Hi crime junkies. I have a special treat for you. Hence why I'm popping into your feeds on a Thursday I don't know if you know this but this summer marks five years since we started the crime junkie fan club We don't really plug it super often We might mention that you can see a pick in the app but clearly I'm doing a terrible job of keeping you in the know And I know this because while I was at this author true crime event in the Hamptons this spring I met a group of lovely ladies hello ladies who were super fans they listen every episode they run with me in their Ears every week and they've been doing this for years and they said they wished we had more episodes and I said what we do in the Fan Club and they had no idea what I was talking about so you're in the same boat Let me fill you in back in 2019 I started in patreon because I heard so many of our crime junkies asking for more more episodes more ways to connect with us more case Visuals and while we were on patreon I also spent years building our own custom app and that's where our fan club lives now the crime junkie app You can download it on your phone in any app store all the episodes you regularly hear are ad-free The case pictures and documents are timed and pop up as you're listening to the episode So you can follow along and see exactly what me and Britt are looking at and fan club members get first access to merch and
Tour tickets hint hint something's coming the top tier of our fan club also gets help deciding what organizations and causes we donate to and We've started even adding other shows like my serious ex and radio show crime junkie AF and the most important thing there is so much crime junkie bonus content full episodes many episodes episodes where we talk about true crime Headlines Britain I even recently did a supernatural type episode and I'm always shocked by this question which I get all the time But what are the episodes like boo? They're exactly the same as what we give you every single Monday You think I'm skimping out on the fans who pay the bills absolutely not every month the five dollar tier gets a full-length episode the ten dollar Tier gets the full-length episode plus a mini episode and the twenty dollar tier gets a full-length episode the mini episode and a special piece of Content that's different every month so to answer the question once and for all but what are the episodes like for the rest of the summer in Celebration of the fans every Thursday. We're gonna be releasing an episode from the fan club vault If you like what you hear go to the link in the show notes and try it out if you sign up directly through our website
You can use code free summer and new members get to join whatever tier you want for free all of July and August So today, I'm gonna give you one of our most recent full-length fan club episodes So you can see what you're missing out on enjoy hi crime junkies I'm your host Ashley Flowers, and I'm Brett and not to spoil the ending But this story ends with me not knowing what to believe this is the story of Charles Chuck Morgan in February of 1977 Ruth Morgan is getting concerned about her husband Chuck. He's not missing or dead She sees him every day, but something is up with him and he won't tell her what and it's little things or little to her anyway
Like one day he comes home with a bulletproof vest carrying two newly purchased guns now Ruth knew that he was on the rifle team back in college But he hadn't carried guns on him in years And the vest just seems like a little over the top at first She just kind of chalks up to maybe this new job He just gotten as president of statewide escrow service in Arizona This new role is like a huge deal But with all the new responsibilities Chuck seems stressed maybe even a bit paranoid Are there a lot of security risks that come with this job? Not that Ruth knows of but there's like nothing else you can point to that she thinks would make him afraid for his safety It could just be him picking up an old hobby. Who knows? Like is that he didn't want to talk about it? So she just kind of led him to his own thing and things in the home were a little tensor But they stuck to their normal routine and operated as best they could so sometimes was going by and I'm sure things that once stood out As odd just kind of became their new norm and faded into the background That is right up until Tuesday March 22nd when Chuck dropped off two of his daughters for school and then just vanished He doesn't show back up Wednesday or Thursday and did Ruth report him missing then?
No, which at least to me is especially surprising in light of his recent purchases and changing behavior And I tried to find something from Ruth explaining why she didn't call police by can't find any instance where she talks about it So I don't know what's going through her mind or if Chuck is prone to disappearing But the next couple of days she just kind of tries to like you know keep life moving She's got kids or whatever Well fast forward to Friday March 25th Ruth is asleep in bed when she is woken up by her dog barking at around two in the morning So she gets up She walks to the back door of her house in Tucson, Arizona And before she even gets there she hears this thumping sound So she opens the door and there with his hands tied together by some plastic handcuffs is her 39-year-old husband Chuck He has another cuff around one of his ankles and he's missing a shoe I mean frankly this guy looks like hell, but but he's alive. He's alive But he's frantically pointing to his neck and he won't speak a word now Ruth having a hard time taking all this in in her 2 a.m. Sleep filled Hey, she asked if he can talk and he shakes his head
No, so she runs she grabs a pen and paper and writes down that his captors had put some kind of hallucinogenic drug on his throat And that if he swallowed it could cause irreversible damage to his nerves What I know what just when you think you've heard it all some cases can still surprise you yeah now Ruth is like f this I don't know how to handle this situation I'm calling the police but according to an unsolved mysteries episode Charles shakes his head and he picks up the pen again And he writes down that if she did she'd be quote signing a death warrant for the entire family and that stops Ruth in her tracks She and Chuck have four daughters together and she's not willing to do anything that puts them in danger So now her only priority is to make sure her husband doesn't swallow whatever this hallucinogenic drug is okay, but how patience and an eye dropper question mark apparently she's giving him water with an eye dropper trying to make sure that the drug doesn't cause Any serious harm but hallucinogenic drugs don't cause nerve damage and even if it couldn't still be getting into a bloodstream There's a lot about this part. I don't understand there's no indication in any of the source material
I have of what this drug is or or how it's like painted on or coated on to a certain I don't I truly have no idea like what are you trying to do with this eyedropper method? I guess she's like testing if it's real like seeing him maybe like if small amounts go down his throat Does he have any kind of reaction and it seems like he doesn't because he makes it through the rest of that first night And while Ruth spends the next week making sure he isn't affected by this drug long term She starts thinking back on all of that odd behavior from the few weeks prior So in all these little notes he's writing he hasn't told her what's up No, not yet And I have to believe that like Ruth and Chuck have a very different relationship than me and Eric because I'd have been like I'm not eye-dropperating that out of your throat until you pick up that goddamn pen and tell me what the hell is going on Yeah, especially if our family could be in danger what I know and I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure it's actually never asked I'm sure she did but apparently Chuck couldn't speak at all and the only things he'd written down were really vague vague things like he worried about them doing something to his family without ever actually telling Ruth who they were Well, at least that's how it starts
But about a week into all of this Chuck finally drops a bomb on Ruth that sends her spiraling He tells her or you know writes down on his little paper whatever that he is not who she thinks he is He writes that he's an agent for the federal government and he's been working for them for almost three years and Ruth is really I mean she's trying to process what he's writing saying whatever I mean she's rethinking their entire 18 year marriage together Yeah, but even if this is true It doesn't totally explain away his odd behavior because what he's saying doesn't make sense before his voice is back to normal He writes down another claim that confuses Ruth even more he writes that they took my treasury identification and when Ruth presses on what he means He doesn't elaborate in fact. He never gives Ruth anything else to go off of so whatever Chuck is involved in It isn't new apparently, but Ruth says she knows nothing about it and unfortunately once Chuck is better He doesn't really give her any more information. What I know I don't know if he tells her it's for her own safety or again if this is just like old school marriage
I mean when I say this happened in the 70s. I'm always like oh, this is like 30 years ago No, this was 50 years ago Like women couldn't even open a bank account without their husband's signature until three years before this whole thing So we're not considered equal partners in the home at this time You know what I mean? So basically make the meals look pretty and pretend everything's fine Ruth and that's kind of what she did even when her whole world seems To be falling apart even though Chuck continues acting strange and keeping things to himself So as you can imagine things are tense in the Morgan household Chuck seems to be growing even more nervous He's always watching his back. He's on edge about his girls going to school after the kidnapping or his disappearance or whatever He implements this new rule that only he can take their daughters to school He doesn't trust anyone else to do it anymore which probably has Ruth stressed AF especially because during this time He's also changing up his appearance. He lets his beard grow out even though He's always kept his face clean shaven and I can imagine her stress reaches an all-time high when on May 4th Chuck is subpoena to testify for the state in Phoenix seemingly out of nowhere Oh at least for rude, but when he gets a subpoena he still won't tell her what is going on
He just says that it is a very secret probe and that's it He gives nothing about the investigation or how he's involved in it I mean I know it's a bit of a trope for like when men want to tell secrets They just say they're in the CIA and no one asks them questions But like is that what's actually going on here? I don't know and I don't know even when you're in the CIA like do you're your family really not know what your life is? I feel like they know you work for the CIA They might not get to know anything, but that's that's the hard part for me to wrap my head around I again if you want to get really conspiratorial which I always tend to like go there not that I like to stay there But I'm like does Ruth know what's going on but like she is in full family protection She's also kind of working for the CIA by not saying anything, right?
Yeah, we're not we're not telling this worry about Chuck cuz it ended well for him like maybe she's just like listen I like I'm I'm gonna pretend no nothing about nothing has ever indicated that I just to your point like I don't know if he's working for some big agency And I don't know how that infiltrated his life But anyways, he gets this subpoena the following week he goes to testify but after he gets home He's more on edge than ever but still just as tight lit over the course of about a month Chuck's doing who knows what like Literally who knows because I can't exactly find in this art material what he's doing during this time But his behavior is getting more erratic and Ruth notices that he's always like scribbling away on these papers seemingly making Records of things or taking record of everything he's doing seeing I don't know and she doesn't get to see the papers Like the only tidbit of information Chuck gives her is that he's been keeping tabs on politicians in Tucson And he's got a lot of dirt and he says that's why the family needs to be extra careful If she could just take a peek at those papers, maybe she would finally understand what was going on Or if she should be more worried than she already is even though that doesn't even feel possible
But it is possible according to the Tucson citizen on June 7th at 7 a.m. Ruth watches Chuck leave to take one of their daughters to school But then just like almost three months before he never comes home When the holiday shopping season rolls around business owners are reminded of how rewarding and demanding it can be to run an online Store for anyone developing a business idea or looking to start selling products now is the ideal time to launch before the holiday rush It's full speed that is where Shopify comes in Shopify helps you launch a store and start selling in a few simple steps without needing to be an e-commerce expert Whether you're organizing product options or setting up your storefront sidekick Shopify's AI assistant can help with business tasks along the way plus launching before Black Friday Means you can take advantage of all the extra online traffic when millions of eager shoppers are already browsing and ready to buy We love using Shopify for our merch launches to handle everything from inventory to payment to customer service If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday go to Shopify.com to start your free trial That's Shopify.com go to Shopify.com today to hear your first The night sky may look endless, but its secrets could be closer than we think because in this universe you're never truly alone
I'm Yvette Gentile and I'm her sister Rasha Pecarero every Friday on So Supernatural We investigate alien encounters haunting tales of the unknown and cosmic mysteries that defy explanation ready to discover what's out there Listen to So Supernatural wherever you get your podcast That night Ruth goes to bed worried worried about Chuck and worried about calling the police since he told her that they whoever they were Would have killed the whole family if she called last time he disappeared But something in her tells her to report him missing anyway So I'm assuming that this isn't explicitly said in the source material that she is the one who goes to the Tucson Police Department The next day which would have been Wednesday June 8 after they take the report All she's left to do is wait and hope that he shows up like last time But three days come and go and Chuck's still not back four days five and nine days after his disappearance Ruth gets a strange call The woman on the other end never identifies herself in fact all she says is quote Ruthie Chuck is all right
Ecclesiastes 12 1 through 8 and I'm gonna need you to do what Ruth does when that call ends like I'm gonna need you to go get your Bile girl, okay, you told me to bring it to this recording and I was like I have questions again There's a lot of first okay, so this passage goes Remember your creator in the days of your youth before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say I find no pleasure in them before the Sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark and the clouds return after the rain When the keepers of the house tremble and the strongmen stoop when the grinders cease because they are few and those looking through the windows grow dim When the doors to the street are closed in the sound of grinding fades when people rise up at the sound of birds But all their songs grow faint when people are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets When the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags itself along and desire no longer is stirred then people go to their eternal home and mourners Go about the streets remember him before the silver cord is severed and the golden bowl is broken before the picture is shattered at the spring And the wheel broken out the well and the dust returns to the ground it came from and the spirit returns to God who gave it And then the final verse just says meaningless meaningless says the teacher everything is meaningless now if you could
Translate that please 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 grow old and also return to God before the world ends kind of passage Okay, so again this woman calls she says Ruthie Chuck is all right and then basically return to God before the world ends Like yes, that's the I guess I'm not asking I'm telling you like Right so she called her Ruthie you haven't called her Ruth at all Is that like a pet name that Chuck has for her or you know a nickname that only like her friends and family would call her I don't know about family or close friends I do know that Ruth tells that she's on citizen later that Chuck never called her Ruthie She's never even really called her Ruth like he would call her honey or deer So maybe this one's just pulling it out of nowhere, but it doesn't make Ruth at least from what I read It doesn't make Ruth seem like this woman like really knows her, you know what I mean?
Right like calling her Ruthie isn't making Ruth feel more comfortable or at ease or anything like that Yeah, and honestly like nothing about this call does I mean it is it almost means nothing to her it's so cryptic Well, and she's not just taking this one's word that Chuck's okay though Right like she's calling the police telling them about this call she just filed the missing person's report like last week He didn't know that's not what happened. She didn't actually tell anyone about this call at the time I mean she didn't even want to report him missing in the first place because she's so afraid for her family's safety So and I mean to be fair like getting this call you could argue it either way like some people could say like it It seems like it doesn't mean anything, but she doesn't tell the police in the end She's still just waiting hoping that police are on it like they're figuring out what's going on then she'll hear more And they are even without knowing about the phone call Investigators are taking Chuck's disappearance seriously according to the Tucson citizen by now detectives have learned that he was last seen at around 12 40 p.m. On the 7th so about five and a half hours after he left his house and when he was dropping the girl for school He was seen near North craycroft road They talked to one of his coworkers who must have told them that Chuck was out that way and they said that he had called them to give
Him a heads up that he's gonna be back in 30 minutes But then his coworkers say that he never showed back up and that's the last time they heard from him So pretty quickly detectives are at a dead end too. They know when he was last seen but that's kind of it I'm not sure what else they did, but their mystery was about to get a little bit of a break It's been 10 days since he was reported missing and on Saturday June 18th Police get a call about a body that has been found on the side of the road passerby say that they came across a deceased male on the highway right off of us 86 about 40 miles west of Tucson when police Arrived on the scene. They see that the man is wearing a suit. He's wearing a bulletproof vest and cowboy boots Now I don't have anything this source material about how he's identified But it seems like pretty quickly they know that they found Chuck Morgan and it appears that he's been shot in the head And he's lying right near his vehicle which might actually be how they identify him But I don't know how long has he been lying there though Well actually not long because I mean this is a remote area Yeah, but it was still a main highway and I'm guessing people traveled along it frequently And even just the state of the body tells them that whatever happened here actually was pretty recent
So it's not like he's been out there the full 10 days But they will have to wait for the medical examiner to give them like a real time of death now What they can tell is to them it looks like he'd been killed right there at the scene There's a 357 Magnum revolver lying near his left hand with an obvious gunshot wound at the top of his head now They look around they find a pair of sunglasses nearby and about $10 I'm assuming in his wallet or pocket It doesn't say and then when they search his car they find two CB radios a police monitor and a few weapons Including a sawed-off shotgun and a pistol and then in the back of the car detectives find a package of plastic handcuffs a plot twist Yeah, but that's not all reporting for the Arizona Daily Stars that detectives find something that looks like a piece of a tooth Inside of a white handkerchief in the back of his car But they don't know if it belongs to Chuck or someone else which to me is like a big question Like can we just open his mouth and see if he's missing a piece of it too?
That was my first thought yeah And then they also find an assortment of like scribbled notes all over Chuck's car Some of the notes appear to be telegrams from Switzerland England and Mexico regarding the purchasing and selling of millions of ounces of gold Is that what Ruth saw him writing to I mean I don't know for sure Maybe I don't think so though because I think the telegrams would have been typed right or I make it up like sure I know nothing about telegrams well either way the things that they don't find are any clothes or toiletries or anything That would make it seem like he planned to be away for 11 days And you said that it didn't look like he'd been out there very long right so Where has he been and how has he been taking care of himself?
Does he have any like defensive wounds that they can see like are there signs of a struggle around the car? No signs of a struggle and I was actually just about to get to what the Emmy found so to answer your question There were no defensive wounds his autopsy showed that he hadn't even been dead for 12 hours when they found him And he had died from a gunshot wound to the head the medical examiner finds that he was shot in the back of the head and at the bullet Lodged in his mouth But the bullet is too damaged to determine through initial testing it came from the weapon detectives found next to Chuck So they have to send it off to the FBI crime laboratory to see if they could gather any results But that angle he was shot at like in the back of the head means that his death clearly looks like a homicide Uh-huh now There's really nothing else of note found when examining his body But they did find something when preparing his body for examination the Emmy found it when they were undressing Chuck So there was this $2 bill pinned to his underwear and it has writing I know it had writing on both sides and on the front just to the left There is this list of Spanish last names and they're listed alphabetically Asivero beharano tajero d'arte en sinas quinte and gradias and I keep reading that
Ecclesiastes 12 is written at the top of that list, but I actually have a picture of this bill I'm gonna put it in the blog post I can maybe see Ecclesiastes and then maybe there's again It was really hard for me to see I'd have like other people trying to point this out And maybe this little 12 right under the E and then there are these arrows pointing to a number one and a number eight on the bills Serial number what is up with this Bible passage? I believe this is like referencing it because it's so bonkers But honestly my biggest question here is why is this pin to his underwear? Dude, I know this is what I like was it couldn't like oh it had to be in my mind done by him Like something he wants to keep safe because there's other cash they find like at the scene It's not with the other money. It's not with other notes. I gotta say I don't think it's about the money I think it's about what was written on it He wanted to have like some message that I mean he clearly thought something was gonna happen to him in his last days And he didn't want people finding that but then why couldn't you have written on a piece of paper and there's notes all over his car Yeah, or those not also cryptic is this one more cryptic like what's the difference in this writing in that writing?
What are these names? Oh my god, I feel or you know, there's someone who pinned it because they were trying to send a message afterwards I truly don't know but the fact that it is pinned you could go either way And I can talk about this forever But I need to keep going to the story stuff a lot to tell you and things only get stranger and stranger So buckle up so that's on the front of the bill on the back There's what looks like a map question mark like there's some road names and lines drawn on it Which basically point to the spot where Chuck is found which is in southwest Tucson and detectives confirm with Ruth that the writing on the bill Is Chuck's handwriting so I mean it doesn't help me at all I know that it to me it goes back to like him being the one to pin it on his own underwear And like wanting to have this information like not just with him but like on him But no one seems to know what it means. So what why like what's the point who's supposed to find it?
And what does it mean? So if the map is to where he was found maybe he wrote the map to where he was going to meet someone I don't know what the Bible verse has to do with it And why do you keep the mat like you're headed there? Why are you pinning it to your own? I cannot figure it out like I said I have to move on So I don't know what to make of this note on his underwear But they look at all the notes down in the car trying to determine if they were written by Chuck or someone else I don't know if they were typed they determine that most of the scribbled notes are in his handwriting too But please still plan to send them off not to see if they're his handwriting They're pretty sure but they are looking for a psychological evaluation to help try and understand Chuck's mindset and emotional attitude at this time But before they get those results guess who calls?
Mystery Bible woman is back bingo and she refuses to give them her real name either She only identifies herself to them as green eyes and she wants to talk to someone about Chuck When she's deputy Duke Nick gets on the phone with her She has a lot to say and a lot of it helps account for those 11 days that Chuck was missing Green eyes claims that she had met with Chuck many times before he died She said they met at a local motel a few times and that Chuck told her that he was in serious trouble But he had some kind of plan he told her that there was a contract out on his life for $90,000 And it was increasing by $5,000 every day that he was still alive So he basically had come up with this plan to pay them off whoever they were so he could stay alive She says he even opened this briefcase he had and showed her that it was filled with a bunch of cash And he told her that there were thousands of dollars in there Okay, I don't think that's how contracts for your life work But besides I don't know when they were put one out on me It just seems like if someone wants you dead they want you dead You can't pay them off to convince them not to kill you Does that make sense?
I mean you can't pay them up but you can pay the people they hire off like they're doing everything for money Right? I guess But that's not even the beginning of my actual questions How did Chuck and Green eyes meet when did they first meet? Like what are they doing in a motel room together? That seems like a meet-up point that was decided How did they figure this out? I mean way more backstory on green eyes Yeah, great questions Not a whole lot of info on green eyes though Of course She tells detectives that she met with Chuck at a motel four different times during the 10 days span that he was reported missing She says that she was seeing him socially, which I don't know I don't know if that means something different that means or truly they're just like friends like it's social It's not into I don't know what it is Okay, but she basically says that she was Chuck's confidant that he told everything to her Like way more details than he ever seemed to tell his wife So what she's saying is someone or someone's maybe put a hit on Chuck Well, she's saying that Chuck told her that yes, but this is where it gets tricky because she doesn't clarify Who the mystery they are that he keeps mentioning and she says that's because he wouldn't tell her that part I mean, how would they even verify that she's telling the truth?
I don't know they can't I mean in true Chuck fashion everything is very hush hush But according to another article for Tucson citizen the woman gave investigators enough information that I guess made them confident that she was telling the truth Because I had the same first thought like what if she 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 yeah Inserts herself into an investigation not like we've ever seen that before Yeah, but I think that whatever information she had that they're clearly not sharing They're convinced that she was connected to him in some way So green eyes tells the chief that the last time she saw Chuck was at the motel the Wednesday before he was bound to seized And the last time she talked to him was Thursday when he asked her to call his wife and tell her that he was okay Yeah, I feel like green eyes isn't like a mistress isn't like another woman If you're asking her to call your wife to check in also if you can call green eyes and tell her to call your wife Why can you just call your wife? You know the questions about in this case Yeah, well speaking of Ruth remember they haven't heard anything about the call she got so they reach out to her and they're like hey
This woman said that she was told by her husband to call you did you get a call like that you didn't tell us about she's like yeah I did in fact get that call so after speaking with green eyes over the phone I'm sure that detectives are even more confused and all of this is starting to sound really bonkers But then they get a call from a government agency that may just confirm Chuck was involved in some sketchy The u.s. Customs Service calls detectives and says they've got information on Chuck Morgan They tell him that back in 1973 customs agents worked on a criminal investigation involving Chuck They said their investigation was related to his scam selling non-existent gold However, they didn't have enough evidence to bring any indictments But apparently Chuck knew about the investigation because detectives learned that he told a colleague that he was always looking over his shoulder And would be until the statute of limitations ran out But again no more information on that this guy was pretty vague and probably sounded incredibly paranoid to his friends So is Chuck really an undercover agent for the u.s. Treasury or is he someone who's mixed up with some illegal gold scams?
Right now it's hard to tell Chuck's story at least to his wife was that he was on the government side And maybe the fact that he was killed supports that but please aren't so sure They're wondering if maybe Chuck was the bad guy and maybe honestly this wasn't a homicide after all They begin to wonder if Chuck's death was actually self-inflicted because they start uncovering even more unusual behavior by Chuck during his first disappearance The night sky may look endless, but its secrets could be closer than we think because in this universe you're never truly alone I'm Yvette Genthile and I'm her sister, Rasha Pecoraro. Every Friday on So Supernatural We investigate alien encounters haunting tales of the unknown and cosmic mysteries that defy explanation ready to discover without there Listen to So Supernatural wherever you get your podcast So detectives had learned all about the abduction or alleged abduction that had happened before Chuck eventually disappeared and was killed But what they find in their own investigation of that doesn't quite align with the version of events that Chuck told Ruth
During those few days in March that Chuck said he'd been held hostage There were actual witnesses that had spotted him in Tucson when he was supposed to be in Phoenix Was he with green eyes during the first disappearance? I don't think so. I feel like I would have come up but also they're holding a lot of stuff back about her So I don't know nothing says and this is the same time period that he had told Ruth you've been handcuffed, drugged and threatened Yeah, and then they find out after his second disappearance that he was spotted twice out on the town And which that part is in a huge surprise like because we've got green eyes saying she'd seen him multiple times and they don't specify Who their witnesses are whatever they just say that they confirmed that he was at a local financial institution and he stayed at a motel Again, presumably where he met with green eyes. Mm-hmm So all of that combined with the fact that they found those plastic handcuffs in his car Investigators aren't super convinced that Chuck was even really kidnapped 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 In may but even though he's telling people that he's never telling them what it was that he said so like part of his story is true part of it seems to not be true Okay, so I have to ask was there really even ever a testimony like has anyone looked into that yet?
Well, they do and at first it seems like it's BS because they find out that he lied to good old green eyes He told her that he was being targeted because of a testimony he'd given in Washington DC But detectives do end up figuring out that he gave some kind of testimony in Phoenix There's no record of him even going to DC But then just what you think Chuck made some of this up or he's having some kind of mental break They talked to state attorney general Bruce Babbitt and Bruce says that Chuck did give a sworn deposition for an investigation involving the state banking department And it actually is super secret He says he can't disclose the specifics of what it is they're investigating But he can tell them that Chuck was offered physical protection because of his testimony Why didn't he take it? No one says and that's pretty much all Bruce can say Okay, let me make sure I have everything I'm obsessed with this case. I know There was a secret testimony that Chuck was legally required to be a part of And it involved a case that might require witnesses to need actual physical protection that he was offered and he said no Check, yes, there's a gold scam that might be related but might not be related
Yes, and Chuck believed there was a hit out on him again making denying the physical protection weird But like he still believed this that he was a physical danger Is that is that everything is that everything? Yeah, um is that all it's some no Well, so that that I can answer no, that's not all this case doesn't get any less complicated from here because more players become involved While the pima county sheriff's department is investigating Chuck's death the fbi joins in too Because he wasn't just found on the side of the road. He was actually on the tahono odom reservation Which is federal land and that means the fbi is launching their own investigation Not just into Chuck's death though They're also looking into the case that he gave a sworn deposition for So now that the fbi is involved things are getting even weirder Ruth tells local investigators that three weeks after her husband's death two men claiming to be fbi agents knocked on her door flashed some badges And then barged their way in searching all over the house They never told her why they were there or what they were looking for they just tore through everything looking for Something and it all happened so fast that she didn't get their names or anything
So who knows if these I mean were really from the fbi I mean to this day no one hasn't able to verify that But it kind of seems like whoever they were if they were agents or not they didn't find what they were looking for So Ruth was just left to clean up a ransacked home Now I don't know if what happened next is related or not But around the same time Chuck's car which is impounded and in the possession of local authorities is broken into Oh, which is a bold move. Yeah, and then his office gets searched too by fbi agents No clue. I mean like there's nothing in the source material that indicates any of these searches are done by real agents But like someone is clearly looking for something right now Meanwhile detected at the pima county sheriff's department are only getting more and more confused Same and that's when detectives get a call from someone claiming to be the quote husband of green eyes And he tells them that Chuck was in business with some shady individuals And they were all buying gold bars and coins in mexico for some kind of fraudulent reasons So he's kind of backing up what the customs agents told detectives earlier, but who is they all like who is doing this with him
The man just says his associates but detectives at the sheriff's department aren't able to identify I mean they don't know who green eyes is so they don't know who the husband of green eyes is So they're not even able to follow up with any of these claims which then makes you wonder if it's real or not I mean I'm beginning to wonder green eyes. It was even real like they've never interviewed her in real life Right like this all done over the phone. I know that's why like after all these years I wish they would like say what it is she gave them that made them so sure because everything that's been released I'm like to be nothing's connecting her to Chuck other than her own word and we don't know who she is I assume there has to be something but you never know I don't maybe there's not So anyways a couple of months go by and Chuck's investigation is seemingly going nowhere But in mid-August the sheriff's department makes a shocking announcement They say that their findings indicate that Chuck was not murdered out in the desert because of some secret state testimony Instead they ruled that he died by suicide and they closed the investigation just like that Just like that and with this explanation apparently they found in his financial records that he had debts over
$40,000 which in today's money would be like $200,000 And they say he had taken out a third mortgage on his home So the only liquid assets that he had left were about $400 in cash Okay, but for how long and did they ever find the briefcase of money that green eyes said she saw? I mean this all seems so confusing like why have potentially all this cash but still only like legally have $400 But you're majorly in debt. Yeah, I know they I know they found So the briefcase of cash that she said he had they found a briefcase It wasn't Chuck's typical and that he took everywhere actually that one's never been found interestingly enough But the briefcase that they found didn't have any money in it It just had like some papers and stuff but the one papers in it seems to be the one that green eyes described to them So we do know that like it's his but for some reason money that green eyes saw in it is no longer here And neither is his like every day bag. Yeah, one of the big questions I had was around the money You know, they're like oh he had $40,000 in in debt and I'm like, okay Yeah, but like how recently is this something that had happened over the span of years or
Did he like drain his account and take a third mortgage on his house in the time when everything is happening 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 someone off Like if it all happens in a short amount of time to me, that's more evidence of a murder not not last, you know what I mean? 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 own life? Right, but at least according to the police they say that due to financial struggles due to the empty briefcase There's just no evidence that there was a contract out on his life And based on the fingerprints and footprints at the scene the sheriff's investigators seemed to determine that there was no one else out there in the desert with Chuck They also say that hey, we checked with the treasury department the FBI the DEA along with other federal agencies and we can't find any evidence that Chuck wasn't undercover agent or Informer for any of them granted would they ever tell anyone like I don't I don't know, but I don't think so That's a pointless statement. Yeah And then they also say that they got in the results from the bullet bag and the FBI had found that it did in fact come from a magnum revolver Plus they say he had large amounts of gunshot residue on his left hand
Which sheriff's investigators say is the hand that he used to shoot himself in the top of the head? Well, wait, I thought that I mean he confirmed he was shot in the back of the head. How is it now the top? Yeah, that's strange, right? Like I know whenever explains that little switcher either But the Emmy doesn't agree with the sheriff's investigators findings like they're like listen, you know, even if it's like you don't want to say homicide I'm saying it's unknown like there's no way to rule it a homicide sure But there's also no way to rule it a suicide because it just isn't enough information All the any can really say is that shop was shot in the back of the head It just happened to be near the top at an angle where the bullet got lodged behind his front teeth So I don't know if it is a switcher over it's just like they're just kind of cutting the same thing different ways or it's strange though I think it's possible he could have taken his own life at that angle like top back of his head Why it would have been difficult, but why take your own life over some debt when someone's already like potentially trying to kill you or you think that where you've told Enough people out like people are saying that about you. I mean more than that
I don't know why you even would stage it as a suicide I guess what I'm saying is that there's no world where he does it because the gun's gonna still be there I'm like having a hard time even like processing my head. I'm sorry I'm not your own body essentially is what you're saying. Yeah, or like the gun's gonna be there So it's not like I understand like if he's like oh, I'm gonna like take my left hand I'm gonna like put out the top of my head So it looks like someone else did it but then the gun's gonna be right there if there is no one else Right, so it's setting it up doesn't make sense to me And then it only makes sense to do the back of your head if you're trying to set it up I think that's what I was trying to get at is like if you just went out there to take your own life You don't have to do it with your left hand at the top of your head And the left hand is important because Ruth says that her husband was right-handed She said he literally couldn't do anything with his left hand And a colleague of chucks also comes forward and says that he only knew Chuck to write with his right hand as well And it's interesting is that Emmy also claims that the sheriff's department detective didn't find any evidence that put the murder weapon in Chuck's hands Oh, what about the gun shot residue?
So there was gunshot residue on his left hand, but I guess there weren't any of Chuck's fingerprints on the gun So there's some residue, but technically they can't prove he held the gun But a sheriff's deputy has an answer for that. He says that all the blood and dirt on the gun was why there weren't any fingerprints So it seems like it's over 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 that matter By the next year in January 1978 James Howard the deputy county attorney in charge of white collar criminal investigations Makes it clear that their office thinks there are obvious motives for this to be a homicide Like retaliation for that secret testimony And this is where the plot thickens The night sky may look endless, but its secrets could be closer than we think because in this universe you're never truly alone I'm yevaginti lee and i'm her sister russia pecker arrow every friday on so supernatural We investigate alien encounters haunting tales of the unknown and cosmic mysteries that defy explanation ready to discover what's out there
Listen to so supernatural wherever you get your podcast So after some time they end up getting more information about the secret testimony that Chuck gave It seems like Chuck was backed into a corner and was forced to do it If he'd refused to testify the state was going to deny him a license which would have jeopardized his new role at state wide escrow So Chuck did end up testifying and investigators learned that it was about illegal transactions by the former owner of the bonco Internationale de Arizona, which is a bank in Arizona and these dealings i guess like Chuck played a pretty big part in them He had allegedly written bad checks from the company that he worked for at the time western title And those checks funded the takeover of the bank in gave full control to this guy named david calley And then these bad checks all lead to a deeper probe into land fraud happening in arizona You see at the time of checks death, Arizona was a blind trust state in real estate So basically the law back then 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 blind trust And chuck was the escrow agent for some pretty prominent people Chuck allegedly helped the net warren family in phoenix and the joe bonano family in tusan Two very prominent organized crime families with their escrow accounts So he would have been the only one with record or knowledge of what they were up to They were going to daily star reports that those notes he was always scribbling down were about prominent people in tusan and included details on alleged land and gold deals And in addition to this note keeping Chuck's new position as president of state wide escrow was somehow seen as a threat to some people Now, I don't know exactly who those people were but it seems like Chuck knew about these feelings of animosity Which could have honestly led to his paranoia and employee at state wide even said that chuck wouldn't even sit with his back to a window because he was so afraid So he truly believed there was a hit out on him and that's what it sounds like I don't it doesn't seem like he was making up or if he did the guy wins an Oscar So maybe someone was after Chuck it just might not have been government officials like that
Maybe there's a world worth all a little bit true Maybe Chuck was into some shady stuff Maybe he flipped and was then working for the government and these you know mafia members or organized crime or someone Like got like figured it out. He you know, he's not testifying as people. It's pretty obvious He turns down his protection that he's offered and those people are the ones after him Now those same colleagues that had told them Chuck was super afraid Apparently it comes out that Chuck had even talked to some of his other colleagues about his involvement with the mafia And when those colleagues finally come forward to investigators They say he told them that when he first disappeared in march of 77 He had seven platinum bars stolen from the trunk of his car which would have been worth over 250 thousand dollars today Oh my god Now he never told Ruth any part of that like of his story though Chuck had only told a few close acquaintances So long story short all of his really boils down to all of Chuck's notes and records that he seemingly kept everywhere in his car In his office in his house I mean he had so many notes that investigators called him a collector And they find that these notes are very detailed on all the gold and land deals that Chuck had witnessed or been a part of
Which kind of defeats the purpose of applying trust ownership If people were exploiting and maybe didn't want any of that documented Exactly And Chuck wasn't necessarily keeping all the information to himself and he was telling his colleagues his wife pretty much everyone He talked to that he had some pretty damning and potentially embarrassing information on Tucson politicians But I thought Ruth was in the dark like she seemed totally surprised by what was happening with Chuck Sorry I should clarify so she she was totally in the dark She says but as he started telling her those little things he apparently told her that he had damning information Remember one of the first notes that he wrote that he had dirt right right right but he never told her what the information was or who they were Even though the FBI and the Pima counties attorneys office keep investigating Chuck's death after the sheriff's department closed the case It seems like things still just end up going cold There's really no news or reports on the other two investigating agencies findings or what they end up determining Like nothing's ever released about the land fraud probe There's no mention of gold scams being busted 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 bigger case But like spoiler alert, it's 2024 no news ever comes from it And so even back then a few years go by and it's just quiet
It seems like Chuck was involved with a few different things that could have gotten him in trouble But I think the big questions are is his death connected to the government? Is it connected to the mafia or did he really take his own life like the sheriff's department? I'm sorry. I don't not option number three I vote same But those were the questions that unsolved mysteries brings up when they highlighted his case in 1990 They lay out the conspiracy surrounding his death and Ruth shares her story including what was happening leading up to his death But there's also an investigative journalist on there this guy named Don Devereaux Before the episode 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 two Chuck But surprise surprise the FBI claims to have no such information Almost like Chuck's case never existed and was never investigated and to Don It's all very strange that they just pretend his case didn't even exist even though It's been like 13 years at that point Well regardless Don shares his findings and his questions on the show But after the episode airs things start spiraling out of control
All right, but so just to disclaimer we're about to go down a bit of a red rabbit hole So buckle in get your tinkle head on and prepare your green salt So Don had been trying to uncover a motive for Chuck's death And he thoroughly believed he found it He thinks it's connected to the records that Chuck kept of illegal land transactions and potential gold scans happening in Tucson Which is like kind of we're all at this point So after the unsolved mysteries episode airs on May 14th 1990 a man named Doug Johnston Is found dead inside his toyotastation wagon with a gunshot wound to his head Now Doug Johnston is found in the parking lot of his new job Which sits right across the street from Don's house and apparently his car and Don's car kind of look alike And it makes me wonder if Doug and Don might have looked alike as well There's only republic only reports that they had similar builds and they both had a beard so I don't know But maybe the location of the car were enough for whoever to mistakenly shoot Doug Thinking that they were shooting Don and according to Don the whole thing was staged to look like a suicide But there was no gun next to Doug
He was alone in his car with a gunshot wound to the head Yet investigators jumped to a possible suicide and then ultimately ruled his cause of death as undetermined But Don is not convinced he's pretty sure that his digging into Chuck's death and organized crime in the phoenix area really ruffled So does Doug have a family? What did they make of this ruling? Yes, so his family say they strongly believe that he didn't take his own life I guess he just got a new job things were looking up for him so they believe he had a lot to look forward to so it just didn't make sense to them And sure it may be it's all a coincidence and Doug's death has nothing to do with Don But a year after Doug's death in 1991 Don gets a call from Danny cassallaro a writer in dc wanting to learn more about Chuck's case So Don prepares the research that he's found on Chuck's involvement in the gold sands and the illegal transactions But before he can even mail out these documents he hears that Danny's been found dead in his hotel room under mysterious circumstances Unfortunately, police never really inspect the scene someone allowed the hotel staff to come in and just clean the room Subsequently destroying any potential evidence of a homicide and according to the unsolved mysteries episode on Danny
There was two bloody towels and to the housekeepers It looked like someone tried to wipe blood off the bathroom floor So despite what looks like a second person was at the scene or at least what housekeeping says looks like that Police end up ruling Danny's death a suicide and they closed the case But Danny's family say there was no indication that Danny would have done that and also he hated the sight of blood It made him sick so there's no way he would have chosen to end his life that way So Don immediately believes that Danny's death is a murder and related to what he found in Chuck's case But I don't know if I believe the Chuck's case part So according to an editorial piece by Mary McGrawary for the standard star Chuck's death isn't the only conspiracy that Danny was investigating He'd spent the past year researching some deep corruption in the federal government involving money laundering spyware and the Reagan administration And he believed he found some incriminating information. He even told his family and friends that he had just one more interview and the case would be cracked So it might have had to do with a completely different case altogether But you can't convince me that it was a suicide mostly because like we can't even look at his body
Like this is the part I can't ignore Police declared his death a suicide and had his body imbalmed before they never even notified his family of his death No way. Do you not like that? Not okay? So many reasons. No I mean literally everything in Danny's case was handled incorrectly and his death might have been a coverup But was it connected to Don or Chuck? I don't know it seems unlikely considering everything else he was looking into
However, the Arizona Republic reports that six months after Danny's death Don claims that this reporter with CIA sources comes to him and says that there is a hit put out on him And this reporter says their pretty sure Doug's death was an accident because they were targeting Don But no one has ever backed this information up And in the same article that mentions the hit put out on him also says that quote Other to new Don Devereaux say he is a zealous researcher who sometimes gets blinded by flawed conspiracy theories so I mean I gotta identify with that but there's a chance he may have just fallen too deep into kind of his own rabbit hole and frightened himself It's possible, but that might be something we never know After all the drama in the 90s died down shucks case goes cold again and then it pretty much stays that way Ruth died of cancer in 2006 and in 2010 reporting by Kimberly Mattis for the Arizona Daily Star She says that Chuck's four daughters are still fighting to prove that their father didn't take his own life They believe that he was murdered to quote protect the interests of corrupt businessmen and politicians end quote
And his daughters feel that he had a lot of information on politicians and other government officials in Tucson and maybe even in Phoenix And that's why they wanted to silence him 2010 was the last public mention of Chuck Morgan It's been over 45 years since his mysterious death his daughters are still alive and still deserve answers Someone somewhere out there has to know more about the conspiracies circling in Tucson and Phoenix in the 70s and 80s And maybe that person is listening or maybe green eyes is listening Even though Chuck's case is currently inactive if you have any information that could be helpful Please reach out to the pima county sheriff's department at 520 882 7463 or you can submit a tip online at 8 8 crime dot Don't forget if you want more crime-janky episodes like this one new members can get all of july and august free in the fan club Head to the link in the show notes and sign up and make sure if you're still listening to us in this feed You hit the follow button that way you won't miss out on any of the bonus episodes that we're gonna be putting out every Thursday
All summer long we'll be popping back in your feed next Thursday with another vault episode by crime junkies Crime junkie is an audio chuck production. So what do you think Chuck do you approve? When the nights grow longer the shadows start to stir and that can only mean one thing full body chills is back This season step inside original tails where every doorway leads somewhere darker every stranger carries a secret and nothing is ever quite what it seems Each story takes you somewhere new but be careful you never know what might follow you home So gather around listen close and stream full body chills wherever you get your podcast