Hugh Bion Morse was convicted of killing three women in separate events: two in Spokane, Washington, in 1959 and 1960, and one in St. Paul, Minnesota, in September 1961. He pleaded guilty to the St. Paul killing in December 1961 and to the two Spokane killings in January 1979, when Washington brought him back from a Minnesota prison to resolve the charges. The FBI had placed him on its Ten Most Wanted list in August 1961, as the 157th name on that list, and he was arrested in St. Paul on October 13, 1961. A Minnesota court later listed, among the offenses he had admitted or been convicted of, further crimes in California, Georgia, Ohio and Alabama, including a killing in Alabama in July 1961 for which no conviction is shown.
He never left prison. Minnesota boards refused him parole through the early 1980s and the courts upheld those refusals, and he died in a Minnesota prison in April 2003. For decades he was also the leading suspect in the 1959 death of a nine-year-old Spokane girl, Candy Rogers. He denied any part in it, a DNA test in 2002 did not match him, and in November 2021 Spokane police named another man, long dead, as responsible.
He did not stand trial in either state. Both sets of charges ended in guilty pleas, so no trial testimony exists.
His place and date of birth are not on record. A Minnesota Supreme Court opinion of 1982 gave his age as 52, and WTVY, an Alabama television station, put his age at death at 73. His mother lived in Spokane, and the Spokane Spokesman-Review reported in 2008 that this was why he came to the city.
He served in the Marine Corps and was given a dishonorable discharge in 1951, after an arrest in Wilmington, North Carolina, on suspicion of assaulting a woman and of indecent exposure, according to the newspaper's 2008 account. A man who knew him in Spokane through a motorcycle club, and who knew him under the first name Chris, told the paper that Morse had few friends, avoided being photographed at club events and spent most of his time with women rather than with men. The same man remembered him as clean-cut and ordinary in manner.
In August 1955, after an offense in Fairfield, California, he was committed to the California State Hospital at Atascadero under a commitment law then in use in that state. He was released in January 1957. About four months later he was arrested in Burbank on suspicion of offenses against women, but no charge was filed, the Spokesman-Review reported.
By the late 1950s Morse was living in Spokane, a few blocks from where several of the attacks took place. The Spokane cases that were later charged to him involved three women.
Gloria J. Brie, 28, was attacked in Spokane on November 7, 1959. She died ten days later at Deaconess Medical Center. Blanche E. Boggs, 69, was attacked in Spokane on September 27, 1960, and died within hours. A third woman, 23 years old, was attacked on October 26, 1960, and survived; she is not named. According to the Spokesman-Review, Morse vanished after each of these crimes and turned up later at a different address.
The three Spokane cases went unsolved for the time being. A Spokane newspaper retrospective in 2011 recalled that detectives had spent hundreds of hours on them and that police had been wary of false confessions, which had complicated the early inquiries.
In October 1960 a federal fugitive warrant was issued in California charging unlawful flight to avoid prosecution for attempted murder arising from an incident on October 28, 1960, in Reseda, involving his estranged wife, the Spokesman-Review reported. That warrant brought the FBI into the search.
Over the following year the Minnesota Court of Appeals recorded a succession of offenses in several states that Morse had admitted or been convicted of: burglary and assault in California in November 1960; burglaries and attempted rapes in Georgia in April 1961; a burglary and an attack on a woman in Ohio in May or June 1961; a murder in Alabama in July 1961; and a further offense in Minnesota in October 1961. The court added that there were numerous other burglaries and incidents of indecent exposure. The Spokesman-Review described the 1961 journey as a cross-country spree, with incidents in Atlanta in April, Dayton, Ohio, in May and Birmingham, Alabama, in July.
Only some of this resulted in a charge. The Alabama killing was the subject of a detainer, a hold lodged against him in the Minnesota prison, and the court recorded that this Alabama detainer was dismissed in 1979, without any conviction being reported. FBI agents also said in 1961 that they wanted him for questioning about a murder in St. Louis. No charge from that inquiry is on record.
The FBI placed him on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in August 1961. His number on the Bureau's historical list is 157.
By September 1961 Morse was living in a rooming house in St. Paul under the alias Darwin J. Corman, the Spokesman-Review reported. In that month Carol Ronan was killed in a house in St. Paul. WTVY gave her age as 34 and the date as September 18, 1961. The Minnesota Supreme Court, describing the charges in 1982, said they rested on a burglary of the house in which she was killed.
A caretaker later identified Morse as a stranger he had seen at the property shortly before the killing.
According to the FBI, Morse was arrested on October 13, 1961, in St. Paul, the evening after a visitor to the FBI Tour in Washington, D.C., recognized his photograph on the Ten Most Wanted exhibit. A 2008 newspaper account says he was identified from an FBI poster. Accounts differ on who first recognized him, and the FBI's version, the Tour visitor, is the one the agency itself gives.
After his arrest Morse admitted to the Spokane crimes. According to the Spokesman-Review he confessed to all the offenses he was suspected of in Spokane except the killing of Candy Rogers, which he consistently denied.
On December 15, 1961, Morse pleaded guilty in Minnesota to second-degree murder under the state's 1961 murder statute and was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Stillwater, the Minnesota Court of Appeals recorded in 1987. He also received a consecutive term of ten years to life for first-degree burglary. The Minnesota Supreme Court's 1982 opinion described the charges as resting on a burglary of the house in which the woman was killed. The Spokesman-Review described the outcome as two life sentences.
The offense of second-degree murder under the 1961 statute was later repealed, and the Court of Appeals noted that it corresponds to first-degree murder in the revised Minnesota code, which also carries a life sentence.
Morse's years at Stillwater were marked by his own litigation over parole. In July 1978 a three-member panel of the Minnesota Corrections Board held his annual review and decided nothing, telling him to return if the position on the Washington and Alabama detainers changed. Morse and his attorney later said the board's chairman had told them that he had to clear the detainers before he could be considered for parole, or else he would be paroled to them. The chairman testified that he could not bind later boards and had never promised parole.
On January 21, 1979, Morse removed the Washington detainer by pleading guilty in Washington to two counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree assault. The court records say the pleas related to the 1959 and 1960 Spokane killings and the October 1960 attack. He received life probation on each count and returned to Stillwater. The Spokesman-Review added that he agreed never to return to Washington without permission. The Alabama detainer, from July 1961, was dismissed at the same time. Morse testified that clearing the detainers, including the travel to Washington for himself, his attorney and a guard, cost about $25,000.
The 1987 opinion lists the Washington offenses as the killing of a woman in November 1959, the killing of a 69-year-old woman in September 1960, and an assault and attempted rape in October 1960.
On October 28, 1980, a five-member board panel denied parole. The board cited his involvement in several murders across the country and found that he posed a danger to public safety, especially to unguarded women, and it said it needed complete psychological data before any release. His attorney was not allowed to attend or record the hearing. Morse also asked for a target release date, which would have let him qualify for transfers and programs; that was refused. A consulting psychologist had recommended in 1980 that he be referred to the sex offender program at Lino Lakes, but he could not be transferred without a target release date.
In September 1981 a three-member panel held the annual review, and on November 18, 1981, the full board affirmed the denial, citing the nature of the offense, his prior record, his institutional record and public safety. A psychologist's report before that review said that if Morse experienced extreme rejection he would probably act out violently. The chairman testified that a prison setting cannot test whether a person will reoffend, so evaluations and prior records weigh more than good conduct inside.
On March 9, 1982, Morse sought resentencing under Minnesota's new sentencing guidelines. The Ramsey County District Court dismissed the request as to the murder sentence, since first-degree murder is excluded from the guidelines and carries a mandatory life term, and denied it as to the burglary sentence because it could not find that his early release would not endanger the public. The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed on November 12, 1982, in an opinion by Chief Justice Amdahl, and denied rehearing on December 29, 1982. The court noted that he remained under the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Corrections.
On January 4, 1983, he received another annual review, this time before a panel of the Commissioner of Corrections, which had replaced the abolished board. He had counsel and did not contest the evidence. The panel unanimously denied parole. It described him as a good inmate who had adjusted well, but said that supervised release or a target release date was inappropriate given the extreme nature of his offenses. The Commissioner set August 1993 as the date for re-evaluation and judged yearly reviews unnecessary.
Morse then challenged the denial in a petition for habeas corpus, arguing that he was the only inmate in Minnesota who had served more than 14 years without a target release date, including inmates serving life for first-degree murder, and that the board had broken a promise by treating the removal of the detainers as a step toward parole. The district court denied the petition on April 24, 1986. It found adequate due process, proper consideration of relevant factors, a rational basis for the decision and no promise of parole. The Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed on January 6, 1987, in an opinion by Judge Randall. The court held that boards need not treat all murderers alike and that a statistical difference alone does not create a constitutional right. Review was denied on February 18, 1987.
Candy Rogers was nine years old when she was killed in Spokane in March 1959. Her case was one of the best-known unsolved cases in the city, and Morse was one of its most notable suspects for more than forty years.
The reasons were circumstantial. Morse lived nearby, he left Spokane soon afterward, and investigators pointed to a small item of physical evidence that they linked to him and to the other Spokane cases. A detective who later reviewed the case said that item had been given more weight than it deserved.
Morse denied any part in her death from the start. He confessed to the other Spokane crimes but never to this one, and authorities said he passed two lie-detector tests on the question. In 1962 a sheriff's captain interviewed him at Stillwater and called him the number one suspect. By 1967 the Spokane police chief no longer considered him much of a suspect, while the county sheriff still called him a prime suspect. A detective magazine had claimed he admitted the crime; police later determined the report was false.
DNA testing changed the picture. A genetic profile obtained from evidence in the case in 2001 did not match a sample taken from Morse in 2002. Even so, the detective assigned to the case in 2008 would not rule him out entirely.
On November 19, 2021, Spokane police announced that they had identified John Reigh Hoff as responsible, using a genealogy company and DNA testing. Hoff was 19 or 20 at the time of the crime. He died by suicide in 1970, CBS News reported. Morse had no part in the case as police finally resolved it. Spokesman-Review coverage of the announcement noted that DNA testing had not matched Morse and that he had denied involvement.
Convicted, on guilty pleas: second-degree murder and first-degree burglary in Minnesota (December 15, 1961); two counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree assault in Washington (January 21, 1979).
Listed by a Minnesota court as an offense he admitted or was convicted of, with no conviction shown: a murder in Alabama in July 1961. The court did not say which of the listed offenses fell into which category, and the Alabama detainer was dismissed in 1979. The court opinions do not name the Alabama victim.
Wanted for questioning, no charge reported: a St. Louis killing (FBI agents, 1961).
Not charged to him and attributed by police to another man in 2021: the killing of Candy Rogers.
California, Georgia and Ohio offenses of 1960 and 1961 are listed by the Minnesota court as admitted or convicted offenses. They were not killings, and the records give no outcome for them.
Morse died in a Minnesota prison in April 2003 while serving two life sentences, the Spokesman-Review reported in 2008 and again in 2021. The exact day and the prison were not reported.
1951: Dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps after an arrest in Wilmington, North Carolina.
August 1955: Committed to the California State Hospital at Atascadero after an offense in Fairfield, California; released January 1957.
March 1959: Nine-year-old Candy Rogers is killed in Spokane; Morse becomes a suspect but is never charged.
November 7, 1959: Gloria J. Brie, 28, is attacked in Spokane and dies ten days later.
September 27, 1960: Blanche E. Boggs, 69, is attacked in Spokane and dies within hours.
October 26, 1960: A 23-year-old woman is attacked in Spokane and survives.
October 28, 1960: Incident in Reseda, California, involving his estranged wife; federal fugitive warrant for attempted murder follows.
April to July 1961: Offenses in Georgia, Ohio and Alabama, including a killing in Alabama in July.
August 1961: Placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list (number 157).
September 1961: Carol Ronan is killed in St. Paul, Minnesota.
October 13, 1961: Arrested in St. Paul.
December 15, 1961: Pleads guilty in Minnesota to second-degree murder and first-degree burglary; sentenced to life, with a consecutive ten years to life.
July 1978: First Minnesota board review mentions the Washington and Alabama detainers.
January 21, 1979: Pleads guilty in Washington to two counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree assault; life probation on each count. The Alabama detainer is dismissed.
October 28, 1980: Minnesota board refuses parole.
November 18, 1981: Full board affirms the refusal.
November 12, 1982: Minnesota Supreme Court affirms the refusal of resentencing.
January 4, 1983: Commissioner's panel refuses parole and sets August 1993 for re-evaluation.
January 6, 1987: Minnesota Court of Appeals affirms the denial of habeas corpus.
April 2003: Dies in a Minnesota prison.
November 19, 2021: Spokane police name John Reigh Hoff, not Morse, in the Rogers case.