Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck.
Speaker 1: He's older and fifty it turns out, and there's Jerry,
Speaker 1: and this is short stuff and let's go.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: This is the case of a sort of a lesser known,
Speaker 3: unsolved true crime murder. In fact, yeah, I hope that
Speaker 3: didn't spoil anything. I don't think in this thing you
Speaker 3: put together called it bizarre. I take issue with that.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's bizarre at all. But it is
Speaker 3: unsolved and interesting.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think when you yes, you're right, No, it's
Speaker 1: not bizarre, but it.
Speaker 2: Had the episode of the Sopranos.
Speaker 1: To me, it is unsung in that it doesn't even
Speaker 1: have a Wikipedia page, no mention whatsoever on all of Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: which is very surprising. But we're talking about the death
Speaker 1: of a man named Charles C. Morgan who died in
Speaker 1: May of nineteen seventy seven in the desert outside of Tucson, Arizona,
Speaker 1: and his death was, like you said, almost certainly a murder,
Speaker 1: but it was pronounced suicide by the local sheriff, even
Speaker 1: though the coroner was like, I don't know what this was.
Speaker 1: Everyone else on the planet will tell you it's a murder,
Speaker 1: especially once you know the details, which we're going to
Speaker 1: get into right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, let's just describe the crime scene. This guy
Speaker 3: was found deceased at the scene wearing a bulletproof vest
Speaker 3: from a gunshot wound from his own handgun to the
Speaker 3: back of his head, and it did not have his
Speaker 3: fingerprints on his own gun.
Speaker 1: And it was laid beside his body.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the sheriff was like, well, it looks like
Speaker 2: a suicide to me.
Speaker 3: You know, the guy put on surgical gloves and you know,
Speaker 3: shot himself in the back of the head, as one does,
Speaker 3: and then managed somehow to take those gloves off and hide.
Speaker 1: Them exactly before me. He said, let's go get lunch.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: His wife said, no, there's no way that this was
Speaker 3: a suicide.
Speaker 2: That's impossible.
Speaker 3: And now we're going to tell you a little bit
Speaker 3: about Charles Morgan and things will become pretty clear as
Speaker 3: we do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he was an Escro agent, and the Escro agent,
Speaker 1: as anyone who's ever bought a house knows, is the
Speaker 1: person who holds the money. Yeah, they're this impartial third
Speaker 1: party who follows a set of rules about keeping and
Speaker 1: dispersing money. And basically once the sale of some high
Speaker 1: value thing, almost always real estate, but sometimes things like
Speaker 1: if you're buying a bunch of gold or you're buying
Speaker 1: a private jet or something like that, there's going to
Speaker 1: be an Escro agent involved because you don't just hand
Speaker 1: over the money and hope for the best. And then
Speaker 1: once everybody's signed and all the stuff is legal and set,
Speaker 1: then the money gets sent out, but they hold it
Speaker 1: in escrow. And by being an Escro agent, not just
Speaker 1: Charles Morgan, but any escrow agent, I think even still
Speaker 1: today is in a really good position to help organize crime,
Speaker 1: launder money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like just putting money in escrow all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: it's got a little bit more legitimacy to it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's not the most regulated industry, so it's a little
Speaker 3: easier to get away with something like that, probably as
Speaker 3: an escrow agent, or at least certainly it was in
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven. Yeah, and that's what he was doing.
Speaker 3: It seems like it, you know, from all accounts, it
Speaker 3: didn't seem like he was a bad dude. It seems
Speaker 3: like somebody maybe like in a Sopranos episode where he
Speaker 3: got in a little over his head, maybe ended up
Speaker 3: feeling like he had to do certain things once the
Speaker 3: mafia got their you know, their finger in his pie.
Speaker 1: What good one, man, I love that. That's the best
Speaker 1: one since sniff them off the case.
Speaker 2: Oh man, that's wonderful.
Speaker 3: As it was coming out of my mouth, I knew
Speaker 3: that it was not right.
Speaker 1: Seventeen years in and you're still you're still doing it. Man.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that. But he was doing this for the mafia.
Speaker 3: And there's a a journalist for Unsolved Mysteries at the
Speaker 3: time named Don Devereaux who basically was like, this guy
Speaker 3: was helping the mafia launder money through Arizona as an
Speaker 3: ESCRO agent, like by buying and selling platinum and gold
Speaker 3: is how they were doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because again, like you said, just taking tainted money
Speaker 1: made from selling drugs, you put it in an escrow account.
Speaker 1: It gives it legitimacy if the Escro agent isn't asking
Speaker 1: where it came from from that point forward. Once it's
Speaker 1: in the Escro account, that's when the paper trail really
Speaker 1: kind of starts. So if they use that money to
Speaker 1: buy legitimately buy legal gold and platinum and then turn
Speaker 1: around and sell that that illicit drug money just became
Speaker 1: legitimate in the eyes of everybody, thanks again in part
Speaker 1: with the help of Charles C. Morgan. And did you
Speaker 1: say he oversaw a billion dollars with the transactions in
Speaker 1: the few years he was doing this. I did not
Speaker 1: a billion dollars. That's what Don Devereux estimated that journalists
Speaker 1: for unsolved mysteries. And like you said, he was a
Speaker 1: good guy. That's the sad part of all of this.
Speaker 1: He wasn't some scumbagg he wasn't a scale He seems
Speaker 1: to have gotten in over his head. He was definitely
Speaker 1: helping the mafia launder their money or organize crime. But
Speaker 1: he was also a dedicated family man who cared very
Speaker 1: much about the safety of his family. And I say
Speaker 1: we take a break and come back and really kind
Speaker 1: of get into the sad story of Charles Morgan's death.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So surely there's other people out there who know
Speaker 1: much more about this and the chain of events that
Speaker 1: led to this. But if you take it from the
Speaker 1: the story of Ruth Morgan, Charles Morgan's wife, the whole
Speaker 1: thing starts in March of nineteen seventy seven, when all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, one day, Charles Morgan goes missing, and
Speaker 1: he's missing for three days, and he finally turns back up.
Speaker 1: But when he turns back up, he's not carrying like
Speaker 1: flowers and chocolate to apologize. He shows up missing a shoe,
Speaker 1: among other things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's missing a shoe, his hands or zip tied together.
Speaker 2: There are another.
Speaker 3: Set of zip ties that I guess he got out
Speaker 3: of but on one of his ankles. And she immediately
Speaker 3: is like, oh my god, the mafia has their.
Speaker 2: Fingers in your pie.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: I know what this means.
Speaker 3: He was refusing to speak and wrote down on a
Speaker 3: piece of paper. And this is the part that I
Speaker 3: just find interesting and I don't take issue with it,
Speaker 3: but I'll tell you what I mean. He wrote down
Speaker 3: that his throat had been painted with a hallucinogenic drug
Speaker 3: that could either drive him insane or his word, or
Speaker 3: destroy his nervous system and kill him. So don't call
Speaker 3: the cops, and don't say anything out loud, and move
Speaker 3: my car, go hide my car, because I don't want
Speaker 3: them to know I'm back.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I get the impression that he wasn't just
Speaker 1: telling his wife that because they didn't feel like talking
Speaker 1: to her. I think he was naive enough that somebody
Speaker 1: told him that they did that. Yeah, he was really
Speaker 1: worried it was true.
Speaker 3: All right, we're in agreement then, because I don't think
Speaker 3: that's a thing.
Speaker 1: Is it. No? I mean you would still absorb whatever
Speaker 1: drug through the mucous membranes of your mouth.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: What I really tried to dig up, and again there's
Speaker 3: just not a lot. Is like, did he experience any
Speaker 3: you know, drug effects?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I did see that Ruth nursed
Speaker 1: him back to health from different sources, so I don't
Speaker 1: know what any deal was. He also was handcuffed, so
Speaker 1: it could have been you know, trauma from that, who knows.
Speaker 1: But he didn't want her to call the cops because,
Speaker 1: like I said, he was dedicated to his family, and
Speaker 1: he did not. He was so up against the wall
Speaker 1: that he could not involve the cops. He had to
Speaker 1: figure out how to do this himself. I mean, like
Speaker 1: people write entire books about this few week segment of
Speaker 1: Charles C. Morgan's life. That was the kind of trouble
Speaker 1: he found himself in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, super scary stuff. Obviously, after about a week,
Speaker 3: like you said, Ruth had nursed him back to health,
Speaker 3: and things sort of returned to normal in his life,
Speaker 3: except that he started wearing a bulletproof vest. He started
Speaker 3: he grew a beard out to try and kind of
Speaker 3: disguise himself. He started driving his daughters to and from
Speaker 3: school every day when they used to walk, because he
Speaker 3: was worried for their safety.
Speaker 2: And he wouldn't tell his wife what was going on.
Speaker 2: He was just like business as usual.
Speaker 3: And the excuse was like, Hey, I can't tell you
Speaker 3: what's going on because I had to keep you safe.
Speaker 3: He might have hinted that he was a government agent,
Speaker 3: but basically Ruth don't.
Speaker 1: Ask yeah pretty much. So things kind of, like you said,
Speaker 1: get back to normal a little bit. But that was
Speaker 1: March of nineteen seventy seven. In May, a few weeks later,
Speaker 1: he suddenly went missing again. And this time, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the dread Ruth experience. Like the first time,
Speaker 1: I'm sure she was like where is that Charles, And
Speaker 1: she had like a rolling pin in her hand or
Speaker 1: something like that, waiting for him to come home. This time,
Speaker 1: after he showed up the way that he did, after
Speaker 1: he started wearing a bulletproof vest as scared as he was,
Speaker 1: and then also not letting her in on anything. Him
Speaker 1: disappearing as second time had to be torture for her.
Speaker 1: I think he was gone nine full days before she
Speaker 1: got a phone call from an anonymous woman, and it
Speaker 1: was a bizarre phone call. So let's say that if
Speaker 1: the whole case wasn't bizarre, Chuck, there's bizarre elements, and
Speaker 1: this is definitely one of them.
Speaker 2: No, no, for sure.
Speaker 3: I mean this stuff is a little weird. She got
Speaker 3: the call from a woman who said he's okay, Charles,
Speaker 3: or I think she called him chuckyman. Chuck is okay,
Speaker 3: He's all right. She also mentioned Ecclesiastes from the Bible,
Speaker 3: chapter twelve, verses one through eight. This would pop up
Speaker 3: again in a second, but I'm sure you went and
Speaker 3: read Ecclesiastes twelve one through eight as I did.
Speaker 1: Weird.
Speaker 3: The only thing I can sum up is that it
Speaker 3: sounded like some Sam Jackson kind of.
Speaker 2: Stuff in pulp fiction.
Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of like just sort of a scary, ominous
Speaker 3: Biblical passage as how I interpreted that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yeah, but it was also really odd.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure if I had read much more
Speaker 1: around it, it would have made a little more sense.
Speaker 1: But the end of it being just the way that
Speaker 1: it did. I think somebody said, like lies, these are
Speaker 1: all lies at the end, yeah, which is not you know,
Speaker 1: it was just really strange. So yes, I find that
Speaker 1: bizarre that that was even mentioned. And it also comes
Speaker 1: up again after that. Right, So, this Ecclesiastes twelve cooling
Speaker 1: verses one through eighth is also mentioned on a two
Speaker 1: dollars bill that was found on Charles's body. Chuck's body,
Speaker 1: not you, Chuck. I hate to even say that out loud,
Speaker 1: just the thought is happening to you. Yeah, I appreciate
Speaker 1: it was on this two dollar bill. He had written
Speaker 1: Ecclesiastes twelve, and then he circled a one and an
Speaker 1: eight that were in the serial number of this two
Speaker 1: dollar bill to show reference that this was in verses
Speaker 1: one through eight.
Speaker 2: That's right. Did you say that was in his underwear?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I was leaving that for you.
Speaker 3: It was clipped to the inside of his underwear. The
Speaker 3: bill also had seven Hispanic last names written on it.
Speaker 3: There was a map showing a known drug smuggling route
Speaker 3: between Mexico and Tucson. Yeah, and then the founders on
Speaker 3: that bill, the founders are signing the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 3: They numbered them one through seven, and then the biblical stuff.
Speaker 3: They also found one of his teeth wrapped up in
Speaker 3: a handkerchief in the car, So there was a piece
Speaker 3: of paper with directions of where he was buried in hand,
Speaker 3: you know, handwritten handwriting, and someone else's sunglasses were in
Speaker 3: the car.
Speaker 1: I've never seen any explanation for what his tooth was
Speaker 1: doing wrapped up in a handkerchief.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe they intended to send it as like you would
Speaker 3: a lopped finger, as a warning, and they have never
Speaker 3: got around to it.
Speaker 2: That'd be what I would say.
Speaker 1: But why did he have it?
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I mean, clear someone clearly was out there in the
Speaker 3: desert with him in that car.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess, but I mean left. There's not really
Speaker 1: any bigger message that you could send. Rather than leaving
Speaker 1: his dead, murdered body right by the car, why would
Speaker 1: you put his tooth and a handkerchief in the car.
Speaker 1: It's just strange to me, you know, I would even
Speaker 1: go so far as you call it bizarre.
Speaker 3: Here's here's the scene, the two the two mafia guys
Speaker 3: are driving away and they were like, hey, nobody's ever
Speaker 3: gonna find this body right, not out here, they're not.
Speaker 3: And you got the tooth to mail to the broad right, Oh, Vinnie,
Speaker 3: I left the tooth.
Speaker 2: You left the.
Speaker 1: Tooth right, He said, I thought you said leave the
Speaker 1: tooth grabbed the canoli.
Speaker 3: So that's what I think happened. But yeah, that that
Speaker 3: doesn't make a lot of sense. A couple of days
Speaker 3: after the body was discovered, a woman called the Sheriff's
Speaker 3: department said, I am the person who called Ruth Morgan
Speaker 3: a few days earlier. My name is green Eyes. And
Speaker 3: they said how pretty and she said thank you, and
Speaker 3: they said are your ice green? She said, they're actually
Speaker 3: a shade of blue.
Speaker 1: She said maybe, she.
Speaker 2: Said, but that's not important. She said.
Speaker 3: I met with Chuck at a local motel recently. He
Speaker 3: had been hiding out there for about a week and
Speaker 3: he was on the run. He had a briefcase, like
Speaker 3: had a ton of money. He said that someone put
Speaker 3: a hit out on him and he was getting in
Speaker 3: touch with the hitman to buy back that contract.
Speaker 2: Obviously that did not happen.
Speaker 1: No, And it's that's really just such a sad twist too,
Speaker 1: because he seems to have spent the last week of
Speaker 1: his life on the run under the idea that he
Speaker 1: had some hope. He had hoped that maybe, just maybe
Speaker 1: he could get out of this by buying that contract
Speaker 1: back and maybe this would all go away. But it
Speaker 1: does seem that he did have a contract out in
Speaker 1: his life for real, that it was because he was
Speaker 1: informing on the mafia to the FEDS, the Treasury Department specifically,
Speaker 1: so that does seem to have been true. And then
Speaker 1: that journalist for Unsolved Mysteries, Don Devereaux, he posits, and
Speaker 1: this makes a lot of sense that the hitman did
Speaker 1: get in touch with Chuck Morgan and said, I'm afraid
Speaker 1: to tell you this, but I'm coming to kill you.
Speaker 1: But you can get out of this if you buy
Speaker 1: the contract. So you pay me what the mob's paying
Speaker 1: me to kill you, you pay me to not kill you,
Speaker 1: and we'll just call it even. And not only was
Speaker 1: that a way for this scumbag of a killer to
Speaker 1: make double the amount on the contract by basically duping
Speaker 1: Charles Morgan into thinking he could buy his way out
Speaker 1: of it, it also was a great excuse to get
Speaker 1: him to an isolated spot to hand over the money,
Speaker 1: as it were, but really to murder him out there
Speaker 1: in the desert. Like that's if you look at it
Speaker 1: like that, this guy was so in over his head
Speaker 1: and he was trying so hard to save himself. It's
Speaker 1: so sad this this is just for some reason, this
Speaker 1: one really gets me. I don't know if it's because
Speaker 1: it was recent enough or what, but there's there's just
Speaker 1: a lot to it that really makes me sad for
Speaker 1: him and his family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also like I feel so bad that that
Speaker 3: he had that hope that he thought, like, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: so you'll you'll betray the mafia if I just buy
Speaker 3: you out of this thing, and they go, right, yeah, totally,
Speaker 3: that's no big deal, right, and then he actually believed that.
Speaker 3: I mean, what a what a awful way to die
Speaker 3: desperate and also hopeful at the same time.
Speaker 1: I agreed, there's some other weird stuff to this case.
Speaker 1: So I would suggest that anybody who is interested go
Speaker 1: check it out. You can read a lot about it.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, Rip Chuck Morgan and short Stuff
Speaker 1: is that.
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