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Speaker 1: Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Morgan. When you're young and you

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Speaker 1: have goals of going to college. First off, the first

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Speaker 1: thing you want to do is just get out of

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Speaker 1: high school. But then the future is so bright because

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Speaker 1: you think of about where you're going to go path

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Speaker 1: because it's unknown, but there's a level of excitement to it.

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Speaker 1: You go down that path and you kind of enter

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Speaker 1: into a new world that has a family. At a university,

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Speaker 1: you're seeking out those things that are gonna define you

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Speaker 1: as a person as you continue to grow. But what

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Speaker 1: you don't expect is that when you come home on

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Speaker 1: your break from college that you'll be brutally murdered and

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Speaker 1: your body left to decompose. Today, we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about the death of a young lady named aj Aj Hatsell.

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Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Bags. Jackie

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Speaker 1: aj was home from college. She was Joe Angelica aj

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Speaker 1: Hedzel was back home in Norfolk, Virginia for spring break

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Speaker 1: March of twenty fifteen. She was a freshman at Longwood University.

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Speaker 1: J disappeared on March second, and her body was not

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Speaker 1: found until five weeks later near the North Carolina border.

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Speaker 1: Let's put off for just a moment Joe discussing what

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Speaker 1: aj actually died from and talk about how she was found,

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Speaker 1: the condition her body was going to be in, and

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Speaker 1: how that relates to the bruises that they've found across

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Speaker 1: her chin and chest. She was not found until five

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Speaker 1: weeks later. She was partially buried in a drainage ditch.

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Speaker 1: That implies that there would have been water there. Right,

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Speaker 1: you are, Here's here's the problem. She's out exposed to

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Speaker 1: the elements. And you know, one of the biggest problems

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Speaker 1: that you encounter, you know, out in the field as

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Speaker 1: a death investigator, you have to overcome not just what

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Speaker 1: the perpetrator has done and try to make your way

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Speaker 1: through all of that science, but you're competing with the

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Speaker 1: environment in which a body is found, and in this case,

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Speaker 1: you don't have a body that's in a protected space.

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Speaker 1: And you know, we kind of break these things down,

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Speaker 1: and interestingly enough, we refer to them very simplistically as

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Speaker 1: indoor scenes versus outdoor scenes. And when you begin to

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Speaker 1: think about the dynamic and that's going on in the

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Speaker 1: surrounding environment as it pertains to human remains, they're impacted

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Speaker 1: in so many ways. What's kind of intriguing is that

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Speaker 1: you have this environment in which individuals, the remains are

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Speaker 1: actually impacted by ambient temperature, that is, the environmental temperature

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Speaker 1: which surrounds the remain that they're impacted by, even things

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Speaker 1: like wind. You imagine that, you know, the wind blowing

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Speaker 1: over the bodies are going to cool the surface or

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Speaker 1: warm the surface of the body. Barometric pressure, humidity, all

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Speaker 1: of these things come into place, and then you throw

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Speaker 1: on top of it, you have a body that is

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Speaker 1: lying in a wet environment and that has furthermore complications

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Speaker 1: that occur and in this wet environment and bodies may

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Speaker 1: very well tend to break down a bit quicker. You know,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about a case in which a body has

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Speaker 1: found five weeks essentially after she went and missing, and

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Speaker 1: so that's going to greatly compromise your ability to assess

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Speaker 1: what you're seeing at the scene and tell you you know,

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Speaker 1: one of the things that we look at, and I've

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Speaker 1: talked about this before on body bags, is the honoring

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Speaker 1: of the dead. And I know that sounds kind of odd.

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Speaker 1: You know, you begin to think about funeral practices and

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Speaker 1: those things that we do with the dead to honor

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Speaker 1: the dead. Memorialization of the dead is what's actually called.

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Speaker 1: When you see somebody that has been left outside, how

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Speaker 1: was the body treated in those moments, you know after death.

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Speaker 1: Was there a hole that was dug? Did somebody actually

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Speaker 1: put shovel to dirt, turnsold, do the work that's required

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Speaker 1: to bury a body. Did they cover the body in rocks?

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Speaker 1: Did they cover it in tree limbs, those sorts of things.

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Speaker 1: In AJ's case, you have a body, her body that

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Speaker 1: is essentially discarded, and there wasn't a lot of work

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Speaker 1: that went into this because what we understand is that

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Speaker 1: the only attempt to obscure her body was a piece

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Speaker 1: of plywood debris, if you will, that was laid across

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Speaker 1: the top of her body. So I think that we

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Speaker 1: can learn a lot about the person that was responsible

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Speaker 1: for this, you know, because you know, let's face it,

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Speaker 1: you know, when you see something like this, you find

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Speaker 1: a body that's partially obscured, you're not thinking, well, this

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Speaker 1: person that deceased did not wind up in this position

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Speaker 1: of their own volition. This had to have occurred at

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Speaker 1: the hand of another and as an investigator, that's the

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Speaker 1: way you're thinking. So how much time did they spend

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Speaker 1: with the body. And this is kind of an isolated

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Speaker 1: spot where she was found because this is behind an

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Speaker 1: abandoned house. You begin to think, well, if it's behind

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Speaker 1: an abandoned house, is this a location that the perpetrator

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Speaker 1: actually had knowledge of? Is it in proximity to anything else?

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Speaker 1: A roadway, those sorts of things. What type of vehicles

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Speaker 1: travel up and down on this road? Who would have

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Speaker 1: the kind of awareness that it would require to know

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Speaker 1: that if I'm going to deposit a body, this is

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Speaker 1: where I'm going to go, and then not use the

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Speaker 1: home or the structure, but to go behind it, into

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Speaker 1: this wet environment and just use whatever is at they're

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Speaker 1: ready in order to cover the body up. Because it

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Speaker 1: sounds to me like the piece of plywood that was

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Speaker 1: covering AJ's remains was essentially an item of convenience. It

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Speaker 1: was found there. She was found lying face down in

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Speaker 1: her prom position, and then the body covered. You were

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Speaker 1: saying that it was pretty obvious that this was the

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Speaker 1: death that was caused by someone else. She was not bludgeoned,

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Speaker 1: but they saw bruises across her chest and on her face.

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Speaker 1: Number one for those to still be visible after so

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Speaker 1: many days of decomposition and across the chest shows us

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Speaker 1: that these are very party deep bruises. And what kind

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Speaker 1: of an injury does this indicate to you, Joe, Well,

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Speaker 1: let me just kind of lay the groundwork for you

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Speaker 1: here when you're talking about a body that's going through

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Speaker 1: the process of decomposition. First off, the body, as I'm

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Speaker 1: sure that many people understand, is going to change colors.

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Speaker 1: And one of the color phases that a body will

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Speaker 1: go through during this period of time is it will

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Speaker 1: and a lot of this is environmentally dependent, so that

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Speaker 1: kind of caveat, but the body will darken essentially, you'll

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Speaker 1: have the body turn a deep brown and then it'll

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Speaker 1: kind of go to black. So the fact that they

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Speaker 1: were able to discern what we refer to as some

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Speaker 1: kind of insult and insult is just a fancy way

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Speaker 1: that forensic pathologists use is kind of a generalized catch

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Speaker 1: all phrase. And when they say insult, you know, how

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Speaker 1: was the body insulted? They use that term without being

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Speaker 1: real specific. But in this case, they would have had

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Speaker 1: to have seen what are referred to as margins, and

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Speaker 1: that is something that is distinguishable. It has some kind

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Speaker 1: of pattern to it that varies that varies from the

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Speaker 1: normal order that takes place relative to decomposition, and so

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about here are contusions. You know, we

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Speaker 1: use the word bruises, and it's the same thing essentially.

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Speaker 1: You know, what's fascinating about the process of decomposition is

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Speaker 1: that you know, the bodies are going to change colors.

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Speaker 1: That's just that just happens. And as bodies continue to decompose,

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Speaker 1: there's a progression that takes place and a color change

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Speaker 1: will will be affected. You'll see bodies that will turn

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Speaker 1: kind of a greenish to black color, there's a brown shade.

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Speaker 1: A lot of this is heavily depended upon environmental considerations.

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Speaker 1: But what's fascinating about ags cases that they were able

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Speaker 1: to appreciate what they're referring to is contusions on her

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Speaker 1: chest and which is again fancy terms for bruises, and

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Speaker 1: they were able to single those out when compared to

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Speaker 1: the natural state of decomposition. That process, and the way

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Speaker 1: it has been presented is that there was apparently severe

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Speaker 1: pressure that was applied, maybe impact trauma where and I'm

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Speaker 1: imagining somebody pinning somebody down constantly or striking them across

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Speaker 1: the chest and gain control of them. Now, how do

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Speaker 1: we discern between decompositional changes and say, for instance, anti

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Speaker 1: mortem which means before death anti mortem trauma. In this

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Speaker 1: case we're talking about hemorrhage. Well, when the pathologist does

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Speaker 1: the dissection and they'll take samples of those areas of

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Speaker 1: contused areas at autopsy end, there's never an area that

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Speaker 1: is more heavily dependent upon histological examination, that is, the

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Speaker 1: microscopic examination of the tissues when it comes to decomposition,

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Speaker 1: So you really have to be heavily dependent upon what

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Speaker 1: you're seeing in the microscope. Was their hemorrhage existing in

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Speaker 1: that area prior to death or in the perimortem state

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Speaker 1: where they're kind of you know, that milky period of

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Speaker 1: time where people are going from the anti mortem state

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Speaker 1: to the post mortem state or after death, and that

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Speaker 1: can be picked up on microscopically. But that pathologist, at

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Speaker 1: that moment time they saw something. There was a pattern

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Speaker 1: there that looked completely different than the normal progression of decomposition.

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Speaker 1: I don't know of any any circumstance that an investigator,

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Speaker 1: a death investigator hates to face more than a decomposing body.

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Speaker 1: And it has nothing to do hear me, right, it

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Speaker 1: has nothing to do would smell in sight and all

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Speaker 1: those things. It's just that everything gets so jumbled up

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Speaker 1: in that world because it's hard to understand and delineate

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Speaker 1: between trauma that may have occurred to the body and

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Speaker 1: the environmental decompositional factors that are going on. With what

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Speaker 1: you just said, the investigators and the m e the

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Speaker 1: pathologists found a very distinct pattern of bruising on a

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Speaker 1: face and showed the prints of someone's hand as if

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Speaker 1: they were holding squeezing a face very hard. What can

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Speaker 1: you tell me about that? Yeah, you know, when you're

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Speaker 1: you can actually see patterns and you listen in the

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Speaker 1: morgue and even out at the scene, you have to

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Speaker 1: be very very careful about what you're what you're opining

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Speaker 1: at that point. You know, who are you going to

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Speaker 1: actually tell us too, because you have to go through

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Speaker 1: the process of scientific verification if what you're actually seeing

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Speaker 1: is true? All right, scientifically verifiable, if you will, because

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Speaker 1: I remember, you know, in any kind of homicide you're

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Speaker 1: going to go to court with that, and so will

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Speaker 1: it stand up? Will it hold up scientifically? Will will

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Speaker 1: it stand up to muster? You know, at that point

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Speaker 1: in time, as these things are being judged in court.

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Speaker 1: So when we see patterns on a body, we can suggest,

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Speaker 1: at least in our own mind, that yet that kind

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Speaker 1: of resembles what might be a hand print. And I

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Speaker 1: hate to use the term handprint because that implies that

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Speaker 1: you're leaving behind evidence of friction ridges, you know, like

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Speaker 1: with fingerprints, and that's sort of that's not that's not

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about. We're talking about direct applied pressure.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes when you have have this applied pressure on

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Speaker 1: a specific surface, like the throat, the neck. You know,

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Speaker 1: if you will jawline face anybody, that's everyone's struck in

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Speaker 1: the face by slap, you know, you can appreciate sometimes

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Speaker 1: you can make out those little areas of fingers, you know,

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Speaker 1: where that has occurred. But just imagine a slap that

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Speaker 1: goes on forever and ever well as you continue to

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Speaker 1: apply pressure, As you continue to apply pressure in that

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Speaker 1: specific area, the greater the pressure, the higher the likelihood

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Speaker 1: that the little capillary beds that are in what's referred

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Speaker 1: to as the interstitial tissue, that is the tissue that

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Speaker 1: is in between blood vessels, there are capillary beds in there,

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Speaker 1: they're going to rupture and at that point of rupturing.

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Speaker 1: They will kind of follow a pattern that gives you

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Speaker 1: an indication that something was there, like you know, fingers,

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Speaker 1: a palm, the heel of a hand, that sort of thing,

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Speaker 1: and so that's what they're looking at. What does this

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Speaker 1: most closely resemble? This is something that's key in our

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Speaker 1: world of forensics. You cannot and I repeat, there is

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Speaker 1: no forensic scientists out there that can quantify this and

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Speaker 1: what I mean by that, and you cannot numerically state,

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Speaker 1: you know, like we can with toxicology and DNA and

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. You can't quantify this. You can

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Speaker 1: qualify it's qualified opinion that that is more than likely

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Speaker 1: caused by direct pressure of a hand, and it will

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Speaker 1: look very distinct. But here's again back to this problem

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Speaker 1: that you encounter with decomposition is that you have to

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Speaker 1: be very careful. And it's counterintuitive, you know, when you're

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Speaker 1: in this environment because you're around human remains. Let's face it,

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Speaker 1: that are very unpleasant to be around in the first place,

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Speaker 1: because of decomposition, the smells, all of these things that

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Speaker 1: are going on. But it is actually in that environment

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Speaker 1: that you have to spend a longer amount of time

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Speaker 1: because more stuff is obscured. Isn't that kind of interesting?

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Speaker 1: You have to take more time because things can be

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Speaker 1: kind of blocked out by the decompositional process, and that's

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Speaker 1: one of the things that is kind of striking, I

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Speaker 1: think to a lot of people that have never been

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Speaker 1: inside of a morger, have ever been around an autopsy,

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Speaker 1: those things that we might recoil from in a normal

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Speaker 1: and a normal environment, you're drawn to it. As a

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Speaker 1: death investigator, You're drawn to it to stay there longer

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Speaker 1: because there are these big questions that have to be asked.

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Speaker 1: And let me tell you something, if they're not asked

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Speaker 1: and answered at that moment of time, when that person

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Speaker 1: within you is saying, I don't want to be in

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Speaker 1: this environment. I don't want to be around a body

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Speaker 1: that is in this condition. Your feet are telling you

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Speaker 1: to flee, but you have to stay planned. You have

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Speaker 1: to look at this evidence very, very carefully, because you

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Speaker 1: get one shot at it. Joe, you mentioned toxicology, and

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Speaker 1: that is where investigators have to turn to find out

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Speaker 1: AJ's cause of death. Yeah. Aj did not use drugs.

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Speaker 1: There were no needle marks found on her body. She

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Speaker 1: did not have a history. According to her family, of

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Speaker 1: drug use. How does that happen then, Joe? And how

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Speaker 1: does it connect with those bruises on her face? We

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Speaker 1: come across a lot of modes. And when I say modes,

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about a mode. Is is that thing that

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Speaker 1: brings about a fatal event? So what mode is someone

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Speaker 1: killed by? What is being put forward in AJ's case

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Speaker 1: is that her death was directly related to a heroin overdose.

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Speaker 1: Heroin overdose just you know, let's dwell on that just

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Speaker 1: for a second. Well, what are some things we look

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Speaker 1: for in a heroin overdose? Well, in that population of

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Speaker 1: people that use heroin, there are certain physical characteristics that

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Speaker 1: we look for. Wasting a way because you know, you're

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Speaker 1: life is spent in this kind of cycle of seeking

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Speaker 1: the drug and using the drug and then kind of

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Speaker 1: cycling through that event over and over and over and

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Speaker 1: over again. It's a personal hell I can only imagine.

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Speaker 1: But in Ajs case, that's kind of difficult to assess,

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Speaker 1: isn't it. You know, because again we're back to this

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Speaker 1: factor of decomposition and that impacts everything in this particular case.

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Speaker 1: Now here's something that folks might not understand that when

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Speaker 1: we work drug od cases, That is deaths that are

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Speaker 1: related to a specific drug, in this case heroin. One

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Speaker 1: of the things that we look for some of the

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Speaker 1: physical manifestations that you see as far as evidence of

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Speaker 1: direct injection, and that's commonly how how heroin is administered

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Speaker 1: is you know, classically we look for what are referred

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Speaker 1: to for years and years as railroad tracks, and those

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Speaker 1: are specific injection sites. Many times they're located in the

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Speaker 1: crook of the arm and in you know, from an

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Speaker 1: anatomical standpoint, that's to the anticubal fossa. And but you know,

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Speaker 1: just crook of the arm is fine, and it's on

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Speaker 1: it's on that surface of the forearm where an individual

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Speaker 1: can tie off with a tourniquet, they raise a vein

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Speaker 1: or a vessel or other and they inject directly in there. Well,

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Speaker 1: in her case that would not have been visible. But

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Speaker 1: some of the things that we will do is we

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Speaker 1: will actually go into those hardened areas because they are hardened.

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Speaker 1: It forms almost what's referred to as a granuloma, if

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Speaker 1: you will, and that arises from what heroine is cut with.

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Speaker 1: You know, you can have quinine. You know, they'll cut

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Speaker 1: it with talcum powder. There's all baby formula or baby powder.

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Speaker 1: You know formula that she used to create baby formula.

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Speaker 1: There's any number of things that it's cut with and

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Speaker 1: those those elements will get hung up and create these

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Speaker 1: little kind of hardened it's not really assist but it's

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Speaker 1: just a hardened area that's referred to as a granulom

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Speaker 1: and you can run your thumb or your index finger

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Speaker 1: over that area and feel them beneath skin, and at

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Speaker 1: autopsy will go into those track marks and kind of

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Speaker 1: dissect those out and retrieve those and look at them

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Speaker 1: and those sorts of things. That's a big thing. And

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Speaker 1: then when we have individuals that have that are found

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Speaker 1: immediately after death, if we're considering that it might be

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Speaker 1: an injection of heroin overdose, it's quite fascinating to see

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Speaker 1: the arms of the dead many times that have died

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Speaker 1: as a result of an OD. You start above at exam,

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Speaker 1: you start above or superior to the elbow, and you

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Speaker 1: tightly squeeze the arm and you move your hand down

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Speaker 1: down the axis of the arm squeezing. You know what

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00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:45,840
Speaker 1: happens if there's an injection site there. You'll see a

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Speaker 1: little dot, a little dot of blood that will appear

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Speaker 1: at what we refer to as a needle puncture site.

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Speaker 1: We call them npws. The medical community uses that term

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Speaker 1: needle puncture wound. You'll see that little bit of blood

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Speaker 1: that will erupt from that site. Again, back to AJ's case,

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Speaker 1: you don't have that advantage, but I do know this

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Speaker 1: that at autopsy or following autopsy, when they finally got

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Speaker 1: her toxicological sample examined, and that is no easy feat

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Speaker 1: in a case like hers, it was three times three

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Speaker 1: times the lethal limit. What would that amount of heroin

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Speaker 1: do to a person who's never used the drug? I

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Speaker 1: can't imagine that that would have been considered the pleasure trip,

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Speaker 1: for lack of a better phrase. You're talking about if

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Speaker 1: someone has just come into this cold and has never

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Speaker 1: used heroin before, death is going to come upon them

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Speaker 1: very very quickly, and it is not going to be

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Speaker 1: a pleasant, a pleasant event. There's not going to be

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Speaker 1: like some kind of warm, swimmy feeling that you get it.

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Speaker 1: You know, like if you're you know people that out

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Speaker 1: there in our audience that think about anesthesia, you know,

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Speaker 1: where they give you a pre drug and you're kind

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Speaker 1: of loopy if you will, and then they say, I

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Speaker 1: would you start counting backwards from a hundred and you

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Speaker 1: start and you make it to like ninety eight and

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Speaker 1: you just simply go to sleep. It's not going to

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Speaker 1: be like that, and depend upon how it's administered. And

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Speaker 1: you're talking about what could potentially have been her season

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Speaker 1: overwhelming nausea, perhaps just for at least in the short period,

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Speaker 1: and where she's getting very short of breath. Remember, heroin

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00:21:33,840 --> 00:21:39,080
Speaker 1: depresses the respiratory system. It's just it's it's like you know,

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Speaker 1: a boat anchor that's tied to your ability to breathe.

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Speaker 1: You're gasping for air. It would have been a horrific

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Speaker 1: I mean absolutely horrific. It's a death that that on

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Speaker 1: the part of the individual that administers is drug to someone,

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Speaker 1: it shows very little mercy, very little mercy at all.

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Speaker 1: So then would J's hart had just stopped? Yeah, And

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00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:05,600
Speaker 1: that's you know that that's the case in an event

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Speaker 1: like this, because again you're and it's a combination of

346
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Speaker 1: systemically of everything. When we are essentially uptaking oxygen, you know,

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00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:18,600
Speaker 1: when we're breathing in this environment, the normal cyclists, we

348
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:22,439
Speaker 1: take in oxygen oxygen as processed by our body. We

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Speaker 1: have the red blood cells that transfer, the you know,

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Speaker 1: the oxygen ata blood through throughout our system, this sort

351
00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:31,720
Speaker 1: of thing, you interfere with that process, and just at

352
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 1: one level, it has to do with, you know, insufficient

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00:22:35,359 --> 00:22:38,479
Speaker 1: oxygen uptake in this particular case, and there are a

354
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Speaker 1: lot of other factors that play into this. But yeah,

355
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:44,720
Speaker 1: her heart would have she would have gone into cardiac arrest.

356
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Speaker 1: But this would have been a case also involving what's

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Speaker 1: of her two simply as respiratory failure. And it's part

358
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:54,440
Speaker 1: and parcel of a heroin od many times with and

359
00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:58,560
Speaker 1: they're countless in my experience because of many the many

360
00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:01,399
Speaker 1: drug cases that I work. One of the things that

361
00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:05,479
Speaker 1: you see with with drug overdoses and particularly things like

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00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 1: heroine and even oxies and those sorts of things that

363
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:12,280
Speaker 1: are synthetics out there, you see what's presenting on the

364
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:16,240
Speaker 1: faces referred to as a frothy idemitius cone. It issues

365
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:19,960
Speaker 1: forth from the nose and the mouth. It has kind

366
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:23,080
Speaker 1: of a pink discoloration, and you see it in drowning.

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00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 1: It's amazingly as well, and it's indicative of a respiratory

368
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Speaker 1: failure event where your lungs are becoming very weighted and heavy,

369
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 1: and those sorts of things and you produce this froth.

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00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:40,160
Speaker 1: It's kind of blood tinged. Essentially, it's almost like drowning

371
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 1: heroin overdoes if heroin is being used as a mode

372
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Speaker 1: in order to take somebody's life, my big question as

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Speaker 1: an investigator is who in the world would actually have

374
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Speaker 1: ready access, ready access to an illegal substance like heroin. Yes,

375
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Speaker 1: the search is on Joe for the person that administered

376
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Speaker 1: heroin to AJ. And what we found, or what investigators found,

377
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Speaker 1: is that aj stepfather had been kicked out of the

378
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Speaker 1: home by a J's mother for heroin use. Wesley hadseel

379
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Speaker 1: how did they do it? Well, I think that you

380
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Speaker 1: know the fact that when you have a young lady's

381
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Speaker 1: body that is in such advance state of decomposition because

382
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 1: it was advanced you know listen, you know, animals had

383
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:09,359
Speaker 1: actually made their way to her remain. So this is

384
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:13,200
Speaker 1: not an easy an easy lift, as they say, this

385
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:15,160
Speaker 1: is something that you have to do a very careful

386
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Speaker 1: close examination on. One of the One of the first

387
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Speaker 1: things that they did at autopsy was they took a

388
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Speaker 1: hair sample from AJ's body and you think, well, what

389
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: in the world they need a hair sample for? Well,

390
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: you know, we think about hair samples relative to DNA

391
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 1: and matching hairs up in trace evidence that we find

392
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:40,120
Speaker 1: it scenes. We can find broken shafts of hair, you know,

393
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: when we look at them, we can see, you know,

394
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: people that have colored their hair. We can see that

395
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,719
Speaker 1: staining on this. All those sorts of things that you know,

396
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 1: try to determine if a hair is actually fur or

397
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 1: versus human hair, those sorts of things. In her case, though,

398
00:25:55,560 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 1: they employed a very interesting method all to learn something

399
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,479
Speaker 1: about the body that they had at that time, and

400
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 1: that is they acquired a follicle of her hair and

401
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: did drug testing on it. How in the world did

402
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: they do that well? With product drug abusers. One of

403
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: the things that you will see is that as heroine,

404
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: for instance in this case, is injected into the system,

405
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 1: it gets into the bloodstream right well, what feeds the hair, well,

406
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 1: it's red blood cells. And think about the hair follicle

407
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: is almost like the rings of a tree. You know

408
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 1: how if you cut a tree in half, you can

409
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: kind of tell the history of it, you know, drought

410
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 1: ears versus wet ears, and all these sorts of things

411
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 1: that botanists look at in the short term. When you

412
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: look at a hair follicle, though, you can actually test

413
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: that hair follicle to see if there's heroine or some

414
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,439
Speaker 1: types of drugs contained within that hair follicle. And for

415
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: us as investigators, particularly when you're dealing with a decomposed body,

416
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:06,920
Speaker 1: you need as much data as you possibly can have

417
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 1: because you know, we talked about the term quantitative, which

418
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: means numbers. You're not going to be able to get

419
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:17,959
Speaker 1: a quantitative amount or a level of heroin, but you

420
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: can qualify. You can say, yeah, there is in fact

421
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:25,439
Speaker 1: heroin present or there's evidence of heroin being present in

422
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 1: this follicle of hair. And depended upon how far, how

423
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:35,239
Speaker 1: far up the hair follicle that heroin is and there

424
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: are markers along the way you can see that the

425
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:40,919
Speaker 1: individual has taken heroin and maybe here here, here, So

426
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: you're talking about linear tom as the hair is beginning

427
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: to grow out, it gives you an indication of history

428
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: of this person's involvement with drugs. Well, in a just case,

429
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:53,640
Speaker 1: they took the hair sample and it was actually negative.

430
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:57,879
Speaker 1: It was negative because in order to get heroin into

431
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 1: the hair follicle, it it's gonna take. It's not something

432
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: that immediately happens, it's going to be something that's going

433
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: to take four to five days. You know, as the

434
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: hair wine is metabolized with the body, it finally makes

435
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 1: it to the hair follicle and begins its gross outward. So,

436
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: you know, you find a young lady who is in

437
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 1: this position, you're trying to determine what exactly happened to her,

438
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:22,840
Speaker 1: and one of the things you're going to go to

439
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 1: is did she have anything on board? You know, that

440
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 1: came to the conclusion that it was, in fact a

441
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,159
Speaker 1: hair wine overdosed with her. Remember, it wasn't present in

442
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 1: her hair. So where else do you go? Where you

443
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 1: got a body is decomposed, so you're not going to

444
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 1: necessarily be able to draw blood. And in those cases

445
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 1: one of the things that we will do at autopsy

446
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: is take organ samples. Generally the liver is kind of

447
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: one of the best areas. You can do this from

448
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: liver and braining, and it'll be a sample of the

449
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 1: tissue will actually be placed into a test tube, if

450
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 1: you will, and then placed into a center few and

451
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: spun at a very high rate, and it the sample

452
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 1: actually liquefies and it's at that point you can draw

453
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: this up much like you do blood and submit that

454
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: for toxicological sample. Now, it's a bit rougher as far

455
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 1: as the as those quantitative numbers go, you know, when

456
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:23,040
Speaker 1: you're thinking about urine and blood and all those sorts

457
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: of things, but it will still get you pretty close.

458
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 1: And in AJ's case, she had three times three times

459
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 1: a lethal limit in her system. So that that's a

460
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:42,800
Speaker 1: huge bolus, which is an individual administration of a drug.

461
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: For her to have to have never been a round

462
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:46,719
Speaker 1: hair one, to have never used hair when she had

463
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: no prior history of drug abuse, those sorts of things,

464
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 1: and you know you're you're thinking as an investigator, well

465
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 1: how did she get this much on board? And then

466
00:29:56,040 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: you couple that with looking at her stepfather drug history.

467
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: Remember he had just been kicked out of the house. Well,

468
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: who in that family? Who in her immediate circle? I remember,

469
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: she's home from school. It's not like they found her

470
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: in a dorm room. Okay, who in that little circle

471
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 1: within her home, within her environment, first off, would have

472
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 1: access to her and secondly could easily make her disappear,

473
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:26,719
Speaker 1: and thirdly that would also have access to this drug. Well,

474
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 1: all signs are gonna point toward the stepfather in this

475
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: particular case because he kind of fits the bill, and

476
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: that's how you build a case like this. As police investigated,

477
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: the stepfather a long history of violence against women. They

478
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 1: also had information from Wesley Hadsel's drug dealer that he

479
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: had purchased heroin the day after AJ's disappearance. And again,

480
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: AJ did not have a history of drug abuse, no

481
00:30:55,360 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: needle marks found on her body. Wesley Hadsel, who's still

482
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: to this day, maintains that he did not kill his stepdaughter.

483
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: He always claimed innocence. The evidence that came in that

484
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: the investigators used came from his van. Yeah, that's just it.

485
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 1: He's riding around in this van. Well. First off, here

486
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 1: are some of the items that are contained in there.

487
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: First off, AJ's headmand. You know that this young lady

488
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: would have used to, you know, pull back that lovely

489
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: brown hair that she had, and it was long, it

490
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 1: was like longer than her shoulders. Found shovel in there,

491
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: found duct tape in there. And in addition to that,

492
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 1: you know, and look, you know, there's nothing wrong with

493
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: riding around with the picture of your child in the vehicle.

494
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: Lord knows, I do. I got pictures everywhere. But there

495
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: was a picture of her, no one else. And I

496
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: think this kicks it up to another level of horror here,

497
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:01,840
Speaker 1: because this is a young lady who he came into

498
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: her life. He's not her biological father, and he adopted her.

499
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: She carried his surname, he had access to her. And

500
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 1: there was one part I forgot to mention, relative to

501
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: what they saw at the scene. J still had sweatpants on,

502
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 1: but the sweatpants were in a position. Now she's found

503
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:31,959
Speaker 1: faced down at the scene what we referred to as

504
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 1: prone facedown at the scene, and the sweatpants are pulled

505
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 1: down below the level of her buttocks. The horror here

506
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 1: is incredible because you have this young lady that has

507
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 1: heroin that has been administered to her. She's in apparently

508
00:32:56,840 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: in the hands of someone that she trusted, remembered. This

509
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 1: is her dad. Now she carries his name, and you've

510
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:10,719
Speaker 1: got this event that would appear consistent with a forcible

511
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 1: administration of heroin. I can't even fathom plumb the depths,

512
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: if you will, of the horror when she felt that

513
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: that little penprick. I'm sure it wasn't that she was

514
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: tied off, you know, like heroin addicts do. Where they're

515
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: seeking a vein with a tourniquet. This would have gone

516
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: directly into what's referred to as her subqu fat. That

517
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:42,920
Speaker 1: means that the needle was applied directly to her skin.

518
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: She would have sensed that that, you know what, what's

519
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: happening to me? And then to be found in this

520
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 1: position it implies at least, and I think in the

521
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 1: minds of the investigators and certainly the prosecutors, that this

522
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: was perhaps a sexual assault event that was going on.

523
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 1: That he took this young woman out there in this

524
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:09,399
Speaker 1: isolated area behind an abandoned house. He had just been

525
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: kicked out of his home by his wife because of

526
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: drug abuse, and he targeted her. He was exacting punishment.

527
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: I think on her. This is not about love on

528
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:27,919
Speaker 1: any level. This is this is horror that I don't

529
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 1: know that any of us can really kind of calculate

530
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,360
Speaker 1: when you consider house she was found one other aside

531
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 1: to this, her body was in such a state of decomposition,

532
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: and we talked about these hand markings that are found,

533
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:44,640
Speaker 1: these these contusions. They could not in the friends of

534
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: pathologist actually stated they could not actually rule out the

535
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:53,040
Speaker 1: possibility that she had been manually strangled at some point

536
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: in time. Again, you know, decomposition playing a role. It's

537
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 1: very tough to ascertain. But what we do know is

538
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: that she had this lethal agent in her body that

539
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: was administered at the hand of somebody that she trusted,

540
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 1: somebody that she I don't know, I don't know what

541
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 1: their relationship was like, but may have called him father. Okay, Joe,

542
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 1: I'm a little confused. I made an assumption that with

543
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 1: the bruises on her face, that it was the possibility

544
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:32,840
Speaker 1: that AJ was administered this. Orally, can you take heroin? Orally?

545
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Or you saying she still had

546
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 1: to be injected somewhere. It's hard to say, But I

547
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: have to imagine if an individual has access to a needle,

548
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 1: which in this particular case you got a haro on abuser.

549
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: So yeah, he's going to have what they call his works,

550
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 1: which is a needle of spoon, all those sorts of

551
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 1: things that tourniquet, he's got ready access to it. And again,

552
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:58,800
Speaker 1: this is something that can only you can only assume. Look,

553
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:03,319
Speaker 1: people take heroin in a couple of interesting ways. It

554
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 1: has been taken over the years where there are people

555
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 1: that snort heroin. You know, there are people that will

556
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: ingest heroin, and you know, I've actually worked cases where

557
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 1: I've had drug mules that have had dosages of heroin

558
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 1: inserted into their backside and the capsule's erupt and it

559
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:26,760
Speaker 1: can be administered there. There are people that have taken

560
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 1: heroin rectally, so that does happen. There's any number of

561
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:34,279
Speaker 1: means in which this can occur. But you know, when

562
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,759
Speaker 1: we're thinking about aj in the position she was found in.

563
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:40,879
Speaker 1: Anytime we find, particularly a female subject that is deceased

564
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,400
Speaker 1: and her clothing is disrupted in any way, the first

565
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:47,720
Speaker 1: thing I'm thinking about is that this is this has

566
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:51,279
Speaker 1: the potential. I've got strong evidence now that this might

567
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:57,320
Speaker 1: very well be a sexual assault case. However, you're faced

568
00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:01,359
Speaker 1: with this great obstacle in her where when you do

569
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: a traditional rape kit. We hear a lot about rape

570
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 1: kits nowadays, the ability to assess what may have been

571
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 1: left behind by biological sample, whether it's semen or blood

572
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: or hair or those it becomes greatly compromised. So I

573
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:18,760
Speaker 1: don't know that there's any way that you can actually

574
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 1: determine that. Some of the other things that we look

575
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:23,960
Speaker 1: for are physical signs of sexual assault and that doesn't

576
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 1: always happen, you know, where you're thinking about tearing and

577
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 1: those sorts of things, and again you're faced with the

578
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: obstacle of decomposition. So it was a real tough uphill

579
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,400
Speaker 1: climb for the investigators. Not just the investigators, but I'm

580
00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: sure the forensic pathologists as well that did the examination well.

581
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:45,760
Speaker 1: Wesley Hedzel was convicted in the murder of aj Dsel

582
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: and sentenced to life in prison. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan

583
00:37:54,200 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: and this is Bodybags