Stephen Morgan: From Quiet Loner To Accused Killer

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Well, thank God he wasn't a noisy extrovert.

The images could describe Morgan's alleged slaying of Wesleyan University junior Johanna Justin-Jinich. How police say he followed through on a 2007 e-mail to her that promised her "a lot more problems down the road"; how he'd written "Kill Johanna. She must Die'' in his journal before striding into the book store in Middletown where she worked and shooting her seven times; how he acted so stoic afterward that a cop arriving at the scene took his name and number and let him go.

But Taylor Free's observations come from a different time, when Morgan, a prep school graduate and former Navy petty officer from a large, church-going family in tony Marblehead, Mass., was drifting between New England, California, and Colorado, complaining about loud parties, existing on the fringe of the younger college crowd in Boulder and caring for his cat.

A time when Justin-Jinich, outgoing, attractive and a world away, was safe.

It was 2006 and Taylor Free and her husband wanted to move out of their apartment in Boulder, to another place in the city. Three months remained on the lease, so they put an ad on Craigslist for a tenant.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/hc-stephen-morgan-profile-0509,1,7358616.story