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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: the path, because it's unknown, but there's a level of

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Speaker 1: excitement to it. You go down that path and you

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Speaker 1: kind of enter into a new world that has a family.

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Speaker 1: At a university, you're seeking out those things that are

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Speaker 1: gonna define you as a person as you continue to grow.

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Speaker 1: But what you don't expect is it when you come

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Speaker 1: home on your break college that you'll be brutally murdered

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Speaker 1: and your body left to decompose. Today we're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: about the death of a young lady named j A. J. Hatsell.

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

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Speaker 1: A J was home from college. She was Joe Angelica A. J.

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

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Speaker 1: She was a freshman at Longwood University. J disappeared on

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Speaker 1: March two, and her body was not found until five

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Speaker 1: weeks later near the North Carolina border. Let's put off

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Speaker 1: for just a moment Joe discussing what aj actually died

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Speaker 1: from and talk about how she was found and condition

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Speaker 1: her body was going to be in, and how that

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Speaker 1: relates to the bruises that they found across her chin

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Speaker 1: and chest. She was not found until five weeks later.

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Speaker 1: She was partially buried in a drainage ditch. That implies

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Speaker 1: that there would have been water there right there are

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Speaker 1: that here, 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, you know, make

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Speaker 1: your way through all of that science, but you're competing

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Speaker 1: with the environment in which a body is found, and

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Speaker 1: in this case, you don't have a body that's in

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Speaker 1: a protected space. And you know, we kind of break

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Speaker 1: these things down, and interestingly enough, we refer to them

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Speaker 1: very simplistically as indoor scenes versus outdoor scenes. And when

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Speaker 1: you begin to think about the dynamic and that's going

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Speaker 1: on in the surrounding environment as it pertains to human means,

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Speaker 1: they're impacted in so many ways. What's kind of intriguing

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Speaker 1: is that you have this environment in which individuals, the

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

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Speaker 1: environmental tempature which surrounds the remain. They're impacted by even

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: all of these things come into place. And then you

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: may very well tend to break down a bit quicker.

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Speaker 1: You know, we're talking about a case in which the

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

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

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Speaker 1: assess what you're seeing at the scene. And I tell you,

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Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that that we look at,

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Speaker 1: and I've talked about this before on body bags is

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

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Speaker 1: kind of odd. You know, you begin to think about

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Speaker 1: funeral practices and in those things that we do with

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Speaker 1: the dead, to honor the dead. Memorialization of the dead

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Speaker 1: is what's actually called. When you see somebody that has

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Speaker 1: been left outside, how was the body treated in those moments,

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Speaker 1: you know after death. Was there a hole that was dug,

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Speaker 1: Did somebody actually put shovel to dirt, turn sold do

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Speaker 1: the work that's required to bury a body. Did they

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Speaker 1: cover the body in rocks? Did they cover it in um,

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Speaker 1: in tree limbs, those sorts of things. In AJ's case,

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Speaker 1: you have a body, her body that is essentially discarded,

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Speaker 1: and there wasn't a lot of work that went into

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Speaker 1: this because what we understand is that the only attempt

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Speaker 1: to obscure her body was a piece of plywood debris,

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Speaker 1: if you will, that was laid across the top of

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Speaker 1: her body. So I think that we can learn a

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Speaker 1: lot about the person that was responsible for this, you know,

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

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Speaker 1: see something like this, you find a body that's partially obscured,

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Speaker 1: you're not thinking, well, this person that deceased did not

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Speaker 1: wind up in this position of their own volition. This

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Speaker 1: had to have occurred at the hand of another and

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Speaker 1: as an investigator, that's the way you're thinking. So how

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Speaker 1: much time did they spend with the body. And this

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Speaker 1: is kind of an isolated spot where she was found

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Speaker 1: because this is behind an abandoned house. You begin to think, well,

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Speaker 1: if it's behind an abandoned house, is this a location

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Speaker 1: that the perpetrator actually had knowledge of? Is it in

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Speaker 1: proximity to anything else? A roadway, those sorts of things,

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Speaker 1: What type of vehicles travel up and down this road?

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Speaker 1: Who would have the kind of awareness that it would

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Speaker 1: require to know that if I'm going to deposit a body,

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Speaker 1: this is where I'm going to go, and then not

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

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Speaker 1: into this wet environment and just use whatever is at

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Speaker 1: they're ready in order to cover the body up. Because

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

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Speaker 1: was covering a J's remains was essentially an item of convenience.

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

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Speaker 1: in her promposition, 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? Joke, Well,

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

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Speaker 1: When you're talking about a body that's going through the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: the body turn a deep brown and then it will

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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 it 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 for for bruises,

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

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Speaker 1: to the natural state of decomposition that process, and the

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

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Speaker 1: severe pressure that was applied, maybe impact trauma where and

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Speaker 1: I'm imagining somebody pinning somebody down constantly are striking them

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: the 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 warm 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

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Speaker 1: body and it has nothing to do. Hear me, right,

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: what you just said, the investigators and the m E.

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: can you tell me about that? Yeah? You know, when

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Speaker 1: when you're you can actually see patterns and you listen

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

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Speaker 1: have to be very very careful about what you're what

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Speaker 1: you're opining at that point, you know who who are

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

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Speaker 1: go through the process of scientific verification if what you're

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Speaker 1: actually seeing is true, all right, scientifically verifiable? If you will,

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

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Speaker 1: you're gonna 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 where that's not that's not what

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

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Speaker 1: sometimes when you have this applied pressure on a specific surface,

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Speaker 1: like the throat, the neck. You know, if you will

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Speaker 1: jawline face anybody, that's everyone struck in the face by slap,

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Speaker 1: you know, you can appreciate sometimes you can make out

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Speaker 1: those little areas of fingers, you know, where that has occurred.

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Speaker 1: But just imagine a slap that goes on forever and ever.

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Speaker 1: Well as you continue to apply pressure, As you continue

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Speaker 1: to apply pressure in that specific area, the greater the pressure,

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Speaker 1: the higher the likelihood that the little capillary beds that

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Speaker 1: are in what's referred to as the interstitial tissue, that

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Speaker 1: is the tissue that's that is in between blood vessels.

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Speaker 1: There are capillary beds in there they're gonna rupture, and

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Speaker 1: at that point of rupturing, they will kind of follow

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Speaker 1: a pattern that gives you an indication that something was there,

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Speaker 1: like you know, fingers, a palm, the heel of a hand,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing, And so that's what they're looking at.

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Speaker 1: What does this most closely resemble? This is something that

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Speaker 1: that's key in our world of forensics. You cannot and

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Speaker 1: I repeat, there is no forensic scientists out there that

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Speaker 1: can quantify this and what I mean by that, and

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Speaker 1: you cannot numerically state, you know, like we can with

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Speaker 1: toxicology and DNA and that sort of thing. You can't

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Speaker 1: quantify this. You can qualify it's qualified opinion that that

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Speaker 1: is more than likely caused by direct pressure of a hand,

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Speaker 1: and it will look very distinct. But here's here's again

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Speaker 1: back to this problem that you encounter with decomposition is

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Speaker 1: that you have to be very careful. And it's counterintuitive,

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Speaker 1: you know, when you're in this environment because you're around

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Speaker 1: human remains let's face it, that are very unpleasant to

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Speaker 1: be around in the first place because of decomposition, the smells,

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Speaker 1: all of these things that are going on. But it

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Speaker 1: is actually in that environment that you have to spend

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Speaker 1: a longer amount of time because more stuff is obscured.

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Speaker 1: Isn't that kind of interesting? You have to take more

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Speaker 1: time because things can be kind of blocked out by

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Speaker 1: the decompositional process. And that's one of the things that

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Speaker 1: is kind of striking, I think to a lot of

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Speaker 1: people that have never been inside of a morriguer, have

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Speaker 1: ever been around an autopsy, those things that we might

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Speaker 1: recoil from in a normal and a normal environment, you're

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Speaker 1: drawn to it. As a death investigator. You're drawn to

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Speaker 1: it to stay there longer because there are these big

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Speaker 1: questions that have to be asked, and let me tell

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Speaker 1: you something, if they're not asked and answered at that

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Speaker 1: moment of time, when that person within you saying I

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Speaker 1: don't want to be in this environment. I don't want

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Speaker 1: to be around a body that is in this condition.

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Speaker 1: Your you know, your feet are telling you to flee,

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Speaker 1: but you have to stay planned. You have to look

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Speaker 1: at this evidence very very carefully, because you get one shot. Joe.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned toxicology, and that is where investigators have to

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Speaker 1: turn to find out a J's cause of death. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a J did not use drugs. There were no needle

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Speaker 1: marks found on her body. She did not have a history,

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Speaker 1: according to her family, of drug use. How does that

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Speaker 1: happen then, Joe? And how does it connect with those

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Speaker 1: bruises on her face? We come across a lot of modes.

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Speaker 1: And when I say modes, I'm talking about a mode.

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Speaker 1: Is is that thing that brings about a fatal event?

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Speaker 1: So what mode is someone killed by? What is being

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Speaker 1: put forward in a J's case is that her death

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Speaker 1: was directly related to a heroin overdose. Heroin overdose just

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Speaker 1: you know, let's dwell on that just for a second. Well,

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Speaker 1: what are some things we look for in a heroin overdose? Well,

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Speaker 1: in that population of people that use heroin, there are

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Speaker 1: certain physical characteristics that we look for. Wasting a way

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Speaker 1: because you know, you're life is spent in this kind

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Speaker 1: of cycle of seeking the drug and using the drug

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Speaker 1: and then kind of cycling through that event over and

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Speaker 1: over and over and over again. It's a personal hell

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Speaker 1: I can only imagine. But in a case that's kind

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Speaker 1: of difficult to assess, isn't it? You know, because again

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Speaker 1: we're back to this factor of decomposition, and that impacts

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Speaker 1: everything in this particular case. Now here's something that that

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Speaker 1: folks might not understand that when we work drug O

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Speaker 1: D cases, that is deaths that are related to a

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Speaker 1: specific drug, in this case heroin. One of the things

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Speaker 1: that we look for some of the physical manifestations that

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Speaker 1: you see as far as evidence of direct injection, and

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Speaker 1: that's commonly how how heroin is ad ministered is you know,

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Speaker 1: classically we look for what are referred to for years

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Speaker 1: and years as as railroad tracks, and those are specific

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Speaker 1: injection sites. Many times they're located in the crook of

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Speaker 1: the arm and in you know, from an anatomical standpoint,

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

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

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Speaker 1: on that surface of the forearm where an individual can

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

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Speaker 1: 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 heroin is cut with.

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

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

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Speaker 1: baby powder, you know, formula that she used to create

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Speaker 1: baby formula. There's any number of things that it's cut

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Speaker 1: with and those those elements will get hung up and

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Speaker 1: create these little kind of hardened it's not really assists,

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

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Speaker 1: a granuloman. You can run your thumb or your index

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Speaker 1: finger over that area. You can feel them beneath skin.

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Speaker 1: And at autopsy will go into those track marks and

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Speaker 1: kind of dissect those out and and retrieve those and

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Speaker 1: look at them and those sorts of things that that's

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Speaker 1: a big thing. And then when we have individuals that

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Speaker 1: have that are found immediately after death, if we're considering

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Speaker 1: that it might be an injection of heroin overdose, it's

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Speaker 1: quite fascinating to see the arms of the dead many

303
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Speaker 1: times that have died as a result of an o D.

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Speaker 1: You start above at exam, you start above our superior

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Speaker 1: to the elbow, and you tightly squeeze the arm and

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Speaker 1: you move your hand down down the axis of the

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Speaker 1: arm squeezing. You know what happens if there's an injection site.

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Speaker 1: There you'll see a little dot, a little dot of

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Speaker 1: blood that will appear at what we refer to as

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Speaker 1: a needle puncture site. We call them m p ws.

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Speaker 1: The medical community uses that term needle puncture wound, and

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Speaker 1: you see that little bit of blood that will erupt

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Speaker 1: from that site. Again, back to A J's case, you

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: heroin due to a person who has never used the drug?

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine that that would have been considered the

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Speaker 1: pleasure trip, for lack of a better phrase. You're talking

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Speaker 1: about if someone has just come into this cold and

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Speaker 1: has never used heroin before, death is going to come

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Speaker 1: upon them very very quickly, and it is not going

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

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Speaker 1: be like some kind of warm, swimmy feeling that you

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Speaker 1: give it. You know, like if you're you know people

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

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Speaker 1: you know, where you give you a pre drug and

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Speaker 1: you're kind of loopy, if you will, and then they say,

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

332
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Speaker 1: you start and you make it to like ninety eight

333
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Speaker 1: and you just simply go to sleep. It's not gonna

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Speaker 1: be like that. And deepened 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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00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:33,600
Speaker 1: and where she's getting very short of breath. Remember, heroin

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Speaker 1: depresses the respiratory system. It's just it's it's like you know,

339
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Speaker 1: a boat anchor that's tied to your ability to breathe.

340
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Speaker 1: You're gasping for air. It would have been a horrific

341
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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 this 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 ajs Hart had just stopped? Yeah, And

345
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:05,200
Speaker 1: and that's you know that that's the case in an

346
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Speaker 1: event like this, because again you're and it's a combination

347
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:14,840
Speaker 1: of systemically of everything. When we are essentially uptaking oxygen,

348
00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:17,480
Speaker 1: you know, when we're breathing in this environment and the

349
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:21,199
Speaker 1: normal cyclists we take in oxygen. Oxygen is processed by

350
00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:24,240
Speaker 1: our body. We have the red blood cells that transfer

351
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:27,920
Speaker 1: the you know, the oxygen ata blood through throughout our system.

352
00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:30,920
Speaker 1: This sort of thing, you interfere with that process, and

353
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Speaker 1: just at one level, it has to do with, you know,

354
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:38,240
Speaker 1: insufficient oxygen uptake in this particular case, and there are

355
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:41,160
Speaker 1: a lot of other factors that play into this. But yeah,

356
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:44,640
Speaker 1: her heart would have she would have gone into cardiac arrest.

357
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Speaker 1: But this would have been a case also involving what's

358
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Speaker 1: of her two simply as respiratory failure. And it's part

359
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 1: and parcel of a heroin o d many times with

360
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Speaker 1: their countless in my experience because of many the many

361
00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:01,320
Speaker 1: drug cases that I work. One of the things that

362
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:05,440
Speaker 1: you see with with drug overdoses and particularly things like

363
00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:08,640
Speaker 1: heroine and even ox eyes and those sorts of things

364
00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 1: that are you know, synthetics out there, you see what's

365
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:14,879
Speaker 1: presenting on the faces referred to as a frothy idemitius cone.

366
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:19,399
Speaker 1: It issues forth from the nose and the mouth. It

367
00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: has kind of a pink discoloration, and you see it

368
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 1: in drowning. It's amazingly as well, and it's it's indicative

369
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:31,200
Speaker 1: of a respiratory failure event where your lungs are becoming

370
00:23:31,320 --> 00:23:35,360
Speaker 1: very weighted and heavy and those sorts of things, and

371
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:38,919
Speaker 1: you produced this froth. It's kind of blood tinged. Essentially,

372
00:23:38,960 --> 00:24:06,359
Speaker 1: it's almost like drowning. M heroin overdose. If if heroin

373
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Speaker 1: is being used as a mode in order to take

374
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 1: somebody's life, my big question as an investigator is who

375
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:24,320
Speaker 1: in the world would actually have ready access, ready access

376
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: to an illegal substance like heroin. Yes, the search is

377
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:34,639
Speaker 1: on Joe for the person that administered heroin to a J.

378
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 1: And what we found or what investigators found, is that

379
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Speaker 1: a J stepfather had been kicked out of the home

380
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: by a J's mother for heroin use. Wesley hadsl How

381
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 1: did they do it? Well, I think that you know

382
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:56,959
Speaker 1: the fact that when you have a young lady's body

383
00:24:57,280 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: that is in such a advanced state of decomposition, because

384
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: it was advanced um you know listen, you know animals

385
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 1: had actually made their way to her remain, so that

386
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: this is not an easy an easy lift, as they say,

387
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 1: this is something that you have to do a very

388
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 1: careful close examination on one of the one of The

389
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:22,360
Speaker 1: first things that they did at autopsy was they took

390
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:26,639
Speaker 1: a hair sample from a j's body. And you think, well,

391
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:29,200
Speaker 1: what in the world they need a hair sample for. Well,

392
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: you know, we think about hair samples relative to DNA

393
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:37,200
Speaker 1: and matching hairs up in trace evidence that we find

394
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 1: it scenes. We can find broken shafts of hair. You know,

395
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 1: when we look at them, we can see you know,

396
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:44,720
Speaker 1: people that have colored their hair, We can see that

397
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: staining on this. All those sorts of things that you know,

398
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:52,359
Speaker 1: try to determine if hair is actually fur or versus

399
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:54,879
Speaker 1: human hair, those sorts of things. In her case, though,

400
00:25:55,480 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 1: they employed a very interesting methodol G to learn something

401
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 1: about the body that they had at that time, and

402
00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 1: that is they acquired a follicle of her hair and

403
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 1: did drug testing on it. How in the world did

404
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 1: they do well with product drug abusers. One of the

405
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: things that you will see is that as heroine, for

406
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:27,199
Speaker 1: instance in this case, is injected into the system, it

407
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 1: gets into the bloodstream, right, Well, what feeds the hair, Well,

408
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: it's red blood cells. And think about the hair follicle

409
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:36,679
Speaker 1: is almost like the rings of a tree. You know,

410
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 1: how if you cut a tree in half, you can

411
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 1: kind of tell the history of it. You know, drought

412
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:44,879
Speaker 1: ears versus wet ears, and all these sorts of things

413
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 1: that that botanists look at in the short term. When

414
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:51,880
Speaker 1: you look at a hair follicle, though, you can actually

415
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:56,920
Speaker 1: test that hair follicle to see if there's heroin or

416
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: some types of drugs contained within that hair follic land

417
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 1: for us as investigators, particularly when you're dealing with a

418
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:06,400
Speaker 1: decomposed body, you need as much data as you possibly

419
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:10,360
Speaker 1: can have because you know, we talked about the term quantitative,

420
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:13,159
Speaker 1: which means numbers. You're not going to be able to

421
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:17,679
Speaker 1: get a quantitative amount or a level of heroin, but

422
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: you can qualify. You can say, yeah, there there is

423
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 1: in fact heroin present or there's evidence of heroin being

424
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: present in this follicle of hair, and deepended upon how

425
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: far how far up the hair follicle that heroin is

426
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: and they're markers along the way, you can see that

427
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 1: the individual has taken heroin maybe here here, here, So

428
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:43,360
Speaker 1: you're talking about linear tom as the hair is beginning

429
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:46,679
Speaker 1: to grow out, it gives you an indication of history

430
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:51,160
Speaker 1: of this person's involvement with drugs. Well, in a just case,

431
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 1: they took the hair sample, and it was actually negative.

432
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: It was negative because in order to get heroin into

433
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: the hair follicle, it it's gonna take It's not something

434
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: that immediately happens. It's going to be something that's gonna

435
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:07,120
Speaker 1: take four to five days. You know, as the hair

436
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: wine is metabolized with the body, it finally makes it

437
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 1: to the hair follicle and begins its gross outward. So

438
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: you know, you you find a young lady who is

439
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 1: in this position, you're trying to determine what exactly happened

440
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 1: to her, and one of the things you're gonna go

441
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:25,919
Speaker 1: to is did she have anything on board? You know,

442
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:29,600
Speaker 1: that came to the conclusion that it was, in fact,

443
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,000
Speaker 1: a hair wine overdosed with her. Remember it wasn't present

444
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 1: in her hair. So where else do you go? Where

445
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:37,160
Speaker 1: you got a body is decomposed, so you're not gonna

446
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 1: necessarily be able to draw blood. And in those cases,

447
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 1: one of the things that we will do at autopsy

448
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 1: is take organ samples. Generally the liver is kind of

449
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 1: one of the best areas. You can do this from

450
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 1: liver and brain, and it'll be a sample of the

451
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: tissue will actually be placed into a test tube. If

452
00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 1: you will, and then placed into a center few and

453
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: spun at a very high rate, and it the sample

454
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: actually liquefies, and it's at that point you can draw

455
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: this up much like you do blood and submit that

456
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: for toxicological sample. Now, it's a bit rougher as far

457
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 1: as the as the those quantitative numbers go, you know,

458
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:22,719
Speaker 1: when you're thinking about urine and blood and all those

459
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: sorts of things, but it will still get you pretty close.

460
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: And in A J's case, she had three times three

461
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 1: times a lethal limit in her system. So that that's

462
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: a huge bolus, which is an individual administration of a

463
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: drug for her to have to have never been around heroine,

464
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 1: to have never used her when she had no prior

465
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: history of drug abuse, those sorts of things, and you know,

466
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: you're you're thinking, as an investigator, well how did she

467
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 1: get this much on board? And then you you couple

468
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: that with looking at her stepfather drug history. Remember he

469
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: had just been kicked out of the house. Well, who

470
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: in that family? Who in her immediate circle? Remember she's

471
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 1: home from school. It's not like they found her in

472
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: a dorm room. Okay, who in that little circle within

473
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: her home, within her environment? First off, would have access

474
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: to her and secondly could easily make her disappear, and

475
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 1: thirdly that would also have access to this drug. Well,

476
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: all signs are gonna point towards the stepfather in this

477
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 1: particular case because he kind of fits the bill. And

478
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: that's how you build a case like this. As police

479
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 1: investigated the stepfather the long history of violence against women,

480
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: they also had information from Wesley Hadsel's drug dealer that

481
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: he had purchased heroin the day after a J's disappearance.

482
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 1: And again A J did not have the history of

483
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: drug abuse, no needle marks found on her body. Wesley Hadsel,

484
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: who's deal to this day, maintains that he did not

485
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:06,239
Speaker 1: kill his stepdaughter. He always claimed innocence. The evidence they

486
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 1: came in that the investigators used came from his van. Yeah,

487
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: that's just it. He's riding around in this van. Well,

488
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 1: first off, here are some of the items that are

489
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: contained in their First off, a J's headman, you know

490
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: that this young lady would have used to, you know,

491
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: pull back that lovely brown hair that she had, and

492
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: it was it was long, it was like longer than

493
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: her her shoulders. Found shovel in there, found duct tape

494
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 1: in there And in addition to that, you know, and look,

495
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 1: you know, there's nothing wrong with riding around with the

496
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: picture of your child in the vehicle. Lord knows, I do.

497
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: I got pictures everywhere, but there was a picture of

498
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 1: her no one else. And I think this kicks it

499
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:58,479
Speaker 1: up to another level of horror here, because this is

500
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 1: a young lady who he came into her life. He's

501
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: not her biological father, and he adopted her. She carried

502
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: his surname, he had access to her. And there was

503
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: one part I forgot to mention, relative to what they

504
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: saw at the scene. A j still had sweatpants on,

505
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: but the sweatpants were in a position and she's found

506
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: face down at the scene what we referred to as

507
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: prone facedown a scene, and the sweatpants are pulled down

508
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: below the level of her buttocks. The horror here is

509
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 1: incredible because you have this young lady that has caroline

510
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 1: that has been administered to her. She's in apparently in

511
00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: the hands of someone that she trusted, remembered. This is

512
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: her dad. Now she carries his name, and you've got

513
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: this event that would appear consistent with a forcible administration

514
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 1: of heroin. I can't even fathom plumb the depths, if

515
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: you will, of the horror when she felt that that

516
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: little pen prick. I'm sure it wasn't that she was

517
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 1: tied off, you know, like heroin addicts do, where they're

518
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 1: seeking a vein with a tourniquet. This would have gone

519
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 1: directly into what's referred to as her sub que fat.

520
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: That means that the needle was applied directly to her skin.

521
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 1: She would have sensed that that, you know what, what,

522
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 1: what's happening to me? And then to be found in

523
00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 1: this position it implies at least, and I think in

524
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: the minds of the investigators and certainly the prosecutors, that

525
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: this was perhaps a sexual assault event that was going on.

526
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: That he took this young woman out there in this

527
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:09,319
Speaker 1: isolated area behind an abandoned house. He had just been

528
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:13,360
Speaker 1: kicked out of his home by his wife because of

529
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 1: drug abuse, and he targeted her. He was exacting punishment.

530
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 1: I think on her this this is not about love

531
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 1: on any level. This is this is horror that I

532
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 1: don't know that any of us can really kind of

533
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 1: calculate when you consider how she was found one other

534
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:36,280
Speaker 1: aside to this, her body was in such a state

535
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:39,359
Speaker 1: of decomposition, and we talked about the the these hand

536
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 1: markings that are found, these these contusions. They could not

537
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 1: in the forensic pathologies actually say they could not actually

538
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:51,759
Speaker 1: rule out the possibility that she had been manually strangled

539
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 1: at some point in time. Again, you know, decomposition playing

540
00:34:56,040 --> 00:35:00,879
Speaker 1: a role. It's very tough to ascertain at but what

541
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: we do know is that she had this lethal agent

542
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 1: in her body that was administered at the hand of

543
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,879
Speaker 1: somebody that she trusted, somebody that she I don't know,

544
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: I don't know what their relationship was like, but may

545
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 1: have called him father. Okay, Joe, I'm I'm a little confused.

546
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: I made an assumption that with the bruises on her

547
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 1: face that it was the possibility that a j was

548
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 1: administered this orally, can you take heroin? Orally? I had

549
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 1: no idea for you saying she still had to be

550
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:38,799
Speaker 1: injected somewhere. It's hard to say, but I have to

551
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:44,720
Speaker 1: imagine if an individual has access to a needle, which

552
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: in this particular case, you've got a hair on abuser.

553
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 1: So yeah, he's going to have what they call his works,

554
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:52,759
Speaker 1: which is a needle spoon, all those sorts of things

555
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 1: that tourniquet. He's got ready access to it. And again,

556
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,720
Speaker 1: this is something that can only you can only assume. Look,

557
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: people take heroin in a couple of interesting ways. It

558
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: has been taken over the years. Where there are people

559
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 1: that snort heroin. You know, there are people that will

560
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 1: ingest heroin. And you know, I've actually worked cases where

561
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 1: I've had drug mules that have had dosages of heroin

562
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: inserted into their backside and the capsule's erupt and it

563
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: can be administered there. There are people that have taken

564
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 1: heroin correctively, So that does happen. There's any number of

565
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 1: means in which this can occur. But you know, when

566
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 1: we're thinking about a j in the position she was

567
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: found in, any time we find, particularly a female subject

568
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: that is deceased and her clothing is disrupted in any way,

569
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:46,879
Speaker 1: the first thing I'm thinking about is that this is

570
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: this has the potential. I've got strong evidence now that

571
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: this might very well be a sexual assault case. However,

572
00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:59,959
Speaker 1: you're you're faced with this great obstacle in her case

573
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:02,759
Speaker 1: where when you do a traditional rape kit. We hear

574
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 1: a lot about rape kits nowadays, the ability to assess

575
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 1: what may have been left behind by biological sample, whether

576
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:14,440
Speaker 1: it's semen or blood or hair or those it becomes

577
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 1: greatly compromised. So I don't know that there's any way

578
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,359
Speaker 1: that you can actually determine that some of the other

579
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 1: things that we look for our physical signs of sexual assault,

580
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 1: and that doesn't always happen. You know, where you're thinking

581
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:29,359
Speaker 1: about tearing and those sorts of things, and again you're

582
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 1: faced with the obstacle of decomposition. So it was a

583
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: real tough uphill climb for the investigators, not just the investigators,

584
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: but I'm sure the forensic pathologists as well that did

585
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: the examination well. Wesley Hadzel was convicted in the murder

586
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: of a j Edsel and sentenced to life in prison.

587
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:56,440
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybags