Paul Morrison
Appearances
48 Hours
Who's There?
My name is Paul Morrison. In 1982, I was an assistant district attorney here in Johnson County. That was the first murder scene that I'd ever seen. One of the most brutal murder scenes that I've ever seen in my career. Very, very bloody. He was disfigured so badly that the initial officers thought he'd been shot in the face with a shotgun.
48 Hours
Who's There?
It traumatized a lot of people because what came out publicly was that there was this horrible home invasion. These people beat this poor guy to death in bed. It was one of those cases where you're going, you know, we don't believe this. There's more to this story than meets the eye.
48 Hours
Who's There?
I remember telling Wall that I wasn't going to buy a pig and a poke because we didn't know exactly what she had to offer. That in my opinion, she had already made some serious admissions, so let's not make any deals today that we might regret later.
48 Hours
Who's There?
You've got no statute of limitations on a murder case. So we had the luxury of making sure that we got our ducks all lined up straight as we could before we went into battle.
48 Hours
Who's There?
Her world revolved around the church. Divorce was an unthinkable option. You've got that sort of perverted thinking about that not being an option, and it manifests itself in what most of us would consider to be the unthinkable, and that is that you kill them.
48 Hours
Who's There?
That didn't fit at all, and in fact, she didn't have any real injuries other than a tiny bruise on her cheek.
48 Hours
Who's There?
You were the fact that she said it was an emotionally inappropriate intimate relationship.
48 Hours
Who's There?
Were you aware of the fact that she said that you told her, I want to have sex with you?
48 Hours
Who's There?
She was ready to testify that during this relationship that she had with Mark Mangelsdorf, during their discussions of how they were going to end up together, her and Mark, that for her it came down to the fact that she chose murder over the social stigma of divorce.
48 Hours
Who's There?
Every time you've got an unsolved murder, you've got somebody walking around in your community that's killed somebody.
48 Hours
Who's There?
And I think everybody thought, gosh, this is just a horrible home invasion thing here, and we've got to find these guys because they're obviously extremely dangerous.
48 Hours
Who's There?
No forced entry to the house. There was nothing else taken. Plus, the person that's able to get them access to the bank, they kill immediately. I don't think anybody was comfortable saying that first day, you know, we don't believe it. But there are eyebrows beginning to be raised about this story.
48 Hours
Who's There?
I believe she did this because she couldn't get a divorce. In her mind, it was much better to be the widow Harmon than the divorcee Harmon.
48 Hours
Who's There?
The promise of sex, the lure of sex, unfulfilled, can be stronger than the actual thing.
48 Hours
Who's There?
Back in 1982, in the Nazarene church, divorce was not the option that it is today. It would have not been a good thing. It would have caused a certain amount of shame and scandal.
48 Hours
Who's There?
The question of, is that going to be provable beyond a reasonable doubt, probably wasn't quite there.