BACHE, Okla. — Someone gunned down two young mothers in Bache, just outside of McAlester, leaving their families devastated and without answers.
Emily Morgan and Totinika Elix lived in the Oklahoma City area in 2016. Morgan needed to go to McAlester and asked Elix to go with her. They left their children with Elix’s boyfriend.
Colleen McCarty is the Executive Director of Oklahoma Appleseed, a non-profit focused on criminal and juvenile justice.
2 News sat down with her to discuss the what happened on August 26th.
“One night, Ty and Emily drove out to Bache, which is right outside of McAlester, and it was late at night. We know that they stopped at a McDonalds around 11:30 and that they were in McAlester and we think that they picked up someone and then they drove to this abandoned house outside of McAlester, said McCarty. The next morning, they were both found shot in the head outside of a house underneath a carport," said McCarty.
Kim Merryman is the mother of Emily Morgan and remembers her daughter as a dynamic child. "She was a single mom, and she had her son when she was 16, and before that, softball was her love, and then Payden became her love after she became a mom."
Merryman said her daughter was a good mother but struggled with substance abuse on and off over the years.
"Emily had gone to treatment a few months before, and she had been clean, and she had been doing real well. When all of these unmanageability things started happening, I suspected that she had relapsed and so I was trying to encourage her to get involved in her recovery,” said Merryman.
McCarty said a motive isn’t clear in this case, but she believes it involved drugs.
“It’s not super clear why Emily went to McAlester that night. We know that she had a relationship with a man there that was a business relationship and it was suspected that she was moving some pills for him,” said McCarty.
Later that night, Merryman said investigators showed up at her home and told her about her daughter’s death. She had her grandson with her by that time.
“He came running to me, and he said, 'Grammy, my momma said that if anything happened to her, you'll take care of me. Are you going to take care of me?'” Merryman said.
Merryman started raising her grandson eight years ago, all while searching for answers in her daughter’s death.
The Pittsburgh County Sheriff’s Office handed the case over to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, but the family said despite evidence at the scene there's been little movement on the case.
"The passenger side window was bashed in, glass everywhere, and a phone cord that was still plugged into the car was hanging out of the side window, so it looked like somebody had broken that window and grabbed the phone out in a hurry. The car keys were found in a field in the front yard of the house and sort of thrown away from the vehicle and the vehicle was locked,” said McCarty.
Kim Merryman has a plea for anyone with information. “I would like to say if you know something, it doesn't matter what it is or how small it is, or even if you know something and you're fearful about coming forward, there's ways to share that information without your identity being told."
Emily Morgan was a Choctaw tribal member. Oklahoma ranks 2nd for missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Anyone with information about the deaths of Emily Morgan and Totinika Elix can call the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-522-8017.
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