FILE 430 / 7 October 2023 / 70 MIN / express

Naked Aggression & Vicious Violence

Paducah, KentuckyListen

The town

N ↑Public placePublic placeTown centre (approximate places)
Static locations; no street basemap. Places and details. OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap.

We're going to Paducah, Kentucky... It's in McCracken County. about 0:03:05

History, in brief

Town note

Pekin was laid out by William Clark of Lewis and Clark, and was later renamed Paducah.

about 0:04:44

Town note

Local lore connected the name to the Chickasaw chief Paduke and called his people the Paducas, but authorities on the Chickasaw say there was never a chief with that name or anything close to it.

about 0:04:51

Town note

The Chickasaw language has no related words, so it is believed Clark named the town for the Comanche people of the Western Plains, from a Spanish transliteration of the Choctaw word 'padoca'.

about 0:05:11
All 9 history facts

Town note

Pekin was laid out by William Clark of Lewis and Clark, and was later renamed Paducah.

about 0:04:44

Town note

Local lore connected the name to the Chickasaw chief Paduke and called his people the Paducas, but authorities on the Chickasaw say there was never a chief with that name or anything close to it.

about 0:04:51

Town note

The Chickasaw language has no related words, so it is believed Clark named the town for the Comanche people of the Western Plains, from a Spanish transliteration of the Choctaw word 'padoca'.

about 0:05:11

1937

In 1937 the Ohio River flooded, rising fifty feet above flood stage and cresting at sixty feet eight inches.

about 0:05:31

Town note

For nearly three weeks, 27,000 residents were forced to flee or stay with friends and relatives on higher ground.

about 0:05:46

Town note

At one point eighteen inches of rain fell in sixteen days, along with sheets of swiftly moving ice.

about 0:05:59

1937

The 1937 Ohio River flood was the worst natural disaster in Paducah's history and elsewhere in the Ohio Valley.

about 0:06:07

Town note

The earthen levee was ineffective, so Congress authorised the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build a flood wall.

about 0:06:17

The figures, as told

Money

Median home value$163,200
Median household income$42,024
All figures and comparisons, as told in 2023

Population

"26,248"

No direction stated.

As told in 2023 about 0:04:02

Median household income

"$42,024"

Comparison: "much lower than the national average". Direction: below.

As told in 2023 about 0:04:08

Median home price

"$163,200"

Comparison: "about half the national average". Direction: below.

As told in 2023 about 0:04:18

The reviews

2.6 / 5 · average of 5

5 stars

“Lived there all their life; the biggest attraction is quilting, with the national quilt museum, and a beautiful riverfront, though there is not much to do; they love it.”
about 0:06:35

3 stars

“A nice town that is larger than you would think, with great fishing in the Ohio River, which separates Kentucky from the north.”
about 0:06:59

3 stars

“People here are not very welcoming.”
about 0:07:27

1 star

“Most food places are bad, the mall sucks with few options, there are thousands of Dollar Trees and Dollar Generals, schools are not bad, everyone is racist and rude, there are drug problems, and downtown is sketchy and creepy at night.”
about 0:08:00

1 star

“The reviewer and their mother Claudine lived there about twenty-five years and call it ghastly; their house was haunted, built on an old burial ground, with doors and windows opening themselves, figures, crying and screaming; a car with 666 on the plate passed the day they miscarried; they warn people not to visit or move there.”
about 0:08:44

In Kentucky

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The story

She said she wanted to get away from her boyfriend.

Morgan's behaviour, described in court documents as bizarre, became increasingly violent. She claimed to have killed her foster father when she was an adolescent and to have killed a woman in South Carolina. When he protested, Morgan stabbed him in the chest and buttocks until he passed out from blood loss. He was taken to hospital, where he lied about what had happened to keep her out of trouble, and told her he wanted her to see a psychologist. Morgan responded by overdosing on pills.

Other incidents followed. She obtained the commercial driving licence of a female trucker named Eva Chapel in North Carolina. At an RV park she got drunk, took off her clothes and ran around naked. Four weeks later Morgan telephoned Sharon while drunk, asked her to meet, and called her a bitch before hanging up.

One of them, Doris Gillam, called 911. Deputies arriving around 1.15pm found him out of breath and covered in blood. He told deputy Jesse Riddle that Connie was dead. She had no pulse and her face was covered with a bloody towel.

The medical examiner, Dr Deedra Schluckelbyer, testified that the knife went through Morgan's lower jaw into the base of her brain and was still lodged in her vertebrae, that she had defensive wounds to her hands and further knife wounds to her neck and face, and that she had no drugs or alcohol in her system. The evidence was consistent with a struggle in which Morgan never had sole possession of the knife.

The case

Murder of Connie Morgan

Victims

Connie Morgan (38). girlfriend, from Sparta, North Carolina, raised in foster care

Accused and outcomes

As told in the episode, on 7 October 2023.

Accused

Outcome

Other people

Deborah Hodges. trucking companion who saw Connie hold a knife on for forty-five minutes
Doris Gillam. camper at Fern Lake who called 911
Eddie Gruber. camper who saw Connie's arm hanging from the RV door
Don Vessels. owner of the campground, testified that Connie was violent and used knives
Dr. Deedra Schluckelbyer. medical examiner who described Connie's wounds
Dr. David West. general surgeon who treated and testified for him
Dr. Henry Davis. psychologist hired by who said he was a domestic violence victim
Eva Chapel. female trucker whose CDL Connie obtained

The timeline

  1. 1953 is bornabout 0:12:33
  2. 1965 Connie Morgan is bornabout 0:13:14
  3. May 2002 At a North Carolina truck stop Connie's boyfriend offers to let have sex with her for $40; declines but offers her a ride (North Carolina truck stop)about 0:13:23
  4. 2002 drives Connie to Florida and drops her offabout 0:15:37
  5. a few weeks later Connie comes back to Kentucky and she and begin an exclusive relationshipabout 0:16:04
  6. Connie claims to and others that she killed her foster father as an adolescentabout 0:17:17

Places and phrases

N ↑Public placePublic placeTown centre (approximate places)
Static locations; no street basemap. Places and details. OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap.

Places in the story

Public places are marked on the map.

Heard in this episode