[♪ tense music playing]
[narrator] When it comes to forging her own destiny,
29-year-old Morgan Fox is a master strategist.
She knew what she wanted in life.
[narrator] She documents her triumphs meticulously,
like her recent promotion to manager.
She was very smart. She worked hard.
♪♪
[narrator] But when her confidence poses a danger,
she finds herself in the crosshairs.
[gunshot]
Like, who would intentionally kill Morgan? Who?
[narrator] As investigators peel back the layers...
The boyfriend, coworkers, everyone at this point is a suspect.
[narrator] ...they unearth twisted paths of fixation
and carefully curated messages from Morgan
that reveal a disturbing pattern of mistreatment.
The most powerful evidence we had was found on her computer.
Hours before she was killed, she sent this email.
[narrator] Could Morgan's own words of self-advocacy
lead to her killer?
[Cyanna Clements] You've gotta really watch out who you're getting close to
'cause you don't know anybody's true intentions.
[gunshot]
[♪ dark theme music playing]
[speaker 1] She solved her own murder from beyond the grave.
[speaker 2] The fitness app on the phone.
It was overwhelming evidence.
♪ I've been haunted by the visions ♪
♪ That I've seen with my own eyes ♪
♪ And the only way to find you ♪
♪ Is to go beneath the lies ♪
[speaker 3] She did help catch this killer.
♪♪
♪ I'm cursed by your name ♪
♪ In my mind, I'm disturbed ♪
[narrator] It's October 28th in Canton, Ohio.
Halloween is three days away,
and 29-year-old Morgan Fox is doing it all.
She's balancing her dreams of a promising career
and cultivating a happy family with her loving boyfriend,
Jason, and their young daughters.
♪ But I can't get you out of ♪
But early one morning, when he looks out the window,
Jason sees something alarming and dials 911.
-[♪ tense music playing] -[police radio chatter]
[Rocco Ross] Morgan is getting in her vehicle, getting ready to leave for work.
[shutter snaps]
She's usually gone by 2:15 a.m.,
and she was taken by surprise.
[siren wails]
She was shot. She died immediately.
♪♪
My name's Rocco Ross. I was the lead investigator
for the Morgan Ashlye Fox case.
-[♪ tense music playing] -[distant siren wails]
When I arrived there,
there were several other people standing around.
[police radio chatter]
Aside from law enforcement,
there was a reporter standing there.
Walking towards the residence,
you can see there's a white vinyl fence
that had mud flung along the fence.
Right next to that, there were tire tracks in the mud,
in the grass right off of the roadway.
[♪ vocalizing]
I approached the vehicle in the driveway.
I saw Morgan Fox sitting in her vehicle.
I saw her slumped over the center console
with blood on the side of her head and running down her shirt.
♪♪
[narrator] Her belongings lie abandoned on the damp ground
beside her cracked cell phone.
Someone walked up to Morgan
and shot her multiple times...
-[gunshots] -...killing her instantly.
Morgan Fox's mom arrives,
and she said that she received the call
from an employee of the shipping company that Morgan works for.
Called her and said, "Hey, Morgan did not come to work last night.
Just checking in to see if she's okay."
And while I'm speaking with her,
the reporter blurts out that she was shot in the head.
So, that's how Morgan Fox's mom found out what had happened to her daughter.
[narrator] And the news of her murder hits her family hard.
[assistant camera] Cora Stonerock.
-Mark. -[muffled clap]
[Cora Stonerock] My name is Cora Stonerock and I am Morgan's stepsister.
The day she died, I was trying to get the kids out the door.
My sister screams my name.
She was ghost white, and she said, "Morgan's dead."
[♪ tense music playing]
I remember, like, screaming at her.
She's trying to tell me that Morgan's dead,
but I don't know how...
I-- Like-- It doesn't seem possible.
[narrator] It's hard to believe anyone would want to hurt Morgan.
Clever, smart, and friendly,
she was loved by everyone.
She's part of a modern-day Brady Bunch family.
♪♪
My dad and Cyndi, Morgan's mom,
met when I was in the second grade.
We were a family of seven,
and Cyndi's family was five, so together, there was 12 of us.
Me and Morgan were best friends from the get.
She definitely was somebody that knew what she wanted in life.
[narrator] Morgan knows exactly what she wants,
when she wants it.
But as soon as she turns 20,
life comes fast and she becomes a mom.
[Cora] She was super excited to be a mother.
She was thrilled. She longed for this.
[narrator] But things don't work out between Morgan and her daughter's father.
So Morgan moves to Canton for a new start,
where she lands a promising career
and a seemingly perfect boyfriend, Jason Scarnecchia.
She could not wait to be married, for her dream house,
for her dream job, for her family,
and that's why she chose FedEx, 'cause she wanted to be able to move up.
She wanted something where she would make enough money
to be able to give her daughter, Emilia,
the life that she, she always wanted to give Emilia.
Morgan ended up getting promoted
and ended up moving up to be team manager.
So, that was a goal of hers, and she accomplished it.
[narrator] But now, Morgan's dreams have been cut short,
and detectives need to know why.
They inspect the scene for clues.
[♪ tense music playing]
[Dennis Barr] My name is Dennis Barr, and I'm the chief criminal prosecutor
for Stark County, Ohio.
-[assistant camera] Dennis Barr, marker. -[muffled clap]
We found in her console, there was some money.
Her purse was laying on the ground.
This is not a robbery gone bad.
Somebody, for some reason,
came here with the specific intention of killing Morgan Fox.
[shutter snaps]
[narrator] Police check the neighborhood for witnesses,
but they come up empty-handed.
There was a few people that had Ring doorbell cameras...
-[♪ dramatic music playing] -[doorbell rings]
...but didn't capture anything.
-[police radio chatter] -We had no weapon on the scene.
[narrator] And not one person heard a peep, gunshot,
or even a scream, including Morgan's boyfriend, Jason.
Jason was the first person to find Morgan.
And for a grieving boyfriend,
he's oddly calm.
♪♪
Jason Scarnecchia is the one that called 911.
[line ringing]
♪♪
My first contact with him, he appeared to be a little bit in shock.
I asked for his cell phones,
and he handed over his personal one.
He was more hesitant to hand over his work cell,
and said it wasn't his.
♪♪
[narrator] If Jason has nothing to hide,
why is he so hesitant?
Once we told him that he would probably get it back at some point,
he handed it over.
[♪ tense music continues]
We told him, "You're gonna go to the sheriff's office for some questioning.
We need talk to you a little further."
He was barefoot at that point,
so I asked him where his socks were kept.
"I'll go get 'em for you."
This is now a crime scene.
We can't just let people wander around it.
One of the things they could do is maybe hide evidence
or destroy evidence.
♪♪
[Rocco] He chose to go without the sock s.
It was very odd.
♪♪
Once Jason Scarnecchia got to the sheriff's office,
he was interviewed there.
[narrator] But Jason's subdued demeanor continues.
Not what I would expect for someone who just woke up
and found the woman that they love
dead in the front seat of her car.
[inaudible]
[narrator] Jason says the night before,
Morgan dropped her daughter off at her mom's house,
then came home around 9:30 p.m. and went to bed.
[alarm ringing]
Early the next morning at 1:30 a.m.,
Morgan got up to go to work.
Only, she never made it out of the driveway alive.
[gunshots]
Jason heard nothing
and saw nothing until he found Morgan's body.
He did admit that they had some arguments and fights.
But they were fine at that moment.
[narrator] But text messages found on Jason's phone
paint a different picture.
It appeared that Morgan Fox and Jason Scarnecchia
had some fights prior to this incident...
♪♪
...and it turned violent.
[indistinct yelling]
[narrator] Is it possible that a couple's quarrel
pushed her boyfriend, Jason, over the edge?
The detectives begin to realize
this is just the start to a disturbing new twist.
[gunshot]
[♪ tense music playing]
[clock ticking]
[narrator] Morgan Fox was building the life and career
she always wanted.
But when she's found dead in her driveway,
the detectives zero in on her boyfriend,
Jason Scarnecchia, for answers.
And his strange behavior makes him look extremely suspicious.
We always start off with their significant other.
Any reason, any motive that might give them a reason
to commit this crime.
[narrator] Was this just a typical lover's quarrel?
Or was Morgan in a toxic relationship,
destined to end in tragedy?
♪ Say you want me ♪
Morgan met Jason Scarnecchia at FedEx.
He was very kind to her,
and he also had a daughter.
♪ I am so reckless, leaving always breathless ♪
And then, they realized that
if they wanted to take things to the next level,
one of them were gonna have to move jobs.
So that's when Jason chose to leave FedEx
so that him and Morgan could continue to be together.
[narrator] Is it possible that Morgan's boyfriend, Jason Scarnecchia,
isn't the nice guy he appears to be?
After two hours of intense questioning,
-he bursts into tears. -[muffled crying]
It finally hit him that his, his girlfriend was just murdered.
[narrator] Is this the clever act of a murderer?
Could these tears actually be tears of guilt?
♪♪
Other than evidence of one intense fight,
there's no reason to hold Jason, so he's free to go.
For now.
But questions remain.
Why didn't Jason hear those fatal gunshots
just a few feet outside his bedroom window?
Where is the murder weapon?
So detectives shift their gaze into Morgan and Jason's home.
♪♪
[Rocco] In searching their residence,
it did not appear that there was any struggle inside.
[narrator] And once they get to the bedroom,
detectives find what Jason was trying to hide from them earlier that morning.
We found a little bit of marijuana in his sock drawer.
He was worried about the drugs, and here his girlfriend was just murdered.
[narrator] Could a simple bag of marijuana be the cause of Jason's anxiety?
Or was there another factor at play?
With no evidence of foul play and no murder weapon accounted for,
Morgan's boyfriend, Jason, is not in the clear just yet.
You focus first on the spouse,
and then you've gotta focus on, who does she know?
Who are her acquaintances?
That morning, Morgan's mother told the deputies,
"Look, she had a problem with some people at FedEx where she worked."
Something about her phone, which led us to FedEx.
[♪ soft music playing]
[Michelle Hanus] My name is Michelle Hanus.
I worked at FedEx Ground in North Canton.
My position was operations administrator, HR.
[echoing muffled clap]
The police had asked me about Jason Scarnecchia.
When I first started as a package handler,
he was my manager.
He was very encouraging,
so I liked him.
[narrator] But could he have killed Morgan?
I had expressed that to the police that there was no way he would've done that.
[♪ tense music playing]
I felt that there may have been one of the other managers
or one of the other employees
that were retaliating against Morgan.
♪♪
[narrator] Retaliate? What could she have possibly done
to warrant retaliation from a coworker?
I learned that one of the coworkers,
he had a crush on Morgan
prior to her getting with Jason Scarnecchia.
She really was drawn to Jason and ended up being with Jason,
and I think that a lot of people's feelings were upset.
And that's when a lot of the problems...
occurred.
[narrator] But that's not the only drama swirling around the office.
When Morgan gets the promotion to manager she's been gunning for,
many of her male colleagues become jealous.
♪♪
There weren't a lot of women
who went into management positions.
It felt like a boys' club.
[Rocco] The jealousy or intimidation
with Morgan's attire, what she wore to work.
They didn't like how she dressed.
So, they complained about that.
She was feeling like she was being bullied
or harassed by other managers,
and it, it bothered me.
♪♪
[narrator] Then, the investigators learned these same two managers
and one of Morgan's friends were involved in the cell phone incident
that Morgan's mom had warned them about.
I saw her crying.
She said, "I need to talk to you."
[Cora] She had set her phone down
to help another employee get her line caught up,
and then they had just taken her phone.
[narrator] Morgan's phone was unlocked,
and these two managers just started scrolling.
♪ You got something to hide ♪
[Cora] Morgan was active on, you know,
Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook.
She posted more than, like, the average person, for sure.
-She used social media a lot. -[keypad typing]
[Michelle] Like, I saw the managers talking about her
and looking at her social media. And I knew,
like, that's totally inappropriate.
[narrator] But there are some photos that coworkers aren't meant to see.
[keypad typing]
Ones that Morgan had taken for her boyfriend's eyes only.
She radioed, uh, "Hey, does anybody see my phone?"
Another person told her that Jason McDermitt
had it in the sort tower, you know, an elevated area
where the boxes are being moved on the conveyor belts.
♪♪
Morgan was friends with Jason McDermitt,
who was a package handler at the time.
She went up there to confront him about,
you know, getting her phone back.
[Cora] He lied to her at first and told her that he did not have the phone.
And then, she saw the phone, and he ended up handing it to her.
[narrator] Morgan wasn't shocked the other two guys went through her phone,
but she would've never expected this from her friend Jason McDermitt.
[keypad typing]
♪ I can't feel a thing ♪
♪ With tears on my cheek ♪
She was upset and didn't want anything to do with him.
After her phone was stolen, she had said,
"I don't think, like, we should be friends,
like, friends don't lie to each other."
[narrator] Morgan reports the incident with three of her coworkers
to a manager who promises to take care of it.
♪ Nobody knows ♪
But after 10 days, she hears nothing but silence.
When Morgan asks her manager for an update,
she gets reprimanded instead.
The result of Morgan asking,
"Hey, what's gonna happen about this person who took my phone?"
Instead, gets handed a dress code violation.
"You're wearing leggings. You shouldn't be wearing leggings."
Morgan Fox filed a complaint against some of her coworkers
for harassing her for this attire.
Morgan thought that by filing this complaint,
she thought HR would've handled that with them.
[♪ tense music playing]
[narrator] Then, the harassment starts to escalate.
Somebody took her chair and her clipboard one day.
Two of the managers were, like, talking behind her back
and, like, gossiping.
She told me that she had heard comments
and that it was inappropriate.
You know, like, sexual comments.
Morgan felt targeted.
♪♪
[narrator] 13 days after Morgan's phone was taken
and one week before she's murdered,
Morgan's patience runs out.
Like, you could see her more withdrawn than usual,
where Morgan usually was very spunky and happy.
[narrator] Morgan is done sitting on the sidelines.
Furious and supported by Michelle, she takes action.
My solution to, you know, our conversation was,
why don't I reach out to HR,
the head of HR in Columbus,
and see if maybe she can do something?
This is an excerpt from the email that I sent to HR.
"Morgan Fox asked to speak with me yesterday
"about some issues she is having as an ops manager.
"Apparently, someone took her phone.
"She believes private items were looked at
by at least two to three people in the building."
♪♪
It felt better. Like, okay, great.
This, you know,
some of these issues have been put on paper.
Like, they're known. Now, they're known.
This is what's going on, and maybe there will be
some kind of resolution for, for Morgan.
But, there was no response to the email.
[narrator] Another week goes by, and she has still heard nothing.
Morgan has had it.
That was her final straw.
She wanted something done about this.
Like, they, they were just harassing her so much
that she wanted it addressed.
The tension was boiling over.
She stood up for herself. She stood up for the things
that were going on at the workplace that were hostile.
♪♪
On October 28th, as soon as I went in to work,
I looked for Morgan because I had anticipated
that we would have a conversation.
I texted her.
She never answered.
Police had called and told me...
that Morgan had passed.
[♪ ominous music playing]
I was completely shocked, horrified,
and confused.
All these people at work were bothering her,
and I thought, did one of those people hurt her?
[narrator] The investigators need to talk
to all of the men involved with the incident.
So they start with Morgan's friend Jason McDermitt.
Maybe he can shed some light on why Morgan was being targeted at work.
[narrator] The coworker crushes, swirling jealousy,
and workplace bullying.
Could Jason McDermitt hold the key
to solving the mystery of who killed Morgan Fox?
[gunshots]
[♪ tense music playing]
[narrator] Morgan Fox was pushing her way through the glass ceiling
at FedEx as a manager,
possibly making a few enemies along the way.
A pattern of jealousy, betrayal, and harassment
from a small group of male coworkers is uncovered.
♪♪
But what detectives want to know
from Morgan's friend Jason McDermitt is
could one of these workplace bullies be a murderer?
♪♪
[inaudible]
[narrator] McDermitt's statements seemed to point back at their first suspect,
Morgan's boyfriend, Jason Scarnecchia.
-[gunshot] -But then, McDermitt says something
that catches them off guard.
[♪ tense music playing]
[narrator] If McDermitt doesn't think Morgan's boyfriend
is capable of murder, perhaps he knows who is.
[narrator] The investigators want to know more about the cell phone incident
with her male colleagues a few weeks back,
an incident McDermitt is intimately familiar with.
-[continues inaudibly] -[♪ tense music continues]
[narrator] It's no secret that Morgan had issues
with her coworkers after being violated like that.
But would anyone go to the extreme to murder her over it
after she went to HR?
McDermitt doesn't have a clue, so he's free to go.
And his instincts about Morgan's boyfriend were right.
The absence of gunpowder residue in their home
and on his body clear any suspicion of Jason Scarnecchia.
He couldn't have been the person to fire the gun.
[Cora] I never really thought it was Jason Scarnecchia.
Like, it just wasn't... it wasn't his character.
♪♪
[narrator] So Morgan's boyfriend joins the rest of her family
as they continue to grapple with this senseless tragedy.
[Cora] Watching my family, especially Cyndi,
Morgan's mom,
lose a child,
and her daughter, Emilia, to lose a mother,
her only parent,
you can't really describe the trauma, the heartbreak, the feelings.
I just have to trust that the detectives
and the police are going to do their job.
[♪ soft music playing]
[narrator] But when something so heinous happens in your own family,
your own community,
no one can be prepared for that kind of shock.
This was probably one of the most emotional cases
just because the senselessness of the killing.
You have an innocent victim who hasn't done anything.
And a girl who lost her mom,
and they were the two closest people in the world.
♪ Under the weight of your shadow ♪
You've got a family that's lost a loved one,
and they wanna see some justice done.
Bringing them justice falls on me.
♪ Cold, cold world ♪
[narrator] But first, detectives have to find Morgan's killer.
And nearly 10 hours after her body was found in her driveway,
detectives get a lucky break.
An anonymous tip about one of Morgan's bosses
sends the investigators racing back to FedEx for another interview.
[♪ tense music playing]
[Rocco] Morgan Fox may have been having an affair
with one of the higher-ups at the company.
Very suspicious.
[narrator] Could the tension and jealousy
surrounding a hidden romance in the workplace
be the reason for Morgan's tragic end?
With no time to waste, the detectives are on the hunt
for their next big lead.
We went to this person's residence.
We spoke to his wife, ex-wife.
They were just recently divorced, and she told us where we could find him.
So that's where we went to get ahold of him
and bring him in for an interview.
He was hesitant, didn't wanna come in, but he did.
[narrator] Salacious tales of a workplace affair
and a new person of interest.
Someone at FedEx could be Morgan's killer.
There was a lotta talk, a lotta rumors going back and forth.
[narrator] Could this anonymous caller be onto something
that no one saw coming?
♪♪
[♪ tense music playing]
[narrator] Stories about tense workplace harassment
have sent investigators
looking into a tip about a possible affair.
Is it possible this had something to do with her murder?
He gave consent at first to look through his phone.
It was his work phone. There were so many blocks,
we couldn't really see anything in it.
[narrator] Morgan's boss denies the affair.
Is he hiding something? The answers could be
in his locked phone.
[Rocco] When we told him we're just gonna have to keep this for further analysis,
he was not happy at all.
[inaudible]
[narrator] A few hours later,
the lab analysis of his phone comes back,
and it's clear...
[inaudible]
...this is not their guy.
[♪ dramatic sting]
They got their kids together for a little get-together,
but that's the extent of the relationship that we found.
There was a lotta talk, a lotta rumors going back and forth.
You know how gossip goes around with people.
[narrator] Is this anonymous tip just another instance
of Morgan's colleagues taunting her, even after her death?
Or is it a killer's attempt to throw the detectives off their trail?
♪♪
Detectives go back to Morgan's toxic work situation
and the cell phone incident that might have started it all.
We got the phones of most of the men she was having issues with.
Those people were quickly ruled out
based upon things we found in Morgan's phone,
things we found in their phone when they let us look at it.
One guy had an alibi.
But the one person we couldn't rule out was Jason McDermitt.
♪♪
[narrator] In order to unravel the truth
about what was really going on at FedEx,
investigators call in some help.
♪♪
[Bryan Johnson] I'm Bryan Johnson.
I work for the Stark County Sheriff's Office.
I'm a sergeant detective,
and I assisted with investigating Morgan's murder.
We ultimately had to get a search warrant
for FedEx and obtain personnel files,
and I was able to obtain security videos
inside of their warehouse,
particularly for the incident that occurred on October 8th.
Jason McDermitt took Morgan Fox's phone off of a desk.
♪♪
For 50 minutes...
[clock ticking]
...he was looking at her phone.
[ticking continues]
There was nothing done from that incident on October 8th.
[narrator] According to Jason,
he simply retrieved the phone,
like any good friend would do.
But according to the video,
he spent way more time swiping through it.
Now that the detectives know McDermitt lied about the phone incident,
they start to take a closer look at how he acted in the workplace.
Jason McDermitt's coworkers
told us that after that October 8th incident,
he talked to several of them about,
"How can I get Morgan back into my life?"
[narrator] Then, Jason's file reveals that this mild-mannered friend
is more dangerous than anyone could have thought.
Jason McDermitt's personnel file, um, unknown to us,
had not only the incident
with Morgan Fox on October 8th,
but it also had an incident from that same year
from June 6th.
[assistant camera] Cyanna Clements interview, take one.
[Cyanna] My name is Cyanna Clements. I started FedEx back in 2019.
I was 18 years old.
When I first met Jason McDermitt,
they threw me up into the sort tower,
so he was actually training me at the time.
[narrator] After a few months,
Cyanna felt comfortable enough to ask Jason for some help.
Back in 2019 of September,
I lost my license due to a traffic infraction.
I started getting rides from Jason McDermitt.
[narrator] A few months later,
one of Cyanna's other friends gets a job at FedEx, too,
so she stops getting rides with Jason.
That's when things get weird.
Jason McDermitt would get on my social media
and just start commenting on everything,
inboxing me,
whether it's my TikTok,
Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook.
He wanted to know what I was doing at all times.
He started being very persistent.
[text bloops, keypad clacking]
He would text. If I didn't answer,
text again, text again,
-over and over and over and over again. -[texts blooping]
You knew he was creepy, but you didn't know he was that creepy.
I didn't wanna be around him no more.
I didn't wanna have contact with him no more.
You know, like, leave me alone.
[narrator] One day during Cyanna's counseling session,
Jason McDermitt took things to a terrifying new level.
[Cyanna] I was at my court counselor.
Just got a ride from my friend, got dropped off.
[narrator] The session starts, and Cyanna catches a glimpse of a familiar
and frightening sight.
You see that blue little car...
right in front of the door.
And then he sits out there.
[narrator] Like Morgan would do months later,
Cyanna files a complaint.
[Cyanna] I remember going to my managers at FedEx
for the reasoning of feeling harassed
and just overwhelmed with the situation
because I got to the point, I had no idea what to do.
[♪ soft music playing]
[narrator] And like Morgan, she received a similar response.
[Cyanna] At the end of the day, nothing got handled.
About a month later, the manager,
he pulled me into the office and let me go.
♪♪
[narrator] Cyanna's tale of being stalked by Jason is scary,
but there's no evidence that he was doing the same to Morgan.
So the detectives keep digging
as Morgan's family and coworkers keep reeling with shock.
Morgan's sister-in-law made a flyer, um, and it just said, like,
"Please help bring justice to Morgan."
I remember going through my Facebook and seeing who was posting.
Other people that were at FedEx weren't posting,
but Jason McDermitt's been there three times now.
♪♪
Changing his profile picture, making these big, long posts.
Something, for me, was not... not right.
[♪ tense music playing]
[narrator] With concerns mounting from Morgan's family,
Ross speaks to Jason's parents
to see if he can connect him to the scene of Morgan's murder.
The dad I talked to first. He said it had been months
since Jason McDermitt had been home.
But mom said, "Oh, no.
"He stopped the other day to pick up some mail,
"and that's the last time I really saw him
until the morning of the, the murder."
♪♪
[narrator] On a hunch, Detective Ross asks
if there are any firearms in the house.
McDermitt's dad took us to his gun locker.
It was locked, but the key was six feet away
in a drawer at the work bench.
Jason McDermitt's father allowed us to take
several of his handguns that we believed were similar calibers
to the ones that killed Morgan Fox.
We were able to send those to the crime lab for analysis.
[narrator] And when the results come back,
one gun from the McDermitts' residence is a potential match
to the same gun used to kill Morgan.
[gunshot]
[Dennis] And now, it's becoming clearer to us that this is our guy.
We just gotta get enough evidence to prove it.
[narrator] Digging deeper,
Ross scrutinizes McDermitt's interview from October 28th
and uncovers a curious omission.
[shutter snapping]
[Rocco] The day of Morgan Fox's homicide,
when I made contact with McDermitt,
we noticed his car was clean.
He told us that he had just ran it through the car wash
on the way to his parents' house that morning.
[narrator] But when the other detectives
spoke to him at the sheriff's station,
McDermitt switched things up.
When asked where did you go from work,
McDermitt left that information out.
He didn't say he stopped at the car wash.
I knew he stopped at the car wash.
♪♪
[narrator] Ross heads to Sheetz Car Wash to ask for the surveillance footage.
I watched all of that. All the video downloaded on a disk,
and saw McDermitt pull into the car wash,
slowly pull through the chassis wash,
and then back up.
And then slowly pull through the chassis wash again,
making sure the front of that vehicle was washed.
That is why those tire impressions
were on the scene of the homicide.
♪♪
This vehicle left that tire impression
and had mud in the wheel well
and on the wheel, and that's why he went to the car wash.
[♪ soft music playing]
So, once I get the search warrant for McDermitt's car,
I go to his parents' house where he was,
and I have a tow truck
transport it back to the sheriff's office.
We had the dog that's capable of smelling explosives
do a sniff around it, and he indicated
that there was the odor of explosives.
And that means to us that, at some point in time,
there was a gun there,
which was a big piece of evidence.
[narrator] But so far, the evidence is purely circumstantial.
To us, that was just another piece of the puzzle
that we're putting together.
[narrator] The investigators need one final piece
of solid evidence to catch Morgan's killer
and make an arrest.
The most powerful evidence we had was something we found on her computer.
[gunshot]
[♪ tense music playing]
[narrator] Morgan Fox wasn't going to let anyone push her around.
But that same confidence put a target on her back.
The evidence that proves Jason McDermitt
is Morgan's killer is stacking up,
but there's no smoking gun just yet.
[Rocco] We're still doing a lot of leg work, a lot of investigating,
trying to find anything we can.
[narrator] If the detectives can place McDermitt
at the scene of the crime,
they may have just enough evidence to make an arrest.
I mapped
several routes around McDermitt's apartment
to Morgan Fox's house.
With all of the video footage that I was able to obtain
from the city of North Canton,
we were able to identify
one vehicle in that area
that matched the timeframe that she was murdered,
and that was Jason McDermitt's vehicle.
[narrator] Bingo.
With all the information we were to gather,
we were able to get probable cause for an arrest warrant for Jason McDermitt.
[narrator] About a week after Morgan's life was cut short,
detectives take Jason McDermitt into custody.
McDermitt's fixation with Morgan was evident,
but an analysis of his cell phone confirms he was stalking her as well.
[Dennis] We found at least 100 pictures of Morgan
that he had surreptitiously obtained.
Her Snapchats, TikToks.
We also found multiple videos that he had recorded
of Morgan while she was at work.
[♪ tense music continues]
[Jason McDermitt] I guess they want it done now.
[Dennis] In addition to that, there was a day
that he went over to Morgan's house,
videotaping her without her knowledge.
She was bending over, getting stuff out of the kitchen.
[Morgan Fox] I dunno, eventually...
And he just has his phone out, recording her.
[narrator] And then,
texts to a coworker clinches it.
He wasn't just upset Morgan ended their friendship.
He was scared she was going to make trouble for him at work as well.
When prosecutors look closer at Morgan's laptop,
they find one final critical piece of evidence
pointing directly to Morgan's killer.
The most powerful evidence we had
was something we found on her computer.
[narrator] One day before her murder,
Morgan was insistent on someone acknowledging
and taking action about her toxic work situation.
[Cora] Morgan felt like she had exhausted all of her options
at FedEx.
[Michelle] On the 27th, I had said to her,
"Why don't you reach out to HR yourself?
"I can help you with that letter. You can CC me.
We can talk about it tomorrow and, and go over that if you'd like."
[♪ tense music continues]
Morgan never made it to work that day.
[narrator] But what the investigators find within that email
contains exactly what they need to convict Morgan's killer.
"I feel like I'm being targeted at work.
"I'm sure speaking with you is just going to make things for me
at work even worse, but at this point, I have no other choice."
[narrator] Morgan wasn't going to stop advocating for herself.
Jason McDermitt was specifically named in the email.
And he had a feeling that Morgan was going to get him fired.
Morgan's email proves that his suspicions were correct.
HR finally responded to Morgan's request
to set up a call the following day.
But by then, it was too late.
♪♪
This gives the prosecution everything they need
to show that this was the catalyst
that turned Jason from stalker to murderer.
Stalking is a sign of obsession,
and obsession oftentimes leads to murder.
♪ Feel it coming ♪
[narrator] Six months after Morgan was murdered,
Jason McDermitt is on trial.
♪ Ready ♪
♪ Are we ♪
[Rocco] Jason McDermitt got a sentence of
life without the possibility of parole.
When Emilia took the stands and gave her victim statement
is the only time Jason McDermitt
shows any remorse, anything.
[reporter] [on video] Morgan Fox's 8-year-old daughter
spoke in open court before sentencing.
[Emilia Fox] [on video] I wish she could see me graduate from high school.
I wish she could see me get married.
" I thought monsters weren’t real,
but you’ve proven me wrong."
[Emilia] You hurt so many people.
You hurt me
and the people I love.
I'm a pretty tough guy,
but that statement almost brought me to tears.
♪♪
It was so powerful.
[narrator] Morgan now serves as an example to all.
Don't back down. Make yourself heard.
Justice for Morgan Fox was served here,
and I think the family was satisfied
with the fact that he can't hurt anyone else.
♪ Echoes on my soul ♪
♪ The stories that I told ♪
[Cyanna] I hope to God
that if there's another woman
who comes with a genuine concern of being uncomfortable
while just doing her job,
don't act like it's not a problem. Fix it...
before something like this happens again.
[♪ R&B music playing]
[narrator] Morgan's legacy lives on through her foundation.
My parents have started the Morgan Ashlye Fox Foundation
to help out anyone that has lost a loved one
to a victim of a crime like this.
[Dennis] With the letter that we found Morgan wrote
the night before she was killed,
had we not had that direction in this case,
who knows if we would have solved it?
♪♪
Morgan did it. Morgan sent the letter.
Morgan put the letter together,
and she was brave and courageous, and hit send.
She stood up for herself.
I give her all the credit for that.
[♪ music fades out]
♪ I don't know where my head is lately ♪
♪ Have I lost my mind? ♪
♪♪
[exhale]
♪ But I know that I have a secret ♪
♪ And it's only mine ♪
[♪ vocalizing]
♪ And the only way to find me ♪
♪ Is to go beneath the lies... ♪
[♪ music fades out]