A missing $1.6 million inheritance may be what motivated someone to shoot and then dump the body of a popular former Denver disc jockey into the Pacific Ocean, authorities and his sister say.
Steven B. Williams, half of the 1980s KBPI team of “Steven B. and the Hawk,” had been helping his friend Harvey Stephen Morrow outfit a 69-foot sailboat for a world voyage when Williams’ body was found floating 6 miles off Catalina Island on May 18.
Jan Williams, Steven’s sister, is worried that her inheritance, which was controlled by her brother, was squandered on Morrow’s boat, after learning that her brother was so financially strapped that he sold a computer to a friend shortly before he disappeared.
Her brother may have invested the money through his friend, who then diverted it to the boat instead, she said.
“Something is haywire in the money,” said Jan Williams, who lives in New Jersey.
Los Angeles County homicide investigators are searching for Morrow, 55, a former vice president of Chatfield, Dean and Co., an Englewood stock- brokerage firm that has since been sold.
About two weeks ago, Morrow, who owned the boat that was moored in Los Angeles Harbor at San Pedro Bay, fled after acquaintances saw him watching detectives search his sailboat, said Sgt. Kenneth Clark of the Los Angeles sheriff’s office.
“I would have screamed and hollered, ‘What are you doing?”‘ Clark said.
Instead, Morrow disappeared and hasn’t been seen since, Clark said. He said Morrow has not been labeled a suspect.
For the past three years, Morrow had been housesitting with Steven Williams or living with him on the vessel, said Jan Williams and Clark.
Though Morrow presented himself as an investment banker, his former business associates and ex-wife said he was a human-resources officer. He dressed flashy, drove an expensive car and had a criminal record.
Morrow was convicted in 1996 of misdemeanor arson after setting fire to tissue paper inside the sleeve of his wife’s dress, Arapahoe County court records say. He was angry that his wife, Englewood lawyer Deborah Read, was divorcing him, records say.
Jan Williams said investigators told her they are following the money, believing it may have led to her brother’s killing.
During his broadcast career, Steven Williams worked at 13 radio stations in Colorado, Hawaii and San Francisco.
“Sometimes egos grow with ratings,” said Steve Keeney, president of the Denver Radio Co. “But not Steven. He and Don Hawkins were the market leaders, but he was a good guy.”
Williams and Hawkins wrote hilarious parodies, sometimes rearranging lyrics of songs to fit recent news events, Keeney said.
Williams was a gourmet cook and a wine connoisseur, several friends said. In 2001, while living in San Francisco, he started working at a winery, a drastic career change he seemed to make on a whim.
“I was stunned when Daryl Sattui … offered me a job,” Wil liams wrote in 2001 on www.440.com, a radio-industry website. “I accepted his offer just slightly before he was able to finish his sentence.
“I am now living and working in what can only be described as a dead ringer for the Bordeaux region of France.”
It didn’t seem to bother the popular radio host that he started in the business as a “cellar rat,” dragging hoses, lugging buckets and harvesting grapes, said Tom Davies, president of V. Sattui Winery, where Wil liams worked.
“He took a big cut in pay,” Davies said. “He had a passion for wine.”
But the job didn’t last long. In October 2001, his elderly father became ill. Steven Williams moved to Corona Del Mar in Southern California to care for him, Jan Williams said.
Their father, a World War II fighter pilot, had bought a home with a view of the ocean in 1967.
It’s unclear how Steven Wil liams met Morrow, who had been living large since his divorce, Read said. Morrow remarried in 2000 in Texas and was living in a luxurious house on lakeside property, Read said.
In 2003, Morrow moved to the Los Angeles area, Clark said. Williams and Morrow became close friends, Jan Williams said.
She said Morrow claimed to be an investment banker.
But Sanford Greenberg, the former chief operating officer at the stock-brokerage firm where Morrow worked, said he recruited brokers but wasn’t one himself.
In July 2003, Jan and Steven Williams’ father died. Steven Williams controlled their inheritance, Jan Williams said.
He told her that he sold their father’s house for $1.2 million, but she learned it sold for $1.8 million.
“We had some issues,” said Jan Williams, 62, a computer systems analyst.
After their father’s death, her brother and Morrow lived together for a few years while housesitting, Jan Williams said. Morrow bought a boat, and the two began planning a world sailing trip.
About a year ago, Steven Williams bought five or six cases of zinfandel and cabernet wines from V. Suttui Winery for the sailing trip, Davies said.
Steven Williams had been taking cooking classes and was going to serve as the chef on the boat, said Doug Johnson, a close friend.
Williams planned on being in Alaska in the summer and in the Caribbean for the winter, Johnson said.
But Johnson said there were delays getting the sailboat seaworthy. The ketch, with two masts – the forward one taller than the aft – was overhauled, including replacing both masts, Johnson said.
While Morrow was adding expensive equipment to his sailboat, he was giving a different financial picture to his ex-wife, she said.
Read said he called a few months ago and asked if he could reduce child-support payments to $50 a month. He told her he had written a book on terrorism but couldn’t find a publisher, Read said.
Weeks before Steven Wil liams’ disappearance, someone unlocked his car trunk with a key and stole his passport and a laptop computer, Jan Williams said. She said the thief may have destroyed incriminating business records.
Johnson last spoke to Steven Williams on May 4. Though he called every day after that, he couldn’t reach his friend. On Steven Williams’ birthday May 14, Johnson filed a missing-person report. Williams’ body was found four days later.
Clark said his office is hiring someone to review Steven Williams’ financial records to see how the inheritance was spent.
Jan Williams’ plans of traveling to historical locations and buying a townhome with her inheritance may never happen now.
“All that is put on hold,” she said.
High-tech equipment recently installed on Morrow’s boat may also offer a clue, Jan Wil liams said.
A satellite guidance system will show investigators whether the boat was near Catalina Island when Steven Williams’ body was dumped in the ocean, Jan Williams said.
Investigators have discovered that someone tried to erase the guidance system’s computer logs. But officials retrieved those records anyway, she said.
“They know where the boat has been,” she said.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-820-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
