Mother donated her murdered son’s organs
Four years later, she meets young recipient at Walt Disney World
In the last few days of her baby’s life, Alicia Erchul dressed him up in a Tigger costume for Halloween.
At 4 months old, Gabriel cooed and laughed, showing a gummy smile in photos from that time in 2014.
A few days later, the Jacksonville mom left for work while her husband watched Gabriel and his older brother, Aidan.
He later told authorities that Gabriel had thrown up his breakfast and then wouldn’t stop crying and kicking his legs, throwing a fit, according to a Jacksonville Sheriff’s arrest report.
That afternoon, he alerted his wife something was wrong with Gabriel. The infant was taken to the doctor’s, but it was too late.
His brain swelling from severe trauma, Gabriel died two days later.
Erchul’s husband, Donald Crystalus, 35, was charged with seconddegree murder and later sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2016.
And just like that, Erchul lost half her family.
As she grieved, Erchul decided to donate Gabriel’s liver and heart. She had lost her son, but maybe somebody else’s child could live.
Failing heart
Born a week apart from Gabriel, Morgan Price lay in a children’s hospital with a failing heart in Birmingham, Ala., hooked up to an
IV during the fall of 2014.
Doctors ordered the baby girl, born with a condition where her enlarged heart didn’t pump enough blood, to remain at the hospital until she could receive a heart transplant, however long it took.
“We had our church praying for us. Our friends praying for us. We just had no idea. She could have been waiting for months and months and months,” said Dorothy Johnson, Morgan’s grandmother, who slept overnight at the hospital to give the baby’s mother, Arica, a break.
The diagnosis shocked their family because Morgan’s ultrasound had been perfect.
But then the call came on Nov. 2, 2014: A heart had been found.
Hours later, surgeons successfully transplanted Gabriel’s heart, about the size of a strawberry, into Morgan’s chest.
Since then, Morgan has grown up to be a 4-year-old who loves playing with her dollhouses and getting her hands dirty with Play-Doh and slime. She is healthy — although her family stays in close contact with her doctors and brings her home from day care when children are sick because of her weakened immune system.
Her family doesn’t forget Morgan’s gift.
“It has always been bittersweet for our family,” said Johnson, who works for the U.S. Social Security Administration and lives near Birmingham, not far from Morgan.
“We were thankful to get a heart,’’ she said. “Otherwise, we were going to lose Morgan. But we knew another family had lost a child.”
A new normal
After her husband’s trial,
Erchul tried to create a new normal.
Every June 30, Gabriel’s birthday, she and Aidan visit Walt Disney World to celebrate his life. The parks became their escape during the holidays, too, where they could ride Expedition Everest five times in a row and have fun together.
As a single mother, Erchul, 43, now divorced from her incarcerated husband, went back to school to earn a master’s degree in addition to working as an administrator at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.
Aidan, 6, who became quiet after his brother’s death, slowly began coming out of his shell. The firstgrader takes pride earning badges for Cub Scouts and does well in math and science at school.
Finally, it felt like enough time passed.
“I’m sorry it’s taken so many years to write you,” Erchul’s email to Morgan’s family began.
She was unsure if they’d ever write back as she started typing this past November. Her message was sent through an organ donation agency to protect Morgan’s family’s identity.
“I didn’t want to shadow the joy you must have felt in receiving a necessary gift to save your child’s life by sharing about my son’s life,” Erchul wrote. “I have prayed every day for Morgan that her heart has grown stronger ...”
The email sparked a reply. Then Erchul and Johnson began writing back and forth.
Morgan’s family planned to go to Walt Disney World on their spring break trip in March.
Would Erchul and her son join them?
First meeting
The nerves the two families felt meeting for the first time last month faded fast, thanks to Morgan, who warmed up to strangers quickly and stuck her hand on her hip to strike a pose for pictures at the Magic Kingdom.
The Erchul family fit right in as Aidan played with Morgan’s relatives in a game of hide-and-goseek in the rental home where they stayed.
“It was just incredible,” said Johnson, who did her best not to cry the first time she met Gabriel’s mom.
Morgan showed Erchul her scar that she called her “zipper.”
“She just held me so tightly,” Erchul said. “She wanted to hold my hand all the time. … It’s brought a sense of peace that I didn’t realize I was missing.”
Over the next three days, the pair giggled together as they rode Frozen Ever After at Epcot and landed front-row seats at the “Lion King” show at Animal Kingdom, even meeting the cast.
Johnson promised to stay in touch as the vacation came to an end. Morgan cried when Erchul left to go back home.
Their gift to Erchul was a stuffed pink unicorn with a recording of Morgan’s heart beating inside it.
Aidan has been sleeping with it ever since.