Spring man charged with murder after wife found shot in New Jersey hotel, police say

RUNNEMEDE, New Jersey (KTRK) -- A 38-year-old man from Spring, who recently had his bond revoked in Montgomery County, is in jail in Philadelphia after authorities said he shot and killed his wife at a hotel in New Jersey with their two young children in the room.

Steven Burgess, 38, has been charged with murder in New Jersey.

The Runnemede Police Department said that on Nov. 1 at about 1:48 a.m., officers responded to a Days Inn Hotel for a report of a carjacking and a shooting. When officers talked to the victim, he told them that a man fired a gun at him and stole his vehicle.

As officers searched the hotel, they found 30-year-old Ivy Morris dead, with apparent gunshot wounds. Her father, James Morris, told ABC13's sister station WPVI in Philadelphia that the family had recently moved to New Jersey for a new start, but late Tuesday, the couple had been fighting.

"I guess their argument escalated, and I knew something bad was going to happen," James Morris said. "So, we left, and I guess he shot her, and he tried to get in a car and leave or something."

The couple's two children, an infant and a toddler, were in the room but were not injured, police said. James Morris, who is grieving his daughter's death, partly blames the highly addictive drug, fentanyl.

"He (Burgess) was supposed to be making a lot of money, but he was on that damn fentanyl crap and went crazy, I guess," he said.

According to court records in Montgomery County, Burgess was charged in April for possessing with intent to deliver fentanyl. On Oct. 27, a judge revoked his bond, citing four drug testing-related bond violations - Burgess was a wanted man.

On Thursday morning, U.S. Marshals and police tracked him down at a hotel in Philadelphia and arrested him, not for the bond revocation in Texas but for his wife's murder in New Jersey.

He is currently in jail in Philadelphia and awaiting extradition to New Jersey.

Police said the investigation is ongoing, but additional charges are pending.

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