On June 18, 1977, the body of thirty-nine-year-old businessman Charles “Chuck” Morgan was found in the desert approximately forty miles west of his Tucson, Arizona, home. He had been shot once in the back of his head. The investigation into his death became one of the most complicated in Arizona history. Morgan himself emerged as a murky figure who may have been figuratively, and perhaps even literally, running for his life.
Who was Chuck Morgan is a hard question to answer. Who killed Chuck Morgan is a question that may never be answered.
Chuck Morgan
Tourism is one of Arizona’s biggest industries as it attracts some of America’s wealthiest people. It is important for the economy, but it also attracts some unsavory characters.
During the 1970s, Tucson became a favorite mafia haven as more than five-hundred racketeers moved to “The Old Pueblo,” including former New York crime boss Joseph Bonanno. The warm climate was nice, but for the dons, the grand feature of the Grand Canyon State was its criminal justice system. A state law allowed the mafia leaders to buy land through numbered blind trust accounts, allowing them to remain anonymous as they laundered money. At the time, Arizona was the only state allowing blind trust ownership of real estate.
In these instances, the only person who knew the owner’s identity was the escrow agent who facilitated the transactions.
Arizona Is A Mob Sanctuary
Chuck Morgan owned the Statewide Escrow Service, Inc. a real estate escrow agency, in Tucson. He is known to have done escrow work for at least one Mafia “family,” and he was a potential witness in a land fraud case involving an organized crime boss.
After driving two of his daughters to school on March 22, 1977, Morgan disappeared. At 2:00 a.m. on March 25, he stumbled into his home, discombobulated and unable to speak. He was missing one shoe, had one plastic handcuff around his ankle, and both hands cuffed by plastic zip ties. Unable to speak, he wrote a note to his wife, Ruth, saying his throat had been doused with a hallucinogenic drug, which, if it did not kill him, could drive him terminally insane or destroy his central nervous system.
Though Morgan told Ruth his abductors had taken seven platinum bars from his car, he adamantly conveyed that she was not to call the police, fearing “they” would kill them and their children if she did so. Morgan refused to reveal who “they” were, only writing that he escaped from his captors at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport.
Morgan Disappears
Then Returns In Disarray
For the following week, Ruth nursed her husband back to health. Before his voice returned, he conveyed a seemingly bizarre tale: He had been secretly working for the United States Treasury Department for the past three years and that “they” (his kidnappers) had stolen his treasury identification.
Three months later, on June 7, Chuck Morgan disappeared again. Nine days later, Ruth received a phone call from a woman who said he had asked her to call her to say he was all right and would be home soon. The woman, who refused to identify herself, quoted to Ruth part of the Bible passage Ecclesiastics 12: 1-8: “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.”
Ruth Morgan
Chuck’s Wife
At 8:00 a.m. on June 18, 1977, Chuck Morgan was found dead in the desert approximately forty miles southwest of Tucson. The locale was approximately thirty feet off Arizona State Highway 86 on the Papago Indian Reservation.
Morgan’s body lay approximately ten feet from his car, a 1977 Mercury Cougar. A note he had written of directions to the locale was found inside his vehicle.
Geography Of The Area
Morgan had been killed by one gunshot wound to the back of his head. The bullet had come from his own .357 magnum, lying beside him. Gunshot residue was found on his left hand, but no fingerprints were found on the gun. His attire was odd, as he was wearing a bullet proof vest and a belt buckle which concealed a knife and holster.
The items found inside Morgan’s vehicle were also puzzling, seemingly suggesting the businessman was preparing for war. In addition to containing a cache of ammunition and weapons, several CB radios, and a police monitor, his car had been modified so it could be unlocked from the fender.
Also inside the car were a pair of sunglasses not owned by Morgan and, perhaps most perplexingly, a portion of one of his teeth was wrapped in a handkerchief on his car’s back seat.
Morgan’s body showed little decomposition; it was determined he had been dead no more than twelve hours.
Having found gun powder reside on his left hand and not finding any signs of a struggle or any other nearby footprints, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department believed the scene suggested suicide, although they had a hard time fathoming why the right-handed Morgan would have donned a bulletproof vest to drive forty miles from his home to the desert in the middle of the night to shoot himself in the back of the head with his off-hand.
As a result, the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the method of Chuck Morgan’s death as undetermined.
Suicide Or Murder?
As the medical examiner removed Morgan’s clothing to conduct an autopsy, he found a $2 bill clipped inside his underwear.
The $2 Bill Found
Seven Spanish names, numbered 1-7, were written on the front of the bill. Written above the names was the same Ecclesiastics biblical reference the unknown woman had quoted to Ruth.
The Written Names On the Front Of The Bill
On the back of the bill, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were also numbered 1-7, and a crudely drawn map showed several roads between Tucson and the Mexican border. All roads led to a locale called Robles Junction. From there, they headed south to the town of Sasabe and ultimately to a ranch with landing strips likely used for drug smuggling.
The Numbers On The Back Of the Bill
On June 20, two days after Chuck Morgan’s body was found, a woman calling herself “Green Eyes” phoned the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. She told them Morgan had met her at the E-Z 8 Motel on Tucson’s west side on four occasions over the two weeks before his death. During the last meeting, on June 15, she claimed Morgan showed her a briefcase full of $50 and $20 bills. Morgan said the money totaled $60,000 and would cancel a contract that had been put on his life. Green Eyes said the final contact she had with Morgan was the following day, two days before he was found dead, when he asked her to phone Ruth.
Shortly after hearing from Green Eyes, a man called the sheriff’s department saying Morgan was involved in buying gold bars and gold coins in Mexico. The man identified himself only as “the husband of Green Eyes.”
The real identities of Green Eyes or her purported husband were not determined, and their relationship to Chuck Morgan has never been learned.
Who Is “Green Eyes”?
A similar briefcase to the one described by Green Eyes had been found in Morgan’s car following his death, but it contained only business papers. Several days later, Morgan’s impounded car was broken into while in police possession and his office was ransacked.
Three weeks later, two men claiming to be FBI Agents arrived unannounced at Ruth’s home and proceeded to ransack the residence. They seemed to be looking for something in particular but did not appear to find it as they left without confiscating anything.
The FBI denied sending agents to the Morgan home.
Ruth’s Home Is Ransacked
Phoenix investigative journalist Don Devereux began investigating Chuck Morgan’s death in 1986. He believes the businessman described by many as an “escrow genius” was on the payroll of organized crime.
From 1973 until Morgan’s death in 1977, Devereux says the Mafia paid the escrow agent to facilitate illegal gold and platinum transactions, convenient means to launder money, in excess of $1 billion. Many of these transactions existed only on paper with the money changing hands by changing escrow accounts in Los Angeles and Atlanta banks.
Much of the loot appeared to be coming from Southeast Asia, beginning at the end of the Vietnam War. Devereux contends exiled Vietnam officials as well as many American intelligence community operatives also appear to have been involved, including CIA and Defense Department renegades. Perhaps they were operating undercover for the agency, but they were more likely lining their own pockets.
Devereux believes Mafia-associated members put out a contract on Morgan’s life after learning he had kept records of the illegal transactions and fearing his testifying against them in an upcoming trial. He theorizes a hit man told Morgan about the contract and the escrow agent accumulated the money to pay him off, only to be double-crossed in the desert where he was killed by the hit man who then absconded with the money. In a perverse way, Devereux believes Morgan paid for his own murder.
Chuck Corrupted?
The case of Chuck Morgan was profiled on Unsolved Mysteries on February 7, 1990. Don Devereux was interviewed in the segment, and his articles about his investigation into Morgan’s death were soon published.
Three months later, just after midnight on May 15, thirty-five-year-old Doug Johnston of Phoenix was found dead in his car in the company parking lot of ICM Inc., the computer graphics company where he worked. He had been shot once behind his left ear.
Similar to the Chuck Morgan death scene, Doug Johnston’s death appeared to be a suicide at first glance. No gun, however, was found and his hands contained no residue. The only evidence at the scene was a .25 caliber bullet casing. The murder weapon has never been found. Johnston’s death was ultimately ruled a homicide; his killer is still unknown.
Doug Johnston
Don Devereux’s office was across the street from ICM Inc., and he was struck by several similarities between Johnston and himself. The men resembled each other, and they drove similar Toyotas. In addition, Devereux’s home and Johnston’s work address differed by only one number.
Six months later, in November 1990, Devereux was contacted by a fellow investigative journalist who told him he had heard from a “high place” CIA source that Devereux’s suspicions were correct, the bullet that killed Doug Johnston was meant for him. According to the journalist, the “source” said there was still a contract out on Devereux’s life because of his investigations involving the CIA and organized crime, i.e. the Chuck Morgan case.
Devereux says two other sources, one from the CIA and the other from Israeli intelligence, later confirmed the death threats. He has the warnings from both agencies on tape.
Doug Johnston Don Devereux
A Mistaken Hit?
In August 1991, Don Devereux was contacted by Washington, D.C. investigative journalist Dan Casolaro. While researching another story, Casolaro said he had uncovered information about Chuck Morgan’s illegal gold and platinum transactions. Casolaro agreed to share the information with Devereux, but the former was found dead under strange circumstances only a couple of weeks later.
Devereux believes the same network of people, including the mob and the renegade intelligence community officials involved in the 1970s money laundering transactions, killed Dan Casolaro and tried to kill him for his investigation into what Devereux believes was the murder of Chuck Morgan.
Here is the link to the write-up I did on Dan Casolaro’s controversial death.
Chuck Morgan claimed he was working against organized crime, but it appears, at least for a time, that he was instead involved with the mob. He probably started out legitimately but could not resist the bribes and temptations. Perhaps he wanted to go straight but was coerced into staying in the Mafia’s pocket. By the time he tried to get out, it was too late.
Shortly before his death, Morgan had testified in a secret state investigation of illegal money laundering on both sides of the Arizona-Mexico border. After giving his sworn deposition in a land fraud case against a reputed crime boss, Arizona Attorney General Bruce Babbitt had offered Morgan state protection in preparation for potentially testifying in an upcoming trial. Morgan declined the offer.
Later, however, Morgan became paranoid, telling people he believed he was being followed and that a contract had been put out on his life. Investigators, however, say they have no evidence of any such death warrant issued against him, and that there is no proof he was murdered by the mob.
One way or the other, Chuck Morgan was in way over his head and for that he got a bullet in his head. Whether the bullet came for his hand or the hand of another is still debated. If he was murdered, no specific suspects have been named.
A Man Of Mystery
Whose Death Is a Mystery
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/163324812/charles-curtis-morgan
- SOURCES:
- Arizona Daily Star
- Phoenix New Times
- Tucson Citizen
- Unsolved Mysteries
0 Comments