The Suspicious Death of Morgan Patten Part 1 (North Carolina)

She was supposed to be spending a weekend with her fiancé celebrating their engagement. Morgan Renee Patten made the day-long trip from Martha’s Vineyard to Jacksonville to see her Marine, who was with the School of Infantry at Camp Geiger just outside of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

But Morgan never got to see her fiance. Her life ended in a car accident with two strangers in a remote town far from where she was staying. To this day, the details just don’t add up for Morgan’s parents, Steve and Renee Patten. 

What happened at the restaurant bar? How did Morgan end up in that truck? Will the two strangers with Morgan in that accident ever speak up? The Pattens will not stop until they have all the answers. This is about justice for their baby girl. 

“They told us that Morgan just had too much to drink and she made a bad decision and it’s nothing but an unfortunate DWI fatality and there’s nothing further from the truth,” Steven told me.

She had traveled 13 hours to get to North Carolina from her home in Edgartown, Massachusetts. After dinner at a restaurant in the same parking lot as her hotel, Morgan told her parents she was heading to bed. So how did Morgan, a woman from New England who knew no one but her fiancé in Jacksonville, North Carolina, who had traveled a full day to see him and only him, end up in a fatal car accident with two strangers in a small town miles away from the hotel where she was staying? 

For Morgan’s parents, the details just don’t add up. Two unknown men. Conflicting statements by bartenders. An unpaid bar tab. No seatbelt. Excessive speed. A gun. 

“I really want everybody to know the injustice of Morgan Patton’s story,” Steve Patten continued, “and I want people to be outraged.”