Beer between his legs
Introduction to B. J. Morgan’s Story, by Kelly Dagenhart
The new Drug Court in Anderson County, which RID was responsible for starting to form and which is in the process of forming, would definitely help situations like that of B. J. Morgan, as reflected in her story. Here is B. J.’s note to me on her story. I didn’t think that I could improve on this as an introduction.
Kelly, it would be nice if your intro to my story said that the following story depicts that the court at that time, in Sevier Co., did not have a “Drug Court” to refer him to and the judge did not ever remand him into rehab for his alcoholism, all they did was order Anger Management which did us no good because it may have helped the reaction to things had he been of sound mind and body, so to speak, . . . but with alcohol in his system, what good is that? All his knowledge gained in those classes went out the proverbial window. . . . It is the sheer physical influence of the drugs and alcohol that a drinker or addict cannot fight off when they become angered. They are almost powerless to making good choices and rarely back down, compromise, or know that they should go cool off before the fighting escalates.
B. J.
by Private Investigator B. J. Morgan
This is a story that has both a sad beginning and ending, given the most unfortunate turn of events. So if you can’t stand hearing how tragedy struck my family, just skip reading this highly scandalous story and 1) whip out your checkbook and write out a donation to Remove Intoxicated Drivers anyway, or 2) volunteer to “court watch,”, help pass out RID newsletters, and/or contact your elected officials. Either way, no matter which choice you make, one way or another I pray you will be blessed to help RID efforts in East Tennessee. If you accept the challenge and simply read the story below, you will understand one of the REAL problems RID hopes to address. I am living proof that RID makes a difference when people are hurting inside. So here goes:
I knew the kids and I were in trouble the minute the salad hit the wall. I knew that when the cops came to our home that night our once happy home life was never going to be the same again after I requested police intervention. I knew when I begged the officer not to arrest my husband for physical violence in our home, due to his drinking binge, that we could be in worse trouble if they deemed him to be the “primary aggressor,” cuffed and stuffed him in the police car, and carted him off to jail for domestic violence—because he would have to come back home sometime! I knew that I had no telltale bruises and the police were the only ones I could call to come to our rescue, yet I knew trying to leave home with two small kids—to escape our unquestionably dysfunctional home life would be near impossible!
I recall telling the cop that, if he would agree not to arrest him, I, his wife, would “run a tight ship” that instant and not let him leave the house that night and drive drunk. The officer looked at me, laughed, then quipped that my husband was indeed “tight, alright!” The officer seemed further humored as he informed me that salad dripping from our living room wall was not a good enough reason to haul him away to jail away from the traumatized children. I had never told anyone how scary it was when my husband would drink and begin to yell, curse, and throw things around the children and me. Therefore, when he later proceeded to bust up pieces of our glass-topped furniture with his bare hands and go into fits of rage over the smallest or stupidest arguments that occurred, I remained silent. My parents, friends, and our customers had no clue. At this point in time, we had been married four years, owned a successful plumbing business, had two daughters ages 2 and 4, and we had just bought a home. To outsiders we seemed to have it made in the shade!
Two months later, however, there were plenty of reasons to arrest him. When cops arrived this time they found he had broken the home telephone he had thrown against the wooden staircase and the investigating officer saw the shards of glass that had landed in the hair of our daughter who had unknowingly walked toward me during our fight, walking directly underneath a glass chandelier, at the precise moment her Daddy had swung his first to punch it. I remember him arguing with the cop that he had assaulted his own property—the telephone—not his wife, so he became extremely enraged as he was taken to jail for domestic assault. He bonded out so fast and came home with threats that if I “ever called the law again that the cops would definitely have an assault victim on their hands.” He threatened me again by saying the cops better bring a body bag with them the next time they answered my call for help. This is precisely why women stay with their abusers, I believe.
Two months went by after the first assault charge. One night, when an off-duty sheriff’s detective saw what appeared to him to be my husband punching me through the window in my car, he was arrested. In reality, my husband and his plumbing helper had come home after dark drinking and they had left, against my protests, to go back to town to buy more beer. They had already shared a case. So I had jumped in my car and followed him and got out, jumped up in his work van, and removed his keys so that when he and his employee came out of the store, he had come over to my side of the car. I began frantically reaching down into the car to get his van key out of my right hand.
The deputy soon had two cruisers dispatched to follow our vehicles back to our home, a mile away, and my husband was again interviewed and arrested when they determined what happened. Somehow his attorney “conveniently” arranged to have the court-house workers “misplace” the first assault’s paperwork so this incident was not considered a second offense by the attorney general. They gave him what is known as a six months “pass,” which meant it would have come off his record if he did not have any incidences again over the next six months. It was my understanding that if another similar domestic dispute occurred within the next six months that he would have to serve the six months in jail. As you will read below, they did not do what they said they would do if and when that happened.
To please the court, I, the victim, even volunteered to take, and attended, Anger Management classes with him—to show him I was willing to make changes in the way we communicated to save our marriage. Somehow he managed to secure a bull-dog attorney who would represent him simultaneously at the assault hearings, and during the future divorce and arson trials. Why do I mention arson, you wonder? Well, it got worse.
Because, as you will learn, less than a week after I requested the order, my husband again got mad, went down to the very same gas station, bought five gallons of gasoline, and proceeded to torch the restaurant two days after he caught wind that I had filed for the order of protection (even though he was told that when the officer “serves” someone they do not take that person to jail). He had even told one of our kitchen staff, who would later testify at the trial, that he would burn the restaurant down if things did not improve. When he showed back up at home, after the arson, the police were long gone, and I begged him to seek help, stating that “no man in his right mind would burn down an income source for his two children.” He obliged by allowing me to drive him to the hospital where he spent the weekend in the psych ward.
The minute he got out of the hospital, the detectives were ready to charge him with the arson. I had no sooner gone to the pharmacy to get his newly-prescribed medicine filled when I returned to find him already out of jail and back at home! Still in shock at what he had done, I spent three more weeks trying to remain in the home with him and our scared children, attempting to make the relationship work. He remorsefully confessed the whole thing and how he had done it, yet he and his attorney plead his innocence in the courts.
However, when it became clear that he adamantly refused to 1) stop drinking, 2) take the prescribed meds for his diagnosed “anger control problem” and “mood disorder” and 3) refused to go to joint marital counseling with me—the top three things recommended by his new doctor—I had no choice but to ask him to leave. So he moved out and put the plumbing company and its assets in the name of his new girlfriend—a local waitress. Before it was all over with, he also changed his plumbing company name twice more and according to courthouse business licensure records, once into his brother’s name as owner, and once into the name of his own attorney’s wife! They even had the phone company wire his plumbing company phone so it would ring at her other business in Pigeon Forge and her desk clerks had to answer the phone for him. Not surprisingly with these good ol’ boy shenanigans taking place, a very acrimonious court process ensued.
It took me over a year to be granted a divorce. I got residential custody and he became what they call a “weekend warrior” seeing the children over weekends. By this time I heard he was doing plumbing for the judge or his friends and was “in tight” with his new law enforcement buddies through his high-powered, well-connected attorney. There were numerous times he would come to pick the girls up on Fridays with a beer between his legs in his car. Filing numerous violations of the order of protection, when he harassed me further, did me little good. The judge warned me that he would give me 10 days in jail if I withheld visitation for whatever reason. So away the kids went in his car—with him drinking—for their court-ordered co-parenting time. I could do nothing to stop him.
He even related to me later that he and his attorney were such good friends by that point that he would attend company parties and they would sometimes drive when drinking together, laughing when accidentally hitting the orange and white barricade cones on the way to or from the party location. Talk about judicial bias! He said the cops would not dare pull his attorney over.
After the court battled ended, he one day bragged to me that he had “known which side his bread was buttered on” and that he had gone to work for the attorney and his wife as a maintenance man so that he would get good legal representation and hopefully avoid going to jail or losing his driver’s license. His intentions of trading out his plumbing services in exchange of hopefully receiving favorable treatment in court (by members of the judiciary and the law enforcement witnesses) worked! His attorney’s supposed friend, our divorce Judge, gave him only two years unsupervised probation for the arson that had caused at least twenty-five thousand dollars of damage.
Many months later, at our child support hearing, his attorney again did what I considered to be further grounds for disbarment, although I never formally pursued my allegations. In court the attorney submitted into evidence fraudulent payroll receipts (from the checkbook of his wife’s business) which showed he was only making $6 an hour (instead of his real plumbing income of $40 per hour, or approximately, $10,000 dollars each month—which we had regularly made in our plumbing company). Unbelievably, and despite my attorneys objections, my child support was awarded on his claim of wages of only $1000 a month. The judge simply allowed the “evidence” and did not bat an eye! I, therefore, became especially bitter and mad at the court again, vowing to do something, as a career, that would help bring truth forward in a court of law. The story now gets sadder. You’ve been warned.
A year after our divorce, and ten days before Christmas 2000, my phone rang at 2:10 a.m. and it was my ex’s brother telling me that my ex-husband had been killed: killed, I would learn hours later, by a drunk driver himself.
My daughters were two and four years old, and both were born in December, so telling them that day that their Daddy was not going to be around to celebrate Christmas or their birthdays with them anymore was the hardest thing I have ever had to do!
In an attempt to assuage my own pain and resentment, I became a licensed private investigator. Through my business, MateChecks.com, I now help both male and female clients secure evidence and knowledge when they are being lied to or cheated on by their mate, or having child support or child custody issues. Many times I am paid by my client to run background checks and I sometimes uncover records showing a history of arrest for public intoxication or driving under the influence. At that point my clients have to make decisions about whether their significant others’ pasts could repeat itself or if their “propensity for violence” can be red-flagged, so to speak, by their prior criminal history.
I personally had given my husband the benefit of the doubt, trusted he would never hurt me, and I regretfully never checked into his background before marrying him. I would eventually learn from the arresting officer that he had a three-page rap sheet for the crimes he had committed in Florida before he moved to this state. We had been married five years when we divorced.
As you may imagine, my P.I. work is indeed cathartic, as much so as is my involvement in RID. Both efforts allow me to talk openly about all my daughters and I have gone through. I believe sharing my tragic history of his alcoholism and ultimate demise may help others to understand the torment and devastation that can result due to drug and alcohol abuse, and its commonly resulting partner-spousal abuse or domestic violence.
RID advocacy helps educate the public, offenders, and their loved ones on these issues.
So, thanks for reading my story, and I urge you to help to prevent others from similar experiences! RID needs your help to stay in action to save lives! Be a part of the solution and encourage others to make better life decisions so they will not drive, ride cycles, or boat while under the influence!
Respectfully,
B.J. Morgan, mother of two lovely daughters