Dead Center. Frank J. Daniels
measured the distance from the post with the hole in it to the VW van and the distance from the van to Mr. Branchwater’s tents. I talked to Captain Branchwater who told me he remembered a few things he forgot to tell Deputy Patrick. He told me that while he was helping to keep Janice away from her husband’s body she started talking about Bruce’s dad. She said he had been an executive with R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and that he had bought a lot of stock when he worked there. She said that he left a lot of insurance money to Bruce’s mother as well as the stock. She said that Bruce’s mom would send them as much as $10,000.00 every so often as a gift just to get rid of some of the money. She said that she met Bruce’s mom and that Bruce had told her that his mom liked her more than she liked him. She also mentioned that Bruce didn’t want to come hunting and that she told him she was going hunting with or without him.
I was told that some footprints had been found and was instructed to make castings for evidence. I took a camera and casting materials to some footprints located about fifty yards from the fence and about one hundred yards northwest of where the body was found. After taking photos of the prints, I then made casts which I collected when dry. Later I made diagrams from my notes and sketches.
Each insight and report about Janice Dodson added to the questions about her. She seemed agitated at one moment, exceptionally poised the next. A loving wife? A devious planner? Which was the real Janice Dodson?
On the afternoon of October 15, the day of Bruce Dodson’s death, numerous officers spread out to contact as many hunters in the area as possible. Because hunting camps are so transitory, this had to be done right away. One of the officers involved was Harvey James, a Division of Wildlife officer. Harvey is the strong silent type, right out of an old western movie. He even has a slow, western drawl. He has been the game warden assigned to the Uncompahgre Plateau for the past twenty years and he knows it as well as anyone. During hunting season, he would be checking hunting camps routinely anyway, so this just added a few questions and a higher level of concern. About five miles down Brushy Ridge Trail from the crime scene, Harvey located a camp of Texas hunters. He checked their licenses and asked them the same set of questions he was asking everyone that afternoon, “Where have you been hunting? Have you seen anything unusual or suspicious? Do you know Janice Dodson and Bruce Dodson?” and so on. Well, it turned out that two of the hunters in this camp did know Janice and they knew her quite well. These two hunters were Terence Morgan and his wife Carla. They lived in the town of Pollock in East Texas. Not only did they know Janice, Terence told Harvey, but Janice’s ex-husband, Mark Morgan was Terence’s brother, was also hunting in the area.
“Can you tell me the location of Mark’s camp?”
Terence nodded, “Its about five miles back down Brushy Ridge Trail and on the jeep road about a mile past the intersection where the trail takes a sharp turn to the west after you round Snipe Mountain, down over the hill, and off to the east in a grove of aspen near a stock pond.”
Harvey immediately knew the camp from the description. When Harvey returned to the crime scene that evening, he turned all of his contact information over to Captain Smith and made sure to point out this information. He thought it was a bit coincidental.
At the 8:00 A.M. briefing at the Sheriff’s Department the next morning, all details known up to that point were discussed, including this new information about Mark Morgan. This was obviously something that needed to be explored. Deputy Victor Poste was going to have a busy couple of days. A few minutes after the briefing, he and Deputy Todd left to return to the scene on the Uncompahgre. After helping Deputy Todd for a while, Victor teamed up with Harvey James to contact Terence Morgan so they could locate Mark Morgan. They arrived at Terence’s camp at 12:05 P.M.
Officer James and Deputy Poste got out of the car, slammed the doors and strode over to a man standing outside a tent.
“Are you Terence Morgan?” Poste asked.
At the man’s nod, Poste continued, “I’m Deputy Victor Poste and this is Officer Harvey James from the Division of Wildlife. I believe you spoke with him yesterday.”
Again, Terence nodded. “That’s right.”
“We want to speak with you again. You know that your brother Mark Morgan’s ex-wife was also hunting in this area and her new husband of three months was killed yesterday by a gunshot wound.”
“If it’s Mark you’re after, I haven’t seen him in two days. We were not hunting together nor sharing a campsite. He’s been in the area hunting, but not here.”
“When did you last see him?”
“On the fourteenth, about one-thirty in the afternoon. I went to his camp to see how he was doing and have a cup of coffee with him.”
“Where exactly was Mark camped?” Poste asked.
Terence gave the men a detailed description of how to get to Mark’s campsite, but added, “He’s not still camped there. He told me he was going to break camp and leave on Sunday evening because he had to be back at work on Monday morning.”
“Where does your brother work?”
“He works for a concrete outfit and he said they were doing a job on a military installation. He lives in Layton, Utah.”
“Who was Mark hunting with?” Bock asked.
“His boss, Gary Dalton and his girlfriend, Marcy. I understand they got a deer Saturday morning but didn’t bring it back to camp.”
“Does your brother know Bruce Dodson?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“What about problems after Janice married Bruce?” Poste asked. “Were there bad feelings between Janice and Mark after her marriage?”
“Not that I know of,” Terence responded. “You know, Janice came to Texas in July and I think she wanted to try and get back with Mark. But she learned during her visit that everything was over between them and she left. Wasn’t long after that, we heard she married this guy Bruce Dodson.”
Terence did not have an address for Mark in Utah, but was able to provide a phone number. After taking Terence’s statement, Deputy Poste gave him a business card and told him if he came in contact with his brother to have him get in touch. Deputy Poste and Harvey James then went to the area of Mark Morgan’s camp as described by Terence. They found the camp vacant and made note that one had to cross a mud bog to get to it. They did not get out of their vehicles or cross the mud bog because they could see that the camp was empty from where they were. Deputy Poste returned to the crime scene and reported what he learned to Captain Smith. After helping with photographing and evidence collection at the scene, Deputy Poste went back to Mark’s camp with Harvey James, Dan Faed and Chief Rory Clark to see if they could find any foot prints, shell casings or other evidence. No evidence was located. Dan Faed noted that this was the cleanest camp he had ever seen. “There was not so much as a gum wrapper or a cigarette butt,” he noted. There were some boot prints, but none that matched the two found back at the crime scene.
That same day, a somewhat disturbing report came into the Sheriff’s Department that had to be checked out. I felt from the beginning it had nothing to do with Bruce’s death. However, I had concerns that it could be used to confuse a future jury if this was judged a homicide. “All it takes,” I told a deputy, “is one confused juror to upset a trial verdict.” The incident came to light when someone had called the Montrose County Sheriff’s Department complaining of another shooting incident on the Uncompahgre Plateau the same day as Bruce’s murder.
October 15, 1995
A deputy was dispatched to the Hanton Motel in reference to the report of a shooting on the Divide Road.
He contacted Clarence Taylor in room number 209. The deputy said Mr. Taylor told him that he and his father were hunting about a quarter mile from the road on the Uncompahgre Plateau near Windy Point. Taylor said he was sitting on a chair next to a tree stump at about 1430 hours, when he saw two hunters walking about twenty yards from where he was. Taylor watched the two hunters walk toward the north,