Marblehead man, target of nationwide manhunt, surrenders

MARBLEHEAD – Authorities late Thursday arrested the suspect in the slaying of a Wesleyan University student who police said had threatened to kill other students and Jews.A police spokesman said 29-year-old Stephen P. Morgan, a Marblehead native, was taken into custody in the central Connecticut town of Meriden, about 10 miles from Middletown, and turned over to police investigating Wednesday’s fatal shooting of 21-year-old Johanna Justin-Jinich.A law-enforcement officer in Washington said Morgan turned himself in. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because it was not his case.Anguished family members had appealed through the media Thursday for Morgan to immediately turn himself into authorities.Morgan, whose last known address was in Swampscott, had been the focus of a nationwide manhunt. He was sought in the death of 21-year-old Justin-Jinich, who was shot several times by a gunman wearing a wig at her job inside Broad Street Books, a popular Wesleyan University student bookstore in Middletown, Conn., a town of 48,000. Justin-Jinich was a junior at the school.A Connecticut judge had signed the warrant for Morgan Thursday afternoon and set bond at $10 million. Besides his North Shore roots, Morgan had ties to New York and Colorado, according to authorities.Two years ago, Justin-Jinich complained to police that Morgan stalked and threatened her. Police told the university that Morgan expressed threats in his personal journals toward Wesleyan and its Jewish students, but his brother says he has never exhibited anti-Semitic tendencies.Morgan’s brother, Greg, told the Associated Press that the family is distraught over the shooting, but have not spoken to Morgan in several weeks.”I am devastated by what happened to this young girl at Wesleyan,” he said. “We’re just absolutely distraught over everything that’s gone on. We’re just hoping that they find my brother and no one else gets hurt.””My brother was a very sweet person and had a big heart and I hope he’s OK,” Greg Morgan said, adding that family members have tried to contact him, but don’t know where he is.Diana Morgan, his youngest sister, read the statement to reporters outside the family’s Elmwood Road home in Marblehead, but did not take questions.”We are shocked and sickened by the tragedy in Middletown and our heartfelt condolences go out to the family and friends of the victim. We have been cooperating in every way possible with the authorities who are searching for Steve. We don’t know where Steve is or where he might go.”We would like to send him this message via the media: Steve turn yourself in right now to any law enforcement agency wherever you are to avoid any further bloodshed. We love you. We will support you in every way and we don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”A neighbor of Morgan’s said he comes from a “model family.” Penny Wigglesworth lives one house away. She said she doesn’t know Stephen Morgan, well but calls him pleasant and polite.Anxious students on the locked-down campus at Wesleyan, an elite private liberal arts school with about 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students, huddled in their dorms Thursday and the city’s only synagogue was shut down as the manhunt for Morgan continued.A published report, citing anonymous law enforcement sources, said police confiscated Morgan’s car and found a journal in which he spelled out a plan to rape and then kill Justin-Jinich before going on a campus shooting spree.It also reported that police stopped Morgan shortly after the shooting, spoke to him and let him go, only to later learn from Justin-Jinich’s family that they suspected him. Police declined to discuss the report.”Investigators have been in contact with Wesleyan University and leaders of the Jewish community, urging both to be extra vigilant,” Middletown Police Chief Lynn Baldoni said.Justin-Jinich, of Timnath, Colo., came from a Jewish family, said her former stepmother.University officials told students to stay indoors and staff members