True Crime with Kimbyr - A Single Mom’s Fight for Peace Ends in Tragedy: The Morgan Ashlye Fox Story: Part 2

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

In Part 2 of Morgan Ashlye Fox’s story on True Crime with Kimbyr, Kimbyrleigha explores Morgan’s early life and the blended family that shaped her. From a chaotic household of 12 siblings to moving across states, Morgan navigated challenges with love and resilience. But behind the warmth of family life, tension and danger were quietly building. As we dig deeper into her relationships and the events leading up to her tragic fate, True Crime with Kimbyr uncovers the warning signs that no one saw—and the monster who was closing in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When they asked, can you come down the station for a formal interview? He said yes, but then he kind of paused. He looked down at his feet, he was barefoot, and he was like, well, I need to grab a pair of socks before he put on his shoes. And this was something small, something that most people wouldn't even notice, but Detective Rocco Ross, it was a red flag for him. The reason why, he didn't want to let this guy out of his sight.

So Ross said, you know what, wear your socks, I'll bring you a pair. He didn't want there to be any opportunity for anything be disturbed in the house before this scene could be processed. And instead of saying, okay, Jason stopped. He hesitated. He just stood there barefoot and then suddenly he seemed very unsure if he needed socks. And then he put his shoes on without them and they left. I mean, it wasn't much, but it was enough of an odd situation to make Detective Ross stop and think about it. What was Jason so worried that they would find in that house? What was he trying to hide? A weapon? Well, they were going to ask him, can we do a little search around? But because of this odd behavior, they're like, nope,

we're going to get a full search warrant so that we don't have to ask him and tiptoe around. We're going to go from floor to ceiling in every nook and cranny. And then there was more hesitation when they asked him if they could look through his phone. That's strange. I know how attached we are to our phones. I get it 100%. I understand. But his girlfriend had just been killed. You should willingly hand over your phone, say go through anything and everything to get get what you need so that you can help find out who did this to your loved one. Instead, Jason told the officers he wasn't comfortable turning over his phone because it wasn't his. That was weird. Well, one of them was his phone and he turned that over, but it was his work phone

that he was holding back. Finally, when they said, listen, we're only going to need it for a few minutes, we're going to give it right back to you. It was then he was comfortable handing it over. So at that point they did go over to the police station and they did a full interview and an extraction. of both his work phone and his personal one. And from the moment he sat down, his demeanor was odd. He was calm and he was detached. It wasn't like he was angry, he wasn't panicking,

he wasn't even asking questions. He wasn't sitting there demanding to know what happened to the woman he said he loved and he lived with, the woman who helped raise his daughter, the woman who had just been killed feet from their front door. But he was cooperative. He told the investigators that Morgan had taken her daughter to her mother's house at 8 p.m. the night before like she always did

before her early morning shifts. That was one good thing, that her daughter wasn't there when this occurred. Jason said she got back home around 9.30, they had some dinner and they went to bed. And he claimed he was already in bed when she got home. And then sometime around 1.30 in the morning, she got up. He said, he remembered her moving around and the routine seemed completely normal and nothing was unusual. But he did admit when that, they asked that they argued from time to time like any couple does. But he insisted that lately things were really, really good. And then as the interview stretched on, something shifted again.

Out of nowhere, Jason finally broke down. He cried. It wasn't uncontrollable, but it was just very sudden. They thought, was this a performance? Was it real? Was he, you know, making it look like he was so overcome with emotion? Or did it just hit him? that his girlfriend was dead.

I mean, it can take a little while for that shock to kind of settle and for you to figure out that this is your new reality. But there was just something about the timing that didn't sit right with the investigators. But Jason was allowed to leave that day. There was no physical evidence tying him to the crime. His clothes were clean.

He had no visible injuries. And most importantly, there was no motive that they could establish. But this was just the beginning. There was a post on Morgan's Instagram on March 27th of 2020 and it said, sweetheart, it's okay to quit on a man who's not even trying. You deserve effort.

Was that telling? Maybe. But it was months earlier. Still, there was one question that Detective Ross couldn't stop thinking about. If Morgan had been shot at such a close range, right in their driveway, just steps away from their bedroom window, how is it possible that Jason didn't hear anything? And recall they took Jason's cell phone. when they looked through them and they saw some recent text messages between him and Morgan,

not only were they arguing, but it had gotten physical. And there were texts that proved that. So they wondered, had something pushed Jason over the edge. But going back through their text history, it did appear that this was the only instance of anything like that that had ever happened between them, or at least the only time it was mentioned. They still hadn't scoured through Morgan's phone. They were just now beginning to do that. So maybe there would be some.

something more to gain there. But first, they needed to look at her home. Was the weapon there? Were there signs of a struggle? Had Morgan ran from the house after a fight with Jason, and then he stopped her by shooting her? Well, even though that did seem plausible. And we've seen that in many cases before, where domestic incidents have led to killings like this. There were no signs inside that house that a struggle ever occurred. There were no weapons in there either. However, they did find a little bit of marijuana, and guess where they found it? Inside, Jason's sock drawer. So now they got a better understanding about probably why he was hesitant to have the detective go look inside his dresser. But was that it? Was that the only reason he was acting

suspicious? They needed to dig deeper. And remember how I told you that one of them had to leave FedEx. This was pretty much Morgan's dream job. She wanted to work her way up. She wanted to climb that corporate ladder. But Jason had also been in a management position at FedEx when he was left so that they could be in this relationship. So now the investigators were wondering, did this all come to a head? Had Jason moved to this other job and maybe wasn't making as much money and maybe he regretted having to essentially leave his corporate job for something else just so that they could be together and the relationship might have been breaking down over it. They thought the best way to find out was to interview coworkers and one of them was a woman

named Michelle Hannes. Jason used to be her supervisor before he left. Michelle had worked as a a package handler when she was initially hired with FedEx and she described Jason as encouraging, likable, definitely not violent and Michelle didn't think he would ever be capable of hurting anyone, especially Morgan, someone that he loved. But there was an incident at work more recently, not involving Jason, of course, because he had already left, but it did involve male employees. They had apparently stolen Morgan's phone and they began looking through all of her photos, all of her videos and very private and intimate things that no one should have seen that was none of their business. And I was thinking if there is somewhere where you should feel safe, it's your workplace.

It's a place that's designated for you to come do your job surrounded by a community of people that are there for the same goal. We're there to work to be a team and your superiors. They're supposed to protect you to make sure there are safeguards in place so that nobody should be worried about their safety at their job. But it was that October of 10th, 2020, then Morgan started to feel unsafe for the first time at FedEx. She was still showing up. She was still grinding through those brutal early morning shifts. But behind the scenes, something had shifted. The people around her, especially some of the men in management, they weren't just rude. They were dismissive. And it was in a way that felt calculated. And then they crossed a line.

It was on the morning of October 8th, just 20 days before Morgan was killed. She was helping out a team member when she just set down her phone for a few minutes in the break room. Just a few. It was totally a normal thing to do that any one of us would do at our job, not thinking that someone we work with is going to take it. When she came back, it was gone. At first, she assumed, okay, maybe I misplaced it. Maybe I left it near my station. But then someone came to her and told her where it was. It was with another employee named Jason McDermott, another Jason, not her boyfriend, but a co-worker, and he wasn't a stranger. He was someone that Morgan was pretty good friends with.

He just like Morgan was working his way up. He was a package handler, one of the guys that she used to work alongside before she became a manager. She used to help him and encourage him. She trusted him. And initially she thought, maybe he grabbed her phone to keep it safe. But when she approached him about having it, that's when something felt really off. He was upstairs in this elevated area near the conveyor belt. and she asked, do you have my phone?

And he said no. And that was the point that she realized, okay, wait a minute, he is acting like I'm confronting him like he did something wrong. And that's when she saw her phone. He had her phone. He wasn't trying to hide it either.

And even if he would have tried to hide it from her, all she had to do was go to security because FedEx had cameras everywhere. And he was catching this moment on camera. Only when she finally spotted it, did he hand it over to her. And later, Morgan would find out that Jason had an accident.

alone. Two other male managers, managers, had joined him, superiors, people that are supposed to be role models in this corporation and make sure that things run smoothly. The three men, grown men, had not only taken her phone, but they went through it. Her social media accounts, her photos, her private images that were saved on her device that were meant for nobody else but her eyes and her boyfriend. As you can probably imagine, she was humiliated. She felt violated. It was one of those moments that you really can't undo. It happened. It was a moment that redefined everything,

the way that you look at people, but especially the way that people look at you. People that she once trusted were now looking at her, and she knew that they had seen her private moments. They were making it into a spectacle. And the worst part is that she expected it from other people, but not from Jason. That hurt.

And she confronted him about it. She sent him a text message, and he admitted that he looked at more than he should have. And that it was none of his business. She told him that mistakes could be forgiven, but that lying breaks trust. She said, you took my belongings, you went through it, and you lied to me about it.

Friends don't lie to each other. And I don't think we can be friends anymore. And just like that, their friendship was over. Because in Morgan's eyes, if he could not be trusted and would let something like that happen, he wasn't a friend. Morgan had values. It was the way that she was raised, and meant a lot to her to give her trust to someone,

and she could easily take someone out of her life. And I know I said that she expected it from other people, like the two guys in management, and you might have been thinking, why? But it turns out that Morgan was being harassed at work. She was a beautiful woman, and there were a lot of men working at FedEx. The majority of people that worked there were men. And as soon as she stepped foot in the package handling department, she was surrounded and outnumbered by men.

And over time, they started paying a lot of attention to her, and it became unwanted attention. And she felt very uncomfortable. But Morgan was a nice person, so she tried to shrug it off, and she actually started feeling more comfortable when she started dating her boyfriend who was working there. It was almost like he could now protect her. He was in a management position, in a position of power,

and she felt secure. But there was still some friction because of the fact that other guys liked her. And they were jealous of the fact that she liked Jason. It kind of reminds me of high school, but you probably heard it before. The corporate kind of brings you back to that whole high school drama feeling like you're trapped in this place. It's a whole new community of people that you have to worry about with a bunch of different personalities.

And then there was the promotion. Remember how I told you she was there less than a year and was promoted? Well, a lot of her male colleagues thought that was inappropriate. They believe they deserve that promotion more than she did. and one of the reasons, quite frankly, was because she was a woman. There were not as many women in upper-level positions of management. And Michelle, the one I told you about they used to work under Jason, she felt like it was a boys' club.

And she remembers the day that Morgan's phone was taken by those men, and they went through it. She saw Morgan crying, and she also overheard the guys making very inappropriate comments as they were looking at Morgan's pictures. When that phone violation happened, Morgan, she didn't want revenge, but she did want accountability, so she filed a complaint. She did it professionally. She did it respectfully.

And she did it with her own manager. She was told that it was going to be handled. But days went by. 10 days. She didn't get a response. Nothing happened. And then Morgan was pulled aside. Not to talk about the phone incident.

She was actually written up for a dress code violation. What for you might ask? Leggings. Yeah. Leggings. She had just reported being violated by her coworkers, and in return, they gave her a violation for wearing a pair of leggings. So just let that sink in because it's unreal to me that a woman is held to a different standard. Leggings are distracting to men that are working. They can't do their jobs because a woman's wearing a pair of tight pants. And things got worse. Her chair went missing. Her clipboard would disappear. She would overhear her name being whispered. And then she would catch the

tail end of a joke that would stop as soon as she walked by. Sexual innuendos were happening, little things that were meant to make her feel small. To remind her, she didn't belong, that they didn't want her there, that this was a boys' club, and that that job wasn't meant for her. Morgan's friends, and even her colleague, Michelle, noticed a change in her. She stopped laughing as much. She started withdrawing, and her bubbly-driven, fiercely maternal version of herself was now quiet. Of course, she was still showing up at work, but she wasn't herself. She wasn't herself. And as the days passed, Morgan stopped waiting for the system to fix itself. She was about to take matters into her own hands. On Wednesday, the 21st of October, a week

before she was murdered, Morgan had enough. She and Michelle had talked about what they should do. Morgan wasn't the kind of person just backed down. They decided she should finally go to HR. Now, at this point, Michelle was actually working in HR, but she was at a lower level. However, her. She was in direct contact with the head of the department out in Columbus, Ohio. So Michelle wrote an email to her on Morgan's behalf. She said in part, Morgan Fox asked to speak with me yesterday about some issues she's having as an operations manager. Apparently someone took her phone. She believes private items were looked at by at least two to three people in the building. And that was the gist of the email reporting what had happened. It felt like going higher and

explaining that she had been targeted and how people had crossed boundaries. that she would get supported, that this would surely bring some action, but still nothing changed. Another week passed, and no one reached out to Michelle in regard of her email, and no one reached out to Morgan either. And then October 28th came around. The morning that Morgan had been killed, of course, Michelle didn't know that, and she was going to speak with Morgan so they could come up with a game plan. She was texting her, she was looking for her in the building, and she was nowhere to be found. And that's when she was notified that Morgan was dead. Michelle said that she was in complete shock. She was horrified. But most of all, Michelle was confused. Because of how much tension

was at the workplace, it did cross Michelle's mind. Did someone from FedEx hurt Morgan? Could someone have crossed that line? At the same time, Detective Ross was hoping for that data off Morgan's phone, but unfortunately, that extraction, it wasn't successful. It was because maybe it was laying in the rain that something got damaged inside of the phone. And Detective Ross now had to manually look through all of Morgan's text messages, all of her social media, and I'm sure you know how tedious that was going to be. What he was looking for was a connection, a motive. He was going through every single conversation, looking for arguments, looking for context,

who is she speaking with? Now he has a chance to see what Jason, her boyfriend, and Morgan's relationship really looked like behind the scenes. He was getting a full picture. And to him, it was good. It was a loving relationship. They checked in on each other. They sent a loving text to one another about their workday and what was going on and that they loved one another. Except for that one instance where they got into an argument fairly recently,

there just wasn't anything else in their conversations that stood out. definitely not to the level of violence and murder. But as Detective Ross goes back to October 8th, which was the same day that that incident occurred with her phone at work, he sees a text message exchange between Morgan and her boyfriend Jason where Morgan explained what happened. She said, they opened up our text messages, and someone started to type out a message

as though they were writing as Morgan to Jason, and that is weird. Like they were going to send her boyfriend a message from her phone. And it couldn't help to think, what did it say? That wasn't explained in text. She was talking to other coworkers about possibly finding another job, so she took what was happening at work very seriously. At this point, Detective Ross decides to go to speak with HR at FedEx, and he's informed that the issue wasn't completely ignored.

It might not have been mentioned to Morgan yet, but those three men were written up. And Detective Ross got their names, and one by one, he's bringing them into the station, starting with Jason McDermott. Since he apparently used to be close with Morgan before the phone incident, they were thinking he could shed some light on what the workplace was like and what led to Morgan feeling so uncomfortable. Detective Ross starts the interview by establishing how Jason and Morgan, of course, knew each other. Well, they met at work. He asked whether they hung out outside of work, and Jason said yes, but not that often.

He did go over her house for her daughter's birthday, though. He had met her family, and he already knew her boyfriend Jason from work. He also said that they used to be each other's confidant. If Morgan or him was having a bad day, they would go to one another to vent about it. And he said she would even confide in him about personal stuff that was happening at home with her boyfriend. He admitted that Morgan told him they were having issues. Which we know is true. Even Morgan's boyfriend told them about that. So now Detective Ross is thinking, okay, are we back at square one? Are we going to have to circle back to Morgan's boyfriend?

So we asked Jason McDermott, can you guarantee me that there's any one person you know wouldn't have done this to Morgan? And McDermott was like, yeah, Jason. And I know there's two Jason's, it's confusing, but he meant Morgan's boyfriend. He said, Jason could be many things, but he wasn't the type of person that would kill Morgan.

And that's when Detective Ross asked Jason McDermott, was there anything romantic going on between the two of you? And he's like, no, we were just friends. But they had to press him. That's what they always do. So they said, wow, that's not what we heard. We heard that, you know, you had some romantic feelings for Morgan. You liked her more than a friend.

He said, okay, wait, there was a time that I was contemplating feelings for her, but I realized, no, they weren't the right kind of feelings. It wasn't that kind of love. He loved her like a friend. He cared about Morgan. The detective needed to test him. That's what you're doing. You're not only gathering information, but you're pressing people who could potentially be a suspect.

So he's like, let me give you a scenario. What if you did want more with Morgan? And what if she didn't? And you killed her. And he was like, no, that didn't happen. So the detective asked him, do you know who would want to shoot her in the back of the head on her way to work? And he said, I don't know that.

He was even asked directly, did you shoot her in the back of the head? And he said, no. So Detective Ross moved on and said, were there people at work that were effing with Morgan? And he said, yes. That Morgan had been having a ton of issues with people at work. Jason McDermann gave him names, told him how some of the managers would deliberately yell at Morgan and try to make it really hard for her to work there, almost

like they wanted her to quit. But the thing is, there was that phone incident that actually involved Jason himself, and he was written up for it. So Detective Ross wants to know a little bit more about that situation. And Jason was like, okay, well, it started with Morgan misplacing her phone. She asked me to go help or find it. And he admits one of the other guys had the phone and he handed it to Jason. It was unlocked and right away it was open to something private. It was her and her bra and underwear. And he couldn't help himself. He looked at it.

Curiosity got the best of him. He explained as soon as he saw it, he clicked out of it. And then when Morgan was asking for the phone, he didn't want to admit he had it because he knew he just looked at something he wasn't supposed to. And she was very angry at him. They hadn't been speaking very much since then. So he had just pretty much corroborated everything Detective Ross already knew about the situation. They thanked him and they went to speak with Morgan's family,

who were not dealing with her death very well. Of course they weren't. Her daughter had lost a mother. Cindy had lost a child. It was heartbreaking. Nobody could understand who would want to hurt Morgan. They just wanted justice. But that meant more pressure on the police department

to figure out who did this. And that is when an anonymous tip was called in. The person said that Morgan was having an affair with one of her bosses, real high up in the company. And that was why things at work had been tense. Because he was married, and people were talking. Well, police made a little trip to this married boss's house, and actually, it turned out he was recently divorced.

And he denied everything. He said he never had an affair with Morgan, no way. And he willingly handed over his phone. They extracted it, which took about an hour, and they saw a text between Morgan and her boss. But all it was was them getting their kids together. And they did. And that was it. it. No illicit affair, just a play date, not a date, date, not between them. And it was another

dead end. Detective Ross goes back through the phone violation paperwork and nothing really raises any red flags. They already checked alibis for the two other men involved and they were concrete. So they were back on Jason McDermott. It turned out that Morgan had blocked Jason back on October 24th. And it was because he asked her, how were things going in Columbus? She said, how did you? How did you know I was in Columbus. She made it clear she was not comfortable corresponding with him anymore, and this was like stalker status or it appeared to be. So Detective Ross goes back to FedEx, and he starts asking around to other employees and coworkers about Jason McDermott's behavior when it came to Morgan. Three employees came forward with relevant tips, Mary, Mickey, and Mark.

And I don't know why there's something with everyone's name beginning with M because we've got Morgan, Mark, Mickey, and Mary. It was making my head's bad. been. But Mary explained that Jason was training her when she first started in August of that year in 2020. This was two months before Morgan's murder. Mary said that all Jason McDermott talked about nonstop was Morgan. Constantly, he was bringing her food and drinks, and she used the word obsessed. He would brag about how close they were, even showed Mary pictures of Morgan and her daughter from his phone. At one point, Mary was so fed up. She told him, you need to stop this obsession. You need to do something better with all this time you spend at work talking about Morgan.

And he did all the same stuff with Mickey, talking nonstop about Morgan about everything from her health to her hair, to her daughter, even talking about how he went to Amelia's birthday party at Morgan's new house that she shared with her boyfriend. And it didn't stop when the friends were clocked out. He would text Mickey and Mary outside of work and discuss Morgan there as well. When it came to Mark, he explained to investigators that Jason would brag about his relationship with Morgan, how close they were, how he couldn't wait to hang out with her more when her and her boyfriend broke up. Because at the time, they had been going through a rough patch. And Jason was like, Morgan's going to come and live with me.

And it was clear to Mark, by the way that he talked about Morgan, that he didn't just want to be roommates with her or even friends. He wanted more. He was upset when she patched things up with her man. Morgan's mom even confirmed that she saw Jason McDermott at Amelia's birthday party, but it's what she remembered that stood out. He was giving other people tours of the house. He was calling Morgan's grandmother, Grandma, instead of her name.

And that was odd. It wasn't dangerous or over the top, but it was something that people noticed so much so that her mom confronted Morgan about it. And she remembers Morgan being really upset and embarrassed. Mary, Mark, and Mickey were all aware of the phone incident as well and how the men had been reprimanded. But they said that the harassment as far as Jason was concerned, actually got worse.

It was like things intensified at that point. He kept asking all of them to text Morgan on his behalf because she blocked him on social media and on text. And they started to notice a change in his demeanor. He was withdrawn. He was acting depressed. It was like he wasn't sleeping or showering or even taking care of himself

and he wasn't eating any food except for the morning of October 28th, the day that Morgan was killed. On that morning, both Mark and Mary noticed a change in Jason's demeanor. This time, it was positive. They all worked the same 2.30 shift, including Morgan. And that morning, Jason appeared to be happier.

They said he had more spunk. He was smiling for the first time in weeks, and right away, he started talking about Morgan. Right from the moment he got to work about how he was happy that they mended their friendship, even showing Mary the gift that he planned on buying for Morgan for Christmas. But what was odd?

was odd was that Mary felt like she would know if they were talking again, like word would have gotten out. And as far as she knew, Morgan still wanted nothing to do with Jason. The co-workers explained that Jason noticed that Morgan wasn't there. Mary remembered him looking over to where Morgan should have been that morning and mentioning that she wasn't at work yet and that he didn't know where she was. But he wasn't concerned about her not being there or anything and another detective was called in. This was all very interesting. So detectives got a subpoena for internal records about Jason McDermott from FedEx. They also pulled up all the videos from inside FedEx, especially from the day of October 8th when the phone incident occurred because they wanted to see who is telling

the truth. Well, I have a portion of those videos. Jason McDermott took her phone and he had it for almost an hour and he was just sitting there going through it. So we lied, but that's not all. Inside these internal reports, they notice that before this incident, Jason was written up, for harassing another female at the workplace. This report detailed instances where this woman felt like he wouldn't stop bothering her. He was continuously talking to her, talking about her, making her feel uncomfortable, saying inappropriate things to her.

So this was a pattern of behavior, and that definitely stood out. They made contact with this woman. Her name was Sienna Clements, and she was only 18 when she began working at FedEx back in 2019. Sienna was trained by Jason when she first started, and she got to know him pretty well on a co-eastern worker basis, and after a while, she felt comfortable asking him for a ride to work. So this became their routine.

That Jason would give her ride to and from work every day, and they were friendly, and everything was okay until Sienna's friend got a job at FedEx. That's when they decided they were going to carpool together instead of Sienna going with Jason. And she said, at that point, everything changed. Sienna explained how this is when the harassment truly started. It was on her social media accounts. She would log in, there would be hundreds of notifications,

and they were all from Jason. He was liking all of her pictures, commenting on all of them, one after the other, sending her DMs nonstop over and over again, even before she got a chance to respond. There would be more messages in her inbox right when she opens it up and even tried to type a response. It wasn't just one of her social media accounts.

It was everywhere. It was Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat. Every single one was inundated with activity from this person. The reason he was doing this was because he was trying to look at her activity. He was trying to find out her location. He wanted eyes on her at all times. And finally, she bluntly told him in a text message, we are not cool, Jason. Please leave me the fuck alone. Seriously.

I don't know what I did to deserve this, but please stop. This was back in September of 2020, a month before Morgan had been killed. But after this, it gets even more terrifying. He was following Sienna. She didn't know it, and she looked out of a building she was in, and there was his car sitting outside. He was in there just staring back at her, watching, waiting.