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Start the show. go start it hey weirdos i'm elena i'm ash and this is more oh yeah you said it i was gonna also say this is more bad i was just blinking really weird before and then she said start the show start the show start and I couldn't it made me think of Sutton when she says name them start the show start it start it name them name them name them oh man name them we're in a place of wiley today yeah I just had a little dc I got my little caffeine from a dc diet coke didn't know what that was for a second I'm not gonna lie 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 chocolate.
A little sug sug. A little sug.
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. Are we not established that every day on my left that I wake up?
You 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 will get wily once we get into this because, whoa.
We won't, trust me.
But we figured we'd just start you off with how wily we are.
Yeah. Been through a lot of different subjects today.
Yeah. Had a lot of different things, you know?
Yeah, today's been a silly kind of, really?
Please keep that in.
Really, Mikey? You're fucking entombed with what you just said there.
Really? Really? Really, David?
Keep it in. Keep it in.
Mention it all. Mention it all.
Another Real Housewives.
People are like, are you guys all right?
We are not. No. I don't really think there's a way to transition into 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.
I love a twisty -turny case.
It's very twisty -turny.
It is unsolved. And I am not going to tell you what I think, and you're not going to say what you think, because you'll see.
Oh. Okay? 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. Okay.
guy 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. And I think that's as far as I know.
But, oh. Yeah, I want to just start you off by like really bringing you in.
I'm not going to tell you any more than that.
Right at the top, we're going to 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 gonna 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 in everett washington he was the oldest of two children born to lettered 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 you're you're awesome that 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.
Okay. So he's kind of like, 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 uh heated argument with his supervisor at western title 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 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.
Yeah. 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.
Uh -oh. 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.
Yeah. He's not like a suspect kind of guy or anything.
why are they putting why are they so sus of this transaction yeah but what was equally confusing was what was was was that the delay was followed by warnings and threats from the state baking department to deny Chuck a license to operate statewide escrow huh so now they're not only delaying the transaction itself like the the loan but they're saying we're not even gonna 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 and after 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 gonna let you have this until you testify he did and he got and they were like cool 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 like insider trading is pretty fucking scary yeah that shit can get really really wild it gets super wily i don't know not worth it my friends i don't want to know anything about i don't want to know anything about anything you're trading inside i don't know anything keep me out of it trading inside i don't even know outside i don't know don't even do that don't just 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 yeah now we're gonna 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 okay 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...
Dun -dun -dun -dun -dun -dun -dun.
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 bullion 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 sopranos 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. Immediately, 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 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 that could drive him insane or just blow up his nervous system.
And he's like, don't get a doctor.
No, we're just going to wait this one out.
We're just going to see what happens here.
And Ruth obviously wanted to call a doctor, 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, okay, 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 gotta 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. 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.
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.
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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 allusions to being, to his being some sort of a secret agent for the U .S. government.
Later, Ruth would tell 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 meet up with these people again somehow?
Or you're going to try and go get it back?
Sounds to me like they made it seem like they were going to see him again and give him that.
That's what it sounds like.
Like, maybe it was, and this is me totally speculating because obviously I have no fucking clue what's going on.
No. That perhaps they told him, like, he had to do something.
In order to get it back.
And once he does it, he gets that back.
His $2 bill and maybe his, like, identification.
Yeah, and, like, something else.
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.
He was told to do. 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. 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.
He just had those in his car?
He literally wrote, you know, the kind that everybody has laying around in their trunk.
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, quote, had damaging, potentially embarrassing information on prominent Tucsonans and that area politicians involving escrow and land deals and laundering money.
He had all that kind of information on people.
Most of the time, those vague allusions 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, I can't say I blame him.
I don't blame him at all.
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 Sirota 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 possibility.
The realm of 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 shylocking, but never admitted to any crimes of violence.
Damn. So that's from the family himself.
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.
yeah 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 yeah and they would be involved in fraud and money laundering 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, like even completely unwillingly.
Yeah. But and then at that point, there's nothing you can do.
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.
Yeah. 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 7, 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 going to come after us.
Have 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 are you doing 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, 1 through 8.
And then she hung up.
which that's like a verse from the bible i was just gonna say is that a yeah ecclesiastes 12 one through eight 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 spirit and the spirit will return to God who gave it.
Okay. So she just receives this like I'm chill saying 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 eight o 'clock in the morning chuck's body was discovered he was found by two teenagers alongside arizona route 86 about 15 miles east of cells 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 face down on the desert floor with a large hole in the back of his head that appeared actually to have been made with his his own .357 Magnum, which was lying by his left hand.
Strangely, his eyeglasses, which he always wore, 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? When officers searched his car, they found that CB radio and 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, that he had been in a fight?
No. like somebody punched him to me that feels like you get punched break a teeth break a tooth I'm trying to wrap my brain around this none that were listed or maybe just broke his tooth and wrapped it in a white handkerchief and threw it in the backseat of his car that's fucking weird this whole thing is weird I'm trying to find any kind of normalcy in here there's none Don't even look.
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.
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 that doesn't explain the tooth in the back seat.
No. That just explains where the bullet lodged.
And you wonder, because it doesn't sound like there was any blood spatter in the car to indicate that he was killed in a car.
No. And it's like you wonder if there was blood spatter on the ground at the scene to indicate.
I think I would assume that there was some kind of blood spatter, but...
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.
It 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 angle.
It's still a weird angle.
It's weird. But if you're...
But doable. doable you know yeah i'm trying to 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 like 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 get kind of like smushed up.
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 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 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 two dollar bill pinned to his underwear it was unclear whether this was the same two dollar 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 sala city 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 every anybody 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.
Yeah. Because on one hand, the incredibly bizarre circumstances circumstances surrounding Chuck's disappearance and death suggested a conspiracy like right out of a fiction novel.
It really did. This seems like something you would see in the first scene of some like wild new crime show.
Yeah. You know a wild new crime movie.
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 like weird strange details.
Symbolism and the bible being involved and stuff it's like 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.
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 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 his 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 could buy the because i he seemed like he was in a big state of paranoia yes obviously like rightfully rightfully so with with what he had gone through.
And he had all this stuff kind of closing in a little bit.
So it's, like, it wouldn't be shocking.
It would be very tragic, but it wouldn't be, like, the craziest thing in the world.
Yeah, like, you can kind of, you could see why that could be the outcome.
Right. But, like, then you look at that $2 bill and stuff, it's, like, 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 the close people to him saw it.
Yeah, and 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 only to end it yeah which i 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 going to end his life it was going to be him like you could make that argument yeah but he was going so hard and why why go for such a strange angle yeah 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 why why would he do that right like why would he do 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 out 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 two dollar bill to your underwear with strange writing and when you look at the writing because you can find a picture of the dollar of the two dollar bills so you can see the writing if you
look it up um it's it's clear that person tried to disguise their writing because they write all in capital of the letters.
Right. So and that's an easier way to disguise.
So it makes sense. It feels like somebody trying to disguise their writing.
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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, watched the most since as a suicide, but I don't know.
There's just a lot of bizarre details.
There's a lot of bizarre details, like, and this is so sad.
Yeah, I mean, he had four daughters and a wife that loved him.
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 briefcase 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 Dupnik 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 Easy Eight 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 Easy 8 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 any in the first place.
The call from Green Eyes 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.
But they had all this weird information.
...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 trace it back.
Oh my God. This was 1977 when he went missing.
This is so bonkers.
Or excuse me, when he was killed.
Yeah. Wow. So to everybody that knew Chuck, the details of his death and the leads coming from anonymous callers 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 trading in gold and silver across the Mexican border.
Like what? But the more and more that investigators dug into Chuck's affairs, the more the tips from callers like Green Eyes 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.
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 U .S. Customs Service regarding an investigation that they had launched in 1973.
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 U .S. 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 gonna 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 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.
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 good 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 green eyes had referred to it as chuck being in hiding but from what 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 man.
Yeah. But he had supposedly was checked into this motel under his own name and people said that they saw him in the city, which we know eyewitness accounts are not.
Eyewitness accounts can be...
So that makes me wonder, was that Chuck who was checked in?
Yeah. Or is that somebody checked in as Chuck trying to make it seem like Chuck is in a motel this whole time?
Yeah. No, he's around.
He's fine. Huh. But then at the same time...
This gets weirder and weirder.
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 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 possibly that that was him yeah because like you again where 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.
So 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 can think of too.
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 that 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...
Shit has died down a little bit.
Because it's like, whatever that $2 bill thing was, or 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.
Yep. 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 if he did think that he was taking care of it maybe that explains the briefcase full of cash that he thought was going to get him out of this alleged hit yeah like 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 right he had that if if if he had that briefcase full of money right and was at that motel maybe it's like he was there because he was told to go there yeah 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 what you see in the movies yep and it was like and then we will meet you here you will meet us here with that briefcase
and then we will send you on your way right and maybe that's what he thought was going to happen maybe and maybe they did everything they took that money from him because and they they killed him in the end yeah whoever it is maybe and then it's like the two dollar bill of it all is so weird because they're keeping a two dollar bill for collateral Well, and it's like the writing on it.
Right. What the fuck does that mean?
And the fact that Green Eyes 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 like was like, that's all I'm going to tell you, bye.
And it's like, was she scared?
Was she trying to like?
I don't know. 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 what next like yeah we're stumped because even if you're sitting there coming to the the whole like okay 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 seem 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.
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 prove, investigators toured 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 in 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 a conviction.
So that tells you something.
Yeah, that does. Chuck was a key witness for this case.
I mean, that's something right there.
And that's going to put you in danger.
Of course. You have all these higher -ups in these big companies doing insider trading and fucking all kinds of shit.
I mean, that's a lot of shady stuff.
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 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 to 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 it's i mean that sounds like a 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 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 going to say one way or the other but it doesn't seem like the most plausible yeah that That does not seem like the most plausible thing.
When we get to the end, it still won't.
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By the end of June, there were a number of factors in the case that were causing sheriff's detectives toward the suicide theory, and these included the location where Chuck had 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 yeah in a very public area that's 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 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 to a nervous breakdown i mean this was the end of it maybe 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 yeah they were less certain that he wouldn't have done that okay 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 Okay.
And others who knew Chuck echoed those sentiments.
According to Pat Baldwin, who took over Chuck's position at Statewide after he died, quote, Whoa.
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 that like that part of it you know like that could be a whole different kind of scenario exactly or was it that way yeah because also he was known as an escrow genius so yeah you're gonna leave i don't know i don't know because he's involved 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 sergeant joe jet said we have found no evidence that anyone took part in the death but but himself.
And Jet went on to say that the biggest factors in labeling the death a suicide was one, all the fingerprints and footprints at the scene were Morgan's.
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 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 going to go ahead and rule this a suicide.
The county pathologist didn't challenge the sheriff's department conclusion, 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 that's very interesting interesting because it's like if the pathologist isn't willing then that gives me pause yeah and it's like is there more that maybe wasn't released to the the public.
That's what I'm wondering.
The pathologist has access to.
That maybe just wasn't reported on.
That's really interesting.
Yeah. Cause 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 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 like he wouldn't even let his children leave the house unprotected he wouldn't let strangers in the house he wouldn't let Ruth go to the police because it was going to 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 yeah 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 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 because that's a lot to grapple with for them to have to wonder mm -hmm 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 Devereaux, 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.
That's different. And Devereaux cites the statements from Green Eyes and the man who identified himself as Green Eye's husband as compelling evidence to support the theory that 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...
All of, 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.
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.
Unsolved mystery was the way to go man 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 guy, 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.
Plenty of people would.
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. Yeah.
Why you didn't find much probably.
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 Bar area resident, but are not releasing the suspect's name for legal reasons.
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 that is such a like concrete statement like yeah i don't think we'll be able to go any further with this nope probably not bye huh 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 jeez but the case popped up in the news again two
years later when 35 year old tucson computer technician jug johnston doug johnston excuse me 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 John Devereaux, 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 Devereaux, 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 Devereaux in order to stop him from further investigating Chuck's story.
Because he was going, like, deep into it, trying to get answers.
It says, nevertheless, Devereux hedged, I'm not here to tell you for certain that the bullet Johnston took was meant for me or 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 going to look any further into it.
That's the thing. I didn't look super deep into 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 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 i swear that you look any further into this case love you so much bye If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad -free on Amazon Music.
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery .com slash survey.
Hear that? That's the sound of Cinnamon Toast Crunch telling us it's crunch time as we gear up for another year of cereal training camp.
Last year, a dynamic brother duo competed and won the right to make their very own cereal.
They named it the Kelsey Mix.
This summer, the energy is being brought straight from the end zone to the breakfast aisle with three cereal -loving wide receivers, Justin Jefferson, Amon Ross St. Brown, and Jamar Chase.
You can find these football stars on limited -edition cereal boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms, Honey Nut Cheerios, and Reese's Puffs cereal starting in August. And don't miss out on Justin Jefferson's Jetta's Mix, a fruity fusion of Frosted Lemon Cheerios and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Strawberry for a limited time only.
Be sure to score them all, where every bite tastes like a touchdown.
