There’s a moment late at night when everything feels safe enough. You’re tired, maybe you’ve been arguing with someone you love and you just want to go home. And when someone you barely know offers to walk with you, it doesn’t feel dangerous, it feels polite. But sometimes the most dangerous people don’t force their way into your life.
They wait until you’re already vulnerable, until you trust them just enough. And then they make a choice that you can’t take back. Because in this case, a young woman did everything right. She stayed sober, she kept her keys, she asked for help, and she still vanished without a scream, without a struggle caught on camera, without a single clear moment where anyone could say, “This is where it went wrong.
” This is the murder of Christina Morris. Christina Marie Morris was from Wylie, Texas. She grew up in nearby Allen and graduated from Allen High School in 2009. She later attended the University of Texas at Dallas, where she earned a degree in marketing in 2013. But what people remember most about Christina had nothing to do with where she went to school.
She was funny, bright, energetic, the kind of person who saw the best in everyone. Sometimes to a fault. Christina made friends easily.She admired people’s quirks, their differences, their personalities, and she made it her mission to make [music] everyone around her laugh, and she usually succeeded. To Christina, there were no small moments.
Everything [music] was special, everything was an adventure. She loved fashion, summer, and James Dean. And she lived by one quote in particular, “Dream as if you lived forever. Live [music] as if you’ll die today.” At just 23 years old, Christina was petite, outgoing, and full of life, and had a big heart and almost endless capacity to love all of the people around her.
She was a glass-half-full kind of person even when life made that difficult. Her parents Mark and Johnny divorced when she was still an infant but Christina never saw this as a loss. To her it just meant she had two families instead of one. At the time that she disappeared Christina was in a year long relationship with Hunter Foster, someone she’d known since seventh grade.
They were living together in an apartment in Fort Worth and from the outside things looked pretty stable but behind closed doors their relationship was starting to strain. Hunter was an aspiring model whose work came and went often taking him to New York. He loved to party Christina didn’t. She worked full time, carried most of the responsibilities and at times even supported both of them financially.
Arguments became more [music] common and the distance didn’t help but still they didn’t break up. Christina kept going waking up, going to work, coming home and repeating [music] the cycle. It was hard but she pushed through it. And then came Labor Day weekend, a party, [music] a night out with friends and a decision that would be the last one Christina ever made.
It was August 29th of 2014 and it was a Friday so everyone was getting off work and heading into Labor Day weekend. Christina’s friends and acquaintances were throwing a party that same evening and they invited Christina to come along too. Of course Christina jumped at the chance.
She knew that she needed some time off to blow off some steam since she was so busy and she was pretty excited. She was looking forward to some much needed down [music] time with friends because she and Hunter had been arguing pretty much that entire day. She even confided in one of her friends about her and Hunter’s potential future but this was a heart to heart for another day because her friends encouraged her to just let everything go and enjoy the night.
And Christina agreed. She wasn’t about to just let her relationship problems ruin an otherwise fun night out. So, she got dressed, hopped in her car, took a selfie, and made the 45-minute drive from Fort Worth to Plano, where she met up with some of her high school friends for a reunion. The plan was to gather around at a friend’s apartment and then just see where the night took them.
So, Christina and her friends made their way to Paulina’s apartment, and after a few hours of catching up and having a good time, the group decided to go out for some drinks. They eventually went to a place called The Shops at Legacy, and at around 11:00 p.m., they were having drinks. They also went to Henry’s Tavern and Scruffy Duffies, and then the group went back to Paulina’s apartment, and there the party commenced once again.
Friends remembered everyone being drunk, but Christina was still sober. Since she’d driven all the way to Plano, she had no plans of getting completely drunk [music] as she didn’t really have a way to get back home safely, and pretty clearly no one else was in a state to be able to drive [music] her. She was also a bit gloomy because of the fight with Hunter, but at around 2:12 a.m.
, she texted Hunter to come and pick her up. But Hunter didn’t reply to any of her messages. You might be wondering why she asked Hunter when she already had a car. Well, the thing is Christina had temporarily lost her keys, which was why she asked Hunter for the favor. But when he didn’t reply, Christina started to look for her keys, and she did end up finding it.
This worsened Christina’s mood even more. Hunter was out with friends partying and drinking in downtown Dallas, and now he was not responding to any of her texts. The last message from Christina to Hunter said that she was sorry, and she hoped that he’d be having a good time, and that her phone was on the verge of dying.
This was sadly the last time Christina communicated with anyone. A couple of hours later, everyone was hungover and tired, and Christina’s friends sent out texts to everyone asking to make sure they made it home okay. The only person who wasn’t replying was Christina. [music] Her friends found it odd when calls went to voicemail, but they didn’t think too much of it.
They thought that perhaps Christina was just running late for work and she’d [music] get back to them whenever she did, but over at Christina’s workplace, her co-workers waited and waited for her to show up, but she didn’t. Christina rarely missed work, and if she did, she’d inform her co-workers and higher-ups beforehand. Even though the co-workers didn’t do anything on day one, on day two, when Christina was a no-show yet again, they started getting a sinking feeling.
So, Christina’s friends called her mom, Johny, but she hadn’t heard from Christina all this time, either. Johny also contacted Mark, and when no one got a hold of Christina, the police got involved. On September 2nd, 3 days after the party she went to, 23-year-old Christina Morris was reported missing. Christina had gone to a party with her friends, and now she was gone.
No one had heard from her since that night of the party, and now it had been over 2 days. The police immediately thought this was alarming, so they decided to search for Christina’s car. They reached Paulina’s apartment, and when they checked the parking lot, Christina’s car was still there, locked and undisturbed.
It was as if she never made it to her car. But why? Christina managed to find her car keys, and she was leaving, but now her car was still at Paulina’s apartment, so where did Christina go, and how? The police probed more, though, and they asked Paulina if she saw anyone leaving with Christina that night, and she did provide some useful information.
Paulina remembered seeing a man leaving with Christina. He was one of the people at the party. His name was Enrique Arochi. So, now the police had some direction. Christina left with someone, but who is Enrique? Well, apart from going to the same school together, Enrique was a stranger to them. Paulina decided to him to the reunion, too, so as to not leave him out, though.
But, he was merely a passing acquaintance. He wasn’t really a friend by any means. The police needed to speak to Enrique. He was the last person who was with Christina, so he likely had valuable information. He wasn’t a suspect by any means. The police just needed his version of events to connect the dots. So, Enrique was called, but he wasn’t of much help.
He admitted that he and Christina left together, but as they reached the end of the apartment complex, they just went their separate ways. And apart from this, Enrique didn’t remember anything. And he drank a lot at the party, so there were some memory blocks. This left the police with very few clues, meaning that Christina could literally be anywhere.
But, Enrique did remember one key detail. Christina had been on a phone call with someone, and she seemed like she was getting really frustrated with this person. And at this news, the police’s ears perked up. It was a small lead, but it was a lead nonetheless. They had to start somewhere, so officers kicked things into gear and began trying to trace that phone call.
Enrique was eventually called back to the station for a more thorough round of questioning. And he did remember Christina making a call to someone. And she even used Enrique’s phone to contact that same person at 3:50 a.m. that night. That person was Hunter. But, he didn’t get back to her. After Enrique, Hunter was also called in for questioning.
And he told the police that the reason why he was unable to reach Christina was that he’d lost his phone and was distracted by other [music] things. But, when the police asked for Hunter’s phone to look through it, he was visibly uncomfortable and asked to leave. This reaction left the police highly suspicious about Hunter.
How could Hunter not really even be worried about Christina? And why wouldn’t he hand over his phone? The police decided to look into him a bit more and where he was at the supposed time of Christina’s disappearance. If Hunter didn’t have an alibi, then the police would see him in a completely different light.
So, they reached out to his friends and they corroborated Hunter’s whereabouts. He was in Dallas and his phone location showed him in Dallas. He was not in Plano at the time that Christina went missing. But the cherry on top was the alibi. See, Hunter was out facilitating illegal substance deal with an undercover federal officer. It’s kind of ironic that Hunter’s alibi is him committing a crime.
But knowing what the police now knew about Hunter, his hesitation about handing over his phone made a lot more sense. The reason why he didn’t want to was not because of Christina’s disappearance or anything to do with that, but because he was dealing illegal substances and that too to a federal officer. So, all the suspicion on Hunter died down after this revelation and the police focused their attention back on Enrique.
When the officers talked to the other people at the party, they thought that it was weird that the police suspected Enrique. He and Christina didn’t even interact during the party. Enrique, from the looks of it that evening, didn’t pay Christina the first bit of attention. And in reality, Enrique had his sights set on another woman named Sabrina.
But Sabrina wasn’t interested in Enrique one bit and long story short, she rejected all of his advances. So, Enrique, being really bummed about it, decided to leave the party with none other than Christina as he saw that she was leaving, too. This was corroborated by many people at the party and one of Christina’s friends called her 10 minutes after she left to make sure whether she was okay or not and Christina confirmed that she was with Enrique and everything was fine.
The police checked other CCTV footage as well and sure enough, Christina and Enrique were seen leaving together in the direction of the parking area. But Christina never made it to her car. In fact, 3 minutes later, another CCTV camera spotted Enrique’s car pulling out of the apartment complex, and there was no sign of Christina.
She wasn’t in the apartment complex, and she looked like she was leaving. And the only plausible assumption was that Christina and Enrique left together in Enrique’s car. But, the thing is, the police were hoping to find some footage that showed Christina was maybe forced into Enrique’s car, coerced into it, or something.
But, they didn’t. Christina was walking side by side with Enrique as any friend would. She didn’t feel threatened by him whatsoever. And this was making things pretty difficult for the investigators, as they didn’t really have any other suspects to look into at this point. But, not long after, Enrique’s story changed.
He said that he and Christina walked to their cars together, and Enrique went his way, and doesn’t know where Christina went or what happened to her. But, why the sudden change in his story? This, finally, was the tiny clue that helped police confirm that they were on the right track, or at least hopefully. There were a lot of holes and confusion in this story.
And the smoking gun was when detectives saw Enrique in the flesh when he arrived at the station for questioning. Over the phone, he sounded worried, but very cooperative. He assured the police he would do anything he could to help find Christina. But, when he stepped foot into the station, and the detectives saw him, they were thrown off and taken by surprise, because he was sporting injuries on his forearm and hands.
Not just regular injuries. These were injuries that were consistent with a struggle. His knuckles were busted. His hands were injured. But, Enrique had an explanation for all of it. He told the police that the injuries came from fixing his car when a tire fell on his arm. And in the process, he got angry, and claimed he wanted to hurt something, so he dented his car with his fist.
When that didn’t sound convincing, Enrique, yet again, changed his story, and told the police he’d gotten into a fight with someone. We don’t know who he supposedly got into a fight with though. Even though the police were suspicious of Enrique, they didn’t have a warrant to check his car, so he was allowed to leave.
But the police didn’t stop their investigation. They talked to the store employees where Enrique worked as a manager. He’d worked that Saturday and he usually arrived at the store at 8:00 a.m. But that day, the day after Christina was last seen, he was very late to work, 3 to 4 hours late. >> [music] >> And according to the coworkers, he complained about pain in his ribs and he was walking kind of strange.
The police wanted to know where Enrique was during that 3 to 4-hour window and a little digging resulted [music] in another crucial piece of information. Enrique was at a car wash and surveillance cameras showed him cleaning his car intensively. He would stare at the car for way longer than necessary and then obsessively scrub it clean over and over, like he was trying to remove something.
This was really weird, but maybe it was nothing. Maybe he just really liked having a clean car. In the meantime, searches were being held for Christina. [music] Her parents, friends, and community came together to look for her high and low while the police quietly built their case against Enrique.
Also, the gravity of what had happened to Christina finally got to Hunter and [music] he was beyond devastated. He reached out to Christina’s parents and profusely apologized to them >> [music] >> for not seeing Christina that fateful night. Ever since then, he’s been emotionally fragile and regretful and understandably so. But finally, in November, the police obtained a search warrant for Enrique’s car [music] and they didn’t waste any time checking it and swabbing it from the inside out.
The car had considerable damage to the right front fender and when the forensic tests were run, police found Christina’s DNA [music] inside the car and not just on the seats or something. They found her DNA in the trunk. There was a considerable amount of DNA in Enrique’s car. This wasn’t just transfer or DNA left behind from Christina getting something out of the trunk. There was a lot.
Christina was very clearly inside the trunk of Enrique’s car at some point recently. Furthermore, the police also got their hands on cell phone tower data. And up until 4:56 a.m., both Christina and Enrique’s phones were pinging off the same tower. And turns out they were both in the apartment complex parking lot at this time, but an hour or so later, Christina’s phone was not pinging off any towers. It had been turned off.
And with this information, the police finally named Enrique as a suspect in Christina’s disappearance. The police arrested him in December, 4 months after the fateful night when Christina went out with her friends and failed to come back home. He was only charged with aggravated kidnapping, but he was held on $1 million bond.
The police didn’t have Christina’s body, and they didn’t want to let Enrique get away again. So, the best thing they could do at that moment was to arraign him for aggravated kidnapping charges. But in reality, the police were dreading that what they feared might come true, that Christina may no longer be with them anymore.
She hadn’t reached out to anyone during this whole time, and the evidence the police kept finding wasn’t promising either. It was a very hard time for Christina’s family. They kept hoping Christina would come back home safe and sound, but they were also mentally preparing themselves for the worst possible news.
It’s such a heartbreaking thing to experience, to keep hope alive that your loved one is still safe and out there, but also think of the worst outcome. No one could have understood what the Morris family felt during that time. But after Enrique was charged, he pleaded not guilty to the charges, And now he was awaiting trial.
A couple of months later, Enrique was indicted on kidnapping charges, as well as four other unrelated charges involving underage girls. Apparently, Enrique, who was 22 at the time, was dating an underage girl, and the two had taken their so-called relationship to the next level. I won’t even bother getting into all that for this particular case.
That’s a whole other thing for another time. But it’s believed that during the party, Enrique was rejected by Sabrina, and he really took it to heart and left the party with Christina instead. Initially, he didn’t have any intentions with Christina. But when he saw her getting vulnerable and being ignored by her boyfriend and being in an overall foul mood from the get-go, Enrique tried to comfort Christina, and in the process may have tried to make a pass at her.
Christina, having no interest in Enrique and already dealing with a lot on her plate, rejected him. And as a result, he was visibly angry. He was turned down by not just one, but two women in a row, and this was a major hit for Enrique. Now, while the actual transpirable events is unclear, what is believed is that Enrique used force to subdue Christina and forced her into his car.
The damaged the front fender may have been a result of this altercation. Since the police don’t have Christina’s body or autopsy, they can’t say for sure how she was attacked. But she eventually lost her life after the struggle, and Enrique hid Christina’s body in his trunk and drove off to dispose of it. It’s also believed that Christina willingly got into his car, thinking he was going to drop her off, but he had no plans of doing so.
When Christina realized that he wasn’t taking her home, that was when the struggle ensued, and she tried to escape. But Enrique got the upper hand and overpowered her, fatally attacking her in the process, then disposing of her body somewhere. The injuries sustained by Enrique were the result of Christina trying to fight him off, but as we now know, she was unfortunately unsuccessful.
The theory is more believable because there’s only a 3-minute gap between the two surveillance footages. One is Christina and Enrique walking to the parking area, and the other is Enrique’s car driving away. During all this, Enrique still maintained his innocence and urged that Christina’s boyfriend, Hunter, should be looked into further.
But the prosecution presented evidence of Enrique’s sick and twisted desires involving other women, and multiple explicit inappropriate videos were found on his phone. This guy was just a walking red flag. But on the other hand, the defense only had one thing going for them, and that was the fact that there was no concrete evidence of Christina getting into Enrique’s car.
So, they stressed that the prosecution’s argument was just circumstantial. As for the DNA found in Enrique’s trunk, the defense argued that it was the result of cross-contamination since both Enrique’s and Christina’s cars were tested at the same lab. But obviously, this was not true. But finally, the trial ended, and it was time for a verdict.
In September of 2016, after deliberating for two full days, the jury came back with its decision. And Enrique Arochi was found guilty of first-degree aggravated kidnapping of Christina Morris. During the verdict, the sentencing, and the victim impact statements, Enrique was stoic. He could be seen rocking in his chair, and sometimes even smiling when Christina’s family members gave their heartbreaking statements just a few feet away from him.
In the end, Enrique was given a life sentence with a minimum of 30 years. But one very interesting thing was the fact that no one from Enrique’s family was there at the verdict, the sentencing, at anything, which is kind of odd since Enrique, in his own words, was the nicest person you’ll meet. But if he’s so nice, why did his own family turn their backs [music] on him? Well, now that this chapter was closed, there was only one thing left, and that kept the Morris family restless and awake at night.
Where was Christina? By this point, no one had found her, and everyone presumed that she was gone, but her family still wanted to give her a proper goodbye, and not just leave her out there wherever she was. Christina’s mom, Johny, eventually quit her job and made it her life mission to search for [music] Christina, pasted up flyers, and spread the word even more.
Well, all of their efforts and tremendous amounts of hard work paid off [music] in March of 2018, and Christina’s case would finally reach the finish line. But it was still the most tragic end to this case. All this time, even though Christina’s family was mentally preparing themselves for the worst, they still hoped that Christina was out there somewhere alive, but this hope completely diminished when skeletal remains >> [music] >> were recovered from a rural area in Anna, Texas.
Tragically, the remains were positively identified as Christina Morris. Since so much time had passed, and natural elements had altered the remains to a great extent, [music] we’ll never know what actually happened to Christina during her final hours, and how she met her tragic and untimely end. And Enrique >> [music] >> certainly isn’t talking, and he still claims to be innocent, and is still pointing fingers at Hunter.
But the Morris family, they finally got the closure they needed >> [music] >> following Enrique’s sentencing. But now they had to take the long road of healing, and just moving on from this loss, and the loss of their bright, cheerful, creative, strong, [music] and driven Christina. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Mhm.
