WEBVTT - After 6000 Autopsies, This Was The Case That Broke Him 0:00:01.600 --> 0:00:05.360 It's Monday, March eighth in twenty twenty one, and police 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:08.039 are gathered in a remote section of the Flinders Rangers 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:11.840 in South Australia. They've been told they'll find the body 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:15.640 of a twenty one year old woman here. Jasmine Corp 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:18.600 was last seen leaving her job at Southern Cross Aged 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:23.320 Care in Adelaide on Friday night. By Sunday, detectives were 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.560 being told a story by her ex boyfriend. He said 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.240 Jasmine had taken her own life and that he had 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:34.520 buried her body more than four hundred kilometers from home. 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:39.160 So here they are, and they're about to uncover her 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:45.560 shallow grave. Among those gathered is Professor Roger Bayard. He's 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.680 the one that's going to determine exactly how Jasmine died. 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:53.720 What he discovers will give him nightmares he hasn't experienced 0:00:54.200 --> 0:01:03.640 in forty years on the job. I'm Jemma Bath and 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.240 you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.839 world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.759 know the most about them. Professor Roger Bayard is one 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:19.119 of Australia's most respected forensic pathologists and has spent more 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:24.880 than four decades investigating sudden, suspicious and unexplained deaths. He 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:29.720 is internationally recognized for his research into forensic pathology, sudden 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:33.600 infant death, and unusual causes of death, and has worked 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:37.360 on some of our country's most confronting homicide cases, like 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:41.000 the Snowtown murders and the horrifying case of Jasmine kr. 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.319 He also helped identify victims of the Barley bombings in 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.240 two thousand and two and the Boxing Day tsunami in 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:51.880 Thailand in two thousand and four. This is a man 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:56.240 who has performed more than six thousand autopsies. In twenty 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.880 twenty one, he was named a World Leader in forensic science. 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:04.360 In twenty twenty four, he was named Tasmanian Australian of 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:08.600 the Year. In twenty twenty five he became a Companion 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.919 of the Order of Australia and in twenty twenty six. 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:17.160 Just recently he retired from an impressive and wide ranging career. 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.560 As someone that works in and around death, Professor Bayard 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.000 has seen some horrific things. The way he gets through 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:29.399 it is focusing on the science, not the horror. Here's 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:36.880 Roger Roger, thank you for joining me on True crime 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:42.040 conversations and congratulations on your recent retirement. Was forensic pathology 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.359 always what you plan to do if you go back 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:46.080 to young Roger. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:53.480 I was going to be an archaeologist, but thought, when 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.240 on my teenage years, you don't get much money doing that, 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:00.600 so maybe I'll do medicine, and no, I do do 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.320 basically emergency medicine, and the qualified in general practice was 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:07.639 going back to Canada to emergency medicine. And I was 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:09.840 in Belice and I was snorkeling and it was so 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:11.720 good I stayed a few extra weeks. And when I 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.440 go back to Canada, no jobs in emergency. So basically 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.040 by default I got into pathology, and then into pediator 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:21.200 pathology and then forensic pathology. So it's been a sort 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.680 of a downpill course really for years. 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.720 You mentioned four decades. You have seen so many iterations 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:34.320 of your profession. Has it changed in the way you 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.840 do your job? Given the advances in technologies. 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:43.760 It has. What we're using more often now is imaging 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:49.520 CT examinations, So most forensic facilities have cts, so bodies 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.400 get CT before an autopsy, which means that you can 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:55.680 actually find a course to death, sometimes without even opening 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.600 the body. So we're doing a lot more CT examinations 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:02.040 with external examinations still not looking for any injuries or 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.880 something untoward, and the CT can tell us if there's 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.880 been a rupture at the heart or whether there's been 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.800 a stroke. So that has changed things dramatic. It also 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:13.920 adds to our standard autopsies as. 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.440 Well, because you have to include it as well. 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.560 That's exactly right. So, yes, we've been dragged out of 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:21.880 the nineteenth century, sometimes reluctantly. 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.480 But I can imagine being able to use CT and 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:27.920 not having to open a body for a family member, 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.280 like if I had to imagine my loved one being 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.359 chopped open to be able to be spared that like, 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:35.120 that's a good thing. 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.000 It is a good thing. It's a good thing for families, 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:44.080 for the pathologists or resources. But I often meet with 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:48.000 families and you know, the particularly with babies, they want 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:49.560 to meet the person who they want to ask the 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.159 pathologists questions, but it's not really what it's about. They 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.160 want to see the person that looked after their baby 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:57.599 in the time that they last saw the baby to 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:00.640 the time they saw him again or her, And you know, 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:04.360 I explain that it's not chopping open it's it's it's 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.760 a surgical procedure. Nowadays, we open the body cavity is 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:12.919 really carefully treated with respect, and everybody knows that this 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:15.200 is a tragedy, and I think that's important for people 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:15.520 to hear. 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:21.200 It's interesting to hear say that, because, yeah, me using 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.120 that word chopped, it's such a it's quite a violent word, 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:28.719 but it's quite well. It is. It's medical. What you're doing. 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.479 Is it almost like you have a process that you 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.000 go through. You're you're doing the exact same thing kind 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:35.960 of in every autopsy. 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.600 Yeah. Absolutely, there's a standard procedure of opening the three 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.400 body cavities, examining the organs, taking them out, weighing them 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:46.560 and slicing them and looking for disease and injuries, and 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.800 then taking pieces for looking at under the microscope. But 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:58.039 the there are modifications. For example, if somebody has maybe 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.160 a back injury, you would you would dissect the act, 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:04.480 which you would normally do. You may in a strangulation 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.280 case where you would do a nectar section. So by 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.039 that what you're doing you're taking every layer of the 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.360 skin and the muscles, and you're looking for bruising and 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:17.839 injuries and documenting it with photography, so you do modify 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:19.880 them according to the case, but there is a standard 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.159 process that should be followed and it is not always followed. 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.320 When you said that respect for the body and the 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:28.800 family is a big part of what you do, can 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.120 you expand on that, How do you make sure that 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:32.200 a body is respected? 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:38.720 Essentially, pathologists are the last doctors that this person is 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.479 going to see. So there are patients. So when the 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.560 bodies come in, they come with the funeral director, they're 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:51.080 in body bags, they're covered with sheets. They're brought into 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.760 the mortuary on the trolley and the dissections perform on 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:59.200 the trolley. There's not unnecessary moving of the body. The 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:03.599 body is to this people, and that's that's the important part. 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.159 And if you if you don't understand it, then you 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:07.560 should not be doing forensics. 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.400 How many autopsies do you think you've done over a 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:11.640 forty year career. 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:14.160 I lost count Actually was up to six thousand, I think, 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.880 and then a few years ago I just stopped counting. 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.960 But they're the autopsies I've done. But then I've seen 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:22.720 tens of thousands of other autopsies as well. Because my 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:27.080 colleagues are autopsy around me. So a large number of 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:27.720 dead people. 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.120 I can see why you're done, Roger. That's a lot. 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:34.080 Yes, I agree. I feel it's funny. The last couple 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:37.840 of months, I've been thinking back to cases and thinking, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.120 aback what I've done. I mean, I published over one 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.640 thousand papers and twelve textbooks, and it makes me I 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:44.400 feel exhausted. 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.280 I'm not surprised. You're a very accomplished man, well driven, 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.520 I think. Can you remember your first autopsy? 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.320 Absolutely? Really, I remember my first autopsy. I remember my 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:59.400 first pediatric autopsy. And my first autopsy was in Hobart 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.560 in nineteen eight and I was a medical resident in 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:04.760 the hospital and I was getting interested in pathology, and 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.240 so the pathologist said, well, you know, I'll show you 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:09.120 how to do an autopsy. And it was a patient 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.440 I was looking after who had a disseminated cancer and 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:14.760 he was going to die. And my boss said, you 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:16.200 better go and tell him he's not going to make it, 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.840 and also that I want an autopsy. So I sat 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.040 down with this old fellow he was an old digger 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.360 because it was a repatriation hospital, and gave him the 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.040 bad news and mentioned the autopsy. And then he said, well, 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:28.720 who's going to do the autopsy, and I said, well, 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.000 it's actually going to be me. So he just sat 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.560 back and thought for a bit. Then he just looked 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:35.719 over and said, you know, son, you're going to be 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:38.760 all right. So basically I looked after him in life, 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:40.360 I looked after him in death, and he gave me 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:45.520 a benediction for my career, which decades later still means 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.160 a lot to me. In the first Pediatric Case was 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.040 my first publication, actually as a little girl in Canada, 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:54.800 Genevieve who died of leukemia and said a very strange 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.600 finding which we published. But I still use her in 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:01.080 my textbooks and I still use her to teach, and 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.840 in fact, I've just finished the fourth edition of My 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.400 Sudden Death in the Young Book, and I've dedicated to 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.439 gel and all the other young people who have contributed 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.440 to it, so her memory continues. 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.599 Did you find the pediatric autopsies harder given it's a 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:20.239 child or I guess like mechanically as well. 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.360 Well, I'm very good at the sections because obviously much smaller. 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.040 And I was always interested in pediatrics. I did flying 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.680 doctor work and did a lot of pediatrics there, and 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:32.400 I've found pediatric case as harder as I get older, 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:34.559 because when I first started, I thought, I am going 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:36.800 to find the cause of death here, you know, I'm 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:40.280 going to work it out, and it was very challenging. 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:42.840 And then as I got older, I realized more and 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.480 more that sometimes you're just not going to find out 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:48.600 what's happened, and you know the impact of this death 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:49.920 on families. 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:52.800 I know you don't just do crime, but you have 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.680 seen a lot of crime and the worst things that 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.839 humans can do to other people. Is that something you've 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:02.600 had to learn to compartmentalize or how do you kind 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:04.400 of process the things you've seen? 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.800 Well, just correct you. I don't do crime. I observe 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:12.720 crime just of course the record, you do compartmentalize and 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.839 when you're doing a case. I mean, I've had some 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:22.440 horrific childhood cases, the assaults. One was a little boy 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.160 who was I think kicked in the stomach and the 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:28.480 de facto boyfriend who did it actually videoed him on 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:33.200 his phone while he was dying. And you can't think 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.040 about that while you're doing the case. The case is 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.520 the order. If you start to get distracted, then you 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:43.240 don't do a proper job later. Of course, one case 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.320 I remember there was another little boy who been kicked 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.360 in the stomach and he had a paratonitis. So when 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.199 I opened the anominal cavity, there's this whiff of almost 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:54.719 like sewage came in and I just just stopped me 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.559 in my tracks because I realized what that meant, and 0:10:57.640 --> 0:10:59.160 so I had my back turned to the police. And 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.200 everybody knows that sort of pretending to the second one. 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.559 I just got myself together. Yeah, occasionally at night you're 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:07.400 you're sitting there in its cases that you don't expect 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:08.280 to get through to you that. 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.640 Might Does it get easier dealing with death or do 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.959 you have an interesting relationship with death? 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.040 Well, I see death as a part of life, and 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:23.560 I'm actually an animist, and I believe that life is 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.800 like a river and we're just an eddy in the river, 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:29.760 and then when we go, we're still part of the 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.360 life force, but the eddy's gone. It's not as we were. 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:36.040 I think one of the mistakes in the West is 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.400 we trivialize everything, but we're so terrified of death we 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.040 hide from it. You know, you don't put grandma out 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.240 on the kitchen table and have awake and everybody's standing 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:48.520 around telling great stories. What you do is Grandma's putting 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.760 a body bag whipped away. You may never see her again, 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.840 and you know she's in a coffin and cremated. That's 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.120 not a good way to say farewell. And I think 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.880 we lose by not will not be able to say 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:01.240 so well. 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:03.120 I think you're right there, because there are so many 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:07.760 other cultures that that celebrate life after death much more 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:08.839 than the Western world. 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:14.360 Absolutely. I'm a very close friend who is from Samoa 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.120 and she just went back the end of last year 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.560 for the second burial for her mother. And what that 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.520 means is mum was buried years ago, and the three 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:26.560 daughters get together and they get the bones out, and 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:28.600 they wash the bones and anoint them with oil, wrap 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:30.800 them up in tapper, have them in the house and 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:34.680 they have a second ceremony, and so it's very visceral thing, 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:40.760 but it's it's a way of saying goodbye, you know, properly. 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.560 So other cultures I think do it better. 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:49.200 Hundred can't. I cannot imagine that happening at a Western 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.800 funeral or a Western kind of well. 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.920 We're spiritually bankrupt. Actually, that's that's how I see it. 0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:02.920 I tend to agree in terms of how much looking 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.439 into crime was a part of your job. Can you 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.000 kind of give us a bit of an overview because 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:11.160 you worked in so many different areas, did investigating crime 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:14.439 kind of take up a majority or how is that 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:16.280 kind of it. 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:20.680 Varies tremendously depending on countries and jurisdictions. In some countries 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:24.520 the pathologists will just do criminal cases, but here we 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.640 do all sorts of cases. The current as Act of 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.199 South Australia is basically any death is reportable, it's sudden, 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:36.080 unexpected or doctor can't issue a certificates. So probably sixty 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.880 percent of our case so just natural death right, And 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:43.120 then we have a large number of suicides twenty five percent. 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.320 Then we have vehicle accidents, and you get down to 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:47.959 actual homicides, it's probably only about two to three percent. 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:48.880 Wow. 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.080 So although it occupies a lot of our time, because 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.679 you know, with a standard case of somebody who's just 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:57.600 dropped down there with a heart attack, you know very 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:03.080 easy to quickly find the current artyage. Over with a homicide, 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:05.640 you may be going for eight or ten hours. Is 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.000 there a lot of injuries? Trying to work out which 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:09.960 injuries are important? Is it an injury or is it 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:14.320 not which injuries were lethal, the sequence of injuries, the 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:18.679 type of injuries, sharp force, blunt force. Then you have 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:23.160 to put it all together into a report and then 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.600 go to court and be challenged, made to look like 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:32.120 an idiot. There's a great quote of Jackson Lambs in 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:35.600 Slow Horses, and I've put it in my book saying 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:39.160 that sometimes talking to lawyers in court is like trying 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:45.440 to explain Norway to a dog. It's just they asked 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:46.720 questions I know you can't answer. 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.120 Well, it's one of those It's one of those careers 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:54.840 that you There aren't many jobs where you get kind 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:57.520 of criticized to the level that you do when you 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.000 are standing up in a court room, like having your 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:05.520 work dissected that kind of closely and horribly in like 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:07.800 a cross examination. Like there's not many of us that 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:08.560 have to go through that. 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.040 No, And it's interesting the games that were played. I 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:17.480 was inter state and the defense said, you know, did 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.920 you bring all the material that you base your opinion 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.400 on with you to court? And I thought, well, the 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:25.640 prosecutors smart enough to catch this, And I said no, 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:27.440 I didn't. So you just raised an eyebrow and looked 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:29.400 at the jury as if you know this is in competence. 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:31.680 When the prosecutor came, he said, you didn't bring all 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.240 of the material? Did you? Said no? He said why not? 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.920 I said, because, as you are aware, it fills ten 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:40.160 boxes and it wouldn't fit on the plane. And so 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:45.360 in that instance the jury thought, ah, so the other 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.240 lawyer was actually trying to put one across. 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.360 Did you enjoy working in homicide, especially if it ended 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:51.760 up with you having to go to court? 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:57.720 Oh? I wouldn't say I enjoyed. I find an interesting process. Yeah, 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.120 it's quite stressful, be very to measure the blood pressure 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.200 of pathologist in the witness box when they're being hammered. 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:12.760 Sometimes it's interesting. This adversarial system, I think, you know, 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:15.840 is a bit of a problem. Going back to SMOA, 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.520 I was over there doing autopsis for the government and 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:21.760 there was a homicide. A young fellow had dropped a 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:25.520 rock on another kid's head. They were both reasonable young blokes, 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:29.160 but they were both drunk. There they don't have juries. 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:33.240 They have a council of elders. And the judge said 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:34.880 to me, why don't you come down and stand beside 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:38.520 me and explain to the council, And they had a translator, 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:42.920 and it's interesting the elders speaking saying you what I 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.760 was saying, but it was also translated. But the two 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.560 lawyers were not really at each other's throats. So I 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:50.280 got the feeling that I've already thought, this is just 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.560 a tragedy, and let's, you know, let's find out what 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:55.400 happened to see what we can do. But that that 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:59.760 was a very meaningful court appearance. Other times, you know, 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:03.480 you'll get asked the same question five hundred times, or 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.159 you'll get asked a question that's about five minutes long 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.720 with a whole lot of double negatives in it, so 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:11.200 that you know you don't you're really not quite sure 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.959 what's going on. In that case, you can go to 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.560 the the judge and say, I'm sorry, you're on it, 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:19.119 but you know, I can't ask the question the way 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.639 it's put to me. It will confuse the jury. And 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.160 I've had judges saying just answer the question, doctor, okay. 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:30.360 You also get put in scenarios where you your evidence 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:34.359 or findings might be put up against another experts. Would 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:35.320 that happen very often? 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:39.720 Oh? Yeah, quite often. And the problem is the more 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:43.080 technical case, the more difficult it is. For juries to 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:45.440 sort of sort it out. So if you have some 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:48.760 sort of you know, bespeckled, bald, be it, an old 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.120 guy saying one thing, and you've got similar guys saying 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:54.840 another thing, often the juries will just negate both of them. 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:58.960 So that's too complicated. So what what the court or 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.680 what the other side has done is they've created a 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.520 reasonable doubt. So one of the things that's developed in 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.840 curture reason is it's called hot tubbing, and it means 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:09.639 that two witnesses will be in the same box at 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:13.040 the same time. And that's fascinating because I find that 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:20.040 people who have pathologies, who've got quite outlandish theories really 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:24.199 tone them down when I'm sitting beside them looking at them, 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.400 because my facial expression will be you know what, I'm 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.359 allowed to do that? And then the lawyer will say, 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:32.800 you know, do you have an opinion on that? To 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:37.320 press a byad, the side that calls me calls me professor. 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.479 The side often the other side caused me mister to 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.080 reduce my status. I don't care. My father was called 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:49.000 mister for eighty years. But what they'll say is, what 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:50.239 do you think of that statement? I said, Well, I'm 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:52.320 a bit confused because I'm not aware of any literature 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.080 that supports that, and this, this and this, and so 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.760 it has to be then answered at the time, So 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.960 it speeds things along, and I think it it makes 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:03.560 it easy. It's also like pre trial conferences. Let's just 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:06.120 have a conference with everybody and see what we can 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:07.520 agree on and what we can't agree on. 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:09.359 I think you've already kind of answered this, but I'm 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.240 going to ask you bluntly, what do you think about 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:15.960 our current court and justice systems given your involvement in them. 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:21.160 I think it does a spectacular job. Given how fragmented 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:26.720 society is, mistakes are made, but I think that generally 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:30.480 the system is a safe system. I'm not so supportive 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.160 of juries. I prefer judge alone because then you can 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.679 get the reasons why they made the decision. I've got 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.119 judges who are friends who much prefer jury trials. I 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:45.000 think it's just it brings out more information. I do 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:51.160 like the European inquisitorial system rather than our adversarial where 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.760 you get to talk about things you have the conferences. 0:19:54.560 --> 0:20:00.439 It's less aggressive. So I think, yes that given what 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:02.960 we've got, it does a pretty good job. 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:09.040 Maybe just toned down the aggression. Yes, yes, indeed, let's 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.840 go back to the autopsy room. When you are investigating 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:17.159 a crime, would you have the detectives in there with you? 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:18.720 How does it work in terms of I know you 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.399 do report after the fact, but how involved are the 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.720 detectives and the police very involved. 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.560 Some of our cult and safety people want the police 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:33.000 to stand behind the room with a glass between them 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:37.399 and me, and I won't have that. I'll go to 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:39.800 a death scene and talk to the police. You know, 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.679 what's happened, who might it be, how could this have happened? 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:45.359 What are questions that we need to do? What are 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:47.879 samples should be taken? There are crime scene officers there 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.600 as well who look after that. They're very skilled, but 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:54.160 we're all talking about what is the possibility? And then 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:56.960 at the autopsy, I'll have the crime scene officer and 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:01.520 I will have one or two detectives sitting in the 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:05.480 room and we're talking about things. What could this not be? 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:07.600 What could it be? We try and do it as 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:10.200 quickly as possible so that they can get information. If 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.720 they have somebody that they suspect, they can then ask 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.640 them questions and I'll have information from me to say, well, 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:20.280 it was a stab wound with a double sided blade, 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:21.400 not a bullet wound. 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.000 After the break, Roger talks about his time working on 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:30.639 the case of Jasmine cor who was buried alive. I 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:34.400 want to talk about some cases so can people can 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.920 really understand how your work works. I want to start 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:40.359 with Jazmine, which was one of the harder kind of 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:43.680 cases in your career. She was murdered in twenty twenty 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:48.120 one by her ex boyfriend. He at first denied ever 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:51.119 being involved in her death, and he just admitted to 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.320 burying her body, told police where he had buried her. 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.119 Can you talk us through your involvement, because that was 0:21:57.160 --> 0:21:59.480 one of the cases where you went to the scene 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:02.639 as they exhumed her body, just meine correctly. 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:05.560 Wasn't one of the harder cases. It was the hardest case, 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:10.400 and after that I really started to think about retirement. 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.960 I think that it was so horrific that something actually 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:18.960 broke in me and I lost I don't know the 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:26.040