Husband charged with murder after missing newlywed wife found dead in SUV, OK cops say

An Oklahoma man is accused of killing his wife less than a month after getting married, according to police.

The search for missing Tulsa woman Cassidy Ritchie, 39, came to an end on Jan. 28, seven days after her parents and children last saw her alive, McClatchy News previously reported.

Investigators found her SUV abandoned along U.S. Highway 412 and, after getting a warrant to search inside, they found Ritchie dead, “hidden in a very small space and covered with clothing and boxes,” Tulsa police said in a Jan. 29 news release.

Now her husband, Chris Morland, is charged with murder, police said.

Morland had already been taken into custody before the discovery of Ritchie’s body due to unrelated warrants filed in Texas, police said, but detectives spoke with him during the search for his wife and he was uncooperative.

“Morland told multiple stories, and multiple versions of those stories,” police said. “Morland would not come off any of his stories and maintained that she was just somewhere visiting a friend.”

Ritchie and Morland got married on Jan. 7, less than two weeks before her disappearance, McClatchy News reported.

“She was so happy on her wedding day,” her brother, Kyle Ritchie, told KJRH. “I don’t know if she was just too scared, too scared to say anything. (Her husband) just was a whole different person after the marriage.”

Investigators located Ritchie’s SUV on Jan. 26 but were forced to wait two days for a warrant to search after they asked Morland to sign a waiver granting them permission, but he refused, police said.

Investigators have not said how Ritchie died, but “she had several injuries from blunt force trauma.”

This story was originally published January 30, 2024 at 9:11 AM with the headline "Husband charged with murder after missing newlywed wife found dead in SUV, OK cops say."