What Happened to Morgan Pt. 1

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[SPEAKER_00]: Warning check the locks podcast is a true crime podcast and may contain graphic descriptions of violence, murder, sexual assault, and more.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Check the locks podcast is not appropriate for all listeners.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Listener discretion is strongly advised.

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[SPEAKER_01]: In 2016, a girl from a small town moved to Atlanta to chase her dreams in the big city.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Two weeks later, she would vanish, leaving her family to spend a decade searching for answers.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Join me, John Connor, as I discussed the disappearance and murder of Morgan Bower.

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[SPEAKER_01]: This is Check The Lots Podcast.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and thank you for joining me as I dive into yet another truly terrifying true crime case as always before we begin.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you're having a good week.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Just wanted to say thank you for letting me hang out with you while you're doing whatever it is you got going on today.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I will say I don't know about you but I have had a very busy week.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The kid at a three day weekend, we had a birthday party, had to take the car into the shop, so it's just been kind of nonstop, so hopefully your week has been a little more chilled in mind and hopefully just a little more relaxing But let's talk about this week's case, so this week is actually going to be a part one of a two part story and that is because after a great number of years this case is actually just been solved

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[SPEAKER_01]: in part two.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm also actually pretty curious to see if anyone will be familiar with this case because apparently it's been in the media a lot over the years, but I actually hadn't heard anything about it until I started doing the research on it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So definitely interested.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I want to hear your thoughts.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Let me know what you think.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But with that, I'm going to quit the Gabby Gabby.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We'll get into the stabby stabby.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Let's jump into this week's case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: This week's story begins in

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[SPEAKER_01]: where the winners harsh, but the people are kind, and the place where 19-year-old Morgan Aaron Bauer grew up.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Morgan graduated from Aberdeen Central High School in 2014, where she played soccer and made friends who loved her.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But as she grew older, Morgan developed a wandering spirit.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like many teenagers in America, she felt that her hometown was just too small for her.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And she dreamed of something bigger.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The lights and the sounds of the city.

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[SPEAKER_01]: A place where Morgan could build something for herself.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And for the 19-year-old, that place was Atlanta.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Atlanta was busy and warm and far from the quiet town that Morgan was raised in.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Her mother, Sherry Keenan, seemed to understand this about her daughter.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So when Morgan shared that she would be moving, she was nervous and a bit scared, as any parent would be when their child sets out on their own, but Sherry was also supportive.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And she wanted her daughter to chase what made her happy.

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[SPEAKER_01]: However, Morgan had not been completely honest about her future living arrangements.

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[SPEAKER_01]: She told her mother that when she arrived in the city, she would be moving in with roommates, but that wasn't really the truth.

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[SPEAKER_01]: In reality, Morgan had answered a Craigslist ad, and the poster had offered a room in his home in exchange for housekeeping services.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, while it's not a totally uncommon arrangement, it would be something that would have made her mother nervous.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But with her plan in place, Morgan left home on the morning of February 12, 2016.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But not before Sherry put a penny in her hand and instructed her daughter to put it in her pocket.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Telling Morgan that it would keep her safe.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And with that, Morgan left her family home, catching a ride to Minneapolis before boarding a flight to Atlanta, arriving in the city with only a few bags and $20 in her pocket.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Morgan found her way to the apartment she had planned to stay at, and for at least the first night, being seemed to be fine.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But the following day, and for reasons I was unable to find in the research, Morgan was asked to leave.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Putting the teenager out on the street less than two days after arriving in Atlanta, with no knowledge of the neighborhood, or any friends to rely on.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But Morgan was determined.

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[SPEAKER_01]: She hadn't come all that way just to go back to Aberdeen, and she was going to make it work.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So she checked into a motel, calling her mom to let her know what had happened, but telling her that she didn't need to worry.

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[SPEAKER_01]: She was looking for waitressing jobs, and she had a tax return that was supposed to deposit soon.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Morgan was going to make it, but there was a problem.

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[SPEAKER_01]: When she began putting in applications, she quickly learned that she didn't bring the right employment paperwork from home, and without it, potential jobs couldn't process her applications.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Worst, the tax return hadn't come yet, leaving Morgan struggling on her own.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But again, the girl was resilient, and determined to make it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So Morgan took a job at a place called Top of Gainesville, a strip club in Hall County, Georgia,

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[SPEAKER_01]: To Morgan, it wasn't ideal, but it paid cash, and it could be enough to get her by while she sorted out the payroll issues.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It also provided her with enough income to continue running rooms and hotels and help to keep a roof overhead.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Things were finally looking up, but sadly, tragedy was about to strike.

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[SPEAKER_01]: On February 25th, 2016, Morgan took the bus from Hall County into Atlanta, hoping to get a second job and another strip club called T's.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But like with the waitressing jobs, there was a paperwork issue.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So she returned to her night shift at Top of Gainesville, when it was over, Morgan left, and she would never be seen alive again.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The next day, Sherry grew concerned.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Morgan's best friend, Terren, was also concerned.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Even though the two friends were now hundreds of miles apart, they communicated regularly, texting and snapchatting each other throughout the day.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And when Sherry learned that Terren had not heard from Morgan, she called the Atlanta Police to report her daughter missing.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, at first, investigators didn't suspect any foul play.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Morgan was 19, an adult, and she had been in a rough living situation.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And they originally believed that she may have just moved on without telling anyone.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But in her heart, sharing knew that wasn't the case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Morgan would have let someone know if she was moving to a new location.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So she made a two-day trip from Aberdeen to Atlanta to set up in a motel, where she made missing persons flyers and contacted local news stations, Sherry Canvas neighborhood, looking for anyone who may have seen Morgan.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Meanwhile, investigators learned that on the night of her disappearance, Morgan had left the club with two people, Caitlyn Gold, another dancer,

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[SPEAKER_01]: According to the couple, they had taken Morgan South and dropped her off at a Sikko gas station along Highway 278, in Covington, Georgia.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Gold and Warren told investigators that as they were pulling away, they saw Morgan walk towards a green Mitsubishi eclipse, before climbing in and driving off.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The couple told police that they didn't recognize the man behind the wheel and that they had no idea who he was.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Detectives looked into Morgan's phone records, and they found that the last place that it pinged was in Porterdale, nearly three miles from Covington, where Goldman Warren claimed to have dropped Morgan off.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And while the ping wasn't in that exact location, Porterdale was close enough not to set off any alarm bells for investigators.

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[SPEAKER_01]: A Facebook group called Missing Morgan was created, and it quickly grew to more than 13,000 members.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Something about Morgan's story had captured the public.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The small town girl who moved to the big city to chase her dreams only to seemingly vanish.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It resonated with people across the country.

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[SPEAKER_01]: A $10,000 reward would be announced for anyone with any information and a dedicated tip line would be set up and work 24 hours a day.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Additionally, Sherry hired TJ Ward, a well-known private investigator who had also worked on the Natalie Holloway case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And Ward went to work, coming through social media and investigating potential sightings.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Tips were coming in and each one had to be investigated, though most led nowhere.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Meanwhile, detectives worked to track down the man in the green eclipse, but they would have no luck.

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[SPEAKER_01]: No one ever came forward in the car was never found, and as time went on, the case grew cold.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Days turned to weeks and weeks to months and months to years, but, like Morgan, Cherry was determined.

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[SPEAKER_01]: She continued to speak to reporters in podcasts, hoping to keep her daughter's story in the public eye.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Sherry continued to manage the Facebook group and organized vigils, and more than three years after her daughter's disappearance, she would still travel to Atlanta, passing out flyers and looking for answers.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Caitlyn Gold and Jonathan Alexander Warren would break up and go their separate ways, with Gold moving to Pioria, Illinois, and Warren to Las Vegas.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Time continued to pass and the lead to stop coming in, but seven years later, there would be a break in the case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: When a friend of Morgan was going through old Instagram memories,

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[SPEAKER_01]: As they scrolled, they noticed something, opposed for Morgan from years ago, a short video.

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[SPEAKER_01]: In the clip, Morgan filmed herself walking in a park outdoors in the early morning hours, but what stood out was the date.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Morgan was believed to have gone missing on the night of February 25th, 2016, but this video was posted on the morning of February 26th,

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[SPEAKER_01]: Morgan's friend immediately sent a video to Sherry, who knew that this single social media post had changed the entire timeline in her daughter's case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The video was passed to detectives in Atlanta, and as they reviewed it, they noticed that something stood out.

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[SPEAKER_01]: In the background, barely in frame, a man was walking behind the missing girl.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Investigators immediately pulled metadata from the post, and that data was precise.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The video had been taken in Gello River Park in Porterdale, Georgia.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The same place where Morgan's phone had last painted, and less than a mile away from Jonathan Alexander Warren's former home.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Investigators now believe that Goldman Warren had lied about the events that took place on the night of Morgan's disappearance.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If they had really dropped the teenager off of the gas station, it would be highly unlikely that she would double back.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And the fact that the video was taken so close to Warren's home seemed like too much of a coincidence.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now Morgan's body had never been found, and the police wanted to search Warren's former residents, so Warren was issued and served to the new owners of the home.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now the family living at the residence had purchased the house after Warren moved to Los Angeles, and they never suspected it would be involved in any kind of crime.

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[SPEAKER_01]: When the warrant was served, they cooperated fully and without any issue.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The Porter-Dale Police, the Newton County Sheriff's Office, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Atlanta Police, and the FBI all coordinated together, searching the home for several days, while Sherry Keenan watched from a distance.

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[SPEAKER_01]: In an interview, she would say that her heart went out to the new owners, and acknowledging that their home being combed through must have been very upsetting for them.

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[SPEAKER_01]: During the search, the Porterdale police chief confirmed that they had in fact located items of evidentiary interest.

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[SPEAKER_01]: However, he did not name those items at the time, but the heartbreaking truth would soon be revealed.

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[SPEAKER_01]: In July, 2023, seven years after her disappearance, investigators discovered the remains of Morgan Erin Bauer.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Buried on the property once owned by Jonathan Alexander Warren, finally allowing Sherry Keenan to bring her daughter home.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Morgan's missing person case had now become a homicide investigation, and a rest would come within the following weeks.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Warren was taken into custody in Los Angeles, and Gold was arrested in Pioria, explaining why the Illinois officers had been involved with the search.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Both would be held without bail and extra-dited back to Georgia.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And secrets that the parrot kept for years were about to finally be revealed.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So that is part one, and we will pick back up next week to cover the conclusion of this case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that normally I give my final thoughts and we cover the devil test, but I'm going to hold off on that until we wrap the entire case up.

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[SPEAKER_01]: However, I did want to take a moment to touch on something that I found myself connecting with while researching this case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that a lot of people who listen may connect with it in the same kind of way.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I really found myself thinking back and relating to Morgan that feeling of being a young adult and knowing that there's this whole world past your doorstep, you know, that feeling of wanting to experience something bigger.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, I really related to that aspect of her story.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I remember being just out of high school and joining a band just because we were going to tour and get to travel and see different parts of the country was something that I felt really

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[SPEAKER_01]: like Morgan, you know, we had very little money in that situation.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And we had to be scrappy and make it work, however we could.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I just really related to that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, even meaning my wife and deciding to put everything I own into a car and move to Nashville.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm sure my family thought that I'd be home within a few months and it's been almost 15 years.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess I just really connected with that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I could totally understand why Morgan would have wanted to chase those things that were bigger than herself at that age.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It just kind of broke my heart that she never got the chance to do that in the way that she really wanted to.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So just something interesting I noticed when I was going through and thought that I would share.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But as I mentioned, we're going to close everything out next week.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I think the updates in this case.

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[SPEAKER_01]: are really kind of insane.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So again, looking forward to covering it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But as always, I want to hear from you is there's something about Morgan's case that you connected with.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Were you familiar with this case as I had kind of mentioned at the top of the episode, because I know that it was in the media a lot.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yo.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So always interested to hear what you think.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You can find me on Instagram at check the box pod, find me on Twitter at check the locks.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're not in our Facebook group, please come hang out with us.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It is filled with the best people on the internet.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So if that is you, come kick it with us.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We would absolutely love to have you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If you're interested, there is a link in the description of the episode that you're listening to right now.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Click that link, answer a few questions, and boom.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And if you can't find the answer to support the show, I definitely understand, just hanging out with me, sharing the show with your friends, your family, the people who are important to you, it means just as much if not more.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I say it every week, but this is a tiny independent podcast.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So when you share it with people, you let people know that it's

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[SPEAKER_01]: This, it really does help the show grow in ways that I can't even put into words.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So, please just know if you're sharing this in any way shape or form, it really does mean the world to me.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That is all that I have for you for part 1 of this week's case, but please make sure that you're subscribed to check the locks on your favorite podcast apps so that you never miss an episode.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I will see you again next week with part 2 of this truly terrifying true crime case, but until then, remember, monsters are real, so stay safe, stay ready, don't forget to.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Check the locks.

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[SPEAKER_01]: See you next week.