Every Town - The Strange & Mysterious Death Of Chuck Morgan

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

Chuck had a secret tucked in his underwear. And beyond that, what happened to him over the course of 2 months back in the Spring of 1977 is something totally sensational and it doesn’t happen to regular folks…..It involves the mafia, Millions of dollars, a kidnapping, a drugging, an undercover agent, strange phone calls and cyphers and of course, a death. 👀 Watch This Episode On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scarymysteries 🎧 Our Other Podcast Scary Mysteries: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkT 💀 Exclusive Videos, Podcasts & Perks: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries  👁 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg 👁 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald 👁 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial 🗣 Business Inquiries, questions and comments hit us up at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between.

With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime. Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every town has a dark side. The case of Chuck Morgan is a unique and very strange one. Chuck was a regular businessman and dedicated father and husband, or so it appeared.

Because what happened to him over the course of two months back in the spring in 1977 is something totally sensational and that doesn't happen to regular folks. It involves the mafia, millions of dollars, a kidnapping, a drugging, an undercover agent, strange phone calls and ciphers and, of course, a death. His story is a mystery that's never been solved, and based on the evidence, the actual truth will likely stay hidden forever. We'll do our best here to figure out the most likely reality that transpired, but the waters get very murky in Chuck's story.

Hey guys, it's Andrew, and thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Everytown. For today, we're digging in to one of the most unlikely cases we've ever covered. A true unicorn, and that it has every aspect a true crime lover, likes to get into. So, strap on in for a while ride, so we head on down to the deserts of Arizona and learn about the unsolved and very weird case of Charles Chuck Morgan. On March 22nd, 1977, 39-year-old Chuck Morgan and his two daughters left their house in Tucson, Arizona. He was dropping them off at school before heading to work, all part of their normal weekday routine. And Chuck was a bit of an entrepreneur, working at his own business as an escrow agent,

which if you're unfamiliar with, means it was his job to act as the neutral third party during a real estate transaction. So funds and assets were held by him until it was time to pull a trigger. This is girls ran up the stairs towards school. We have goodbye to them, but... Come dinner time that evening, Chuck still hadn't come home. His wife Ruth tried to reach him at work, but the phone just kept on ringing. And this was very out of character for the dedicated family man. Ruth maintained her composure, though, as she didn't want to worry the girls, but inside,

she knew something was terribly wrong. Her instincts were right, though for a few days she had to suffer in silence. The following morning, with still no sound of her husband being anywhere, Ruth called the police, but there wasn't much they could do, was not enough time it passed to officially mark him down as missing. She figured he must have had an accident out there somewhere. Ruth drove around the endless stretches of deserts and strip malls searching for any sign of Chuck or his car, but there was nothing.

But then on the third night, after he had seemingly vanished into thin air, the Morgan's dog started barking out of nowhere. Ruth jumped up to go to the front door and when she opened it, and there was Chuck. He was in a rough state, missing a shoe with one ankle still cuffed by a plastic tie, and his hands bound together by a zip tie. But even more alarming than that was when she asked him what had happened, Chuck couldn't say a word. He pointed to his throat, indicating he literally couldn't speak.

Using a pen and paper, he desperately communicated with his wife, revealing that he had been kidnapped and tortured. He explained that the reason he couldn't talk was that his assailants had coached. his throat with some sort of hallucinogenic drug, a substance that he said could either drive him insane while destroying his nervous system and possibly kill him. Ruth, of course, wanted to call the police and a doctor, but Chuck was adamant that that was out of the question. Because, as he put it, as he scribbled on that sheet of paper in front of him, doing so would put a hit on not just his life, but also on the entire family. He then urgently instructed Ruth to move his car out of sight from the driveway. He was very concerned about them not knowing he was back.

Who were they exactly? Well, he wouldn't say. Mistakes were sky high and Chuck's mysterious captors had left him terrified. Unless his family knew, the safer he figured they all would be. And for the next week, Ruth carefully fed her husband using an eyedropper, a testament to just how fragile he actually was. And during this vulnerable time, while she was, while she was, She nursed him back to health before he could fully speak again. Chuck began to reveal a few things, as this whole situation was so surreal, he was going to have to say something. They came in small spurts, and ultimately, there were hints that maybe the normal man that Ruth had married. It wasn't so normal after all.

And before we get into what he revealed, you need to understand that back of the 1970s, Arizona was the Wild Wild West for drug dealings and shady real estate deals. And naturally these kinds of opportunities attracted criminals that included organized crime in the mafia. The infamous New York Don Joseph Bonano had moved there. And with him, over 500 racketeers leading to several gangland-style killings in the area. These were not just rinky-dink little operations set up here. We're talking millions upon millions of dollars being pushed around. A unique Arizona state law allowed anybody to purchase

land through blind trust accounts. And that meant that these criminals could put money in these trusts that no one could see and launder as much of it as they wanted, however they saw fit. The very person who could set up this type of trust was Chuck, the good old escrow agent. And in fact, after investigating his case, it was found out that Chuck for sure worked with at least one mafia family. Now, that doesn't mean he was necessarily on the take or involved with the crimes they committed, at least not directly, but he may have unknowingly gotten caught up in something that he could no longer control. He may have done something that wasn't appreciated by the mob, and that resulted in the kidnapping. Still another angle, though, is that Chuck knew exactly

what he was doing, and in fact wanted to work with the mafia because secretly, Chuck was working as an undercover agent for the government. That, of course, would be an even bigger no-no to any criminal, who may have hired him and found this out. Ruth, as well as many others, believed this to be the case, because he told her that the people who had taken him stole his Department of Treasury badge the government had given him. He explained that he had been working with the FBI and Treasury Department for two to three years at this point,

something Ruth had never even known about. According to Chuck, he was in trouble and managed a daring escape near Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport. But who was he really in trouble with? Was it the mafia? Or was it our own government? Either way, he was caught in a bad place. And he knew they'd be back for him.

But what could he really do other than attempt to protect himself and his family as best he could? As Chuck recovered, his life was clouded and justified paranoia. He then began wearing a bulletproof vest daily, pairing his 357 magnum with him, and then growed a beard to help disguise his appearance he was. further. In addition to dropping his girls off at school, now he also wanted to pick them up every day, insisting to the school staff that no one else was authorized to pick them up under any circumstances. The stress was eating at him, as you can imagine. He didn't know where or when they'd strike,

but he knew it was coming and was going to try to figure a way out of this if it was at all possible. And then about two and a half months after his first kidnapping, on June 7th, and Chuck disappeared again. The events that unfolded after this are about as strange and cryptic as a real-life crime story can be. As mentioned, Chuck was trying to keep his family out of it all, but also knew that they may get to him, and if that was the case, then he wanted to offer up some knowledge of who was responsible for his untimely disappearance. So he told his father that if anything were to happen to him, there would be a letter hidden in his home that would reveal who had done it. When the time came around June 7, to get the note, though, while it was gone. Ruth was fearing the worst as the days

went by, and there was nothing but silence about what had happened to Chuck. Nine days later, though, a mysterious call came through to the Morgan home. Ruth picked it up, and on the other end was a woman who wouldn't identify herself. She asked if she was speaking to Ruth, who said, yes, she was. And then the lady, on the line, simply said, Chuck is all right. Ecclesiast. 12, 1 through 8, and then hung up. This cryptic message refers to a Bible passage that speaks of mortality and the inevitable return of the spirit to God who gave it. It reads in part, Men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road. Remember him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed. And then the dust will return to the earth as it was,

and the spirit will return to God who gave it. But really, what was that caller trying to convey with this scripture? I mean, that doesn't really sound like anything the mafia would do. What would be the point? And if this wasn't mob-related, well, then who was it? Two days after that call came through to Ruth, Chuck was then found dead right out in the Arizona desert. His body was discovered in a lonely spot about 30 feet off the highway

in the area of San Juan Springs. He'd been fatally shot once in the back of the head with a bullet from his own gun, which was found laying next to him. Surprisingly, though, no fingerprints at all were found on the weapon, and he wasn't wearing gloves. Gunshot residue on his left hand suggested he had fired a weapon. The police report backed that up. The official story then became that under extreme pressure,

unable to take it anymore. Chuck decided to go out to the desert and end it all. But many police and detectives have said in regards to this, that over the course of their careers, they've never come across someone who unlives themselves by putting the gun to the back of their own head. Possible, yes, but unlikely. And given the fact that he had just escaped a kidnapping, was fearing for his life, and was wearing a bulletproof vest, while all those actions point to someone who wanted to live. And Ruth said there's no way he went out to that desert alone. But there's not a chance he would leave his little girls, and even if he did, the least he would do was leave them

with a note. No note addressed to his family was found, but in his car there were directions written in Chuck's handwriting that led to the spot where his body was discovered. Now, this was just a seemingly random place off the highway, so why would he need directions to get there if he weren't meeting anyone? The car also contained several weapons, ammunition, and a CB radio. Adding to the bizarre scene, a piece of one of his teeth wrapped in a white handkerchief was discovered in the back seat alongside a pair of sunglasses that weren't his. Now here's where it gets even stranger. And clipped inside his underwear was a $2 bill. And on this bill, seven Spanish names were listed, spanning from the letters A through G. Asavido, Beharano, Saharo, Duarte,

and Sinus, Fuente, Gradiya. Also written on the bill was Ecclesiastes 12, with verses 1 through 8 marked by arrows on the bill's serial number. The very same Bible passage referenced by the mysterious female caller who reached out to Ruth. On the back of the bill, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were numbered from 1 to 7. Additionally, another crude map was sketched, showing several roads leading from 2, Tucson to the Mexican border, but towns like Robles Junction and Sasebe highlighted known areas for smuggling activities.

Now the formal stance is that it appeared that Chuck had put this cryptic note in his underwear. And should anything happen to him, he knew there would be an autopsy that it would be found in red. But why make it so cryptic? It doesn't make sense. Why not put the names of the real people involved and let the world know in a clear way? Well, because either likely it was placed there by somebody else to add another layer of confusion of the case, or it was a way to communicate with other FBI agents.

And two days after Chuck's tragic death an anonymous woman contacted an officer from the Pima County Sheriff's Department. She identified herself only as green eyes and said that she was the one who had previously reached out to Ruth with that Bible verse, the same one found on that $2 bill. She revealed that she met up with Chuck at a motel just before his death. During the supposed meeting, Chuck showed her a briefcase filled with several thousand dollars, which he said he was going to use to pay off a hitman hired to kill him. The mafia had apparently put out a contract on his life. Chuck figured out who was going to do the deed and having no other choice.

He at least attempted to meet up with him to pay him off, which clearly failed. In reality, if the supposed meetup did happen, And this hitman shot Chuck, took his money, and also got paid by those who hired him to do the job. Surprisingly, despite all the mysterious clues pointing every which way, the authorities closed the case on Chuck. Stuck to that idea that he had done it all himself. They suggested he might have been driven to despair by financial troubles or out of fear for his safety. All the phone calls, the notes, the ciphers, the kidnappings. This all meant nothing in their own.

eyes and wasn't worth investigating. The whole story of what happened at Chuck didn't sit well with a lot of people. Just didn't add up. Reporter Don Devereaux went on to dig deeper into the tangled web of Chuck's life when he uncovered that from 1973 until his death in 77, Chuck was deeply entangled in money-laundering activities through his Tucson escrow company, dealing in large transactions of gold and platinum. turned out that Chuck had raked in a hefty sum from these dealings, some of which allegedly oriented from Southeast Asia.

Devero discovered that Chuck had maintained duplicate records of these illicit transactions. He now believes that Chuck's meticulous record-keeping and his possession of these documents ultimately led to his demise. And someone, one of those records gone and chuck along with them. But yet again, something more mysterious happened. And three months after Don's article came out, another tragic incident occurred. Doug Johnston was found shot to death in his car, outside his Phoenix office. Ironically, he worked right across the street from Don's office and drove a car nearly identical to Don's.

This led Devereaux to believe that the hit meant for him, mistakenly, took Doug's life instead. During that same time, Don also got another lead from a man named Danny Castellaro. Casillaro was a writer from D.C. He planned to meet up with Don to discuss what he had uncovered. However, in a turn of events that seemed far from coincidental, the Danny died under suspicious circumstances before he could receive the information. In all three cases, Chuck's, Dougs, and Danny's remain unsolved to this day. So, like I mentioned, in this case is strange and runs deep.

Feels like there's somebody with a lot of power of pulling the strings on this one. Whether it's the mafia, corrupt cops, secret government doings, or maybe a bit of all, who really knows. If you've listened to previous episodes of Everytown from time to time we bring up the idea of disinformation, which Chuck's case reeks of. The idea of disinformation itself gets a bad rap. People hear the word, and they often think conspiracy, but that's exactly how it's been designed to discredit. At its core, disinformation is simply the idea of, when there's something out there that you don't want people to know the truth about, the best thing to do is muddy the waters with more info than is needed.

Some false information, some real. Once you get enough storylines out there, eventually no one has any idea which way is up, which way to go to actually find the truth. Typically, in order to be successful at this tactic, you need to hold a lot of power so you can get the stories out. a lot of power like, I don't know, the government has. It appears to me that Chuck was doing undercover agent work for the Treasury and also doing some illegal stuff.

So he was playing both sides, and maybe both sides even knew about one another, and Chuck was just caught in the middle. Green eyes and those Bible verses and that $2 bill, there's nothing more than an agent looking to add weird layers to this in order for it to never come back on them. Perhaps the government was working with the mafia on some bad things, and it wouldn't be the first time this had happened. And that note with the names on it that he left for his father,

I was taken because his house was being surveilled by people who can do high-tech surveillance. And so, they got it as soon as he placed it there. If you're still not sure about what I'm saying, well, keep this in mind. Right after Chuck's death, his car was broken into while still under police custody. Around that same time his office was completely ransacked, and then about three weeks after his death, two men claiming to be FBI agents showed up at the Morgan home to speak to Ruth. They insisted on searching the house, saying it was necessary. They flashed their badges fast, and Ruth watched as they tore through their belongings.

It remains a mystery, whether they found anything, or if they were truly FBI agents. The icing on the cake of all this is Part of Don's investigative journalism was that he reached out to the FBI for a freedom of information request on the file that they had on Chuck. Don wanted to know for sure who had been to that house

also knew that they had been looking into the case as well as having talked to Chuck's lawyer. The FBI's official statement to Don about this was that they had never heard of Chuck Morgan before and had no files whatsoever on him. So that's going to do it for this week's episode of Everytown. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did, make sure you go and watch our new movie.

A messed up thriller that I made called An Angry Boy that you can stream on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, and Microsoft on June 7th. It's won a bunch of awards at some festivals. Co-stars Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts, and there's some wild and crazy stuff in there. So please check it out to help support all the work we're doing. and do come back next week for another episode for with scary, strange, and mysterious stories

because you never know. Maybe your town will be next.