Chapter 1: What happened to Morgan Fox and how did it unfold?
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When people tell me she's in heaven now. No, Morgan doesn't want to be in heaven. She wants to be here. She wants to be raising her daughter. She wants to be living the life. She was shot while she was getting into the vehicle. So this is an execution. That's what it appeared. She was discovered by her boyfriend. There's very distinct things that you're doing that are not normal.
She was a manager at FedEx. She came to me and she was crying.
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Chapter 2: What were the circumstances surrounding Morgan's murder?
If you think he sounds a little less than frantic, you are not alone.
When you get here, officers are already here.
Paramedics are here. Yeah. Stark County Sheriff's Office Sergeant Craig Kennedy supervised the investigation. Her car is parked right here in the driveway. And she's still in it? So partially she slumped into the driver's seat with one foot still out on the ground. Door still open? Door was still open and there was some remnants of some food wrappers that appeared she was taking items for lunch.
The passenger side window had been shattered. 29-year-old Morgan had been shot. So she comes out the front door, gets in her car. Somebody comes up from behind her. Yes. It's quick. Yes. And this is an execution. Like, there's no fight. Correct.
Around 8 AM, one of Morgan's family members noticed the law enforcement presence at the house and called Morgan's mom, Cindy, who at first was not worried. She had just chatted with her daughter at 1.30 a.m., about six and a half hours earlier.
She's like, she should be fine.
Morgan's aunt, Chris Wilcop.
So then she started trying to call Morgan, and she couldn't get a hold of Morgan. And then she called Morgan's boyfriend and couldn't get a hold of him. So Cindy got in the car and drove over.
And that's when she found out?
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Chapter 3: How did Morgan's workplace culture contribute to the investigation?
The amount of animals... that we brought home, the amount of trouble we got in on bringing said animals home, you know?
She didn't care.
No, not at all. Not at all. I remember we were set on starting a nonprofit to help animals.
To help broken wing birds.
Yeah, we were going to have all the animals in the world and we were just going to save everybody and give everybody a home.
And if she saw someone being wronged, She would stand up for them, and if she thought she was being wronged, she would say something.
Yeah, yeah. Morgan was very loud. You know, that's something she didn't hold back on. That was her beliefs.
If she stand on it, she stood on it, and she was going to let you know about it. Morgan grew up quickly, pregnant at 20. She had a daughter, Amelia, Emmy for short. Morgan raised her as a single parent. When she landed an entry-level job as a package handler at FedEx... That was good news for a working mom. And working at FedEx was a big step up from what Morgan had been doing before.
Yes, because she had had a lot of server jobs, so this was something that she seen as an opportunity to better herself and her life for her and her daughter.
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Chapter 4: What were the initial responses from Morgan's family and friends?
If there's a handbook for how you're supposed to act when your girlfriend is murdered, Jason Skarniecki did not follow it. When we spoke with Jason, he wasn't super upset. He didn't exhibit signs of being hysterical or anything like that. And he sounds pretty calm on that 911 call. He was pretty calm on the 911 call.
She's bleeding from her head? It looks like it, yeah.
but we kind of kept in mind people handle stress differently. His lack of emotion was not the only thing that caught investigators' attention. When we wanted him to come to the sheriff's office for an interview, he said that he wanted to get a pair of socks.
And at that point in time for scene preservation, we told him we couldn't just allow him to go through the residence, that we would retrieve them for him. And he decided not to wear any socks to the sheriff's office. Suggesting he doesn't want you looking through his bedroom. Correct. Well, that must have made you sit up a little taller. That's our first red flag. Jason, my name's Craig Kennedy.
Within an hour, a sockless Jason was sitting face-to-face with Detective Kennedy at the sheriff's office.
How long have you guys been dating? How long have you lived together? Dating since August of last year.
And how does he seem in that interview? In the interview, he was relatively calm. Jason walked the investigator through the previous 12 hours. He said he and Morgan had dinner at home. Then Morgan dropped off her daughter at her mom Cindy's house, where she sometimes slept when Morgan had to get up early for work. So once she comes back home, what happens?
I was in the bedroom. She goes, hey, I need to use your laptop. She's typing her email. I eat an apple.
And I said, hey, all right, I'm going to bed. She goes, OK, I'll be home soon. Jason said he went to sleep and was only half conscious when Morgan got out of bed around 1.30 a.m.
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Chapter 5: What evidence pointed to Jason McDermott as a suspect?
I'm sure. After the recording ended, Kennedy says, Jason broke down. At the end of the interview, he did exhibit some emotions, which we would expect from someone that's kind of in shock. And after everything finally hits them. So was he telling the truth? Morgan's family believed he was.
I think that it's normal to think that, like, boyfriend, you know, jealousy.
Something goes wrong in the relationship?
Yeah, absolutely.
Did you ever wonder about Jason?
I never thought it was really Jason Skardekia. He cared too much about Morgan.
The Jason the family saw was devastated. Morgan's mom pointed sheriff's investigators in a new direction.
The first thing out of Cindy's mouth was, go to FedEx. FedEx is how this happened.
As far as investigators could tell, Morgan Fox was a woman with no enemies. There was no obvious place to begin the search for her killer. Except, according to her mom, maybe one.
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Chapter 6: What was Jason McDermott's defense during the trial?
When I get there and I get out of the car and she just crumbles and starts crying. Cindy never cried, so it was really hard.
Cora drove in too, trying to prepare herself for what was coming. I've never lost anybody besides grandparents. So I also, you know, was like, I have to be strong. I'm going to keep it together. She failed to do that when she took Morgan's daughter to the house to pick up some clothes. The lunch Morgan had packed for work was still lying there on the pavement.
And I remember pulling up to the house and seeing the water bottle and the pot pie still in the driveway.
And knowing that, you know, 36 hours ago Morgan was still alive and standing right in that same spot and dropping those items because she was shot dead is something that I literally see in my sleep. It is something that sticks with me forever. And I hate it. At the sheriff's office, investigators now focused on the FedEx workforce, of which Morgan had been part.
In her complaint to Human Resources, she had named several co-workers. One of them was the guy Morgan found holding her phone, Jason McDermott. When we first started looking at Jason McDermott, we did some social media searches, and we observed his profile picture was him posing with a cat. We looked at each other, and we were like, this isn't our guy. Single guys with cats.
Single men with cats don't commit murder. Cat lover or not, they had to look into it. Jason McDermott was also buddies with Mickey Watkins. He'd helped her get the hang of the job. What made you guys close friends?
Jason was a really good trainer. He knew how to be helpful and keep you going pretty much throughout the day. And he had the same interests as me. I wasn't a gamer, but my son was. So he could tell me stuff about video games, and that made me a better, cooler mom to my son.
Hey, Jason.
How are you?
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Chapter 7: How did the jury arrive at a verdict in this case?
And is the middle of a murder investigation.
Yes.
Anybody getting any work done that week?
Everyone's expected to, but no, it's really uncomfortable. For me, I was scared. I was afraid that maybe there would be retaliation against me.
Just because of you helping Morgan out?
Just because I had known what was going on.
On top of that, Michelle thought her bosses were angry at her for not doing more.
Three of them took me into the conference room and started grilling me about what's going on. And I said, I don't know. I told them the situation from my perspective of she came to me, she was upset, nobody was doing anything about the situation with her phone. I don't know what's happened, but... But she's dead. But she's dead.
And I felt that they were blaming me, that they kept questioning me. And I told them that I reached out to HR, and nothing had happened. So what? Why are you pointing the finger at me? Like, it's my fault.
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Chapter 8: What legacy did Morgan Fox leave behind for her family?
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it breaks my heart.
Morgan's eight-year-old daughter, Emmy, was there, and she carried something with her.
Emmy and her mom played a game, pretending like they would be sleeping, and the Vicks VapoSticks, they would put it under their noses and pretend like, you know, Emmy would wake her up. And Emmy took it with her to the funeral home, because she thought if she would... wave that under her nose, she'd wake up.
It was a heartbreaking moment. And with Morgan's killer still at large, there was also an undercurrent of fear at the funeral.
To know that the person responsible is still walking the streets, you're not sleeping, you're wondering how, who, where are they?
And why.
And why.
Detectives were working to answer those questions. and they received a significant tip.
A person that wanted to remain anonymous claimed they worked at FedEx, and there were some rumors about Morgan Fox and David DiNardo having an affair. This person was claiming that that affair was the cause of David DiNardo's recent divorce.
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