Mary Morris Murders - Blog Posts

The Mysterious Deaths of Mary Morris and Mary Morris

May 23, 2022

On October 12, 2000, Mary Lou Morris (48 years old) left her house to go to work, where she worked as a bank loan officer and was never seen again. Her husband Jay tried calling her throughout the day, but did not hear back from her. Mary Lou also never showed up to work. 

A badly burned body was found in the remains of a car shortly after and the body was identified as Mary Lou Morris. She was found only three miles from her home. Because her body had been so badly burned it was hard to tell what her cause of death had been, and homicide wasn’t really on the table because there was no reason for it. Mary had no enemies and appeared to be well liked. 

Three days after Mary Lou Morris was found deceased, the body of another woman was found deceased in her car in almost the same spot and nearly the same circumstances as Mary Lou Morris had been found in. The strangest part? This woman was also named Mary Morris, Mary McGinnis Morris to be exact and she had been 39 years old at the time of her death. 

Mary McGinnis Morris was a nurse practitioner who was in charge of various clinics and it was discovered that she had actually been afraid of a man she worked with. One night, Mary had found her office in disarray, and noticed that on the man’s desk it said, “Death to her” written on it. Mary told her husband, Mike, that she had wanted a gun to be able to protect herself, and she kept it under her car’s driver seat. 

A few weeks later, Mary McGinnis Morris met with her friend, a woman named Laurie Gemmell to give her an allergy shot. Laurie claimed that Mary seemed fine and told her she was staying at the clinic for a few more hours, then she was going to run errands before going home and making dinner. Later that day, Laurie said she got an alarming phone call from Mary, telling her that she had seen someone in the drug store that gave her the creeps. 

Mary told Laurie she was going to go back to work, sign off on her computer and go home. Twelve minutes after this phone call Mary called 911. She was frantic, claiming she had been abducted and attacked. She was found dead shortly after this and it was determined that she had been beaten and then shot to death. The killer staged the scene to make it look like a suicide, and investigators found blood on the passenger door, that was left open with the keys outside of the car. 

The coworker Mary was afraid of and her husband Mike became suspects. Mike Morris claimed he was at the movies with his daughter at the time of the murder, but he did refuse to take a polygraph test and did not allow his daughter to be interviewed. He hired an attorney after the murder and investigators discovered that Mike and Mary were having problems in their marriage. 

Shortly before Mary was murdered, Mike had confronted her about an alleged affair she was having with a friend. There was also a $700,000 life insurance policy on Mary and Mike had called Mary’s cell phone around the time that she was murdered. The call lasted 4 minutes, and it was believed that Mike had been calling the killer, though Mike claimed he called Mary and she just didn’t answer and also that the 4 minutes was a mistake the phone company made; the call did not last 4 minutes according to Mike.

Because there were so many similarities between Mary Lou Morris and Mary McGinnis Morris, many theories have arose as to how two women, living in the same area, with the same name, could be killed only days apart. 

One of the first theories was that a contract had been put on Mary McGinnis Morris’ life, but the killer had accidentally killed Mary Lou Morris. Realizing the mistake, the hitman then went and killed the intended target, Mary McGinnis Morris, a few days later. A person had apparently called into a Houston newspaper who said that this was true. This makes sense because the two Mary’s lived in close proximity to one another and were similar in appearance. 

Investigators believe that these two murders are just a coincidence, but many of the women’s families do not. If the cases are not related, then there are no suspects in the death of Mary Lou Morris. The coworker is the obvious suspect in Mary McGinnis Morris’ death. 

A strange part about Mary Lou Morris’ case is that 6 months after her death, her husband received a $2000 bill for his wife’s phone card. Police eventually traced this phone card to a 16 year old girl who told them she had found the purse with the card and other belongings the month prior, just sitting in a parking lot of a Galveston convenience store. Mary Lou’s family did not recognize the purse as being hers. Jay Morris also received three phone calls from someone asking for Mary and the caller has never been identified. 

Is it possible these two women were killed coincidentally only days apart?