he was supposed to be inPhoenix.
Was he with green eyes during the firstdisappearance?
I don't thinkso. I feel like that would have comeup, but also they're holding a lot of stuff back abouther.
So I don'tknow, nothingsays.
And this is during the same time period that he had told Ruth he'd beenhandcuffed,drugged, andthreatened.
Yeah. And then they find out after his second disappearance that he was spotted twice out on thetown.
And which that part isn't a huge surprise like because we've got green eyes saying she's seen him multiple times and they don't specify who their witnesses are or whatever they just say that they confirmed that he was at a local financial institution and he stayed at a motel that again presumably where he met up with greeneyes.
So all of that combined with the fact that they found those plastic handcuffs in hiscar, investigators aren't super convinced that Chuck was even reallykidnapped.
Although it does seem like he'd been telling people close to him that he was afraid for his life because of what he said during his testimony inMay.
But even though he's telling people that he's never telling them what it was that hesaid.
So like part of his story istrue, part of it seems to not betrue.
Okay, so I have to ask was there really even ever a testimony like has anyone looked into thatyet?
Well, theydo. And atfirst, it seems like it's BS because they find out that he lied to good old greeneyes.
He told her that he was being targeted because of a testimony he'd given in WashingtonDC.
But detectives do end up figuring out that he gave some kind of testimony inPhoenix.
There's no record of him even going toDC.
But then just when you think Chuck made some of this up or he's having some kind of mentalbreak, they talked to state attorney general Bruce Babbit and Bruce says that Chuck did give a sworn deposition for an investigation involving the state bankingdepartment.
And it actually is supersecret.
He says he can't disclose the specifics of what that is they'reinvestigating.
But he can tell them that Chuck was offered physical protection because of histestimony.
Why didn't he takeit? No onesays.
And that's pretty much all Bruce cansay.
Okay, let me make sure I haveeverything.
I'm obsessed with this case Iknow.
There was a secret testimony that Chuck was legally required to be a partof.
And it involved a case that might require witnesses to need actual physical protection that he was offered and he saidno.
Check.Yes. There's a gold scam that might be related but might not berelated.
Yes. And Chuck believed there was a hit out on himagain, making denying the physical protectionweird.
But like he still believed this that he was a physicaldanger.
Is that is that is thateverything?
Is that was is thateverything?
Yeah. Is thatall? It's someno.
Well, so that that I cananswer.
No, that's not all this case doesn't get any less complicated from here because more players becomeinvolved.
While the Pima County Sheriff's Department is investigating Chuck'sdeath, the FBI joins intoo.
Because he wasn't just found on the side of theroad, he was actually on the Tejono OdomReservation, which is federalland.
And that means the FBI is launching their owninvestigation, not just into Chuck's deaththough.
They're also looking into the case that he gave a sworn depositionfor.
So now that the FBI isinvolved, things are getting evenweirder.
Ruth tells local investigators that three weeks after her husband'sdeath, two men claiming to be FBI agents knocked on herdoor, flashed somebadges, and then barged their way in searching all over thehouse.
They never told her why they were there or what they were lookingfor.
They just tore through everything looking forsomething.
And it all happened so fast that she didn't get their names oranything.
So who knows if these Imean, we're really from theFBI.
Imean, to thisday, no one has been able to verifythat.
But it kind of seems like whoever theywere, if they were agents ornot, they didn't find what they were lookingfor.
So Ruth was just left to clean up a ransackedhome.
Now I don't know if what happened next is related ornot.
But around this sametime, Chuck'scar, which is impounded in the possession of localauthorities, is brokeninto, which is a boldmove.
Yeah. And then his office gets searched too by FBIagents.
Noclue. Imean, there's nothing in the source material that indicates any of these searches are done by realagents.
But like someone is clearly looking forsomething,right?
Now,meanwhile, detectives at the Pima County Sheriff's Department are only getting more and moreconfused.
Ah,same. And that's when detectives get a call from someone claiming to be thequote, husband of greeneyes.
And he tells them that Chuck was in business with some shadyindividuals.
And they were all buying gold bars and coins in Mexico for some kind of fraudulentreasons.
So he's kind of backing up what the customs agents told detectivesearlier.
But who is they all like who is doing this withhim?
The man just says hisassociates, but detectives at the Sheriff's Department aren't able toidentify.
Imean, they don't know whogreenizes, so they don't know who the husband ofgreenizes.
So they're not even able to follow up with any of theseclaims, which then makes you wonder if it's real ornot.
Imean, I'm beginning to wonder greeneyes.
It wasn't evenreal.Like, they've never interviewed her in reallife,right?
Like, this all done over thephone.
Iknow. That's why like after all theseyears, I wish they would like say what it is she gave them that made them sosure.
Because everything that's beenreleased, I'mlike, tome, nothing's connecting her to Chuck other than her ownword.
And we don't know who sheis.
I assume there has to besomething, but you neverknow.
Idon't, maybe there'snot.
Soanyways, a couple of months go by and Chuck's investigation is seemingly goingnowhere.
But inmid-August, the Sheriff's Department makes a shockingannouncement.
They say that their findings indicate that Chuck was not murdered out in the desert because of some secret statetestimony.
Instead, they ruled that he died by suicide and they closed theinvestigation.
Just likethat. Just likethat.
And with thisexplanation, apparently they found in his financial records that he had debtsover $40,000, which in today's money would belike $200,000.
And they say he had taken out a third mortgage on hishome.
So the only liquid assets that he had left were about $400 incash.
Okay, but for how longthough?
And did they ever find the briefcase of money that Green Eyes said shesaw?
Imean, this all seems soconfusing.
Why have potentially all thiscash, but still only legallyhave $400, but you're majorly indebt?
Yeah, Iknow. Theyfound, so the briefcase of cash that she said hehad, they found abriefcase.
It wasn't Chuck's typical one that he tookeverywhere.
Actually, that one's never been found interestinglyenough.
But the briefcase that they found didn't have any money init.
It just had like some papers andstuff.
But the one with papers in it seems to be the one that Green Eyes described tothem.
So we do know that like it'shis, but for somereason, the money that Green Eyes saw in it is no longer here and neither is his like every daybag.
Yeah, one of the big questions I had was around themoney.
They'relike,oh, he had $40,000 indebt.
And I'mlike,okay,yeah, butlike, how recently is this something that had happened over the span ofyears?
Or did he like drain his account and take a third mortgage down in his house in the time when everything ishappening?
And he's saying there's a hit on his life that gets $5,000 more expensive every single day and he's trying to pay someoneoff.
Like if it all happens in a short amount oftime, tome, that's more evidence of amurder, not notless, you know what Imean?
Right, like did he just like slowly find himself in over his head or is he in debt because he did that deliberately trying to save his ownlife?
Right. But at least according to thepolice, they say that due to the financialstruggles, due to the emptybriefcase, there's just no evidence that there was a contract out on hislife.
And based on the fingerprints and footprints at thescene, the sheriff's investigators seemed to determine that there was no one else out there in the desert withChuck.
They also saythat,hey, we checked with the TreasuryDepartment, theFBI, theDEA, along with other federalagencies, and we can't find any evidence that Chuck was an undercover agent or informer for any ofthem.
Granted, would they ever tellanyone?
Right. I don'tknow, but I don't thinkso.
I feel like that's a pointlessstatement.
Yeah. And then they also say that they'd gotten the results from the bullet back and the FBI had found that it did in fact come from a 357 magnumrevolver.
Plus, they say he had large amounts of gunshot residue on his lefthand, which sheriff's investigators say is the hand that he used to shoot himself in the top of thehead.
Ohwait. I thought the Emmy confirmed he was shot in the back of thehead.
How is it now thetop?Yeah, that'sstrange,right?
Like, I know whenever it explains that little switcherooeither.
But the Emmy doesn't agree with the sheriff's investigatorsfindings.
Like, they'relike,listen, youknow, even if it's like you don't want to sayhomicide, I'm saying it'sunknown.
Like, there's no way to rule it ahomicide.
Sure, but there's also no way to rule it asuicide, because it just isn't enoughinformation.
All the Emmy can really say is that Chuck was shot in the back of thehead.
It just happened to be near the top at an angle where the bullet got lodged behind his frontteeth.
So I don't know if it is aswitcheroo, or it's justlike, they're just kind of cutting the same thing differentways, or it's strangethough.
I think it's possible he could have taken his own life at thatangle,like, top back of hishead.
Why? It would have beendifficult, but why take your own life over some debt when someone's already potentially trying to killyou, or you thinkthat, or you've told enough people aboutthat?
Like, people are saying that aboutyou.
Imean, more thanthat, I don't know why you even would stage it as asuicide.
I guess what I'm saying is that there's no world where he doesit, because the gun's going to still bethere.
I'mlike, I'mlike, having a hard time even like processing this in myhead.
I'msaying, you can't hide your own body essentially is what you'resaying.
Yeah, orlike, the gun's going to bethere.
So it'snot,like, I understandlike, if he'slike,oh, I'm going to like take my lefthand, I'm going tolike, put it at the top of my head so it looks like someone else didit, but then the gun's going to be right there if there is no oneelse.
Right. So like setting it up doesn't make sense tome.
And then it only makes sense to do the bag your head if you're trying to set itup.
I think that's what I was trying to get at islike, if you just went out there to take your ownlife, you don't have to do it with your left hand at the top of yourhead.
And the left hand is important because Ruth says that her husband was righthanded.
She said he literally couldn't do anything with his lefthand.
And a colleague of Chuck's also comes forward and says that he only knew Chuck to write with his right hand aswell.
And it's interesting is the Emmy also claims that the Sheriff's Department detectives didn't find any evidence that put the murder weapon in Chuck'shand.
Oh, what about the gunshotresidue?
So there was gunshot residue on his lefthand, but I guess there weren't any of Chuck's fingerprints on thegun.
So there's someresidue, but technically they can't prove he held thegun.
But a Sheriff's deputy has an answer forthat.
He says that all the blood and dirt on the gun was why there weren't anyfingerprints.
So it seems like it'sover, but just because the Sheriff's Department is calling it over doesn't mean the FBI is or even the Pima County deputy attorney for thatmatter.
By the next year in January1978, JamesHoward, the deputy county attorney in charge of white collar criminal investigations makes it clear that their office things there are obvious motives for this to be a homicide like retaliation for that secrettestimony.
And this is where the plotthickens.
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So after sometime, they end up getting more information about the secret testimony that Chuckgave.
It seems like Chuck was backed into a corner and was forced to doit.
If he'd refuse totestify, the state was going to deny him alicense, which would have jeopardized his new role at statewideescrow.
So Chuck did end uptestifying.
An investigators learn that it was about illegal transactions by the former owner of the Banco International deArizona, which is a bank inArizona.
And these dealings Iguess, like Chuck played a pretty big part inthem.
He had allegedly written bad checks from the company that he worked for at thetime, WesternTitle.
And those checks funded the takeover of the bank and gave full control to this guy named DavidCallie.
And then these bad checks all lead to a deeper probe into land fraud happening inArizona.
You see at the time of Chuck'sdeath, Arizona was a blind trust state in realestate.
So basically the law backthen, in Arizona only made it impossible to track land purchases and the only person to know who owned what land was the escrow agent that managed the deal if it was done like in a blindtrust.
And Chuck was the escrow agent for some pretty prominentpeople.
Chuck allegedly helped the Ned Warren family in Phoenix and the Joe Bonanno family in Tucson to very prominent organized crime families with their escrowaccounts.
So he would have been the only one with record or knowledge of what they were upto.
Bears on a daily star reports that those notes he was always scribbling down were about prominent people in Tucson and included details on alleged land and golddeals.
And in addition to this notekeeping, Chuck's new position as president of state white escrow was somehow seen as a threat to somepeople.
Now I don't know exactly who those peoplewere, but it seems like Chuck knew about these feelings ofanimosity, which could have honestly led to hisparanoia.
An employee at state wide even said that Chuck wouldn't even sit with his back to a window because he was soafraid.
So he truly believed there was a hit out onhim.
And that's what it soundslike.
I don't it doesn't seem like he was making it up or if hedid, the guy wins anOscar.
So maybe someone was afterChuck, it just might not have been governmentofficials.
Like, maybe there's a world where it's all a little bittrue.
Maybe Chuck was into some shadystuff.
Maybe he flipped and was then working for the government andthese, youknow, mafia members or organized crime or someonelike, like figured itout,he, youknow, he's now testifying as people it's prettyobvious.
He turns down his protection that he's offered and those people are the ones afterhim.
Now those same colleagues that had told them Chuck was superafraid.
Apparently it comes out that Chuck had even talked to some of his other colleagues about his involvement with themafia.
And when those colleagues finally come forward toinvestigators, they say he told them that when he first disappeared in March of77, he had seven platinum bars stolen from the trunk of hiscar, which would have been worth over $250,000today.
Oh mygod.Now, he never told Ruth any part ofthat, like of his storythough.
Chuck had only told a few closeacquaintances.
So long storyshort, all of this really boils down to all of Chuck's notes and records that he seemingly kept everywhere in hiscar, in hisoffice, in hishouse.
Imean, he had so many notes that investigators called him acollector.
And they find that these notes are very detailed on all the gold and land deals that Chuck had witnessed or been a partof, which kind of defeats the purpose of a blind trust ownership if people were exploiting and maybe didn't want any of thatdocumented.
Exactly. And Chuck wasn't necessarily keeping all the information tohimself.
Imean, he was telling his colleagues his wife pretty much everyone he talked to that he had some pretty damning and potentially embarrassing information on Tucsonpoliticians.
But I thought Ruth was in the dark like she seemed totally surprised by what was happening withChuck.
Sorry, I shouldclarify.
Soshe, she was totally in thedark, shesays.
But as he started telling her those littlethings, he apparently told her that he had damninginformation.
Remember one of the first notes that he wrote her that he had dirtright,right,right.
But he never told her what the information was or who theywere.
Even though the FBI and the Pima County's attorney's office keep investigating Chuck's death after the Sheriff's Department closed thecase, it seems like things still just end up goingcold.
There's really no news or reports on the other two investigating agencies findings or what they end updetermining.
Like nothing's ever released about the land fraudprobe.
There's no mention of gold scams beingbusted.
I don't know if they don't find out anything or if they're trying to keep things hush hush while they put like together a biggercase, but like spoileralert, it's2024.
No news ever comes fromit.
And so even backthen, a few years go by and it's justquiet.
It seems like Chuck was involved with a few different things that could have gotten him introuble.
But I think the big questions are is his death connected to thegovernment?
Is it connected to themafia?
Or did he really take his own life like the Sheriff'sDepartment?
I vote not option numberthree.
I votesame. But those were the questions that unsolved mysteries brings up when they highlighted his case in1990.
They lay out the conspiracy surrounding his death and Ruth shares herstory, including what was happening leading up to hisdeath.
But there's also an investigative journalist onthere.
This guy named DonDeVero.
Before theepisode, Don was investigating Chuck's death and he tried to do a public information request from the FBI to find more information about their 1977 investigation in twoChuck.
But surprisesurprise, the FBI claims to have no suchinformation.
Almost like Chuck's case never existed and was neverinvestigated.
And toDon, it's all very strange that they just pretend his case didn't even exist even though it's been like 13 years at thatpoint.
Wellregardless, Don shares his findings and his questions on theshow.
But after the episodeairs, things start spiraling out ofcontrol.
Alright,Britso, just to disclaim we're about to go down a bit of a reddit rabbithole.
So bucklein, get your tinfoil hat on and prepare your brainassault.
So Don had been trying to uncover a motive for Chuck's death and he thoroughly believed he'd foundit.
He thinks it's connected to the records that Chuck kept of illegal land transactions and potential gold scams happening inTucson, which is like kind of where we're all at at thispoint.
So after the Unsolved Mysteries episode airs on May14th,1990, a man named Doug Johnston is found dead inside his Toyota station wagon with a gunshot wound to hishead.
Now Doug Johnston is found in the parking lot of his newjob, which sits right across the street from Don'shouse.
And apparently his car and Don's car kind of lookalike.
And it makes me wonder if Doug and Don might have looked alike aswell.
There is only a republic only reports that they had similar builds and then both had a beard so I don'tknow.
But maybe the location of the car were enough for whoever to mistakenly shoot Doug thinking that they were shootingDon.
And according toDon, the whole thing was staged to look like asuicide.
But there was no gun next toDoug.
He was alone in his car with a gunshot wound to thehead, yet investigators jumped to a possible suicide and then ultimately ruled his cause of death asundetermined.
But Don is notconvinced.
He's pretty sure that his digging into Chuck's death and organized crime in the Phoenix area really ruffled somefeathers.
Yes, so his family say they strongly believe that he didn't take his ownlife.
I guess he just got a newjob, things were looking up for him so they believe he had a lot to look forward to so it just didn't make sense tothem.
Andsure, maybe it's all a coincidence and Doug's death has nothing to do withDon.
But a year after Doug's death in1991, Don gets a call from DannyCasolaro, a writer in DC wanting to learn more about Chuck'scase.
So Don prepares the research that he's found on Chuck's involvement in the gold scams and the illegaltransactions.
But before he can even mail out thesedocuments, he hears that Danny's been found dead in his hotel room under mysteriouscircumstances.
Unfortunately, police never really inspect thescene.
Someone allowed the hotel staff to come in and just clean theroom, subsequently destroying any potential evidence of ahomicide.
And according to the Unsolved Mysteries episode onDanny, there was two bloodytowels.
And to thehousekeepers, it looked like someone tried to wipe blood off the bathroomfloor.
So despite what looks like a second person was at the scene or at least what housekeeping says looks likethat, police ended up ruling Danny's death a suicide and they closed thecase.
But Danny's families say there was no indication that Danny would have donethat.
And also he hated the sight of blood it made himsick.
So there's no way he would have chosen to end his life thatway.
So Don immediately believes that Danny's death is a murder and related to what he's found in Chuck'scase.
But I don't know if I believe the Chuck's casepart.
So according to an editorial piece by Mary McGroory for the StandardStar, Chuck's death isn't the only conspiracy that Danny wasinvestigating.
He had spent the past year researching some deep corruption in the federal government involving moneylaundering, spyware and the Reaganadministration.
And he believed he'd found some incriminatinginformation.
He even told his family and friends that he had just one more interview and the case would becracked.
So it might have had to do with a completely different casealtogether.
But you can't convince me that it was a suicide mostly because like we can't even look at hisbody.
Like this is the part I can'tignore.
Police declared his death a suicide and had his body embalmed before they never even notified his family of hisdeath.
Noway. Do not likethat.
Notokay. So manyreasons.
No. I mean literally everything in Danny's case was handledincorrectly.
And his death might have been acover-up.
But was it connected to Don orChuck?
I don'tknow. It seems unlikely considering everything else he was lookinginto.
However, the Arizona Republic reports that six months after Danny'sdeath, Don claims that this reporter with CIA sources comes to him and says that there is a hit put out onhim.
And this reporter says their pretty short Doug's death was an accident because they were targetingDon.
But no one has ever backed this informationup.
And in the same article that mentions the hit put out on him also says thatquote, others who knew Don DeVero say he is a zealous researcher who sometimes gets blinded by flawed conspiracytheories.
So Imean, I can identify withthat.
But there's a chance he may have just fallen too deep into kind of his own rabbit hole and frightenedhimself.
It'spossible, but that might be something we neverknow.
After all the drama in the 90s dieddown, Chuck's case goes coldagain, and then it pretty much stays thatway.
Ruth died of cancer in2006.
And in 2010 reporting by Kimberly Mattis for the Arizona DailyStar, she says that Chuck's four daughters are still fighting to prove that their father didn't take his ownlife.
They believe that he was murdered toquote, protect the interests of corrupt businessmen andpoliticians.
And his daughters feel that he had a lot of information on politicians and other government officials in Tucson and maybe even inPhoenix.
And that's why they wanted to silencehim.
2010 was the last public mention of ChuckMorgan.
It's been over 45 years since his mysteriousdeath.
His daughters are still alive and still deserveanswers.
Someone somewhere out there has to know more about the conspiracies circling in Tucson and Phoenix in the 70s and80s.
And maybe that person is listening or maybe green eyes islistening.
Even though Chuck's case is currentlyinactive, if you have any information that could behelpful, please reach out to the Pima County Sheriff's Department at 520-882-7463 or you can submit a tip online at888crime.org.
Don'tforget, if you want more crime-junkie episodes like thisone, new members can get all of July and August free in the fanclub.
Head to the link in the show notes and signup.
And make sure if you're still listening to us in thisfeed, you hit the followbutton.
That way you won't miss out on any of the bonus episodes that we're going to be putting out every Thursday all summerlong.
We'll be popping back in your feed next Thursday with another vaultepisode.
Bye, crimejunkies! Crime junkie is an audio-checkproduction.
So, what do youthink,Chuck?
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