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Speaker 1: Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Down here in the South,

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Speaker 1: we have some interesting names that we call our grandparents.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that's the case all over the country, but for

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Speaker 1: me spending my entire life down here, that's kind of

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Speaker 1: the norm. I call my grandfather Papa. I love that

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Speaker 1: man more than anything. Had two papas, But the one

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking about right now was what's referred to as

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Speaker 1: a finishing contractor or a finishing carpenter, and he ran

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Speaker 1: a crew of guys. It would actually frame houses. He

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Speaker 1: was not a big man, but he had gigantic hands,

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Speaker 1: and he had farms that I remember as a small

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Speaker 1: child that looked like Popeye. And the reason I bring

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Speaker 1: this up is that he always carried a hammer, and

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Speaker 1: he had a wide variety of him. I think probably

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Speaker 1: the one that everybody knows about is a claw hammer.

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Speaker 1: That means that you've got the blunted side where you're

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Speaker 1: driving nails, and you've got the other side that's pulling

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Speaker 1: him out. Today, we're gonna talk about a case that

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Speaker 1: involves a hammer, and it's a hammer that my grandfather

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Speaker 1: probably never would have been seen with. It's actually a

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Speaker 1: pink claw hammer. But we're going to talk about its

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Speaker 1: involvement in the alleged homicide of an elderly man of

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Speaker 1: seventy six years of age. His name was Leon Dwayne Hygnit.

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Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Packs My

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Speaker 1: buddy Dave mac He's a reporter for Crime Online. He's

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Speaker 1: joining me today to help me make sense out of

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Speaker 1: this case and break down the forensics. And Dave, there

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Speaker 1: are just certain cases out there that you think, when

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Speaker 1: you've heard the worst that humanity has to offer, you

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Speaker 1: come across a case like this and you think, Wow,

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Speaker 1: can't it go any deeper and any darker? And I

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Speaker 1: think this is pretty dark. This is one of those

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Speaker 1: situations where you've got an elderly couple. Carol Higne sixty

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Speaker 1: nine at the time that this took place, husband Leon

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Speaker 1: is seventy six at the time. You know, when you

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Speaker 1: see an old couple out and about and you just

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Speaker 1: think how sweet it is to have a partnership like

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Speaker 1: that that lasts a long time. You don't think about

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Speaker 1: what could possibly be going on in the relationship beyond

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Speaker 1: what you see, just a nice little couple together. They're

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Speaker 1: sunset years, but the sunset years for Carol and Leon. Leon,

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Speaker 1: in particular, we're not what you and I would wish

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Speaker 1: on anybody. Listen, when I see an older couple together.

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Speaker 1: I'm a romantic at harm. I have hope for love

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Speaker 1: and this case, it's actually chilling to the bone now

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Speaker 1: when I'm thinking about that elderly couple, and I'm wondering

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Speaker 1: if that's what people think of my wife and I

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Speaker 1: or you and your wife, you know, when we're out,

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Speaker 1: are we that? Are we that elderly couple? Now? Oh

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Speaker 1: my goodness, but I think we are because I think

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Speaker 1: somebody actually referred to my wife and I were at

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Speaker 1: Dollar General and I think I heard somebody say, isn't

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Speaker 1: that a cute old couple? And I thought, hey, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it does. This is a dose of reality. But hey,

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Speaker 1: we've made it to this point, so I'm thankful for that.

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Speaker 1: I wonder if Leon felt that way. I've made it

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Speaker 1: to this point. I'm good. Well, here's what actually happened.

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Speaker 1: Nine one one was called on September twenty fifth, and

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Speaker 1: they were called because there was a senior citizen suffering distress.

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Speaker 1: He was not in good health and the wife called

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Speaker 1: saying I need help. She indicated he had gone to

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Speaker 1: the bathroom and had fallen couldn't get up. She checked

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Speaker 1: on him and the door was locked, so she couldn't

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Speaker 1: get in to help him. Leon after about fifteen minutes,

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Speaker 1: was able to get out of the bathroom and get

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Speaker 1: out enough to crawl towards the bedroom. This is where

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Speaker 1: his loving wife helped him to the bedroom. Now she

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Speaker 1: noticed that there was a lot of blood on the

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Speaker 1: floor of the bathroom Joe because he had hit his

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Speaker 1: head and apparently more than once in trying to get up,

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Speaker 1: maybe slipping in the blood and having trouble. So Carol

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Speaker 1: helps him to the bedroom where he says, I have

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Speaker 1: a bad back. Let me lay on the floor, and

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Speaker 1: so he does. That's on the twenty fifth September. He

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Speaker 1: laid there for a couple of days. Carol says she

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Speaker 1: thought he was going to get better because he had

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Speaker 1: fallen before and got up. It just took him a

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Speaker 1: little time to recover. But she called their family doctor

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Speaker 1: and he says, well, no, you need to call nine

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Speaker 1: one one. He needs help. He's been on the ground

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Speaker 1: too long. And that's when paramedics showed up and they

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Speaker 1: took one look around the place and they said, hey, Joe,

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Speaker 1: this is not a loving elderly couple where the man

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Speaker 1: has fallen and can't get up. There's more to this

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Speaker 1: than meets the eye. As a matter of fact, one

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Speaker 1: of the paramedics noticed blood on the ceiling and the wall.

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Speaker 1: Is there a way you could hit your head on

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Speaker 1: the sink in the bathroom and get blood on the

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Speaker 1: ceiling on the wall, Joe, that you can think of.

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Speaker 1: You will encounter circumstance where people say and it generally

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Speaker 1: happens in cases, particularly involved in small children, where there's

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Speaker 1: ongoing child abuse. This is clearly to me a case

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Speaker 1: of what could be defined as older abuse. Remember Leon,

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Speaker 1: not only did he not get around well, he was

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Speaker 1: blind and he couldn't hear real well, so you don't

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Speaker 1: know what his level of ability to communicate was. Can

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Speaker 1: you imagine that you've suffered these injuries and then it's

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Speaker 1: almost like you're locked inside your head and the people

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Speaker 1: or person that you're totally dependent upon as your caregiver,

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Speaker 1: is not paying attention to you. They're not rendering aid.

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Speaker 1: You know that you're in a desperate circumstance. But there's darkness,

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Speaker 1: there's an absence of sound. Perhaps the floor is cold,

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Speaker 1: and you know nothing is changing. You don't know if

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Speaker 1: anything will change until the end eventually comes. But when

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Speaker 1: we think about head injuries in particular, for every point

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Speaker 1: of contact relative to a head injury, there will be

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Speaker 1: a singular point of impact. That's important to remember in

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Speaker 1: this case because as a result of a later examination

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Speaker 1: that's done of Leon, it was determined that this man

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Speaker 1: had sustained at least thirty count them, thirty blunt force

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Speaker 1: impacts all about his head, over and over and over again.

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Speaker 1: And the fact that that had occurred and you have

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Speaker 1: that much head trauma, it's hard to take the measure

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Speaker 1: of what's going on internally with his brain. But I

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Speaker 1: can tell you this, the brain, probably at the initial onset,

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Speaker 1: was beginning to swell, and if there's nowhere for that

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Speaker 1: brain to receive any kind of relief, it becomes more

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Speaker 1: and more progressively congested. You enter into an altered mental state.

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Speaker 1: And this is not even counting the pain that would

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Speaker 1: have been involved as you linger there and probably eventually

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Speaker 1: going into a comma. We have brought this about with

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Speaker 1: this case with Carol and Leon Hignite, and have brought

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Speaker 1: it to the situation where Leon is on the floor

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Speaker 1: and paramedics have been called. Basically, I was giving you

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Speaker 1: the story from Carol Hignite, what she told their primary

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Speaker 1: care physician and later what she told paramedics. The actual

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Speaker 1: truth of the matter was somewhat different, because, as you mentioned,

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Speaker 1: there's not a case where a person could end up

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Speaker 1: with over thirty lacerations about their head by falling in

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Speaker 1: the bathroom and hitting a sink. For three days, leon

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Speaker 1: Hignite laid on the bedroom floor. When nine one one

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Speaker 1: was called and paramedics arrive, they find leon Hignite unresponsive, dehydrated,

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Speaker 1: lacerations to his head and lying in his own filth

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Speaker 1: and waste excrement. They saw blood on the walls and

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Speaker 1: ceiling as well as on the bedroom floor around his head.

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Speaker 1: And when you actually see some of the photos, Joe,

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Speaker 1: you can see that leon Hignite actually wedged himself underneath

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Speaker 1: a bed frame in the bedroom. And I am only

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Speaker 1: going to assume that he did that to try to

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Speaker 1: protect himself, that he's doing anything you can to try

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Speaker 1: to find some type of comfort. Because this did not

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Speaker 1: happen on accident. It couldn't have, right, No, it can't,

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Speaker 1: because for every point of impact that you have, there

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Speaker 1: will be evidence of that. And so back to this

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Speaker 1: idea of elder abuse. Many people that are charged in

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Speaker 1: cases of elder abuse and certainly child abuse, will say, well,

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Speaker 1: my child fell down the staircase, and this is how

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Speaker 1: they wound up with these injuries. You're looking at them.

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Speaker 1: The logical part of your brain wants to scream out, well,

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Speaker 1: how many times did they fall down the staircase? Because

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Speaker 1: now you've got bruises all over the body. They're specific

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Speaker 1: pattern injuries that come along with this. You had mentioned

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Speaker 1: the idea of lacerations, and there are patterns that you

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Speaker 1: can tie back to this and the fact that he

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Speaker 1: had gone in I think probably in those early moments

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Speaker 1: into a posture of protection. I use this term a lot,

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Speaker 1: maybe I overuse it, but it's almost a primal thing.

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Speaker 1: You're trying to survive, and even as your compromise from

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Speaker 1: a century standpoint, you can make it from the bathroom

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Speaker 1: to the bedroom. You would imagine that that would be

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Speaker 1: a normal course. In my estimation, given how extensive these

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Speaker 1: injuries were on his head, I would imagine that there

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Speaker 1: was probably a blood trail and the dynamics of the

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Speaker 1: blood that you would see in the bathroom would certainly

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Speaker 1: be different than those areas of blood that are essentially pooled,

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Speaker 1: because that's going to tell the tale in the case

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Speaker 1: of Leon. If you're looking for more true crime, check

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Speaker 1: out the Piked and Massacre new details into what was

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Speaker 1: uncovered at the gruesome crime scenes in Pike County. Accused

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Speaker 1: murderer George Wagner faces a judge and jury. No Wagner

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Speaker 1: family DNA was found at a crime scene. Will he

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Speaker 1: face the death penalty or will he walk free? Mark

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Speaker 1: my words, this case is about to blow wide open.

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Speaker 1: Been to the entire season of The Piked in Masker

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Speaker 1: season four on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever

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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Two words come to mind. Helpless

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Speaker 1: and hopeless. I can't even begin to fathom what it

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Speaker 1: would be like to be abandoned and a place that

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Speaker 1: you would consider hopefully your safe harbor, your haven, that

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Speaker 1: home that you've lived in, perhaps for years. There's no

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Speaker 1: point of retreat, there's no place that you can go

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Speaker 1: to where you're going to feel comfort, that you're going

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Speaker 1: to get better. And I think that that's probably the

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Speaker 1: position that Leon Hickney found himself in I've never been

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Speaker 1: to a scene like this. I've been to a number

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Speaker 1: of scenes where extreme things have happened to people, but

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Speaker 1: I've never been to one like this where authorities are called.

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Speaker 1: After the man has been laying for three days that

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Speaker 1: nine when one people walk in and they see what's

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Speaker 1: going on, they recognize it is so bad that they

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Speaker 1: begin taking action. They, being authorities, begin taking action immediately.

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Speaker 1: They get Leon out of the situation, get him to

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Speaker 1: the hospital, and they start doing what they can to

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Speaker 1: help him. He is seventy six years old, he's blind,

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Speaker 1: he's got some hearing is She's already has a number

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Speaker 1: of health issues. When all of this is looked at

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Speaker 1: by a third party, they go, this is not the

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Speaker 1: way she's claiming. This man did not slip and fall

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Speaker 1: in the bathroom on accident. He's not been laying there

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Speaker 1: for three days. While she waits to help him, police

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Speaker 1: get involved. They get a search warrant to come and

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Speaker 1: look at the house. Police arrive to serve the search warrant,

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Speaker 1: and as they go in, they smell smoke and find

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Speaker 1: that the house has been set on fire in the basement.

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Speaker 1: So already we have Carol Hignite, the wife. She's been

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Speaker 1: charged now with assault. She's been charged with elder abuse

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Speaker 1: now Arson, Yeah, and he's just hanging on by thread.

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Speaker 1: And this is roughly three days post accident quote unquote,

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Speaker 1: I'm using air quotes here where this head strike has

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Speaker 1: taken place. When the doctors begin to assess they've got him,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure on NEUROICU, which means that they're going to

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Speaker 1: have to do the calculus here to try to determine

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Speaker 1: what they're going to do to save him, because all

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Speaker 1: the while I'd mentioned just a moment ago, how when

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Speaker 1: you sustain this kind of trauma to your head, your

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Speaker 1: brain does in fact begin to swell. You don't know

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Speaker 1: if there's perhaps underlying fractures, but one of the things

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Speaker 1: they have to do is to relive that pressure, and

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Speaker 1: it's a surgical intervention most of the time, where they'll

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Speaker 1: go in and they will drill what's referred to as

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Speaker 1: a burrhole in the skull itself to relieve this pressure.

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Speaker 1: They'll also insert a pressure monitor into the skull that

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Speaker 1: keeps track of the indwelling pressure. There's a range of

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Speaker 1: pressure that is acceptable in the human brain where if

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Speaker 1: you begin to get up past that normal level. It's

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Speaker 1: curtains for you. So they're trying to assess all of

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Speaker 1: this day. Being the team at the hospital, there are

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Speaker 1: three days behind the curve. I'm not saying it would

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Speaker 1: have been a survivable event if they'd got to him immediately,

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Speaker 1: but I can tell you his chances may have been

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Speaker 1: a little bit better. He's there on the floor for

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Speaker 1: three days and he is dehydrated, he's ematiated, he's had

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Speaker 1: no food or water. How long can anybody much less

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Speaker 1: a seventy six year old man with underlying medical issues

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Speaker 1: lay on the floor without dying, no food, no water,

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Speaker 1: and he's bleeding. This is not something that you're going

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Speaker 1: to recover from just by resting on this hard surface floor.

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Speaker 1: This is something that requires medical intervention, probably surgical intervention,

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Speaker 1: in order to correct this issue, just to give him

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Speaker 1: immediate relief. So you couple that with this idea of dehydration.

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Speaker 1: There's one element to this case that's kind of fascinating.

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Speaker 1: Carol had claimed that while she had chosen to let

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Speaker 1: him rest on the floor, that she had made efforts

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Speaker 1: in order to hydrate him. As a matter of fact,

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Speaker 1: she stated that she had gotten a cup and was

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Speaker 1: giving him ice chips. If you've ever been in the hospital,

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Speaker 1: they might not let you drink water, but they will

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Speaker 1: give you ice chips in order to kind of hydrate

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Speaker 1: your mouth stem the dry mouth that you get while

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Speaker 1: you're in there, and that this was her effort apparently

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Speaker 1: at hydration. Dehydration is absolutely lethal. Probably goes without saying.

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Speaker 1: We can't go very long without taking water on in

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Speaker 1: our body because all of our cells are depended upon it.

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Speaker 1: And so it's not just that he struck his head, Dave,

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Speaker 1: It's not just that he was allowed to lay on

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Speaker 1: the floor. It's the idea of deprivation of basic needs.

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Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. You're depriving this individual that

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Speaker 1: is literally at your mercy. Carol Hignet claimed that she

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Speaker 1: checked on her husband periodically, but didn't think his injuries

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Speaker 1: were severe enough to call an ambulance. So, Joe, let

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Speaker 1: me ask you. According to healthcare providers who took care

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Speaker 1: of Leon Hignite when he arrived at the hospital, he

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Speaker 1: sustained an extensive brain injury. I collapsed a lung, broken ribs,

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Speaker 1: broken leg, a fractured orbital socket, and bed sores. Are

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Speaker 1: these injuries typical of a fall. No, they're not. Let's

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Speaker 1: just go to the fractures that you're referring to. When

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Speaker 1: you see someone with fractured ribs and they're in a

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Speaker 1: diminished position like this. Now, you can have fractured ribs

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Speaker 1: as a result of a fall, and the elderly do

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Speaker 1: sustain those. How many times does anybody in the audience

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Speaker 1: reflect back, think, well, I had my aunt or my

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Speaker 1: grandmother that broke their hip. That does happen. Sometimes it

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Speaker 1: will happen spontaneously, but many times if the elderly or

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Speaker 1: compromise physically, that will fall and strike that area and

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Speaker 1: it will fracture. The bones become brutal as we get older.

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Speaker 1: But how many fractures were there? And also how recent

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Speaker 1: are the fractures? How recent are the broken bones? And

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Speaker 1: from a forensic stand point, if you're trying to establish

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Speaker 1: a timeline, one of the things that you look for,

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Speaker 1: particularly when it comes to bony fractures is has the

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Speaker 1: healing process begun at this point in time? Is there

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Speaker 1: any indication that the bones have begun to kind of

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Speaker 1: naturally mend on themselves. And you'll get these odd appearing

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Speaker 1: fracture lines where you'll see the bonus communicating where it's

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Speaker 1: beginning to mend itself. And these stand out. You can't

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Speaker 1: miss it when you're doing an internal examination. It would

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Speaker 1: also be evident certainly in X rays as well. So

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Speaker 1: absent that from a forensic standpoint, you have to take

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Speaker 1: what you're being told by the investigators and try to

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Speaker 1: marry up these injuries and try to appreciate to what

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Speaker 1: extent these things have healed. Are they in the distant past,

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Speaker 1: are they all recent? And also you think about, well

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Speaker 1: do any of them communicate with one another? And what

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Speaker 1: I mean by that, do you have overlapping contusions? Certainly

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Speaker 1: fractured areas where you might have a bone that's not

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Speaker 1: distractured once but maybe twice. Two things that stand out

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Speaker 1: that you had mentioned, how do you get a leg fracture,

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Speaker 1: because that requires a tremendous amount of pressure in order

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Speaker 1: to generate that. Sometimes you can see leg fractures with

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Speaker 1: individuals that will be stomped on. Perhaps if you have

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Speaker 1: a leg fracture, that means that there ought to be

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Speaker 1: some kind of related contusion overlying the area of fracture.

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Speaker 1: For anybody's ever fractured bone in their body, you can

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Speaker 1: actually see that kind of focal strike there. But this

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Speaker 1: other thing that you mentioned, Dave, this orbital fracture that

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Speaker 1: he sustained. Does anyone actually realize how rare these are.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about an eye socket, that's fracture that requires

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Speaker 1: a direct strike. Generally you see orbital fractures many times

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Speaker 1: in fatal car accidents. That's how rare these kinds of

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Speaker 1: things are. Maybe someone that takes a line drive baseball

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Speaker 1: to the face, that's how much force is required. In

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Speaker 1: this case. I think that there's far too much to

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Speaker 1: just ignore in total. When you begin to think about

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Speaker 1: Leon and the trauma that he sustained. I'm reflecting back

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Speaker 1: on my career. I've worked plane crashes where victims have

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Speaker 1: had fewer injuries than this. Fatal injuries they had, but

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Speaker 1: fewer injuries than this. I would associate this with maybe

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Speaker 1: a car accident as well, any kind of motor vehicle

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Speaker 1: accident where you have extreme force and trauma that's applied

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Speaker 1: to an individual. I'm amazed that this man survived at all.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned at the very beginning, the pink hammer, and

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Speaker 1: I'm looking at these in particular, the fractured orbital socket,

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Speaker 1: as you mentioned, a very difficult thing. But looking at

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Speaker 1: the injuries, we know we have the pink hammer, and

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Speaker 1: we know that there was blood on the hammer. We

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Speaker 1: know there's blood on the ceiling and the walls. We've

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Speaker 1: got blunt force trauma to the head, over thirty lacerations

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Speaker 1: just dealing with the head. Does it sound like rather

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Speaker 1: than using the hammer to crush up blocks of ice

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Speaker 1: to lovingly feed her husband while he lay there in

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Speaker 1: his own excrement and blood and feeding him ice chips,

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Speaker 1: or was that hammer used for something else? Just about

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Speaker 1: out of every instrument that we examine at the Morgue

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Speaker 1: relative to blunt force trauma, I think probably hammer stands

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Speaker 1: out the most based upon the unique mark that it

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Speaker 1: leaves on the body. If everybody at home right now

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Speaker 1: that's listening to me, or in your car, think about

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Speaker 1: what a quarter looks like and you're looking down on

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Speaker 1: the quarter. The dimensions of quarter very closely resemble what

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Speaker 1: the striking surface of a hammer would look like. And

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Speaker 1: remember the head and the skull. Many people don't think

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00:19:53,080 --> 00:19:55,119
Speaker 1: about their or their skull many times, but you have

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Speaker 1: uneven surfaces. It's a flat bone, but it's curved when

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Speaker 1: a hammer comes down and it strikes to scalp initially

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00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:05,600
Speaker 1: because that's where it's going to first make contact. There's

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Speaker 1: this friction event that occurs, and you'll get an overlying

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00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:12,040
Speaker 1: braided area many times, and also if the surface of

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00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:15,119
Speaker 1: that contact the impact point of the hammer, some of

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00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:17,960
Speaker 1: them will be dimpled. You'll see that transferred onto there.

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00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:21,440
Speaker 1: But that force is transferring into that area and it

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Speaker 1: leads to tearing. Remember they're calling these lacerations, and lacerations

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00:20:26,359 --> 00:20:29,239
Speaker 1: are not associated with sharp force injuries. Contrary to what

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Speaker 1: people say. Lacerations are associated with blunt force trauma. So

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00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:35,960
Speaker 1: you've got tearing of the skin, but yet it will

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Speaker 1: leave a very specific mark that's going to look a

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Speaker 1: lot like a quarter. Also, you get this kind of

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Speaker 1: what I refer to as a beaver teeth mark, which

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Speaker 1: if someone spins the hammer around where you're attacking with

359
00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:52,119
Speaker 1: a claw, you'll get this penetrating event where you have

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00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:55,680
Speaker 1: it looks like two large beaver teeth had gone into

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Speaker 1: the tissue side by side, and that's the claw. You

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00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:01,520
Speaker 1: don't know if that's been slipped around because lots of

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00:21:01,560 --> 00:21:04,840
Speaker 1: times the hammer itself, the handle will get just saturated

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00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,920
Speaker 1: with blood. Blood's very slick. If you're holding it as

365
00:21:07,920 --> 00:21:10,359
Speaker 1: you're striking over and we know that there were multiple

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00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:14,000
Speaker 1: strikes because investigators at the scene talked about how there

367
00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,240
Speaker 1: appears to be cast off, a copious amount of cast

368
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Speaker 1: off in this bathroom, on the walls and the ceilings,

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Speaker 1: and that blood actually matched Leon. The one problem here

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Speaker 1: with this case, though, forensically, is that they only found

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Speaker 1: blood on the underside of the head of the hammer

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Speaker 1: and also onto the leading edge of the handle, and

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Speaker 1: that blood could not be specifically tied back to Leon,

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Speaker 1: nor could it be tied back to his wife Carol.

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Speaker 1: That might be an indication that at some point in

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Speaker 1: time that weapon went through some kind of cleansing, perhaps

377
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Speaker 1: because you can imagine the thing would have been super saturated.

378
00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:55,840
Speaker 1: We're talking about at least thirty strikes to the head,

379
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Speaker 1: not to mention these other areas of the body. So

380
00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:01,400
Speaker 1: that's kind of telltale here. And one of the things

381
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:05,199
Speaker 1: that's particularly telling when you take back the scalp at

382
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Speaker 1: autopsy and you begin to take a look at the

383
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:12,520
Speaker 1: external table of the skull. Remember those quarter shaped injuries

384
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Speaker 1: that I talked about on the skin, boy, or they

385
00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:16,880
Speaker 1: appreciate it, on the surface of the skull, they look

386
00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:20,560
Speaker 1: like plugs essentially, where that hammer strike has taken place,

387
00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:23,840
Speaker 1: that energy transfer down onto that bone and the bone

388
00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:27,399
Speaker 1: becomes detached and suddenly portions of it might fragment and

389
00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:30,160
Speaker 1: go into the brain, or the plug itself is pressuring

390
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:32,320
Speaker 1: the brain as well. So he's got all of this

391
00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:36,080
Speaker 1: to contend with Physiologically, I stand by my statement. The

392
00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:38,480
Speaker 1: fact that he survived as long as he did is

393
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 1: absolutely a miracle. Talking about the hammer and the lack

394
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:45,200
Speaker 1: of blood from Leon the victim here, would you not

395
00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:48,479
Speaker 1: have two different types If the hammer is the weapon

396
00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:52,320
Speaker 1: that causes the head trauma, would there not be blood

397
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:56,520
Speaker 1: spatter from impact that would be at head level as

398
00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 1: well as cast off from raising the hammer back and

399
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:02,879
Speaker 1: blood coming off the hammer onto the ceiling or the wall.

400
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 1: That's a good point one of the things that happens.

401
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 1: We teach our students at Jacksonville State this as well.

402
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:11,960
Speaker 1: When you're thinking about cast off, it's almost like if

403
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:14,199
Speaker 1: you took a bucket of red paint and dipped a

404
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:17,159
Speaker 1: paint brush in it, withdrew it, and initially when you

405
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 1: withdraw it, what's going to happen, Well, that paint is

406
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:22,680
Speaker 1: going to drip down kind of passively off of it,

407
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,880
Speaker 1: but as you draw it up over your shoulder. If

408
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:29,439
Speaker 1: you're trying to imitate this idea of casting off, depend

409
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 1: upon the force that you're using in drawing it back.

410
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:37,159
Speaker 1: You can cast blood forward and then kind of arching,

411
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:40,440
Speaker 1: and then as you're coming down you're going to generate

412
00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:44,200
Speaker 1: more force. And it happens many times where these patterns

413
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:47,640
Speaker 1: have cast off overlap one another. Just imagine in your

414
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: mind that you've got this big X that's happening going

415
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 1: up with an upward stroke and then down with a

416
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,880
Speaker 1: down stroke, and you'll get these kind of communicating events.

417
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:59,440
Speaker 1: The fact that he was struck this many times allegedly

418
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 1: with this hammer that they've talked about would give us

419
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:05,520
Speaker 1: an indication because they've made no bones about it here, Dave.

420
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 1: They talk about the volume or the amount of blood

421
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:12,720
Speaker 1: cast off that they're seeing at the scene. So you

422
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:14,919
Speaker 1: can get an idea that this would have been a

423
00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 1: rather dynamic event. Now to your other point, when you

424
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: are striking down. If you take a hammer and you

425
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 1: were to drive it into some like a tomato for instance,

426
00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:31,000
Speaker 1: well when at that point of impact, what's going to

427
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: happen with all of the fluid that's contained in that tomato. Well,

428
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,360
Speaker 1: it's going to kind of blast out, isn't it. Now.

429
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:39,880
Speaker 1: It's not going to be high velocity, but it will

430
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 1: at least be medium velocity. We talk about velocities of blood.

431
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:46,240
Speaker 1: We talk about a low, medium, and high. High is

432
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:50,680
Speaker 1: generally generated from a firearm. But when you have medium velocity,

433
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: that's easily associated with things like hammers, baseball bats, crowbars,

434
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: motor vehicle accidents. And you're thinking about a firearm, you're

435
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 1: thinking about maybe subsonic or supersonic round this passing through

436
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 1: a body that generates that kind of blast effect. It's

437
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:09,160
Speaker 1: not quite to that level, and the blood droplets themselves,

438
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:13,320
Speaker 1: the deposition of blood will be larger, they'll be easier

439
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: to appreciate, whereas if you have high velocity, it'll be

440
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 1: almost histamine like, it'll be very fine spray that you'll see.

441
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: With that, they would have been able to appreciate that.

442
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:25,679
Speaker 1: And he could have been in multiple positions, because if

443
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 1: you're talking about this number of strikes and impacts, he's

444
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 1: not going to just simply sit there statically, at least

445
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:34,639
Speaker 1: in the beginning. He's going to try to fend this off.

446
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:38,240
Speaker 1: So you might have these impact patterns that are all

447
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 1: over the place, and they're going to settle in various locations,

448
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 1: maybe underneath the sink, maybe on the side of the toilet,

449
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:47,120
Speaker 1: on the wall under the sink. You just never know

450
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 1: because this is such a dynamic event. One other thing

451
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 1: I wanted to get clarity on is that you talked

452
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 1: about the hammer not having blood. One would expect. But

453
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 1: obviously between the time of the incident on the twenty

454
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:02,920
Speaker 1: fifth and the time that Carol Hignite called nine one

455
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 1: one was three days. That's not in debate. During that

456
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 1: three day period of time, one could clean up a

457
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 1: lot of things. Now, those of us who are crime watchers,

458
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:15,919
Speaker 1: watching crime stories and things like that, we hear of

459
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 1: luminol that it doesn't matter how much you clean up,

460
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: that luminol can be sprayed and it just shows up

461
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:24,159
Speaker 1: where the blood was. Is that true or is that

462
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 1: TV stuff? Joe? It's accurate, It truly is. I know

463
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: of cases that have been ten, twelve, even fifteen years

464
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:32,919
Speaker 1: down range from the actual event. They were able to

465
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,640
Speaker 1: go back. On one case in particular, in the early days,

466
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: the use of luminol comes to mind a friend of

467
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: mine where a fellow had killed his wife in a

468
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 1: basement and redund the basement and even carpeted the floor,

469
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 1: and the cops have been watching the house for some time.

470
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:49,880
Speaker 1: They were aware that she was missing. A young couple

471
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:53,719
Speaker 1: bought the house and they found luminol under the carpet

472
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: its surface after all those years, and as it turns out,

473
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 1: the wife was actually buried out in the rose garden

474
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 1: and the back of the house. So it's quite possible

475
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: to go back over a period of time, and certainly

476
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: in this case, it's such a short period of time,

477
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 1: you're not going to have too much degrading of that

478
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: sample anyway, so yeah, you'd be able to pick up

479
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: on it. So Carol Hignet was initially charged with assault.

480
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: She was charged with abuse of the elderly and arson,

481
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 1: and then it was upgraded because Leon did die nine

482
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: days after the initial attack. The date was October the fourth.

483
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:28,159
Speaker 1: He passed away, and that's when the charges against Carol

484
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: were upgraded to murder. Yeah, you're absolutely right, and she

485
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 1: went to trial on this. They brought in forensic experts,

486
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: they had all of the witnesses and back to the

487
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: fire they had a retired fire investigator that worked for

488
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,879
Speaker 1: the county. There. He testified that the fire that was

489
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 1: set was set by an individual with a handheld torch

490
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: perhaps or fire source like a lighter, that it wasn't

491
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 1: as a result of maybe faulty electrical box or something

492
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: like this, which the defense experts said that you couldn't

493
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 1: rule that out. Remember they said you can't rule it out.

494
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:07,159
Speaker 1: But at the end her trial ended in a hung jury,

495
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 1: but the DA has stated that they're going to try

496
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 1: her again. So more to come on this case. We'll

497
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 1: see what happens. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is

498
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: Bodybacks