DEER PARK, Texas (KTRK) — The Deer Park Police Department accuses a Baytown woman of using forged documents to take ownership of her dead grandmother’s home and evicting her uncle from it.
Ashley Morgan’s sister, Katie Simpson, first alerted police to the alleged crimes.
ONLY ON ABC13, Eyewitness News met with Katie and her husband, Chris Simpson, outside the modest Deer Park home her grandmother lived in for 40 years, but it belongs to another family.
Simpson said her grandmother’s will left the house to her uncle, who moved into the home after her death.
Then, one day in 2021, she found something strange outside the home.
“We saw a ‘for sale’ sign outside. We thought our uncle somehow got help selling the house,” Katie Simpson recalled.
However, it turned out not to be the case.
“We looked online. We found some documents uncovered that my sister forged my grandmother’s signature,” Katie Simpson said.
The Simpsons called the title company, but that didn’t work.
“I called everyone involved with the title company as this was happening to let them know, ‘Don’t proceed through with this. It might actually backfire on you guys because she’s selling a stolen home,'” Chris Simpson said. “They went through with it and cut her a check anyway.”
That’s when the Simpsons called Deer Park police.
“It’s not very common,” Lt. Chris Brown of Deer Park PD said, remembering when the investigation began. “She changed dates. She changed certain pages in the will to reflect her as the heir. (She) was able to get the courts to approve that and was able to sell the house and forge other documents to make it happen.”
In 2023, Deer Park police charged Morgan. After she posted bond, family members alleged she began doing the same thing, except this time to people who were not her relatives. Court records show investigators believe she forged documents and obtained several mobile homes in northwest Houston and a parcel of land in Baytown.
Last week, Morgan was arrested and charged with the additional crimes. Authorities also charged another woman.
Katie Simpson said sellers have resold her grandmother’s house twice, and the family won’t get it back. But she is continuing to speak out.
“I want justice to be served in my grandmother’s name, and I’ve been fighting for two years. And in the two years, she’s done this to countless other people. I don’t even know how many people she’s done this to,” Katie Simpson said, also speaking out because she believes there are other victims out there. She wants to encourage them to call the police.
ABC13 spoke on the phone with Morgan’s defense attorney, who confirmed three charges based on allegations that she stole three different properties but did not have additional comment.
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