Newlywed Husband Receives Sentence for Wife’s Murder Just Two Weeks into Marriage

A 50-year-old man from Oklahoma has been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the brutal murder of his wife, just days after their wedding. The man, Chris Edward Morland, was found guilty of beating his 39-year-old wife, Cassidy Ritchie, to death and concealing her body under a heap of clothes in the trunk of her vehicle.

On Monday, Judge Doug Drummond from Tulsa County delivered the sentence to Morland for the murder of Ritchie in 2024, according to court documents. This decision followed a jury’s unanimous verdict on Thursday, which declared Morland guilty of first-degree murder. Judge Drummond adhered to the jury’s recommendation to impose life without parole.

According to reports from Law&Crime, Ritchie’s body was discovered on January 28, 2024, in the rear of her 2006 Chrysler Pacifica.

Authorities revealed that Ritchie was last seen alive on January 20, 2024. After several days of no contact, her concerned family reported her missing.

The Tulsa Police Department issued a “missing and endangered” alert for Ritchie on January 25, describing her light blue SUV and noting her involvement in a domestic disturbance. The vehicle was found abandoned on the highway the next day under suspicious circumstances, as reported by the police.

In a Facebook post, police attached a photograph of Ritchie’s SUV showing significant damage to the front right, front bumper, and hood of the vehicle. Authorities also noted that her car had “extensive off-road debris on it” at the time it was discovered. The post again reiterated that Ritchie “has been involved in prior domestic violence incidents.”

Two days later, after obtaining a search warrant, Ritchie’s body was discovered.

Prosecutors said police soon learned that Morland, who formally married Ritchie on Jan. 7, 2024, was the last person to have seen the victim alive. Morland was located and taken into custody a short time later and found to have a key to the Pacifica on his person.

The newlywed man’s explanation for what happened to his wife changed as investigators continued to uncover new evidence.

“Defendant told officers that the last place he saw [Ritchie] was in the Pacifica, when she took it and left him to go live with her friend,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. “According to Defendant, he needed to get a ride from a friend from where [Ritchie] left him on January 23, 2024. Officers reached out to this friend, who denied ever giving a ride to Defendant on that day. However, officers were able to speak with a witness who actually had given Defendant a ride on January 24. That witness informed officers that when he picked Defendant up. Defendant was standing just outside the Pacifica, which had run off the road.”

When police confronted Morland with the contradictory evidence, he agreed to waive his Miranda rights and “voluntarily confessed to killing his wife.”

“He stated ‘it all went bad,’ and admitted that they had gotten into a fight,” court documents state. “He admitted to assaulting her during the fight. He stated the fight happened at night, and that when he returned to his car the next day he discovered she was dead. He stated he placed her body in the trunk of the car and covered her with clothing.”