by Robert Scott
As part of the investigation, Looney tried to determine when the crime had occurred. One thing that helped him in that regard were several bags from a convenience store, with a receipt inside one bag. In the living room on the couch was also a purse. When Looney looked inside the purse and a wallet there, he found a driver’s license for Robin Anstey, aged sixty-two. Nearby was also a bag from Ross Dress for Less in North Bend. The receipt was dated 5:24 P.M. on February 8. Another bag was from a drugstore in Bandon, with a timed receipt for 8:02 P.M. on February 8.
Moving back to Robin Anstey’s body, Looney and the other investigators set up strong lights and found a shell casing for a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun. Nearby was an upside-down plastic pot with a bullet hole through it and a bullet fragment in the pot. Also there was a human tooth lying on the deck and an ammo clip, which was empty. On the French doors, there had been a bullet strike, where the bullet had hit and glanced off.
Moving inside, law enforcement noted that when people entered through the French doors, they were greeted by an open-style living room, which went clear up to the ceiling of the second story. Around this second story was a balcony, which ran around the open area. A stairway to the balcony was on the right side of the living-room area, and to the left were the kitchen, dining room, pantry and laundry room. There was also a master bedroom and a small office on the first floor of the house.
It began to be apparent that whatever happened here had begun inside the house. There were two spent shell casings near a kitchen counter on the floor, and one more near a table. A candle in a dish was near the stove, and right next to that dish was another spent shell casing. There were shell casings on the kitchen floor, in the sink and under a couch in the living room as well. In all, thirteen expended shell casings were found in the area.
What caught Sergeant Looney’s eye was the fact that an empty ammo clip that could hold ten bullets was found. That meant the shooter had to reload at some point to keep firing.
Trying to determine angles of trajectory and where the shooter might have been standing at different times, Looney and the others looked for where bullets lodged and for strike marks as well. There was a bullet hole in the edge of a chair near the right side of Bob Kennelly’s body. There was also a bullet hole in the leaf of a plant in the living room. A dowel was placed in one of the wounds on Bob Kennelly’s body. Using a laser, the beam shone from the wound, through the plant leaf and up to the balcony area. Apparently, the shooter had begun shooting there and then had come down into the lower portion of the house.
A bullet strike in the French doors confirmed that theory. The angle of the strike mark proved that particular bullet had traveled in a downward angle from the balcony area. In fact, a .40-caliber bullet was found in a door when the molding was removed.
There were bullet strikes all over the living room. One was found in a chair near the French doors and another on the floor. The flooring was removed and a bullet found in the subfloor.
As they looked around for paperwork in the house, it was determined that not only did Bob Kennelly and Robin Anstey live in the house, but so did a man named Gabriel Morris, his wife, Jessica, and their daughter, Kalea.
Moving up to the second floor, Sergeant Looney noted a room that “looked like the spire in a castle.” He notated it as the “Castle Room” on the diagram of the house and in his report. Looney added, “There was a lot of kid’s stuff in there. It was apparently where the daughter slept.”
In that room were some things that were very jarring for a child’s room. Looney noted in the room an ammo clip with bullets in it, a flare and a plastic bag of marijuana. There was also a bong in the room for smoking marijuana. Near the bong was a matchbox, which contained marijuana residue.
A middle bedroom was used as a storage room, and the bedroom at the end of the balcony was used by Gabriel and Jessica Morris. There was a gun safe in a walk-in closet, where Looney found a clip for a Heckler & Koch pistol. This was sometimes referred to as an HK pistol. There was also a box nearby with a receipt in it; the pistol had been purchased by Robert Kennelly in December 1995. A search all over the house and property did not turn up the pistol.
What was very interesting to Sergeant Looney was a photo found in the bedroom of Gabriel Morris in a sheriff’s deputy uniform. Also interesting was a plaque for Gabriel attesting to his fine performance as an LDS Church missionary in Australia. And further investigation around the house turned up a passport for Gabriel Morris in the Castle Room.
Taking the investigation back outside, Sergeant Looney’s trained eye noted something very interesting. Looney was a firearms instructor and range master for CCSO. Part of his duty was to train officers what to do if they got into a firefight with an individual. What he noticed on the deck was the position of the empty clip in relation to the dead body of Robin Anstey and what he now knew about Gabriel Morris being a deputy sheriff. Looney said later, “In regard to ammo clips, what you are trained to do as a police officer is, when you’ve emptied the clip and change magazines, you drop the clip and don’t touch it. Because touching it takes time. You let it drop where you’re at. You immediately put in a new clip and keep firing.” That could explain why there were no fingerprints found on the empty clip on the deck.
Moving out back, the officers found a red GMC pickup with Idaho plates. This was behind a hill in back of the garage area, hidden from view of the house. The pickup truck most likely got there by using a small spur road that ran off from the main driveway. The pickup truck was registered to William Pope, of Blackfoot, Idaho.
Sergeant Looney related later, “When I walked up from the bottom of the driveway, it’s a steep driveway, and people who drive up from the bottom can cause spinout marks. That’s from trying to get traction. But I found spinout marks that weren’t going uphill—they were going downhill. A spinout on the way down is a dangerous and silly thing to do. I thought it might have something to do with the crime. It appeared like someone trying to leave the scene in a hurry.”
The tire spinout marks were sheltered from the rain for later analyzing. There were also spinout marks that went down through a grassy area. In fact, at one section on the driveway, a vehicle had lost control and actually slid into the bank of a hillside before continuing on down the hill. Once again, it looked like someone had left the scene in a great hurry.
Besides the Coos County Major Crimes Team being involved, the Oregon State Police (OSP) Crime Laboratory and its agents became involved too, along with the police departments of Coquille and Bandon. One thing the officers discovered was that Robert Kennelly had owned a .40-caliber handgun, which was now missing. Both he and Robin had been killed with .40-caliber bullets, and it appeared that they were probably murdered by the gun that Kennelly had owned.
Sergeant Looney entered the information about the gun into the national crime information computer system. Within a short period of time, the gun in question came back with some very interesting information. It had been picked up on a street in San Diego, California, and was now in the possession of the San Diego Police Department.
A San Diego police officer had found the gun on Genesee Avenue, near April Court, in some bushes. This was an area where there was substantial crime. It was absolutely Robert Kennelly’s gun—serial numbers proved that. How it got to San Diego was still a mystery at that point.
At first, it was not apparent who had murdered Robin Anstey and Robert Kennelly. Then the contact from the CPD to CCSO revealed all of Gabriel Morris’s actions at Fred Eschler’s home on February 8. Also the information that investigators got from Jessica’s parents in Idaho was factored in. Because of this, and other questioning of individuals who knew Gabriel Morris, and his increasingly erratic behavior over the past few weeks, an arrest warrant was drawn up by DA Paul Frasier. Gabe was the main focus in this warrant; Jessica was listed as a material witness.
The warrant stated that Gabriel Christian Morris was wanted for the murders of Robert Kennelly and Robi
n Anstey, and that the murders were aggravated. This was a class 1 felony.
CHAPTER 18
The news of two murders near the quiet seaside town of Bandon absolutely rocked the community. A local newspaper, The World, ran the headline POLICE SEEK DOUBLE HOMICIDE SUSPECT. The article began: Police are asking for the public’s help in tracking a murder suspect and his wife, tied to a double homicide, near Bandon.
The article went on to show the location of the crime on the Coquille River between Bandon and the hamlet of Riverton. A photo of Gabe and one of Jessica was next to the map. The article gave out the license plate number of Fred Eschler’s silver Ford Taurus and reported that the couple’s four-year-old daughter, Kalea, was with them. In addition were the lines: Gabriel Morris is reported to be armed with two handguns. The couple has friends and family in Idaho, Portland, Salem, Seattle and San Diego.
A reporter talked to DA Paul Frasier about where the couple might have gone. His answer was “Your guess is as good as mine as to which way they went.” Then he added that he was seeking Jessica Morris as a material witness to the murders. And already he let out that evidence at the scene pointed to Gabriel Morris as the shooter. Just what evidence this was, Frasier would not say.
Frasier did say that Jessica, until recently, had been helping with a fund-raiser for the Women’s Safety & Resource Center. And Mary Ann Donaldson told a reporter that Jessica was “vivacious, outgoing, intelligent and a really sweet person who also appeared to be a great mother. We were worried about her. She just disappeared. She was really a great, reliable worker and we really liked her.” Donaldson added that they were all concerned for Jessica’s safety and that of her daughter.
The next day’s newspaper ran a headline that stated: POLICE SAY FUGITIVE IS DANGEROUS. At a press conference, DA Frasier confirmed that the victims were Robert Kennelly and Robin Anstey. A photo was shown of Gabe, Jessica and Kalea in happier days. About the dangerousness of Gabe, Frasier said, “If he, Jessica Morris, their child or automobile is located, citizens are strongly cautioned that they should not approach them or the car and should immediately call nine-one-one.”
To another reporter, Judy Moody, the director of the Women’s Safety & Resource Center, said, “Jessica was very enthusiastic and engaged in the process of creating a fund-raiser.” But the Soup Bowl luncheon fund-raiser, which was meant to be held a day before the Super Bowl, never happened. Jessica had not collected donations for the fund-raiser and had not purchased bowls and spoons from her own money, as she had promised. As far as being involved in the crime, Moody said, “I don’t think she’s involved. That just doesn’t fit.”
By now, Oregon State Police detectives from Central Point, Roseburg and Coos Bay joined other officers in searching for the trio. These law enforcement agencies basically covered the southwestern portion of the state. Of course, this area was mountainous and very forested. Gabe and his family could be hiding in any number of places.
Autopsies were performed on Robert Kennelly and Robin Anstey by Kristine Karcher and Dr. James Olson. Karcher was the chief medical examiner (ME) for Coos County. She had a master’s degree in forensic nursing from the University of Colorado. By 2010, she had been chief medical examiner for Coos County for twelve years.
As she explained later, “I deal with victims of violence, and half of those are usually victims who have died. In dealing with my job, I have forensic training in homicides and autopsies, and sometimes I would be assigned to the major crimes team in Coos County.”
That is what happened for Karcher on the Kennelly/Anstey case. On February 10, she was contacted and told to respond to a residence on Highway 42 South, outside of Bandon. When she got there, she observed the bodies in place, and drew diagrams of their locations and positioning. She also supervised their removal from the scene.
When the autopsies occurred, it was in conjunction with Dr. James Olson from Jackson County, who contracted with Coos County. As Olson performed the actual autopsies, Karcher took notes and made trauma diagrams. On a front-view diagram of Robert Kennelly, she noted a wound to the abdomen that crossed his chest and went all the way to the left armpit. There was another wound in his left side, which went in a straight direction, and the bullet embedded in a hip bone. There was a third wound in the right leg, near the knee.
In a back view, Karcher related what she called “a very impressive gutter wound that crossed the back of his head and neck and grazed the shoulder. It entered left to right, traveled downward and ended up underneath the skin.” There was another wound on Kennelly that went through his leg and exited the calf area. The fatal wound was the one that entered his chest and perforated his right lung and liver.
As for Robin Anstey, she had suffered a gunshot wound that entered near the left ear and exited the right cheek. There was also a wound to her upper left arm, which entered the back of the arm and exited the front. It shattered the humerus bone of her upper arm. There was a graze wound on her shin and a gunshot wound to her buttocks, which exited near her knee. The fatal wound was one to her left temple, through her brain, which exited her cheek and knocked one of her teeth out. This was the tooth found on the deck near her body by investigators. The fatal wound had been delivered at fairly close range.
Karcher had been at the scene and noted bullet holes in plant leaves there. The wounds on Robert Kennelly made sense in light of those bullet holes in the leaves. Karcher believed some of the bullets that entered Kennelly’s body had been fired from a steep angle downward. This was especially true of the wound to his lower leg. The gunshot wound to his neck was also in a downward angle. She surmised someone had started shooting at Kennelly from the balcony as he tried running out the door. When Bob was already on the floor, the abdomen wound occurred when he was lying prone.
For that wound, the shooter had to have been standing over Kennelly and firing at a downward angle. All of this pointed to the fact that the shooter meant to kill his victims and was not content on just wounding them. It had taken at least thirteen shots to accomplish this. Not only that, he had time to think about what he was doing, since he had to reload a clip into his gun to accomplish the task.
CHAPTER 19
While law enforcement was trying to figure out what had occurred at Bob Kennelly’s residence, Gabe, Jessica and Kalea were on the run. In another mad dash to San Diego, they drove more than eight hundred miles down the highways. Most likely, they cut across to I-5, which ran down through Oregon and Central California. Taking Highway 101 out of Bandon and down the coast took a much longer period of time, since it was not freeway all the way. For anyone trying to cover a great deal of distance in a hurry, I-5 would have been the way to go.
Jessica did not go into great detail about the initial route they took, but later she did say, “We didn’t have our IDs, our driver’s licenses, so we had to be very careful. We couldn’t be pulled over. We drove all the way back to the same hotel in Oceanside, because no one will let you rent a room unless you have an ID. And so we went back to the same one, and I asked the woman there if she remembered me and if we could have a room, and she gave us one. I thought we would stay there for a couple of days, but the next morning Gabe said no.”
While they were in that area, they went to Escondido, where Gabe had lived with his dad. Jessica recalled, “We stopped at a pet store. Kalea had been through a lot. Gabe took her in there so she could hold a couple of animals. He thought about getting her a turtle. She cried when we left because they didn’t have any turtles. And it was in Escondido that we pawned our rings.” By that, she meant their wedding rings.
A rational person would have kept a low profile at this point, but Gabe was anything but rational. With gun in hand, he robbed a convenience store to obtain more cash. In this robbery, he had the car away from any surveillance cameras and it could not be connected to him. Jessica did not go into the store while he was robbing the place. She recalled later, “Gabe said wait, and Kalea and I stayed in the car. And he left and returned an
d gave me a bunch of money. They were mostly in ones, but there was [a] fifty.”
In another irrational move, Gabe was about to lose that gun. Jessica recalled, “We had gone to a friend he used to know in the area and knocked on the door to see if he still lived there. He didn’t, so we were driving around looking for a hotel. I couldn’t find it and flipped a U. Gabe was drinking gin and got really drunk. He must have had the gun in the bag with the bottle, because he threw the bottle out the window, and the gun was gone after that.”
Actually, the gun that Gabe had tossed out the window was soon found by a San Diego policeman, even before the bodies of Robin and Bob were discovered in Oregon. The policeman took the gun into his department and it was kept in storage to see what might turn up about it. For a handgun just lying on the street like that in a rough neighborhood suggested it had been used in a crime scene somewhere.
Gabe, Jessica and Kalea could have made their way into Mexico at that point, since the bodies of Bob and Robin had not yet been found. But in their haste to flee the scene in Oregon, neither Gabe nor Jessica had taken their passports with them. Rather than chance a border crossing, they headed east on I-8. In some places along this route, Mexico was only a few miles away. In fact, past El Centro, the route practically skirted the border.
The family crossed the Colorado River and entered Arizona at Yuma. Later, Jessica spoke of going to a mall or a Walmart around there. Her recollection was hazy as to where exactly this occurred. But she did remember, “Kalea and I were still in our pajamas. We didn’t have any clothes. We didn’t have anything with us at all. We didn’t have soap or anything. So we went to a mall and it was about nine-thirty in the morning and Gabe went in and got us clothes. And we got a swimming suit for Kalea, a car seat, hair spray, soap and a brush. And he came back and we got dressed. And from there, we headed for a friend of mine in Mesa, Arizona.”