Going West: True Crime - Morgan Bauer // 478

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

In February of 2016, a 19-year-old woman departed her home state of South Dakota bound for Atlanta, Georgia. She had arranged to stay at the home of a man she’d met on Craigslist, in exchange for cleaning his house, but he kicked her out after just one day. And then, she disappeared. Mired in unsubstantiated rumors, pointed fingers, and familial disputes, this case has been complicated from the start. But finally, much resolution has come to her story, proving that she was murdered. This is the story of Morgan Bauer.

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host T and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to going West Hello everybody. Hope you're doing well today. Hope you had a pretty good weekend. You know, good Valentine's day, all that good stuff. Heath and I saw hard eyes. We laid in bed a lot, laid on the couch a lot. Yes, it was a very relaxing weekend for us. Very lazy weekend, but thank you guys so much for tuning in today. We have a crazy case, honestly, from Atlanta, Georgia.

This case has such a fake out where a lot of people thought that nothing really happened, and then they learned that something really, really horrible happened. And so many years passed without resolution, actually kind of more recently, we had some resolution in this case. So it felt like a really good time to cover it.

And big thank you, by the way, to Megan, Christie, and Rachel for letting us know about this one. Yes, I think there was a lot of miscues and a lot of things that really hindered the investigation early on. But thankfully, as you mentioned, there are some recent updates. Yeah, get ready to be confused and frustrated. Alright guys, well, this is episode 478 of Going West, so let's get into it. In February of 2016, a 19-year-old woman departed her home state of South Dakota, bound for Atlanta, Georgia.

She had arranged to stay at the home of a man she'd met on Craigslist in exchange for cleaning his house, but he kicked her out after just one day, and then she disappeared. Mirrored in unsubstantiated rumors, pointed fingers, and familial disputes, this case has been complicated from the start. But finally, much needed resolution has come to her vanishing, proving that she was murdered. Morgan Bauer was born on April 13th, 1996 in Vermilillion, South Dakota, which is in the southeastern corner of South Dakota, nestled right in between the borders of Nebraska and Iowa. Her mom Sherry had a daughter named Alyssa from a previous relationship. We are going to talk about her in a little while, but this just means, of course, that Morgan had an older sister, but her parents did eventually split up.

And after this happened, Morgan spent some time living in Tennessee before returning to South Dakota and settling in Aberdeen in Northeast, almost as far north as North Dakota. Her dad, Matt, married a woman named Leah, bringing in two sons of her own, so Morgan's stepbrothers, Jaden and Tristan. And then Sherry also had a younger son named Mason, which basically just positioned Morgan as the second oldest of five siblings. Kind of wrap that kind of confusing bit up. Now according to Sherry, Morgan was quote, the most caring person. She would do anything for the people she loves. She's so kind and so funny."

Morgan also very much had a flair for the dramatic and loved to sing and dance and was known and loved for her vibrant outspoken nature even if it was getting her into trouble. Her stepmom Leah remembered quote, "...our relationship grew and as with any teenager sometimes it was great other times It was rocky at best. I laughed with her hugged her dried her tears cried with her and celebrated her I loved her she had a great relationship with my kids and my family She wasn't always perfect children seldom are and nothing is perfect in a blended family, but we had some really great moments now after graduating from Aberdeen Central High School in 2014, Morgan wanted to get

out into the world and explore some new surroundings, since she spent most of her life in small town South Dakota. So shortly after finishing high school, she and her high school sweetheart, a person that she had been seeing for multiple years, actually broke up. Because according to Morgan's mom, Sherry, she'd been dreaming of living in a big city since childhood. And this kind of gave her the push that she needed to make a fresh start somewhere new, you know, unattached.

Honestly, really proud of her for doing this. I feel like it's so easy to just be comfortable and stay in a place that you know, but she didn't want to do that. She wanted to get out and see the world." Absolutely, and Sherry explained, quote, she wanted to be her own person, move to a big city, and spread her wings. So Morgan set her sights on Atlanta, but her mother Sherry had some reservations about this from the start. Sherry later told NBC, quote, I didn't want her to really go to

Atlanta. It was something that was really worrying me. But Morgan does everything 100 percent. She's a go big kind of girl. And it, you know, it wasn't like there was something specifically in Atlanta that worried Sherry. It was just that Morgan was going from a city of about 28,000 people to a city of about 500,000 people. So you know, she's a mom and she cares. Yeah, when you moved out of Oregon to LA, your parents were kind of like, um, are you sure? Yeah, that's parents.

They definitely had some reservations, but eventually they okayed it. Yeah, and now they love to come visit. Well actually, something that was helping motivate Morgan's decision to leave small town South Dakota was her increasingly tense relationship with her mom in the months after she graduated high school. She was still living at home with Sherry, but saw herself as an adult, who came and went as she pleased. But Sherry didn't necessarily approve of Morgan's lifestyle and worried about her safety. So, like Daphne and I are saying, this just kind of made her mom extra anxious. But this strain between them became too much, so before heading to Atlanta, Morgan moved out to live with her two friends. According to the private detective later secured by Morgan's

family, his name is TJ Ward, the two sadly didn't have very much of a relationship leading up to her disappearance. TJ remarked, quote, There was not a real good relationship between Morgan and her mother. Though, Sherry maintains that she and her daughter were just going through the normal growing pains that were, you know, typical for a teenager and her mother. However, Morgan was struggling before her move to Atlanta. She was even arrested for letting tickets build up, and Sherry had to actually bail her out. Now, in addition to Morgan's financial woes, she was also needing to obtain her birth certificate and social security card from her mother in order to be able to work when she arrived in Atlanta. I mean,

we all need these documents to obtain a job. Yeah, and our parents are usually the ones that have those in like a folder somewhere while we're growing up. Oh yeah. So of course, even though Morgan was an adult at this point, because she was mostly living at home and then briefly living with her two friends, she needed to get these from her mom, but this actually quickly developed into a further rift between Sherry and Morgan, this whole documentation requirement.

Because basically what happened is Sherry declined to give her daughter Morgan these necessary documents because she didn't want her to leave. She was very concerned about her safety. So this was kind of her way of saying, oh, well, if I don't give you these, then you can't go. So she's trying to maintain some control here for her daughter's best interest. But Morgan at this point was 19 years old.

She was approaching 20 only a few months later in April. So she had a right to this documentation, which is why Morgan decided to go to the police, you know, get an officer involved in the situation to get what she needed from her mom's house. And the officer reporting to the situation ruled in favor of course of Morgan, which you can imagine just made things way worse between Morgan and her mom. But Morgan was an adult and free to make whatever choice she wanted to make, including moving to Atlanta. And it's just a really devastating situation because I think most parents would worry about

their kids in this type of situation, especially with what's to come and the circumstances surrounding this move. You know, she's hoping, of course, that nothing would happen. And then I agree with Morgan's right to do what she wants and spread her wings and move to Atlanta, but it's always so sad to see this type of conflict happen and then something horrible does occur, just like in Morgan's case.

Now, the last time Sherry saw her daughter, they met up at a gas station so that she could give Morgan her official documents, and she added in a lucky penny for posterity. Sherry recalls, quote, We didn't really talk. I gave her a penny, though. I told her to put the penny in her pocket and to keep it with her to keep her safe.

She was with her friend. I don't know who he was. They walked off and that was the last time I ever saw her. Now Morgan did ask her mom for a lift to the Minneapolis Airport where her flight to Atlanta was departing from, but Sherry declined. So a friend wound up taking her, giving her $20 because she reportedly had no money saved up for this move at all. Yeah, so it seems like Morgan just wanted to get out so bad and was kind of rushing this move because she didn't have anything set up.

She didn't have a job there, didn't have an apartment, no savings. I mean, absolutely nothing. Yeah, hence her mom's staunch hesitancy. However, to assuage her mom Sherry's nerves, Morgan told her that she was going to be moving to Atlanta with two friends, the girls that she had been living with for a short while in South Dakota. She said that her friends were supposedly driving there with the girls' belongings and furniture and Morgan would meet them in Atlanta. Obviously this really doesn't make any sense.

If she's moving there with these girls and they have all the belongings, why not just go with them, right? So late on the evening of February 11th, 2016, Morgan got a lift to the airport in Minneapolis ahead of her flight early on the morning of February 12th. But Sherry would find out too late that the plans Morgan gave her were a lie. So, here's kind of a crazy part to this.

Desperate to leave her hometown, Morgan found a man on Craigslist who was offering free room and board in exchange for cleaning his house. Or at least, that's what Morgan expected. Ugh, it's just so sketchy. Yeah, stuff like that always just seems really just bad news. I hate that. Now, the details of her first night in Atlanta are pretty murky at best, even to her friends and family, because things happened so fast after she moved there, and

there were certainly many details left out of what Morgan went through that she didn't explain to her friends. But according to Morgan, or at least what she was able to explain to friends, after staying with this man for just one night, she went out and came back to find all of her belongings left out front with a note telling her that she was no longer welcome in this man's house. Like, what's that about? I wonder if it was something where, like, he asked her to do something and she just decided, well, I'm gonna go out on the town instead and then, you know, she comes back and he's like alright well you're not holding up to your end so you're out. It's hard because we're just gonna tell you guys

right now there's really no resolution with this or at least this part of the story but it's something it's something in this case that I'm so curious about. Well with no money and no one nearby to help her Morgan scrambled to find a place to stay for the night. Again, the details here are pretty cloudy, but according to reports on social media, someone helped Morgan get a motel room for the night, and she spent the next two weeks bouncing around suburban Atlanta.

Desperate for income, she started dancing at a now closed nightclub called the Top of Gainesville, located in Gainesville, Georgia, which is about an hour southwest of Atlanta. And she even posted on Facebook excitedly announcing that she had started working there. Detectives believe that she may have wound up in the suburbs because the strip clubs in Atlanta kind of require proper licensing, including background checks and fingerprinting, which is something that Morgan had neither the time nor the money to spend doing. So it's obvious that her first introduction to living on her own was pretty brutal, and Sherry maintained, quote, she had to do what she had to do, and that doesn't mean any

harm should come to anyone. Now, remember, Morgan arrived to Atlanta on February 12th, and she was very active on social media in general, but after February 25th, her Facebook went static. And because she wasn't making much contact with her mom, Sherry was blind to the fact that Morgan had gone radio silent on all of her apps, and she had also failed to check in with her friends, including her best friend from back home, Taryn. A couple weeks later, around mid-March, Taryn actually went to Sherry concerned about Morgan's whereabouts after not having heard from her for over two weeks, while normally, she and

Taryn would talk like every day. So immediately panicked, Sherry reported her daughter missing to the Atlanta Police Department on March 12th, and hopped on a flight to Atlanta to begin the search for her daughter. And yeah, this is weeks after she was last heard from, so we have a really late start here, you know, at the fault of no one. This is what's so unfortunate about this case is she moved there alone You know any kind of distance from her friends or her mom felt kind of normal But then there you know after a certain amount of time passes It's like okay something's not right and now we've lost so much time

Absolutely and as we kind of hinted to in the beginning of this episode there were a lot of things some things that are gonna Come up here later That really hindered the investigation. It slowed it down completely. Yeah. And this is the first bit of that. Now, once her mother Sherry began retracing 19 year old Morgan steps, Sherry became even more afraid that foul play had befallen Morgan, because at this point her family wasn't aware of the new life she had and the work that she had been doing at the club, and also didn't know about

this Craigslist man who kicked her out. And I mean, in my opinion, Morgan probably felt like telling certain people all of this stuff back home, including the Craigslist guy stuff, would maybe lead to, and I told you so, or see, just come back, you know? So it does seem like she kept a lot hidden from a lot of people, which adds a big layer of mystery to this whole story. And you can kind of see where Sherry's discomfort comes from and her anxiety, because her 19-year-old daughter,

she just found out that her 19 year old daughter told her, you know, she was doing one thing and was doing something completely different and any parent would be concerned learning about that. So true, yeah. She was under the impression that she was moving there with two friends and now suddenly she hasn't been heard from in weeks and none of that was true. Yeah, and of course I don't want to put any blame on Morgan because obviously she was just trying to get out she was just trying to kind of start a new life you know a refresh but she really was not prepared for this move at

all. Yeah absolutely and you know we do know of course that she was keeping everything from her mom but like we said as well some friends did know certain details she wasn't keeping things from everyone, which at least is, is good here because this case would have been so much more convoluted if we didn't have some of these pieces. So either way, for her to suddenly stop talking to everybody, including her best friends was very concerning. And on this, her mom said, quote, "'For her to go completely silent on all counts is not her.'" Sheri also shared with the NBC, quote,

"'She was really in survival mode, and that's what's scaring me. Who doesn't want to make it at 19 and hasn't made a not so great choice? But for her to be off the radar like this is scary. I mean, her mom also sounds so understanding and supportive, which adds another layer of heartbreak to this case. Yeah, she's I mean, she's saying, yeah, I mean, of course she did this. And that doesn't mean that she deserves something bad to happen.

Her mom's so, so supportive. But unfortunately, given the fact that she had already had limited contact with her family in the previous weeks, the police leaned toward this being an elective disappearance, which is something that would be one of the many factors to slowing the efficiency of the search efforts. Yeah, and we see this all the time in different true crime cases where people, they move somewhere and then they disappear and police are like, well, they were out there on their own anyway.

And you know, they're probably thinking because you lied to your mother about this and that, that you know, you're electing to just, you know, go missing, but it's not, that's not always the case. Yeah, Morgan had everything going against her in a disappearance situation. You know, with the sudden move, the distancing, what she was doing for work, police were not having any of this, right? But Sherry, of course, was gravely concerned. So

she secured TJ Ward of TJ Ward and Associates Investigative Consultants based in Atlanta to work on Morgan's case and also joined forces with a nonprofit called Force Sarah, which is aimed at helping sex workers and adult entertainment professionals escape danger, drug use and domestic violence and assimilate into life outside of the industry, which is amazing. They're so great for helping Sherry on this and actually specifically founder Casey McClure teamed up with Sherry upon her arrival to Atlanta to help her retrace Morgan steps. And I mean talk about community the police are doing nothing right now and there are

these other people that are stepping in to help Sherry out. Now on the night Morgan disappeared which again again was Monday, February 25th, 2016, she had auditioned to dance at Tease, which is a nightclub in Northeast Atlanta. While she was there, she met a young woman who danced under the name Lilith Chaos, who is also sometimes referred to online as Diamond. Now, obviously Heath told us that to dance

in the city of Atlanta, you need certain licensing that you have to pay for. Of course. I read a couple different things online. One that Lilith paid the licensing fee for Morgan to dance at Tees. And then the other way around, Morgan paying for Lilith to dance at Tees. But two weeks after getting there with no money, I don't see how Morgan would have been able to do this. Obviously she was working so she was making money but it was so fast that I would kind of be

surprised if Morgan was the one to pay for Lilith but I wanted to mention that because I'm not sure which one is true. I feel like it's a little bit unclear but if I was to guess it probably would have been Lilith paying for Morgan to dance at Tees. Yeah. I mean it's it's not really a huge detail in the case, so just take that with a grain of salt. Yeah, totally. Either way, somebody was doing something nice for the other person, so they were spending time together that night,

you know, being friendly, these two young women who are about the same age, and then afterwards, being at Tease, they went to Top of Gainesville to dance for the night. Remember, that is where Morgan primarily worked. And there, they met up with Lilith's boyfriend. And according to the club's owner, the three of them left together that night. Now, apparently the only money that Morgan had saved was on an H&R Block Tax Refund card.

And it remained untouched. Initially, authorities believed that she hadn't been active on social media since the night she was last seen, which again, was February 25th, but this was later found to be false. At the onset of the investigation, the timeline was super murky, and shoddy police work, likely because they didn't believe she was actually at risk, really did not help her case. A cursory investigation revealed that her social media accounts saw no activity after February 25th, 2016. However, her friends and family later pointed out that Morgan had actually posted a video walking through a park on Tuesday, February 26, 2016, so the day after, and she was smirking at the camera with the wind blowing through her hair, while

a man followed closely behind her. Initially, police were unaware of this clip, this has not been confirmed publicly, but maybe the video had been set to private and only shared with certain users, which again set the investigation back significantly, as it's believed that the man in the video is the very man who harmed her. Morgan's final phone ping was on February 29th, so three days after the video was taken, also in this park, which is called Yellow River Park, and it's a 566 acre park in Stone Mountain, Georgia, east of downtown Atlanta. But her phone was never recovered. While Sherry was in town tracking down leads regarding her daughter's whereabouts, she

heard from the owner of Tees that the couple Morgan had last been seen with had returned to the property that night. So Sherry raced to the club to speak with them and said that Lilith was very kind and helpful so Sherry described her as helpful, polite, and well mannered but recalled that her boyfriend was standoffish and a little bit cold. Now Lilith claimed that they had last seen Morgan at a Citgo gas station in Covington, Georgia, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes south of Gainesville on the evening

of February 25th. And supposedly they had given her a ride there after leaving the club together, and at one point they also apparently said that they saw her getting into a green Mitsubishi eclipse after they dropped her off there. And both claimed that they didn't hear from or see Morgan after that. And this is pretty interesting. Why, like, why would they be in this area so far away from where, you know, Morgan was essentially stationed?

It just makes us wonder so much also where Morgan exactly was staying at this time, what her exact situation was, which nobody had an answer to, by the way. But very weird. They're saying we saw her at a gas station and she got into a green Mitsubishi eclipse and then we didn't see her. So that feels a little convenient. Yeah, and this is very, very reminiscent of a case that we actually just covered on the show, uh, where the victim had got, apparently, had been hanging out with a friend, and then got dropped back off at a park, and got into a silver vehicle,

at least that's what the guy claimed. A rondo briones, yep. Yes, exactly. So it's like, this is very sketchy and suspicious, that they're, as you said, you know, they're an hour away and then she just gets into a random vehicle in a different city? No. Right. Uh-huh.

Absolutely not. But Sherry says that the pair told slightly differing stories. Oh no. Yeah, and that the more she reached out to them, the more the details differed. So their stories are changing. And here's another really strange detail. So Morgan's last phone ping again in Yellow River Park was just four tenths of a mile, or.6 kilometers, from where this couple lived. The The Atlanta Police Department brought in the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations early on, but the investigation into Morgan's disappearance continued to progress slowly.

Because obviously, it got a slow start first of all with Morgan having been missing for over two weeks before anyone realized. So Sherry continued her own grassroots search and started a GoFundMe to help her with expenses, as well as the private investigator she hired. And this is when Morgan's case really went off the rails. In my opinion, Sherry had to hire the PI. The police were not taking the case seriously. They weren't doing their job to help this mother looking for her daughter in a suspicious situation.

Right. When the police believe that, you know, the person you're looking for elected to go missing, there's not really much else you can do but try to get some help outside. Yeah, which you have to pay for on your own, which is so unfair. But here's another part of this. Now someone started posing as Morgan under the name of her dancer persona on social media. But before her family knew that it was fake, Sherry's estranged daughter, so Morgan's older sister, Alyssa, came to believe that her sister

was not actually missing at all, and that she was just staying away from her circle and starting anew. And then Alyssa publicly accused her mom, Sherry, of lying about Morgan's disappearance for financial gain because she set up the GoFundMe because Sherry needed help paying for the PI. Now Alyssa alleged that the GoFundMe was not actually being used to help her sister Morgan and that instead Sherry was pocketing the profits under the ruse of her daughter being missing.

So it started this whole big mess. And Alyssa, as well as a friend of Morgan's, even spoke to this imposter on Facebook and believed that it was Morgan. They even went so far as to post in the Missing Morgan Facebook group, which has now garnered over 10,000 members, that Morgan's disappearance was a hoax. Despite the fact that her case remained active

with the Atlanta police department, many people believed this new development. And with where this story is going guys, and knowing that this lie was circling, I mean, woof, that is just so unfortunate, especially because once you hear a development on something, it's so hard to come back from that and get all the people who learn the fake thing to learn the real new thing. And then somebody says, oh, but no, she actually is missing, and somebody else says, no, that was a hoax, didn't you hear? And then nobody knows what's really going on. Again, just continuously screwing up the investigation. It really just did not help in any way. And Alyssa believed Morgan was safe so strongly that this is what she posted on Facebook. Get this. Quote, here's what I know.

Morgan is safe. Our mother knows this, has spoken with her, and is continuing this whole thing. Morgan will not have anything to do with anyone supporting Sherry's continual need for attention. Her need to make herself appear as a loving and worried mother. I know this well from experience, as I've been manipulated and abused by the woman my entire life. Until being called by an officer last month, I had cut contact and only started speaking to Sherry again to find out if my sister was okay. Sherry fed me the same lies as everyone else through this,

and is the sole reason Morgan left and doesn't want to reveal herself, especially to anyone having anything to do with our manipulative, bipolar mother or whatever personality she chooses on any given day. Since finding more out, I have once again cut contact with Sherry in hopes of hearing from my baby sister again." According to Sherry, though the situation pains her deeply, she placed her oldest daughter primarily in the care of her grandparents when Alyssa was a baby, because she had been a pretty young mother. Sherry alleges that Alyssa has never forgiven her for this, though Alyssa has never publicly shared her side of the story, but that could potentially explain why she was pushing this narrative so much.

However, although this did cause a bunch of confusion for the case, it's likely that Alyssa genuinely believed that her sister was alive, and thought that she was doing what was right by Morgan, maybe hoping that she could maintain a relationship with her. But because of all of this back and forth and Sherry essentially being doxed for doing something that wasn't true, the whole family, but Sherry in particular, has received monumental amounts of hatred online. Alyssa even mentioned on her Facebook that private investigator TJ Ward came to the exact same conclusion that she did.

But here's what TJ said in an interview years after the disappearance, quote, And I mean, if anything, Sherry hoped that Morgan had concocted her own disappearance, even publicly pleading with her daughter saying, quote, Just please, if you have the ability to contact and reach someone, do it. But I have this feeling maybe she doesn't have that opportunity because of whatever has happened to her. To any critics of her daughter's lifestyle, Sherry maintained, quote, This isn't a story about a girl who is asking for it or should have known better.

This is about a girl who is missing and needs to come home safely. It doesn't matter. She's worth everything and is so loved. We want the focus to just be about Morgan and finding her. I don't want anything bad to happen to anyone else, but I forgive whoever did this. Just bring her back. Just tell me where she is so I can help her." As the case finally gained the traction it deserved and police seriously considered foul

play as a possible outcome of the night she vanished, police questioned everyone she came into contact with during her short stint in Georgia, including the man from Craigslist who kicked her out of his home after her first night. And again, we both wish that we knew a lot more about this part of the story, but we don't know anything about this guy

because police cleared him of involvement in her disappearance, as well as multiple other people who she came into contact with during her early days in Atlanta. Except for the odd couple at the nightclub, remember dancer Lilith and her strange boyfriend. But with no evidence linking them to Morgan,

investigators were forced to wait patiently and continue their search. After organizing searches, handing out thousands of flyers, and even crowdsourcing a billboard, there was still no sign of Morgan. Tips and even sightings continued to roll in, but none of them could be substantiated, so her case just kept getting colder and colder, meaning Sherry just had to return to South Dakota empty handed. And sadly, years of silence followed.

There was no word from Morgan and there were no developments in her case whatsoever, but on Sherry's side at least, she was keeping tabs on that strange couple even after they moved away, after they broke up, and then even after they settled in two different states. Then on July 25th, 2023, so nearly seven and a half years since Morgan went missing, in February of 2016, Sherry was made aware of a shocking development. The following day, July 26, 2023, the FBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, and three local Georgia police departments, as well as two out-of-state police departments, announced that they would be searching a residence on South Broad Street in Porterdale, Georgia, which is a town just outside of Atlanta after being

tipped off about human remains there. Though much of what was found there was not revealed publicly even to this day, coming up on two years later, a Newton County Superior Court indictment confirmed that the remains were that of Morgan Bauer, and names strangulation as her cause of death. Interestingly, the indictment implicated both members of the mysterious couple that Morgan had last been seen with, whom Sherry had suspected from the very beginning. So after strangling Morgan, the couple allegedly burned her body and disposed of key pieces of evidence that she left behind.

And remember earlier when we mentioned their home was near the park where her phone last pinged? Located less than half a mile or about.8 kilometers away? And where she had posted her video, her last video on social media? Well, this is that same house. Her remains were found at that house. Now, initially, police only described the findings of the search as, quote, items of evidentiary interest, but Sherry later confirmed that they were the remains of her daughter and that she had been killed on February 26th, 2016. So, the same day that she posted that video of her walking through the park, the last

day that she was known to be active on social media. Now her best friend, again Taryn, the last person to have spoken to Morgan aside from her killers, admitted that she had this feeling that this was going to be the outcome that Morgan's loved ones would have had to face. She said sadly quote, I can't say with, you know, how long it's been ongoing that all this new information was exactly a surprise, but it is heartbreaking. For everyone close to her, there's a sense of relief.

It's one of those things where we could have gone the rest of our lives without getting any answers. So I'm relieved to be out of the unknown. We've already gone through a lot, and it's only really starting. We've still got a long way to go in this process. It's going to be a lifelong battle of thinking about her and all of the anniversaries and lifelong memories that me and her have. Never going to be totally okay.

That's how it goes. Now up until this point, we have not officially named this couple to you guys yet. We just said the woman was Lilith Chaos, but that was her dancer name. Her real name is Caitlin Goble, and her now ex-boyfriend's name is Jonathan Alexander Warren. They were both arrested in October of 2023, so a few months after the discovery was made, you know, we also mentioned that they had broken up and moved. So Caitlin was arrested in Peoria, Illinois, on charges of concealing a death and tampering with evidence.

And Jonathan was arrested in Los Angeles, California for murder, aggravated assault, and concealing a death. So on the day of 19-year-old Morgan Bowers' murder, Kaitlyn, who was about 20 years old at the time, posted a dark joke on Facebook about her boyfriend Jonathan, who was around 26, being a murderer murderer and also an eerily threatening message that seemed to indicate that she was unwilling to share her boyfriend with anybody else. Sadly, we do not know exactly what the post said, but that's what has been reported.

So I don't know, maybe Caitlin thought Morgan was interested in Jonathan. And then something happened from there. That could have been the motive here for sure. Well, shortly after Morgan's murder, Jonathan Alexander Warren, he does go by Alex by the way, and Kaitlyn moved back to their native state of Illinois where she began dancing at a club in Kreeve Corps, maintaining her on stage persona of Lilith chaos. The pair were reportedly both heroin users and Alex was severely abusive. They moved in with Caitlin's grandma and her grandma's boyfriend in Peoria, which is in central Illinois by the way, southwest of Chicago. And allegedly, Caitlin's grandma and her boyfriend were made so uncomfortable by Alex that they

kicked him out of the house. And in turn, Alex was so irate that he camped in their backyard and once they finally forced him out, he stalked, harassed, and threatened them for weeks, if not months. Now, eventually he moved, of course, settling in Los Angeles, where he was later arrested. Kaitlyn then met and quickly married a man named David Settles, with whom she had two children, a boy and a girl. And according to online rumors, Alex contacted Kaitlyn after her first child was born. This was kind of his way to threaten her, because he told her that if she ever revealed

what they had done to you know, to Morgan, he would come after her child and then eventually her children and murder them. But, terrified by his threats, she broke down and told her husband David what she and Alex had done to Morgan. But instead of turning her in, David apparently used this against her. But instead of turning her in, David apparently used this against her. So the couple both struggled with drug and alcohol use and their relationship was very, very volatile. So after a particularly nasty fight and all this time of kind of holding this over her head, they split up and David then revealed what he knew to the Atlanta Police Department. And that's how we know what we know.

Then Alex was arrested in Los Angeles, California, and Kaitlyn was arrested again in Peoria, Illinois. Though both were extradited back to Georgia and held without bail. And this is actually kind of shocking because Alex quickly pleaded guilty to charges of malice murder, concealing the death of another, aggravated assault, tampering with evidence, and most shocking and also disturbingly, necrophilia. At his arraignment hearing on January 10th, 2024, Alex actually requested the death penalty. In all the cases we've covered, I don't think I have ever heard of that happening. I mean, I have seen that happen before, but I feel like it's just because they don't

want to spend their entire life in prison and they'd rather just get it over with. But instead, at his request for the harshest possible sentence, he was actually granted life in prison without the possibility of parole, and is supposedly seeking atonement. So, you know, turning to God, like many it seems do in prison. Kaitlyn Goble, again, was charged with concealing a death and tampering with evidence, and she awaits sentencing. On January 13th of this year, Morgan's mother Sherry posted this update, quote, One year ago on January 10th, 2024, Jonathan Alexander Warren was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of my daughter, Morgan Bauer.

It's hard to believe a year has passed. It has been an incredibly difficult journey, and some days, it feels as though time has stood still. We are still waiting for Kaitlyn Goble to complete her mental health evaluation before she goes to trial, which we expect to happen in the spring, or more likely summer. While the waiting is hard, I hold on to the progress that we've made. This past year, I am most grateful for the chance to finally bring Morgan home and lay her to rest in South Dakota. That moment of closure, while heartbreaking, was a major

step in the healing process, and I felt the love of so many surrounding us during that time. At this point in February of 2025, Kaitlyn Goble awaits sentencing pending a mental health evaluation because her defense team is attempting to have her declared incompetent to stand trial. Despite one arrest and one conviction in the case, the case is still shrouded in so much mystery as far as the public is concerned. So what police recovered at the former home of the couple, aside from Morgan's remains, has not been revealed. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of Going West.

Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Also if you want to see photos from this case and all the other cases that we've covered, head on over to our socials. We're on Instagram at Going West podcast and we are also on Facebook. I am so, so glad that this case has seen some resolution, especially because imagine if we didn't have this answer. And then to this day, nobody was sure if she did just go off on her own or not. And I feel like the case against her, you know, being involved in foul play was

pretty strong for a lot of people. And that wasn't the case. She was murdered. Yeah. And like Taryn said, her best friend, this case could have easily been dropped and, you know, just totally misguided and totally fucked up because of all of the distractions, everything that happened throughout the case. But thankfully that did not happen and now we're waiting on that last trial. It just makes you wonder how many other cases are like this, where it does in some ways seem like the person could have gone off on their own or started anew or fallen into something else and really they were met with foul play and there's just not enough evidence to prove

it. And that's something that we talk about obviously so much on this show, but these type of details are so important. We already knew that her phone last pinged at this park. We already knew that she was last seen with this kind of suspicious couple, but there's this whole other side under the iceberg that nobody knew about and that's what happened.

Yeah, and I get it. I totally get it. Police are very busy. There are a ton of missing persons cases out there in this country and all around the world. So I understand, but I do think that that's something that we need to move forward with the fact of not just claiming that a missing person has elected to go missing, you know, on their own. Especially when there is this weird couple who turned out to be the killers in the case.

Like they had this lead and they just didn't really know where to go with it. And so her case just kind of didn't pick up traction. So for seven and a half years again, we're so, so glad this got some resolution and we'll see what else happens with this case. But thank you guys so much for tuning in. We love you so much and we'll see you on Friday. All right, guys. So for everybody out there in the world don't be a stranger. you