There were new insights Thursday in thousands of pages of documents related to last fall’s tragedy at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey.
The Park County Sheriff’s Office released the redacted report, including interviews by Colorado Bureau of Investigation and other officers with the family of shooter Duane Morrison, his former business associates and friends.
The reports quote students, teachers and numerous law enforcement officers who saw Morrison pull a gun in Room 206 just after 11 a.m. Sept. 27, take seven girls hostage and use Emily Keyes as a human shield before he killed her.
At 53, the depressed “loner” was still angry about years of emotional and physical abuse by his father, who told him he was the product of an affair, investigators found.
He was also hounded by bill collectors and had been accused of having a relationship with a 17-year-old co-worker at a haunted house.
And police believe guns on which Morrison once filed theft claims with his insurance company were in his possession the day he shot Keyes and then fired a bullet into his head.
Fixated on pornography
Investigators learned Morrison was fixated on pornography at the same time he told a girlfriend he was impotent. A co-worker said he ran up large phone-sex bills.
The man who methodically molested his hostages told his former girlfriend, Denise Mar quez, that he couldn’t perform sexually because of pain medications he took for his back and asthma. Instead, Morrison suggested alternatives to sex, Marquez told a CBI agent.
“Morrison offered to take Marquez to (a strip club) and to the porn store across the street,” the report says.
Investigators found sexual devices in a backpack Morrison took to the Platte Canyon classroom Sept. 27.
Morrison worked with Tina Marquis at a gas station from 1985 to 1988. She told authorities Morrison ran up more than $200 in phone-sex charges. She house- sat for Morrison and while there noticed a large collection of pornographic videos and lots of guns.
The report says “she described Morrison as paranoid.”
Others recounted an incident when Morrison worked for a haunted house his family owned called Primitive Fear.
A relative warned him about having a relationship with a 17-year-old actress there, according to a police report. An employee had reported seeing the two kissing in the haunted house’s “star room.” After the school shooting, the girl denied the allegations to authorities, saying she was “not that kind of girl.”
Family members also told investigators that Morrison’s father told people Duane was not his son and had abused him. Morrison’s sister, Judy Ervin, told an investigator that her father would beat Morrison with his fists and a belt buckle.
“Often times the beatings took place for no reason,” the report quoted Ervin as saying. “If one of the other children did something wrong, (Duane) got a beating.
In a suicide note, Morrison said he was constantly terrified of his father, saying he was robbed of his childhood.
Intense interest in guns
Relatives, friends and business associates describe Morrison’s intense interest in guns. One said he used a pipe bomb to blow up a trash can.
During the school standoff, Morrison threatened to ignite 4 pounds of “C-4” explosives he had in a backpack. No explosives were found.
According to documents, Morrison fraudulently collected more than $10,000 in insurance money, mostly for guns he said were stolen from his apartment.
“Morrison identified a total of fifteen firearms as having been stolen from his Birch Street residence,” the report states. “Morrison continued to perpetuate the fictitious theft by initiating a fraudulent insurance claim. Morrison collected over $10,000 following the fraudulent claim.”
He also made insurance claims on thefts of guns and other property in 1997 in Golden and 1999 in Park County, according to documents released Thursday.
At least four guns Morrison reported stolen for insurance claims were recovered in connection with the Platte Canyon investigation, the report released Thursday states.
“Some of the guns used in the crime were claimed in insurance claims,” according to a CBI investigative document.
On Sept. 28, the day after the school siege, investigators interviewed a manager with the Kimberly Ann Apartments on Birch Street in Denver, where Morrison had lived.
Theresa Szalach told investigators Morrison had lived at the apartments for about nine years and was an “excellent tenant” until April 2006, when he failed to pay rent and was evicted.
Szalach also described Morrison as being “a little strange.”
She said Morrison kept a large number of firearms in his second bedroom and had warned apartment maintenance staff not to go into that room.
After being evicted from his apartment, Morrison lived at the Mallory Manor Motel on West Colfax Avenue in Lakewood for a short time.
Investigators interviewed a resident there who told them he saw Morrison leaving his room about a week before the siege carrying a rifle, along with two handguns tucked into his waistband.
Motel resident Darby Griffin asked Morrison what he was doing with the guns, and Morrison said he was “going target shooting.”
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
