SEX, MONEY, MURDER - & LIES?

JERELEIGH "JERRY" MORTON, a Philadelphia-area real-estate speculator, was all set to visit one of his two wives in Morocco on Sunday.

But he never made it out of his bed in his posh suburban Whitpain Township home - where his body was found with a bullet in the head before dawn that day.

Now, Montgomery County investigators want to obtain DNA samples from his other wife - who initially told police that an intruder had broken into their $1 million home and killed her husband, a 47-year-old former plumber.

A stunning tale of sex, money, murder and possible lies on upscale West Mount Pleasant Avenue was laid out yesterday in an affidavit by Montgomery County prosecutors, parts of which read more like a romance novel than a legal document.

A notebook police discovered appears to record Myra Morton's dismay that her Muslim husband took a second wife in North Africa.

" . . . In March 07 my husband married a woman from Morocco," according to a handwritten entry in a black-and-white marble composition book detectives found in the Mortons' home. "Before this he was showing strange behavior to me, going out staying late, on computer all the time, hiding himself from me early in the morning."

Nevertheless, Myra Morton said she acquiesced to the second marriage. Polygamy, while outlawed in the United States, is practiced by some Muslims in other countries.

Myra Morton told Whitpain police on Sunday - after reporting at 3:30 a.m. that an intruder had shot her husband - that he was set to return to Morocco later that day.

In addition to a DNA sample, prosecutors are now seeking financial documents, insurance information and computers, as well as any records detailing his relationship with his other wife in Morocco. However, Montgomery County prosecutor Risa Vetri Ferman did not state yesterday that Myra Morton is a suspect. "We're considering every possibility in the case," Ferman said.

According to the court papers, Myra Morton told police that her husband - who bought and sold a number of properties, according to real-estate records - was worth $6 million. She said that she and her daughter were the beneficiaries of her husband's life-insurance policy.

When police were called to the couple's home Sunday morning, the initial report was that a burglary had been interrupted and a person shot. Myra Morton directed a police officer to her ground-floor bedroom, where "the bloodied and obviously deceased body" of Jereleigh Morton lay.

Myra Morton told detectives on Sunday that she was asleep in her bedroom next to her husband when she was awakened by gunshots. She saw a figure leaving the house through the sliding door in her bedroom, and she chased this figure outside, according to court papers.

But a forensics team that examined the Morton residence, according to the court papers, found no sign of forced entry.

In the bedroom was an empty holster, the papers said. Various valuable items were visible in the bedroom, including a man's watch, a man's ring, a wallet, U.S. currency and a small flat-screen television.

Jewelry was strewn about the patio directly outside the bedroom's sliding door, according to the documents.

Inside the bedroom, detectives said, they found two spent RMP-brand .40-caliber shell cases. They also said they found three handgun magazines in a filing cabinet that were loaded with RMP-brand .40-caliber ammunition - the same type used to kill Morton.

A short distance from the bedroom's sliding door, detectives found a Glock .40-caliber handgun. According to the serial number, it belonged to Jereleigh Morton. Myra Morton told the detectives that her husband had purchased a small black handgun for her.

She also told authorities about her husband's other wife. According to the affidavit: "She explained that, as is required by her Muslim religion, she gave her approval for this marriage which occurred in about March of 2007."

According to initial reports, Morton's daughter, son-in-law and grandchild were in the home when his body was discovered. The couple - who once listed Allegheny Avenue in North Philadelphia as an address - also apparently once had a teenage daughter named Aatifa who died, and attorney Charles Hehmeyer said they settled a 2002 malpractice suit for an undisclosed amount.

Other notebook entries detectives found:

"Two 1/2 months later, I find picture of woman on the desk of computer turned down. It was her, the women he already married under Islam. As time went on I find other things: Money sent many times through Western Union [her dowry], her name on the computer and her pictures. He never mentioned he was married but convinced me to go to her country [for him] to marry her under court law."

The note continues: "I go give him the permission, because he argues with me when I protest this marriage. I run all over her country trying to get the papers together, he treats me different now while we're there. His whole world is her. He brings me home sick and returned to her to finish marriage papers." *

Staff writer Will Bunch contributed to this report.