May 19, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode of Status: Pending, we travel to rural Wells, Vermont, where a tragic 2008 shooting left a mother dead and her teenage son accused of pulling the trigger. At just 14 years old, Christian Taylor became the youngest person in decades to be charged with murder in Vermont.
This case is still listed with the Vermont State Police as an unsolved homicide. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Major Crimes Unit.
This case is still listed with the Vermont State Police as an unsolved homicide. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Major Crimes Unit.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome back to status pending. Scott Fuller and Heather right
to back with you for another joyous romp into our
podcast or Heather, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I am here?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yes, it's been a lot. Sorry for the lack of episodes,
but it was entirely my fault. Yes, I just glad
you off, Mike. I just said we don't have to
disclose my ineptitude, and that's the first thing I did.
But that's a right self deprecating people like that, right.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, everybody's into Sado massacres, So we.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Should do this up top. This is a case that
was introduced to us or sent to us through some
kind of personal connection. So before we take a break
and get into the case, how did we hear about this?
To whatever degree that we want to.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Disclose that for now, we're going to be very vague
about it, just because we want to make sure that
the family is okay with sharing who they are. So
the person who shared this with us has a connection
to the family, and whether or not they want to
be named is yet to be seen. But they have
been a friend of mine for several years and they
(01:40):
have kind of been looking into this on their own
for a while. And they're like, hey, you know, maybe
some fresh eyes will help. Can you guys kind of
get the word out, talk about it a little and
see what you can come up with. So that's kind
of what we're going to do.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
It's interesting being the true crime person and many of
you listening to this maybe this person, but when you're
that person, that guy, or that gal, you know, anything
that the normal, well adjusted person sees related to true
true crime, they're like, oh, Scott would like this, And
half the time I have no idea what's going on,
especially when it comes to their new series on Paramount.
(02:16):
I think the smiley face, yes, I saw that. Ever,
I'm not a serial killer guy. As you know, you're
more of a serial killer guy than me I am.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I am a serial killer guy.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You're right, but I always got that one mixed up
with the happy face, which was a fictitious as far
as I know, or maybe I'm backwards to the happy
thing serial killer. Yeah, and the smiley face was actually
just a bunch of drunk kids in Wisconsin who you know, correct, Yeah,
fell into the river. But anyway, I get introduced all
(02:50):
the true crime stuff and I never know what's happening.
So that's kind of how we ended up with this
case because we are known as the true crime folks
in our orbit, which is well earned, I suppose. But
we're going all the way out east to Wells, Vermont
right after this, all right, This episode takes us to Wells, Vermont,
(03:14):
a small town that found itself in the center of
a devastating but very especially locally highly publicized case involving
the death of a mother and her fourteen year old
son who is accused of committing the crime, basically accused
of killing his mom. So we're going back to two
thousand and eight. At four twenty nine in the morning
(03:35):
on August second, State Police in Vermont responded to a
nine to one to one call from the cell phone
of forty year old Francine Morgan. The caller, who we
later find out is her son, Christian J. Taylor, reported
that he'd found his mom unresponsive. Long story short, that
reasons we'll get into which actually have a lasting impact
in her kind of fascinating about this case, But it
(03:57):
took the police a long time to get there. We're
going to like a rural area, a cold Spring road,
and it took the highway patrol a long time to respond,
and they found Franccene dead from a single gunshot wound
to the head. Authorities quickly began treating the death as suspicious.
As we've talked about before, that's what you're supposed to
(04:17):
do it a death scene, basically rule out homicide first.
But within forty eight hours, very quickly, they had charged
Francie Morgan's fourteen year old son with second degree murder
and at the time, that made him the youngest person
in the history of Vermont to face such a charge,
or at least in the last thirty years prior to
this crime. So it was a big publicized media.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Deal and very fast, like you mentioned, within forty eight hours, Like,
is that even enough time to really rule other stuff out?
Is like, yeah, you know, it's like wild to be.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
We'll get into that, especially when it comes to the prosecution,
like when do you decide to charge And yeah, we'll
discuss that at length. That's one of the other kind
of X fact in this case too.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Right, But the biggest X factor, i'd say is the
fact that he was fourteen. That's something that's really going
to stick with you. A fourteen year old and killing
his own mom, Like he's barely a teenager and suddenly
now he's faced with a charge that could really change
his life forever. Even though prosecutors decided early on that
he would be tried as a juvenile, like in juvenile court. Still,
(05:22):
to have your mom taken away from you and then
within forty eight hours be like pointed at as the
person who did it. It's just that's trauma in and
of itself, and I couldn't even imagine going through that
at fourteen.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, there's a lot of levels to this case. Like immediately,
the first thing we're telling you is a fourteen year
old kid was charged with killing his mom, and that's
where we're starting at. So did he do it or not? Regardless?
Almost off to the side, and you've got this whole
you know, this is a kid without a mom, one
way or the other. So there are charging documents in
this case that we have not seen. At least I
(05:55):
have not seen because for reasons we'll get into. But
some details from the the affidavit and the charging documents
were shared with the local media. Haven't seen those again myself.
Investigators said the boy gave inconsistent statements about where he
had been when the shooting actually occurred. They basically didn't
(06:16):
like his story from the beginning. He said he told
police allegedly this is from media reports, but he told
police he had gone outside to feed the family's animals
and then found his mom in the state he was
after hearing a shot from outside, so he's not in
the room or the house at the time. But police
(06:37):
had a problem with that because of bullet trajectory, very
rudimentary initial look at the scene. They kind of said, initially,
this doesn't make sense. Also, they understood after talking to
him that Christian knew where the thirty six hunting rifle
was stored, which ends up being the murder weapon, and
it contradicted they said his account. So that weapon is
(06:59):
a long range hunting gun belonged to his family, was
found inside the house. Authorities said there was no sign
of forced entry, and one source, I couldn't coroborate this
with a second, but there was one report that said
the bullet passed through a pillow before striking Francine in
the head. That detail, again not confirmed by anybody else,
(07:22):
but it was a part of the early immediate reporting
in this case.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And two things about that. First, they said that there
was there were no signs of forced entry, right, So
if he went outside briefly just to feed the animals,
you know, maybe he left the door ajar, Maybe he
left it unlocked, maybe nobody was worried about locking it,
so there wouldn't really be forced entry if somebody else
came up, you know, playing Devil's advocate here. And then
another thing is they said that the bullet had passed
(07:47):
through a pillow before striking her in the head. And
my only thought with that is they were trying to
silence it so that maybe he didn't hear the bullet,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That's a good point, Like, if you know, either a scenario,
if he's responsible or not, why are we, you know,
muffling the sound like your scenario, if it's known that
there's another person on the property, right, we're silencing it
to you know, cloak ourselves, disguise ourselves. But if it's
(08:19):
just him and his mom in the middle of nowhere,
you know, Vermont is what it sounds like, why silence
it at all?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yep, A lot of questions here, but so again, fourteen
year old Christian Taylor is charged with murder almost immediately,
but even from the very beginning, there were signs that
this case might not be so clear cut. I mean,
neighbors even described Francine and her son to be very
close with one another. And one of those neighbors actually
called Christian a respectful boy and said that he couldn't
(08:50):
even imagine the boy being involved in something like this.
Yet others questioned how quickly police had zeroed in on him, like,
I mean, honestly, within forty eight that was really quick.
But you know, from a true crime standpoint, we do
see like, okay, well maybe he was the only one there,
so of course they're going to zero in on him,
(09:10):
but he wasn't there, you know, right, it was.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, as we'll talk about very quick charge in forty
eight hours. My underlying theme on that for this case
is going to be not going to hurt to wait,
you know, give it twice that amount of time if
you have a lockdown cold, but once charge, you're you're committed,
and it looks really bad in an elected position to
(09:35):
say oops, sorry anyway, another really interesting not everything's political though,
come on, no, AG's and and prosecutors are mostly elected. Yeah,
so they're at the end of the day, they want
a good, you know, conviction rate, and they want to
appear to be tough on crime or whatever their platform is.
(09:55):
But yeah, not all line prosecutors are are political. But
the boss is going to be elected almost always.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
That's fair, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Another fun side quest in this case was the nine
to one one call. So initially the call wasn't routed
to the local emergency responders. This was again kind of
back in the earlish days of cell phones. Verizon had
a cell tower in rural Vermont, and because of the
(10:25):
situation or the geography, or however they were writing routing
things at that time, it was routed to New York State,
so the nine to one one call actually arrives to
first responders in a different state. That glitch obviously DeLay's
response time, and the defense in pre trial stuff in
this case would bring that up often. It's also worth
(10:47):
noting that back in two thousand and eight, Vermont State
Police didn't have a twenty four to seven patrol so
for decades and I couldn't find how far back, but
for decades before that, maybe even still to this day,
I'm not sure, but there was a patrol gap between
two am and six am, which obviously includes the time
(11:08):
at four thirty or so when this nine to one
one call was made. So not only was the call
misrouted to a different state, but law enforcement in Vermont,
in terms of the state police, was basically offline. I'm
sure there's somebody on call or something like that. It's
not like there's no one to respond to your rural
you know, state patrol state police emergencies, but there's nobody
(11:29):
who's going to be patrolling this section of the state
and can quickly respond. It's reasonable to assume that had
this occurred at one o'clock in the afternoon or four
to thirty in the afternoon as supposed to four to
thirty in the morning, it does make a difference. I mean,
does it save her life, does it find some evidence
that might have been covered up? Does it catch somebody
else who might have been involved? Who knows? But you
(11:52):
basically want in that situation people to be there as
soon as possible.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I mean, I guess when you look at it like that,
it does make sense for the most part, for an
area like that, For you know, between those hours, there's
not a whole lot of activity. Most people are probably
in bed sleeping already, So I guess resource management wise,
it makes sense. But you know, obviously now they're seeing
things differently.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I would think, yeah, and I do get it. It's
a small state, not very populated. When we were discussing
this case weeks ago, initially Maine for example, it has
to do with homicide investigation. Maine State Police investigate homicide
everywhere except Augusta and Portland. I think it's the same
in Vermont, so I think it's Vermont State Police that
(12:39):
has jurisdiction. I'm not sure about that, but yeah, it's
a I get it. I mean, there's not a whole
lot going on in Vermont at four point thirty on
a Wednesday morning, except when there is.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Honestly, it's like the perfect storm of failure if you
think about it, because police quickly decide, you know, this
is this nine one one CALLAR is the person who
actually is responsible for the crime. And I feel like
that's a little bit of bias, you know, but that's
not known at the time of the call. So at
that point, we have a kid in crisis calling nine
one one asking for help. The call doesn't go where
(13:10):
it's supposed to, so it's just like one thing after
another and then when help is actually on the way,
no one is actually patrolling that area. So it's like,
if this kid isn't responsible for it, it's like everything
bad that could happen happened that night for him.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So it gets even worse than that. According to reports,
Verizon couldn't figure out where this nine to one one
call was coming from, or at least they couldn't for
twenty nine minutes after it was received, so for a
half hour, and remember the call is actually going to
a different state outside of the jurisdiction obviously, so for
(13:48):
half hour, emergency responders may have been available, but they
didn't have a location to go to, They didn't have
a location to be dispatched too, and there was nobody
on the other end of the nine one one call
who was getting that location, as we'll talk about a
little bit, But that delay added to what ends up
being a total response time of fifty six minutes from
(14:10):
nine to one one call to the first first responder
arriving at the house. Stay police later did say that
the nine to one one call was ongoing when the
attack took place. That's unverified by us, but the police
say that they can hear the whole assault, basically the
whole murder on the call, which unfolded over just a
couple of minutes. But the call again was routed incorrectly
(14:32):
and they couldn't triangulate the location for like a half hour,
so nobody was on patrol in Vermont. It's a perfect storm,
you know, there's nobody, no deputy out there patrolling at
that time of night. Anyway, the call goes to a
different state and they can't triangulate where it's coming from
in the first place. So this is you know, fifty
six minutes actually ends up being when you factor all
(14:53):
that in a decent response time, but obviously in a
situation like this, you want like five minutes or so
as opposed to an hour.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Well, and that's the thing that I think when you
and I were talking offline about this, I didn't really
catch was that during the nine one one call they
heard the attack, which doesn't really make sense to me.
That's what That's one part that really frustrates me, because
if she died of a single gunshot wound to the head,
like what was the attack? Was she hit or did
(15:23):
she struggle beforehand? And then they ended it with a
gunshot wound, like that's what I'm not getting.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, this is just from the police. But they did
tell the media haven't heard the call, and for reasons
we'll talk about. None of those files are public, but
they say that you could basically hear the whole attack.
So any speculating I would do would be just that.
But I would imagine that in a scenario where Christian
(15:48):
was responsible for the death of his mom, there may
have been some escalation before that that led her to call,
but also apparently captured the shooting itself. If you know,
you believe the prosecutors and the police what they said
about it.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, I would like to hear that nine one one call.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Obviously it's not there, and as we'll talk about, there
are reasons we can't hear it, yeah, or nobody can.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And again, you know, we've talked about this. It is
a heartbreaking scenario. It's terrifying, Like, who knows that call
might have been enough to save her life if it
had gone to the right place, especially if they were
hearing stuff over the dispatch right, you know, and even
if not, maybe a quicker response time would help the
investigation out a little. You know, maybe the police encounter
the shooter as they're leaving. If the sun wasn't involved,
(16:35):
or if he was involved, maybe the quicker response time,
you know, prevents him from removing potential evidence. You know,
obviously all speculation, we don't have enough information, but the
bottom line really is, you know, a faster response time
always better. Certainly a faster response time than almost an
hour for a call like this, And you mentioned it
(16:55):
like a five minute response time would have been amazing,
but I mean, fifty that's just way too long.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Too so that I thought of several cases we've done
as you were talking just then, but I think people
would be surprised how long you can survive after you've
been shot in the head, which is not something people
like to think about.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
And obviously tell me those cases please depend.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
I don't want to mention. I don't want to mention one.
But I was actually thinking about it was one of
our very early cases.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Oh no, I.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Was thinking about that this week for some reason. Yeah.
It obviously depends on the situation, like where you get shot,
obviously exactly in your brain. Some people get shot in
the head and survive and don't know they've been shot
in the head. Some people die instantly, but you're right
that I'm not sure they could save her life necessarily.
(17:49):
But again it goes to the big point of we
want first responders there before an hour. They charged him
right away forty eight hours and the court proceedings dragged
on for months, not unusual in a case like this,
but additional layers here because of his age. Christian was
fourteen in July of or when the murder occurred. He
(18:10):
was still fourteen in July of two thousand and eight
when he was in front of a judge pled not guilty.
His defense team asked the court to dismiss the case,
saying the evidence wasn't there, which is a very standard
first thing that a defense lawyer does in big cases
is basically make that argument, and ninety nine percent of
the time it shot down. It was also shot down
(18:32):
in this case. But in May of twenty ten, this
is a year and nine months after the death of
Francine Morgan, prosecutors actually dropped the charges entirely. Rutland County
State's Attorney James Monnigan, said the decision followed a review
of forensic evidence and a ballistic report. He said, quote,
we no longer believe we can meet our burden of
(18:54):
proof unquote. He also said he clarified that that didn't
mean the state thought somebody else was responsible. He was
only saying they couldn't move forward with a case against
Christian Taylor. By the way, too is credit. Again, that's
an elected position, I'm sure, and it's very rare that
prosecutors drop charges in murder cases, usually because they're not
(19:17):
charging immediately after forty eight hours. But it just doesn't
make you look good. You know, your job is that
important as investigators and prosecutors. Prosecutor is the most powerful
person in our entire society. And for them to say
we can't pursue this case because we think we're going
(19:37):
to lose. I hate to say it, but more often
than not, when a case gets to that point and
they've committed that far, they're just going to roll the
dice anyway, and if they lose the case, they can
blame the jury or whatever. But to their credit, they
decided this is not worth a taxpayer expense, and we
don't think we can win this case, which is how
it's supposed to work if you don't have that evidence.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Is such a complicated asas to be into I mean
they're not clearing him, they're not convicting him. They're just
kind of done. And you know, if you're the family
or the community that leaves you without any type of closure,
which if you've been a long time listener, you know,
I don't throw the word closure around very often, but
that is kind of the way this case feels, like
(20:19):
no matter how you look at it, there isn't any
like we have no idea what the resolution is for
this case. And I'm sure the family is still just
kind of sitting there like what the actual fuck is
going on? Like who is going to pay for her death?
Like who did it?
Speaker 1 (20:35):
You know, we have talked about closure or lack thereof
a lot in this case. The experts noted that the
rifle could have been discharged accidentally. I mean, that's a
good place for the defense to start. That detail might
have influenced the state and their decision to charge Christian
with second degree murder initially, which is what he was
(20:57):
charged with as supposed to first And that sam uncertainty
about the gun and about intent and about motive, all
the things you have to prove for first degree murder
probably contributed to the dismissal too, because they weren't going
for first, they're going for second, and that takes away
the burden of having to prove intense. But they can't
(21:17):
even prove second degree murder, you know, let alone manslaughter
or anything else, so they drop the case.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, so we've stressed it since the beginning. You know,
it's a young person. He lost his mom, he's fourteen,
He's been publicly charged with killing her, had that hanging
over his head for the better part of probably two years,
and then was quietly released back into his life. But
still he had no answers, he had no resolution or
(21:45):
depending on what might have happened in the case, I mean,
there was no punishment imposed against him if he was
the killer. Like, yes, there's just so many unknowns with it,
and it just doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Regardless, like the worst possible outcome, you know, for everybody. Yeah,
you know, society for her shits too, honestly, for her,
justice for her personally, for all of us, for her
friends and family, And meanwhile, he has lost his mom,
whether or not he's responsible, and what ends up happening
is nothing. Nobody's charged, he's charged, but the case is dropped.
(22:17):
Against him, so you end up with this really you know,
ambiguous ending to the whole thing. It's not over. There's
no statute on limitations on murder. But prosecutors when they
dropped the charges said, we still think he did it,
we just can't prove it, and that makes nobody happy.
So they dropped the charges, and Christian Taylor is fifteen
(22:38):
at that point. He was released from state custody and
returned to live with extended family. The case file has
been sealed. No further charges have ever been made in
Francine Morgan's death, and that's basically case wise where we
still are.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Today, right right, And you know, you kind of mentioned
something that would lead into this at the top of
the episode, like this case file was sealed, and it
was because of his age. So there's a lot of
things that we can't look at right now. But what
initially brought this particular case to our attention is that,
you know, according to communication we've had with extended family
(23:13):
and friends, Christian Taylor basically disappeared from public view entirely
after the case ended, and according to them, quote unquote,
he fell off the grid, you know, and that's using
their words again, We're not going to say who they are,
just in case they don't want that out there. But
they've been looking for him for several years and they
have no idea where he went what happened. All they
(23:36):
know is basically what we know.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, and because he's a minor and he wasn't convicted. Vermont,
it turns out, has some of the strictest minor privacy
laws when it comes to uncharged people in the system
in the country, and so fell off the grid is
what they say. And did he want to disappear? Probably
(23:58):
don't know what happened to him, Like his extended family
has lost touch with him from what we've heard.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Right, And it just makes you think, like with the
type of laws that they have in place and stuff
that they have in place for minors, it just makes
you wonder like maybe this was how it was supposed
to be, Like what if he's in witness protection? We
don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, there are the other interesting aspects of this case
that have to do with that, some of the privacy
laws also what was changed in the entire country as
a result of this one case, and we'll talk about
that coming up next. So there are plenty of unique
legal circumstances in this case. But one of the biggest
(24:42):
lasting impacts that resulted from this case was not legal,
it was technological. So Francine Morgan's nine to one one calls,
we told you that's a problem. It's going to a
different jurisdiction, a different state. They can't triangulate it. So
this is in two thousand and eight, a serious flaw
that was found in the way that phone calls were
routed to rural areas like Wells, Vermont. So because of
(25:06):
this case, specifically, Verizon overhauled its routing procedures for emergency
calls in Vermont and other rural areas of the country.
Those changes are now in place all over the country
in the most rural areas, from Wyoming to Alaska to everywhere,
but it was basically because of this case. Verizon later
(25:27):
said the misrouting issue had been addressed, so future emergency
calls would go immediately to the closest available public safety
answering point, even if the cell tower was far away,
which basically is the way it still works today, but
were much better off specifically because of this case.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
That's where it started, which thank freaking God or Buddha
or whoever you believe in, because like, honestly, that's the
way it should have been. I mean, this is an
emergency call, so you can't you can't just be like, oh, well,
I'm going to call in this emergence. See I'm going
to expect fifty minutes for them to arrive. I guess
we'll just have to try to keep you alive. Like,
you know, at least something change, like something improved. You know,
(26:10):
that system that failed ranccene won't fail, you know, the
same way again at least, So that's something. Even if
it's not justice, that's one thing that is positive that
came from it. Yeah, And I think that that's kind
of how it always happens. We talk about this all
the time, that something unfortunately bad has to happen for
people to realize that policy has to be changed or
(26:31):
processes have to be changed.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
That's how stuff gets fixed, is when it breaks. I mean,
that's just the way it works. We take it for granted.
Now you can be anywhere in the most remote part
of the world and still get at least your emergency
call through. But remember, I mean not too long ago,
two thousand and eight wasn't always that way. There's legal
interest in this case too. I've kind of alluded to it,
(26:54):
and I'm not going to Monday morning quarterback the.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Any prosecutor, but please thank you, but.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
This highlights this a great case study and how hard
it is to prosecute juveniles, first of all, and I
think the bigger issue in this case was probably charging
too quick. And this is a small town state police jurisdiction,
I believe, but especially in rural areas of the country,
and you see this more often with small agencies too
(27:25):
and prosecuting offices. But it's just there's a lot of
not case file that goes into charging some of these cases.
When everybody on the street is asking you, as a cop,
have you solved it yet? And once somebody's arrested, it's
on the prosecutor to convict the person. I mean, that's
a lot of pressure. And they wrap this one up
(27:46):
real quick, and they ran into a fourteen year old defendant.
That's a whole other can of worms. Legally, especially in Vermont,
you can only collect so much evidence in forty eight hours.
I mean, the question I basically want to again without
you know, Monday morning quarterbacking the prosecutor. But why you know,
(28:06):
what's wrong with two weeks as opposed to two days.
Your investigation can go on that the kid's not going anywhere,
collect the evidence, do the investigation front to back like
you're supposed to do. This seemed to be rushed for
whatever reason. I don't care. If it's OJ Simpson, which
is the most locked up murder case I've ever seen.
Obviously different things going on with that case. But point is,
(28:28):
if you've got the person dead to rights, holding the
knife with blood on their hands, standing over the body,
I'm still not sure you charge in forty eight hours.
There's no harm in going through the process.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Right, No, I totally I'm on board with you on
that one. And my only thing with that is is
the time that this crime happened, what was going on
in Vermont? What was going on in that town that
would make them rush it? Like I didn't look into that,
but that feels like something that I would do on
my jowe.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
So if I'm right that it's a state agency, I
could be wrong about that, but they had I read
nowhere about any potent Sheriff's department investigating this, so it
was either handed to them or it was their jurisdiction
in the first place. They have homicides, and fromon, I
don't really understand why a state agency would rush that quick.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, and I mean you mentioned it basically, the complexities
of evidence, you know that may or may not be
interpreted the same way by different experts, all that stuff.
But again, especially if you guys are playing a drinking
game like this kid is fourteen years old. So even
if police and prosecutors are confident, the law says, the
burden of proof is on them. And when you're talking
(29:43):
about a child who in this case could be seen
as both a victim and a suspect if you think
about it, you know, and a dead parent, that burden
has to be high. So here's another side to it.
Even if prosecutors believed Christian was responsible, they didn't feel
like they had the case to prove it at that
point for whatever reason, which probably because they rushed it,
like Scott just said, you know, and they haven't come
(30:06):
forward with any other theory. That really says a lot
about what police thing happened in this matter.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, I mean they said when they drop the charges,
we don't think anyone else did it. We just can't
prove it. I hate cases like that. You know, they
can't charge them, and it is possible less So even
now compared to two thousand and eight, it is possible
to kill somebody and not leave forensic evidence. More often
than not, it's just missed. And that probably, if I
(30:33):
had to guess, is what happened in this case. I
can't imagine charging somebody forty eight hours after. I can't
imagine that in a homicide.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I mean, that's super fast unless you're there to investigation. Yeah, correct, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Got to be like on camera and lock down and yeah,
or you're there.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
You're like there to like help with whatever else happens.
And then this person blatantly shoots another person right in
front of you. Then you're like, oh, yeah, totally did it.
I was living in there.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Then you don't see him charged in forty eight hours.
Like right, you could capture it on dash cam and
you won't get charged in forty eight hours. I digress.
Another interesting aspect of this case is it was dismissed
in juvenile court. And we alluded to this, but Vermont
has a sealed case file policy on all juvenile criminal matters,
(31:25):
So that's police reports, that's forensics, that's any deliberations the
prosecutor made with the detectives anything. So unless something seriously
major changes, and I can't imagine what that would be,
the public won't have access to the nine to one
one call or any of the case files. Had this
gone to trial, obviously that is public. We know a
(31:47):
lot more about Christian Taylor than we do right now,
and what investigators believe happened in the house. Because they
didn't go to trial, they're able to say we think
he did it. We can't prove it in core because
of maybe ballistics and forensic but that's all. You know,
there's no discovery. None of this is public, so we
(32:08):
don't know a whole lot and probably never.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Will right right, and we would know, you know, if
the States still believed that they had the right person.
The prosecutor did make those statements, like you've mentioned it
a couple of times now, you know, to the effect
where the charges were dismissed, but they still believed that
the investigation found Francine's killer, her son, but they couldn't
prove it. So again, like they say it enough times
(32:33):
to make you believe, like, Okay, there's a reason that
he was charged in forty eight hours, but again they
don't have that evidence. They're lacking that burden. So for now,
all we know is that Francine Morgan was murdered and
her son was accused, and then he was cleared. And really,
as far as the legal story goes, the legal aspect
(32:54):
of this case, that's all we have. Now we just
have speculation because again those documents are sealed, We're never
going to know it unless something major happens.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yeah, and I hate to end it like this, but
that's basically where we're at. So there was some good
that came from this case when it comes to technology,
some lessons that I'm sure we're learned, especially on the
East Coast from prosecutors and charging a case that quick,
especially a minor, that just blows my mind. It would
take some kind of cooperation if Christian were responsible to
(33:27):
maybe a confession, I'm not sure. But again, his extended family,
we're told, doesn't exactly know where he is either after
all this, So, yeah, it's all sealed and there is
no end of the story, at least not at this moment.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Well, and I'm really bad at mathing. So he was
fifteen and what two thousand and nine?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Nine?
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, so what is he now, Scott?
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Why are you asking me? Oh?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
I know, I was about to get my calculator and
I'm sorry. I can't do math right now.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
The way I'm going to do this is go back
to two thousand. How well a been nine years before.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
You don't need to do that. Hold on, I got this,
don't worry about it. Sixteen So he's thirty one roughly
right now.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
So you would be thirty one.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Correct, Yeah, so I mean at thirty one years old,
unless he comes forward and has like this epiphany and
he's like, you know what, I just want to tell
everybody the truth. This is what happened. I'm really sorry. Like,
unless something like that happens, we're really probably never gonna know.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Even that by itself wouldn't be enough, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Oh right, But I mean I feel like the family
would get some type of quote unquote closure from that.
But you know, again, we don't know. All we know
is a woman died, a child's life was shattered because
of her death. In the aftermath, he you know, was
accused of her murder everything else, and maybe that's the
heartbreak at the center of this entire case, that we
(34:53):
may never know what really happened that night in that
home and why was it all because of the night
one system at the time, possibly right, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, And as happens with all homicides, and we probably
even I think we're more sensitive to this, but we
probably don't talk about it enough. Is it changes not
just the death of the person and their immediate family,
but it changes lives that you wouldn't even think of,
you know, of co workers and friends of the kid.
And in this particular case, not only is there no
(35:26):
justice quote unquote for her, there's no resolution for the public,
which is important, and there's no like he disappears from
what we're told, it's this huge hole that this one
night in two thousand and eight, from then on, it
changed countless lives.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And just to you know, be on his side for
a minute too, like if he had absolutely nothing to
do with this, and he truly was outside feeding the
animals and heard it and had to come in to
see his mom like that, and he still doesn't have answers,
like I'm pretty sure he's been struggling all these years,
sixteen years.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Even if he did it, you know, I hate to
be to someone who killed his mom if that's what happened.
But that's a lot too. And what's weird about that
is we do treat them differently. We treat minor crimes differently,
even when it's murder usually, and it's for that reason,
because of all the reasons we know about.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Your not being developed by Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah it is. It's different. It's different than Ted Bundy.
I had to drop it Ted Bundy reference.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Why do you do that every time? He doesn't matter?
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Because I know you think you so attractive.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
I don't. I hate I loathe that man anyway, this.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Guy statispending joke back to.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
This kiddo, like like, I just want to be I
always look for the best in people, and I just
I hope that he had nothing to do with it.
But I also am sad if he didn't have anything
to do with it, because he's probably just as lost
as everyone else, if not more.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Well, it didn't help, that's for sure. One way or
the other. It didn't help.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah, I don't know. It's just sad all around.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
It is. I mean, it always is. It creates this crater.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
And then if he did disappear because of all of
that stuff that happened, Like he probably has absolutely no
family to support him. He's probably so alone. I don't know,
it's just really sad. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Maybe on the flip side, do you like to imagine
like he's just a normal guy down the street.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I would fucking hope so, But I don't see how
that would happen if he's going through his developmental stages. Yeah,
that's rough, Like that's I don't know, that's really sad.
That's sad.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
So that is the case of Christian Taylor, and we
want to thank those who again we appreciate the heads
up on the case, but we're going to keep the
extended family out of it. But thank you for letting
us know. It's definitely a landmark case, one hundred percent
legally and technologically, and unfortunately, I'm not, you know, super
(37:55):
confident this one has a resolution at any point, but
who knows.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Every time you say that, the case gets solved.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
So that's why I do it.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
So yeah, so I don't know, that's all we really
have for this one. But if you guys have thoughts, questions,
you knew the family, anything, if you have any information
that you might want to share, I mean, this case
is still listed with the Vermont State Police and obviously
it's an unsolved homicide. So if you have information, just
contact the Major Crimes Unit. Let them know. Even if
(38:25):
you think it might be nothing, it could be something.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah, and the thing is, all those prosecutors and investigators
are gone. I'm sure now these cases when they get
twenty years old almost turnover. So a good prosecutor's office
and good investigators, especially state agencies will reopen it with
fresh eyes. And it seemed like from a Facebook post
(38:49):
they did a couple of years ago that that's the
vibe I got that there's no prejudice to it, and
they obviously have a case file, but the or not,
they're going to try to go about it a different way,
which is all you can do. So definitely, if you
do know anything, reach out. And yeah, that's a great point.
People tell people stuff. And like you said, every time
(39:12):
I say a case isn't going to be solved, that's
when it happens. So we never know. But thank you
guys for listening. We will talk to again next week.
We are going out to Yellowstone National Park.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Yes, we have a series for you guys coming up.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Which is fun, so we'll be back for at least
a couple episodes in a row. Sorry, but thank you
for listening. We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Bye.
Welcome back to status pending. Scott Fuller and Heather right
to back with you for another joyous romp into our
podcast or Heather, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I am here?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yes, it's been a lot. Sorry for the lack of episodes,
but it was entirely my fault. Yes, I just glad
you off, Mike. I just said we don't have to
disclose my ineptitude, and that's the first thing I did.
But that's a right self deprecating people like that, right.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, everybody's into Sado massacres, So we.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Should do this up top. This is a case that
was introduced to us or sent to us through some
kind of personal connection. So before we take a break
and get into the case, how did we hear about this?
To whatever degree that we want to.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Disclose that for now, we're going to be very vague
about it, just because we want to make sure that
the family is okay with sharing who they are. So
the person who shared this with us has a connection
to the family, and whether or not they want to
be named is yet to be seen. But they have
been a friend of mine for several years and they
(01:40):
have kind of been looking into this on their own
for a while. And they're like, hey, you know, maybe
some fresh eyes will help. Can you guys kind of
get the word out, talk about it a little and
see what you can come up with. So that's kind
of what we're going to do.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
It's interesting being the true crime person and many of
you listening to this maybe this person, but when you're
that person, that guy, or that gal, you know, anything
that the normal, well adjusted person sees related to true
true crime, they're like, oh, Scott would like this, And
half the time I have no idea what's going on,
especially when it comes to their new series on Paramount.
(02:16):
I think the smiley face, yes, I saw that. Ever,
I'm not a serial killer guy. As you know, you're
more of a serial killer guy than me I am.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I am a serial killer guy.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You're right, but I always got that one mixed up
with the happy face, which was a fictitious as far
as I know, or maybe I'm backwards to the happy
thing serial killer. Yeah, and the smiley face was actually
just a bunch of drunk kids in Wisconsin who you know, correct, Yeah,
fell into the river. But anyway, I get introduced all
(02:50):
the true crime stuff and I never know what's happening.
So that's kind of how we ended up with this
case because we are known as the true crime folks
in our orbit, which is well earned, I suppose. But
we're going all the way out east to Wells, Vermont
right after this, all right, This episode takes us to Wells, Vermont,
(03:14):
a small town that found itself in the center of
a devastating but very especially locally highly publicized case involving
the death of a mother and her fourteen year old
son who is accused of committing the crime, basically accused
of killing his mom. So we're going back to two
thousand and eight. At four twenty nine in the morning
(03:35):
on August second, State Police in Vermont responded to a
nine to one to one call from the cell phone
of forty year old Francine Morgan. The caller, who we
later find out is her son, Christian J. Taylor, reported
that he'd found his mom unresponsive. Long story short, that
reasons we'll get into which actually have a lasting impact
in her kind of fascinating about this case, But it
(03:57):
took the police a long time to get there. We're
going to like a rural area, a cold Spring road,
and it took the highway patrol a long time to respond,
and they found Franccene dead from a single gunshot wound
to the head. Authorities quickly began treating the death as suspicious.
As we've talked about before, that's what you're supposed to
(04:17):
do it a death scene, basically rule out homicide first.
But within forty eight hours, very quickly, they had charged
Francie Morgan's fourteen year old son with second degree murder
and at the time, that made him the youngest person
in the history of Vermont to face such a charge,
or at least in the last thirty years prior to
this crime. So it was a big publicized media.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Deal and very fast, like you mentioned, within forty eight hours, Like,
is that even enough time to really rule other stuff out?
Is like, yeah, you know, it's like wild to be.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
We'll get into that, especially when it comes to the prosecution,
like when do you decide to charge And yeah, we'll
discuss that at length. That's one of the other kind
of X fact in this case too.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Right, But the biggest X factor, i'd say is the
fact that he was fourteen. That's something that's really going
to stick with you. A fourteen year old and killing
his own mom, Like he's barely a teenager and suddenly
now he's faced with a charge that could really change
his life forever. Even though prosecutors decided early on that
he would be tried as a juvenile, like in juvenile court. Still,
(05:22):
to have your mom taken away from you and then
within forty eight hours be like pointed at as the
person who did it. It's just that's trauma in and
of itself, and I couldn't even imagine going through that
at fourteen.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, there's a lot of levels to this case. Like immediately,
the first thing we're telling you is a fourteen year
old kid was charged with killing his mom, and that's
where we're starting at. So did he do it or not? Regardless?
Almost off to the side, and you've got this whole
you know, this is a kid without a mom, one
way or the other. So there are charging documents in
this case that we have not seen. At least I
(05:55):
have not seen because for reasons we'll get into. But
some details from the the affidavit and the charging documents
were shared with the local media. Haven't seen those again myself.
Investigators said the boy gave inconsistent statements about where he
had been when the shooting actually occurred. They basically didn't
(06:16):
like his story from the beginning. He said he told
police allegedly this is from media reports, but he told
police he had gone outside to feed the family's animals
and then found his mom in the state he was
after hearing a shot from outside, so he's not in
the room or the house at the time. But police
(06:37):
had a problem with that because of bullet trajectory, very
rudimentary initial look at the scene. They kind of said, initially,
this doesn't make sense. Also, they understood after talking to
him that Christian knew where the thirty six hunting rifle
was stored, which ends up being the murder weapon, and
it contradicted they said his account. So that weapon is
(06:59):
a long range hunting gun belonged to his family, was
found inside the house. Authorities said there was no sign
of forced entry, and one source, I couldn't coroborate this
with a second, but there was one report that said
the bullet passed through a pillow before striking Francine in
the head. That detail, again not confirmed by anybody else,
(07:22):
but it was a part of the early immediate reporting
in this case.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And two things about that. First, they said that there
was there were no signs of forced entry, right, So
if he went outside briefly just to feed the animals,
you know, maybe he left the door ajar, Maybe he
left it unlocked, maybe nobody was worried about locking it,
so there wouldn't really be forced entry if somebody else
came up, you know, playing Devil's advocate here. And then
another thing is they said that the bullet had passed
(07:47):
through a pillow before striking her in the head. And
my only thought with that is they were trying to
silence it so that maybe he didn't hear the bullet,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That's a good point, Like, if you know, either a scenario,
if he's responsible or not, why are we, you know,
muffling the sound like your scenario, if it's known that
there's another person on the property, right, we're silencing it
to you know, cloak ourselves, disguise ourselves. But if it's
(08:19):
just him and his mom in the middle of nowhere,
you know, Vermont is what it sounds like, why silence
it at all?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yep, A lot of questions here, but so again, fourteen
year old Christian Taylor is charged with murder almost immediately,
but even from the very beginning, there were signs that
this case might not be so clear cut. I mean,
neighbors even described Francine and her son to be very
close with one another. And one of those neighbors actually
called Christian a respectful boy and said that he couldn't
(08:50):
even imagine the boy being involved in something like this.
Yet others questioned how quickly police had zeroed in on him, like,
I mean, honestly, within forty eight that was really quick.
But you know, from a true crime standpoint, we do
see like, okay, well maybe he was the only one there,
so of course they're going to zero in on him,
(09:10):
but he wasn't there, you know, right, it was.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, as we'll talk about very quick charge in forty
eight hours. My underlying theme on that for this case
is going to be not going to hurt to wait,
you know, give it twice that amount of time if
you have a lockdown cold, but once charge, you're you're committed,
and it looks really bad in an elected position to
(09:35):
say oops, sorry anyway, another really interesting not everything's political though,
come on, no, AG's and and prosecutors are mostly elected. Yeah,
so they're at the end of the day, they want
a good, you know, conviction rate, and they want to
appear to be tough on crime or whatever their platform is.
(09:55):
But yeah, not all line prosecutors are are political. But
the boss is going to be elected almost always.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
That's fair, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Another fun side quest in this case was the nine
to one one call. So initially the call wasn't routed
to the local emergency responders. This was again kind of
back in the earlish days of cell phones. Verizon had
a cell tower in rural Vermont, and because of the
(10:25):
situation or the geography, or however they were writing routing
things at that time, it was routed to New York State,
so the nine to one one call actually arrives to
first responders in a different state. That glitch obviously DeLay's
response time, and the defense in pre trial stuff in
this case would bring that up often. It's also worth
(10:47):
noting that back in two thousand and eight, Vermont State
Police didn't have a twenty four to seven patrol so
for decades and I couldn't find how far back, but
for decades before that, maybe even still to this day,
I'm not sure, but there was a patrol gap between
two am and six am, which obviously includes the time
(11:08):
at four thirty or so when this nine to one
one call was made. So not only was the call
misrouted to a different state, but law enforcement in Vermont,
in terms of the state police, was basically offline. I'm
sure there's somebody on call or something like that. It's
not like there's no one to respond to your rural
you know, state patrol state police emergencies, but there's nobody
(11:29):
who's going to be patrolling this section of the state
and can quickly respond. It's reasonable to assume that had
this occurred at one o'clock in the afternoon or four
to thirty in the afternoon as supposed to four to
thirty in the morning, it does make a difference. I mean,
does it save her life, does it find some evidence
that might have been covered up? Does it catch somebody
else who might have been involved? Who knows? But you
(11:52):
basically want in that situation people to be there as
soon as possible.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I mean, I guess when you look at it like that,
it does make sense for the most part, for an
area like that, For you know, between those hours, there's
not a whole lot of activity. Most people are probably
in bed sleeping already, So I guess resource management wise,
it makes sense. But you know, obviously now they're seeing
things differently.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I would think, yeah, and I do get it. It's
a small state, not very populated. When we were discussing
this case weeks ago, initially Maine for example, it has
to do with homicide investigation. Maine State Police investigate homicide
everywhere except Augusta and Portland. I think it's the same
in Vermont, so I think it's Vermont State Police that
(12:39):
has jurisdiction. I'm not sure about that, but yeah, it's
a I get it. I mean, there's not a whole
lot going on in Vermont at four point thirty on
a Wednesday morning, except when there is.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Honestly, it's like the perfect storm of failure if you
think about it, because police quickly decide, you know, this
is this nine one one CALLAR is the person who
actually is responsible for the crime. And I feel like
that's a little bit of bias, you know, but that's
not known at the time of the call. So at
that point, we have a kid in crisis calling nine
one one asking for help. The call doesn't go where
(13:10):
it's supposed to, so it's just like one thing after
another and then when help is actually on the way,
no one is actually patrolling that area. So it's like,
if this kid isn't responsible for it, it's like everything
bad that could happen happened that night for him.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So it gets even worse than that. According to reports,
Verizon couldn't figure out where this nine to one one
call was coming from, or at least they couldn't for
twenty nine minutes after it was received, so for a
half hour, and remember the call is actually going to
a different state outside of the jurisdiction obviously, so for
(13:48):
half hour, emergency responders may have been available, but they
didn't have a location to go to, They didn't have
a location to be dispatched too, and there was nobody
on the other end of the nine one one call
who was getting that location, as we'll talk about a
little bit, But that delay added to what ends up
being a total response time of fifty six minutes from
(14:10):
nine to one one call to the first first responder
arriving at the house. Stay police later did say that
the nine to one one call was ongoing when the
attack took place. That's unverified by us, but the police
say that they can hear the whole assault, basically the
whole murder on the call, which unfolded over just a
couple of minutes. But the call again was routed incorrectly
(14:32):
and they couldn't triangulate the location for like a half hour,
so nobody was on patrol in Vermont. It's a perfect storm,
you know, there's nobody, no deputy out there patrolling at
that time of night. Anyway, the call goes to a
different state and they can't triangulate where it's coming from
in the first place. So this is you know, fifty
six minutes actually ends up being when you factor all
(14:53):
that in a decent response time, but obviously in a
situation like this, you want like five minutes or so
as opposed to an hour.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Well, and that's the thing that I think when you
and I were talking offline about this, I didn't really
catch was that during the nine one one call they
heard the attack, which doesn't really make sense to me.
That's what That's one part that really frustrates me, because
if she died of a single gunshot wound to the head,
like what was the attack? Was she hit or did
(15:23):
she struggle beforehand? And then they ended it with a
gunshot wound, like that's what I'm not getting.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, this is just from the police. But they did
tell the media haven't heard the call, and for reasons
we'll talk about. None of those files are public, but
they say that you could basically hear the whole attack.
So any speculating I would do would be just that.
But I would imagine that in a scenario where Christian
(15:48):
was responsible for the death of his mom, there may
have been some escalation before that that led her to call,
but also apparently captured the shooting itself. If you know,
you believe the prosecutors and the police what they said
about it.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, I would like to hear that nine one one call.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Obviously it's not there, and as we'll talk about, there
are reasons we can't hear it, yeah, or nobody can.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And again, you know, we've talked about this. It is
a heartbreaking scenario. It's terrifying, Like, who knows that call
might have been enough to save her life if it
had gone to the right place, especially if they were
hearing stuff over the dispatch right, you know, and even
if not, maybe a quicker response time would help the
investigation out a little. You know, maybe the police encounter
the shooter as they're leaving. If the sun wasn't involved,
(16:35):
or if he was involved, maybe the quicker response time,
you know, prevents him from removing potential evidence. You know,
obviously all speculation, we don't have enough information, but the
bottom line really is, you know, a faster response time
always better. Certainly a faster response time than almost an
hour for a call like this, And you mentioned it
(16:55):
like a five minute response time would have been amazing,
but I mean, fifty that's just way too long.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Too so that I thought of several cases we've done
as you were talking just then, but I think people
would be surprised how long you can survive after you've
been shot in the head, which is not something people
like to think about.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
And obviously tell me those cases please depend.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
I don't want to mention. I don't want to mention one.
But I was actually thinking about it was one of
our very early cases.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Oh no, I.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Was thinking about that this week for some reason. Yeah.
It obviously depends on the situation, like where you get shot,
obviously exactly in your brain. Some people get shot in
the head and survive and don't know they've been shot
in the head. Some people die instantly, but you're right
that I'm not sure they could save her life necessarily.
(17:49):
But again it goes to the big point of we
want first responders there before an hour. They charged him
right away forty eight hours and the court proceedings dragged
on for months, not unusual in a case like this,
but additional layers here because of his age. Christian was
fourteen in July of or when the murder occurred. He
(18:10):
was still fourteen in July of two thousand and eight
when he was in front of a judge pled not guilty.
His defense team asked the court to dismiss the case,
saying the evidence wasn't there, which is a very standard
first thing that a defense lawyer does in big cases
is basically make that argument, and ninety nine percent of
the time it shot down. It was also shot down
(18:32):
in this case. But in May of twenty ten, this
is a year and nine months after the death of
Francine Morgan, prosecutors actually dropped the charges entirely. Rutland County
State's Attorney James Monnigan, said the decision followed a review
of forensic evidence and a ballistic report. He said, quote,
we no longer believe we can meet our burden of
(18:54):
proof unquote. He also said he clarified that that didn't
mean the state thought somebody else was responsible. He was
only saying they couldn't move forward with a case against
Christian Taylor. By the way, too is credit. Again, that's
an elected position, I'm sure, and it's very rare that
prosecutors drop charges in murder cases, usually because they're not
(19:17):
charging immediately after forty eight hours. But it just doesn't
make you look good. You know, your job is that
important as investigators and prosecutors. Prosecutor is the most powerful
person in our entire society. And for them to say
we can't pursue this case because we think we're going
(19:37):
to lose. I hate to say it, but more often
than not, when a case gets to that point and
they've committed that far, they're just going to roll the
dice anyway, and if they lose the case, they can
blame the jury or whatever. But to their credit, they
decided this is not worth a taxpayer expense, and we
don't think we can win this case, which is how
it's supposed to work if you don't have that evidence.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Is such a complicated asas to be into I mean
they're not clearing him, they're not convicting him. They're just
kind of done. And you know, if you're the family
or the community that leaves you without any type of closure,
which if you've been a long time listener, you know,
I don't throw the word closure around very often, but
that is kind of the way this case feels, like
(20:19):
no matter how you look at it, there isn't any
like we have no idea what the resolution is for
this case. And I'm sure the family is still just
kind of sitting there like what the actual fuck is
going on? Like who is going to pay for her death?
Like who did it?
Speaker 1 (20:35):
You know, we have talked about closure or lack thereof
a lot in this case. The experts noted that the
rifle could have been discharged accidentally. I mean, that's a
good place for the defense to start. That detail might
have influenced the state and their decision to charge Christian
with second degree murder initially, which is what he was
(20:57):
charged with as supposed to first And that sam uncertainty
about the gun and about intent and about motive, all
the things you have to prove for first degree murder
probably contributed to the dismissal too, because they weren't going
for first, they're going for second, and that takes away
the burden of having to prove intense. But they can't
(21:17):
even prove second degree murder, you know, let alone manslaughter
or anything else, so they drop the case.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, so we've stressed it since the beginning. You know,
it's a young person. He lost his mom, he's fourteen,
He's been publicly charged with killing her, had that hanging
over his head for the better part of probably two years,
and then was quietly released back into his life. But
still he had no answers, he had no resolution or
(21:45):
depending on what might have happened in the case, I mean,
there was no punishment imposed against him if he was
the killer. Like, yes, there's just so many unknowns with it,
and it just doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Regardless, like the worst possible outcome, you know, for everybody. Yeah,
you know, society for her shits too, honestly, for her,
justice for her personally, for all of us, for her
friends and family, And meanwhile, he has lost his mom,
whether or not he's responsible, and what ends up happening
is nothing. Nobody's charged, he's charged, but the case is dropped.
(22:17):
Against him, so you end up with this really you know,
ambiguous ending to the whole thing. It's not over. There's
no statute on limitations on murder. But prosecutors when they
dropped the charges said, we still think he did it,
we just can't prove it, and that makes nobody happy.
So they dropped the charges, and Christian Taylor is fifteen
(22:38):
at that point. He was released from state custody and
returned to live with extended family. The case file has
been sealed. No further charges have ever been made in
Francine Morgan's death, and that's basically case wise where we
still are.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Today, right right, And you know, you kind of mentioned
something that would lead into this at the top of
the episode, like this case file was sealed, and it
was because of his age. So there's a lot of
things that we can't look at right now. But what
initially brought this particular case to our attention is that,
you know, according to communication we've had with extended family
(23:13):
and friends, Christian Taylor basically disappeared from public view entirely
after the case ended, and according to them, quote unquote,
he fell off the grid, you know, and that's using
their words again, We're not going to say who they are,
just in case they don't want that out there. But
they've been looking for him for several years and they
have no idea where he went what happened. All they
(23:36):
know is basically what we know.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, and because he's a minor and he wasn't convicted. Vermont,
it turns out, has some of the strictest minor privacy
laws when it comes to uncharged people in the system
in the country, and so fell off the grid is
what they say. And did he want to disappear? Probably
(23:58):
don't know what happened to him, Like his extended family
has lost touch with him from what we've heard.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Right, And it just makes you think, like with the
type of laws that they have in place and stuff
that they have in place for minors, it just makes
you wonder like maybe this was how it was supposed
to be, Like what if he's in witness protection? We
don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, there are the other interesting aspects of this case
that have to do with that, some of the privacy
laws also what was changed in the entire country as
a result of this one case, and we'll talk about
that coming up next. So there are plenty of unique
legal circumstances in this case. But one of the biggest
(24:42):
lasting impacts that resulted from this case was not legal,
it was technological. So Francine Morgan's nine to one one calls,
we told you that's a problem. It's going to a
different jurisdiction, a different state. They can't triangulate it. So
this is in two thousand and eight, a serious flaw
that was found in the way that phone calls were
routed to rural areas like Wells, Vermont. So because of
(25:06):
this case, specifically, Verizon overhauled its routing procedures for emergency
calls in Vermont and other rural areas of the country.
Those changes are now in place all over the country
in the most rural areas, from Wyoming to Alaska to everywhere,
but it was basically because of this case. Verizon later
(25:27):
said the misrouting issue had been addressed, so future emergency
calls would go immediately to the closest available public safety
answering point, even if the cell tower was far away,
which basically is the way it still works today, but
were much better off specifically because of this case.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
That's where it started, which thank freaking God or Buddha
or whoever you believe in, because like, honestly, that's the
way it should have been. I mean, this is an
emergency call, so you can't you can't just be like, oh, well,
I'm going to call in this emergence. See I'm going
to expect fifty minutes for them to arrive. I guess
we'll just have to try to keep you alive. Like,
you know, at least something change, like something improved. You know,
(26:10):
that system that failed ranccene won't fail, you know, the
same way again at least, So that's something. Even if
it's not justice, that's one thing that is positive that
came from it. Yeah, And I think that that's kind
of how it always happens. We talk about this all
the time, that something unfortunately bad has to happen for
people to realize that policy has to be changed or
(26:31):
processes have to be changed.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
That's how stuff gets fixed, is when it breaks. I mean,
that's just the way it works. We take it for granted.
Now you can be anywhere in the most remote part
of the world and still get at least your emergency
call through. But remember, I mean not too long ago,
two thousand and eight wasn't always that way. There's legal
interest in this case too. I've kind of alluded to it,
(26:54):
and I'm not going to Monday morning quarterback the.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Any prosecutor, but please thank you, but.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
This highlights this a great case study and how hard
it is to prosecute juveniles, first of all, and I
think the bigger issue in this case was probably charging
too quick. And this is a small town state police jurisdiction,
I believe, but especially in rural areas of the country,
and you see this more often with small agencies too
(27:25):
and prosecuting offices. But it's just there's a lot of
not case file that goes into charging some of these cases.
When everybody on the street is asking you, as a cop,
have you solved it yet? And once somebody's arrested, it's
on the prosecutor to convict the person. I mean, that's
a lot of pressure. And they wrap this one up
(27:46):
real quick, and they ran into a fourteen year old defendant.
That's a whole other can of worms. Legally, especially in Vermont,
you can only collect so much evidence in forty eight hours.
I mean, the question I basically want to again without
you know, Monday morning quarterbacking the prosecutor. But why you know,
(28:06):
what's wrong with two weeks as opposed to two days.
Your investigation can go on that the kid's not going anywhere,
collect the evidence, do the investigation front to back like
you're supposed to do. This seemed to be rushed for
whatever reason. I don't care. If it's OJ Simpson, which
is the most locked up murder case I've ever seen.
Obviously different things going on with that case. But point is,
(28:28):
if you've got the person dead to rights, holding the
knife with blood on their hands, standing over the body,
I'm still not sure you charge in forty eight hours.
There's no harm in going through the process.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Right, No, I totally I'm on board with you on
that one. And my only thing with that is is
the time that this crime happened, what was going on
in Vermont? What was going on in that town that
would make them rush it? Like I didn't look into that,
but that feels like something that I would do on
my jowe.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
So if I'm right that it's a state agency, I
could be wrong about that, but they had I read
nowhere about any potent Sheriff's department investigating this, so it
was either handed to them or it was their jurisdiction
in the first place. They have homicides, and fromon, I
don't really understand why a state agency would rush that quick.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, and I mean you mentioned it basically, the complexities
of evidence, you know that may or may not be
interpreted the same way by different experts, all that stuff.
But again, especially if you guys are playing a drinking
game like this kid is fourteen years old. So even
if police and prosecutors are confident, the law says, the
burden of proof is on them. And when you're talking
(29:43):
about a child who in this case could be seen
as both a victim and a suspect if you think
about it, you know, and a dead parent, that burden
has to be high. So here's another side to it.
Even if prosecutors believed Christian was responsible, they didn't feel
like they had the case to prove it at that
point for whatever reason, which probably because they rushed it,
like Scott just said, you know, and they haven't come
(30:06):
forward with any other theory. That really says a lot
about what police thing happened in this matter.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, I mean they said when they drop the charges,
we don't think anyone else did it. We just can't
prove it. I hate cases like that. You know, they
can't charge them, and it is possible less So even
now compared to two thousand and eight, it is possible
to kill somebody and not leave forensic evidence. More often
than not, it's just missed. And that probably, if I
(30:33):
had to guess, is what happened in this case. I
can't imagine charging somebody forty eight hours after. I can't
imagine that in a homicide.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I mean, that's super fast unless you're there to investigation. Yeah, correct, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Got to be like on camera and lock down and yeah,
or you're there.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
You're like there to like help with whatever else happens.
And then this person blatantly shoots another person right in
front of you. Then you're like, oh, yeah, totally did it.
I was living in there.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Then you don't see him charged in forty eight hours.
Like right, you could capture it on dash cam and
you won't get charged in forty eight hours. I digress.
Another interesting aspect of this case is it was dismissed
in juvenile court. And we alluded to this, but Vermont
has a sealed case file policy on all juvenile criminal matters,
(31:25):
So that's police reports, that's forensics, that's any deliberations the
prosecutor made with the detectives anything. So unless something seriously
major changes, and I can't imagine what that would be,
the public won't have access to the nine to one
one call or any of the case files. Had this
gone to trial, obviously that is public. We know a
(31:47):
lot more about Christian Taylor than we do right now,
and what investigators believe happened in the house. Because they
didn't go to trial, they're able to say we think
he did it. We can't prove it in core because
of maybe ballistics and forensic but that's all. You know,
there's no discovery. None of this is public, so we
(32:08):
don't know a whole lot and probably never.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Will right right, and we would know, you know, if
the States still believed that they had the right person.
The prosecutor did make those statements, like you've mentioned it
a couple of times now, you know, to the effect
where the charges were dismissed, but they still believed that
the investigation found Francine's killer, her son, but they couldn't
prove it. So again, like they say it enough times
(32:33):
to make you believe, like, Okay, there's a reason that
he was charged in forty eight hours, but again they
don't have that evidence. They're lacking that burden. So for now,
all we know is that Francine Morgan was murdered and
her son was accused, and then he was cleared. And really,
as far as the legal story goes, the legal aspect
(32:54):
of this case, that's all we have. Now we just
have speculation because again those documents are sealed, We're never
going to know it unless something major happens.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yeah, and I hate to end it like this, but
that's basically where we're at. So there was some good
that came from this case when it comes to technology,
some lessons that I'm sure we're learned, especially on the
East Coast from prosecutors and charging a case that quick,
especially a minor, that just blows my mind. It would
take some kind of cooperation if Christian were responsible to
(33:27):
maybe a confession, I'm not sure. But again, his extended family,
we're told, doesn't exactly know where he is either after
all this, So, yeah, it's all sealed and there is
no end of the story, at least not at this moment.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Well, and I'm really bad at mathing. So he was
fifteen and what two thousand and nine?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Nine?
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, so what is he now, Scott?
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Why are you asking me? Oh?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
I know, I was about to get my calculator and
I'm sorry. I can't do math right now.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
The way I'm going to do this is go back
to two thousand. How well a been nine years before.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
You don't need to do that. Hold on, I got this,
don't worry about it. Sixteen So he's thirty one roughly
right now.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
So you would be thirty one.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Correct, Yeah, so I mean at thirty one years old,
unless he comes forward and has like this epiphany and
he's like, you know what, I just want to tell
everybody the truth. This is what happened. I'm really sorry. Like,
unless something like that happens, we're really probably never gonna know.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Even that by itself wouldn't be enough, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Oh right, But I mean I feel like the family
would get some type of quote unquote closure from that.
But you know, again, we don't know. All we know
is a woman died, a child's life was shattered because
of her death. In the aftermath, he you know, was
accused of her murder everything else, and maybe that's the
heartbreak at the center of this entire case, that we
(34:53):
may never know what really happened that night in that
home and why was it all because of the night
one system at the time, possibly right, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, And as happens with all homicides, and we probably
even I think we're more sensitive to this, but we
probably don't talk about it enough. Is it changes not
just the death of the person and their immediate family,
but it changes lives that you wouldn't even think of,
you know, of co workers and friends of the kid.
And in this particular case, not only is there no
(35:26):
justice quote unquote for her, there's no resolution for the public,
which is important, and there's no like he disappears from
what we're told, it's this huge hole that this one
night in two thousand and eight, from then on, it
changed countless lives.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And just to you know, be on his side for
a minute too, like if he had absolutely nothing to
do with this, and he truly was outside feeding the
animals and heard it and had to come in to
see his mom like that, and he still doesn't have answers,
like I'm pretty sure he's been struggling all these years,
sixteen years.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Even if he did it, you know, I hate to
be to someone who killed his mom if that's what happened.
But that's a lot too. And what's weird about that
is we do treat them differently. We treat minor crimes differently,
even when it's murder usually, and it's for that reason,
because of all the reasons we know about.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Your not being developed by Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah it is. It's different. It's different than Ted Bundy.
I had to drop it Ted Bundy reference.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Why do you do that every time? He doesn't matter?
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Because I know you think you so attractive.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
I don't. I hate I loathe that man anyway, this.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Guy statispending joke back to.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
This kiddo, like like, I just want to be I
always look for the best in people, and I just
I hope that he had nothing to do with it.
But I also am sad if he didn't have anything
to do with it, because he's probably just as lost
as everyone else, if not more.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Well, it didn't help, that's for sure. One way or
the other. It didn't help.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah, I don't know. It's just sad all around.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
It is. I mean, it always is. It creates this crater.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
And then if he did disappear because of all of
that stuff that happened, Like he probably has absolutely no
family to support him. He's probably so alone. I don't know,
it's just really sad. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Maybe on the flip side, do you like to imagine
like he's just a normal guy down the street.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I would fucking hope so, But I don't see how
that would happen if he's going through his developmental stages. Yeah,
that's rough, Like that's I don't know, that's really sad.
That's sad.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
So that is the case of Christian Taylor, and we
want to thank those who again we appreciate the heads
up on the case, but we're going to keep the
extended family out of it. But thank you for letting
us know. It's definitely a landmark case, one hundred percent
legally and technologically, and unfortunately, I'm not, you know, super
(37:55):
confident this one has a resolution at any point, but
who knows.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Every time you say that, the case gets solved.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
So that's why I do it.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
So yeah, so I don't know, that's all we really
have for this one. But if you guys have thoughts, questions,
you knew the family, anything, if you have any information
that you might want to share, I mean, this case
is still listed with the Vermont State Police and obviously
it's an unsolved homicide. So if you have information, just
contact the Major Crimes Unit. Let them know. Even if
(38:25):
you think it might be nothing, it could be something.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah, and the thing is, all those prosecutors and investigators
are gone. I'm sure now these cases when they get
twenty years old almost turnover. So a good prosecutor's office
and good investigators, especially state agencies will reopen it with
fresh eyes. And it seemed like from a Facebook post
(38:49):
they did a couple of years ago that that's the
vibe I got that there's no prejudice to it, and
they obviously have a case file, but the or not,
they're going to try to go about it a different way,
which is all you can do. So definitely, if you
do know anything, reach out. And yeah, that's a great point.
People tell people stuff. And like you said, every time
(39:12):
I say a case isn't going to be solved, that's
when it happens. So we never know. But thank you
guys for listening. We will talk to again next week.
We are going out to Yellowstone National Park.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Yes, we have a series for you guys coming up.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Which is fun, so we'll be back for at least
a couple episodes in a row. Sorry, but thank you
for listening. We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Bye.
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