25 years later, commutation and imprisoned father muddy case of slain IIT basketball player
The
That account of Morgan's 1993 death, according to thousands of pages of notes, investigative reports and evidence logs, prevailed for years. It led to the conviction of one man for murder and the guilty plea of a second man. Both spent years in prison for the crime.
But 25 years after Morgan's half-naked body was found wedged between the front and back seats of his mother's abandoned blue Chevrolet Cavalier on
The two men accused of killing the 20-year-old honor student are now free. According to attorneys, a leading alternative suspect -- Morgan's father -- sits in prison, the admitted killer of a woman under circumstances similar to his son's death. And the statements of the accused and several key witnesses used as the basis for the case are in doubt, the result, some say, of police coercion and brutality.
With so much lingering uncertainty, the question remains the same as it did in
Case seemed open and shut
Morgan, a 5-foot-7 sophomore guard who averaged 18 points a game and wanted to become a lawyer, was last seen on
Morgan's whereabouts were unknown for nine days. The case drew citywide attention. His family and the police made up "Have You Seen This Missing Person?" posters and flyers, with a description of Morgan and what he was last seen wearing: blue jean shorts, a black T-shirt underneath a black-and-white striped jersey, black Converse gym shoes.
Morgan's decomposing body was found
By the end of May, two men from the Pullman neighborhood,
Washington told police Hood shot Morgan as the pair robbed him, a statement he later said was false, the result of police punching and slapping him while he was handcuffed. That version of events prevailed at Hood and Washington's criminal trials three years later. Hood was convicted of murder and sentenced to 75 years in prison. Washington's trial ended in a hung jury. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Unusual circumstances
Lawyers have said for years, and argued in a series of legal filings and appeals, that Hood and Washington did not kill Morgan, and that instead the likely suspect is actually Morgan's father,
Six months before
"A suspect has been placed in jail for the murder with the robbery being the apparent motive," one of the insurance company's reviewers wrote. "No beneficiary involvement. Please approve."
Adding to the suspicion in the years following
Then,
As part of a review of the Morgan case by the Cook Cook state's attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit, Assistant State's Attorney
The father told investigators he was not having financial trouble at the time of his son's death and said taking out the insurance policy was a normal practice for a father. He claimed his son wanted him listed as the policy's beneficiary.
But parents don't usually purchase life insurance on the lives of their children, according to
While there are valid reasons for a child to have life insurance protection (a way to build savings that can be used later in life, obtaining permanent lifetime coverage at a less expensive rate than an adult), the basic purpose of life insurance is to compensate for a loss, Dolan said in an email. Benefits from a life insurance policy help a family cope financially following the death of a wage earner, and children rarely are the main wage earners in a family, Dolan said.
McGreal, during the prison interview, asked
"No I did not," Morgan said, according to Papa and McGreal's report.
The report continued: "
State's attorney's review
Hood also has consistently denied he killed
In a brief memo note dated
"After conducting and completing the review, it is the recommendation that no further action be taken on the matter as it pertains to the unit."
The state's attorney's office said that one-page document is the only summary of investigators' review of the case. A spokeswoman did not make Papa available for an interview.
Pages of police reports, interview notes and trial transcripts detail how the case against Hood and Washington came together.
Police said Washington, during questioning, detailed how Hood spotted Morgan pull up and park his car.
"There's a vic," Hood told Washington, according to the
Hood approached Morgan, the report says, and told him, "Low it like you owe it." Morgan reached into his pocket and pulled out some money. Hood asked for more, and as Morgan reached into his other pocket, the report says Hood shot him in the stomach.
When he was found, Morgan was missing a gold rope chain and a Quigley South class ring and although he was believed to have about
Twelve days after Morgan was killed, on
The key piece of physical evidence connecting Hood to the shooting was his fingerprint on a Miller beer bottle in a trash bag found in the back of Morgan's car. Hood was interviewed again by police at Area One, continued to deny his involvement and said he did not believe his prints were found on any evidence.
Then, according to the police report prepared by Area One detectives, "He also spontaneously stated that 'If I don't say anything to explain, I will go to jail for a long time. If I do tell what happened, I will go to jail.'"
Witness accounts
A review of the case files, transcripts, filings and documents in the state's attorney's possession, which the office made available to the Tribune in response to a freedom of information request, offers a few glimpses into the reviewers' mindset. Notes and underlining of court filings from Hood and Washington's attorneys show where prosecutors disagree or question defense arguments, summaries of evidence or constructed counternarratives.
In a passage of one appeal, Hood's lawyers note that one witness in the case,
"How is this exculpatory?" one of the reviewers scribbled next to the passage.
During the re-examination of the case, Papa and McGreal interviewed Crossley. Crossley and his brother, Jody, testified at trial
The gun used to kill
Crossley said he was never given any money by the police or prosecutors in exchange for his testimony in the Morgan affair. Crossley said he signed an affidavit that had been written out for him, but that he doesn't read very well and only signed the document because he thought he was going to get out of prison on an unrelated case soon, according to McGreal's
Papa, during the interview at Crossley's
"Get the f--- out of here," Crossley told Papa and McGreal. "That is a damn lie. No one gave me no
Papa and McGreal, according to their report, pressed Crossley for details regarding anything he could remember about the Marshall Morgan Jr. slaying. But Crossley continually demurred, stating that he didn't remember much about something that happened so long ago and that medication he was taking was hurting his memory.
While several witnesses in the case have changed their stories about what they saw or knew about Morgan's killing, one man,
Bob's story came to light nearly three years after the killing when investigators were interviewing a woman who said she might have seen Hood in the victim's car the day after Morgan disappeared. Bob happened to be visiting the woman when investigators asked her to review a photo array. Bob told police he recognized Hood and remembered seeing him the night after Morgan was killed.
Sentence commuted
After serving nearly 22 years behind bars, Hood was released from prison in the winter of 2015. Then-Gov.
Quinn, in a recent telephone interview, said he tried to look at each individual petition for clemency or sentence commutation during his time in office. Hood's case stood out.
"With
Hood, who now lives in
"I didn't kill him," Hood said. "So the killer has to be out there."
After Hood's sentence was commuted, the state's attorney's office said it was not going to try him again. But no one else has been charged with the crime.
"I can't go wrong with telling the truth," Hood said during a recent interview in the break room of the Loevy & Loevy law firm's offices in the
But
"Without commenting on all of the evidence, there is, however, physical evidence and un-recanted testimony linking the petitioner to the murder of
Hood's lawyers argue that
But Stephenson said there is a lack of evidence for those theories, and the alternative narrative is not enough to rule out Hood's involvement in
"There is absolutely no physical evidence linking
Quinn said he is perplexed by the judge's rulings and by the state's neutral position.
"I'm puzzled by it," Quinn said. "I'm disappointed. I really feel the state should act."
Quinn said he believes the state's attorney's office should stand in favor of Hood's innocence, instead of taking no position.
"All of us, we have a duty to justice and if something went wrong, we've tried to do that with clemency and we've tried to act," Quinn said.
Hood's arrest for murder and armed robbery remains on his record. It also means he has not been able to collect
Hood said that because he was linked to Morgan through the fingerprint, he is now ultra-careful with his garbage. He has a lock on his garbage can lid that he clasps every night.
"I'm stuck. I feel like an ex-felon. I feel like an innocent man who is an ex-felon," Hood said. "I just feel like I want the same thing as before all this happened: I want my name back. It feels like someone has a hold of my name and is keeping it."
When asked about Bob's story, and the relative consistency of his eyewitness account, Hood questions how Bob possibly could have physically seen what he claims to have seen. Hood said he believes the police fed Bob information in an effort to connect Hood to the crime.
"There's too many loopholes in him," Hood said of Bob. "
A haunting case
In the lobby of the
"This was the kind of case that haunted me for a long time," Mullenix said recently. "I had to suppress the memory. It was a bad loss. I tried to forget this case for a long time."
Mullenix called into question the statements, and truthfulness, of an array of prosecutor witnesses.
"They don't find any fingerprints on the car or on the steering wheel or seat or on the mirror or anything," Mullenix said.
He also said the prosecution's key witness, Bob, was unreliable.
"A few years had gone by and he never went to the police? Why? I thought, 'Why would he make up this story?' Why? Maybe he thought it was his 15 minutes of fame. Maybe he told police what they wanted to hear," Mullenix said.
And the other wild card in the case is the behavior of the police. Several of the police officers involved in the investigation have been under scrutiny in recent years for their tactics. Washington has claimed he was forced into his confession. Hood and Washington have separately filed federal civil lawsuits against the city of
Much of the initial case centered on the statements of several people who told police Hood had planned a robbery, and Bob, who claimed to have seen him the next night in
"There's a lot of shenanigans that go on, and figuring it all out is a work of art and a painstaking ordeal," said
Gorman said it was not uncommon in years past for prosecutors to write out statements for witnesses or suspects, purposely adding lines that could be crossed out later in order to make the documents look more authentic. This practice also is mentioned in the footnotes of a 2016 dissenting opinion from the torture commission. This is less common now that interviews with suspects and witnesses are videotaped.
"I'd look at all of these statements with a jaundiced eye," Gorman said. "Obviously, they're written in a way that is favorable to the case, in their point of view."
"Tyrone has said every day since 1993 that he had nothing to do with this," Leonard said. "The truth is stubborn and the facts are stubborn and they don't change. Lots of people say lots of different things. If you can focus on those kernels of truth in that noise, those are the pieces that are the most reliable."
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