Morris Davis murder unsolved 30 years later

[1990 UM fan]

On December 5th, 1990, Unsolved Mysteries ran the story of Morris Davis, a Howard's Pizza delivery man from Great Falls, Montana who was robbed and shot 9 times on April 5th, 1985. His brother, Cliff Davis, a paramedic, immediately recognized the shooting victim as his brother Morris, and was visibly upset. Morris later died at an area hospital.

Police determined that whomever killed Morris, removed a "for sale" sign from the front yard of a vacant house, called from another location and then broke in the back door of the house and waited for Morris. After shooting him multiple times, the killer stole Morris' delivery wallet.

3 years later on May 11th, 1988, police arrested a man who was driving a stolen car that was reported missing from Oregon 3 days prior. When they searched his pockets, they found 2 receipts from a pawn shop. One of the receipts was from a .22 caliber pistol, which was also reported stolen. The pistol's bullets matched the ones found at the Morris Davis crime scene. The man who sold the gun had stolen it from a friend. The man was cleared of any involvement in Morris' murder. The gun's owner was questioned in Morris Davis' murder and denied any involvement. Police could not find anything linking him to the crime and believe he has no knowledge of the murder. It was later determined through more forensic testing that the gun and bullets played no role in Morris' murder.

[James T]

One of those really weird ones-it is hard to believe that robbery is the motive. Why would you go to such elaborate lengths to murder somebody to lure them to a house to shoot them nine times & steal what would surely be chump change.

Shooting somebody that many times speaks of some kind of hatred for that person which indicates somebody close to them or somebody close to say that persons girlfriend who is jealous & knew he would be the one doing the delivery.

If you were going to stick up a pizza guy you could just wear a mask, take the money & tie him up or even knock him out & you would stand even less chance of being caught because there are no bullets/casings that can be examined.

Other than that maybe a gang initiation? Although don't they tend to be more public & not so well thought out?

[LooksLikeCRicci]

I have connections over in Cascade County. It's my understanding they have started a cold case unit over there. This is one of the cases they are hoping to crack.

It hasn't been forgotten. THAT's the good news.... just hope we see a resolution in Cliff's lifetime.

[MegtheEgg86]

I always liked Cliff. I was doing some research a few years ago and found that he was still living in Great Falls and had actually gone on to become a PA, which I thought was cool.

The more I've considered this case over the years, the more I think the crime was the work of a group of inexperienced individuals (and I do get the feeling more than one person was ultimately involved in this) who initially thought this was a particularly clever scheme. I think they were either disappointed with their take and decided to abandon the scam entirely, or were scared out of it completely once the investigation ensued.

I think the number of rounds fired might also speak of an inexperienced individual. The shooter may have engaged in an overkill not because of a personal vendetta against Morris, but because of an unfamiliarity with this type of criminal activity (or even the use of a firearm), and/or substantial nervousness.

[Steve W.]

"One of those really weird ones-it is hard to believe that robbery is the motive. Why would you go to such elaborate lengths to murder somebody to lure them to a house to shoot them nine times & steal what would surely be chump change.

Shooting somebody that many times speaks of some kind of hatred for that person which indicates somebody close to them or somebody close to say that persons girlfriend who is jealous & knew he would be the one doing the delivery."



not necessarily

Some murderers come up with elaborate plans to kill people just because they enjoy the "thrill" of it, like that Gary Krueger guy that pretended to be "Steven" in order to lure realtor Mike Emert to an empty house and kill him. They do evil and sick things just because they want to and because they lack morality and respect for others' lives, not because they're actually mad at their victims.

[James T]

I thought the belief is that Krueger & his buddy were hitmen?

[justins5256]

I got the vibe this was someone after quick cash (maybe for a fix) and they devised this elaborate scheme to rip off a pizza delivery driver.

As to why Morris was killed, perhaps he resisted, or the perp just didn't want to leave a witness. It is horrible, and senseless, but these kinds of senseless robbery turned murders have happened before and unfortunately will happen again. Think of the Las Cruces Bowling Alley case, for example.

Unless a new witness comes forward, or there is a confession, or someone otherwise talks, this will be difficult to crack as the offender would have had no connection to Morris Davis or his family.

[James T]

Originally Posted by justins5256

I got the vibe this was someone after quick cash (maybe for a fix) and they devised this elaborate scheme to rip off a pizza delivery driver.

As to why Morris was killed, perhaps he resisted, or the perp just didn't want to leave a witness. It is horrible, and senseless, but these kinds of senseless robbery turned murders have happened before and unfortunately will happen again. Think of the Las Cruces Bowling Alley case, for example.

Unless a new witness comes forward, or there is a confession, or someone otherwise talks, this will be difficult to crack as the offender would have had no connection to Morris Davis or his family.

A junkie looking for a fix is unlikely to be in a fit state to source out a remote location, make a telephone call from elsewhere, lie in wait etc-they tend to hang around dark alleys or parking lots looking for an easy victim as soon as possible.

I still don't get robbing a pizza delivery guy & wasting him either. Why go to such extraordinary lengths & know if you are caught you are probably facing life or the needle for a measly sum? The biggest problem for me is this guy was shot nine times. I am assuming the gun used held six bullets-if so he must have had to reload & start shooting again, it is total overkill.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Originally Posted by justins5256

I got the vibe this was someone after quick cash (maybe for a fix) and they devised this elaborate scheme to rip off a pizza delivery driver.

As to why Morris was killed, perhaps he resisted, or the perp just didn't want to leave a witness. It is horrible, and senseless, but these kinds of senseless robbery turned murders have happened before and unfortunately will happen again. Think of the Las Cruces Bowling Alley case, for example.

Unless a new witness comes forward, or there is a confession, or someone otherwise talks, this will be difficult to crack as the offender would have had no connection to Morris Davis or his family.

I agree with this.

I always envisioned this as kids who were looking for some quick cash as well. Meg makes some interesting comments about an inexperienced shooter who may have panicked, hence the overkill.

[MegtheEgg86]

Originally Posted by James T

I am assuming the gun used held six bullets-if so he must have had to reload & start shooting again, it is total overkill.

It's been a while since I've seen the segment but I seem to remember the handgun was a semiautomatic, not a revolver. Small caliber too, I think. Maybe that could've even been the reason for the number of rounds fired--the shooter didn't trust Morris to be immediately incapacitated by a small round as opposed to say a .45.

[RobinW]

Originally Posted by MegtheEgg86

I always liked Cliff. I was doing some research a few years ago and found that he was still living in Great Falls and had actually gone on to become a PA, which I thought was cool.

Cliff actually stopped by this forum a few years ago to leave his thoughts in one of the other Morris Davis threads. He seemed genuinely touched that people were still discussing his brother's murder after all these years:
http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/...t=morris+davis

On a related note, I always felt pretty bad for the guy from Oregon who had his gun stolen which was mistakenly linked to Morris' murder. On the surface, the story in his UM interview sounded pretty unbelievable ("I have no idea how the gun disappeared from my closet and was used to kill someone in Montana"), but he was completely innocent and I'm sure it must have been nerve-racking to be tied to a murder you had absolutely nothing to do with because of a botched ballistics test.

[justins5256]

Originally Posted by James T

A junkie looking for a fix is unlikely to be in a fit state to source out a remote location, make a telephone call from elsewhere, lie in wait etc-they tend to hang around dark alleys or parking lots looking for an easy victim as soon as possible.

I still don't get robbing a pizza delivery guy & wasting him either. Why go to such extraordinary lengths & know if you are caught you are probably facing life or the needle for a measly sum? The biggest problem for me is this guy was shot nine times. I am assuming the gun used held six bullets-if so he must have had to reload & start shooting again, it is total overkill.

Maybe, maybe not. His delivery wallet was stolen. Was it disclosed on the segment how much cash was stolen? I ask because nowadays it is pretty common for easy robbery targets such as cab drivers and convenience store clerks to not have ease of access to large amounts of cash so as to deter these types of crimes. In fact, I think this may extend to pizza delivery drivers too. I think our local pizza place has a policy that their drivers carry no more than $20 in change, for example. Again, I would imagine that this policy is in place to deter robbers.

The thing is though - were such policies common when this crime was committed? Back in the mid-80s? If not, it could have been common knowledge back then that a pizza delivery driver was a possible source of cash (it's not hard to imagine this since the cash restriction policies had to have originated somewhere). Therefore, someone desperate and/or sick enough could do something like this to get some money.

I agree with you, everything that went down in terms of the mechanics of the crime was pretty intricate. Such planning is indicative of pre-meditation. The question we should ask then is pre-meditation for what? Obviously, it had to be something nefarious. Given what transpired I think there are three options...

- Robbery gone bad. Could be. The wallet was taken. Also, if the robber was a tweaker or otherwise unstable, if Morris resisted, this could have ticked them off thus prompting the overkill response.

- Thrill kill - I don't think I mentioned this before, but this could be a possibility too. It could explain the intricate planning and the firing of multiple shots. Also, it could explain the theft of the wallet. I mean, really, if the offender has gone THAT far there is no reason not to take the wallet.

- Pre-meditated murder by someone looking to target Morris Davis specifically...maybe. But consider that this likely would have been the first avenue explored by police because it is the easiest and most probable. So far as I can remember, Davis seemed like a pretty unremarkable guy, and no grudges or enemies were mentioned in the segment. Further, I question how good a plan this was IF Davis was the target. I mean, do we know how many other drivers the pizza place had? Could it be guaranteed that Davis would respond to this particular call? I don't know.

I tend to think this was either a robbery gone bad or a thrill kill. In either scenario, the killer would be looking to protect his own anonymity, thus the elaborate planning of utilizing the model house. On that note, it would be interesting to know if any similar offenses were known to have occurred around that time. It is a pretty specific MO if you think about it.

[Hambone2421]

I think it's interesting that Morris' brother Cliff mentioned the other two delivery drivers in the prior thread on this case. He mentioned that Morris was filling in for the first delivery driver as that person had a death in the family, which checked out. However, he mentioned that the other delivery driver was a somewhat shady character (I'm paraphrasing). I wonder if he was trying to hint at the fact that whoever killed Morris may have been after the second delivery driver instead. When Morris showed up, it was dark, the killer may have fired those first shots believing it to be the other driver.

Just a thought.

[justins5256]

Originally Posted by Hambone2421

I think it's interesting that Morris' brother Cliff mentioned the other two delivery drivers in the prior thread on this case. He mentioned that Morris was filling in for the first delivery driver as that person had a death in the family, which checked out. However, he mentioned that the other delivery driver was a somewhat shady character (I'm paraphrasing). I wonder if he was trying to hint at the fact that whoever killed Morris may have been after the second delivery driver instead. When Morris showed up, it was dark, the killer may have fired those first shots believing it to be the other driver.

Just a thought.

Yeah, I read that post too. It's hard to make any determinations regarding the second delivery driver without knowing what type of criminal activity he was involved in. Just saying he was a "shady guy" could mean any one of a number of things.

I actually found it more interesting/telling that Cliff mentioned there was actually a suspect - a guy in prison for violent crimes who has told different stories about his involvement in this crime.

[Hambone2421]

Originally Posted by justins5256

Yeah, I read that post too. It's hard to make any determinations regarding the second delivery driver without knowing what type of criminal activity he was involved in. Just saying he was a "shady guy" could mean any one of a number of things.

I actually found it more interesting/telling that Cliff mentioned there was actually a suspect - a guy in prison for violent crimes who has told different stories about his involvement in this crime.

Same here. I feel for Cliff. He openly admits that he and his family will never know. Just saying that has to be painful for him.