Thread by @DildoGaggins89

On March 22, 1977, Charles Morgan disappeared after dropping his daughters off at school. Three days later, he showed up at his house with plastic handcuffs on his wrists and ankle, unable to speak, and handed his wife, Ruth, a note claiming he had been abducted and tortured.🧵

In addition to being tortured, Morgan also claimed that a hallucinogenic drug had been "painted" on his throat, and that he would go insane or die if he ingested it. Ruth fed him with an eye dropper for days until he could speak again.

Charles claimed to have worked as an agent for the federal government, fighting against organized crime. He warned Ruth not to call the police, as "they" would put a hit out on him and his family. He didn't elaborate on who "they" were.

Some background on Morgan. He was described as a successful businessman, an escrow officer who was in the process of buying his own escrow service. Arizona in the 70s was a haven for crime syndicates, due to a state law allowing land to be bought anonymously through a blind trust

In May 1977, Morgan gave secret testimony to the Arizona state attorney general's office about the fraudulent purchase of a controlling share of Southwestern Bank. Linked below is an article with a full accounting of the ins and outs of that:

ibb.co/YL0nQX2

On June 7, 1977, just a month after this testimony and two months after his first disappearance, Morgan again vanished. He had previously told his father that if anything happened to him, he had written a letter saying who was responsible. This letter was never found.

Nine days later, Ruth received a call from an unknown woman, stating "Chuck is alright, Ecclesiastics 12: 1-8". The bible passage in question reads:

"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. Then the dust will Return to the Earth as it was and the spirit will return to God who gave it."

Two days later, Morgan was found dead in the desert just 30 feet off the highway. Wearing a bulletproof vest, he was shot in the back of the head. His 357 was found beside him with no fingerprints on it. Gunshot residue was found on his left hand, despite being right handed.

Clipped inside Morgan's underwear was a $2 bill. On the front of the bill were seven Spanish names from A to G. "Ecclesiastics 12" was also written on it, with verses 1 through 8 indicated by arrows drawn on the serial number of the bill.

On the back of the bill was a crude map showing roads between the Tucson and Mexico border, as well as the towns Robles Junction and Sasabe. Allegedly, these towns were known for smuggling. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were numbered 1 through 7.

Morgan's car was found containing several firearms, ammunition, a CB radio, a pair of sunglasses that didn't belong to him, one of his teeth wrapped in a white handkerchief, and several pairs of plastic handcuffs.

Two days after Morgan's death, an anonymous woman, allegedly the same woman who contacted Ruth, called the Pima County Sheriff's Department. "Green Eyes", as she called herself, said she met with Morgan at a motel the day he died, where he claimed a hit had been put out on him.

Green Eyes claimed Morgan showed her a briefcase containing $60k in cash meant to buy his way out of the hit. While the briefcase matched one found in Morgan's car after his death, it was only filled with papers.

Despite everything, Morgan's death was ruled a suicide. Shortly after his death his car, impounded by the police, was broken into and ransacked. So too was his office.

Three weeks after his death, two men claiming to be FBI agents showed up at his house and told Ruth they had to search the home. Allegedly, they tore the house apart, though never claimed what they were looking for.

Morgan's death was featured on an episode of the TV show Unsolved Mysteries on February 7, 1990.
Enter Don Devereux, a private investigator who, after the episode aired, investigated several leads that came to light because of the show.

Devereux claimed that Morgan was, between 1973 and his death, involved with laundering millions of dollars in gold and platinum through his escrow business. Allegedly, this gold and platinum didn't actually exist, but was moved through several escrow accounts and "legitimized".

Devereux claimed that Morgan kept duplicate records of all of these fraudulent transactions and believed that he was murdered because of these records. This, along with the letter he told his father about, could have been what the "FBI agents" were looking for.

Devereux attempted to obtain Morgan's FBI files via a FOIA request, but was told the agency had no files on him, despite their involvement in his case.

Three months after the Unsolved Mysteries episode aired, a man named Doug Johnston was found murdered in his car by a gunshot wound to the back of his head. Johnston worked directly across the street from Devereux and drove an identical car.

A year after Johnston's death, Devereux was contacted by Danny Casolaro, of PROMIS fame, and agreed to share with him the info he had uncovered on Morgan's gold transactions. He never did get to pass this info along before Casolaro was found dead of an apparent "suicide".

Charles Morgan's murder has never been solved and is still called a suicide, despite the mounds of evidence that he was involved with, and helped facilitate, illegal and fraudulent transactions on the behalf of organized crime.

Does Charles Morgan factor into the larger Octopus investigation that Danny Casolaro was investigating up until his death?