Tip leads to body of Donna Morrow -- missing for 12 years Tip leads to body of Donna Morrow -- missing for 12 years (September 24, 2003)

** Menlo Park woman's jailed husband is murder suspect.

By Andrea Gemmet
Almanac Staff Writer

Donna Morrow's mother wants to bring her daughter home and bury her by the little country church in Missouri where she worshipped as a child.

Now, thanks to an amazing break in the 12-year-old unsolved case, it appears that Shirley Rubio may finally be able to do just that.

Menlo Park Police Chief Chris Boyd announced at a press conference September 18 that a new lead guided investigators to the buried remains of Ms. Morrow, a 37-year-old Menlo Park resident and mother of four, who was reported missing just before Christmas 1991.

Using dental records, the body that was recovered in the Santa Cruz Mountains on September 13 was positively identified as Ms. Morrow by the San Mateo County Coroner's Office, he said. The property where Ms. Morrow's body was found had been searched within months after she disappeared.

Knowing that her daughter's body has finally been found is a relief, said Ms. Rubio.

"If I had any doubts that she was still alive, it would have been different," she said. "But as soon as she went missing, I knew. I had to accept it. I'm glad they found her remains. Now we can put her to rest."

Police intend to file a case with the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office charging Joseph Morrow with his wife's murder, said Chief Boyd.

The discovery of the body was the latest revelation in one of Menlo Park's oldest and most frustrating unsolved cases.

In January, FBI agents working off a lead from Menlo Park police found Mr. Morrow, 55, living under an assumed name in a small town in the Philippines near Manila. He had been missing since 1993, when he failed to surrender for a six-month jail sentence for a felony grand theft fraud conviction in Santa Clara County.

Menlo Park police were suspicious of Mr. Morrow almost from the start, questioning why he waited four days to report his wife missing, and why a woman described as a devoted mother would abandon her four young children just before the holidays, leaving behind a closetful of half-wrapped Christmas presents.

Former Menlo Park police chief Bruce Cumming said that Mr. Morrow's suicide attempt in a Bodega Bay motel about a month after Donna's disappearance clinched it for him.

"When he tried to kill himself in Bodega Bay, I knew that he was our man," Mr. Cumming said.

Police noted that none of the 24 suicide notes Mr. Morrow wrote mentioned his wife. Several days after the attempt, police searched the Morrows' home on College Avenue and discovered bloodstains. Twice during 1992, law enforcement officials searched the Morrows' undeveloped 36-acre Los Gatos property looking for Ms. Morrow's remains, but didn't find anything.

Police obtained an arrest warrant charging Mr. Morrow with murder in 1997, and in 1999, the FBI obtained a federal warrant charging Mr. Morrow with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

After his arrest on January 14 in the Philippines, Mr. Morrow was deported and served seven months in prison on federal passport fraud charges in Colorado. He is now serving a two-year state prison term after admitting on September 17 to violating his probation on the grand theft fraud conviction, said Jack Grandsaert, the San Mateo County deputy district attorney who had been preparing to prosecute the murder case against Mr. Morrow without Donna's body.

"I think our case is much improved," Mr. Grandsaert said.

Chief Boyd wouldn't give details on what led them to her body, saying only that investigators were working from relatively specific information when they excavated an area of a property that was owned by Mr. Morrow at the time of his wife's disappearance.

A source knowledgeable about the investigation said that the tip that led to Donna Morrow's body was not the result of a confession by Mr. Morrow.

Police would not say whether the cause of death had been determined. County Coroner Robert Foucrault said his office's investigation is ongoing. While there are a lot of challenges in dealing with such old remains, "in this case, we've been successful in everything we've done."

Chief Boyd said it was possible that DNA evidence would play a role in the case.

He credited Sgt. Jim Simpson, who has been investigating the case since the very beginning, for his relentless work.

"Sgt. Simpson has been in front on this lead and every lead," he said.

Sgt. Simpson, who has kept in regular contact with Ms. Morrow's family, was the one who made the call to Ms. Rubio a couple of days before the press conference to tell her that her daughter's body finally had been found.

"He's just been an angel," said Ms. Rubio. "He's worked very hard on this."

Ms. Rubio, who lives in West Plains, Missouri, said she is looking forward to meeting Sgt. Simpson in person and that she plans to come to California when the case goes to trial.

"It's been a long 12 years," she said.

It's also been a difficult year. Just four months ago, she lost her son to cancer. He was 37 -- the same age Donna was when she disappeared, Ms. Rubio said.