A day before the turn of the year, a tragic event happened in the USA, where a police officer killed first his Albanian wife, their two sons and then himself.
Ornela Rora, 43 years old, was killed together with her two minor sons, while it was her friend, Eljona Jahaj, who told about the life and sacrifices of the victim through a post on social networks, while no one has yet it is clear why this event happened.
Jahaj says that the family life of Ornella and her husband Watson Morgan seemed perfect.
Ornele worked as a teacher, while according to her friend, her only concern was her parents and brother, who had gone to America only recently.
She also tells the story of her friend’s acquaintance with her American husband.
Jahaj’s post:
This is my friend Ornela Rora with her two children Gabriel 12 years old and Liam 8 years old. All three were killed in their home on December 30, 2023 by her husband and the father of the children. They have spent three days searching Google, I call our mutual friends to understand “What happened?”
Her husband was one of those men who are hard to believe exist. Every word about him in our circle started and ended with “wonderful man, husband and father.” I met him when he moved to New York. Ornela, like many of us, came to Boston to study with her aunt Irini, who considered her a second mother. She was a teenager, but she was determined. Ornela belonged to the category of these women who are born smart, determined and clear about their life from the first day.
He went to school, worked part-time and applied all over America to find a job to sponsor his letters, and luck took him to one of the Bronx schools. I saved! – he told me then! I don’t know what I would do if I hadn’t found this job to return to Korçë after all this sacrifice. I was very happy for him! Happy because unlike me and because they both have the same problem, Ornela did not have her family in America. Mother, father and Pandushi, her brother who never took her word for it, were all in Korce and in those years, coming to America was as far away as the distance between Korce and her.
He was immediately liked in the workplace because, after all, why wouldn’t he be liked? It was so funny, positive and polite. Ornela had a million dollar smile! When we often met at each other’s houses, that’s all I remember the most; the smile that lit up the room! We listened to Albanian songs together and made some reference to the boys we liked, but then we immediately returned to our American reality, that of securing our future. Ornela didn’t have time to deal with useless things for her! Her future here was more important than anything else.
After a year, he told me, I met someone. Come to the November holidays in Boston to present it.
– Do you? How? Albanian, American? – I ask like any other friend.
– American, – he tells me. It is special. You will know yourself.
And so the love story with her husband begins! Watson, an NYPD cop, decorated and admired by his community. A man with sober behavior, polite and few words! Someone who would make you feel safe. As a girl alone in America, he represented the figure of a man who gives you security and you can trust life! Fixed for Ornela! – I thought. A girl so sober can’t deal with a jerk. Only such a man could fulfill her spiritual and psychological needs.
A year later, my mother, brother and I go to his wedding in New York. If she was always smiling, this day her smile had taken the form of another energy, that of a woman in love, where her eyes were always on him. They danced together almost non-stop and her smile never stopped non-stop. After an ordeal of hardships, moving to a foreign country, finishing school, finding a job, all by her own strength, Ornela had found the man of her heart and a much-dreamed-of future awaited her. Gabe and Liam came one after the other and Ornela’s heart was full just like this photo! Ornela’s diligence that she once had for herself passed on to her sons in the most natural way. “I want to travel the world,” he said. To do the things that I could do under the circumstances.” The objective was 50 countries before they turned 18. Her Facebook is full of photos of boys around the world. They side by side with each other or behind her dress or next to their father. Ornela’s Facebook showed a perfect life! Complete children, a couple who had harmony and two people in their respective careers. As the Americans say: “They had it all!”
But December 30 showed the opposite, her husband did not show up at work on Friday. He stayed at home with his family, but this time he had no plans to play basketball with the boys in their backyard. He took the service weapon, found Ornela first in their big house, shot her and then looked for his sons and killed them one by one and then himself. None of the neighbors hear anything. The city police showed up at their house because as a state employee he had not shown up for work and it was not characteristic of him not to show up for work. He was a decorated Sergeant and one of the most trusted people in the community. Not going to work was not normal. His colleagues go to check and find in their beautiful house one of the most difficult sights to digest, the lifeless bodies of the family.
Someone sends my mom a picture of the news. When I see it, I say it’s like shakara that people do! A picture of him that somehow guessed the date without reading the text and quickly I googled his name and found it in every American and British media network. The decorated policeman kills his wife and two boys and then himself – write all of them. How, what, why?! Was there psychological abuse and we didn’t know? Were there signs that we should have noticed? None of them say. I take our mutual friend in Texas to ask her, she is more shocked and confused than me. Yes…he was such a good man, she responds. Just like everyone started saying in our circles, but this was not the reality. A good man does not kill his family, a wife and two sons who were human models.
I have no further information about what happened. Only 3 days have passed since Ornela’s escape. I found out that my parents and brother have arrived in America. Ironically, her brother had been denied a visa to meet his sister and nephew for the past 12 years, but the embassy had granted him this opportunity, to be together as a family for one of the few times in their lives. .
Today I write this article with very confused feelings! I want to have the zeal that a man has for the New Year, with resolutions and objective principles that I keep sacred, but these days are difficult because when you know someone and something tragic happens to you like this, a part of you feels guilty and when then where there is no logical reason to feel. What if I had asked her if she was really happy? Did he have the life he wanted? But who asks these questions without being perceived as if you doubt the reality that exists.
Her last photo on Facebook is a photo group of the boys who had come to Boston to celebrate their little cousin Henry’s birthday. In my mind I play from time to time the image of them at her wedding… and one of her favorite songs “Remember When” by Alan Jackson dedicated to the love of his wife and for those who have heard it, “Remember When ” is one of the most beautiful songs of country music. The lines of the song represent the whole concept of happiness for Ornela! Every word! So confused, unclear, sad I write this article; a sadness bigger than words! The only thing that gives me comfort in these moments is that she did not see her children! Rest in peace Ornela! Maybe heaven needed the lighting of your smile!
