Amanda Bennett & Sebastian Dowell: She was a staunch Christian. He believed in demons and human sacrifice. One of their worldviews will prevail. Which one?
Henry Laird: No mother should have to live in terror of her children. But Linda had good reason to fear. Her son was a monster.
Joshua Mooney: The Robinson family had always loved Christmas. This year, their joy will be derailed – by a teen with a gun.
Fredrich Lochridge Jr: A child goes missing from her bed in the middle of the night. Her stepbrother appears jumpy. What is he hiding?
Joel Loarca: He was a scrawny runt of a kid with plenty of attitude and aggression on tap. He has a 357. Magnum tucked in his waistband. Don’t try him.
Tia Skinner: Mara was only trying to do her best for her adopted daughter, steering her away from a bad relationship. The intervention wasn’t appreciated.
Jacob Morgan: Jacob claimed that the fire broke out while he was asleep, trapping his baby brother in the burning trailer. The clues point elsewhere.
Killer Kids Volume 19
Jacob Morgan
“There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth.” The quote is often attributed to film producer Robert Evans, although no one really knows its true origin. Whatever its source, the saying carries a profound kernel of wisdom. Truth is often elusive, tainted by biases and perspective. Nowhere is that more evident than in the case of Jacob Matthew Morgan.
Back in 2015, Jacob was a 17-year-old, living with his mom, Julie, his mom’s fiancé, Myke Hill, and his half-brother, Joshua, 14-months old. The family lived in a mobile home on Catawba Church Road in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Jacob was described as a kind-hearted young man who loved his younger brother and was always giving him piggyback rides around the house, and goofing around to make him laugh.
That is one side of the story. There is another. This one portrayed Jacob Morgan as a deeply troubled kid who had been diagnosed with multiple mental health issues, including bipolar disorder, oppositional defiance disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. The 17-year-old had the mental age of someone five years younger and was prone to violent outbursts. He made frequent threats against his family, and sometimes he followed through on those threats. Local law enforcement knew his address well. They’d responded to multiple calls there, usually after Jacob attacked family members. The boy also had a troubling fascination with fire and had been flagged as a budding pyromaniac.
At around 8:30 a.m. on Friday, March 6, 2015, Myke Hill left the house to drive his fiancée, Julie Morgan, to work. Jacob was left to babysit Josh. He’d done this many times before and had always proven to be a reliable childminder.
This day, however, would be different. At around 8:45, a neighbor was startled by someone banging on his door. He opened it to find Jacob Morgan on his porch, barefoot, covered in soot, his hair singed. Jacob was babbling about a fire and about his brother being trapped inside the house. The neighbor looked in that direction and spotted smoke. At the same time, another neighbor looked out of his bedroom window and saw the Morgan/Hill trailer engulfed in flame, smoke pouring out of the windows. Both men called 911. They weren’t the only ones to do so. Emergency services was suddenly inundated with calls reporting the fire.
Jacob, though, wasn’t going to wait for help to arrive. He sprinted back to the burning trailer, where a crowd had now gathered. Neighbors were on hand to stop him as he tried to re-enter the home. The fire had grown into an inferno. To enter would have been suicide. Frustrated, the boy threw himself to the ground, crying hysterically, slamming his head against the packed earth. He was still in the midst of that meltdown when the first fire truck pulled up.
Firefighters got quickly to work, rolling out hoses and directing them at the flames. They soon had the fire under control, allowing a team to enter the ruined trailer. It was here that the tragic cost of the blaze was revealed. Fourteen-month-old Joshua Hill was dead in his crib, overcome by toxic smoke, seared by the intense heat.
One thing was clear, even at this early stage. The fire had two separate points of origin. Since it is highly unlikely for that to have happened spontaneously, it suggested arson. Jacob Morgan was brought to the sheriff’s office to answer questions. He initially said that he had fallen asleep and woken to find the house filled with smoke. He’d then run to a neighbor for help. The police did not believe him... and with good reason. Just two weeks earlier, the fire department had been called to extinguish a blaze at the same address, a fire Morgan admitted to starting.
And so, the detectives kept probing. Why had he not called 911 when he had a cellphone? Why had he not brought his baby brother out of the house with him when he fled? How could an ‘accidental’ fire have started in two locations? Morgan couldn’t answer these inquiries.
As the questions kept coming, so the boy’s story started to evolve. First, he admitted that he had set fire to the strings of a sofa cushion in the lounge. Then, he added that he’d dropped a tea candle onto a blanket in the master bedroom, where his baby brother was asleep. He had not done this to hurt his brother, he insisted. He’d just wanted to see what would happen. But the fire had taken hold faster than he expected. He’d tried to stomp it out, but he wasn’t wearing shoes and could not do so without being burned. That was when he decided to run to his neighbor’s house for help.
By the time Julie Morgan arrived at the sheriff’s office that afternoon, she learned that her son had written out a statement admitting that he’d set the fire with the intention of harming his baby brother. Julie doubted this, noting that her son had learning disabilities and could barely write a paragraph, let alone a full statement. But the police had their confession. Jacob Morgan was charged with intentional and voluntary murder and first-degree arson. He would be tried as an adult and faced the possibility of life in prison if convicted.
But that conviction was by no means guaranteed. This was not exactly a slam dunk case. The ‘confession’ would undoubtedly have come under scrutiny at trial, and the defense was already preparing an argument that the fire was accidental, caused by a pillow falling against a heater. Add to that the defendant’s learning disabilities, and prosecutors faced a challenge getting a conviction.
The defense case was hardly on solid ground either. Their client had a record of violent behavior and had very recently started a fire at the same location. It would not take much of a stretch for a jury to reason that he’d done so again. This time, his actions had caused the death of a toddler. Jurors are swayed by such things.
Given the uncertainty of the outcome, it should be no surprise that the two sides got together to thrash out a deal. Jacob Morgan would be allowed to plead to reduced charges of involuntary manslaughter, third-degree arson, and unlawful conduct toward a child. He would accept a 15-year term for manslaughter and a 15-year suspended sentence for arson. He would also be allowed to enter an Alford plea, that is, he would not be required to plead guilty, only to accept that the state had sufficient evidence to convict him.
No one was really happy with the plea agreement. Morgan’s supporters believed that he was being held accountable for a tragic accident and that the case should never have been brought to trial. His detractors thought that he’d gotten away with the murder of a baby. Either way, Jacob Morgan was sent off to begin serving his sentence, knowing that, with good behavior, he might be out in just seven years.
And Morgan was a good inmate, participating in various programs and completing his high school diploma via the GED. He was up for parole in 2021 but was turned down. Most inmates are on their first application. Morgan was back before the review board in May 2022. Asked about his brother’s death, he replied that he would change places with Joshua in a heartbeat. “Not a day goes by that I don’t regret my brother’s death,” he told a board member. However, he stopped short of taking responsibility for his actions. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” was all he would say.
Jacob Morgan was paroled in 2022, having served just half of his sentence. He will remain on probation for five years. Should he fail to comply with the conditions of his release, his suspended 15-year sentence for arson will become active, and he will be returned to prison. One gets the impression that will not happen. Jacob Morgan seems like a poster child for rehabilitation.
There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. Jacob Morgan and his supporters will have you believe that he has been hard done by, punished for an accident he didn’t cause and could not have avoided. Law enforcement will tell you that his actions were irresponsible at best, although probably malicious. They will insist that he got off lightly. And the truth? The truth is that a fire was started and that an innocent child, a baby, died. Everything else is irrelevant.
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