Following high school, he became the manager of a grocery store in St Louis, Missouri in 1930 and continued taking correspondence courses at LaSalle Extension University, graduating in 1940.

[2] In 1949, Morrison was appointed to settle a court case involving a man named Joe Hines, whose brother had died in Minot, North Dakota.

During the course of proving his identity to the court, Hines claimed that he was in fact the notorious outlaw Jesse Evans that had fought in the Lincoln County War and related that Billy the Kid was not killed by Pat Garrett in 1881.

Hines would not reveal the name or whereabouts of The Kid, but did provide some leads that Morrison was able to follow which eventually led him to William H. "Brushy Bill" Roberts in Hico, Texas.

Disappointed with the results, and believing that Roberts had not received a fair hearing, Morrison collaborated with renowned folklorist C. L. Sonnichsen on a book entitled Alias Billy the Kid published in 1955.