Police: Attack not tied to serial burglaries;

Kansas couple ‘spooked’ by attack

 

BY JOHN L. GUERRA

Key West Police Officer Robert G. Currul, one of the officers who responded to William Street the night of the attack reported in this issue of Konk Life, wrote a report of the incident days after the attack after Jennifer Morrissey emailed Chief Donie Lee’s office complaining of shoddy treatment by police. In that email, Mrs. Morrissey also demanded that an incident report be written, Key West Police spokeswoman Alyson Crean said.

In the postponed report, Currul described his interaction with the couple and explained why he believed the Morrisseys misunderstood what had happened to them. He describes the couple as being spooked by what they had gone through.

“I got to the house first and knocked on the door, through which I could see the silhouette of two persons,” Currul wrote in the delayed report. “They seemed to be debating who was going to answer the door. As I knocked, a female proclaimed that she wasn’t [going to] open the door.

“I identified myself as a Key West Police Officer and a male opened the door shortly thereafter and stepped outside. The male was highly animated and speaking rapidly. It was hard to understand him.”

Currul believed Morrissey simply mistook a harmless drunk for an intruder intent on harming him and his wife.

“I tried to explain to Chad that in Old Town there are sometimes intoxicated persons that go to the wrong house and are usually adamant that they are at the right house. I told him it could be that this was the case here and that probably the subject thought the comments about a gun were made as a joke being played by likewise intoxicated companions. I also told him that we do have burglaries in Key West and it was best to keep the windows and doors locked.”

Jennifer Morrissey — who said she is a psychiatric nurse back in Kansas City — is adamant that the attack was real and the intruder was bent on violence. “It was such an intense situation,” she emailed police. “We have three beautiful babies at home in Missouri and our lives flashed before our eyes.”

Chad Morrissey — who said he is logistics manager for a well-known online sporting goods distributor — also is adamant that the intruder meant him and his wife harm. Not only was the stranger pulling like mad to open the door and get inside, he knew he was at the wrong house, Morrissey told KonkLife.

“When I was younger I used to bartend in Kansas City and I’ve had to deal with drunks and all kinds of aggressive people,” he said. “This guy was not mumbling, was not unsteady on his feet. When he spoke, his words were not slurred. I could feel the bad energy coming from him on the other side of the door. He was going to hurt us.”

Nor was the man confused about the house, Morrissey told KonkLife.

“He knew this was not his house. Why else would he run away when the police came?

Police spokesperson Alyson Crean sent an email to neighbors and victims of the so-called cemetery burglar about the Morrissey’s experience, explaining the police don’t believe that incident is related to the serial burglaries.

“The description of this incident does not fit the burglaries that have been associated with the graveyard burglaries, as that suspect has fled when confronted by residents,” Crean wrote. “This suspect did not enter the house, and the interaction of the shouting residents and the response by the suspect did not lead officers to believe this was the burglary suspect.”

“If it wasn’t him, then there’s somebody in the neighborhood that the other people who live in those neighborhoods need to know about,” Chad Morrissey said. 

 

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]