Lewis County man who claimed attackers killed fiancee, now jailed

A woman supposedly killed in a car crash on a forest road near Morton was actually murdered, according to sheriff’s investigators who have arrested her fiancee. He’s being charged Monday with murder second degree-domestic violence.

Lewis County sheriff’s deputies were suspicious right away when they arrived at the scene at about 1:30 a.m. Friday. Corey Morgan, 32, claimed his fiancee, Brenda Bail, was beaten by attackers and then died in a car crash as they tried to get away.

“He told detectives that he and his fiancee were visiting what he called their ‘special spot’ on Forest Service Road 73, which is outside of Morton, when three men “attacked them,” according to chief deputy Stacy Brown. She says Morgan claimed his fiancee was badly beaten, but that he was able to protect himself using Taekwondo.

Morgan told investigators that he and Bail, 48, got into the attackers’ truck and sped away, crashing into an embankment, where the Chehalis woman died.

“It was learned after an autopsy on the victim that she had died of asphyxiation, which confirmed the deputies’ belief that Mr. Morgan was not telling them the truth and that the victim did not die as a result of the collision,” said Brown. She said the couple had a history of violence and that Morgan inflicted the beating on his fiancee and strangled her.

Morgan was booked into the Lewis County Jail on Friday and a judge is scheduled to set bail Monday afternoon.