Morton's colleagues from AP and his family had no clue to his whereabouts. The AP maintained strict silence about his disappearance in order to not jeopardize his safety if he had survived. However, London received an alarming news from a German radio that said 17 Anglo-American agents who had been captured in Slovakia had been tried by a military tribunal and executed by shooting on January 24, 1945 that same day. In April 1945, the first information leading to Morton's fate when a German interpreter was captured and interrogated by the OSS. Finally, in June 1945, a month after the liberation of Mauthausen camp by Patton's Third U.S. Army, AP's correspondent and Morton's friend Lynne Hientzerling was allowed to fly to Mauthausen to investigate, including the interview of a Polish prisoner, Wilhelm Ornstein. On July 9, 1945, the investigation by the AP stated that Morton was indeed executed by the Germans on January 24, 1945, and also found that there were no evidence of any trials for Morton and the Dawes men before their execution.
