Main, left to right: Cassidy Ritchie (Tulsa Police Dept.) and Chris E. Morland (Tulsa County Jail). Inset: The car in which Morland hid Ritchie’s body (Tulsa Police Dept.).
A 50-year-old man in Oklahoma will spend the remainder of his days behind bars for killing his wife, beating the 39-year-old woman to death less than two weeks after they were married and then hiding her body beneath a pile of clothes in the trunk of her car.
Tulsa County District Judge Doug Drummond on Monday ordered Chris Edward Morland to serve life without the chance for parole in an Oklahoma prison for the 2024 slaying of Cassidy Ritchie, court records show. The sentence was handed down after a jury on Thursday unanimously found Morland guilty on one count of first-degree murder. Drummond accepted jurors’ recommendation that Morland be sentenced to life without parole.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, police found Ritchie dead in the back of her 2006 Chrysler Pacifica on Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024.
Authorities said that Ritchie had last been seen alive on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024. She was reported missing by family members after they had not heard from her and were unable to reach her for several days.
The Tulsa Police Department on Jan. 25 put out a “missing and endangered” alert for Ritchie in which they described her light blue SUV and noted that she “has been involved in a domestic disturbance.” The vehicle was discovered abandoned on the highway the following day in what appeared to be suspicious circumstances, police said.
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In a Facebook post, police attached a photograph of Ritchie’s SUV showing significant damage to the front right, front bumper, and hood of the vehicle. Authorities also noted that her car had “extensive off-road debris on it” at the time it was discovered. The post again reiterated that Ritchie “has been involved in prior domestic violence incidents.”
Two days later, after obtaining a search warrant, Ritchie’s body was discovered.
Prosecutors said police soon learned that Morland, who formally married Ritchie on Jan. 7, 2024, was the last person to have seen the victim alive. Morland was located and taken into custody a short time later and found to have a key to the Pacifica on his person.
The newlywed man’s explanation for what happened to his wife changed as investigators continued to uncover new evidence.
“Defendant told officers that the last place he saw [Ritchie] was in the Pacifica, when she took it and left him to go live with her friend,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. “According to Defendant, he needed to get a ride from a friend from where [Ritchie] left him on January 23, 2024. Officers reached out to this friend, who denied ever giving a ride to Defendant on that day. However, officers were able to speak with a witness who actually had given Defendant a ride on January 24. That witness informed officers that when he picked Defendant up. Defendant was standing just outside the Pacifica, which had run off the road.”
When police confronted Morland with the contradictory evidence, he agreed to waive his Miranda rights and “voluntarily confessed to killing his wife.”
“He stated ‘it all went bad,’ and admitted that they had gotten into a fight,” court documents state. “He admitted to assaulting her during the fight. He stated the fight happened at night, and that when he returned to his car the next day he discovered she was dead. He stated he placed her body in the trunk of the car and covered her with clothing.”
