NEW CITY — A Bronxville police sergeant killed his wife and their two sons before shooting himself to death inside their Clarkstown home in December of 2023, the New York State Attorney General determined.
A report from the Office of Special Investigations, released on Friday, Aug. 23, concluded that Sgt. Watson Morgan was “solely responsible for the deaths of himself, Ornela Morgan, and their two sons. Therefore, OSI has no basis to seek charges against any living person.”
Clarkstown police found the four bodies
The report mirrored the conclusion reached by investigators after Clarkstown police found the four bodies with gunshot wounds at about 12:20 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 30, 2023, inside 10 Clydesdale Court. The Bronxville police had asked Clarkstown to conduct a welfare check because Morgan hadn’t reported to work the previous night.
Morgan, 49, his wife Ornela, 43, and sons, Gabriel, 12, and Liam, 10, were pronounced dead inside the house. The report follows an investigation that included forensic, physical, and ballistics analysis.
Clarkstown Police Department Crime Scene officers recovered two 9mm shell casings in the living room and two 9mm shell casings in the bedroom where Liam Morgan and Watson Morgan’s bodies were found.
The officers also found a 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol, registered to Morgan, lying next to his body. The pistol had a capacity, if fully loaded, of 16 rounds, with 15 bullets in the magazine and one bullet in the firing chamber. Officers found the recovered gun had 10 bullets in the magazine and one in the firing chamber, indicating it had been fired five times.
“A full review of the evidence supports the conclusion that Sergeant Morgan was solely responsible for the deaths of Ornela Morgan, Liam Morgan, Gabriel Morgan, and himself,” the report states. “OSI found no evidence indicating that any other person was involved.”
Shocked communities in Clarkstown and the Bronx mourned
The deaths shocked the family’s personal, work, and school communities, especially where the two young boys attended school at Laurel Plains Elementary School and Felix Festa Middle School in the Clarkstown school district, and where Ornela Morgan taught at the One World Middle School at Edenwald in the Bronx.
More than 500 people filled the Bronx school’s auditorium to honor the school’s technology teacher and tech coordinator. More than 1,000 people gathered in Germonds Park in West Nyack for a candlelight vigil on Jan. 4, 2024, to share memories of Ornela, Gabriel, and Liam Morgan. Speakers didn’t mention Watson Morgan.
Motive unknown for Clarkstown murder-suicide
Bronxville Police Chief Christopher Satriale said last year that the grisly murder-suicide committed by Morgan was unrelated to his police work. Speculation had been raised largely because he was under disciplinary investigation at the time of the murder-suicide. However, the incident at issue was relatively minor, not dissimilar from other discipline Morgan had received in the past.
Morgan apparently was going to retire after 15 years with Bronxville. He started with the NYPD in 2000 and joined the Bronxville Department in 2007, Satriale said in a statement at the time of the deaths.
Morgan had been assigned to the detective division in 2014 and promoted to sergeant in 2016. He was a certified New York State youth officer.
State law authorizes the Attorney General’s Office through its Special Investigation Unit to investigate, and, if warranted, to prosecute offenses arising from any incident in which the death of a person is caused by a police officer or a peace officer.
The Rockland Medical Examiner, Dr. Laura Carbone, conducted all four autopsies. She determined that Ornela Morgan and Liam Morgan both died of a perforating gunshot wound to the back of the head. Gabriel Morgan died of two gunshot wounds, to the back of the head and one to the right side of his head.
Carbone determined Morgan died of a single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the right side of his head. He didn’t have signs of alcohol or drugs in his body.
Steve Lieberman covers government, breaking news, courts, police, and investigations. Reach him at slieberm@lohud.com Twitter: @lohudlegal. Read more articles and bio. Our local coverage is only possible with support from our readers.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: New York AG confirms Bronxville cop killed wife, two sons, himself in New City home
Reporting by Steve Lieberman, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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