Edward Paul Morris

Case overview

Edward Paul Morris killed his wife and three children and dumped their bodies in a forest. The bodies of his wife, Renee Morris, and his three children were found by hunters in the Tillamook State Forest. Morris later fled, attempted to change his appearance by shaving his head and growing a mustache, and was captured in a drug store parking lot in Baker City, Oregon.

Background

Edward Paul Morris surprised his family with a trip to the Tillamook State Forest near the Oregon coast. He was with his seven months pregnant wife, Renee, and their three young children: ten-year-old Bryant, eight-year-old Alexis, and four-year-old Jonathan.

Morris spent two weeks on the run after the killings, during which reported sightings led to a nationwide manhunt throughout Oregon and across other locations.

Morris’s father, Paul Morris, spoke from his Gresham home after Morris was arrested.

Renee Morris’ mother, Pat Elmore, was at the Morris home on North Syracuse Street on Saturday, clearing out some of her daughter’s belongings, when a friend phoned her that they had seen the capture on the news. Renee Morris’ stepfather, Keith Elmore, and family friend Tom Stubblefield joined the mother at the home. Stubblefield described Renee’s relatives as "elated," saying they had feared Edward Morris might hurt others and were glad he was found and taken into custody. "The expressions on their face went from doom to gloom," Stubblefield said.

The offence

On December 21, 2002, Edward Morris surprised his family with a trip to the Tillamook State Forest near the Oregon coast.

At a pullout on Route 6, he shot his wife and two sons. He then drove to a deserted wooded area and stabbed his daughter more than a dozen times. He then fled in the family minivan.

Hunters found the bodies of the slaughtered family in the snow.

Investigation

The Tillamook County district attorney charged Morris with seven counts of aggravated murder on December 23. In Oregon, the murder of a child under fourteen years of age counts twice.

The FBI issued a federal arrest warrant charging Morris with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

Investigators did not recover any weapons.

After receiving 615 tips, detectives said they knew Morris was at his North Portland home at 9:15 p.m. Dec. 19 when he talked on the phone with a friend. They also were certain that Morris checked into a motel in The Dalles at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 20, paying cash and checking in under the name "Jim Elliot" without showing identification. Morris’s van was last seen at the motel at 1 a.m., and it was gone when a clerk checked the lot at 6 a.m.

Given the sightings, investigators thought the killings occurred sometime between 10:15 p.m. Dec. 19 and 8:30 a.m. Dec. 20.

The slayings happened near where the bodies were found off Drift Creek Road near Oregon 6. The timeline allowed Morris to drive from North Portland to the Coast Range and from the Coast Range to The Dalles.

A flurry of callers also reported seeing Morris in Olympia, Seattle, Bellingham, Wash., and British Columbia. Investigators said Morris told detectives Saturday that he never crossed the Oregon-Washington border. Tillamook County Sheriff Todd Anderson said Morris did leave the state but declined to be more specific.

An earlier "highly reliable" sighting had placed Morris in Edmonds, Wash., on Dec. 21, and the information rebutted that. A gas station clerk said he wrote down the van’s license plate number between 6 and 8 a.m. Even two hours before Morris was arrested Saturday, a store clerk in Abbotsford, B.C., about 35 miles north of Bellingham, called police to say a man who looked like Morris bought a newspaper and left in a silver van. Constable Shinder Kirk of the Abbotsford Police Department said after watching a surveillance video: "The investigator and I were quiet convinced that we had Mr. Morris." "If not him, his twin brother."

Detectives planned to search inside Morris’s gray 1993 Dodge Caravan after a magistrate approved their request for a search warrant Saturday.

Detectives interviewed Morris after his arrest at an undisclosed location, and Anderson said Morris had been "very cooperative."

Constable Shinder Kirk of the Abbotsford Police Department and other officials commented during news conferences about the manhunt and tips.

Charles Mathews, who heads FBI operations in Oregon, said during a news conference: "He could be anywhere in the world," and later described the investigative certainty that Morris had been at specific locations and times prior to arrest.

Arrest

On January 3, 2003, after a two-week manhunt throughout Oregon, Edward Morris was captured in a drug store parking lot.

Two alert motorists followed Morris’s van for 20 minutes and led police to a Baker City pharmacy where officers arrested him. A brother and sister saw Morris driving westbound on Interstate 84 about 20 miles southeast of Baker City. They followed him to a Rite Aid and called 9-1-1 about 12:30 p.m.

In Baker City, police arrested Morris without incident as he walked out of the pharmacy about 350 miles from snowy Tillamook State Forest, where the bodies of his wife and children were found. Morris had recently shaved his head and was wearing wire-rimmed glasses, a mustache, a black trench coat and a black golf hat.

Linda Martin, 58, of North Portland, and Thom Martin, 50, of Rochester, Wash., spotted the license plate on a gray van near Durkee, southeast of Baker City. They followed the van west and watched it turn off the freeway into Baker City. The Martins called 9-1-1 at 12:25 p.m. from a pay phone outside a Safeway store on Campbell Street in Baker City, adjacent to the Rite Aid store that Morris entered.

Police did not want to confront Morris inside the store because they were concerned about shoppers’ safety. Oregon State Police troopers and Baker County sheriff’s deputies hid behind the corner of the store, waiting for Morris to walk out.

Sgt. Doug Schrade and Detective John Shepherd of the Baker City Police Department pointed their guns at Morris and ordered him to the ground. Schrade said: "He just complied." "He got down on his knees and laid down and spread. He was pretty humble."

Witness Kelle Osborn, 28, of Baker City, said Morris appeared calm as he was placed in the patrol car: "I am numb. I don't know what to say."

Morris was placed in the back of a police cruiser and driven away for four hours of interviews with detectives. He was unarmed.

Morris entered the store for about 10 minutes, and the arrest occurred shortly thereafter.

In Baker City, Morris’s van remained parked about 25 yards from the Rite Aid Saturday night. Winds gusted to 25 mph, and rain pelted officers as they stood watch around the van. The van still had Oregon license plate WSH-171. Anderson had said the van had a sticker that said "Promise Keepers" and a sticker that honored Beaverton-based Christian evangelist Luis Palau, but Anderson said neither sticker was ever on the van: "The people who were trying to help us out gave us ones that didn't exist," and: "It is what they believed or remembered was on the back."

Pre-arrest timeline and sightings

The manhunt began the day after hunters discovered the body of Renee Morris, 31, about 8:30 a.m. Dec. 21 in the Tillamook State Forest, about 30 miles east of Tillamook. The nearby bodies of her children were found: Bryant, 10; Alexis, 8; and Johnathan, 4.

The arrest came 13 days after Morris’s picture and the van’s license plate number began flashing on TV screens in living rooms and barrooms from coast to coast. Publicity led to reported sightings that Morris authorities said were most likely inaccurate, ranging from New Jersey to Alabama to British Columbia.

Thomas and Linda Martin said the $50,000 reward offered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for Morris’s capture.

Custody and immediate post-arrest measures

Morris spent Saturday night in the Baker County Jail. He was scheduled to be moved to the Tillamook County Jail by Monday.

As routine in homicide cases, Morris was to be on suicide watch.

Trial

Morris pled guilty to seven counts of aggravated murder on September 20, 2004.

Sentencing

On September 20, 2004, Morris was sentenced to serve four consecutive life terms in prison.

Outcome

Morris’s conviction after his guilty plea resulted in a life prison sentence.