Criminology - Christina Morris

Episode Date: November 28, 2021

On August 29, 2014, the Friday before Labor Day, 23-year-old Christina Morris met up with some of her old friends from high school in Plano, Texas, for a night out. She never made it back to the residence that she shared with her boyfriend. Investigators looked at several suspects during their investigation. Christina's boyfriend was evasive when questioned. But, it was a person who Christina knew, Enrique Arochi, that police really began to suspect. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance and murder of Christina Morris. Enrique Arochi escorted Christina to her car the night she vanished. But, he told a number of different stories to police, friends, and co-workers. The police had to use text messages, video surveillance, and other pieces of evidence to finally figure who was responsible for what happened to Christina that night. You can support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello everyone and welcome to episode 185 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, what's going on with you, buddy? Not too much. I'm back to full strength. I appreciate you covering for me last week when my voice wouldn't hold up. I think he did a great job.

And I'm ready to go. Rested my voice and ready to jump in this episode. Yeah, it was definitely strange. right the first time that we had to kind of stop and let's see if somebody's voice will improve in in a day or so obviously yours did not it actually got worse when I talked to you so we had to kind of move forward with just me but you know it happens you're on a tight schedule sometimes when you're podcasting and things happen yeah and a lot of people were really nice and said, you know, they appreciated you doing the episode on your own and they were hoping I was

feeling better and I am. So thank you for people saying the nice things that they did. Oh, our fans are amazing. Everybody's so nice. And I mean, the last thing we wanted to do was not have an episode out for everybody. So we made the decision to go that way. Speaking of nice people more, if we had a couple of Patreon shout out. So let's give those new Patreon supporters in the form of Amanda and Yelly G. So I, you know, I will say, I appreciate that very much. I know you do as well. Our Patreon support has been down a little lately.

And I invite anyone who loves the show to check out Patreon and think about joining. Yeah, it all year around, people are very supportive. And I know sometimes before the holidays, it cuts down a little bit because people have other things, which is perfectly understandable. but for anyone that is able to help support the show, we really can't thank you enough, and you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, buddy. So we're releasing this episode on Thanksgiving weekend.

We're recording it before Thanksgiving. So, you know, I'll say in advance. I hope you have a nice Thanksgiving holiday. I hope everyone does. Yeah, it's that time of year when everyone's thinking about family and getting together. So it's a fun time of year. Yeah, you know, getting together, reflecting on things that people are thankful for. Now, in this episode, we're going to talk about a case that happens over a different holiday weekend,

Labor Day weekend. It's a little bit of a different type of holiday, right? Than Thanksgiving. Labor Day weekend kind of signifies the end of summer and allows everyone to have kind of a relaxing get-together with friends and family, maybe over a barbecue, maybe there's some soda pot. or beers shared. But as with every holiday, sometimes bad things can happen over Labor Day weekend. Now, for me, Morph, when I think about those types of mishaps or tragedies, I think of things

involving boats, alcohol, car accidents, these are often the result of a split-second decision or poor judgment, not always because someone decided to try something risky, new, or or even dangerous, but while the Labor Day weekend is supposed to be a fun time for all, sometimes bad things happen to good people under mysterious circumstances. And that's exactly what happened in the case of 23-year-old Christina Morris. Christina Marie Morris was born on July 25, 1991 in Wiley, Texas to Mark Morris and Johnny Lee Hare. She graduated from Allen High School in 2009 and went on to attend the University of Texas in Dallas. She earned a bachelor's degree in business and marketing and graduated

in 2013. On August 29, 2014, the Friday before Labor Day, 23-year-old Christina Morris met up with some of old friends from high school in Plano, Texas, about 46 minutes northeast of Fort Worth for a night out. At the time, Christina worked for the dating company great expectations as a photographer and a salesperson. She lived with her boyfriend Hunter Foster, in Fort Worth, Texas. The group of friends was going to go to a few bars together for a night out. They hadn't hung out together in about three months due to distance in their schedules. And following the outing, Christina was going to spend the night with a friend in Plano.

And Morph, this is something that I remember very well. You know, you have a group of friends, whether it's your group of friends from high school or your group of friends from college. You know, when both of those end, it's very natural for people to go there separate ways, people go off to different colleges, people get jobs in different cities. Then it becomes kind of the task of getting everyone together. And it can be very difficult. Yeah, I think once people get jobs and families and kids, you have intentions to get together,

but it always seems like something comes up and you have to. put that off and find time to do that kind of thing. So it makes sense that maybe trying to get something going around Labor Day might make perfect sense in this situation. At around 9 p.m., Christina met with friends Paulina Petrovsky, Stephen Nickerson, James Neuera, Justin Hill, Brea Lofton, and Enrique Irachi, who had all gone to Allen High School together, and Sabrina Boss. a friend of Paulina's from college. So just as I was talking about earlier, this is a little bit of a mix, mostly friends from high school, at least one friend from college.

The group began hanging out and drinking at Paulina's apartment, where Christina planned to stay that night before heading out to the bars. Most of them had to repark their cars in the parking garage by Henry's Tavern because they had all originally, you know, parked in. of a limited parking space, like a one hour parking space. The group ended up splitting up with James, Bria, and Justin drinking at a place called Scruffy Duffies

and the rest of the group going to Henry's Tavern near where they parked. After about half an hour, the larger group went to Scruffy Duffies to join their friends. Now, Christina didn't drink that much while they were out because she suffered from, from severe migraines, which alcohol can sometimes trigger, can make worse. I think anybody who has had a hangover knows about alcohol's headache-inducing effects. But when you think about that for a migraine suffer, it can really be intense. It can come on fast, sometimes bringing on a

migraine within 30 minutes of drinking. So from that standpoint, it's understandable why Christina maybe was trying to take things slowly. After the bars closed at 2 a.m., James, Justin, and Brea went home. Sabrina drove Enrique and Paulina to the Waterberger, about four miles away, while Christina and Stephen walked to Paulina's apartment. So, Morf, have you ever had Waterberger?

I've heard of it, never had it. Yeah, we don't have any, where I live in Ohio. I don't know if they have anywhere where you are in Florida. I don't think there's a lot of them on the East Coast. I know it's kind of a Texas chain, I believe, and then spread out from there. It's very good. I had it one time with my other partner, Ghibi, and we were in an airport, and I thought, oh, yeah, I'd like to have this again.

The problem is I can't find them anywhere, you know, where I live. Well, that's interesting on these cases we cover because we will touch on these local burger joints and things like that that are popular in those areas. And once we start discussing them, it makes me want to try one of them if I'm ever in those areas. Yeah, the other one that I've always wanted to try is inside out burger, I think, out west. I've never had that as that either. Yeah, I've heard of that, never had it as well. We have one down here in Florida that's pretty popular called Culver's. That's really good. Well, the group is eating their What a Burger meals. Christine was sending text messages to her boyfriend,

He wasn't replying to her text at all, and it clearly was upsetting her. He hadn't texted back since 203 a.m. At 2.12 a.m., Christina asked him to pick her up from Paulina's apartment. Eight minutes later, she asked Hunter to tell her what was wrong. Five minutes after that, she texted Hunter that she had lost her car keys and she needed a ride. She texted Hunter the words, WTFFFF, Hunter, please, and I have to work. Again, she asked him to pick her up. At 3.01 a.m., she texted Hunter, good night with the G missing.

And just three minutes later, she texted him again, saying she hoped that he was okay, but that she wasn't, and her phone was almost dead. At 3.10 a.m., she texted him that he had lost the best thing to happen to him. At 316, she said she was taking a taxi home, and at 329, she begged him to answer her, and that she wasn't mad at him. So it seems pretty clear from these series of texts that she sent that she was upset with him and aggravated that he wasn't answering her replying to her. Yeah, I mean, the other thing that kind of jumps out at me is, okay, are these some texts

from someone who's been drinking? I think probably a lot of us listening, I'll include myself, have woken up the next morning after a night out, looked at my phone and thought, okay, when did I send these texts? and what do half of these even mean? Now, it sounds like she was pretty coherent. I mean, the texts that we read out, you could understand she left the G off of good night, but heck, I could do that stone cold sober. But when you look at the timing, there was obviously something going on.

She was clearly upset over Hunter not replying to her. It was said that she was crying. I mean, anytime I think more if you see text after text after text, it's either because someone's very worried that they're not getting a reply or they're upset about something. Yeah, and I think we see at 310 her texting him that he's lost the best thing that ever happened to him, but then at 329, she's begging him to answer her and telling him that she's not mad at him. So that does sort of feed into the alcohol texting. Paulina and Stephen tried to calm her down and console her, though she had planned to stay over at Paulina's apartment.

Christina decided to leave Paulina's around 3.30 a.m. Neither Paulina or Stephen thought that she was too drunk to drive because she really hadn't had all that much to drink. But they did want her to stop crying before she left. Christina asked Stephen to drive her back home to Fort Worth, but he told her that he could take her home in the morning. It was around this same time that 24-year-old Enrique Aerochi decided to leave as well. He had seemed romantically interested in Paulina's friend Sabrina throughout the night, but she was not interested in him and she was tired and wanted to lay down. Sabrina had tried to lay down on the couch, but Enrique wouldn't move over. So she went and she laid in Paulina's bed with Paulina, which seemed to be.

too upset Enrique. Since Enrique seemed upset with Sabrina and wasn't getting any place with her, he decided to walk Christina to her car, and the two left Paulina's apartment together. About ten minutes after she left the apartment, Stephen Nickerson called Christina to check on her. She told him she was going to be at her car soon and would text when she got there. As far as Stephen could tell, everything was okay. After five more minutes, Stephen texted Christina, asking her if she had made it to her car safely. but she never replied. He tried to call her a few times, but his call went to voicemail.

The next morning, he called Christina again, but those calls also went to voicemail, unanswered. A few days later on September 2, 2014, Christina was reported missing by her boyfriend Hunter. She never returned from Paulina's apartment, and she had missed work for two days in a row. And this was completely unlike her to miss work. and even if she had stayed over at Paulina's as planned, she would have shown up to her own home by then. Hunter was immediately an obvious suspect in her disappearance. She was angry at him and trying to head home to Fort Worth where they lived together, but he didn't report her missing for a number of days.

As far as anyone knew, Christina could have made it home and something could have happened between her and Hunter. for his part, Hunter was not initially cooperative with the police. He even deleted taxed off his phone before he would let anyone examine it. He claimed that while the night Christina vanished was, as he put it, a blur. He also said that he was at a bar in Dallas, the concrete cowboy, when Christina disappeared. According to Hunter, he had been drinking using MDMA and taking Xanax. but he had not been to Plano that night and had stayed at the concrete cowboy

until it closed at 2 a.m. He then went to a nearby hotel with friends. He said that while Christina had been texting him that night, he hadn't checked his phone to read the text. When Hunter got home the next morning at around 10 or 11, Christina wasn't home, and he figured she was just angry with him from the night before. He thought she had probably stayed over at Paulinas

and decided not to come home yet because she was upset with him. On August 30th, Hunter went out drinking again and still hadn't heard from Christina. On September 1st, Christina's father, Mark, called Hunter, asking him if he had heard from her. This worried Hunter, and he called Polina to check on Christina. But she told him that Christina had left with Enrique, so Hunter next called him. Enrique said he had walked Christina about halfway to the parking garage and then headed in a different direction to his car at a different garage.

Around the same time Hunter said he was becoming very worried, Christina's coworkers began to worry as well because Christina had a reputation as a solid employee who was not the kind of person to skip work without a call, not to mention it was the last business day of the month, which was a very important day for her company. Her supervisor, Taylor Shelton, called Christina, but that call went to voicemail. He then texted Hunter. her but got no reply and finally saw a message from a worried friend on Christina's Facebook page. Taylor contacted that friend who then contacted Christina's family. Her parents, her father, stepmother, and her mother started calling friends who told them about Christina and Enrique, leaving together. Christina's stepmother spoke to Enrique and he claimed that they had left the party together but gone separate ways when they got to the sidewalk. According to Enrique, the last time he saw Christina, she was talking very loudly with someone

on the phone in what he said sounded like an argument. Enrique didn't know exactly who she had been talking to because he said he was busy with his own phone conversation with his girlfriend at the same time. There was no activity on Christina's bank accounts after Henry's Tavern that night. though automatic recurring payments did continue to go through. Christina's silver 2001 Toyota Selleca was found around midnight on September 3rd, 2014. It was parked in the shops of Legacy Parking Garage near Henry's Tavern. There were no signs of foul play or any signs of a struggle in the area around the car.

The car doors were locked and it was parked normally. The car was registered to Christina's father who had a key, so he drove at home. Police searched the area thoroughly, even using Blue Star, a chemical that glows blue when it reacts to iron and blood. But they didn't find any evidence in the parking garage that pointed to any kind of injury which produced blood. Christina's mother, Johnny Lee McElroy, would later tell the Huffington Post

that Christina would never have gone into that parking garage by herself and that she never, ever, would walk out to her car at night unless someone walked her out. Authorities were able to recover footage from surveillance cameras that captured Christina walking into the parking garage at 3.55 a.m. She was not alone. A male was with her, and neither of them appeared overly intoxicated. On the footage, investigators identified the man as Enrique Arochi, the classmate of Christina's from Allen High School, who had been at Paulina's apartment the night before.

The same Enrique, who had offered to walk Christina safely to her car at 3.30 in the morning. Enrique told police that he did see Christina in the parking garage, but that they had gone different ways to get to their cars. She had parked near Henry's Tavern, and he went to a different parking garage near the Blue Martini. Police asked if Christina had ever been in his car, and he said that she hadn't ever been inside of his car before. He also claimed that he didn't know where Christina had actually parked her car and that he left. and that he left the parking garage without seeing Christina make it to her car or leave the garage. Enrique said he then drove home using Highway 75. He told CW. 33 out of Dallas Fort Worth, I wish I would have walked her to her car.

So none of this would have happened. The morning after Christina vanished, Enrique was scheduled to work at 8 a.m. But he didn't show up until almost 11 for a shift. Investigators searching Enrique's financial records found a gas purchase at 9.58 a.m. on August 30th, almost two hours after he was already supposed to be at work. This was odd to them because Enrique regularly bought gas roughly every 10 to 11 days, but he had bought gas on August 25th just five days earlier. Authorities now believe that Enrique had taken a trip that he did not mention. A coworker recalled that when he finally showed up for work, Enrique looked tired and hung over. But more importantly, the co-worker also noticed that Enrique had bruises and scratches on his arm,

including a bite mark on his inner forearm, and he was limping. Enrique told the co-worker that he had gotten into a fight the night before over something related to his car at shops of legacy, and had put someone into a chokehold and had been bitten. Later the same week, Enrique changed his story and told the same coworker that he had been injured while rotating the tires on his car when the rim of a tire. fell on his hand. When Enrique's girlfriend saw him on the 30th, she noticed they had cuts on his knuckles and his right hand was injured. So, morph, no doubt, there are some inconsistencies already popping up in the story of Enrique Arochi. I mean, I think one of the first ones that

jumps out at me is that he told Christina's stepmother that they left the party together, but they went their separate ways when they got to the sidewalk. We're now we're well beyond the sidewalk, right? We're into the parking garage. He's talking to the police and saying, okay, we were there and we went our separate ways from that point. And then you get to the fact that he's supposed to be at work that morning. Now, I'll be honest with you.

Back in my early 20s, I did that same thing. You know, I would stay out till two or three in the, morning, do a little drinking, and still be able to make work at 8 or 9 a.m. I couldn't do that now if you paid me, but back then that was something that I did from time to time. So the fact that he was a couple hours late, that didn't jump out at me as being so completely out of the ordinary, right? You have too much to drink. You don't get up when you're supposed to and you roll in to work late. Okay. I could buy that. But I do find it interesting that police got to the point where, you know, they were checking how often he bought gas every 10 or 11 days. And now all of a sudden,

that is cut in half. Well, you have to ask the question. Why would that be? And the most obvious answer is that there was a drive at some point that was out of the ordinary for him. Yeah, I think to your point, when you're the last person seen with someone and they disappear, you're going to have some attention on you. So when you go telling different people you work with multiple stories and you show up to work with injuries that they notice and then you're leaving out possible trips that you made in your car, not filling in the police about that, it's all going to culminate in you looking like you've got something to hide. And at this point, police have to figure out, is he hiding this because he's involved somehow in her disappearance or does he just have a bad memory? And this is something that can be explained away. Yeah, I mean, to your point, the scratches on the arm, the bite mark, the limb. Okay. You know, the first story is got into a fight that night. That happens when people are drinking. But then to change his story from I got into a fight. fight and then, you know, switch it to, well, I hurt myself when I was rotating the tires on my car. Okay, that's a big difference. I think it's one of this cases. If you spin one lie,

then you have to keep your story straight. And when you talk about it in the future, if you change one moral detail, you have to sort of remember what you said. And that's why honesty is usually the best policy. Yeah, I don't know if you and I have talked about it before. Maybe we have. We've talked about so many different things, but once you go down that path of spinning a web of lies, especially to multiple people, it can become very tough, right, to remember what exactly you said to this person or that person. Because to your point, you're right, you have to figure out how to keep the story straight. And sometimes it's not all that easy. Now, when you're telling the truth, it's very easy because you're not making anything up.

Pretty simple to tell all types of different people the same story. But I think the big thing was that all of these details were problematic for investigators and they quickly locked in on Enriquez is having something to do with Christina's disappearance. Investigators were able to search Enrique's phone and piece together his movement. from the night Christina vanished, they compared what really happened with what he told them. Around 8 p.m. Enrique and his girlfriend were texting,

and at 10.38 p.m., she had asked him to call her, but he declined because he said he was too tired. He didn't text his girlfriend again until 10.52 a.m. Just over 12 hours later. Now, Enrique claimed that the reason he and Christina entered, enter the parking garage together when he had stated they didn't park anywhere near each other was because he walked through the parking lot near Henry's Tavern to get to his car near the Blue Martini. He had previously claimed to walk around Henry's Tavern to another garage.

On security footage, investigators were able to see that Enrique A had parked his car just one spot down and one across from Christina's car. So here again, Morp, this is huge and had to, you know, have raised such alarm bells for investigators. Why is this guy telling them that he parked in an entirely different parking garage when the footage clearly showed that they were parked very close together in the same garage? Why would you lie about something like that?

like that if you didn't have anything to do with this person's disappearance. I think it goes back to the whole lying versus telling the truth. And one thing he probably couldn't account for was the security footage that he didn't think about that they would see and figure out that he was lying. At 3.58 a.m., Enrique's car exited the parking garage next to Henry's Tavern. Christina's never seen exiting the parking garage. Authorities admit that it was possible for someone on full. who was aware of the placement of security cameras to have left the parking garage without being

captured on the footage if they tried hard enough. It's incredibly unlikely that Christina crept out of the parking garage and disappeared on purpose. Her family and Hunter both know that Christina was very afraid of the dark and didn't like going out alone at night. Venturing into the night at almost 4 a.m. without the safety of her car doesn't sound like something Christina would do. The windows of Nureki's Camara were tinted, and investigators couldn't tell whether there was anyone inside the car with him when he left. Police also noticed that around 408 a.m., a green Kia Soul circled the shops of Legacy Parking Garage multiple times. Investigators believe this was an Uber or Lyft driver, searching for their fare,

though the driver was never identified. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door, and there's a lot of the door. blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Cell phone records showed that Enrique had not gone from shops of Legacy home via highway 75, as he had claimed. Instead, he had hopped on to the North Dallas tollway, where he then caught the Sam Rayburn tollway formerly called Highway 121. Toll records show Enriquez passing through Highway 121's Custer Road Gantry at 408 a.m. on August 30th. The cell phone records also showed that Enrique's phone made calls and sent text messages to Hunter Foster, Christina's boyfriend, just before they were seen together on security footage. The timestamps were 350, 353, and 355 a.m.

Though Enrique had claimed he and Christina didn't even talk on the way to their cars, when he was confronted about these calls, he said he must have let Christina use his phone to call her boyfriend. The text read, hey, I need an OZ. can you hook it up of that good rock? At this time, Hunter's phone ping near Woodall Rogers Freeway in downtown Dallas, Texas. After a certain time, Christina's phone was only making data connections, so investigators couldn't tell exactly where her phone had traveled.

What they do know is that at 3.46 a.m., Christina's phone pinged the Spring Creek Boulevard cell tower. Enrique's phone pinged the same exact tower at 3.57 a.m. Another cell tower at 5800 Granite Parkway and another on East Bethany Drive received a ping from both phones within minutes of each other as well. Authorities soon learned that five days before Christina went missing, Enrique stole a gold Samsung Galaxy S5 phone from a Sprint Wireless store in Wiley, Texas, where he had worked as a manager. On September 15th, he was arrested for theft of this phone when his coworkers caught on. During an inventory checked, multiple phones were found to be missing, and they were discovered in Enrique's desk. On August 25th, he activated the phone on his personal sprint account.

He ended up giving the phone back to a sprint employee, and police were able to easily take custody of the phone and search it. According to forensic investigators, including Katie Streemke from via forensics, it appeared the phone had been wiped clean of data in an attempt to eliminate any data remaining on the device. It's still unknown whether this theft was related to the disappearance of Christina Morris. If the theft was somehow connected to her disappearance, Enrique would have had to know in advance about the get-together and know that he would have an opportunity to commit a crime that night, at least five days before it happened.

It's likely that he just happened to steal something before Christina went missing and happened to get caught for it. And perhaps he had done this before as well. The interior of Enrique's 2010 Chevrolet Camero, most notably the passenger side of the car, had been thoroughly cleaned and vacuum. The passenger floorboard carpet still had vacuum lines on it when investigators searched it. Even the underside of the car was nearly spotless and unusually clean. Still, investigators found crabgrass, Bermuda grass, and hairy seed, Paspalum. in the undercarriage of the car.

This pointed to the car, having recently been in an area with a pond, a ditch, or some type of damp woods. Security footage from a Kroger gas station showed Enrique using a rag to wipe the passenger side of the car, including the exterior door handle. He cleaned the trunk in the back of the car with the gas station squeegee and went through a car wash on September 3rd, empty bottles of some kind of odor remover, and multiple cleaning solutions, rags, and paper towels were found in Enrique's trash.

The bottles of cleaning chemicals look new, as though they had been bought and used recently. Investigators also found a note written in Spanish with the following items listed. Black shirt, text from 29th through today's date, bank bills, cellular bills. This was significant to investigators because Enrique had been wearing a black shirt

the night that he was seen with Christina on security footage. The dates of the text messages covered only the time from Christina's disappearance to the present. So it's clear that Enrique seemed concerned with stuff in the time frame following Christina's disappearance. What sounds to me more if like he was making a checklist of things that he possibly needed to be worried about. It doesn't make him look good, right?

I mean, I think you'd look at all of this stuff that we're talking about in relation to Enrique. None of it makes him look good in any way. And I think the things going against him are these different bits of security footage and witnesses from his company that gave details that sort of thwarted his efforts to paint a different picture. Yeah, even besides all the cleaning solutions and the things. like that, the car being cleaned. You're right. The contradictions between his stories to police and what everybody else said, I mean, that alone would be enough to make police very wary of this guy. Further examination of the exterior of Enrique's car revealed damage. There was a dent

on the right front fender, which an accident investigator believed was caused. by a soft impact from some part of a human body. Enrique told investigators that while he was changing his tires around, a wheel fell on his hand. This is the same story that he later told one of his coworkers. He said when the tire fell on his hand, he got so angry that he punched his car and hit it with his forearm, which caused the dent in the right front fender and also caused the bruises to his arm.

This damage could explain why Enrique tried to place the imaginary fight he was injured in as happening over his car. He was trying to give a reason for the damage and the injuries, kind of wrapping it up all into one story. The problem is investigators couldn't tell from the security footage, whether his car was already dented or not, and even the accident investigator, didn't know exactly. what caused the damage or when it had occurred. Investigators took swabs from the car and tested them for DNA. The swabs taken from the trunk area of Enrique's Camero, specifically areas on the mat in the trunk and on the weather stripping rubber seal around the edge of the trunk opening,

tested positive for Christina Morris's DNA. Investigators didn't believe that this was touched DNA due to the amount present to sample. It was more likely from something like saliva or blood. In their minds, they knew it was highly unlikely that Christina would have ever willingly gotten to Enrique's trunk. Some areas of the trunk didn't react to the preliminary test for blood, but did react and glow when Blue Star was used. As we mentioned, Blue Star reacts to the iron and blood, but it also responds to other organic and chemical compounds like copper sulfate and potassium permanganate, which are both used in cleaning products like antibacterial sprays and odor removers. What this implies is that the cleaners found in Enrique's trash were used on these areas,

causing the Blue Star to react to the chemicals and the cleaning solutions, making it a possibility that Christina's blood was never on those areas. But either way, more if it was abundantly clear to investigators that Enrique was most likely responsible for Christina's disappearance and that she was most likely dead. On September 4, 2014, Detective Brian Fannery, of the Plano Police Department put in a request for authorization to install a tracking device on Enrique's Camero in an effort to track his movements, hoping that he might inadvertently lead them to Christina. On December 12th, Enrique Arochi was arrested in connection with Christina's disappearance. He was charged with aggravated kidnapping.

Notably, at this time, the dent on the right front fender of, of his Camero had changed shape, almost as if someone had tried to bang out the previous damage, or at the very least, had tried to change its appearance. Police and prosecutors believe that Enrique was upset because he had been rejected by Sabrina at the apartment and that he intentionally abducted Christina Marie Morris, with the intent to inflict bodily injury on her or violate and abuse her sexually. After the bar hopping and back at pulling his appointment, apartment, Enrique hadn't seemed interested in Christina at all. He was interested in Sabrina, in which he was going to sleep alone. It upset him to the point that others noticed, not just

Sabrina. A police affidavit stated that after Christina left the apartment, an opportunity presented itself for Enrique to act on his anger and sexual frustration when he found himself alone with her. The reason that Enrique was charged with aggravated kidnapping, instead of only kidnapping was due to that intent to inflict bodily injury, abuse her, or to terrorize her. While police and prosecutors were sure

that Enrique kidnapped Christina, they were not exactly sure when. There were no signs of a struggle in the parking garage. And we talked about it. The tinted windows made it impossible for investigators to tell if Christina was in the car or the trunk when he left the parking garage.

It didn't seem as though anything was really amiss in the surveillance footage of Christina and Enrique walking from Paulina's apartment. There were no apparent arguments. There was really no physical contact. It did appear that Christina accepted Enrique's offer to walk her to her car in the dark, thinking he would get into his car, just one space across and over from hers. It's unclear whether Christina may be feeling lonely,

maybe a little bit vulnerable and upset, may have accepted a ride from Enrique and wanted to go back for her car later. Or if she was quickly harmed and placed into the trunk immediately. Regardless, it was clear to police that, as indicated in their affidavit, she withdrew her consent somewhere between the parking garage and the Sam Rayburn Tollway. In early December 2014, it was announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office that Hunter Foster was one of 15 people arrested by federal agents during a drug sting. He was charged with conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and faced 20 years in federal prison, as well as a $1 million fine. On multiple occasions between September and November 2014, he had sold drugs to an undercover federal agent.

This explains Hunter's reluctance to cooperate with police and why he didn't hand over his phone until he had gotten rid of some of the information on it. Though it had nothing to do with Christina's disappearance, he had been breaking the law on August 29, 2014. He had been using and selling drugs at the Concrete Cowboy in Dallas, which is why he had been so intoxicated that he hadn't resuscitated. that he hadn't read his text from Christina. It was later reported that a few months before she vanished, Christina had found out Hunter was selling drugs and asked him to stop, threatening to break up with him. In June 2016, Hunter Foster was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison

for conspiracy to sell ecstasy. And more if this was something that really jumped out at me when we were talking about it earlier. We kind of wanted to wait to talk about it until this information came out. Now, you have a boyfriend of someone who has gone missing. This person is, let's call it, very reluctant with some information, especially with handing over his phone so that police can look at the text between him

and his girlfriend. That looks very suspicious to police. I mean, there's just no way around it. We know the significant other, the boyfriend, the spouse, the husband, the wife are often looked at first when someone disappears or is found murdered. You know that police had to have been very suspicious of this guy from the very start. Well, now we find out why Hunter didn't want to just hand over his phone and why he chose to wipe some things off of it because he's, was dealing drugs. And I'm sure there were records. There were things that would have pointed that out had he not wiped them off. It doesn't matter. He ended up getting caught for it anyway, but.

Yeah, it's just a case where he was hiding his phone from the police, not because of having anything to do with Christina's disappearance, just because, as you mentioned, he didn't want to be connected to these other things that he was involved in. And it's reminiscent of a case maybe where someone's caught a lie during a love triangle. And the reason they're lying isn't necessarily because they've had anything to do with the crime that occurred, but perhaps they were having an affair and didn't want their spouse to find out. We've talked about cases like that before, so they lie about it. And in the end, it's nothing to do with being involved in the crime,

just rather they didn't want to get caught in an affair. So it's sort of a parallel to that kind of thing. But it is interesting to me that, you know, he was so willing to kind of place himself on police radar in Christina's disappearance. I guess, number one, probably because he knew he didn't have anything to do with it. But number two, he knew that if they had found some of the information about the drugs, then he was going to be in big trouble anyway. At the trial for Christina's disappearance, more about the investigation into Enrique Aerochi was revealed.

While investigating his phone, officers found sexually deviant photos and over 20 pictures of women being choked and tortured. He was also accused of choking a 16-year-old. He dated when he was 22 years old. On September 30th, 2016, Enrique Aerochi was sent. to life in prison for the aggravated kidnapping of Christina Marie Morris. He will be eligible for parole on December 12, 2004. Enrique maintained his innocence and even told reporters from Dallas News in December 2016. I hope she's a lot.

While his conviction for Christina's disappearance was on one hand good news for her family and friends, it didn't answer the question that they really would. wanted to know the answer to, where was she? On March 7, 2018, construction workers using excavators to clear up brush from a wooded area, found skeletal remains near the 1800 block of Taylor Boulevard, near Highway 75 in Anna, Texas, just half an hour north of Plano. Christina's final cell phone pinged from a tower in this area, which Enrique's phone also pinged around the same time. Two days later on March 9th, the remains were identified. as Christina Morris's. Her cause of death hasn't been released publicly. Months later, Enrique Arochi

appealed his conviction, but on July 11, 2018, it was denied. And that was strange to me, Morph that, you know, the appeal of his conviction came after her body was found. I just found that strange. And maybe it was just timing or something like that. I just looked at it as kind of strange timing, I guess. It seems like a slap in the face, almost, whether it was planned or not to, all of a sudden, her body's found, and here he is appealing his kidnapping conviction. Colin County prosecutor Zeke Fortenberry told WFAA news that the Christina Morris case was a little bit groundbreaking in that it was one of the first cases to ever prosecute someone for aggravated kidnapping without a body. As such, Christina's

case set a precedent that this is possible to do legally and that murder cases with nobody or kidnapping cases as well are worth prosecuting. As of this recording, Enrique Orochi has still not been charged with Christina's murder. Now, we know there's no statute of limitations on murder, so it's pretty safe to say that if Enrique is ever going to be granted parole, prosecutors could still charge him with murder based on the prior conviction for her kidnapping, as well as any new evidence gathered from her remains or the crime scene in Anna, Texas. For now, though, he remains behind bars. And if there's any kind of positive news here, it's that Christina's family was able to finally give Christina a memorial at the Allen, Texas First Baptist Church. And I do think more

if this is huge. My thought is the family by that point had to have known that Christina was never coming back. But, you know, I think as a family, you still hold out hope. Okay, there's a person behind bars convicted for her kidnapping, but maybe she's out there somewhere. Well, now they find out that definitively she was killed. It's probably not the answer that you. you want, but you have an answer. And now you can move forward, you can grieve, you can, you know, lay her to rest and hold a memorial. I've talked to a lot of people that have lost family members who maybe were initially missing and then later found. And a lot of them have said that the not knowing is worse than the outcome finding out that they were dead and finding their remains. But it was just

agony not knowing. So hopefully somehow this did give Christina's family peace. Yeah, I've heard that many times as well. The not knowing in some respects is the toughest part. You know, I said that I think a lot of families hold out hope. And I think that's true. But at the same time, it's probably pretty tough for it not to kind of seep into your mind, maybe be stuck there in the back of your mind that it's not good, right? Most likely, she's never coming home. But again, that not knowing it's torturous. On Monday, April 16, 2018, a Facebook message was posted from Christina's family and friends

stating, this will be a celebration of Christina's life. And we want you, the public and friends and family that have been with us every step of the way to join us. If you can't be there physically, we know in our hearts you are with us in prayer and spirit. Christina's family had hoped to burr in the Allen, Texas cemetery, since Christina had grown up there, but all the plots have been pre-purchased. When people found out that Christina's family were hoping to layer to rest there, several people came forward offering to sell their plots to her family, a testament to just how much Christina's community cared for her. And to me,

Morr, this is also a testament to deep down how good people really are. You know, obviously in the cases that we cover, we talk about a lot of really bad things. If you watch the news, what do you see? Most often a lot of really bad things.

But I think by and large, deep down, people are really good. And it's uplift. to me when you see these types of things that, you know, come out of what is obviously a really horrific case, people giving up their time to search for someone who has disappeared. Or in this case, someone, you know, offering up a plot that maybe they've had for a very long time just because they found out this is what the family really wanted to do and they just

couldn't do it. It's kind of heartwarming. Yeah, it is. And in all likelihood, these people didn't necessarily know Christina and her family, but it just touched them in some kind of way that they decided it was the right thing to do to give up their final resting spot so that Christina's family could later rest there. It's pretty admirable. Well, and that's a good point, right? You know, obviously friends and family, they're going to help out. They're going to do whatever they can. And what we see many times in some of these stories are complete strangers who have no ties to the victim or the victim's family so willing to help out. Now, I think a large part of that is that they're just good people wanting to help out a family

in need. I think maybe sometimes there's another side of that, especially when you're talking about the disappearance of a child where people can. put themselves in the victim's family's shoes and think what they would want to have happen if they were in that same situation, right? They would want as many people to come and help them as they could get. And so they're going to do that as well. And again, I think some of that stuff is very touching, even though the case that we're talking about or the cases that we talk about sometimes are horrific and heartbreaking. So Morph, as we wrap up this episode, I think one of the

big questions that really jumps out at me is why? Why did Enrique choose to do what he did that night? Right now, he's only been convicted of aggravated kidnapping. He has, hasn't been charged and or convicted of murder, it's kind of hard not to put the two together at this point after her body was found. If he did kill Christina, which I think most people assume at this point that he did, then the question is why? You know, was he somewhat intoxicated? And was he just so upset by being rejected by this girl Sabrina, who he obviously, was enamored with that he chose to take that rejection out on Christina because the opportunity was there. I mean, it's horrible to think about, but I don't know what other conclusion that really

you can come up with. By all accounts, it's not as though he was secretly in love with Christina. he was fascinated, enamored, whatever word you want to use with her. So to me it seems more like a crime of opportunity because they walked out together and the opportunity was there. I think it's pretty impressive that no matter what happened, that there was enough fear to convict him, the jury was presented with all the details and came to the conclusion that he was guilty of kidnapping her, despite the... the evidence not being overwhelmingly strong.

There was obviously his cell phone pinging where her phone was pinging. He was the last person seen with her. He lied and had injuries consistent with perhaps being in a struggle. So I think the jury was able to come to the right conclusion when they took all of that together and put him away for that. But still, we have the murder charge that hasn't been brought yet. and you wonder if a jury will be as equally persuaded by whatever evidence they present, should that come up?

Well, and that's one of the things that, you know, goes through my mind is there's no need to rush this murder charge, right? He's not going anywhere at the earliest, 20-some years before he would come up for parole. So my thought is they can take their time and really, put together kind of a slam dunk case, if that's possible. You know, back to your point, this aggravated kidnapping case, I don't think you would call it slam dunk, right? There was no video of Enrique hitting Christina over the head and placing her in his trunk or anything like that. But when you look at the totality of the evidence,

And I'm sure that's what prosecutors hammered home. I'm sure that's what the jury looked at. The changing stories, all the different things that you mentioned, cleaning the car, the cell phone pings were probably a pretty big part of the trial. We didn't go too in depth into the trial. But it's more about the totality of the evidence pointing to Enrique as being guilty, more so than, you know, kind of that Perry Mason aha moment we got you on video. And hopefully since they only have one chance to try him in a murder case that they'll, as you mentioned, take their time, get it right and put a case together that stands up and sticks so that if they do charge him and try him, he will get the appropriate sentence.

Yeah, absolutely. And I do think it's important. You know, I think it's an argument that you can make and some people might say, well, why go through all the trouble? He's already got life with, you know, parole in 20 some years and there's no guarantee that he would even be paroled. I'm assuming for the family, it's very important to at some point hopefully get a murder conviction against this guy. I think we'll have to sit back and see where things go from here and follow along with this case. Yeah, like so many cases that we do, there are still things to probably come in the future. But that's it for our case on Christina Morris.

Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for writing and research this episode. As always, if you love the show, go out, give us a five-star rating. You can leave a review. But keep telling your friends, that word of mouth is huge for the podcast. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcasts discussion and fans. So that's it more for another episode of Criminology.

But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night within all new episodes. So until then, for Mike. And more. We'll talk to you next week. Take care of all.