Criminology - The Mary Morris Murders

Episode Date: March 2, 2019

On this 50th episode of Criminology, we are talking about the Mary Morris murders. Two women, both named Mary Morris, were murdered in Houston, TX in 2000 just a few days apart. Their killers have never been caught. But this case has fueled speculation among the online sleuth community. Was this the act of a hitman who killed the wrong woman and then corrected his mistake days later? Or was this a coincidence and the perpetrators were closer to home? It is a bizarre and perplexing case for sure. But at the heart of it lies two generous, loving, and well-liked women who tragically lost their lives. In this episode, we hear from the daughter of one of these amazing women and she sheds some amazing insight into the case. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. I'd like to welcome everyone to episode 50 of criminology. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, how are you? I'm doing good. I'm always good.

I try not to complain, so. And I like that about you. It's just better when we're happy and being positive. No, it definitely is. 50 episodes. That's a, it's a big milestone. And it seems to me, I don't know how it seems to you, but it seems like we had 50 episodes just on the Zodiac and the Golden State Killer. So, yeah, where the time goes and where the episodes go, it's hard to get track of. No, I definitely agree with you. It seems like they go very quickly. You know, we, we hit 100 episodes on

my other two shows. And we just looked back and we were like, man, that went really quickly. Yeah, well, I'm looking forward to the next 50. Yeah, me too, me too. So last week we did the Mississippi burning case and we got some really positive feedback about it. I was really happy that a lot of people liked that case and we talked about the movie. And I went back and watched it. I didn't watch it before we did the episode. I had seen it a couple of times.

But, you know, that movie's pretty old. It came out in, I think, 1989. And I went back and watched it after we did the episode. And it was really good. I remembered it being good. But I think it holds up pretty well. I don't know what you think more. It's been a while since I watched it.

But I remember the last time I did watch it. I really liked the storyline and it was easy to follow. And you had great actors, Gene Hackman and won the foe, playing the parts of the main characters. And it was interesting to watch and learn. but diving into the case like we did in the last episode really puts that movie in a different perspective. And I think that's probably why I enjoyed it more because we had done the research. The one thing I will say is I miss Gene Hackman. Man, that guy's a good actor. Yeah, he was one of my favorites.

So like I said, episode 50, and we've got a really good one for you today. but before we get into that, let's give shoutouts to our new Patreon supporters. We had Brad Dare, Pat Hartley, Darren Mahoney, and Tom Doherty. So we appreciate that new support very much. We appreciate the people that continue to support us, month in, month out. And thanks as always for that support. It goes a long way. And if anyone out there listening would like to support us,

through Patreon, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology. And speaking of Patreon, as we mentioned in the last episode, we had a conversation with Carrie Timmons, who's the mother of Libby German, who we just covered in the Delphi murders case, and a lot of people wanted to hear from her because a lot of people haven't heard from her. Well, we had a nice conversation with her, and that is up and on the Patreon feed as we speak. And Morph, I know we're getting excited for CrimeCon. We've had a lot of people tell us that they're excited to be going. We can't wait to meet people while we're on podcast row.

That's June in New Orleans. If you still need to purchase your badge, if you're going to CrimeCon, you can save 10% off the price of a standard badge on CrimeCon.com using our promo code, Criminology 19. All right, Morph, it's time to jump into this episode, number 50. We're excited about it. We're talking about a very mysterious case that has been popular among armchair detectives on a lot of the different crime forms. We're talking about the Mary Morris murders. This is a case about two different women named Mary Morris who died in the Houston, Texas area only days apart. One woman was Mary Henderson Morris and the other was Mary McGinnis.

Morris. Both women were successful. They were similar in appearance, but both were found dead in their cars in a remote area of the city. And it just so happened that both female victims shared the same first and last name, Mary Morris. But I think Morse, the reason why this case draws so many armchair detectives is because there are still lingering questions about what. whether or not the deaths of these two women are connected. You're definitely right about that. This case has been talked about a lot online and in various forums. There was an Unsolved Mysteries episode about the case,

and a few podcasts have done episodes about it. But along the way, I think there's been a lot of rumor, innuendo, and misinformation put out there about the case. And we were fortunate enough to sit down with Mary Henderson-Morris' daughter, Marilyn, to discuss her mother's case with us. and help set the record straight about some of the inaccuracies in the case. And she even perhaps raises some new questions that people should be asking. And we'll be hearing from Maryland throughout this episode.

We also reached out to Mary McGinnis Morris's daughter, Katie, to see if she wanted to discuss her mother's case on the podcast, but she declined. So I mentioned it. We're talking about the Houston, Texas area. It's big. has a population of about 2.3 million people. And when you talk about the county that Houston is in, Harris County, that's massive. There, you're talking about a total population of around 4.7 million.

So that's a very big county more as far as population. Yeah, that really is a big county. And they say everything's bigger in Texas. I guess that includes the counties and the populations in certain areas. Yeah, it's massive. You know, I live in Ohio. Ohio has a population of just over 11 million people. So when you think about it that way, this one county has almost half as many people as the entire state of Ohio.

And even Texas, you think about how big Texas is. Okay, it's about 28 million people. So for this county to be so populated, it just, you know, kind of gives you a sense of what we're talking about here. And over the years, there have been numerous unsolved and solved notorious cases that have come out of Harris County, Texas. Some of the most well-known cases are the icebox murders. That was a case where an elderly couple was murdered in their home in 1965. It was a brutal case. You know, we covered it on true crime all the time unsolved. Their bodies were mutilated, dissected. They were found in a freezer. Then you talk about the I-45

Killingfields case, 30 bodies found, mostly girls, young women since the 1970s. But I think more proportionally, that makes some sense, right? Anytime you're going to have a county that is that big, that populated, you're going to have some significant crimes. And while the murders we're discussing in this episode may not be as infamous, they definitely caused quite a stir at the time. And as we said, they remain a popular topic of discussion among true crime fans and amateur detectives. Mary Henderson Morris, who was 48, resided in the Houston suburb of Baytown with her husband of five years, Jay Morris. They met through her personal ad. It was the second marriage for both of them. Mary had a daughter, Maryland,

and a son, Billy, from her first marriage to Jim Henderson. She worked as a loan officer at the Chase Bank in Houston's Spring Valley, where she had been employed for 15 years. Mary was a model and dedicated employee who was always punctual at work, and she wasn't known to miss time or not show up. She was also regarded as a kind and devoted person who had many friends and was very active. My mom was a pretty energetic person, to say the least.

She was one of those people that was always on the go. You really never knew what you would find her doing. You know, she may be one day at the racetrack, you know, watching a dirt track race, and the next day she may be at a craft show or at the park with the grandkids. She was just always doing something, staying busy. She loved her grandkids, her family, and really put everyone, you know, before herself. She was extremely unselfish. She was just a great mom and a fantastic grandmother. On Thursday morning, October 12, 2000, Mary Henderson Morris left her home in her Chevy

Lumina around 6 a.m. to head to work. Her husband Jay walked her out to her car that morning, and he watched as she turned in the direction of her regular gas station. Now, normally, Jay spoke with Mary by phone several times throughout the workday. But this particular day, he hadn't heard from her. At 2 p.m., Mary's supervisor called Jay at home and asked where Mary was. And Jay was confused. He told the supervisor that she was at work.

And this was a strange conversation because the supervisor didn't seem worried after Jay told her that Mary was supposed to be at work. This woman hung up the phone without ever telling Jay. that something might be wrong. And Jay never asked the supervisor who she was when she called. When Jay still had not heard from his wife later that afternoon, he called the bank. And this time, he was finally told that Mary never made it to work. That phone call between Mary's supervisor and Jay was a bit odd.

Although the supervisor was worried enough to call Mary's home to ask for her, when Jay told her that Mary was at work, The supervisor didn't feel it necessary to tell Jay his wife never showed up. This was pretty alarming to Mary's family. Oh, very alarming. She had worked for the bank for 16 years at that time and had really, you know, that was like her second family. So she, you know, had friends there that she was very close to and her, you know, had good relationships with everyone. So if anything was, you know, going on, even if she was going to be late,

she would have called. She was one of those people that has always been a hard worker, good work ethic, so she wouldn't just not show up to work. Me, that's weird because I'm thinking, you know, if the bank is, number one, they knew her, they were very familiar with her. So in my mind, if they're calling the house looking for her, I would think red flags are going up for them also at this point. So if they were to call her house and her spouse says she's at work, I would think, you know, he's the emergency contact.

If she's not there, I would have thought they would have immediately told him, you know, no, she didn't come to work and then proceed from there. And even as an employer, if I called someone that was not at work that I was expecting to be here and they would say, you know, no, they're at work. you know, that would have sent up red flags for me. After Jay Morris finally realized his wife hadn't made it to work, he called police to report Mary missing. He then called his stepdaughter Marilyn, and the two decided to retrace Mary's steps. That's when they realized Mary forgot her cell phone that morning,

and they wondered if she was in an accident or had car trouble. I received a call from my stepdad, her husband at the time, Jay Morris, that, you know, he was telling me that she did, you know, he found out that she didn't make it to work that day. And honestly, for us, that's when the nightmare began. But in that moment, we just really had no idea what we were, you know, looking at. We, you know, we live in Houston, a major metro city. We thought, or at least I thought, you know, she's been in an accident and her car was stalled on the freeway or something like that, something really minor.

But, I mean, I received that call, you know, 3.30, 4 in the afternoon. And I think it was that evening around like 9 p.m. that we got confirmation that the Harris County Sheriff's Department had found my mom's burned car in Baytown. I had started making phone calls to hospitals asking if, you know, an admission for either a Mary Morris or even a Jane Doe quit making the phone calls and rushed over to her house. And honestly, by the time I got there, I just expected her to be there. And when she was, and I asked my stepdad if, you know, we could go to her job. Because when I got to his house, the police were there and they were taking up, you know, he was

following a missing person's report when I actually arrived there. And the police, you know, took the missing person's report, but they didn't seem to make a big fuss about it. They took the information. And they left. And when they left, he and I got in his truck with my kids, and we drove to, started making the drive to my mom's job. And by this time, you know, we were in Houston rush hour traffic. So, you know, freeways were a little bit congested.

But, you know, as we're driving there, I'm looking on the side of the road for any debris that could have been from an accident or her car on the side of the road, things like that. you know, we never spotted anything like that. And so we made it all the way to her job. We drove through her parking garage. We didn't see her car, obviously. It wasn't there. So then we left there and started heading back to her house. And I mean, me, I guess, you know, the only thing that was strange to me is I guess I would have been flying.

I had my emergency blinkers on because I wanted to get to her job. I think when something like that happens, you really have. have a normal expectation in your head. You don't think the worst. You think everything's going to be fine. It's a misunderstanding. She's going to be where she's supposed to be. So the whole time, I just wanted to get to her work and see she was there. And this was just a big mistake. But obviously, that didn't happen. Around 5 p.m., just about the time that Jay was filling out the police report on his missing wife, a passerby in an off-road vehicle discovered a burned-out car. And then a burned-out car with a body inside of it in a remote area of Houston.

Earlier that day, around 10.20 a.m., smoke had been reported in the vicinity of the car, but the fire department assumed that it was burning brush and they didn't investigate. By the time police arrived at the scene, the body inside the car was burned beyond recognition. Later that evening, authorities identified the car as Mary Henderson Morris's Chevy Lumina. But it took authorities three days to confirm that the body inside the car was that of Mary Henderson Morris. Her body was burned so badly that the only way to identify her was through tooth fragments. Because of the condition of her body, authorities could not determine cause of death. Mary's burning car was found in an area secluded by a gate.

and thick trees that can only be accessed by way of a busy Baytown thoroughfare. The location is only three miles from Mary's home, but in the opposite direction of her workplace. Fire investigators determined that the car had been set on fire using massive amounts of accelerant, so they concluded that this was most likely a murder and not an accident. Nearby trees were scorched, and the fire melted everything, including the car's wheels. Most of Mary's jewelry was found. The only thing that couldn't be accounted for was her wedding ring. Mary's killer apparently went through a lot of trouble making sure there was no evidence left.

Despite the missing ring, police didn't believe robbery was the motive because there was jewelry found at the scene. Police felt that the killer wouldn't have left that behind. So, Morph, I think right off the bat, there's a couple of glaring and troubling questions that have to be asked here. Let's assume for a minute that the smoke reported at 10.20 a.m. that morning came from Mary Henderson Morris's car. So the first question you have to ask is, where had she been that morning? And what happened to her between the time she left home to head for work at 6 a.m. and 1020 when the smoke was reported. And I think the second question revolves around the motive for her murder. If this was a robbery gone wrong, why wasn't all of her jewelry taken? Mary Henderson, Morris's family and

friends, they were shocked, they were grief stricken, they were saddened. There's no doubt about that. And to their knowledge, they didn't know of anyone that would want to hurt her. And I think it's safe to say the clues in her case are puzzling to say the least. Mary Henderson Morris was buried on October 16, 2000. Later that day, her daughter Marilyn called the medical examiner's office to retrieve her mother's jewelry. This is where the case takes a strange turn. A supervisor told her it would be ready at the same time as the body. Marilyn was confused because they had just buried her mother that morning. As it turns out, the body in the morgue was not her mother's body. It was the body of another Mary Morris, a woman named Mary McGinnis Morris.

Funeral home had informed me that they didn't receive any jewelry from the medical examiner's office when they picked her remains up. But I mean, in that moment, there was nothing that we could do. We couldn't hold up the, you know, the rest of the service because we were in, obviously, Baytown. She was. was in the medical examiner was in Harris County, so we proceeded with the burial at that time. And after the burial, when we got back to the house, I immediately called the Harris County Medical Examiner's office and asked them for my mother's jewelry. And that's kind of when my head, my head began to spin because after much confusion with the medical examiner, they put me on hold

several times. They were sounding confused. They informed me. that, you know, I could pick up her jewelry when I picked up the remains. And I informed them that, no, you know, we've already picked up the funeral home, picked the remains up, we've already had her service. Now I just need to come, need to know where I need to go, what I need to do to come pick up the jewelry. And, you know, more confusion, they put me on hold, back and forth, they get a supervisor on the line, and the supervisor explains the same thing.

you know, when the remains are picked up, you know, we'll give the jewelry and all the belongings to the funeral home. And I again explained that my mom, we had just had her funeral. And the supervisor told me no, that Mary Morris's remains were still at the Harris County Medical Examiners often. Extremely confusing because, I mean, I was there. I was devastated. I saw what I knew to be my mom's remains. and then I have this person on the phone telling me that, no, Mary, you know, Mary Morris is at their office. And to say the least, they put me back on hold.

I'm pretty sure they were extremely confused also. And, you know, it took a little bit of question answering, you know, how did she die for me to explain what happened? And then, you know, they were able to come back on the line. and then they told me that the Mary Morris at the medical examiner's office was a different Mary Morris. It wasn't my mother. It struck me as odd, but of course I'm thinking, you know, oh, that poor Mary Morris was probably a 97-year-old lady that lived a full life that died in her sleep. I surely never imagined that there would be another Mary Morris that had a tragic death, you know, that would rival with what I had just lived through. What are the chances of two Mary Morris is murdered?

39-year-old Mary McGinnis Morris was a nurse practitioner in charge of several clinics for Union Carbide, a chemical and polymer's company in Houston. She had been married to Mike Morris for 17 years, and they had a daughter named Katie. The family moved from West Virginia to Houston in 1998, after Mary accepted the medical director position with Union Carbide. Mary missed her friends and family back home in West Virginia, but she grew to love her job and made many good friends in the Houston area. It was said that Mary McGuinness live life to the fullest. She was a happy person, always joyful. She worked very hard at her job, often working 14 hours a day when it called for it.

On Sunday, October 15, 2000, Mary McGinnis ran errands as she typically did on most Sundays. She stopped by a flu clinic to administer a flu shot to her friend, Lori Gamble. Then she went to the post office, grocery store, and Eckerd Drugstore at US 290 and West Little York Road. After Mary finished in the drug store, she called Lori Gemmell. She told her that a guy in the store was creeping her out. Mary didn't sound scared. It was more of a matter of fact statement.

She told Lori that she was going to head back to Union Carbide and log out of her computer and then head home. When Mary didn't return home that evening, her husband Mike reported her missing to police. The next morning, a record driver found Mary's body in her company car, a brand-new Dodge Intrepid on West Little York Road, not far from where Mary Henderson-Morris' body was found.

Mary McGinnis Morris had been shot, and while the scene appeared to look like a suicide, investigators quickly determined she had been murdered. It was evident upon looking at the body that Mary was beaten prior to her death. Blood was found in the car and the passenger door was open. Mary's clothing was torn and bruising on her wrist suggested that she had put up a struggle. The gun used in the murder was found near her body and later discovered to be her own gun registered to her husband, Mike Morris. Like in the Mary Henderson-Morris case,

Mary McGinnis Morris was also missing a ring that she always wore. An autopsy later confirmed that she had been beaten, gagged, and shot once in the head. Police have confirmed that they received a 911 call from Mary about 12 minutes after she had talked to her friend Lori. And this 911 call is very important because police have said, that the attack on Mary takes place during the call. But for that reason, they haven't released the 911 call. They haven't even released a transcript of it. So we don't know the details of the call,

but it is said to be very chilling. Mary's sister, Stephanie Lorr, who lived in West Virginia, after being notified of Mary's death, phone the Harris County Sheriff's Department and the medical examiner. And in this phone call, they mentioned to her something about the other Mary Morris that had been burned. Stephanie felt that there had to be a connection between the two murders and that these crimes were far more than just a coincidence. And morph, it's hard to imagine what that would have been like. You know, first of all, Stephanie finds out that her sister, Mary, is deceased.

She finds out that she's been murdered. And then in a phone call with the authorities, she finds out about another woman also named Mary Morris that was murdered, burned just three days prior to her sister. I don't blame her one bit for thinking that there's no way that's a coincidence. How could you think anything else? And Stephanie's reaction, I think, is like a lot of other people who have looked into this case and write about it, and that they think, how can these two cases not be connected in some way? The Harris County Sheriff's Department quickly realized they had two similar murders on their hands.

And with both victims named Mary Morris, they had to consider the possibility that the cases were connected. But police needed to find evidence of a connection between the two murders. as well as motive for the crimes. The investigation began into both murders. Detectives on each case were Robert Tonry and Wayne Coolman of the Harris County Sheriff's Department. Tonry had Mary Henderson's case and Coolman had Mary McGinnis' case.

Their first task were trying to retrace the movements of both women prior to their deaths. And we mentioned it before. Police were never able to determine Mary Henderson-Morris' whereabouts. between 6 a.m. when she left home and 10.20 a.m. when the smoke was mistaken for a brush fire, her husband Jay told police that when she left home, it looked as if she was headed to the gas station. A clerk at the gas station on Interstate 10 and Thompson Road saw someone matching Mary's description. But the store surveillance video that morning had already been taped over before police could view it. They learned that Mary carried little cash on her.

No charges were made to her credit card that morning. Her purse was missing along with the ring that we talked about. Detectives couldn't find any reason why anyone would want to kill Mary Henderson Morris. There were no affairs. She wasn't using drugs. Mary had no enemies. She was well liked by her friends and her colleagues. Police pretty quickly ruled.

Jay out as a suspect. The two had a happy marriage and there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. Mary also had a pretty civil relationship with her ex-husband Jim Henderson, who even helped search for Mary the day she disappeared. The day after Mary Henderson Morris's body was found, an unknown man reportedly called the Houston Chronicle and said, quote, they got the wrong Mary Morris. This made no sense at the time and the call was passed off as a prank. Later on, the Houston Chronicle denied receiving the call. But Mary McGinnis-Morris' friend, Lori Gemmell, claimed she verified this herself. Was the mysterious caller telling the truth? Did the killer murder the wrong, Mary, first in a case of mistaken

identity? After all, what were the odds of two women with the same name being murdered in the same week? When police checked into Mary McGinnis-Morris' background, they learned she did have an enemy, as well as some trouble within her marriage, Mary worked with a male nurse named Dwayne Young, and they didn't get along very well at all. Dwayne was hired in early 2000 as a temporary employee. After being hired on as a full-time employee, Dwayne joined Mary's staff, and he soon began complaining to her supervisors. He questioned her authority. And according to Mary's friend Lori, this guy was just often agitated. Mary confided in Lori that she was afraid of Dwayne and believed he had it in him to harm her.

In one particular incident, a few weeks before her murder, Mary found some things out of place on her desk and found that her pictures were facing the wrong direction. She found the words, death to her, written on a desktop calendar and assumed that. it was Dwayne and that he was referring to her. Mary was frightened, frightened enough that she went to her superiors and told them what she had found. They advised her to stay home that Friday. After seeing the message on the desktop calendar, Mary called her husband Mike and told him about it on her way home from work that day. She asked her husband to buy her a gun and to teach her how to handle and use it, which he did. Mike placed the gun under the driver's seat in Mary's Dodge Intrepid.

Later that day, Dwayne returned to work to make sure his time card had been signed. While there, he caused a big scene by banging on the windows and asking for Mary. He had to be escorted out of the building and he was fired from his job. Dwayne denied that this happened and said that he had actually put in his two weeks notice prior to Mary's murder. When... In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work. and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.

For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do but had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Interviewed by police, Dwayne Young denied killing marriage.

police consider Dwayne a suspect, but they wanted to consider all possible avenues. And they turned their attention on Mike Morris, Mary's husband, when they discovered that Mary had a $700,000 life insurance policy and Mike was the benefactor. When they went to interview him, Mike told authorities that he wouldn't do an interview without his lawyer. He refused to take a polygraph test because, as he put it, he was worried his anxiety medications would have an effect on the results. Mike did tell police, though, that his marriage was rocky at times. He had struggled to find a secure job, and that had caused some financial stress in the marriage.

At one point, he had also confronted Mary and a male friend believing that the two of them were having an affair. They both denied it. And Mike apparently said he believed them. But Mary's family has suggested to police that the marriage was never mended. Mike didn't trust Mary and he often followed her. Mary told her sister Stephanie that she had fallen in love with someone else. But Stephanie has never publicly named that person. But Mary also told her sister that she wouldn't leave Mike.

She was determined to make her marriage work. Police, already suspicious of Mike at this point, looked at cell phone records. Two hours after his wife's murder, Mike called Mary's cell phone. The call lasted four minutes. The cell phone carrier confirmed this was a completed call. Mike denied talking to Mary and said that he did call her phone, but he let it ring thinking she would pick up at some point. Police didn't buy his story at all. They wanted to know who he spoke with and what the conversation.

was about, but Mike insisted that he never spoke with anyone. Mike provided an alibi saying that he was at the movies with his daughter, Katie, at the time of his wife's murder. Police couldn't interview Katie because Mike refused access to her for two months. Mike's actions led police to wonder if he had hired someone to kill his wife, and that he was actually talking to her killer during those four minutes. This was the final incoming call completed to Mary McGinnis Morris's cell phone. Mary's Dodge Intrepid had doors that locked when the car was put into gear. Coolman's theory was that whoever murdered Mary was someone that would have been able to get into the locked car.

Not only that, but her killer had to know she carried a gun under her seat. Mike Morris denied killing his wife and later claimed he did everything police asked of him. He gave them access to his residence, fingerprints, blood samples, everything except a polygraph. When police spoke with Lori Gemmel, she told them that in her call with Mary the day of the murder, Mary told her that she may have recognized the man who gave her the creeps. She thought she had met this person through Dwayne Young. Even though Dwayne Young gave Mary trouble, he had been to the Morris's home for a party,

and the Morris has also attended one at his home. According to Coolman, Dwayne was not excluded from company events. they all knew each other and had been out together. Some people believe it's possible that Mary Henderson Morris was murdered by a hitman who thought she was Mary McGinnis Morris. When he realized his mistake, he corrected it three days later by killing his intended target. They believe that the hired killer took both women's rings to prove to whoever hired him that he had killed his target.

Six months after the murders, Jay Morris discovered $2,000 worth of calls had recently been billed to his wife Mary Henderson Morris's calling card. He gave the information to police and they tracked the calls to a 16-year-old girl in Galveston, about 50 miles southeast of Houston. The girl told detectives she found the phone card in a purse that someone discarded at a convenience store in Galveston. She said that she gave the purse to a neighbor. When the authorities retrieved the purse from the neighbor and showed Mary's family, they claimed she never owned a purse like that.

Around this same time, Jay began receiving phone calls to his unlisted line from people asking for Mary. This was very strange. These calls caught Jay completely off guard. And initially, he said Mary was not home. Jay was unnerved by these calls and he reached out to the police. They told him that if the caller called again to give out Detective Tonnery's phone number, when the caller phoned again, Jay did as the police instructed, and the caller replied, oh yeah, right. The mystery man never called again. Police traced the phone calls to a Baytown

apartment on Northwood Street, but they were never able to identify the caller. A few months after the murders, the Carroll's son, Carrington Memorial. Reward Fund, named for the victims of a 1999 triple murder in Yosemite National Park, doubled a $5,000 reward on the Mary Morris murders, hoping that a bigger reward would help generate new leads on the cases. About a year after the Mary Morris murders, Katie Morris was seen wearing her mother's ring that disappeared the day of her murder. Mary's husband, Mike, claims he mistakenly thought Mary had worn the ring that day, but found the ring months later and forgot to tell police.

In 2002, Unsolved Mysteries aired a segment on the Mary Morris murders. Police hoped it would lead to more tips coming in, but it didn't lead to any breaks in either one of the cases. In 2009, the late Susan Murphy Milano, who was an expert and author in partner violence, wrote an article on the Mary Morris murders. In this article, she mentioned. Mary McGinnis's $700,000 life insurance policy and that Mike Morris was the benefactor. Katie Morris commented on this article saying, Mary Morris was my mother. I appreciate the effort

in trying to solve her murder, but please get the facts straight before you post them. You claim the insurance policy was for $700,000. I inherited the insurance policy last April and I assure you that it was not nearly that much. Dwayne Young also made his appearance in the comment section of the same article, replying to someone who stated that the police department was incompetent. Dwayne Young wrote, I don't think they are so incompetent. They just cannot prove that Lori Gemmell killed Mary Morris. I have had enough evidence, but it is not enough for a court case. Dwayne never clarified his response about Lori Gemmell possibly being Mary McGinnis Morris's killer.

Armchair detectives wonder why Dwayne Young made these comments about Lori being responsible for Mary's murder. They've wondered if this was some sort of distraction so people weren't pointing fingers at him. And for years after the murder, he was very active online, proclaiming his innocence, and giving opinions whenever he had the opportunity. He particularly became defensive on a forum discussing the Unsolved Mysteries episode. police were never able to find a confirmed connection between the two Mary Morris murders and a motive has never been established. Police have publicly stated that they do not believe the two cases are related. It's just a coincidence that two women named Mary Morris were murdered three days apart.

They also don't believe a hitman would have made the identity mistake. he would know who his victim was, what she looked like, what her daily routine was. They've also pointed to the fact that these women were killed on opposite sides of the county. And statistically, they've said, you know, that year alone, Harris County had 300 murders. So the chances of the two murders being related are slim. Dwayne Young and Mike Morris remain suspects in the case because police have not been able to eliminate them. Mike Morris and his daughter Katie moved back to West Virginia after the murder. But Katie now resides back in Texas.

Mary Henderson-Morris' daughter, Marilyn, feels that another person needs to be fully checked out. She felt that her stepfather, Jay's actions after the murder, struck her as odd. I can say that throughout the entire ordeal, I never saw the man shed a tear or show any real emotion, to be honest. I can't tell you who did it or who didn't. But I can tell you that if people suspect Mike Morris because of his lack of cooperation on things he did, would or wouldn't do, then they should just as equally suspect Jay Morris and my mother's murder. I originally, you know, I think I could say I questioned the coincidence,

but, you know, in looking at the cases and knowing some of the details, I think both of these homicides were extremely personal. And I don't know that they were carried out by such a bumbling hitman, as most people would theorize, that was so inept that he completely initially killed the wrong person. I mean, whoever did this went through a lot and made a whole lot of effort to kill both of them. I don't think any one of these ladies was an easy target. I don't know.

I just can't imagine that someone who killed either one of them and went to the extent that they did was someone who would have just got the wrong person. The road on which Mary Henderson-Morse's car was found wasn't isolated out-of-the-way road, wasn't heavily traveled. And according to Maryland, Jay Morris placed himself there on the morning of the morning of his wife's death. You know, I was mentioned about, you know, things that happen that really stand out to you. Now, I remember when the police, the sheriff's department came to our house, came to their house, you know, and was asking for a photo of my mom for the news.

They were just asking random questions, and one of the questions they had asked were if they ever drove down that road. Was that a normal route that she would take? did Jay ever go down that road? And probably of all the questions that I ever heard him answer, the one that sent chills down my spine is in that moment when he told the sheriff's department that, yes, he went down that road and he had actually driven down that road that morning.

And I guess to me, it did something to me and made me feel a certain way because, you know, if that was me, it would tear me up. It would tear me up to know that I was right there. whether it be minutes or hours, I was right there while the person I dearly loved was dying or being killed or dead 50 to 100 yards from me. I don't know that I could live with that. But for someone to passively say, oh, yeah, you know, I drove down that road that morning. That struck me as odd. And I think it struck the sheriff's as odd also.

I don't know exactly, you know, what time he went down that road. But, I mean, I know the 911 call came in at 1020 in the morning. And, you know, I know he would have been going down that road in the morning. He never mentioned seeing smoke. The only thing I remember him really expressing is, you know, the police did ask him to take a lie detector test, and he didn't want to do that. And he didn't want to do that because he said as a child, as a teenager, not as a child.

As a teenager, he had worked for a small store in the small town he grew up in and apparently someone was stealing from the store and they made them take lie detector test and they failed them back then. I don't know about you, but I don't know many convenience stores now that would give lie detector tests

for stealing much less, you know, when he was a teen. As Marilyn continued to grieve for the loss of her mother, her stepfather Jay seemed to be getting over his wife's murder pretty easily. Very soon after the funeral, I know the sheriff's department after they, you know, collected all the evidence that they needed, he immediately signed the title over to the car. I didn't even get to see it. And I'm talking like immediately, immediately within days.

He cleaned out all my mother's belongings. I didn't have the option to go through her clothing or anything. And I was her only daughter. Me and my mom were pretty close. Growing up, when my parents divorced, I have a brother, but my brother lived with my dad and I lived with my mom. And so we were pretty close, and I can honestly say, I guess I would have had the expectation, you know,

that I would have been allowed to go through her belongings. But, you know, that didn't happen. And I can't tell you exactly when he, you know, started trying to settle the estate, but I know that was pretty important to him. And maybe I was dragging my feet, but at some point he did get an attorney to contact me to tell me that I really needed to sign the papers

so that we could settle the estate. I just wasn't ready. I mean, I think afterwards he was pretty calm and collected and pretty matter of fact. Like I said, I never saw him shed a tear afterwards. Before we settled her estate, he was already in the process of getting remarried. He had already courted a young lady from Russia.

I guess started her. I mean, he would have had to start her visa process pretty quickly because if I'm not mistaken, they were married within the year of my mother's death. I still mourner pretty regularly, but, you know, he moved on pretty quickly.

So, Morph I think, you know, as we're wrapping this case up, there's no doubt. This is such a bizarre and puzzling case. We have two women in the same area with the same name murdered three days apart. There doesn't seem to be anything solid that connects them, but the similarities are there.

There is suspicion about at least one of the husbands of these women. And you can tell from the conversation that we had with Marilyn, she is suspicious of her stepfather as well. More if it's a case that is very murphy. And obviously it remains to be seen if the murders of either Mary Henderson Morris or Mary McGinnis Morris will ever be solved. Hopefully one day their families will get some answers. And we talked about the fact that police do not believe there's a connection. They believe it is a coincidence. I personally find that very hard to believe.

They gave the statistic of the fact that there were 300 murders in the county that year. I don't know, two out of 300, happen days apart, have the same name. Tough to think that that's a coincidence. And I think that's why so many people are drawn to this case because it is very unusual and there's so many possibilities

that make you wonder, are these two cases connected or are they totally separate incidents? But the similarities seem to be hard to dismiss. No, I think if one of these women had been named, Jane Smith, then there probably wouldn't be so much controversy, so many armchair detectives, right, looking into this. One of the puzzling things to me is that 911 call that hasn't been released. What happened during that call? They supposedly have it on tape and won't release it

because it's too horrific. And that leads me to another question that I have is if they had that 911 call going on for several minutes, why weren't they able to track that call and send someone out there to find her while the attack was going on or soon afterwards? And I think it is a great question, Morf. Obviously, you and I are not experts on cell phone technology. What I believe is that back during this time frame, I'm not sure that they could track location of a 911 call that came in from a cell phone. I believe most cities can today, but I don't know that they could back then. And again, I could be totally wrong about that, but that's what I'm thinking. Yeah, it makes you wonder if somehow they could have traced it

if that would have saved Mary McGinnis Morris's life. Well, we mentioned that her body was not found until the next day. So obviously, they didn't have her location. right so i'm making some of my assumptions based on that i don't know if it would have saved her life but they definitely would have found her much quicker i just can't make up my mind if these cases are related i seem to go back and forth there's some things that are so similar that make you think it might be related but then there's some differences that make me say you know what maybe they're not related so it's just one of those puzzling cases for me that i i can't seem to land on one side of the fence. And I think it's tough right now to know, you know, with the information

that we have, you know, like I said, I think it's, it's tough for it to be a coincidence, but that doesn't mean it can't be, right? We know stuff like this happens. Sometimes things that you think have to have something to do with each other turn out to be nothing but a coincidence. But I don't know. It's why it's so frustrating, puzzling. It's, it's, it's. It's, it's, it's, it's, That's the type of case that this is. I think that's what's really drawn the armchair detectives and online sleuths to the case is the complexity of it. And there was one message that Mary Henderson, Morris's daughter, Marilyn, really wanted to share with the people out there on the forums, the internet discussing the Mary Morris murders. I appreciate people wanting to talk about it.

I know that there's a, you know, it's an interesting case. that it's, you know, what happened is strange. It's really out of the ordinary. But, you know, I think it's important for people to remember that, you know, she was my mom. So when people have these theories and these off-the-wall philosophies that they want to brainstorm and share with people and talk about her like, you know, she's a movie or a plot to a movie, you know, that hurts because she's still a family that, you know, we live with us every day. And that's tough. well this is real this really happened

I know there were several blog posts and responses that it's not real that it's the plot to the Terminator movie and it is real it's very real and it happened to happen to my mom and it happened to another little girl's mom

so I mean I think that's the biggest thing I want to clear up is that it really did happen and that we live with it every day And, you know, I know that there was this another show that talked about my mom's death. And, you know, through theories out there about things that they thought could have happened or why some would have burned her remains. And, you know, that's never been proven and it can never be. So, you know, I wish people would just think about those things before they throw them out there

because, you know, we do listen. Katie listens. Lori listens. You know, we want to know, and we appreciate that people are interested in the story because we hope talking about it will, you know, make somebody step up or, you know, keeping the story out there is what may help us get leads in the case. But, you know, I just wish people wouldn't, you know, talk about it like they're not real people because they were.

If anyone out there listening has information about the murders of Mary Henderson-Morris or Mary McGinnis-Morris, please call the Houston Crime Stoppers at 7 1323-22-2-2-2 tips. That's it. That is it for the case of the Mary Morris murders. Morif this is one that I hope they do solve. Number one for the families, right? You always want the families to get the information that they're seeking.

But I also, selfishly, I want to know what happened in this case. I'm the same way. I want to know what happened as well and see if any of the theories were correct. and again, for the families, they deserve to have answers. And we just want to give a shout out for research and writing assistance in this episode to Debbie at truecrimediva.com. If you haven't done so yet and you love the show, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating.

You can leave us a review if you want. All of that goes a long way towards helping other people find the show. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with a handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for criminology podcast or find our discussion group on Facebook by searching for criminology podcast discussion in fans. So Morph and I will be back next Saturday with an all new case. We'll see you then. Looking forward to starting the next 50 episodes. Yeah, me too. Take care, everyone.