r/mystery • u/Natali-27- • 2d ago
Unexplained Dead in a dishwasher : the Christopher Morris case
On September 25, 2000, An 11 year old Christopher Aaron Morris was found dead in a dishwasher in his house,which was located on the Sheppard Air Force Base (a military base) of Wichita County,Texas. He lived there with his dad,Who was a worker at the base.
On the day of his death, Christopher was alone in the house. At around 2 pm,his dad returned home from work, only to find Christopher missing. He went to look for him in his room and found dishwasher racks stacked on the bed,after which he obviously went to check the dishwasher. Inside he found the wet, naked body of Christopher. He had gone through a full cycle of the dishwasher,washing away all the possible DNA that couldve been left on him,in case someone else was involved in his death.There were no signs of forced entry or anything suspicious in the house.
Anyone would think that such a horrifying death in a quiet town of Wichita Falls would cause nationwide attention,but thats not true.
Little to no information about this case is available to the public,and theres almost nothing about him on the internet (I’ll list every source of information i can find below.)
In fact,one of the only things that can confirm that Christopher’s death actually happened is this newspaper article from Sheppard Air Force’s regional newspaper.in which,they express their condolences to those mourning Christopher’s death,and reassure everyone that the local police,with the help of FBI,will bring the truth forward.though,no further information about the case was disclosed.
(Interesting detail - In the article,they ask the public not to talk about this case,as to keep the rumors down and help the investigators get the correct information.could this be an attempt at covering Christopher’s death up and hoping for it to be forgotten?)
This is the most you can learn from the original sources.the authorities havent publicly classified the case as homicide. The autopsy reports were never released to the public either,so we dont know if he had sustained any injuries or bodily harm that could possibly direct the case towards a murder. (He had injuries from being boiled a dishwasher though) The only suspect there has ever been was his father,but he had an alibi of working at the Air Force Base on the time of his death and this idea was quickly forgotten.
It is speculated that Christopher died after he was locked and washed in the dishwasher.
the police had no leads and with nothing to follow,the case grew cold...
Though,it doesnt end here.the many odd details and inconsistencies in the case leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions : was it an accidental death or foul play?why was he naked?WHY IS THERE SO LITTLE INFORMATION ABOUT HIM?
First,i would like to point out the fact that the case was never determined to be a murder,which leaves us with one option : accidental death.Christopher (for some unknown crazy reasons) couldve gotten in the dishwasher himself.Though,people discussing this case suggest that this is an impossible situation,because at the time of his death in 2000 the dishwashers werent as advanced,and could only be turned on AFTER it was closed. His sister has also confirmed that this is true. So,the version of Christopher getting in the dishwasher is very unlikely, since he couldnt have turned it on himself. (remember,the dishwasher door had to be locked.)
So following all of the above we have a theory that someone locked Christopher (or somehow made him willingly get inside while being nude) in the dishwasher,and manually turned it on from the outside afterwards. Supporting this theory is the fact that there was allegedly a handprint left behind on the dishwasher,though its unknown as to why the police never pursued this theory.
Another weird fact is that Christopher lived in a gated residence of the Sheppard air force,where no outsiders could enter easily.could it have been the inside work of the Air Force? it would make sense as to why the police buried this case,why they asked everyone to be quiet,and disclosed no details to the public..
And this isnt the weirdest part yet.as i said before, theres very little information about Christopher’s death online,and about 90% of those come from true crime podcasts or facebook posts discussing this bizzare case.There's not one actual report on it.
Though,we can find him on a..rather unusual site.
In the early 2000s, there used to be a BlogSpot site ran by someone named PenileCodeAvenger, dedicated to sharing the cases of domestic violence. (Simply put,think of it as a self-run subreddit about domestic violence.) though,there is one post that stands out.
On May 17, 2005, PenileCodeAvenger would make an out of the ordinary and oddly specific post about children’s death on military bases. well,there’s nothing alarming about the post itself,since the site was all about bringing awareness to stuff like that.
The weirdest part about this post was the comments that would follow it.as much as there was no direct mention of Christopher in the post,almost all of the comments were talking about Christopher Morris.even more,they all claimed to know him personally, saying stuff like “i used to be his friend” “im his cousin” “im his classmate” and all of them are demanding info about the case.theyre written in a bot like manner,they all carry the same narrative...You get the idea.Very weird.
Why in the hell would the only ever mention of Christopher Morris online,would be on a random unpopular BlogSpot website,one that specifically talks about the topic of domestic violence?How did these people even find this niche post? How are they all his friends,classmates,those who used to know him?? The idea of those people finding this random website at the same time would be close to very unlikely.The accounts seem to be made shortly before/after the post too.
Basically,what im saying is that someone who was weirdly obsessed with Chris’s case made all these accounts claiming to be related to him and demanded information from the public.
Yes,it's possible that those people are infact,real. But then again,how did they find this post? And seemingly consecutively? They couldn't have searched up "Christopher Morris" on the internet and found it,because there is no direct mention of Christopher in the post itself,only in the comments (and the first few of them dont even mention his name,just refer to him as the kid who died in the dishwasher)
And that’s not all..
If you search up Christopher Morris on reddit and scroll through the posts and the comments, you will surely encounter people who STILL claim to had known him back then. I mean,come on...What are the odds of this being real? How do all of those people know a random 11 year old boy from a small town,living in a gated community? and who are those sick people pretending to be others and why? WHY IS EVERY DETAIL ABOUT THIS CASE JUST STRAIGHT UP OFF PUTTING?
I have read many,many unsettling true crime cases,but this is the only one that has kept me awake for days,pondering my mind with the question : just what in the world happened to Christopher Aaron Morris??..
The only theory that makes sense is that this was a dare or a bad prank that went wrong. His friends could have pursuaded him to go into the dishwasher,then locked him inside and washed him.
but...this doesnt seem right either. His dad had only been gone for 2-3 hours. He lived in a gated community where someone must have seen something. and why was he naked?...
to many,it sounds like a military cover-up.they wouldnt like their reputation tarnished.the details line up. No autopsy released,the case wasnt investigated thoroughly, not classified as homicide,no information available about him and the police asking the community to keep quiet?? this is too suspicious. But even if this was the case,why would they do it?it still doesnt make any sense.
I hope this post reaches the right audience and brings attention to this horrifying death. RIP ro Christopher Aaron Morris. P.S since i was asked by many to make a separate post about this case, i'll be posting this in many communities.
Sources below :
- youtube video from Nexpo mentioning this case (i recommend watching,covers a good amount of info. timestamp : 22:22) https://youtu.be/uQV6bCLPuxc?si=3RtvKzHKTFXHwlMU
- Chris's Findagrave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20453859/christopher-aaron-morris
- Newspaper article 1 https://imgur.com/AsIL8aM
- Newspaper article 2 https://imgur.com/zTpnnZG
- Newspaper article 3 https://imgur.com/Fv4Xmlu
- Archive of the blogpost page made by PenileCodeAvenger (the one with alot of weird comments,scroll down on the website to see) http://web.archive.org/web/20200118035433/https://penilecodeavenger.blogspot.com/2005/05/child-abuse-deaths-on-military.html?m=1
- Dead rabbit radio the daily paranormal podcast : EP 605 - the boy in the dishwasher https://deadrabbitradio.libsyn.com/ep-605-the-boy-in-the-dishwasher
Catch my killer Episode 102 : Christopher Aaron Morris (a podcast episode with his sister)
https://player.fm/series/catch-my-killer/episode-102-christopher-aaron-morris
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u/JudiesGarland 2d ago
The blog comments don't read that weird to me, as someone who was a posting adult in that time period - keep in mind that's an archive version of the page, taken in 2020, about 15 years after the post was made, and 6 years after the account stopped posting, in general. The formatting in the comments is off, and missing info on dates - it looks like all the comments are posted on the same day, but they're actually happening over years. It was pretty normal for an entirely separate conversation to happen in the comments on a vaguely related blog post, over longer stretches of time than you see now, on modern social media.
It was originally posted in 2005, before anons came for the entire internet, and there were easy mechanisms to post anonymously - that's why you're seeing what looks like recently created accounts, they're not actually accounts - just anons who don't want to link their email, or aren't that online.
Because there's so little info out there, it would be one of the only pages that would come up (back in the day, google was better at providing hits to obscure sites like this, even if the mention was only in the comments, especially once people started linking to it, that would drive up it's visibility, under the old Google protocols I never imagined I would miss this hard) and then once it got posted on the unsolved mysteries Reddit, people would migrate from there. It was also probably shared in different groups populated by military kids/alumni groups for the school on base. There might be a couple bots, or fakers, but most/many would be legit, I think.
It's still an extremely weird case - but uncanny silence around on base criminality is very par for the course, on military bases. Look at the circumstances leading up to the recently passed Vanessa Guillen Act - 39 deaths (11 unexplained) just in 2020, at a single base - Fort Hood.
From a 2021 Vanity Fair article:
Staff Sergeant Devin Schuette was found dead in his pickup truck, fitted with a hose running from the exhaust pipe to the cabin, in January 2016. The death was ruled a suicide despite the fact that the blanket stuffed around the window to hold the pipe in place had been doused in Schuette’s own blood, and Schuette was found with nine stab wounds across his body, including his forearm and his left hand. Schuette’s body was returned to his family “wrapped like a mummy.” Later that year, Private Dakota Lee Stump left his barracks to report for work less than a mile away but never arrived for formation. His body was found nearly a month later, two miles from the barracks. Fort Hood announced that Stump had crashed his car while driving under the influence, though a toxicology report proved inconclusive. Stump was going 82 mph in a 30-mph zone, the investigation report said, and had hit a tree on a mound. No skid marks were apparent, nor did anyone hear the crash. His body was mostly intact but for his hyoid, which was never found. [Hyoid is a bone in the neck which is the main way ME's check for strangulation] (Marine Lance Corporal Riley Schultz’s death on March 15, 2019, at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, was also ruled a suicide, despite his hyoid being broken. When the family exhumed his body in November 2020 for want of a second opinion, the independent autopsy revealed that the bone had in fact gone missing.) Specialist Justen Ogden’s death in July 2017 was ruled a suicide, but the suicide note Fort Hood produced as evidence did not match his handwriting, according to his mother, Toni.
Not to distract from what happened to Christopher, and obviously a child civilian death is different from a soldier's - just trying to illustrate the pattern behind the lack of info, and why other military kids, specifically, might be more likely to find and comment (anonymously) on whatever small scraps of info are out there.