David Lee Morse, Collin Joshua Russell, Tanna Shelton Fitzgerald, and Casey Lynn Rogers (left to right) were charged with murdering Morse’s wife, Pamela S. Morse. Fitzgerald died of an overdose before trial, but the others were convicted. (Screenshot: WDBJ)
The final defendant has been sentenced for helping a retired sheriff’s investigator murder his wife in cold blood.
Casey Lynn Rogers, 30, is set to serve 60 years in a Virginia prison, with the rest of her 108-year term suspended, Henry County Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Jessica Henson told Law&Crime on Thursday.
That’s more than the 30 years active prison sentence (with 30 years suspended) that the lead defendant, former Henry County sheriff’s investigator David Lee Morse, is serving and more than the 55-year active term (with 35 years suspended) served by Rogers’ boyfriend, Collin Joshua Russell, 40. The fourth defendant, Morse’s mistress, Tanna Shelton Fitzgerald, was 54 when she overdosed on a prescription at the Henry County Jail and died at the hospital.
It all started with defendants Morse and Fitzgerald.
According to documents, Morse went behind his wife, Pamela S. Morse, 63, to start a physical relationship with Fitzgerald. He said he loved his spouse, did not want her murdered, and did not ask Fitzgerald to plan the killing, but he claimed his mistress was getting obsessive with him and pushed him to leave the victim, though he did not take her apparent threats of “get[ting] rid” of her seriously.
At trial, Morse maintained that while he unplugged the security cameras facing the home three or four days before the May 13, 2020, murder, it was to recharge his wife’s wheelchair.
But documents showed that Morse and Fitzgerald texted each other often.
“We are going to be together soon,” she texted on May 10, 2020.
“Yes, we are,” Morse wrote back.
Morse texted her on May 11, 2020, about a deck he was building at his home.
“Damn honey our porch is looking wonderful I like that,” she wrote on May 11, 2020. “That is beautiful be glad when it’s just yours.”
“I LOVE YOU HONEY,” Morse wrote back. “COFFEE ON THE PORCH IN THE [MORNINGS].”
In the early morning of May 13, while David was at work for Hanes Brands, Fitzgerald texted him about the number and whereabouts of the cameras.
“Not a problem,” Morse wrote back. “Disarmed.” Then he added, “Unplugged.”
When Fitzgerald asked whether someone else — “she” — might have plugged them back in, he wrote, “no.”
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According to an initial press statement about her death, Virginia State Police said her husband returned home from work at 8 a.m. on May 13 to find her dead.
The Henry County Sheriff’s Office initially responded to the case, but the sheriff, who was the second officer on the scene, suspected that David Morse might be a suspect, so the office gave the case to state cops, said Henry County Commonwealth’s Attorney Andrew Nester in his opening statement in Rogers’ trial, according to The Martinsville Bulletin.
“The is a case of betrayal and lies,” he said. “Two shots to the head. It was cold-blooded murder.”
Pamela Morse’s Jeep was missing from the driveway, but investigators tracked it down because she left her cellphone in it.
“They passed a truck with Tanna Fitzgerald in it, and something just didn’t look right to them,” Nester said. “They found the truck in a driveway of a residence nearby and learned that she was David Morse’s girlfriend, lover, paramour — whatever you want to call it.”
Rogers and her boyfriend, Russell, lived at the home where Fitzgerald parked.
“Russell came out of the woods, and that’s where they found the Jeep Compass, except it wasn’t burgundy anymore — it was black,” Nester said. “Rogers claimed she had been there the whole time and didn’t know anything about anything.”
But authorities searched the 13-acre wooded area and discovered guns and paint cans. They also found items belonging to Pamela and David Morse. The evidence included the murder weapon — a silver .357 magnum revolver buried in a box.
Rogers purchased meth and heroin for Fitzgerald, Nester said.
David Morse and Fitzgerald attempted to overdose Pamela with heroin, the prosecutor said.
Authorities reportedly spoke to Rogers a second time. She claimed she was outside the Morse home when she heard “two booms” and that Fitzgerald ran out of the home, threw her and Russell’s keys, and told them to get out there.
Her attorney, John Swezey, told jurors his client “just got caught up in a terrible event.”
It was David Morse and Fitzgerald who plotted the murder, he said. He maintained his client was Morse and Fitzgerald’s “fall girl.”
“She was not inside the house, nor did she see any part of it,” Swezey said. “This little girl’s life is on the line here. She’s not an angel, but she’s not a murderer either.”
Henson, one of the attorneys who prosecuted the case, told Law&Crime that she and her office feel justice was served with every defendant they prosecuted, and they are happy to give Pamela Morse’s family some closure.
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