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Speaker 1: Quality dams. But Joseph's gotten more. You know, I don't

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Speaker 1: really know how how man originally discovered fire. We always

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Speaker 1: have this image in our minds. I don't know about

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Speaker 1: you guys. I have it of you know, these kind

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Speaker 1: of chromagnum looking creatures that are sitting around in a

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Speaker 1: cave and all of a sudden, one of them, you know,

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Speaker 1: strikes a rock against another rock, and suddenly they discover,

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Speaker 1: you know, fire. I've always thought that maybe it was

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Speaker 1: a lightning strike, perhaps this kind of natural manifestation, maybe

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Speaker 1: from the sweet Lord above. Something caught on fire, and

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Speaker 1: they were amazed by it, and they took it and

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Speaker 1: they kept it, and it provided so much for them.

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Speaker 1: It provided it split the night at that point in time,

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Speaker 1: no artificial light. Suddenly they had naturally occurring light where

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Speaker 1: they could see in the darkness those things that were

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Speaker 1: out there. Suddenly they had access to warmth when it

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Speaker 1: was very, very cold. Can you imagine being in the

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Speaker 1: midst of the ice age or at the end of

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Speaker 1: the last ice age, and you're freezing to death, but

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Speaker 1: yet you have this cloe that you can sit around

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Speaker 1: and rub your hands in front of. They learned how

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Speaker 1: to cook, perhaps with fire. But now in the modern context,

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Speaker 1: fire represents many other things. We can manufacture things with it,

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Speaker 1: we can fuel things, industry runs on it. But in

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Speaker 1: my world fire fire generally comes down to this, something

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Speaker 1: is being destroyed that may be a criminal otherwise would

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Speaker 1: not want to be found today on bodybags, We're going

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Speaker 1: to have kind of a brief primer, a brief discussion

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Speaker 1: on fire and arson. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this

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Speaker 1: is bodybags. Dave. The scaredest I have ever been at

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Speaker 1: any type of scene. For me, this is me personally. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let me run down this. Let me break this down

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Speaker 1: to you. Where cases not where there was an active

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Speaker 1: shooter still running around, or there was an angry crowd

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Speaker 1: or something like that. Because I had my share of those.

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Speaker 1: It was always involving structure fires. First off, since I

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Speaker 1: was a little boy, I've always been fascinated by firefighters,

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Speaker 1: not cops. I was not one of those kids that

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Speaker 1: wanted to be a cop. I always loved firefighters and

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Speaker 1: when I was little, I don't know if you remember this.

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Speaker 1: Do you remember Texico fire Chief? It was like the

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Speaker 1: gas they used to have Texico fire Chief. Texico used

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Speaker 1: to sell firefighter helmets, and they were old fashioned helmets,

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Speaker 1: and you could get the deluxe model that had a

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Speaker 1: radio that you could.

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Speaker 2: Put out inside.

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Speaker 1: My uncle, my uncle, who I regard in my life

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Speaker 1: as the closest thing I really ever had to a father,

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Speaker 1: he bought that from me, the most treasure gifts I

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Speaker 1: ever had. And I always liked firefighters. I liked firefighters

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Speaker 1: as a death investigator because firefighters are fascinating in the

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Speaker 1: sense that they don't it doesn't matter to them if

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Speaker 1: they get dirty, they don't care, and they've always got

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Speaker 1: some new piece of equipment that they want to something

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Speaker 1: like that. It's like, I could have the worst decomposed

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Speaker 1: body in the world that is down a ravine and

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Speaker 1: there's a whole group of them over there saying, dog,

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Speaker 1: you don't have to go down on that hill. We've

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Speaker 1: you know, we'll send Jim and Bob down there and

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Speaker 1: we'll you know, we'll fashion this new kind of knot

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Speaker 1: and we'll put them, you know, put them in the

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Speaker 1: basket and we'll bring them up, or we'll dig out

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Speaker 1: the hole around this area for you, you know. And

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Speaker 1: it was always amazing, and you know, the I'd always

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Speaker 1: have friends that were police officers out there, and they

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Speaker 1: just be kind of standing back because you know, firefighters

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Speaker 1: and cops have this interesting relationship. And the cops were like,

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Speaker 1: I'm not going near that. I'm not doing it. You

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Speaker 1: know firefighters, you know, of course, the old adage about

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Speaker 1: them is you know they and when everybody else is

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Speaker 1: running away, they're running in right. And so this world

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Speaker 1: that around fire has always been terrifying me. You know,

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Speaker 1: the only times I've ever been injured at crom scenes

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Speaker 1: have been at fire scenes. I've had wow, uh okay,

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Speaker 1: here's something cool, a little trivia about Morgan. I actually

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Speaker 1: had a beam fall and strike me in the head

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Speaker 1: and it was still on fire. It had at it

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Speaker 1: had like a small flame on it, and the whole

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Speaker 1: thing had burning embers on it. Wow, completely doused it.

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Speaker 1: I had a nail go through my boot into my foot,

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Speaker 1: really old pair of boots. By the way, I should

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Speaker 1: have I should have thrown away. And I actually had

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Speaker 1: electricity arc off of a puddle of water onto my

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Speaker 1: foot and I'm not tingling in my leg and I

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Speaker 1: fell backwards. It stunned me for a second. And that

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Speaker 1: was because there was an electrical line and that hadn't

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Speaker 1: cut the power yet and they pulled the line down.

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Speaker 1: So that's as close to death as I've really come.

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Speaker 1: I've had shots fired over my head, but it was not.

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Speaker 1: There's something about being in that world, that world of

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Speaker 1: all that remains of a building, a structure, a car.

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Speaker 1: There's kind of this infamous bridge down in New Orleans

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Speaker 1: called the Huey P. Long Bridge, named after the governor

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Speaker 1: from back in the thirties and Dave. The scene was

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Speaker 1: really narrow. It had two lanes on either side. And

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Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, the bridge is this gigantic

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Speaker 1: metal structure, steel structure, and their entire families that have

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Speaker 1: made their living off of this bridge as sand blasters,

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Speaker 1: because the thing always has to be referred And in

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Speaker 1: the middle of this bridge, going across the river at

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Speaker 1: one point in time, there is a train track, and

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Speaker 1: the train track also consists of the world's longest train trestle,

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Speaker 1: and it starts way on one side of Mississippi River

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Speaker 1: and it continues onto what they call the West Bank.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's still the longest or not,

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Speaker 1: but there was a guy that was in a corvette

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Speaker 1: that was driving over the top of it racing somebody

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Speaker 1: on the scene, and these lanes are really narrow, and Dave,

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Speaker 1: he hit the curve on one side and this is

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Speaker 1: hundreds of feet in the air above the Mississippi River

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Speaker 1: down below. He hit the curb, rolled the thing over

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Speaker 1: and it's when they had those they were like the

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Speaker 1: new total fiberglass bodies on the scene. Well, I got

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Speaker 1: there and the whole thing had been engulfed, and it's

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Speaker 1: windy up there. It's like really windy, and I thought

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Speaker 1: that I thought that everything was out. The fire was doused,

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Speaker 1: and dude, I got adjacent to the scene and all

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Speaker 1: the cops, I mean all the firefighters are wearing respirators, right,

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Speaker 1: and they were like looking at me. And I walked

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Speaker 1: up and I found out why they were wearing respirators,

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Speaker 1: because this fiberglass was burning in there. And dude, they

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Speaker 1: had to take me back and the EMTs had to

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Speaker 1: put me on oxygen because I was innolating this scene

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Speaker 1: or inhaling I'm sorry, inhaling this gas coming off of

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Speaker 1: this or the product coming off of it. It's a

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Speaker 1: weird world. You walk into any kind of home that

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Speaker 1: has been destroyed. And I may have mentioned this before

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Speaker 1: on body bags, but you walk in to it, and

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Speaker 1: as a death investigator who knows a little bit about

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Speaker 1: arson very little, I walk into that environment and everything

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Speaker 1: looks black and charred. I can't make out detail. I've

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Speaker 1: even lost bodies inside of houses because I can't tell

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Speaker 1: where the ceiling that has caved in or the furniture

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Speaker 1: that is burned down. I can't delineate between the body

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Speaker 1: that is also charged that is in there. It's a

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Speaker 1: weird kind of It's the most unique environment that you

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Speaker 1: ever go into. And people often forget about arson investigators

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Speaker 1: as being part of the forensic community. You know, they

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Speaker 1: think I don't know what they think about arsen But

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Speaker 1: to me, they are at the top of the heap

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Speaker 1: because they have to know something about everything. Most of

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Speaker 1: them are firefighters and cops. They testified. They are top

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Speaker 1: end experts in their field. They understand chemistry, they understand physics,

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Speaker 1: and they also understand how to run a homicide investigation,

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Speaker 1: and so their skill set is something that most people

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Speaker 1: don't understand, and they are amazed. I love talking to

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Speaker 1: them because I learn. I just try to keep my

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Speaker 1: mouth shut, which is hard for me, keep my eye

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Speaker 1: and my ears open and just listen. But you know,

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Speaker 1: one of the rudimentary things that you have to learn

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Speaker 1: is kind of the nature of fire. And we don't normally,

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Speaker 1: you don't give fire much consideration. You've seen pictures of

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Speaker 1: me and my family. We go out even in the

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Speaker 1: wintertime on our boat and there's an island not too

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Speaker 1: far from where we keep our boat, and we take

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Speaker 1: firewood out there and just build a big bonfire and

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Speaker 1: sit around bonfire. Most people don't think about that. What

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Speaker 1: is fire? What's the nature of it? You know, kind

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Speaker 1: of how it works. So fire itself has four components

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Speaker 1: to it, and so let me just kind of run

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Speaker 1: these down to you. You have to have a fuel source, okay,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes the fuel source can be rolled into what's

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Speaker 1: also referred to as accelerants. That that's like if you

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Speaker 1: let's just say you're using a charcoal grill. All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: the charcoal in there is fuel, right, but in order

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Speaker 1: to initiate that charcoal into a sustainable fire or have

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Speaker 1: it burned, you have to put lighter fluid on it

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Speaker 1: most of the time. All right. I know that there's

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Speaker 1: the brands out there that say you don't need it,

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Speaker 1: but that's how they yeah, they lie. So you get

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Speaker 1: it started like that, and so the thing, the thing burns,

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Speaker 1: But you also have to strike off a match or

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Speaker 1: use a lighter to get the thing initiated. Well, you

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Speaker 1: have to have fuel in order for that to happen. No,

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Speaker 1: it seems simplistic. You have to have heat. And what

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Speaker 1: I mean by that is heat is a product of

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Speaker 1: an actual burning fire. So that's heat is one of

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Speaker 1: the components. You have to have oxygen. Remember how many

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Speaker 1: times have we heard about there being a fire in

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Speaker 1: a location where the fire literally runs out of oxygen

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Speaker 1: in the room and completely consumes it and so it dies.

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Speaker 1: All right, that's the reason. For instance, like with if

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Speaker 1: you've ever heard of a halon fire extinguisher that you

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Speaker 1: use them on boats, you can't see it. It's it's invisible,

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Speaker 1: actually really autoerotic case involving halon halon canister as a

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Speaker 1: guy was inhaling this stuff, and what it does is

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Speaker 1: it binds with the oxygen and it's an oxygen deprivant,

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Speaker 1: and so it just knocks the oxygen down. So you

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Speaker 1: have to have oxygen, all right, and then you have

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Speaker 1: to have an uninhibited chemical reaction. And this chemical reaction

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Speaker 1: has to be ongoing. If you think about going to

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Speaker 1: chemistry class and you're demonstrating and you see this immediate

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Speaker 1: reaction where something bubbles over, or you have this reactive

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Speaker 1: change in color or whatever you're working on in the lab,

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Speaker 1: that's kind of a one off kind of thing. But

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Speaker 1: you think about fire, fire is truly an ongoing chemical

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Speaker 1: experiment because it has to be sustained and if you're

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Speaker 1: absent any of these components, it's going to go out.

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Speaker 1: I mean, just think about it. Back to the idea

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Speaker 1: of heat. If a fire dies out is there's an

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Speaker 1: insufficient amount of heat being generated in order to burn

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Speaker 1: the fuel that's existing there. So those are essentially the

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Speaker 1: four main components of fire, and without that, you don't

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Speaker 1: really have a fire per se. Now you might get

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Speaker 1: like a flashover where an individual might be in a

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Speaker 1: room and I've actually had this happen day where they

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Speaker 1: come in and arsonist has come in and they spread

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Speaker 1: gasoline all in a room. And this one particular future

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Speaker 1: rocket scientist did this with a couple of gallons of gas.

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Speaker 1: The windows and the doors were closed in the room,

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Speaker 1: and this idiot strikes a match and of course it

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Speaker 1: kills him. But after it burned off, you know, that

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Speaker 1: gas that was on the floor and everything, it was

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Speaker 1: non sustainable. First off, the room that he was in

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Speaker 1: had a marble tile floor. Oh, my goodness's not going

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Speaker 1: to burn. H Yeah, and the ceiling was it had asbestos.

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Speaker 1: Uh So, I don't know where this guy did his

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Speaker 1: research or whatever, but it didn't it didn't burn, you know,

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Speaker 1: just it was not sustainable, but it killed him. So

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Speaker 1: you know, you have to be in a uh this

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Speaker 1: kind of sustainable environment for it to actually continue to

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Speaker 1: thrive in this environment because absent that, you're you're not

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Speaker 1: going to You're just not going to have the end

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Speaker 1: product of a fire that is burning before you know where.

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Speaker 1: You think about sitting around a campfire, and one of

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Speaker 1: the some of the most fun you'll ever have at a

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Speaker 1: campfire is actually taking a piece of wood when it's

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Speaker 1: beginning to die down and placing the foot on and

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Speaker 1: you're sustaining that, You're sustaining that uninhibited chemical reaction and

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Speaker 1: it's burning up before you. The fuel is literally vaporizing

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Speaker 1: in the air before you. You're receiving heat off of

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Speaker 1: you're receiving comfort, You're roasting marshmallows, or weenies or whatever

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Speaker 1: it is that you're doing.

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Speaker 3: Were you a firebug as a kid? You ain't light

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Speaker 3: matches in the bathroom. I mean, I'm thinking you're like

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Speaker 3: Andrew was man.

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Speaker 1: But I just yeah, well maybe Andrew and I your

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Speaker 1: son have the commet. I don't know. But have you

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Speaker 1: ever noticed that fire is a weird thing? And since

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Speaker 1: that it has almost like a hypnotic effect on it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, on some people it does.

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Speaker 1: You sit there and you just have you ever seen

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Speaker 1: anybody at a fireside and they'll just stare at the

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Speaker 1: fire and they'll just kind of rock back and forth.

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Speaker 1: There were you know, at Christmas time when they put

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Speaker 1: the thing on the they run the thing with the

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Speaker 1: fire burning, and you hear the popping and crackling. I

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Speaker 1: don't ever, Dave, I promise you. I watched stuff on

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Speaker 1: my phone. I rarely have ever turned and I've got

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Speaker 1: a huge TV in my house. I rarely turned this

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Speaker 1: thing on. But yet if that thing's on a Christmas time,

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Speaker 1: I'll find myself like in a trance. Just listen to

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Speaker 1: Perry Como's sing in the background.

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Speaker 3: Those dag blasted chestnuts up and fire man.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, so yeah, and it's it's an amazing thing.

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Speaker 1: But here's the rub with fire. Fire does, in fact

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Speaker 1: provide us with many of the essentials that we are

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Speaker 1: depended upon in this life. We couldn't survive without it. Nowadays,

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Speaker 1: in modern times, we always have access to it. I

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Speaker 1: can't tell you how many spare matchbooks I have in

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Speaker 1: my house, and lighters and all these sorts of things.

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Speaker 1: And you know, if I had to, I could. You know,

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Speaker 1: I could take a and I could strike it, and

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Speaker 1: I could create a fire. But fire also has one

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Speaker 1: other element to it. It is arguably the most, if

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Speaker 1: not one of the most destructive forces in the world.

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Speaker 1: All you got to do is take a look out

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Speaker 1: west during wild fire season, take a look recently at

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Speaker 1: the palisades out there around Malibu in that area, and

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Speaker 1: it gives you an idea of what happens when fire

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Speaker 1: fire inside of control. There are two images from the

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Speaker 1: Vietnam Era that will always stay with me that I've

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Speaker 1: seen in the news, and I know many of you

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Speaker 1: guys have. And those images are the young child that's

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Speaker 1: running down the road and she doesn't have her clothes on,

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Speaker 1: and she was in a village where her village got

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Speaker 1: hit with napalm, which is essentially gelaginous gasoline, and it

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter what you do, you can't extinguish it as

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Speaker 1: a matter of fact that that young girl became a

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Speaker 1: grown woman and she survived. The other image is of

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Speaker 1: the monk that we've seen images of from Southeast Asia

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Speaker 1: and protests for peace. He goes into a lotus position

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Speaker 1: and has poured apparently accelerant all of himself in his

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Speaker 1: robes and has set himself ablaze and sat there and

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Speaker 1: never moved and no pun intended. Those images are burned

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Speaker 1: into my brain. I can't unsee that when we're in

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Speaker 1: the world of fire investigation and viewing things from the

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Speaker 1: perspective of what crime has been committed. Arson itself is

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Speaker 1: a category that stands alone among all the others because

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Speaker 1: it's used for a variety of reasons. And you know,

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Speaker 1: when you know, obviously the girl in an a pomp

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Speaker 1: strike that was a product of war, that's not arson.

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Speaker 1: You have this monk that was doing this in protest,

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Speaker 1: that's not arson. But it has a level of lethality

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Speaker 1: and it has a level of destruction that criminals have

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Speaker 1: come to appreciate for a long long time now because

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Speaker 1: they believe that if they set something to blaze, that

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Speaker 1: they're going to eradicate any opportunity for us to collect

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Speaker 1: evidence at a scene. And I've often held that if

301
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Speaker 1: in fact, you can go back and conduct your investigation thoroughly,

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Speaker 1: they I believe that arsenists leave more evidence behind by

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Speaker 1: starting fires. You know, they use particular types of accelerant,

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Speaker 1: whether it be kerosene, gasoline, fuel oil. I've seen fires

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Speaker 1: started with electricity, intentionally set phosphorus triggers, all these other

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Speaker 1: things that are out there, and you're getting into high

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Speaker 1: end things, you know, you start talking about electrical fires

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Speaker 1: that are intentionally set, as opposed to somebody running down

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Speaker 1: to the local, you know, stop and rob and getting

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Speaker 1: a gallon gasoline and coming back home and dows in

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Speaker 1: a place. It's a bit more sophistication involved in that.

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Speaker 1: And so arsenists actually come in all shapes and sizes,

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Speaker 1: but their motivations are really varied. I mean, you've got

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Speaker 1: I think most popularly you think about people destroying things

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Speaker 1: for money, insurance money. They set houses on fire, structures

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Speaker 1: on fire, businesses on fire and try to collect off

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Speaker 1: of that. Of course, you have in our area and

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Speaker 1: depth investigation. You have an individual that is dead inside

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Speaker 1: of a house. The house has been, you know, just

320
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Speaker 1: engulfed with flames, and what they're trying to do is

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Speaker 1: trying to render down that body so that there's nothing

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Speaker 1: left that we can go back and examine.

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Speaker 3: It's amazing to me how many times people do that.

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Speaker 3: They burn a house down to cover up the murder

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Speaker 3: of somebody they shot in the head and their recliner,

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Speaker 3: and it's like, dude, you realize how long it takes

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Speaker 3: to render a body down. Things I've learned from Joseph

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Speaker 3: Scott Morgan by doing body Bags. It's like, it's not

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Speaker 3: going to happen. If you're going to go to crime school,

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Speaker 3: that should be like day three, don't do this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, But yet they persist, don't they. Dave I love

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Speaker 1: about Yeah. I mean like you think about you remember

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Speaker 1: the case Terra Green instead out of yeah idea of Georgia.

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Speaker 1: We covered that for you and it's not just me names. Yeah,

335
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Speaker 1: and you know when they and I remember, I think

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Speaker 1: I did an episode of body Bags on that case

337
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Speaker 1: because there was a lot of a lot of static

338
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Speaker 1: about a couple of years ago. But those fellows were

339
00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:22,760
Speaker 1: in court again but anyway, you know, she was found

340
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Speaker 1: in an old pecan orchard, uh, down in in South Georgia.

341
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Speaker 1: Something I learned about pecan wood at that particular time

342
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Speaker 1: that I was fascinated by that I did not know.

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Speaker 1: Uh did you know that next to hickory, pecan is

344
00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:47,680
Speaker 1: the hottest burning wood that's out there. And the fact

345
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Speaker 1: that they had scraped pecan wood out there, that I

346
00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:54,359
Speaker 1: believed that they used as fuel source for her body.

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Speaker 1: Because keep in mind, human bodies are not fuel sources,

348
00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:01,239
Speaker 1: all right there, They're not. They make fuel sources. So

349
00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:06,360
Speaker 1: it requires you to put the body with a fuel source,

350
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:09,439
Speaker 1: stack fuel source on top of the body, underlay the

351
00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:13,160
Speaker 1: body with fuel source, put an accelerant on the body,

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Speaker 1: and you begin that process of rendering down a body.

353
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Speaker 1: And Dave, they burned that lady's body for so long

354
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Speaker 1: that they were only able to find little bits of

355
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Speaker 1: her left behind. That was almost a successful attempt at

356
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Speaker 1: criminal arson there.

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Speaker 3: That case, you know, Joe, that one case with Terry Grinstead.

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Speaker 3: I'm glad you brought it up because that was one

359
00:22:33,359 --> 00:22:35,760
Speaker 3: of those ones where I learned. When you were talking

360
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:39,200
Speaker 3: about the different I didn't I don't know that much

361
00:22:39,320 --> 00:22:41,440
Speaker 3: about a lot of the things we end up talking

362
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 3: about because I'm not learned in that area. But when

363
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 3: you start studying a case and you start breaking it down,

364
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:50,160
Speaker 3: and you're going, why did this not work? And why

365
00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:54,119
Speaker 3: did this work? And it's amazing to me how some

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Speaker 3: of the stupidest people can come up with the best

367
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Speaker 3: ways and some of the smartest people are so stupid

368
00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 3: when it comes to crime. But I will tell you, yeah,

369
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:05,040
Speaker 3: firing up something I used to think was a good

370
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 3: idea until we started doing this show. I you know,

371
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:09,760
Speaker 3: I'm not a criminal. I'm not going to be burning

372
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Speaker 3: stuff down. I would have thought, you know, hey, if

373
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Speaker 3: you're going to ruin your prints and everything else, go

374
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:18,240
Speaker 3: ahead and light it on fire. But actually you're actually

375
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Speaker 3: may as well pour super glue on it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And you're you are creating. That's why I

377
00:23:24,119 --> 00:23:28,359
Speaker 1: will say, you're creating, uh, creating more evidence I believe,

378
00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:31,400
Speaker 1: and evidence of And listen, if you go out here's

379
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:33,399
Speaker 1: another big one. And this is kind of a broad

380
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 1: assertion here, but if you go if you go out

381
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:43,920
Speaker 1: and purchase a gallon of gasoline for this express purpose,

382
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Speaker 1: that goes to intent, you know, which is kind of

383
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Speaker 1: the body of a crime. You know you're thinking about

384
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Speaker 1: did you intend intend to do this? It's really hard

385
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 1: to explain away while we have you on CCTV taking

386
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Speaker 1: a gallon jug or taking a gallon gas can or

387
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: five gallon gas can fill it up with gas when

388
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 1: you don't normally do that, and then suddenly there's a

389
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,400
Speaker 1: blaze in your backyard. You walk out there and there's

390
00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:09,200
Speaker 1: human remains there. So it kind of you know, the

391
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:13,400
Speaker 1: act of actually doing that, even more so than going

392
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 1: out and buying a gun, because there's a lot of

393
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Speaker 1: reasons you can say, well, I went out and bought

394
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Speaker 1: a gun. I wanted it for a home defense. Maybe

395
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 1: I've had it laying around the house. But you know,

396
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 1: you get a lot of people and I've covered these

397
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 1: cases where individuals will show up and they'll have in

398
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:31,479
Speaker 1: the back of their pickup truck several cans that are empty,

399
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: top them off, and go back and it's within just

400
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 1: a short bit of time that they're burning a body.

401
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 1: So you know, you've got this idea of eradication of evidence,

402
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 1: and yeah, clothing burns away to a great degree, but

403
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 1: did you know that like when we have bodies that

404
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 1: have been burned, let's you say, just imagine in your mind,

405
00:24:55,600 --> 00:25:00,199
Speaker 1: you've got somebody laying on their back, all right, and

406
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: you pour gas all over the anterior or the front

407
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 1: of their body, struck a match, and the antior portion

408
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 1: of their body envelops in flame.

409
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:13,639
Speaker 2: Right.

410
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 1: Well, do you know the clothing on the backside many

411
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:23,160
Speaker 1: times is intact. It doesn't just all burn out. I mean,

412
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:24,960
Speaker 1: just think about it. We talked about oxygen just a

413
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:28,399
Speaker 1: moment ago. Yeah, So if body is in contact with

414
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 1: the floor or the ground, fire, fire is always going

415
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 1: to seek oxygen, all right, and so it's not going

416
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Speaker 1: to go It might burn for a second if you've

417
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:41,439
Speaker 1: got gas that has kind of leached into the around it,

418
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 1: but it's not really sustainable. It's not away all of

419
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 1: the clothing. Clothing is a big part of like getting

420
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: bodies identified, learning where they come from. Also if there's

421
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:54,880
Speaker 1: any trauma, because you know, if you've got somebody who's

422
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:59,120
Speaker 1: been shot in the back or they've been beaten, you're

423
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 1: not destroying that evidence, that physical evidence that exists there.

424
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:08,399
Speaker 1: So when you get these really sophisticated guys. And I

425
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:10,199
Speaker 1: know I've mentioned this book on air again, I'm going

426
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:11,919
Speaker 1: to do it again because I want everybody to read it.

427
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: Murdering Cowita County. There was a guy that was murdered

428
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: back in the thirties, I think, or the forties, I

429
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: can't remember, in Georgia. And the guy that facilitated that

430
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 1: had what he referred to as his hired men, which

431
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,919
Speaker 1: were these two African American fellows to tend the fire.

432
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:37,879
Speaker 1: And they constantly pumped wood into this fire pit with

433
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: this guy's body in it, and they turned the coals.

434
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 1: They turned his body in there almost like they're cooking. Wow,

435
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,199
Speaker 1: and the body begins to render down till there was

436
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: nothing left but ash. And you know how they retrieved

437
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 1: in that case, they retrieved what became known in that

438
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: specific case, this is a concept in law. You hear

439
00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 1: the term the corpus delecti, which means the body daved.

440
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: They found one little chip of bone that was called

441
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: an eddy in a creek where they dumped these purlap sacks,

442
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: because they even went to the trouble of taking shovels,

443
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 1: digging out the hole and putting them into the sacks,

444
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 1: going to the creek and dumping the sacks in the

445
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 1: creek and then burning sacks. But that one little bit

446
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:25,400
Speaker 1: of bone was evidence. And this is before and that's

447
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 1: kind of an assumption, scientific assumption because biologically, back during

448
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 1: that time, they had no way to tie it back

449
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 1: to that guy. All they knew is that they had

450
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:36,679
Speaker 1: a bone or a piece of a bone even but

451
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 1: they used that, and you know, that was the only case.

452
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 1: That was the first case I think maybe in American

453
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: history where the testimony of an African American man was

454
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 1: used to put a white man in the electric chair

455
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 1: and he died. They fried his ass. So yeah, and

456
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,080
Speaker 1: it's kind of a seminal case. So Murton calwieda County.

457
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:01,919
Speaker 1: Ever get a chance read the book. There was a

458
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: movie that was done with Andy Griffith and Johnny Cash

459
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 1: back in the early eighties. But the book is fantastic

460
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,640
Speaker 1: and it talks about and Fire plays a big part

461
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 1: of that. Then we've got another group that you've heard of, Pyromania,

462
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 1: which is album. Yeah, yeah, it's not that but yeah, yeah,

463
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: Fire Brigades you got it made or whatever it is.

464
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 1: But yeah, Pyromania is a sexual affectation, you know, where

465
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:35,120
Speaker 1: they they have this idea that they get gratification from

466
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: watching fire. I had mentioned before the show that I

467
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 1: won't go into all of the details. I was talking

468
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: and I was at a conference one time, and I

469
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: was talking to these investigators and they had mentioned how

470
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: this one fellow that they they had worked this case.

471
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 1: Fire Battalion responds to a fully engulfed home and there's

472
00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: like a family of five burning death in the home.

473
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: And I'll put to you delicately he's standing in the street,

474
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 1: fully nude and fully aroused when they are fixated on

475
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: the fire.

476
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 2: So you know, did he set the fire, Joe? Do

477
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 2: you know?

478
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: I mean specifically for his own sexual And so I

479
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: never case. That was just passed on to me from them,

480
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: And I was thinking, you know, I talked about the

481
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: there's no basement in the house. It's just the endless,

482
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 1: it's bottomless. Uh. You think you've seen it all, and

483
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 1: then you know, you get to that point where you

484
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 1: know you haven't, and then other people burn for other reasons.

485
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 1: You've got, uh, you've got these revenge burnings that take

486
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 1: place where people and these are where you know, I'm

487
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: going to destroy you. I'm going to eradicate everything. I

488
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 1: reflect back, and I know that some of our listeners

489
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: will remember, uh this uh, precious child back then that

490
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: his dad and mom were in a we're in a

491
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: custody battle and the dad set this kid on fire

492
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: and scarred him for life. And that has happened many

493
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: times over the years. There was the one movie, I

494
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: can't remember which one it was where the lady I

495
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: think it was Angela Bassett. People are going to remember

496
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: this movie where you know, she her husband was you know,

497
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 1: running around on her and she took all of his clothes,

498
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: knocked the window out of his Mercedes, put his clothes

499
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 1: in the car, poured gas in the car, and she

500
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 1: strikes a match and sets the Mercedes and the clothes

501
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: on fire, you know, in the driveway. So yeah, I

502
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 1: mean you have you have this idea of revenge as well,

503
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 1: so concealment of crime, revenge, personal monetary gain. You know

504
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 1: you can have that. You have people that contract to

505
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: do arson. There are people that are skilled at it,

506
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: believe it or not.

507
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 3: Well, in the movie Goodfellas, it showed you know, the

508
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 3: guys over there burning the burning the club, remember, yeah,

509
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 3: for insurance money.

510
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely it was. That was Joe Peshi and Henry

511
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 1: Hill's character did that. I tell you one of the

512
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: most chilling chilling depictions of an arsonist is actually Mickey Rourke.

513
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 1: And people might not remember this. He played that role

514
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 1: in the movie Body Heat. Oh wow, William Hurt and

515
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: he gives one of the most chilling resertations on arson

516
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: that you've ever heard, and he really you know, and

517
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 1: he was depicted as a pro at doing this. And

518
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 1: there are people that can do this, and they sell

519
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 1: themselves as somebody that can cover up their crimes and

520
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 1: not you know, not be caught by virtue of them.

521
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: They essentially cover all of their bases. But a couple

522
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: of things that you're looking for and that we look

523
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 1: for at scenes most of the time with fire with arson,

524
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 1: is that we'll have individuals that will take, say, for instance,

525
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: and accelerate. And when I say accelerant, just think gasoline

526
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: for instance. It can be any number of things. But

527
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: arson investigators look for things like splash patterns. For instance,

528
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 1: if you take a a bucket of gasoline, uh, and

529
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:21,719
Speaker 1: you toss it on a wall and uh, you know

530
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: it's a sheet rock wall, gypsum, you strike a match

531
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: and you you set it ablaze, Well, did you know

532
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: that you can actually those arson investigators can actually follow

533
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 1: the splash pattern on the wall that it'll burn into it.

534
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: You can see it where if you you know, if

535
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 1: you think about splashing a wall with something, striking a

536
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 1: match and putting it to the wall, you'll see the

537
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: pattern of splash kind of how it And most of

538
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 1: the time another rule of thumb that we use wherever

539
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen every time, but wherever you see, particularly

540
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: in a structure, the most damage has occurred, that is

541
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 1: going to point you toward the point of origin of

542
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 1: the fire because it's burned the longest. You know, unless

543
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: you have like a store of gasoline in the house

544
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 1: or something that's explosive that does more damage, most of

545
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: the time you're going to have an area that has

546
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:20,719
Speaker 1: more damage than any other location. Those are just like

547
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 1: a few of the things you know that you kind

548
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 1: of look for at a fire scene if you're trying,

549
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: if they're trying to determine exactly where the point of

550
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: origin is. So source point of origin, what utility did

551
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: they use to start this with? Did they just take

552
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:40,479
Speaker 1: like old newspapers and pile them up in a corner,

553
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 1: anything else that's flammable and they set that ablaze. If

554
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: you get in there and you've got furniture that's burned

555
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: in place, but it's all askew, and maybe in one

556
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 1: corner you get an idea when you walk in there that, okay,

557
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: the furniture was actually intended to be the fuel source,

558
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 1: because you know, you're not going to have like your

559
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: lazy boy in a sofa stacked on top of one another.

560
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: And it doesn't matter. I mean, if it catches on fire,

561
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily going to mean that the lazy boy

562
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: is going to fall off of the sofa. It's going

563
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 1: to burn in place. Most of the time. Now, the

564
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: firefighters might pull it down, but you'll have it all

565
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,919
Speaker 1: kind of congregated in that area. You look for those

566
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:25,720
Speaker 1: little cues like that at a scene, and you also

567
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:29,040
Speaker 1: look for position of the body. You know, what is

568
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:31,240
Speaker 1: it that stands out about a body? If you're dealing

569
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: with a body at a scene, what is it that's

570
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: there that kind of stinks? And I don't mean that literally,

571
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:40,759
Speaker 1: I mean that in the sense of from an investigative,

572
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 1: what is it that just doesn't seem right in this

573
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:47,239
Speaker 1: particular environment. You know, for us in death investigation, we

574
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 1: see what remains of this, We see all that's left behind.

575
00:34:52,680 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 1: The big question is who and what started this inferna.

576
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: I still have a memory of the first time I

577
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:24,359
Speaker 1: was ever faced with a burned body in the morgue.

578
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 1: There's actually two things I said correctly. I remember two

579
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: things that I saw in the morgue related to fire.

580
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: The first one's kind of standard stuff. It was still

581
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: shocking for my young eyes to behold at that time,

582
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: because I realized I was looking at a human being

583
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: that had been burned, and it was a homicide and

584
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 1: a subsequent arson where the structure that they were in

585
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: was set on fire after the individual had been shot,

586
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 1: and the fire had been really, really hot. And my

587
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 1: first reaction was when I saw the body. And I

588
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 1: mean no disrespect by this, but it looked to me,

589
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: in my untrained eye, it looked like something that had

590
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 1: fallen off of a grill into the truck overriquets below,

591
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: and it was it was black. The body was black drawn.

592
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 1: You could barely make out any clothing that remained, no

593
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:39,840
Speaker 1: facial features, hair was all gone, the hands were clawlike.

594
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: And I remember looking at that body and it gave

595
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:50,359
Speaker 1: off be perfectly, honestly, it gave off the smell of

596
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:55,200
Speaker 1: burned meat. And I remember I couldn't and this is

597
00:36:55,239 --> 00:37:00,840
Speaker 1: my personal recollection here again, for the longest time, I

598
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: couldn't eat. I couldn't eat grilled meat. I have a

599
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 1: distinct memory of that. And now I was, you know,

600
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 1: this young virile, you know guy that I loved the steak,

601
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 1: I loved hamburgers, all that stuff. Still do this day.

602
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 1: But I got past that. But I remember being kind

603
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 1: of repulsed by it. That was my first and then

604
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:23,960
Speaker 1: on top of it, I had to go into that

605
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:26,799
Speaker 1: body with a scalpel and open the body. And so

606
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,839
Speaker 1: because I was the autopsy assistant, and so you kind

607
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: of get a double dose of it. Now, if you

608
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:38,319
Speaker 1: can imagine, Dave, even more horrific than that. Was the

609
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 1: first time that I ever assisted in the autopsy on

610
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: an individual that had been burned in a house fire

611
00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:59,319
Speaker 1: and had I'm doing air quotes, had survived for a

612
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 1: month on the burn unit at a hospital in New Orleans.

613
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:08,439
Speaker 1: And for any of you out there that have had

614
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 1: family members that have been burned and been subjected to

615
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: intense heat, you're going to understand what I'm saying. It's

616
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: a real specialty in medicine to be able to deal

617
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:25,279
Speaker 1: with with burn patients, it's unlike anything else. It's I

618
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 1: guess you get satisfaction from it because you know that

619
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 1: you're trying to help them, trying to help them move on,

620
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:34,360
Speaker 1: trying to reconstruct their live if they can survive. Because

621
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 1: it's once, particularly once a certain percentage of your body

622
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 1: is burned, there's high probability you're no longer going to

623
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: be able to fight off all the little nasties that

624
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: are outside trying to attack you. Many folks die of

625
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 1: sept semia, you know, there's a myriad of things that

626
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: they die from. But Dave, I remember this one fellow,

627
00:38:55,360 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 1: and he was massive. And when I say massive, he

628
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 1: may at that point when I saw him, may have

629
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,919
Speaker 1: been the biggest body I had ever seen come into

630
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 1: the autopsy room. So when we were observing him, I

631
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: remember talking to the forensic pathologist and he was saying,

632
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:19,960
Speaker 1: this is what it looks like to be on a

633
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 1: burn unit, be a patient on a burn unit. And

634
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:28,279
Speaker 1: we had the reports before us in life. This guy

635
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:32,960
Speaker 1: had been one hundred and eighty five pounds, so he

636
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:38,799
Speaker 1: had been in the burn unit for a month. And

637
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 1: what happens is many times these people go into renal

638
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 1: failure and they can't outprocess fluids and he was so swollen. Dave, well,

639
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:55,799
Speaker 1: along with the swelling, what has to happen because the

640
00:39:55,880 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: skin on these individuals actually splits, so in advance of that,

641
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:08,240
Speaker 1: the surgeon will come in and they make these linear

642
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 1: incisions in the body and they're all over the body.

643
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 1: You've never seen the like of it. It is. It

644
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:18,719
Speaker 1: rivals anything I've ever seen in the autopsy room. And

645
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 1: they will make these surgical incisions that are rather lengthy,

646
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:24,239
Speaker 1: all over the surface of the skin because if they

647
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:27,800
Speaker 1: don't the skin on its own because of the tension

648
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:30,720
Speaker 1: and the retention of water and fluid in the body,

649
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 1: they will begin to split open. So they have to

650
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 1: make incisions all over the body to try to stem that,

651
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:44,840
Speaker 1: and eventually the body just it cannot it cannot function

652
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:50,400
Speaker 1: to a point where it's a survival event. Survivable event,

653
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:54,359
Speaker 1: and they're going to be They're going to die. And

654
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: many people I always have this question, and it doesn't

655
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:05,800
Speaker 1: necessarily revolve around fire related death, but you have these

656
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 1: events where people will say, well, they were in the

657
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 1: hospital for a long time, why did you have to

658
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 1: do an autopsy? Well, yes, you're absolutely right. The injuries

659
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 1: are documented. Everything has been X rayed and photographed, and

660
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 1: you've got the treatment records, surgical records we've got in

661
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:29,279
Speaker 1: case of burn victims, we've got every time a skin

662
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: graft has been attached. I mean, just it's voluminous. There's

663
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 1: always charting going on. But we're still going to do

664
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 1: the autopsy. The reason we're still going to do the

665
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:42,839
Speaker 1: autopsy is that this is a homicide. This is a homicide.

666
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 1: And if you don't do the autopsy, even if a

667
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:49,360
Speaker 1: person's been in the hospital for a protracted period of time,

668
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 1: when the thing goes to court, a defense attorney will

669
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 1: look at this and say, well, how do we know

670
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 1: what really killed this individual? You're se that just based

671
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: on the doctor's notes here that it's a you know that,

672
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: yeah they got burned, but yet you didn't do an autopsy.

673
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 1: How can you prove that? And you kind of head

674
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:13,560
Speaker 1: that off at the past by having a forensic pathologist

675
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 1: look at not just the records, but actually taking a

676
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: look at the at the body, uh in total there

677
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 1: in the autopsy room. And for me, for me, it

678
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:29,279
Speaker 1: was it. It stuck with me that first body that

679
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: I saw a lot of them after that but that

680
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 1: first body that I saw that came off of a

681
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:37,240
Speaker 1: burn unit that had been treated for a protracted period

682
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 1: of time, it stuck with me, you know, it really

683
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:45,160
Speaker 1: it made me think it was It was one of

684
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:47,920
Speaker 1: those cases where when you look at the individual and

685
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: I don't think about this a lot where I go

686
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:53,759
Speaker 1: around saying, I hope they didn't suffer. A lot of

687
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 1: families say that, and you don't really know if people suffer.

688
00:42:57,640 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 1: But I look at that and that's one of the

689
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:03,319
Speaker 1: cases where you think, I hope they I hope they

690
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 1: weren't aware of this because it's so it was so

691
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,879
Speaker 1: grotesque and horrible, you know, when you see this, and

692
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 1: I've that that part of me within me, and I

693
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: don't think I'm I'm not being sadistic when I say this.

694
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons I think that people that

695
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 1: have murdered others need to be present for autopsies. And

696
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: I know that it's not legally possible, you know, because

697
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, But you want

698
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 1: people that have done great harm to individuals to understand

699
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 1: what happens to subjects. And when you see somebody that's

700
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 1: burned like this, subjected to severe heat, intense heat. It

701
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 1: really gives you pause. It's like you want that individual

702
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 1: to see what they have done because they're not going

703
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 1: to go through this. Their family is not going to

704
00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: go through this. And it's really, you know, really throws

705
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 1: up the stops on in your spirit. You know, it's

706
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:05,719
Speaker 1: so over the top. Dave.

707
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 2: But Joe, what about the term burned to death.

708
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:15,279
Speaker 3: We've heard that said by people on you know, talk

709
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:18,319
Speaker 3: shows that you know, on crime that the body that

710
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 3: the person burned to death.

711
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,320
Speaker 2: And that's not true, is it? In most cases?

712
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:24,759
Speaker 1: In most cases it's not. Now you have, like I

713
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: just gave you the example. I gave everybody example of

714
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:31,840
Speaker 1: the person that's on the burn unit. They most of

715
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 1: the time when you have a homicide or let's just

716
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:38,479
Speaker 1: say it's an accidental death, let's just don't let's don't

717
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: necessarily say homicides. Let's just say an accidental death as

718
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:49,799
Speaker 1: related to to fire. Most people do not burn to

719
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: a crisp and die like that. Okay, that's not how

720
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 1: it necessarily works. It's not like the last scene in

721
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:00,920
Speaker 1: the original Raiders Lost arc, you know, where people are

722
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:03,799
Speaker 1: incinerating and that sort of thing. By the presence of

723
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 1: God coming out of the ark of the Covenant.

724
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 2: So that was not a documentary, Is that what you're

725
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 2: telling me?

726
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: That was not a documentary. Most people in our world

727
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 1: that are subjected to a fire an environment involving fire,

728
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 1: are going to die as a result of smoke inhalation

729
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:28,399
Speaker 1: almost I'd say probably ninety nine percent, maybe not that many,

730
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:33,000
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of those deaths. And it causes from

731
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: inhaling those bits that are in the air and you're

732
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:41,919
Speaker 1: not it's not like you're just inhaling smoke. Most people

733
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:46,719
Speaker 1: don't understand the component smoke is a product of things

734
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 1: burning up. It's actually this, it's actually one of the

735
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:55,280
Speaker 1: sub components of fire. You're talking about when fuel is vaporized. Okay,

736
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:59,439
Speaker 1: So when it's vaporized and extends out that if you're

737
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,359
Speaker 1: in that vironment, you're you know, you're trying to get

738
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:03,880
Speaker 1: your breath. What did they always tell us when we

739
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: were kids, if there was a house fire, you're supposed

740
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 1: to go. You're supposed to do what you're supposed to

741
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:11,240
Speaker 1: go to the floor and crawl along the floor because

742
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:13,880
Speaker 1: that's where the remaining oxygen is. All that stuff floating

743
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 1: up in the air, and they're absolutely right, is toxic.

744
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 1: So it's not and this is not if you're let's

745
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 1: just say you're in a house, or you could be

746
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:24,839
Speaker 1: inside of a car. All of those elements within that

747
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 1: car which are man made, really let that hang there

748
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 1: in a second that our man made are going to

749
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 1: in dwell that environment and they're going to burn. And

750
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:39,239
Speaker 1: remember how we said earlier on when I was talking

751
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 1: about an uninhibited chemical reaction. Well, if if you've got

752
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:49,240
Speaker 1: like carpet, okay, you've got some kind of synthetic carpet

753
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:51,759
Speaker 1: in a house and it's burning, did you know that

754
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: one of the major components of carpet is petroleum. It's

755
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: petroleum based, and so how do you how does all

756
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 1: that bound together? Well, it's very complex chemically, all right.

757
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 1: So once you once heat is subjected to that, you

758
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:07,960
Speaker 1: kind of free all that stuff up that's in the

759
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:10,839
Speaker 1: carpet and all of a sudden it's floating around the air. Dave.

760
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: You can find things like arsenic floating around, you know,

761
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:17,360
Speaker 1: in this environment. So when you get when you get

762
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:22,759
Speaker 1: you know, people breathing in and a fire, you'll see

763
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:26,600
Speaker 1: these components on their toxicology that are coming back and

764
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:29,879
Speaker 1: it's amazing. It's this litany, this list of stuff that's

765
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:31,919
Speaker 1: kind of free floating around in their blood that they've

766
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:36,239
Speaker 1: taken on. Not to mention the absence of actual breathable

767
00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 1: oxygen in the environment. One of the main components that

768
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 1: we're looking for, though, you know that's going to lead

769
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:46,800
Speaker 1: to death, is going to be you know, carbon monoxide asphyxiation.

770
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 1: It literally turns the body cherry pink. The skin is pink,

771
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: nail beds are pink, the eyes are pink. You open

772
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 1: up the body, the viscera, the organs have a pink hue.

773
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 1: The blood when you draw it out, it looks like

774
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:11,720
Speaker 1: the only way I've been able to describe it to people,

775
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:17,799
Speaker 1: think about a manufactured piece of candy that's like this

776
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:23,319
Speaker 1: brilliant pink color that was created in a lab. The

777
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: first candy that comes to me. I used to love

778
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:27,719
Speaker 1: these on us kids were not now laters or what

779
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:29,880
Speaker 1: they're called, and they're kind of hard taffy, and there

780
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 1: was a pink one in there. That's what the viscera

781
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:36,240
Speaker 1: looks like. Throughout the body. The blood is even that color,

782
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: and the carbon monoxide turns the blood absent the oxygen

783
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:44,840
Speaker 1: that color. So if we see that color manifesting itself

784
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:47,879
Speaker 1: just visually, we don't. We're going to run a test.

785
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:51,680
Speaker 1: It's called a carboxy hemoglobin level. But when you see

786
00:48:51,719 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 1: that pink, automatically, the alarm bell goes off, and you

787
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:59,799
Speaker 1: know that this person has inhaled carbon monoxide along with

788
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 1: this myriad of other things you know, in the environment,

789
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:06,359
Speaker 1: and it's noncompatible with life. The balance gets so out

790
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:09,840
Speaker 1: of whack because we require a certain amount of oxygen,

791
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 1: and you know, we don't live in a pure oxygen

792
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:15,359
Speaker 1: environment anyway. You know, people talk about the oxygen air

793
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's there, but you're breathing in these other components.

794
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:21,440
Speaker 1: All you know, there's an ron out there, there's carbon

795
00:49:21,520 --> 00:49:25,319
Speaker 1: dioxide that you're rebreathing sometimes, you know, plants take up

796
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide, they produce oxygen and that sort of thing,

797
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:30,280
Speaker 1: and so all these elements are kind of floating around.

798
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:32,160
Speaker 1: But it's sustainable with life when you get in that

799
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: closed environment like a home and you're literally swimming in

800
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:40,600
Speaker 1: a chemical experiment at this point in time, and the

801
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:42,800
Speaker 1: fire that's in there is like the bunting burner you

802
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 1: would have in a lab, only it's visible you're in

803
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 1: the midst of it, and you're trying to gasp for

804
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:52,720
Speaker 1: air and there's nothing really left for you to grab

805
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:58,279
Speaker 1: hold of to breathe, that sort of thing, And as

806
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:02,279
Speaker 1: heat increases a around the body, most of the time

807
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:05,760
Speaker 1: the person is going to die within a few minutes,

808
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:10,359
Speaker 1: and there is an awareness if you don't, don't try

809
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 1: to shade yourself into this idea that there's no awareness

810
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: that you're dying. I mean, if anybody has ever struggled

811
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 1: with breathe, if you've ever had pneumonia or anything like,

812
00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:21,719
Speaker 1: you know what it's like to be shorter breath. If

813
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:23,279
Speaker 1: you ever had a heart event, you know what it's

814
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:26,080
Speaker 1: like to be shorter breath. Same principle here, there's an

815
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 1: awareness it's a horrible way to die because your body

816
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:31,800
Speaker 1: is your brain is screaming, I need oxygen, I need oxygen.

817
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 1: So when they finally die, then comes to heat. And

818
00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:38,239
Speaker 1: I think that that's where this idea that people say, well,

819
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 1: they burn to death, and it's kind of convenient to

820
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:45,440
Speaker 1: say that because you've got a fire, You've got this

821
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 1: event that occurs where the house is caving in around them.

822
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:53,359
Speaker 1: They're surrounded by intense flames, and people think they burn

823
00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:57,120
Speaker 1: to death. There are cases where people have literally been

824
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 1: had gasoline thrown all over the Hey, there was just

825
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:03,759
Speaker 1: a case, remember day back in Virginia last week, that

826
00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:07,400
Speaker 1: house and the representative in Virginia. The guy walks up

827
00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 1: with a bucket a gasoline, throws it on the sky

828
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: and flips a match on him and strikes a lighter

829
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:15,839
Speaker 1: or whatever this nut job does and set this guy

830
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:19,840
Speaker 1: on blaze. This poor guy, I don't at this moment, Thomas,

831
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 1: we're talking right now. I don't know what his status is.

832
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 1: I pray for him and his family. I hope he's okay.

833
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:26,560
Speaker 1: But he was talking, you know, when he left. But

834
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:29,480
Speaker 1: you know, he's on the burn unit somewhere, and this

835
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:31,440
Speaker 1: is a this is gonna be a long uphill battle

836
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:34,840
Speaker 1: for him. But he But go ahead, David, I'm sorry.

837
00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:37,799
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you about Mercedes Vega. Yeah,

838
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:40,880
Speaker 3: out in Arizona, Americopa County. It was one of the

839
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 3: stories that you had sent and I thought, if we

840
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:48,760
Speaker 3: could just briefly if she's an exotic dancer, right, yeah,

841
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:52,720
Speaker 3: and they find her on the highway.

842
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:56,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the car. Yeah, a car in the car

843
00:51:56,239 --> 00:51:57,600
Speaker 1: is a blaze at that point.

844
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:02,879
Speaker 3: Right now, if you find a car where the body inside, yeah,

845
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:05,200
Speaker 3: I'm going to assume that the person was not there

846
00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:06,280
Speaker 3: of their own free will.

847
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, wrong assumption if you're an investigator.

848
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:09,840
Speaker 1: But I'm not.

849
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:13,960
Speaker 3: I'm a journalist, So I'm just thinking out loud. How

850
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:16,640
Speaker 3: do you go into that where as an investigator, you're

851
00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:19,879
Speaker 3: looking at a dead body in a car murder, suicide,

852
00:52:20,360 --> 00:52:23,239
Speaker 3: accidental death? I mean yeah, I mean, can you be

853
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:25,520
Speaker 3: overcome with smokes that you couldn't get yourself out of it?

854
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 3: Can it happen that fast?

855
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:30,000
Speaker 1: I think that, Well, that's an excellent question. I think

856
00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:32,480
Speaker 1: that the circumstances would have to be just right. Say,

857
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:35,640
Speaker 1: for instance, if you've got a fire that starts, let's

858
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 1: just say it's an accidental fire. There are people that

859
00:52:37,520 --> 00:52:40,120
Speaker 1: die in car accidents as a result of a fire

860
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:44,640
Speaker 1: catching a car, a vehicle car fire, and it's like,

861
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:47,160
Speaker 1: and this is really horrible. I didn't talk about these,

862
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:51,319
Speaker 1: but you have what are called entrapment fires where a

863
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:54,319
Speaker 1: person can't get free of the car. You've got like

864
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:58,320
Speaker 1: maybe engine block intrusion, the line, the fuel line gets clipped,

865
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: it sparks off, and the is literally sitting there and

866
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 1: now in those cases, there have been those cases where

867
00:53:04,040 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 1: individuals literally do burn to death. But in her case,

868
00:53:08,719 --> 00:53:11,359
Speaker 1: where you have a body that's found in a car

869
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:18,000
Speaker 1: and the car and the body are both burning, when

870
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:20,840
Speaker 1: I hear hoof beats, I'm not gonna think camel Okay,

871
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:25,920
Speaker 1: I'm pretty much gonna think that this individual has probably

872
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:29,399
Speaker 1: sustained some kind of lethal injury and the people that

873
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:33,880
Speaker 1: perpetrated this wanted to burn the car up in order

874
00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 1: to get away with it. So with her her case

875
00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:42,359
Speaker 1: in particular, I think that it's important to understand that

876
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:47,400
Speaker 1: when they would do an examination, the ideal circumstances to

877
00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 1: do this examination would be not to remove her from

878
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:54,600
Speaker 1: the car. Not to remove from the car, you would

879
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:57,960
Speaker 1: the idea would be to take the car with her

880
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:02,600
Speaker 1: body in it, put it onto the back of a

881
00:54:02,680 --> 00:54:07,600
Speaker 1: flatbed like a wreckord flatbed, tarp it up covered tarps,

882
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:09,840
Speaker 1: and take it to the crime lab and process the

883
00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:11,160
Speaker 1: car with the body in it.

884
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 3: Have yeah on side. Note, have you ever had a

885
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:17,600
Speaker 3: tarp fall off? Let's see, I heard about it.

886
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:20,480
Speaker 1: No, I have not had that happen. I've never had

887
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:23,680
Speaker 1: that happen. I have heard of cases non associated with

888
00:54:23,760 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 1: offices that I that I'm aware of where the flap

889
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:29,720
Speaker 1: part of the flap came loose and it's like blowing

890
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:31,480
Speaker 1: in the wind as it's going down. You have to

891
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 1: be very very careful because yeah, it would be There

892
00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:38,440
Speaker 1: have been cases. There was a famous case that I'm

893
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:40,200
Speaker 1: aware of. I think it was in South Georgia where

894
00:54:41,160 --> 00:54:45,560
Speaker 1: delivery service actually failed to secure the rear door and

895
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:50,520
Speaker 1: the body on the body gurney came out of the

896
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 1: back of the car and came out of the back

897
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: of it was a it was a hearse but it

898
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 1: was a van, a van Hearst, you know that was

899
00:54:57,120 --> 00:55:00,239
Speaker 1: operator as a private contractor, rolled out into the the

900
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:02,600
Speaker 1: highway in turned over and then a car ran over

901
00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 1: the body. It hit it. So you have to be

902
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:08,520
Speaker 1: very very You have to treat not just from an

903
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:13,520
Speaker 1: evidentiary standpoint, but for the dead and their family. You

904
00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 1: have to make sure that you're treating these bodies with

905
00:55:16,600 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 1: the utmost respect. Particularly, I mean the body. The person

906
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:23,640
Speaker 1: that that body represents has gone through enough. The family

907
00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:26,759
Speaker 1: will soon be going through enough once they're notified of this.

908
00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:30,880
Speaker 1: But we do know this, We do know that the

909
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 1: body holds a lot of evidence that you have to

910
00:55:33,719 --> 00:55:38,000
Speaker 1: be able to assess you want to get the body

911
00:55:38,040 --> 00:55:44,319
Speaker 1: into a prime, ideal set of circumstances. One of the

912
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:48,560
Speaker 1: interesting things that we see with fire deaths. Have folks

913
00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:52,880
Speaker 1: asked me about this a lot. Had One lady tellm

914
00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 1: asked me, She said, how was that? She phrased it

915
00:55:55,560 --> 00:56:00,400
Speaker 1: to me one time she said, what's boxing got to

916
00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:04,680
Speaker 1: do with fire? And I didn't I didn't register with

917
00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:08,040
Speaker 1: me what she was saying. And I was at a conference,

918
00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 1: like a true crime thing, and we talked about it,

919
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:17,239
Speaker 1: and she had said, I've heard that their bodies move

920
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 1: in fire. I was like, oh, you're talking about the

921
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:25,000
Speaker 1: pugilistic position. And so as a body is subjected to fire,

922
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:29,919
Speaker 1: and you can't really draw any conclusions of scientific conclusions

923
00:56:30,440 --> 00:56:33,880
Speaker 1: like were they alive versus dead when the fire started?

924
00:56:34,000 --> 00:56:38,480
Speaker 1: All bodies are going to do this, But the bodies

925
00:56:38,800 --> 00:56:42,000
Speaker 1: at the joints, even at the hip flexers, the knees,

926
00:56:42,120 --> 00:56:45,680
Speaker 1: the feet, the elbows, the hands, it's all going to

927
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:49,959
Speaker 1: draw up and the back years ago when they began

928
00:56:50,040 --> 00:56:53,440
Speaker 1: to see this, the powers that be looked at this

929
00:56:53,560 --> 00:56:56,480
Speaker 1: and said, wow, that looks just like a pugilism. And

930
00:56:56,480 --> 00:56:59,359
Speaker 1: of course pugilism is the old term for boxing. And

931
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:01,960
Speaker 1: so when you'll get these people that have their hands

932
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:06,799
Speaker 1: that will clinch, their hands will clinch and they'll draw up.

933
00:57:08,560 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 1: I'm going to conclude this episode of body Bags with

934
00:57:11,600 --> 00:57:13,360
Speaker 1: something I don't normally do. I'm going to tell a

935
00:57:13,360 --> 00:57:18,640
Speaker 1: story real quick and you can actually see it. It's

936
00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:23,240
Speaker 1: in the first chapter of my book Blood Beneath My Feet.

937
00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:25,240
Speaker 1: And I was really at the end of my career.

938
00:57:25,440 --> 00:57:31,400
Speaker 1: I had had enough and was really struggling with PTSD

939
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:35,880
Speaker 1: and these things that I was going through. And one

940
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:39,440
Speaker 1: night I was in the middle of Georgia four hundred

941
00:57:39,560 --> 00:57:41,440
Speaker 1: and I worked a case of a young man that

942
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:44,400
Speaker 1: was in a Ford ranger. He slammed into a bridge

943
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:49,439
Speaker 1: abutment and it was pouring down rain. His car had

944
00:57:49,520 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 1: caught on fire and he was entrapped. As I'm trying

945
00:57:54,960 --> 00:57:57,760
Speaker 1: to work the case and examine his body, something happened

946
00:57:57,760 --> 00:58:00,360
Speaker 1: to me that changed the course of my life and

947
00:58:00,400 --> 00:58:04,720
Speaker 1: certainly my career that day. As the rain kind of

948
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:07,720
Speaker 1: dripped down off of my face and down my glasses,

949
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:11,120
Speaker 1: I couldn't see real well. I leaned into the cab

950
00:58:11,760 --> 00:58:14,760
Speaker 1: and this young man was entrapped and he had burned

951
00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:18,880
Speaker 1: to death. In his car, and as I reached over

952
00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 1: tried to detect if his seat belt was buckled, his

953
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:29,600
Speaker 1: left hand brushed my right cheek, and instinctively I reached up,

954
00:58:30,360 --> 00:58:34,240
Speaker 1: grabbed the wrist of this clawed hand, and it snapped off.

955
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:40,400
Speaker 1: In mind, I stat there in the rain. No one

956
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: else is with me, cops are off doing their thing,

957
00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:45,280
Speaker 1: and I considered what I was holding in my hand,

958
00:58:45,360 --> 00:58:48,000
Speaker 1: just for a second, this burned claw that was left behind.

959
00:58:48,920 --> 00:58:52,120
Speaker 1: I walked off into the night. I sat beneath the

960
00:58:52,160 --> 00:59:00,919
Speaker 1: bridge and I wept, shaking uncontrollably, asking myself what the world,

961
00:59:01,520 --> 00:59:04,720
Speaker 1: what was I doing? Why was I here? That was

962
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:10,000
Speaker 1: after a twenty year career, and that night my life changed.

963
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:13,040
Speaker 1: It changed because I knew that I could no longer

964
00:59:13,120 --> 00:59:16,320
Speaker 1: do this. And fire played a big role in that

965
00:59:16,520 --> 00:59:19,200
Speaker 1: stop sign. We all have stop signs in our lives,

966
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:24,160
Speaker 1: don't we, Those warning signs that pop up in a

967
00:59:24,200 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: case like this involving fire was my stop sign, and

968
00:59:28,480 --> 00:59:32,120
Speaker 1: pretty soon thereafter I had to give it up. I

969
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:35,800
Speaker 1: had to hang it up. So fire will always be

970
00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:38,600
Speaker 1: part of who I am. It will always be part

971
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:41,600
Speaker 1: of those things I talk about. It will always be

972
00:59:41,680 --> 00:59:48,240
Speaker 1: part of the stories of the Dead. I'm Joseph Scott

973
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:50,960
Speaker 1: Morgan and this is body Backs.