Lady locked inside burning storage shed in 2023 was sufferer of ‘tragic accident,’ DA concludes

MURRAY — After lots of of hours of investigation from metropolis, state and federal officers, lots of of pages of written experiences and over $100,000 spent as a part of an investigation that went on for over a 12 months, the Salt Lake County District Lawyer’s Workplace introduced Friday that no fees could be filed within the 2023 demise of a girl discovered locked inside a burning storage shed.

As a substitute, Sim Gill says the demise of Morgan Kay Harris, 27, seems to have been “an unintentional tragic lack of life.”

On Feb. 18, 2023, a hearth was reported inside a small storage unit at 4608 S. 900 East. A padlock on the door prevented fireplace crews from instantly coming into. As soon as inside, the our bodies of Harris and her canine had been found.

Alexander Paul Wardell, 30 — Harris’s boyfriend who’s suspected to have been dwelling together with her within the shed — was arrested for investigation of negligent murder and kidnapping. Police say Wardell admitted to placing Harris within the storage unit, placing a lock on the door after which leaving.

Nonetheless, after an intensive investigation that concerned the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Gill sending two of his chief deputies to Maryland the place a number of days of burn assessments had been carried out on a duplicate storage unit, the district legal professional stated Friday that investigators reached the conclusion it was “unlikely” that Wardell deliberately set the fireplace.

Whereas the reason for the fireplace stays “undetermined,” Gill says the main theories are {that a} cigarette or candle lit contained in the shed caught a wicker basket on fireplace, which rapidly unfold to quite a few different flamable supplies stacked within the small house. The district legal professional famous that the storage unit had no electrical energy, warmth or home windows and was pitch black when the door was shut. He stated there was proof of different candles that had been beforehand lit contained in the storage unit and a lighter was present in Harris’ pocket.

Likewise, Harris’ method of demise was not decided by the state medical expert. Harris was allegedly “groggy” when Wardell left the shed to get meals at a close-by retailer. The fireplace brought about the room to quickly fill with carbon monoxide. Gill says Harris’s post-mortem revealed a 73% saturation degree of carbon monoxide in her blood on the time of demise. Sometimes, he stated 30% to 40% will depart an individual incapacitated, and 50% will kill an individual.

“She will get compromised to the purpose that depth of the fireplace truly melts the chair into her thigh,” Gill stated. “She is nonresponsive at that time.”

Why Harris was so incapacitated and apparently didn’t transfer from the chair she was sitting in when the fireplace began is one other query that may probably by no means be answered, Gill stated. As for locating her physique on the ground close to the locked door, the medical expert’s remaining report said that “her remaining place close to the door could solely be coincident together with her collapse and never a results of an tried escape. If she by no means tried to flee, the lock on the door is irrelevant in her method of demise.”

Even when the door didn’t have a padlock on it, Gill says investigators don’t consider she would have made it out.

As for the rationale for placing a lock on the door within the first place — which may solely be opened from the skin — Gill says the investigation exhibits that is merely how Harris and Wardell stored their door closed. He says there was no indication she was being held within the storage unit in opposition to her will, which is why he additionally declined to file a cost of kidnapping.

“How do I show she didn’t consent to that? With what proof do I try this? Who do I placed on the stand?” he requested. “We discovered no proof going by her cellphone, his cellphone, all the fabric that we may collect, that led us to get to any of that time … we appeared. We scoured, we appeared if there was any humanly doable approach to articulate to fulfill these components for the aim of submitting fees. We couldn’t get there.”

Earlier than saying his findings publicly on Friday, Gill says he met with Harris’ household.

“Everytime you lose any individual, the analytics, the chilly details, are going to be a poor substitute to the loss that you feel,” he stated. “I’ve to take a look at it with a chilly eye of the proof and with the science and what I can show going into court docket. And (the household is) feeling the loss such as you and I might really feel. After all, they’re heartbroken. They’re in ache, they’re in grief. And I want I may give them some measure of justice if there was some measure of culpability. I can not there.”

Wardell remained within the Utah State Jail on Friday for convictions in different instances and violations with Grownup Probation and Parole.