Jessie Nicole Morrison

Today I want to recognize Jessie Morrison as a human being, not just a victim.

She was so many things and I have been interviewing people that knew her and trying to get to know her. Sometimes it feels like I am trying to befriend a ghost.

(snagged with permission from her sister, Trista. A lot of the pictures used in this blog post will be from her.)

I think most people are intrigued by murder.

We are fascinated by the human condition and trying to figure out what lets someone slip into the taboo area where they become judge and executioner. We want to slip into the mind frame of both the murderer and the murdered. We want to understand it, we want to right the wrongs. 

So that leads us to justice. It is the only way to feel that we (those left behind) aren't powerless. That people can't take the most important thing in the world to you (a loved one) without any repercussions.  A part of that justice, I feel, is respecting the victim as something more than that. Respecting them by getting to know them and exactly what the world is now missing. I am hoping to do that in this post. 

I have taken some time to talk with her family, trying to not be pushy, so I didn't pursue speaking to anyone that might not have been comfortable with speaking to me. I did speak to 2 of her sisters and her mother, Tammy. 

One thing that is very obvious to me is that she was tough. Her mother told me that Jessie was very athletic and played softball most of her life. She was good at it and that has passed down to her son, Channing. 

She was 17 when she became pregnant with Channing (Willy was 27 or 28 at the time. He was born in 1984.)

She finished and graduated high school with her class. 

She loved children, not just her own. She was very close to her nephew, Jace and her niece, Kynlee. 

 Family was huge for Jessie. She didn't have her mom babysit her kids so she could go out and party or be "young", she stayed home with her kids. You don't see that a lot with young mothers.

She made friends easily and was outgoing and the life of any gathering. She had a great sense of humor and didn't take life too seriously.

Her family, all of them, will tell you she would always be there for them no matter what they needed. She put family and loyalty above all else. She took no shit and was brutally honest. She wasn't going to be nice to you if you didn't deserve it and she wasn't going to change herself to make you more comfortable. 

Her mother said she was a very loving person and a joy to be around. 

Her sister Trista said there were just too many things that made Jessie great to list them all. She told me that Jessie was a great mother and that she loved her boys more than anything else in the world. She also told me that she would do anything for her family and that she was a very giving person. Trista and Jessie were very very close. 

Her sister Kayla told me that she always had her their back no matter what. She told me about how tough and caring Jessie was 

The world is less without Jessie. 

We have one less friend, on less mother that loved her children, one less badass that knew how to stand up for what she believed in and we need all of those types of people we can get. 

I didn't know Jessie, I wasn't a friend of the family or even an acquaintance but even I can feel the loss. 

I just don't want us to lose sight of why we go over heartbreaking details that stir up feelings of pain and devastation. 

Her death wasn't easy and justice won't be either. 

Vonda is where she should be, but someone else isn't. 

We do this because she deserves complete justice, not just convenient justice. 

This isn't about having the most blog traffic or popularity this is about truth and justice for those Jessie was forced to leave behind. Let us never forget that.