Latest / NO FILTER / Episode 14_ The Coroner Calls(M4A_128K)

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Episode 14_ The Coroner Calls(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

0:10
Speaker 1: What it is like to be where I'm moving right now.
0:14
Speaker 1: It's like one foot in the grave and one foot
0:16
Speaker 1: out of the grave. You're living, but you're not living.
0:19
Speaker 1: And that's what it feels like to man. I mean,
0:22
Speaker 1: you're addicting, but you're not addicting. Not nobody care.
0:27
Speaker 2: A couple of weeks ago, at the end of May,
0:29
Speaker 2: Lee Clark marked his twenty fifth years since that day
0:32
Speaker 2: he walked into the Floyd County jail and was arrested
0:34
Speaker 2: for the murder of Brian Bowling. That was his last
0:38
Speaker 2: day as a free man. Back then, it had seemed
0:41
Speaker 2: impossible for him to imagine that this many years later,
0:44
Speaker 2: he'd still be behind bars.
0:47
Speaker 1: I couldn't say myself facing this, being in here for
0:50
Speaker 1: a life center for something I didn't do, and I
0:54
Speaker 1: don't them you're lying. Non't go with it, man, You're
0:56
Speaker 1: not gonna fake it. You ain't gonna last this, No
0:58
Speaker 1: way we'll go away. Feel you're still get it over with.
1:03
Speaker 1: But I didn't do any of that. I myself kept
1:07
Speaker 1: pushing forward, mainly put my family board than anything.
1:14
Speaker 2: Lee was sentenced to life in prison, but his sentence
1:16
Speaker 2: does carry the possibility of parole. In fact, His case
1:20
Speaker 2: was before the Pearl Board earlier this year, and he
1:23
Speaker 2: was hopeful that maybe this time things would go different
1:26
Speaker 2: than they had before. They didn't, though. He recently found
1:30
Speaker 2: out that his pear application was denied, another setback in
1:34
Speaker 2: the long line of setbacks he side since he went
1:36
Speaker 2: to prison.
1:38
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna tell you right now, it ain't been
1:41
Speaker 1: an easy road. It's been a hard road for me,
1:46
Speaker 1: and I have gotten to a point now where I'm
1:48
Speaker 1: inner some asier prisons than what I were in.
1:51
Speaker 3: But when I first.
1:51
Speaker 1: Started doing this, I was that a real hell host
1:55
Speaker 1: and I wanted this a real horror tide. But I
2:00
Speaker 1: don't know if you say it not a right to
2:02
Speaker 1: God or whatever, dumb love whatever, I don't know what
2:08
Speaker 1: I'm mighty, I might have get bored. I'm just hoping
2:11
Speaker 1: I'm mighty direct a wife.
2:19
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Susan Simpson. I'm an attorney and
2:22
Speaker 2: podcaster and previously I hosted the Undisclosed podcast.
2:26
Speaker 4: Hi, I'm just in to Davis, and I'm a true
2:29
Speaker 4: crime TV producer. Last year, Susan and I decided to
2:33
Speaker 4: team up and reinvestigate the murder of Brian Bowling along
2:37
Speaker 4: with Kevin Fitzpatrick, President of Red Marble Media. We decided
2:41
Speaker 4: to launch Proof. You can listen to Proof like you
2:44
Speaker 4: would any podcast, and you can follow us everywhere with
2:47
Speaker 4: the handle at proofcrime pod and on our website proofcrimepod
2:51
Speaker 4: dot com. Thanks for listening and welcome to Proof. Lee
3:05
Speaker 4: Clark has never given up on trying to prove his innocence,
3:09
Speaker 4: but he had run out of ideas for.
3:11
Speaker 5: How to do so.
3:13
Speaker 4: He'd appealed his conviction back in nineteen ninety nine, and
3:16
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court of Georgia had agreed that there had
3:19
Speaker 4: been a lot of errors made at his trial, but
3:22
Speaker 4: the court concluded these errors were all harmless and his
3:26
Speaker 4: appeal was denied. After that, Lee couldn't afford to hire
3:30
Speaker 4: another attorney, so at one point, out of desperation, he
3:35
Speaker 4: decided to represent himself. He filed his own motion with
3:39
Speaker 4: the court.
3:41
Speaker 6: This is when I was a dispassed like person, but
3:43
Speaker 6: I never gotten an Arcy noted this does so he
3:45
Speaker 6: not I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
3:46
Speaker 6: Oh you did, pro se, Yes, I didn't know nothing,
3:49
Speaker 6: and I was sitting there in the court room looking
3:51
Speaker 6: stupid as hail.
3:52
Speaker 2: So you did file something, Yeah, I did file.
3:55
Speaker 6: But it didn't do nothing, because hell, I didn't know what.
3:57
Speaker 1: The hell I was doing.
3:59
Speaker 4: With no routes of available to lead through the court system.
4:02
Speaker 4: He thought that maybe if you could just explain to
4:05
Speaker 4: the right person that he'd been wrongfully convicted, they'd be
4:08
Speaker 4: able to alert the proper authorities and get things fixed.
4:17
Speaker 1: Trying to talk out the people what he thinks about
4:19
Speaker 1: mat or, did I say something to somebody? You know
4:21
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, like, hey, look y'all got this new
4:23
Speaker 1: locked up would do There's been.
4:25
Speaker 3: No lawyers nothing like that.
4:27
Speaker 1: There's been people that work for the prisons. I've said
4:31
Speaker 1: the counselor didn't that when I started, when I was
4:33
Speaker 1: real young in this, and I thought, was it's not
4:34
Speaker 1: to do me some good to say something to these people? Well, well,
4:38
Speaker 1: I said, there come a store sos and they said
4:40
Speaker 1: there looking me like I'd just straightful of.
4:42
Speaker 4: Shit telling people he was innocent hadn't done any good.
4:47
Speaker 4: So eventually he decided to try to find a lawyer
4:50
Speaker 4: who didn't care that he couldn't afford.
4:52
Speaker 5: To pay them.
4:54
Speaker 6: I said, look, dude, I said, you got these lawyers
4:56
Speaker 6: out here did do stuff on pro bono. These people
4:58
Speaker 6: don't even want no money. They're doing it because they're
5:01
Speaker 6: because didn't know it's the right thing to do. I said, well,
5:04
Speaker 6: we pursue something like that, try to talk to some
5:06
Speaker 6: of these people, and that's when I tried to innoc
5:09
Speaker 6: the project that won't happened, and that's when they wrote
5:11
Speaker 6: me back, told me, oh, we can't help because you
5:13
Speaker 6: can't satan and they related.
5:16
Speaker 4: Lee applied to the Georgia Innocence Project and the Innocence
5:19
Speaker 4: Project in New York, but both told him that they
5:22
Speaker 4: couldn't take his case.
5:25
Speaker 5: So that was that.
5:26
Speaker 4: Lee was out of options, and the years kept ticking by.
5:30
Speaker 4: There was only one thing left to do that he
5:33
Speaker 4: could think of to improve his chances of ever going home.
5:37
Speaker 1: I started working now, Jark, try to give myself a
5:39
Speaker 1: better help. Right now I'm in better help than I
5:43
Speaker 1: was in March.
5:43
Speaker 3: Wenties.
5:44
Speaker 1: Keep myself and the best health and I can stay
5:46
Speaker 1: in and hope to walk out of here one day.
5:52
Speaker 5: Kane's story has also tried to prove his.
5:54
Speaker 4: Innocence through the court system. In two thousand and three,
5:59
Speaker 4: his family got the money together for an attorney who
6:02
Speaker 4: brought a hebeas petition on Kane's behalf. The petition argued
6:06
Speaker 4: that Kine had been given ineffective assistance of counsel by
6:10
Speaker 4: his trial attorney.
6:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I went to any.
6:15
Speaker 2: And Barkley admitted he was ineffective.
6:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, he admitted, He admitted over fan he did. I'll
6:20
Speaker 1: never get even. I didn't think you kill him, man,
6:23
Speaker 1: I don't think you kill him out. I didn't ever
6:25
Speaker 1: think him ventive lay.
6:26
Speaker 3: Out for.
6:30
Speaker 4: After Kane's hebeas petition was denied, he decided he tried
6:34
Speaker 4: to represent himself. He filed motions with the court asking
6:39
Speaker 4: for his conviction to be overturned and that he'd be
6:41
Speaker 4: given access to evidence that he believed would prove his innocence.
6:48
Speaker 1: And point count a spirit court after I fowed the
6:51
Speaker 1: emotion of trying to get him in his own am
6:56
Speaker 1: back a letter from the judge of Robert Walder. I'm
7:00
Speaker 1: talking about that no emotions papers on the court. Would
7:03
Speaker 1: the bus now chase on them the corps when all
7:07
Speaker 1: the uh recurn defender and everything else will not be.
7:11
Speaker 3: Heard on him?
7:12
Speaker 4: Were they were allowed to do that?
7:15
Speaker 1: That's the nam the access to corn.
7:28
Speaker 4: In the case file at the court in Floyd County
7:31
Speaker 4: there's a signed order instructing the court to reject any
7:35
Speaker 4: further attempts by Cain's story to challenge his conviction. Any
7:40
Speaker 4: filings from him are to be sent back unopened. But
7:45
Speaker 4: Kin had hoped that if his request for an exhumation
7:48
Speaker 4: was granted, a medical examiner would finally be able to
7:52
Speaker 4: do an autopsy and finally be able to confirm that
7:56
Speaker 4: Brian had been killed by a contact shot and not
7:59
Speaker 4: as the prosecution had alleged, by a shot fired from
8:03
Speaker 4: a distance.
8:05
Speaker 7: I mean, unfortunately, they already dug the body of one
8:08
Speaker 7: said no one seemed to look at that.
8:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, if there was an autopsy, we'd know for sure.
8:13
Speaker 2: But there was no autopsy, so there's no confirmation.
8:15
Speaker 8: It is interesting, like I also worry that we're missing.
8:19
Speaker 2: Files, right, Like, oh, we are.
8:21
Speaker 8: That missing files that have some of these answers. Amanda
8:24
Speaker 8: was one hundred percent convinced that Brian's body was sent
8:29
Speaker 8: to a crime lab.
8:30
Speaker 3: It was not.
8:33
Speaker 4: It wasn't just Amanda who was certain an autopsy had
8:37
Speaker 4: been performed. The rest of Brian's family thought the same thing.
8:43
Speaker 4: They all told us in separate interviews that yes, Brian
8:47
Speaker 4: had been autopsied and yes, the autopsy had.
8:51
Speaker 5: Confirmed he'd been murdered.
8:53
Speaker 4: It's possible that Brian's family had just been remembering things wrong,
8:58
Speaker 4: but they'd all been so confident there had been an autopsy,
9:03
Speaker 4: and they'd all been so obviously confused when we told
9:06
Speaker 4: them that no, Brian had not been autopsied. Plus there's
9:10
Speaker 4: the fact that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that
9:14
Speaker 4: an autopsy hadn't been done. Murder victims are always autopsied.
9:20
Speaker 4: It's not the kind of thing that investigators simply forget
9:22
Speaker 4: to do. So what happened with Brian Bowling? Why wasn't
9:27
Speaker 4: there an autopsy?
9:30
Speaker 2: Well because the county corner decided there wouldn't be one.
9:34
Speaker 2: In one of my very first conversations with Lee Clark,
9:36
Speaker 2: he'd mentioned this coroner to me.
9:42
Speaker 6: Going with Craig Burns, wouldn't it yet? Going to with
9:44
Speaker 6: Craig Burns? And if I A'm mistaken, he might have
9:47
Speaker 6: got called in some stuff. I think he got called
9:50
Speaker 6: up in something you might want to look into that.
9:54
Speaker 2: Lee was not mistaken. Craig Burns had indeed gotten caught
9:57
Speaker 2: up in something. In nineteen ninety nine, he'd ended up
10:01
Speaker 2: in state prison on thirty six charges. Of theft and racketeering,
10:04
Speaker 2: and then did some more time in federal prison on
10:06
Speaker 2: three charges of credit card fraud. But Burns hadn't been
10:09
Speaker 2: arrested until a year after Lee and Kaine's trial, and
10:12
Speaker 2: at first it didn't occur to me that the coroner's
10:14
Speaker 2: later legal troubles could have any relevance to our investigation.
10:18
Speaker 2: As I learned more about this case, though, I realized
10:21
Speaker 2: that all of this, the murder investigation, Lee's and Kaye's arrest,
10:24
Speaker 2: their conviction, all of it kind of began with Craig Burns.
10:29
Speaker 4: In the wake of Brian's shooting, Sergeant Dallas Battle was
10:32
Speaker 4: initially confident he'd been killed by a self inflicted gunshot wound.
10:38
Speaker 4: It wasn't until two days later when he got a
10:40
Speaker 4: call from Craig Burns that Battle decided this case was
10:44
Speaker 4: actually a potential homicide. We don't know exactly what Burns said.
10:49
Speaker 4: Battle wasn't allowed to testify to that at trial because
10:53
Speaker 4: that would be hearsay. But whatever Burns told him, it
10:57
Speaker 4: caused him to head down to the funeral home where
10:59
Speaker 4: Brian's body was being held so that they could inspect
11:02
Speaker 4: the body together. As a result of what they observed
11:06
Speaker 4: at the funeral home.
11:07
Speaker 5: Battle In, Burns concluded two things.
11:10
Speaker 4: First that the shot that killed Brian had been fired
11:13
Speaker 4: from a distance and therefore Brian had been murdered. And second,
11:19
Speaker 4: there was no point in doing an autopsy because an
11:22
Speaker 4: autopsy wouldn't tell them anything useful anyway.
11:26
Speaker 2: Now, the second thing is simply untrue. An autopsy would
11:29
Speaker 2: have determined conclusively whether or not Brian was killed by
11:32
Speaker 2: contact wound. And based on the blurry photos of Brian
11:35
Speaker 2: that were taken by Craig Burns at the funeral home,
11:37
Speaker 2: which showed that the inside the gunshot wound had a
11:39
Speaker 2: blackened appearance, it certainly looks like this was a contact
11:43
Speaker 2: shot a trial, though Burns was able to explain this away.
11:47
Speaker 2: He testified that the blackened area was actually a granulated
11:51
Speaker 2: embalming powder that was applied to stop the body from
11:53
Speaker 2: leaking while they inspected it. I was skeptical, though, of
11:57
Speaker 2: Burns's explanation and ballistic expert on Scott. What would mean
12:02
Speaker 2: if Craig Burn's been lying about this, assuming that this
12:06
Speaker 2: is not mortician's powder, what would that tell you about
12:09
Speaker 2: the nature of the shot that he received? Well, if
12:14
Speaker 2: it was, if.
12:14
Speaker 4: It was shut and if it was charing a thermal damage,
12:18
Speaker 4: I would send a that's indication of a contact gunshruting.
12:24
Speaker 4: Burns described the substance that caused the blackened appearance as
12:28
Speaker 4: granulated powder or a hardening compound. None of the experts
12:32
Speaker 4: we spoke to could think of a substance that would
12:35
Speaker 4: cause this effect, but without knowing exactly what substance it was,
12:40
Speaker 4: they couldn't say for sure. The only person who could
12:44
Speaker 4: answer that question was Craig Burns himself, and he wasn't talking.
12:49
Speaker 4: We'd reached out to him every way we could think of.
12:52
Speaker 4: Finally he replied to an email we'd sent, I don't
12:56
Speaker 4: remember the case, he said, so there's nothing more I
12:59
Speaker 4: can tell you.
13:05
Speaker 2: Since we couldn't talk to Craig Burns directly, we try
13:08
Speaker 2: to learn more about the corner system in general. One
13:10
Speaker 2: of the people I spoke to was Bob Row. He'd
13:12
Speaker 2: been listening to this podcast, and after hearing about the
13:15
Speaker 2: role of the corner had played in the case, he
13:17
Speaker 2: sent us a message about his own experiences as a
13:19
Speaker 2: county corner in Georgia.
13:22
Speaker 7: Every corner is elected and basically your job is to
13:28
Speaker 7: investigate any death that is not attended by a physician.
13:35
Speaker 2: Bobara had been working as a paramedic and EMS instructor
13:37
Speaker 2: in a small county in South Georgia when the previous
13:39
Speaker 2: corner announced that he would not be running for reelection.
13:43
Speaker 7: I had all these people started coming to me, you
13:45
Speaker 7: should run for it, you should run fort and I
13:47
Speaker 7: just kind of laughed. I said, well maybe, I thought,
13:51
Speaker 7: almost like a lark, honestly, and so I said, sure,
13:54
Speaker 7: I'll do that, and I filled it out and then
13:58
Speaker 7: apparently no one else had run, so I got elected,
14:02
Speaker 7: which totally shocked me.
14:04
Speaker 2: The coroner is tasked with establishing the cause and manner
14:07
Speaker 2: of all suspicious or unobserved deaths in the county to
14:10
Speaker 2: determine how someone died and whether that death had been
14:13
Speaker 2: a homicide, suicide, natural or accidental death. So what qualifications
14:18
Speaker 2: do you need to have as a coroner to make
14:20
Speaker 2: this kind of weighty determination. Well, none, You just have
14:24
Speaker 2: to be elected and go to a week long training course.
14:27
Speaker 2: After that you can do what you want.
14:32
Speaker 7: Susan. It's really crazy because how you operate is up
14:35
Speaker 7: to you. No requirement to send bodies to the State
14:40
Speaker 7: Medical Banner's office, and they have their own investigators. People
14:44
Speaker 7: who do have the experience different certifications, and of course
14:48
Speaker 7: they're forensic pathologists, but you literally have to reach out
14:53
Speaker 7: to them.
14:54
Speaker 2: So if a coroner never want us send the body
14:55
Speaker 2: of the crime lab, they wouldn't have to.
14:58
Speaker 7: They wouldn't have to.
15:01
Speaker 2: Under Georgia law, when someone dies as a result of
15:03
Speaker 2: violence or by suicide, the corner is required to order
15:07
Speaker 2: an inquiry by medical examiner, but there's nothing to enforce
15:10
Speaker 2: this really. If the coroner decides to skip the post mortem,
15:13
Speaker 2: then no post mortem is done. Being a corner is
15:17
Speaker 2: a hard job, though You get called out at all
15:19
Speaker 2: hours of the day and night to attend to bodies,
15:21
Speaker 2: investigate deaths, and fill up paperwork, and the compensation for
15:25
Speaker 2: this is minimal.
15:27
Speaker 7: I think one hundred and fifty dollars a month whether
15:30
Speaker 7: you saw a body or saw fifty. No expenses, you
15:35
Speaker 7: paid for your gas, you did all that. So I
15:37
Speaker 7: was actually losing money in the process, right, and then
15:40
Speaker 7: eventually just got to where us that I can't keep
15:42
Speaker 7: doing this.
15:44
Speaker 2: In counties where the corner is not a salaried position,
15:46
Speaker 2: the pay is often not enough to cover the corner's
15:49
Speaker 2: own out of pocket expenses, let alone compensate them for
15:51
Speaker 2: their time. So who would even want this kind of job.
15:55
Speaker 2: If you got someone who if they're going to do it,
15:58
Speaker 2: it's going to be out of the goodness is their heart, essentially,
16:02
Speaker 2: or it's going to be because they get a kickback.
16:04
Speaker 7: The larger counties it was busy enough that it was
16:07
Speaker 7: a full time job. But for the smaller counties, yeah,
16:13
Speaker 7: I could see that, and like I said, I thought, well,
16:15
Speaker 7: let's help them out. And when I got in there,
16:17
Speaker 7: I went, man, this is an English job.
16:20
Speaker 2: Counties can choose how they want their corner to be paid,
16:23
Speaker 2: and it varies from county to county. Some counties pay
16:26
Speaker 2: their corners better than others, so it.
16:29
Speaker 7: Really kind of depends on the amount of people that
16:33
Speaker 7: are involved and really the population.
16:35
Speaker 2: Floyd County paid by the body.
16:37
Speaker 7: Ah, yep, yep, I do remember hearing that too. Yeah,
16:40
Speaker 7: some people. Gosh, it almost sounds like that would lead
16:44
Speaker 7: you to wanna come up with bodies, doesn't it.
16:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did that. Do you know anything about the
16:53
Speaker 2: Floyd County corner?
16:55
Speaker 7: I don't other than what I heard you guys saying
17:01
Speaker 7: the other day on the podcast.
17:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, he he went to prison. When you pay by
17:06
Speaker 2: the body, you got an incentive to.
17:10
Speaker 7: Oh my god, you're serious.
17:11
Speaker 1: I'll be joking.
17:12
Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm that serious. In Floyd County, the more
17:16
Speaker 2: deaths the corner investigates, the more the coroner gets paid.
17:20
Speaker 2: And when Craig Burns's corner, there were a lot of
17:22
Speaker 2: deaths investigated. In fact, there had been a huge increase
17:25
Speaker 2: at least on paper, and the number of deaths where
17:28
Speaker 2: medical examiner was called in to do a post mortem.
17:31
Speaker 2: It's one of the things that he went to prison
17:33
Speaker 2: for so quick. Burns had every incentive to do more autopsies,
17:38
Speaker 2: not fewer, and the fact that he didn't autopsy Brian
17:40
Speaker 2: Bowling made no sense at all. The only person who
17:44
Speaker 2: might be able to explain why no autopsy has done
17:46
Speaker 2: in this case would be Craig Burns himself. One evening,
17:56
Speaker 2: I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize.
17:58
Speaker 2: I was pretty sure was when a spam call, but
18:01
Speaker 2: I answered anyway, Hello is a students speaking SUSA.
18:09
Speaker 7: Nick.
18:09
Speaker 3: Who is this? My name is Craig Burns.
18:13
Speaker 2: How are you doing.
18:14
Speaker 3: I am good. I am returning a call to you,
18:18
Speaker 3: and I am going to see import limited capacity. I
18:23
Speaker 3: can try to help you.
18:28
Speaker 2: The limited capacity, Burns explained was due to the fact
18:31
Speaker 2: that he simply didn't recall anything about this case. From
18:37
Speaker 2: Dallas Battle's testimony, it sounds like it's when he's at
18:39
Speaker 2: the funeral home with you, then he starts thinking it's
18:44
Speaker 2: a murder. Okay, So you don't remember going with him
18:47
Speaker 2: to sort of examine the body and try and determine.
18:50
Speaker 3: I honestly don't, because that would be such a normal
18:54
Speaker 3: thing for me that it would not stand out in
18:56
Speaker 3: my mind.
18:58
Speaker 2: Did you know Dallas Battle?
19:00
Speaker 3: I did know Dallas. Dallas was a good man. I
19:04
Speaker 3: never had a problem out of Dallas. I never had
19:09
Speaker 3: to me. He was always humble and to me, he
19:12
Speaker 3: was always willing to learn from me, and I was
19:16
Speaker 3: very willing to learn from him.
19:21
Speaker 2: Quig Burns did remember that he later helped Exoom Brian
19:24
Speaker 2: Bulling's body. He was there to supervise when they dug
19:27
Speaker 2: him up. By that time that he and Dallas Battle
19:30
Speaker 2: Examon Bryan's body at the funeral home and decided not
19:33
Speaker 2: to do an autopsy. Well, that he didn't recall a
19:35
Speaker 2: thing about I explained to Peg Burns why he was
19:39
Speaker 2: such an important part of this case and why I
19:41
Speaker 2: have been so interested in hearing from him. Your testimony
19:44
Speaker 2: was pretty much crucial because that was the proof that
19:47
Speaker 2: it could have been the guy out the window who
19:49
Speaker 2: did it, and that it was not from someone inside
19:51
Speaker 2: the room.
19:53
Speaker 3: And you know, it's so unusual for me to testify
19:57
Speaker 3: in a case like this. When you actually told me
20:02
Speaker 3: the first time that I had kissed by I thought
20:05
Speaker 3: she's got Lee confused for somebody used.
20:09
Speaker 2: The only reason Craig Burns had needed to testify in
20:11
Speaker 2: this case was because he hadn't requested an autopsy, which
20:14
Speaker 2: meant that there was no medical examiner for the prosecution
20:16
Speaker 2: to call instead. So if prosecutor Steve Cox had wanted
20:20
Speaker 2: to show that Brian Bowling had been shot by Lee
20:22
Speaker 2: Clark standing outside of a window, then he had no
20:24
Speaker 2: choice but to use Craig Burns to try to prove it.
20:27
Speaker 2: I asked Burns what the process would have been for
20:29
Speaker 2: questing an autopsy back then. I was wondering if maybe
20:33
Speaker 2: the bureaucratic headache of making the request could explain why
20:35
Speaker 2: he decided against doing it. Turns out, though it would
20:38
Speaker 2: have been pretty easy. Burns told me that in Floyd County,
20:42
Speaker 2: coroners often used private doctors for post mortems rather than
20:45
Speaker 2: using the GBI's medical examiners at the crime lab.
20:52
Speaker 3: And so if we had a case that either I
20:59
Speaker 3: felt what in me an autopsy or the officer felt
21:03
Speaker 3: like needed an autopsy, I would talk to the physician
21:06
Speaker 3: who was on call today and tell him, Hey, this
21:10
Speaker 3: is what I've got downstairs. I feel like we need
21:13
Speaker 3: to post this individual. The other thing that you would
21:16
Speaker 3: always think about is I would rather spend ten minutes
21:20
Speaker 3: telling somebody why I've done something, rather than two hours
21:25
Speaker 3: on a witness stand telling somebody why I wish I
21:29
Speaker 3: had done something, If that makes sense to you.
21:33
Speaker 2: This was a point that Craig Burns made to me
21:35
Speaker 2: or Pudley. It was always better to err on the
21:37
Speaker 2: side of requesting an autopsy. He said.
21:40
Speaker 3: My theory is that I would rather spend ten minutes
21:46
Speaker 3: on the witness stand telling the jury why I did
21:50
Speaker 3: what I did, versus two hours telling the jury why
21:55
Speaker 3: I wished I had done what I done.
21:59
Speaker 2: And in this case, I mean, it seemed odd to
22:02
Speaker 2: me the autopsy was done given as a homicide. Does
22:05
Speaker 2: that seem strange to you not?
22:08
Speaker 3: If Dallas Battle was in agreement and I was in agreement,
22:13
Speaker 3: and after talking to the family, they were placated, they
22:18
Speaker 3: were satisfied. I can certainly see the decision not to
22:23
Speaker 3: do an autopsy to be made.
22:25
Speaker 2: It sounds like it turned to one of those cases
22:26
Speaker 2: where it said ten minutes to request an autopsy, you
22:29
Speaker 2: have to spend two hours on the stand explaining why
22:31
Speaker 2: you didn't get one.
22:33
Speaker 3: Well, and that's okay. As we mature and develop in
22:37
Speaker 3: our formal education, you know, I have learned to change
22:43
Speaker 3: my decision making process.
22:45
Speaker 2: So is it ultimately the corners call are the police
22:48
Speaker 2: officer's call to have an autopsy done?
22:51
Speaker 3: Police officer and corner and the medical examiner all three
22:55
Speaker 3: have to agree.
22:57
Speaker 2: This is not true, by the way, under Georgia uh
23:00
Speaker 2: it's a corner's call. In practice, this decision is usually
23:04
Speaker 2: made in consultation with law enforcement. So it makes sense
23:07
Speaker 2: that Burns would have been talking to Dallas Battle and
23:09
Speaker 2: the GBI's medical examiner. But what doesn't make sense is
23:12
Speaker 2: Burns's claim that the GBI's medical examiner would have told
23:15
Speaker 2: him he didn't need an autopsy hair if.
23:18
Speaker 3: The medical examiner said to me, well, Craig, you know
23:22
Speaker 3: I can see these types of problems down the road.
23:26
Speaker 3: Then what I would have to do is decline lively
23:32
Speaker 3: authority to do it to harvished organs.
23:37
Speaker 2: Is it not possible to have Lifelink involved, have the
23:41
Speaker 2: organs harvested, and then have an autopsy performed.
23:45
Speaker 3: Is it possible? Yes? Is there any value to it? Not? Really,
23:50
Speaker 3: you have to realize that you're not getting a complete
23:54
Speaker 3: autops you buy forensic pathologists.
23:58
Speaker 2: Craig Burns acknowledged to me that in plenty of other
24:00
Speaker 2: cases involving organ donors, he had ordered autopsies, and the
24:05
Speaker 2: experts he spoke to have all agreed that an autopsy
24:07
Speaker 2: would not have interfered with Brian's organ donation. They also
24:11
Speaker 2: told us that in this case there would have been
24:13
Speaker 2: immense value in having an autopsy done. We've talked to
24:17
Speaker 2: cohole pathologists who told us that if a medical donation
24:20
Speaker 2: had been done here, they that would have been an
24:22
Speaker 2: answer as to what happened to him and whether this
24:25
Speaker 2: was a distance shot or a contact wound or in between.
24:28
Speaker 3: And in twenty twenty two, I would agree with you.
24:33
Speaker 3: Had we opened the head and had an autopsy been done,
24:36
Speaker 3: and had the brain been looked at, then there would
24:40
Speaker 3: not be these types of questions today and in twenty
24:44
Speaker 3: twenty two, I agree with you. In nineteen ninety six,
24:48
Speaker 3: like I say, I don't remember the case.
24:51
Speaker 2: Can you think of another homicide case where there was
24:53
Speaker 2: not a referral for an autopsy independently? I cannot other
25:00
Speaker 2: in the organ donation. Do you recall why an autopsy
25:03
Speaker 2: wasn't done?
25:06
Speaker 3: Uh? I would give you my best twenty five year gifts,
25:10
Speaker 3: and that would be that it was to respect the
25:13
Speaker 3: wishes of the family that mister Bowling wanted to be
25:16
Speaker 3: an organ donor.
25:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, the family actually thought there was an autopsy done.
25:21
Speaker 2: I'm not sure why, but their memory they told me
25:24
Speaker 2: that he was autopsy.
25:25
Speaker 3: So look on the death certific and you'll tell you
25:29
Speaker 3: yes or no.
25:30
Speaker 2: The corner is death investigation report. It doesn't have it.
25:35
Speaker 2: There's nothing checked. There's like a section that says like
25:40
Speaker 2: exam type and has four options. It says none autopsy, external,
25:44
Speaker 2: only in talks okay, and none of them are checked off.
25:48
Speaker 3: That's unusual that I would have left that blank is
25:53
Speaker 3: very unusual. It should have been checked off.
25:58
Speaker 2: Can you of the reason why there wouldn't be any
26:00
Speaker 2: checked off? Is that just an oversight?
26:01
Speaker 3: Or I honestly can't give you an answer if it
26:06
Speaker 3: was done, if that report was filled out. Bob oh
26:14
Speaker 3: the secretary, at one point, I had I had hired
26:19
Speaker 3: a person to do a lot of my clerical work,
26:22
Speaker 3: and if she prepared that report or time that formed me,
26:26
Speaker 3: it could have been that she missed it.
26:31
Speaker 2: I didn't know it at the time, but this was
26:33
Speaker 2: the line that Craig Burns has used before during the
26:37
Speaker 2: investigation to his misconduct as coroner. At one point he
26:40
Speaker 2: blamed an assistant who was unfamiliar with billing procedures for
26:43
Speaker 2: some of the fraudulent invoices. They were issued by his office,
26:46
Speaker 2: but as is noted in Floyd County's investigative report.
26:50
Speaker 9: No administrative office staff for the coroner has been identified
26:53
Speaker 9: and none is budgeted.
26:55
Speaker 2: Craig Burns did acknowledge, though that it was indeed very
26:58
Speaker 2: strange to the report of Brian Bulling' staff. Did not
27:00
Speaker 2: specify whether or not an autopsy had been performed. I
27:03
Speaker 2: don't think an autopsy was done. Is it possible that
27:05
Speaker 2: one was done here?
27:08
Speaker 10: Oh?
27:10
Speaker 3: Again, I would have to see watuned my cage file.
27:13
Speaker 3: He could have been looked at by one of the
27:16
Speaker 3: plant from pathologists. I just don't remember me.
27:20
Speaker 2: Craig Burns said that although he had no memory of
27:22
Speaker 2: this case, he would have taken detailed notes about his investigation.
27:26
Speaker 2: He may have even visited the Bollings trailer, and his
27:30
Speaker 2: notes would still be in the corner's file today. If
27:33
Speaker 2: an autopsy really had been done here, there'd be a
27:35
Speaker 2: record of it in that file. Before Burn's called me, though,
27:38
Speaker 2: I'd already made an attempt to get those records from
27:40
Speaker 2: the current Floyd County Coroner, Jane Proctor, that request had
27:44
Speaker 2: been ignored.
27:50
Speaker 3: You shaid that you have not heard anything from Jene Proctor. Oh,
27:55
Speaker 3: did you make an official Georgia Open Records request for
28:00
Speaker 3: his information?
28:01
Speaker 2: I did, and I talked to him briefly actually, and
28:05
Speaker 2: he never followed up. I know that our assistants trying
28:08
Speaker 2: to follow all of him now, because we've never heard anymore.
28:11
Speaker 3: Well, he only has three days to comply with that
28:14
Speaker 3: Georgia Open Records request.
28:16
Speaker 2: See Floyd County doesn't believe in that. We have had
28:20
Speaker 2: the hardest time getting anything.
28:22
Speaker 3: Well, it doesn't matter what Floyd County believes. Georgia law states,
28:28
Speaker 3: I would you know if I was in your shoes?
28:33
Speaker 3: I would go back and say, Georgia Open records law
28:36
Speaker 3: requires a response within three days or a valid reason
28:42
Speaker 3: why you've not responded. I know there's wiggle room there,
28:46
Speaker 3: but you know I never failed to respond to one.
28:51
Speaker 2: Well, I found that most people in Floyd County don't
28:54
Speaker 2: have that philosophy. Unfortunately.
28:59
Speaker 3: That's so.
29:00
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, we have got to get a single
29:03
Speaker 2: document from the DA's office about anything.
29:07
Speaker 3: That's say it.
29:08
Speaker 2: Their response is either they've lost the files or else
29:10
Speaker 2: they just don't.
29:11
Speaker 3: Respond at all. What just follow the chain of custom
29:14
Speaker 3: you receipt and see who's got it. I mean, you
29:16
Speaker 3: have to sign the records in and sign the records out.
29:22
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say that's bullshit.
29:27
Speaker 2: On this point at least Craig Burns and I agree.
29:30
Speaker 2: But once again, I was on the Floyd County mary
29:32
Speaker 2: ground where you can't get any answers because some other
29:35
Speaker 2: agency has them. Only that other agency doesn't have the
29:38
Speaker 2: answers either because they give them to someone else.
29:41
Speaker 3: If Gene should absolutely have have that in a filing
29:46
Speaker 3: cabinet somewhere, or it should be in records for attention,
29:51
Speaker 3: in my opinion, he's not giving you the attention it deserves.
29:57
Speaker 3: I'd love to read my notes that Gene has, but
30:00
Speaker 3: I can promise you he's been told not to relation.
30:04
Speaker 4: In addition to the coroner's files, we'd also been trying
30:08
Speaker 4: to get records from the investigation into Craig Burns himself. Technically,
30:13
Speaker 4: the DA's office only has three days to respond to
30:15
Speaker 4: a record's request, but even though we'd been exchanging emails,
30:20
Speaker 4: after five months, we still hadn't gotten the documents.
30:23
Speaker 5: From the DA's office.
30:25
Speaker 4: So we paired down our request, hoping that might help
30:28
Speaker 4: move it along.
30:31
Speaker 2: I'm just curious what's in there? And now I'm more
30:33
Speaker 2: curious when Lee Patterson stopped responding, why does she not
30:36
Speaker 2: want to give it over to us?
30:40
Speaker 3: Oh? Not got feeling you. Someday somebody will put two
30:45
Speaker 3: and two to give, but I have stopped fighting it.
30:57
Speaker 4: Last week, the Floyd County DA's office finally got back
31:00
Speaker 4: to us. They let us know they had the documents
31:03
Speaker 4: we'd requested. A small portion of the Craig Burns file
31:07
Speaker 4: would be made available. Susan and I happened to be
31:10
Speaker 4: down in Rome, so we said we'd drop by the
31:12
Speaker 4: DA's office to pick them up in person. The files
31:24
Speaker 4: that we picked up from the DA's office are little underwhelming.
31:29
Speaker 5: For instance, one of.
31:30
Speaker 4: Our requests was for a copy of all records of
31:32
Speaker 4: interviews done in the course of the investigation into Craig Burns.
31:37
Speaker 4: But in the files we were given there's a summary
31:40
Speaker 4: of an interview from exactly one witness. Still, these records
31:46
Speaker 4: gave us a little more insight into the investigation into
31:49
Speaker 4: Craig Burns, like, for instance, what had caused Burns to
31:53
Speaker 4: be investigated in the first place. When Susan spoke to Burns,
31:58
Speaker 4: he told her the investigation had been politically motivated the
32:02
Speaker 4: DA at the time, Tammy Colston.
32:04
Speaker 5: He said, I didn't like.
32:05
Speaker 3: Him, but Kamy just always had it out for me
32:11
Speaker 3: because I was trying to improve the coroner's office. I
32:15
Speaker 3: was trying to improve death investigations. I turned down the
32:19
Speaker 3: county's offer of a government office in the courthouse because
32:25
Speaker 3: I didn't want nobody to be able to have their
32:30
Speaker 3: thumb on me. I didn't want nobody to be able
32:33
Speaker 3: to say, well, we've done this for you, you do
32:36
Speaker 3: this for us.
32:44
Speaker 4: The file show this is not why Burns was investigated.
32:49
Speaker 4: Although apparently complaints about Burns had first been made in
32:52
Speaker 4: January of nineteen ninety eight, the same month he testified
32:56
Speaker 4: at Lee's in Kane's trial. It was actually the US
32:59
Speaker 4: Secret Service that had kicked off the investigation, not Floyd County.
33:05
Speaker 4: The Secret Service was part of the Department of the Treasury,
33:08
Speaker 4: and in addition to protecting the President, they also investigate
33:12
Speaker 4: certain financial crimes, and in May of nineteen ninety eight,
33:16
Speaker 4: they were investigating Burns for credit card fraud. Burns was
33:21
Speaker 4: employed by a funeral home chain that had a few
33:24
Speaker 4: locations in Rome, and he was using his employer's credit
33:27
Speaker 4: card processing machine to transfer fifty six thousand dollars to
33:32
Speaker 4: his own accounts. Two months later, the Floyd County Police
33:37
Speaker 4: Department formally opened its own investigation into Craig Burns's conduct
33:42
Speaker 4: as coroner. Investigators began looking into complaints that Burns had
33:47
Speaker 4: been issuing bills to the families of people who had
33:50
Speaker 4: died in Floyd County. He was charging them for the
33:53
Speaker 4: services he provided as coroner. These bills were bogus. The
33:59
Speaker 4: families owed nothing to Craig Burns. He was paid by
34:02
Speaker 4: the county. He earned a fixed fee of one hundred
34:05
Speaker 4: dollars for every death that he accepted jurisdiction over but
34:10
Speaker 4: many of the families who received these bills didn't know that.
34:15
Speaker 4: One of the bills Burns issued was to the mother
34:17
Speaker 4: of a man who had died of bacterial meningitis. When
34:21
Speaker 4: the mother explained to him that she didn't have the
34:23
Speaker 4: money to pay him, Burns had responded with the following.
34:31
Speaker 9: Discount authorized by coroner Craig Burns. Dear mister and missus Williams,
34:36
Speaker 9: knowing that you're faced with this bill, and knowing that
34:38
Speaker 9: it is a large amount, I want to help you
34:40
Speaker 9: with it as much as I can. I've taken fifty
34:43
Speaker 9: percent off this bill and paid it for you with
34:45
Speaker 9: money I had in my corner budget from when such
34:48
Speaker 9: cases arise as this has, the balance will be your
34:50
Speaker 9: responsibility and maybe paid any way you like.
34:53
Speaker 3: By the month.
34:54
Speaker 9: I'm sorry to have caused you such an increase in
34:56
Speaker 9: your debts to pay, but we needed to get the
34:59
Speaker 9: answers to the question you were asking me when James died. Unfortunately,
35:03
Speaker 9: his type of testing was the only way to do so.
35:08
Speaker 4: Even in murder cases, Burns didn't pass up on the
35:12
Speaker 4: opportunity to earn some cash. In one homicide case, the
35:16
Speaker 4: victim had been sent to the GBI Crime Lab to
35:18
Speaker 4: be autopsied, which is a service provided to the county
35:22
Speaker 4: free of charge. There's no cost to the county for it,
35:26
Speaker 4: and yet Burns had sent a bill to the murder
35:28
Speaker 4: victim's family payable to his personal bank account.
35:38
Speaker 2: Burns wasn't just stealing from families, he was stealing from
35:41
Speaker 2: the county too. The investigation found that between January of
35:45
Speaker 2: ninety seven and September of ninety eight, Craig Burns had
35:48
Speaker 2: charged the county for one hundred and sixty six post
35:50
Speaker 2: mortem examinations by the local medical examiner, examinations which were
35:54
Speaker 2: never actually performed. The county would issue checks to the
35:57
Speaker 2: medical examiner to pay for these services, but Burns would
36:00
Speaker 2: intercept the checks and deposited them into his own account.
36:04
Speaker 2: And since the medical examiner had never performed these exams
36:07
Speaker 2: in the first place, he wasn't expecting any payment for
36:09
Speaker 2: them and didn't realize it when the checks went missing.
36:13
Speaker 2: I didn't have the DA's records when I spoke to
36:15
Speaker 2: Craig Burns, but I had known about these charges, and
36:18
Speaker 2: I'd asked him about it. The investigation into you, I
36:24
Speaker 2: know that there were something to do with autopsy reports
36:29
Speaker 2: or death investigations that were not done. They wouldn't give
36:32
Speaker 2: me the file. So I actually don't know too much
36:34
Speaker 2: about your case, but I know that was one of
36:38
Speaker 2: the allegations.
36:39
Speaker 3: Made that's never been mentioned to me, that.
36:44
Speaker 2: The that there were so one of the reports that
36:46
Speaker 2: we do have says that there's an issue with autopsies
36:50
Speaker 2: being billed for that weren't performed.
36:54
Speaker 3: That got into the local medical examiner that I had
37:00
Speaker 3: a pointed at the time did not complete his paperwork,
37:05
Speaker 3: and then he denied that he had done those external
37:10
Speaker 3: exams for me, So.
37:12
Speaker 2: You preferred them and then he didn't perform them.
37:17
Speaker 3: Oh, he claimed he didn't perform them. I think his
37:22
Speaker 3: documentation is what was bad. And he turned around and
37:27
Speaker 3: left town. I just I had poor judgment and who
37:31
Speaker 3: I chose as my local medical exameter.
37:39
Speaker 2: We'd been hoping that the files from the Craig Burns
37:41
Speaker 2: investigation may contend records about his handling of the Brand
37:43
Speaker 2: Bowling case. Unfortunately, the investigative foil notes that it only
37:49
Speaker 2: covers the period from nineteen eighty seven to nineteen eighty eight,
37:52
Speaker 2: which means the Bowling case from nineteen eighty six was
37:55
Speaker 2: not part of the investigation, and anyway, even IFIANUS mitigation
38:00
Speaker 2: had covered the nineteen ninety six time period, it's not
38:03
Speaker 2: clear what records investigators were actually found, because there's a
38:06
Speaker 2: note in the file about what happened when investigators obtained
38:09
Speaker 2: a search warrant and presented it to Craig Burns.
38:12
Speaker 9: At the time officers searched defendant's home, defendant said to
38:15
Speaker 9: Sergeant Carney, quote, you will not find what you are
38:17
Speaker 9: looking for. I've known for two weeks that this search
38:20
Speaker 9: warrant was coming end quote. Defendant also stated that he
38:24
Speaker 9: was glad that he still had a friend in the
38:25
Speaker 9: police department. Also president at the time these statements were
38:29
Speaker 9: made was Dallas Battle and David Stewart.
38:33
Speaker 2: When the search warrant was served on Craig Burns, he
38:35
Speaker 2: informed the investigators that coincidentally, his computer had recently crashed.
38:40
Speaker 2: The entire hard drive had to be replaced. Oops, so
38:45
Speaker 2: if the documents investigators were looking for were on that
38:47
Speaker 2: hard drive, they were gone. Now, the records we have
39:01
Speaker 2: about the Craig Burns case are still spotty, but the
39:03
Speaker 2: most important question I had for Craig Burns didn't need
39:06
Speaker 2: any documents for him to answer. What I needed to
39:09
Speaker 2: know from him was the name of the substance that
39:11
Speaker 2: have been applied to the gunshot wound and Brian Bulling's head.
39:15
Speaker 2: Once I knew for sure what the substance was, I
39:17
Speaker 2: could find out whether or not it was possible for
39:19
Speaker 2: it to have caused the blackened appearance of the wound.
39:23
Speaker 2: So I've showed these photos to some doctors and some
39:27
Speaker 2: police officers, and they looked at it and said, that
39:33
Speaker 2: looks like a contact end to me, and to them
39:38
Speaker 2: it looks like that the blacken there is burning or
39:41
Speaker 2: soot or something caused by high heat.
39:46
Speaker 3: Well, if I had saw, or if I see tearing
39:51
Speaker 3: of the skin or the gash gits up under the skin,
39:55
Speaker 3: then you and I saw sniffling, then I would say, yes,
40:01
Speaker 3: a different type of wound would be a close contact one.
40:05
Speaker 3: But I don't see a tearing of the skin. I
40:08
Speaker 3: see a more of a circular wound here, And even today,
40:14
Speaker 3: twenty five years later, if I was looking at that,
40:18
Speaker 3: the first thing that would not come to my mind
40:21
Speaker 3: would be a contact one.
40:25
Speaker 2: Is there always skin tearing though with a contact rue.
40:28
Speaker 3: All that I've ever seen that have been contact wounds
40:31
Speaker 3: have had skin teared.
40:33
Speaker 2: Okay, So if you were there with Dallas Battle trying
40:36
Speaker 2: to figure out what happened to this boy, you would
40:39
Speaker 2: look at the lack of the skin tearing.
40:43
Speaker 3: I would have it is. If Dallas and I were
40:46
Speaker 3: there and you're telling me that, I would probably say
40:49
Speaker 3: to Dallas, this looks like a distance shot to me.
40:57
Speaker 2: Craig Burns told me that he does not recall what
40:59
Speaker 2: he and Dallas Battle talkt out at the funeral home,
41:01
Speaker 2: but he said based on the lack of tearing around
41:04
Speaker 2: the gunshot wound Brian's head, he would have concluded that
41:07
Speaker 2: Brian had been killed by a shot fired from a distance.
41:11
Speaker 2: We asked medical examiner and forensic pathologist doctor Eric Peters
41:14
Speaker 2: about Burns's conclusion.
41:21
Speaker 11: You know, a little revolver is not exactly a high
41:24
Speaker 11: powered weapon, so you don't necessarily have to have tearing
41:28
Speaker 11: of the wound. So if someone shoots themselves right dead
41:31
Speaker 11: center in the middle of the forehead, invariably whatever type
41:34
Speaker 11: of weapon it is, will cause a stellate tear in
41:37
Speaker 11: the temple area. These are a little bit more play
41:41
Speaker 11: in there as far as soft tissue. So, like I said,
41:45
Speaker 11: often more often than not a contact wound. We'll have
41:49
Speaker 11: some tearing at the entrance.
41:51
Speaker 2: Have you seen like suicides, are other contact head wounds
41:55
Speaker 2: that did not have tearing? Yeah, I have skin tearing
41:58
Speaker 2: around contact gunshot wounds is often, but not always present
42:01
Speaker 2: with contact shots to the head. Burnsance determination that the
42:05
Speaker 2: lack of tearing Brian had to have been killed by
42:07
Speaker 2: shot patter from a distance is just actually wrong, even
42:10
Speaker 2: though that seems to have been the basis of his
42:12
Speaker 2: insergent Battle's conclusion that Brian had been murdered, And that
42:16
Speaker 2: still leaves the question as to why the inside of
42:18
Speaker 2: the gunshot wound has that blackened appearance that you'd expect
42:21
Speaker 2: from a contact shot. I'm curious what the hardening compound
42:24
Speaker 2: was that would cause that coloration.
42:27
Speaker 3: The hardening compound that comes from the trade house for
42:32
Speaker 3: embalmbers would be a white type substance. It's usually white powder.
42:39
Speaker 3: Then if it's placed into a wound, it absorbs the fluid.
42:46
Speaker 1: So what you.
42:47
Speaker 3: Would have is the hardening compound would be the color
42:52
Speaker 3: of blood that has dried, blood that has deoxygenated, and
42:59
Speaker 3: the sheer them off of the blood, which is a
43:02
Speaker 3: clear fluid. The hardening compound itself is not that color.
43:08
Speaker 2: So to my it's a really black color. It looks burned.
43:12
Speaker 2: To me, does that look like a normal appearance of
43:17
Speaker 2: hardening compound or is that how usually it would react
43:19
Speaker 2: to old blood?
43:20
Speaker 3: Or well, if it was successfully packed with hardening compound
43:25
Speaker 3: and allowed to congeal, I would I could certainly see
43:30
Speaker 3: that that wound would have hardening compound in it.
43:33
Speaker 2: Okay, so to you, that looks like hardening compound.
43:37
Speaker 3: To me, that looks like it could have hardening compound
43:40
Speaker 3: in it. I understand what you're talking about the tissue
43:44
Speaker 3: being charged. But with me being at the funeral home
43:48
Speaker 3: and having the opportunity to know what they had done
43:52
Speaker 3: to the wound or what had not been done to
43:55
Speaker 3: the wound, that's how I would come to my conclusion
43:59
Speaker 3: that that is heartening compound.
44:04
Speaker 2: To get some insight on what Craig Burns had told me,
44:06
Speaker 2: I spoke to Dominic Astorino, funeral director Inbalmer and Professor
44:09
Speaker 2: mortuary Science. Professor Astorino is the embalmer that other Ebalmer's
44:15
Speaker 2: call when they have a job that they don't know
44:16
Speaker 2: how to handle. He specializes in trauma cases and is
44:19
Speaker 2: very familiar with how funeral homes prepared bodies for viewing
44:22
Speaker 2: when they've had gunshot wounds to the head and face.
44:25
Speaker 2: And when I showed him the photos that Craig Burns
44:27
Speaker 2: had taken of Brian Bolling's body from the funeral home,
44:30
Speaker 2: he saw something that everyone else had missed.
44:33
Speaker 10: He's all embalmed. He's already embalmed in all these photos.
44:35
Speaker 2: In all of them, the photos corner Burns took of
44:39
Speaker 2: Brian's body, the ones with the rod through the gunshot wound,
44:42
Speaker 2: and that everyone mistakes for Autosi photos. These were taken
44:45
Speaker 2: after Brian's body have been fully embalmed.
44:48
Speaker 10: The embalming is done, but uh, the cosmetic work has
44:52
Speaker 10: not yet done. So it's a two step process for sure.
44:56
Speaker 2: I asked Astorino what he thought about Burns's testimony about
44:58
Speaker 2: what had caused the black and Errents the gunshot wound.
45:07
Speaker 10: It seemed to me like he probably wasn't there and
45:11
Speaker 10: probably doesn't do a whole lot of the work himself,
45:13
Speaker 10: and was told what to say. Because the appearance of
45:17
Speaker 10: the wound that's not caused by packing powder, I believe
45:24
Speaker 10: it was caused by another thing that we do in embalming.
45:28
Speaker 2: Professor Asturno told me that the blackened appearance was in
45:31
Speaker 2: no way caused by some kind of granulated substance or
45:33
Speaker 2: hardening powder, but it was likely caused by a certain
45:37
Speaker 2: embalming technique.
45:39
Speaker 10: What you're looking at in that photo is again we
45:41
Speaker 10: have to get the tissue firm and dry because eventually
45:44
Speaker 10: they're going to put wax over that wound and then
45:47
Speaker 10: put cosmetics over the wax and the skin to get
45:49
Speaker 10: it all to blend. In order for that to work,
45:52
Speaker 10: the skin and the inside of the wound has to
45:55
Speaker 10: be cauterized and dry. So what we do is we
46:01
Speaker 10: introduce it's usually a liquid chemical soaked and cotton like
46:06
Speaker 10: phenolic acid carbolic acid that works to cauterize them.
46:11
Speaker 2: So the burned appearance and the gunshot wound, could that
46:14
Speaker 2: have been caused by soot deposited from a contact wound.
46:18
Speaker 10: Well that we can't tell.
46:21
Speaker 2: There may have been so and charring inside the gunshot woon,
46:23
Speaker 2: or there may not have been. These photos can't tell
46:26
Speaker 2: us either way because they were taken after Brian's body
46:28
Speaker 2: have been substantially altered by the embalming process.
46:32
Speaker 10: The wound has already been cauterized, and the edges of
46:34
Speaker 10: the wound have already been trimmed away and clean. So
46:37
Speaker 10: if you compare that, the picture is not good because
46:40
Speaker 10: it's thirty years old.
46:41
Speaker 2: So if the skin had been torn around the bullet hole,
46:43
Speaker 2: would they have trimmed it up?
46:45
Speaker 10: And yeah, the proper protocol is to trim away any
46:48
Speaker 10: jagged or unembalmed edges. Just look at this is the
46:52
Speaker 10: entrance soon right here. It's got an appearance of it's
46:55
Speaker 10: wet and it's jagged, so they definitely cleaned it up
46:59
Speaker 10: once it was caught right, so they can wax over
47:02
Speaker 10: it and make it lie flush and level.
47:06
Speaker 2: So it's possible the skin was torn. That's very interesting.
47:11
Speaker 10: Well, I mean it's here, the skin's illustrated right here.
47:15
Speaker 2: So the perfect rout entrance. It didn't occur to me,
47:17
Speaker 2: to the embalmer or the whoever was the body could
47:21
Speaker 2: have done that. At trial, Craig Burns never mentioned that
47:25
Speaker 2: when he and Dallas Battle had inspected Brian's body, it
47:28
Speaker 2: had already been embalmed, but Burns had to have known that.
47:32
Speaker 2: He also had to have known the blackened appearance of
47:34
Speaker 2: the gunshot wound had nothing to do with hardening compound.
47:37
Speaker 2: So what this guy was? He is a funeral director.
47:40
Speaker 2: He should have been familiar with basic practices. So why
47:44
Speaker 2: is he calling this hardening compound?
47:47
Speaker 10: I don't know.
47:49
Speaker 2: Based on when he said. A trial professor asked to
47:51
Speaker 2: Rena would assume Craig Burns didn't have any real embalming experience,
47:55
Speaker 2: because no license in balmer would have made this error.
47:58
Speaker 10: I mean, just the real thing that out was the
48:04
Speaker 10: underqualifications of the person making these terminations, and that was
48:08
Speaker 10: before I knew he was a criminal.
48:14
Speaker 2: Craig Burns really was a license to bolmer. Though he
48:17
Speaker 2: really did have years of experience preparing bodies, he would
48:21
Speaker 2: have recognized what had actually caused the black and appearance
48:24
Speaker 2: of the gunshot wound. So why would he have come
48:27
Speaker 2: up with a story about the hardening compound? Well maybe
48:31
Speaker 2: because if he'd told the truth, if he'd explained in
48:34
Speaker 2: court what had really caused the black in appearance, that
48:37
Speaker 2: would have been explaining that Brian's body had been fully
48:39
Speaker 2: evolved before he Insargeant Battle went in to examine it. Still,
48:43
Speaker 2: even then, even after the embalming, all the important questions
48:48
Speaker 2: in this case could still have been answered if Burns
48:50
Speaker 2: had simply requested an autopsy.
48:53
Speaker 10: So the discharge goes off and then you see the
48:55
Speaker 10: soot and everything embedded into the bone. You don't have
48:59
Speaker 10: ex don't have the pictures of the bone.
49:02
Speaker 2: It did not take any.
49:04
Speaker 10: Yeah, without an autopsy, it's going to be really unlikely,
49:07
Speaker 10: but that's what you would expect to see, tattooing into
49:10
Speaker 10: the bone.
49:22
Speaker 4: So that brings us back to the question we started with,
49:25
Speaker 4: why wasn't there an autopsy done in this case?
49:29
Speaker 5: It doesn't make any.
49:30
Speaker 4: Sense that Craig Burns would have failed to do an autopsy,
49:33
Speaker 4: or failed to pretend to do an autopsy, because that
49:37
Speaker 4: would have deprived him of an opportunity to build someone
49:40
Speaker 4: for it, especially in a case where literally everyone wanted
49:44
Speaker 4: an autopsy to be done. Based on what we learned
49:48
Speaker 4: about Craig Burns's brand of corruption, the fact that Brian
49:52
Speaker 4: Bowling was an autopsy, it made even less sense than
49:55
Speaker 4: it had to begin with. But recently we got a
49:59
Speaker 4: chance to speak again with Brian's uncle, Michael Baker and
50:02
Speaker 4: to ask him questions we hadn't known to ask the
50:05
Speaker 4: first time he spoke to him.
50:13
Speaker 2: Rememb when we first talked to you. We were surprised
50:15
Speaker 2: that all of y'all we assumed an autopsy had been done,
50:18
Speaker 2: and I was kind of thinking maybe all requested would
50:20
Speaker 2: not be done, because I couldn't imagine why else there
50:22
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been an autopsy.
50:25
Speaker 12: We were told over and over and over that it
50:28
Speaker 12: was done. And that's what we were being told by
50:31
Speaker 12: the police department and the funeral home.
50:35
Speaker 2: What the funeral home tell you.
50:37
Speaker 12: We had called about the funeral because that's when they
50:39
Speaker 12: had told us that Josh was involved, so we had
50:42
Speaker 12: told him to hold the arrangements, and they told us
50:45
Speaker 12: that the body was still left the state crime lab.
50:49
Speaker 4: Brian's family remembers being told repeatedly that Brian was being autopsied.
50:54
Speaker 5: They had no reason to doubt that's what had happened.
50:58
Speaker 2: And then after that, did y'all ever get like confirmation
51:01
Speaker 2: that the autopsy had been done?
51:02
Speaker 12: We were si the bill for it. It was like
51:06
Speaker 12: seventy five dollars.
51:08
Speaker 2: Did your family ultimately pay the bill to Craig?
51:10
Speaker 3: Did we did?
51:11
Speaker 11: Play the will?
51:14
Speaker 4: As County Coroner Craig Burns sometimes falsely billed for autopsies
51:18
Speaker 4: that had never been done, and sometimes he falsely billed
51:22
Speaker 4: for autopsies that had actually happened, but for which the
51:26
Speaker 4: families of the deceased hadn't owed a thing. We still
51:30
Speaker 4: don't know which scenario happened with Brian. We don't know
51:34
Speaker 4: if Craig Burns was billing for an autopsy he never
51:36
Speaker 4: had done, or for an autopsy that was performed but
51:40
Speaker 4: for which no report or record was ever disclosed. The
51:44
Speaker 4: only thing Brian's family ever remember seeing is the bill.
51:50
Speaker 2: Was it your parents ultimately pay the bill?
51:52
Speaker 12: Yes, my mom, Dad.
51:58
Speaker 2: I think you mentioned that they tried to offer to
52:00
Speaker 2: use the life insurance policy.
52:02
Speaker 12: Yes, and they wouldn't take the life insentior of policy.
52:04
Speaker 2: Did he give you a reason?
52:06
Speaker 12: They did not, And they did say that the state
52:09
Speaker 12: will pay. Two hundred fifty dollars is all that the
52:11
Speaker 12: state pays for the autopsy. The rest was all less.
52:15
Speaker 4: Can you explain that to me, because I don't know
52:17
Speaker 4: that I've heard this about using the life insurance money.
52:21
Speaker 12: Yeah, we asked for because my mom had some life
52:23
Speaker 12: insurance on all the grandkids, and they asked if we
52:27
Speaker 12: could use one of those policies to pay for the autopsy,
52:31
Speaker 12: and they were revised they could not.
52:34
Speaker 2: I wonder if he was concerned that he wouldn't get
52:38
Speaker 2: paid if he.
52:38
Speaker 12: Did that, or for some kind of paper trayal maybe.
52:42
Speaker 2: But I wonder if he was worried that if the
52:46
Speaker 2: death was ruled accidental, he might not get paid out.
52:49
Speaker 12: That's possible. Yeah, I also said, that's a very good point.
52:53
Speaker 12: I've never even thought about it that direction. So because
52:55
Speaker 12: life insurance, we usually won't pay for suicide.
53:03
Speaker 4: When Brian Bolling died, his family wasn't just left to
53:06
Speaker 4: deal with the loss of their son, brother, grandson, and
53:10
Speaker 4: nephew like a lot of families in Floyd County because
53:14
Speaker 4: of Craig Burns, they were left with the loss of
53:17
Speaker 4: a loved one and also a hefty financial obligation.
53:23
Speaker 2: After episode twelve of this podcast came out with the
53:26
Speaker 2: interview with Angela Bruce, Michael Baker called me. We hadn't
53:30
Speaker 2: spoken since my last trip to Rome, but he told
53:32
Speaker 2: me there was something he thought I should know. Angela
53:35
Speaker 2: Bruce isn't lying about what happened. He said. I know
53:37
Speaker 2: she's not lying because I was there when investigators first
53:41
Speaker 2: told us about the new witness they had in Brian's case.
53:46
Speaker 12: Dallas and David both told us, you know that she
53:50
Speaker 12: had come forward saying that she had over heard him
53:52
Speaker 12: saying that asked him to leave the party, but that
53:55
Speaker 12: she didn't want to testify. And then so I got
53:58
Speaker 12: my sister early up say it's like going to and
54:00
Speaker 12: they're like, well, don't worry about it, because we've got
54:03
Speaker 12: those things owner that we could take her kids if
54:05
Speaker 12: she does not testify. So that dearing all that story,
54:09
Speaker 12: I'm going to hit me hard right there.
54:12
Speaker 2: At the time, Michael Baker had thought that investigators had
54:15
Speaker 2: found a way to convince their reluctant witness to testify
54:18
Speaker 2: to what she knew. But listening to her episode, Michael
54:22
Speaker 2: realized that the investigator's threats wouldn't have just compelled Angela
54:25
Speaker 2: Bruce to appear at trial. They would have also compelled
54:28
Speaker 2: her to testify in whichever way the investigators had wanted.
54:31
Speaker 12: Oh yeah, they were just holding her kids against her
54:35
Speaker 12: to make her say what they've runned and say the
54:37
Speaker 12: cops in Florid County or Cricket criocket.
54:48
Speaker 2: If the jury had known what we know now about
54:50
Speaker 2: the evidence in this case, it is difficult to see
54:53
Speaker 2: how they could have convicted Lee Clark and Cain's story.
54:57
Speaker 2: There was no Freebird gang. Angela. Bruce never heard Lee
55:01
Speaker 2: or Kane confess to murder. Charlie Childers did not see
55:04
Speaker 2: Lee outside the Bowling's trailer. Neither Lee nor Kaine had
55:08
Speaker 2: any motive to hurt Brian, and for that matter, neither
55:10
Speaker 2: did Brian's girlfriend, Caprice. The Blue Pillow had nothing to
55:14
Speaker 2: do with anything, and the state's entire theory that Brian
55:17
Speaker 2: Bowling did not kill himself was based on the personal,
55:20
Speaker 2: non expert opinion of a discredited coroner who observed Brian's
55:23
Speaker 2: gunshot wound after he'd been embalmed. So the new evidence
55:30
Speaker 2: you've heard on this podcast clearly would have mattered if
55:32
Speaker 2: it was introduced at trial, but it's far too late
55:36
Speaker 2: for that. So does any of it matter now? Well? Maybe,
55:40
Speaker 2: But once you've been convicted of a crime, challenging that
55:43
Speaker 2: conviction is an upheld battle all the way, and without
55:47
Speaker 2: legal representation it's essentially impossible, which is why when I
55:52
Speaker 2: began investigating this case, I told Lee that he should
55:54
Speaker 2: apply again to the Georgia Innoson's project.
56:01
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I said, I remember back today. I wrote
56:03
Speaker 6: them and they wrote me sending back the later told
56:05
Speaker 6: me that they could help me because the case wouldn't
56:07
Speaker 6: be and they related.
56:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've only recently changed their their rules on that.
56:11
Speaker 2: It's like past couple of years, so that that's why. Yeah,
56:14
Speaker 2: they would never have been able to consider your case
56:16
Speaker 2: until pretty recently. In the year since Lee first applied
56:20
Speaker 2: to them g IP, the Georgia Ennison's Project has expanded
56:24
Speaker 2: their criteria for the kinds of cases they're able to
56:26
Speaker 2: take on, and I thought Lee's case might be one
56:29
Speaker 2: they'd be interested in. Try applying to them again, I
56:32
Speaker 2: told him. A few months later, I got a phone
56:35
Speaker 2: call from Lee.
56:37
Speaker 1: Hey, Hello, yep, Well, I just wanted to call you
56:42
Speaker 1: and let you know that I just got off the
56:45
Speaker 1: phone this morning with a George Dennison project and they're
56:49
Speaker 1: getting rid of Staracter Investigation.
56:52
Speaker 2: GP accepted Lee Clark as a client and will represent
56:55
Speaker 2: him in his efforts to overturn his conviction.
56:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, they called me a sleep sleep It's about eight
57:03
Speaker 1: o'clock this morning. Though we're knocked out, they come here
57:06
Speaker 1: and call it my name.
57:07
Speaker 3: I set up.
57:07
Speaker 1: I was looking them crazy. I gave him the past
57:09
Speaker 1: time much you got to go to the intake and
57:10
Speaker 1: got attorney.
57:11
Speaker 6: Phone call this morning, I said what I looked.
57:14
Speaker 1: At the Pike Press as attorney phone call, I said,
57:17
Speaker 1: what is about?
57:18
Speaker 3: It hadn't been confused and I wasn't making.
57:20
Speaker 1: Here from them, and I got up there and they
57:23
Speaker 1: called in and UH got on the phone with her
57:25
Speaker 1: and she wanted to explain to me all the process
57:28
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. And I don't know if you treated.
57:31
Speaker 3: Me out this morning, buddy, it was great. Note. I
57:38
Speaker 3: tell you it made my dad.
57:48
Speaker 2: The Georgia Innoson's Project is currently working on these cases
57:51
Speaker 2: and they hope that before too long he'll be back
57:54
Speaker 2: in court again. If and when that happens, we'll be
57:57
Speaker 2: back as well to update you on developments. So while
58:00
Speaker 2: this is the final episode of season one of Proof
58:02
Speaker 2: that covers our investigation, it's not our last episode about
58:05
Speaker 2: Leez and Kane's case. In fact, we have two bonus
58:08
Speaker 2: episodes coming up, with a very special episode next Monday
58:11
Speaker 2: that you won't want to miss. There will also be
58:13
Speaker 2: a sidebar on Thursday, so don't forget to send us
58:15
Speaker 2: your questions. Also, because Caine's story was Lee's co defendant
58:20
Speaker 2: under conflict of interest rules, the Georgia Innoson's Project is
58:22
Speaker 2: not allowed to represent him as well. That means that
58:24
Speaker 2: Caine is currently without legal counsel. So if there happen
58:28
Speaker 2: to be any Georgia attorneys out there who are looking
58:30
Speaker 2: for a new pro bono case to take on, let
58:33
Speaker 2: us know we'd be happy to put you in touch
58:35
Speaker 2: with him.
58:44
Speaker 4: You've been listening to Proof, a podcast by Red Marble Media.
58:47
Speaker 4: We'll be back next Monday for episode fifteen. Send us
58:51
Speaker 4: your questions at proofcrimepodat gmail dot com. We'll respond during
58:56
Speaker 4: our bonus episodes Proof Sidebar on Thursdays. Keaven Fitzpatrick is
59:01
Speaker 4: our executive producer. Our logo was designed by Drew Hosski
59:05
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59:08
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59:13
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59:18
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59:23
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59:27
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59:30
Speaker 5: That's all for this week. Thanks for listening.