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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I'm Dave macw with Crime

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Speaker 1: Online dot Com. Joining us right now is Joseph Scott Morgan,

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Speaker 1: professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, the author of

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Speaker 1: Blood Beneath My Feet. We're going to take a look

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Speaker 1: at what happened to JJ Valo and Tylie Ryan, as

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Speaker 1: well as the investigation into the death of Tammy day Bell.

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Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan, I want to start with JJ and

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Speaker 1: Tyleie and if you can, let's start with what happened

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Speaker 1: to Tyleie Ryan after she was killed. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: when you begin to look at at Tylee's remains, you're

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Speaker 1: looking at this this this this heat related what we

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Speaker 1: refer to is artifacts left behind on the body where

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Speaker 1: there is some type of attempt. We don't know to

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Speaker 1: what degree. Okay, let's just face it because the reports

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Speaker 1: haven't been released, but she's she has this heat artifact, uh,

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Speaker 1: this heat artifact that's left behind, and that means that

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Speaker 1: the tissue on her body not only you know, as

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Speaker 1: we talked about it has been decomposing, but it is

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Speaker 1: also compromised as a result of exposure to this uh,

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Speaker 1: this flame. And again we don't know how long this lasted.

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Speaker 1: You know, the further you go down this road relative

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Speaker 1: to attempting to cremate a body, the longer the body

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Speaker 1: is subjected to the fire and to the heat source,

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Speaker 1: the more compromised it will be. And also the big

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Speaker 1: thing here is, uh, the level of compromise of any

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Speaker 1: kind of evidence that's left behind. Uh. You know, we're

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Speaker 1: not I'm not simply talking about the cause of death,

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Speaker 1: you know, a bullet holes or knife wounds, or even toxicology.

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Speaker 1: I'm just talking about basic evidence that we look for,

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Speaker 1: things like evidence that's probably a goodly portion of that

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Speaker 1: is gone. We begin to think about things like DNA evidence, Well,

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Speaker 1: where are you going to recover it's all been burned

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Speaker 1: away at this point depended upon how much of her

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Speaker 1: body was directly exposed to the flame or to the

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Speaker 1: heat source. The one saving grace here, Dave, that I

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Speaker 1: have to say, and my mind keeps going back to this,

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Speaker 1: is that we understand that her body was subjected to fire.

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Speaker 1: I think my hope is is that if she had

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Speaker 1: some type of remnant of clothing left behind on her body,

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Speaker 1: that if she was doused in an accelerant like a kerosene,

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Speaker 1: a gasoline, diesel, or even some people have used oils

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Speaker 1: of some types, anything that's flammable as a firestarter. If

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Speaker 1: she had clothing on her body and it was still

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Speaker 1: on her body when they found her, some residue of

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Speaker 1: that accelerant might be left behind. Now, if that is

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Speaker 1: the case, that each accelerant that is out there, let's

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Speaker 1: just say you go to local gas station. Well, the

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Speaker 1: formula for that particular gas station is a trademarked formula,

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Speaker 1: you know, for that particular gas So the molecular structure

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Speaker 1: is unique to that. So if you think about that,

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Speaker 1: if you can capture that that accelerant, you might be

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Speaker 1: able to trace back that accelerant. And let's just let's

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Speaker 1: just kind of really, you know, expand our thought here.

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Speaker 1: If in fact, they used gas from station A and

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Speaker 1: doused her body in it, and you have the remnant

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Speaker 1: of that accelerant left behind, what if you can tied

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Speaker 1: back to a particular manufacturer, and then you go to

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Speaker 1: the local stations that sell that gasoline. What if we've

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Speaker 1: got video evidence at that station of somebody filling up

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Speaker 1: a gas can. Wouldn't that be remarkable? So that's my

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Speaker 1: one hope with Tiley. Okay, and you determine whether or

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Speaker 1: not her body was dismembered post mortem. Well, okay, let's

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Speaker 1: just say this, assuming you know, if what we're being

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Speaker 1: told is correct, just like the burning, if she wasn't

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Speaker 1: fact dismembered, and I'm believing that she has been what

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Speaker 1: you would be looking for in sharp force injuries, and

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Speaker 1: I can get into that a wee bit as well.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna look for in the tissue. You're gonna look

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Speaker 1: for hemorrhage or absence of hemorrhage. Remember I teach my

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Speaker 1: students at Jacksonville State that as investigators and as forensic scientists,

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Speaker 1: negative findings are just as important as positive findings. Okay,

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Speaker 1: And it's it's kind of a weird way of looking

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Speaker 1: at the world. But from an investigative standpoint, if I'm

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Speaker 1: absent something that means a negative finding. Let's say, for instance,

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Speaker 1: in her case, if she's dismembered post mortem, there won't

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Speaker 1: be hemorrhage in the tissues. Okay, So you're not gonna

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Speaker 1: have these focal area hemorrhage, say where somebody put a

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Speaker 1: knife to tissue and cut through it like in life. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: if if you cut somebody while they're alive, you're going

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Speaker 1: to bleed into that soft tissue. If she is deceased

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Speaker 1: when this happens, that's not going to occur. So that's

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Speaker 1: kind of how we delineate and the morgue between post

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Speaker 1: mortem versus anti mortem, which means before death injuries. All right,

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Speaker 1: So already through an autopsy, you can determine that her

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Speaker 1: body was cut up after she was dead, that they

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Speaker 1: tried to burn to get rid of the evidence. Yet

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Speaker 1: even with the burn, you can determine what type of

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Speaker 1: gasoline was used, and maybe determine what gas stations sold

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Speaker 1: that gas and then we can go and find the

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Speaker 1: video evidence to prove who bought it. Now, what about JJ.

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Speaker 1: We know that ty Lee was buried in a different

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Speaker 1: area than JJ. With JJ. You know this, it's remarkable,

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Speaker 1: And if we could just kind of take a pause

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Speaker 1: here and talk about psychology of this, think about just

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Speaker 1: for a second what we've discussed relative to Tyly and

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Speaker 1: her body. Her body was was literally ripped a shreds, Dave, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I mean ripped the shreds. You know, you're talking about dismemberment,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about burning, you're talking about not even really

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Speaker 1: honoring the dead. You kind of got her buried there

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Speaker 1: where I think there might be a mix of antal

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Speaker 1: bones and these sorts of things in a hastily dug grave.

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Speaker 1: But then you you flip that, You flip that, and

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Speaker 1: you look at where JJ was found. He was found

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Speaker 1: immediately adjacent to an old empty pond if you will.

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Speaker 1: It's like a retention pond or something. Hey, if our

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Speaker 1: listeners will just look at the aerial photographs, you'll see

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Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. It's a big hole in the

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Speaker 1: ground that's you know, I guess I can't say for certain,

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Speaker 1: but I'd say it's within twenty yards of where Tyle's

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Speaker 1: remains were. His body was treated with care, Dave, if

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Speaker 1: we are to believe what we're being told at this point,

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Speaker 1: and again we don't have anything in you know, in

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Speaker 1: black and white, but you know, his head, his head

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Speaker 1: had been wrapped in a bag, which is kind of

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Speaker 1: an interesting thing. We can get into that. And then

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Speaker 1: on top of that, the rest of his body was

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Speaker 1: I like to use the term cocooned, cocooned and more

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Speaker 1: plastic and then taped. Let's let's think about his head. Well,

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Speaker 1: many times, what you will have with an individual that

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Speaker 1: kills another person that has like an intimate relationship with them.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not talking about sexual here. I'm just talking

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Speaker 1: about you know, your you're a familial relationship or you know,

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Speaker 1: very friendly intimate that sort of thing. There's a there's

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Speaker 1: something called face covering that occurs many times. And what

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Speaker 1: happens is is that the perpetrator will look at the

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Speaker 1: individual and you know, even though the individual's dead, they

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Speaker 1: still literally that that person's face that's deceased as reflected

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Speaker 1: back to them. They still see them in life. And

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Speaker 1: so many times they'll get blankets, they'll get pillow cases,

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Speaker 1: they'll get plastic bags, which I think in this case

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Speaker 1: is what happened, and they will cover the face and

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Speaker 1: then and then you know, uh, proceed from there. I

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Speaker 1: think one of the other things we need to consider,

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Speaker 1: and this is this is kind of interesting. What if

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Speaker 1: and since we don't have the autopsy yet, this is

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Speaker 1: all speculative. What if they had to cover his head

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Speaker 1: because his head had sustained some type of trauma, say

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Speaker 1: he was bleeding out, and they didn't want to get

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Speaker 1: blood everywhere, Uh, they you know, they put a bag

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Speaker 1: over the head to contain blood, for instance, and then

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Speaker 1: you cocoon the body and the rest of the plastic.

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Speaker 1: You dig a grave. Then you place the body inside

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Speaker 1: of the grave, and you take care to stack things

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Speaker 1: on top of it so that it doesn't create kind

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Speaker 1: of a as big of a depressed area when you

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Speaker 1: step on it. So there's evidence that things have been

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Speaker 1: stacked on top of it, like stones and this sort

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Speaker 1: of thing, and then the body is essentially covered up

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Speaker 1: at that point. There's kind of a lot to unpack

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Speaker 1: here relative to the way both of these bodies have

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Speaker 1: been treated in death, I think, and and it speaks

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Speaker 1: volumes maybe about the family dynamic here. So with JJ,

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Speaker 1: we've got a little boy who was treated with care

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Speaker 1: after death. And with ty Lee we've got a young

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Speaker 1: woman who was destroyed. Yeah. Yeah, ripped the shreds right now.

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Speaker 1: With the evidence left on JJ because of the way

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Speaker 1: he was wrapped after death, would that preserve evidence that

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Speaker 1: would help in the autopsy? I think, you know, Dave,

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Speaker 1: I think that it could. And this is this is

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Speaker 1: how because look, you can't you know, it's like my

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Speaker 1: analogy of spitting in the ocean a little while ago.

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Speaker 1: You can't hold back nature. You can't. It's you can't.

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Speaker 1: The body is still gonna decompose and that can impact

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Speaker 1: I think greatly the packaging in which his body was

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Speaker 1: concooned in u However, this is what I would really

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Speaker 1: be interested in. Um, you know, as an investigator, Let's

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Speaker 1: take a look at his body. First off, was he

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Speaker 1: clothed even in decomposition. That clothing is going to potentially

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Speaker 1: be an area to harvest evidence off of h if

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Speaker 1: you for obviously, if if he's been traumatized, so he

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Speaker 1: was shot or stabbed, you will have blood staining that's

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Speaker 1: separate from decompositional staining that's on the clothing. Not to mention,

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Speaker 1: if say, for instance, somebody and I've worked cases like this,

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Speaker 1: an individual is shot in the chest, it has to

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Speaker 1: pass through the clothing. You can get everything from range

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Speaker 1: of fire, you know, the distribution of the powder on

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Speaker 1: the you know, the area's surrounding the defect or in

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Speaker 1: stab wounds, you can see that kind of slit like

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Speaker 1: mark that a sharp sharp instrument creates. That's important and

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Speaker 1: also any contact trace evidence that means things that were

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Speaker 1: transferred from a particular environment or a particular person onto

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Speaker 1: the clothing. Now another thing here that we really have

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Speaker 1: to keep in mind is that what we know is

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Speaker 1: that plastic was used, and we also know that tape

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Speaker 1: was used. Let's talk about the plastic. The plastic is

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Speaker 1: essential because it is a non porous surface. Okay, that

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Speaker 1: means that it's not exactly smooth as class, but it

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Speaker 1: ain't wood either, you know what I'm saying, So it's

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Speaker 1: kind of smooth. Now, what if they take that plastic

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Speaker 1: and very very and I mean very carefully handle it

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Speaker 1: and examine it. You might be able to find latent

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Speaker 1: prints on that plastic, particularly on the inside of the

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Speaker 1: plastic that was against the body. Now keep in mind

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Speaker 1: decomposition has going on, so you're going to have a

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Speaker 1: certain level of relative humidity in this environment that will

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Speaker 1: compromise fingerprints sometimes, but you might get lucky. The key

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Speaker 1: piece here of the day is I keep hearing this

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Speaker 1: information about tape. Listen, if someone used tape to wrap

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Speaker 1: this body and they did not use gloves, for instance,

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Speaker 1: there can actually be a transfer print, a latent print

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Speaker 1: that you can find on the adhesive side of that tape. Say,

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Speaker 1: just if a perpetrator is not using gloves and they

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Speaker 1: peel off a piece of tape. We all know what

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Speaker 1: this is like. And you know, think about wrapping a

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Speaker 1: package at Christmas time. You wrap out, you pull off

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Speaker 1: a piece of tape and it gets stuck to your

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Speaker 1: fingers and you're clipping it with a pair of scissors

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Speaker 1: and you're gonna apply it. Well, where do you grab

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Speaker 1: it in order to do that? Well, sometimes you'll grab

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Speaker 1: the adhesive side and you know, you don't think about it,

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Speaker 1: and most criminals don't. You transferred a piece of yourself

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Speaker 1: on two onto the surface that tape, and then you

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Speaker 1: apply it that adhesive to hold it on. That adhesive

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Speaker 1: glue that's left that is on this tape is much

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Speaker 1: more resilient than people think, and so you can leave

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Speaker 1: a latent print in that area also contained in there.

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Speaker 1: Remember we lose hundreds of thousands of dead skin cells

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Speaker 1: every single day of our life. Okay, Dave, So what

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Speaker 1: if there's contact DNA or touch DNA that's left on

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Speaker 1: that tape? That's important too. So where you know where

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Speaker 1: we really have to go to war here? As forensic scientists,

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Speaker 1: you have to be very very careful in the lab

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Speaker 1: when you're handling all this stuff because when I say fragile.

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Speaker 1: I'm talking incredibly fragile. They have to take such care

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Speaker 1: with this to preserve anything that might be there. Time

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Speaker 1: stories with Nancy Grace. Let's move on to the other

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Speaker 1: part of this case that we've been following. We're talking

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Speaker 1: to Joseph Scott Morganese, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University,

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Speaker 1: author of Blood Beneath My Feet. Tammy day Bell passed

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Speaker 1: away and she was forty nine at the time she passed,

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Speaker 1: and they ruled it just natural causes that she went

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Speaker 1: to bed, had a slight cough, and the next morning

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Speaker 1: she's gone. The police that arrived on the scene said

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Speaker 1: that Chad day Bell was acting as a grieving husband.

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Speaker 1: He didn't say or do anything that caused them to

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Speaker 1: have a red flag go up, and so there was

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Speaker 1: minimal investigation done into her passing. But when the man

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Speaker 1: gets married at Chad day Bell marries Laurie Vallo within

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Speaker 1: what two weeks of her passing, well that's a red flag.

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Speaker 1: And the behavior since then. Tammy day Bell's body was

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Speaker 1: exhumed in December. Tell me what we know and what

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Speaker 1: wasn't done in with what happened with her death. There,

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Speaker 1: let me take you back in time a little bit,

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Speaker 1: many many years ago. I was part of a national

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Speaker 1: task force for medical legal death Investigators. I was one

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Speaker 1: of twelve nationwide, and we set forth back in the

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Speaker 1: mid nineties following the O. J. Simpson case to establish

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Speaker 1: national guidelines for medical legal death investigators. In other words,

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Speaker 1: it's like a recipe. Our theme was every scene, every time.

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Speaker 1: That means that if you have a found body, when

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Speaker 1: that person is found, regardless of what you suspect might

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Speaker 1: be the cause of death, you're going to attend the scene.

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Speaker 1: That's a baseline minimum, Dave and that's recognized as a

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Speaker 1: national standard by the Nationalists for Justice, and it's also

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Speaker 1: through our national organization called American Board of Medical Legal

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Speaker 1: Death Investigators. It's just what you do. You're elected official,

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Speaker 1: you get paid, they pay for your gas, go to

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Speaker 1: the damn scene. In this particular case, when Tammy Davell died,

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Speaker 1: and as you were right to say that she's forty nine,

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Speaker 1: day she's forty nine. If she's a male, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to buy into the fact that maybe she succumbed to

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Speaker 1: some kind of heart ailment rare, but it does happen

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Speaker 1: at forty nine with females not so much. She suddenly dies,

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Speaker 1: and from our understanding, at least, the corner doesn't even

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Speaker 1: make a scene visit. Doesn't even make a scene visit.

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Speaker 1: They leave it up to cops who say, well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: everything looks normal out here. Well, the funeral home comes,

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Speaker 1: picks her body up, takes the body to the funeral

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Speaker 1: home of facility, and it's at that time we understand

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Speaker 1: that the corner may have gone to the funeral homey

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Speaker 1: and taking a look at her body. At that time,

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Speaker 1: there was not there's no photographs that we know of

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Speaker 1: her body there. Okay, wait a minute, just got I've

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Speaker 1: got to ask you something. Yeah, police go to the

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Speaker 1: scene and they make a report, But the person who

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Speaker 1: actually is supposed to determine cause a manner at death

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Speaker 1: doesn't even go to the scene of where she passed

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Speaker 1: away to even look at what was going on. Not

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Speaker 1: at all. I wish. I wish right now I knew

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Speaker 1: off the top of my head what the population of

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Speaker 1: this county is in Otaho, because I cannot imagine in

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Speaker 1: my wildest fantasies that there was something more important at

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Speaker 1: that particular time going on than the death of a

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Speaker 1: forty nine year old mama, What what else is going on?

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Speaker 1: I mean, are you you know, do you have a

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Speaker 1: mass homicide that's taken place in town? Is there a

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Speaker 1: critical incident that you got a plane crash that's gonna

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Speaker 1: trump any of this? No, you don't. You've got a

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Speaker 1: forty nine year old woman. This is your This fits

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Speaker 1: to a t your job description. You get in the car,

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Speaker 1: you go to the home, you take a look at

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Speaker 1: the body. The cops are not going to take a

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Speaker 1: look at the body. This isn't TV. It's not part

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Speaker 1: of their job. You know what cops are gonna look for.

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Speaker 1: They're gonna look around, if they do their job and

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Speaker 1: see if there's any fourth century, if there's a sign

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Speaker 1: of struggle other than that, they're not going to walk

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Speaker 1: over and do the kind of examination that medical legal

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Speaker 1: death investigators are trained to do, or are supposed to

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Speaker 1: be trained to do. They're not going to do that.

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Speaker 1: And so the problem is this, once you lose that

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Speaker 1: moment in time, you cannot go back and reclaim it.

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Speaker 1: That's why it's so important that we go out and

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Speaker 1: we assess bodies. At that particular time level of rider

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Speaker 1: mortis was there, frothy cone coming out of the person's

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Speaker 1: mouth at the scene, which now we're getting some indication

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Speaker 1: from people that were at present at the seeing her

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Speaker 1: children that she did have something coming out of her

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Speaker 1: nose in her mouth. Well, that's an indication of some

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Speaker 1: kind of congestive event. That means something's going on with

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Speaker 1: her lungs potentially. Was it some kind of agent that

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Speaker 1: was applied to her? Was it a poison? Was it

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Speaker 1: some kind of medication? Well, I don't know, and guess what,

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Speaker 1: there's a high likelihood we will not know. Okay, So no,

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Speaker 1: in answer to your question, I'm sorry I get fired

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Speaker 1: up about this. The corner did not go to the

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Speaker 1: scene and examine the body and what we refer to

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Speaker 1: as in sight to that means in place in its

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Speaker 1: pristine condition, where it's surrounded by the environment in which

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Speaker 1: the body passed away or which the person passed away.

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Speaker 1: If you take the body out of that context now

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Speaker 1: you're going to put them into a car roll them

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Speaker 1: to a funeral home, you've taken the body completely out

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Speaker 1: of context, and the observable things relative to the body,

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Speaker 1: if there's blood, if there's medication, at temperature changes, you

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Speaker 1: can't appreciate that at the funeral home. So I are

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Speaker 1: just it is. Even at the funeral home there was

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Speaker 1: no blood drawn, there was no urine drawn, there was

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Speaker 1: no vitreous fluid which comes from the eyes, none of

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Speaker 1: that was drawn. So at that point in time, her

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Speaker 1: body was essentially embalmbed. Because remember she was not buried

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Speaker 1: in Idaho. She's got a cross state lines, Dave. So

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Speaker 1: they put her embalmed body into a car, drive her

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Speaker 1: to Utah where she's buried very hastily, I might add,

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Speaker 1: and she's not recovered for months at that point in time.

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Speaker 1: Finally somebody says, hey, you know what, we probably already

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Speaker 1: exhumed this woman's body, and finally they do. But now

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Speaker 1: you're so far down range, you're so far down that

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Speaker 1: timeline that where are you going to find at this point? Well,

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Speaker 1: I tell you what you're gonna find. You're going to

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Speaker 1: find the body of a forty nine year old woman

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Speaker 1: who has been in the ground and embalmed for this

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Speaker 1: period of time. So if you're going to go back

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Speaker 1: and try to draw blood, which there won't be any

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Speaker 1: because it's been replaced by embalming fluid, that's compromised. So

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Speaker 1: you can't go back to that. Are you going to

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Speaker 1: do tissue examinations to see if there's eat Well, the

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Speaker 1: body's been embalmed again, So the soft tissue that was

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Speaker 1: once soft is now hard because that's what embalming fluid

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Speaker 1: does to a body, It hardens the body. Now that's

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Speaker 1: going to be compromised at a microscopic level, because you know,

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Speaker 1: not only do we do toxicology examinations, where we're looking

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Speaker 1: at the chemicals in a body, we do something that's

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Speaker 1: called histological examinations, which is we take slices of tissue

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Speaker 1: from autopsy and look at them under the microscope. And

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Speaker 1: tissue can change as a result of being subjective to

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Speaker 1: certain kinds of drugs and circumstances. So all of that's gone, Dave,

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Speaker 1: And here we are. We're sitting well, we're saying, you know,

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Speaker 1: an autopsy report being released yet I'll tell you why

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Speaker 1: it hadn't been released because all the way back, all

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Speaker 1: the way back in time when they had an opportunity

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Speaker 1: to take a look at her body at that scene,

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Speaker 1: a critical mistake was made. Now you're talking about a

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Speaker 1: case that's right in the middle of I think arguably

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Speaker 1: one of the most complicated, layered criminal enterprises potentially that

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Speaker 1: I remember in a while involving multiple debts around the country,

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Speaker 1: and I've covered a lot of them. This thing goes

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Speaker 1: from state to state to state. Out of all the

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Speaker 1: cases you could have chosen to I don't know, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, cook breakfast, work on your nails, file your

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Speaker 1: income taxes, whatever the coroner was doing. Out of all

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Speaker 1: the cases that you could have chosen to blow off

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Speaker 1: and not do your job, this was the wrong one

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Speaker 1: to do it.