| 1/27/2005 3:00:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Friend says illness may have led to death in creek
By: Wayne Engle
Courier Staff Writer
Nancy Morgan, who was found dead about a mile from her home on Old S.R. 62 Friday afternoon, suffered from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., according to a friend with whom she lived.
Steve Humphrey said today that Morgan took prescribed medication to control the disorder, but still sometimes had episodes when she became disoriented and very physically hot.
Morgan’s death was ruled as being due to hypothermia, or exposure, according to Jefferson County Coroner Alice Carlson Jackson. An Indiana State Police detective who is in charge of the investigation said Monday there were no signs of foul play, but the investigation is continuing.
“I feel sure she got disoriented,” Humphrey said. “She was a good driver, but she went right off the road” in her car. He said he believes Morgan suffered an episode caused by her condition.
When one of the episodes came on her, Morgan, 36, would become terribly hot and disoriented, Humphrey said.
“She’d just walk around in circles, and I’d have to get her and sit her down. It would hit her so bad she’d be pacing the floor, and say, ‘I’ve just got to drive a little bit,’ ” Humphrey said.
He said that after Morgan’s body was found and he got a chance to look over the scene, he noticed that her tracks in the snow that was then on the ground went around and around in circles.
“You could tell by the tracks she was very disoriented,” he said.
Humphrey said he was asleep Thursday night but believes Morgan left the house at about midnight. The coroner said she could not pinpoint an exact time for Morgan’s death.
Humphrey awoke Friday to find her car gone. A little later, two men who work for Humphrey, who is a foreman for Davis Construction Co., found her purse and brought it to Humphrey. “She was always laying things on top of her car, then forgetting and driving off with them up there,” he said.
When Morgan hadn’t returned by Friday afternoon, Humphrey called the police. He also informed the men working for him that he needed a search crew to look for Morgan.
At about 3:30 p.m. they found her on the bank of a creek beside Old S.R. 62.
“It looked like she’d gotten into the creek, then really struggled trying to get out of there, but she didn’t make it. Terrible death,” Humphrey said.
He said Morgan’s condition would cause her to begin a task, such as washing clothes at home, then forget she was doing it. Clinical information available on the Internet lists symptoms of A.D.H.D. as inattention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness.
She had lived with Humphrey for six months, but never completely unpacked her car, he said.
“You can’t get inside somebody else’s mind and see how they think. But here at home, she waited on me hand and foot. I would come home and she’d take off my shoes, make sure I was comfortable,” Humphrey recalled.
He sighed.
“I cared a lot for her, and I felt a lot for her.”
Detective Tracy Rohlfing of the Indiana State Police, who is in charge of the investigation, could not be reached today about its progress.
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