Dark Downeast - The Suspicious Death of Morgan Patten Part 1 (North Carolina)

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

Morgan Renee Patten was supposed to be spending a weekend with her fiancé celebrating their engagement in Jacksonville, North Carolina where he was in the School of Infantry at Camp Geiger. On Friday, November 8, 2019, Morgan left the home they shared in Edgartown, Massachusetts for a day-long journey down south.But Morgan never got to see her fiancé. Her life ended in a car accident with two strangers in a remote town far from where she was staying. To this day, the details just don’t add up for Morgan’s parents, Steve and Renee Patten.What happened at the restaurant bar? How did Morgan end up in that truck? Will the two strangers with Morgan in that accident ever speak up? The Pattens will not stop until they have all the answers. This is about justice for their baby girl.This is Part 1 of Morgan's story, told by her parents, Steve and Renee Patten.Stay up to date on Morgan Patten's case and learn more about her at morgansmilestogo.com. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/morganpatten-part1Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

She was supposed to be spending a weekend with her fiancé, celebrating their engagement. Morgan Renee Patton made the day-long trip from Martha's Vineyard to Jacksonville to see her Marine, who was with the School of Infantry at Camp Geiger just outside of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. But Morgan never got to see her fiancé. Her life ended in a car accident with two strangers in a remote town far from where she was staying. To this day, the details just don't add up for Morgan's parents, Steve and Renee Patton. What happened at the restaurant bar? How did Morgan end up in that truck?

And will the two strangers with Morgan in that accident ever speak up? I really, I want everybody to know the injustice of Morgan Patton's story. And I want people to be outraged. The Pattons will not stop until they have all the answers. This is about justice for their baby girl. With Steve and Renee Patton, I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Morgan Patton's story, part one, on Dark Down East. Steve and Renee Patton live in central New Hampshire. They've been lifelong residents of the area. It's where they graduated high school, as did their preparing for Morgan, in the woods one day trying to figure out how, at 25 years old, I barely feel responsible enough to get myself home at the end of the day safely. How am I going to do this?

I have to say, for all the fears that I have, Renee, from the moment Renee found out that she was pregnant, she was an instant mom and the best ever. It changed her instantly and that in turn changed me and changed us into a family. I could sense Steve's protective, fatherly nature from the very first time we spoke, as well as the pride and love he has for his family. He and Renee sat shoulder to shoulder, leaning on each other for support when the conversation got heavy. Their cat occasionally brushing up against Renee's hand as she began to tell me about her daughter. I treasure the time that I had knowing and nobody else did. To have just that time to have knowing her

and loving her before anyone else was pretty special. We made the choice to stay home with Morgan and it wasn't ideal as far as financial standpoint, but that was the choice that we made and we made it work and I would never take it back. The best days of our lives were adventuring at a young age. It was a word she used over and over again to describe Morgan and life with their little girl. Adventure. Morgan, definitely everything we did was an adventure. From having to take her for a walk or visiting family or going to museum as she got older and

hiking we hiked almost every day and I'd have her in a little baby backpack she'd go up the mountain with me and I was always an adventure it was something that I don't know what the right words are but it just it doesn't compare to any adventure that you could plan. Though always up to tag along on an adventure with her mother and father, Morgan was a quiet spirit, an observer. She earned the nickname Mouse in elementary and middle school for her shy nature, but she soon blossomed. She was pretty quiet, and she would enter a room and take everything in. And once she started opening up, there was no stopping. Her parents say she was also incredibly driven.

When Morgan wanted to achieve something, she damn well found a way to do it. From a young age, Morgan made herself promises. She didn't set, the goals that she set were checkpoints along the way, but she made herself promises, I'm going to do this. And it always astounded us that she actually made it happen. She made sure I understood how important it was to her that on my side of the family, she was going to be the first one to earn a bachelor's degree. And there was nothing going to hold her back.

After that, she decided to go on to law school, which completely caught me off guard. She was motivated, for sure. Morgan had a great love for the ocean and planned to dedicate her career to it. She earned her bachelor's degree in geoscience with a focus on energy, and she was enrolled in the coastal environmental law Program at Roger Williams University. And her goal was to make algae oil and tidal energy, things of that nature, a reality. The pride Steve and Renee have for their daughter is undeniable. Morgan is their only child. Steve and Renee maintain a website in Morgan's honor, morgansmilestogo.com, and on the website, Steve shared a story of Morgan's birth and described the complications

Renee faced just after she delivered Morgan. A few years later, Renee suffered a miscarriage. The attending physician told them that the likelihood of Renee carrying a child to term was one in a million. Renee told the doctor they already had a happy, healthy daughter, to which the doctor replied, well, there's your one in a million. Stephen Renee, as Morgan grew up and became an adult and moved out to start her own life, did you have a close relationship with her? We were very close. Well, I may have texted her too many times in a day, but...

If that were the case, Morgan would say so. Morgan would tell her when enough was enough. I was allowed three questions a day. But anyway, we kept in contact with her all the time. As an adult, it was just beautiful. You know, Morgan and I were starting to joke about when she became very successful after law school and opened her own practice and she'd have a house on the water and we could retire and stay in the guest house. And all I'd have to do is mow the lawn and clean the pool and it was going to be great.

They'd do anything for their girl. We helped her any way we could to build her life, you know, helped her move into an apartment and helped her with school and helped her with her car, helped everything. And, you know, I would go see her as often as I could and we would just hang out or paddle around. I'd meet her friends and we'd go to the ocean, which is one of my favorite things. From a post on their website, Steve writes, as a dad, there were many things that I wished for for my daughter, but loving a great man who also made her feel loved was near the top of the list. And Morgan found that in a man named Phil Brandon. When she brought him home for us to meet, we couldn't have been happier.

Just delighted. I just, I'd never seen her so happy, her whole face just was different. And the way they looked at each other, the way I could see he cared for her. Our daughter was perfect. About a year into Morgan and Phil's courtship, Morgan told her dad that Phil would be calling him with some questions. Phil was away with the Marine Corps, and Renee and I were on our way home from a weekend away. It was actually a work trip, and Morgan called us and said that Phil wanted to talk to me about the School of Infantry. He had some questions about the Marine Corps' School of Infantry, and I just thought that was odd. Of course, Phil can call me anytime, and so that last hour that Renee and I were driving, we were trying to figure out, why does Phil really want to talk to us?

Could it be possible that he is going old school, and he's going to ask my permission to marry Morgan. So we had our, we, we had our hopes up that that's what it was. And sure enough, Phil worked up the nerve over the phone because he was, he couldn't do it in person to ask for Morgan's hand in marriage. And Renee and I both, we hadn't even spoken about it, but Renee and I both remained silent for about 15 or 20 seconds. Which probably felt like a lot longer for him. And then we couldn't hold it in anymore. We just told him that we loved him, and we were thrilled with the way he took care of Morgan

and would certainly welcome him into our family with open arms. And he let out a sigh of relief and said, well, that's great because I actually asked her last weekend. He just couldn't contain himself. Morgan and Phil announced their engagement on October 26, 2019, but they hadn't actually seen each other in months. Phil popped the question over the phone, but about two weeks later, over Veterans Day weekend in 2019, Morgan and Phil planned to celebrate the next chapter of their epic love story. Phil was with the School of Infantry at Camp Geiger just outside of Camp

Lejeune, North Carolina. Because he was in a school setting, Phil wasn't given a full 96, meaning four days off or a four-day weekend. Instead, he was granted a limited 96-hour liberty, which meant that, beginning on Saturday, November 9th, through Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, he could leave base and not have to check in between the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. He was living at the barracks, and so while he and Morgan couldn't stay together overnight, Phil invited her down to North Carolina to spend the days with him. Morgan jumped at the opportunity. So that was their plan, was to spend those four days together. And they didn't make plans to go do anything spectacular. They just wanted to be together. That was very important. Important and exciting. Morgan barely slept the night before

and even boarded the ferry to the mainland from the home she shared with Phil in Edgartown, Massachusetts, long before she needed to. She was just so eager to see her Marine. They had moved in together before Phil left for the Marine Corps. So she left their house in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard. She got on a ferry. She actually got on the ferry nearly an hour before it left. She was so excited to see Phil.

The first ferry left the island at 6 a.m. and she called me at 5.30 and she was already checked onto the ferry, was seated, just waiting to get to the mainland. The ferry was just the first mode of transportation she'd have to take to get from Massachusetts to the small military town in North Carolina. It would not be an easy or quick journey, but to Morgan, it would be worth it. So she rode the ferry from Martha's Vineyard to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where she was able to get on a bus to Logan Airport. She flew from Logan Airport to LaGuardia in New York and from LaGuardia to Charlotte, North Carolina. There's no direct flights from anywhere in the Northeast to Jacksonville. Jacksonville is a really small regional airport. So then from Charlotte, she took a commuter flight into Jacksonville. So it was 13 hours. And then she took an Uber. An Uber to her hotel. To her hotel. So it was 13 hours of shuffling and on the bus, off the bus, on the plane.

And she was in contact with us the whole time and just checked in with her friends. And so she wasn't really alone. You know, she was always in contact with someone. After 13 hours, Morgan arrived in Jacksonville, North Carolina on Friday, November 8th, but she still had several more hours until she'd get to see her fiancé. Phil's time off didn't start until 8 a.m. the next morning, and so with nothing left to do but to wait, Morgan checked in to the Baymont Hotel and got settled in. As soon as she arrived at the hotel, she let us know via text message that she was there.

And she had checked her emails, told us that the Island Energy Company wanted to interview her for a position on Tuesday when she arrived back at Martha's Vineyard. So she was excited about that. They also talked about Morgan's plans for the night. It was a long travel day, and Morgan wanted to get something to eat. The hotel was in a commercial area with a few chain restaurants nearby, including an Applebee's in the same parking lot. We reminded her that it's a military town. it's not the safest place to be, so... Don't be wandering about, you know, and she shouldn't have a vehicle. Anyway, but with the hotel and the restaurant being in the same parking lot, she assured us that she could just walk across the parking lot and get some dinner,

and then go back to her room and go to bed. The communities surrounding military bases have a reputation for being unsafe. However, whether that reputation can be proven with data is unclear. Either way, traveling alone to an unknown place has its risks. But Morgan was smart about her surroundings and was fine with the chain restaurant culinary experience if it meant staying safe. Plus, after a long day, she didn't want to venture any further. Her words to Phil were, Applebee's sucks, but it's right there. So, and she could literally see the lights through her window in her room. After she showered and, you know, got settled in, you know, she had been there, she'd been in her room about an hour.

So around 7.15 p.m. on November 8th, she left her room and walked to Applebee's. Morgan kept up with her multiple text conversations with her parents and with Phil and his family throughout the evening. She kept in touch all through her meal before finally signing off. She was texting both of us as it was a group. The three of us were all in a group at that point.

And she said that she was going to bed and we assumed that she was back at the hotel. The next morning was Saturday, November 9th, 2019. The day Morgan and Phil should have reunited and started their weekend of celebration in honor of their engagement. Instead, the morning brought news that no parent ever deserves to hear. Our local police chief, who is a friend of ours, you know, we live in a small town, he woke us up at 4.30 on Saturday morning, and I came downstairs first first and I saw him.

Cruiser was out in the driveway running and I turned the corner from the bottom of the stairs and there's our local police chief standing in my kitchen in full uniform. And I, my mind started going to, did something happen at a neighbor's house overnight? Something happened at my house overnight that I'm not aware of yet? I wasn't even giving any thought to Morgan. I just knew that she was with Phil and she was safe. And we had talked to her all evening, right up until she said she was going to bed. And he started telling me, started talking about a vehicle crash in North

Carolina. And he said that, I remember him saying the words, it was a fatal crash. And then I felt my body temperature rise by 10 or 15 degrees. And I remember clenching my fists as tight as I could. And I said, don't you dare say it. And he started, he was trying to tell me that Morgan was dead. And I kept interrupting him, telling him, don't you don't say it. And, but he, he did. I heard Renee coming down the stairs and, um, he said, do you want me to leave so that you can tell her, or do you need me to tell her?

And I panicked and I said, neither one of us can tell her. She can't know you. She can't hear that Renee cannot hear what you just told me. I don't know. I can't hear that. Renee cannot hear what you just told me. I don't know. I wasn't thinking rationally because obviously Renee had to know and was going to know. But I hadn't had a chance to process it yet myself. And I just, I didn't know what would happen to Renee when she heard those words. But yeah, it was 4.30 Saturday morning. The information sank in slowly. Steve and Renee Patton were shocked and incredulous. Something just wasn't right about what they were hearing.

It just didn't, it didn't seem possible. Morgan didn't have a car. So did Morgan didn't have a vehicle. Couldn't have been Morgan. It took several minutes to realize what he had just told us. But then Rene was the first one to question it, the validity of everything that he said, because as Rene said, Morgan, there were no vehicles involved in this trip to North Carolina. Phil did not have a vehicle down there.

Morgan did not have a vehicle. It's unfortunately has to be false information. There's a terrible mistake. This cannot be Morgan. Around 6.30 that same morning, Steve called Sergeant John Edwards of the North Carolina Highway Patrol. The police chief in Bradford, New Hampshire, had said Sergeant Edwards would be able to answer his questions. The first and most important question was how could they be sure that this was Morgan? She was a Jane Doe for most of

the night and they had not found any identification, but they had found her phone at the crash scene and the driver of the vehicle had told them that the girl's name was Morgan and she was from New Hampshire. That's all he could remember. So he started checking around at hotels in Jacksonville and found a Morgan Patton registered at the Baymont Hotel. Then through her phone, he was able to track us down and make the contact. And so he was certain that she was properly identified at that point. The last they'd heard from Morgan, she said she was going to bed. How did she end up in a car? Where was she going and with who? And we were still here trying to figure out how she ended up in a vehicle. And he mentioned the two names, Hunter Wells and Charles Cornwall,

asked if we knew them or Morgan knew them. And that threw a whole other stick into the spokes. To Steve and Renee's knowledge at the time, and now, Morgan did not know a Hunter Wells or Charles Cornwall. There's one person that Morgan knows in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and that's Phil Brandon. And we know that he is probably sound asleep right now. He's not off duty until 8 o'clock this morning.

And then I panicked and I said, somebody needs to let Phil know because he's going to arrive at the hotel in a couple of hours not knowing anything. So I had to track Phil down and let him know. But we were still questioning the validity of the information all morning and trying to buy plane tickets and make arrangements for a place to stay because we had to get to Jacksonville. As fast as we could because nothing made sense.

It didn't make one bit of sense. It was completely unreal. And we did. We got down there as fast as we could. By 10.30 a.m., Steve and Renee were on a plane headed towards Jacksonville, North Carolina, just as their daughter Morgan had been less than 24 hours earlier. She was a planner. She was cautious. She thought things through. She was in Jacksonville to see Phil, and that was the only reason she was there. As Steve and Renee Patton arrived in North Carolina, they hoped to find answers. But they'd only uncover more questions.

They told us that Morgan just had too much to drink and she made a bad decision. And it's nothing but an unfortunate DWI fatality. And there's nothing further from the truth. She told her parents she was heading to bed. So how did Morgan, a woman from New England who knew no one but her fiancé in Jacksonville, North Carolina, who had traveled a full day to see him, and only him, end up in a fatal car accident with two strangers in a small town miles away from the hotel where she was staying. For Morgan's parents, the details just don't add up.

Two unknown men. Conflicting statements by bartenders. An unpaid bar tab. No seatbelt. Excessive speed. A gun. conflicting statements by bartenders, an unpaid bar tab, no seatbelt, excessive speed, a gun. In the next episode of Dark Down East,

you'll hear about the evidence that has Steve and Renee Patton certain whatever happened to their daughter cannot be dismissed as an unfortunate DWI fatality. I really, I want everybody to know the injustice of Morgan Patton's story, and I want people to Dark Down East. Sources for this episode include original investigative documents obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests, completed by Steve Patton, and shared with me. Additional sources cited and referenced for this episode are listed at darkdowneast.com.

Please follow Dark Down East on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening right now. You'll be sure to get the next episode in Morgan's story first. The best way to support this show is to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode or any episode with your friends. Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and homicide cases. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe and this is Dark Down East.