Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Casual comment at fire scene turns DEADLY

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Casual comment at fire scene turns DEADLY · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Over the years of the
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Speaker 1: District Attorney's office, I worked really hard to develop an
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Speaker 1: expertise in arson prosecutions. They're very, very difficult to prove.
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Speaker 1: Let me tell you why. First, when you see a fire,
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Speaker 1: you got to figure out was it a crime? Then
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Speaker 1: you get to the who done it? Part? Man is
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Speaker 1: case cracks wide open in a way that nobody ever
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Speaker 1: believed that it would. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on
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Speaker 1: one where to say Dale, drive the fire the house
1:04
Speaker 1: or what the house? The caller was a sixteen year
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Speaker 1: old girl who told the nine one one operator that she,
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Speaker 1: her parents, and her younger brotherhood all escaped, but barely.
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Speaker 1: You don't understand the entire front of our houses. Just okay,
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Speaker 1: I'm glad everybody got out. That dad was Scott Perk.
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Speaker 1: You'll be hearing a lot about him. Perk said his
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Speaker 1: family had been sound asleep when he heard a loud boom.
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Speaker 1: It was like we heard an explosion, woke us up
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Speaker 1: real cool a moment. Perk said he'd scramble to get
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Speaker 1: everyone up and out. By the time the first fire
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Speaker 1: units rolled up, the perk home was a roaring bonfire.
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Speaker 1: Now what I'm hearing sounds like right at the get go.
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Speaker 1: When you hear about an explosion that could have been
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Speaker 1: in naturally internal fire, not necessarily an arson. When something explodes,
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Speaker 1: you think of possibly did of an explode some type
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Speaker 1: of machinery explode and set the house on fire. But
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Speaker 1: where the fire has burned the most intensely and on
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Speaker 1: the most destruction, that's typically where the fire started. Let
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Speaker 1: me introduce an all star panel to break it down
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Speaker 1: and put it back together again with me judge and
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Speaker 1: trial lawyer, Court TV anchor Ashley Wilcot at Ashley Wilcot
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Speaker 1: dot com. Where now psychiatrists joining me out of the
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Speaker 1: Atlanta Jurisdiction. Doctor Angela Arnold at Angela Arnold MD dot com.
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Speaker 1: Private investigator Gumshoe, Richard Truants at Crispin Special Investigations dot com.
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Speaker 1: Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My
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Speaker 1: Feet on Amazon now the star of a new hit
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Speaker 1: series called Poisonous Liaisons on the True Crime Network. Joseph
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Speaker 1: Scott Morgan, but first Decrime Online dot com investigative reporter
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Speaker 1: Levi Page. We were just hearing our friend Josh Maguentz
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Speaker 1: at Dateline. So we get the nine one one call
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Speaker 1: from the teen girl and the dad takes the phone
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Speaker 1: explains what happens. But Levi listened to this from Dateline.
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Speaker 1: Fire fighters smell a smell. Listen, Levi. Firefighters smelled gasoline
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Speaker 1: as soon as they got out of their trucks. So
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Speaker 1: a call immediately went out to Stow Police Detective Ken Mifflin.
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Speaker 1: When I got there, I saw the fire department still
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Speaker 1: putting out the blaze. Someone had taken probably a pipe
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Speaker 1: wrench to disconnect the gas line and it was blowing
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Speaker 1: out natural gasp. Just it sound like a It was
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Speaker 1: a very large roaring sound at that point. That gas
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Speaker 1: hadn't ignited. No, you know, it could have possibly blowing up.
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Speaker 1: The person who set the fire poured gasoline all the
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Speaker 1: way to the gas meter and on top of the
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Speaker 1: gas meter. The idea was fire starts at the gasoline,
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Speaker 1: goes to the gas maine and possibly destroys the house
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Speaker 1: and everybody in it. Absolutely, it sounds to me leavi
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Speaker 1: Page it's somebody wanted that whole family dead. But it
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Speaker 1: didn't happen that way, because you know, even brilliant criminals
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Speaker 1: can make mistakes, and here it sounds like the gas
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Speaker 1: Maine blue. It had been undone. It had been sabotage,
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Speaker 1: but it hadn't quite made it to the gasoline that
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Speaker 1: had been poured. Am I understanding it correctly what they
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Speaker 1: find at the scene, Leavi Page? You're absolutely correct, Nancy.
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Speaker 1: And it's a home in Stow, Ohio. This is a
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Speaker 1: suburb of Akron. This house caught on fire. It's three
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Speaker 1: am in the morning and at the time, the four residents,
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Speaker 1: Scott Park, his wife Tammy, sixteen year old daughter, and
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Speaker 1: twelve year old son all escaped, thank god, uninjured. So
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Speaker 1: you know that would would be the dad, the mom,
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Speaker 1: and two children in the home that were this close
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Speaker 1: to dying in a fiery blaze. Now let's talk about Stowe.
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Speaker 1: It's not far from Akron, Ohio, and Stowe has a
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Speaker 1: very low crime rate, isn't that true, Levi Page. Yes,
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Speaker 1: it's a suburb, it's considered a safe suburb. A lot
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Speaker 1: of families lived there, and it's outside of Akron, Ohio. Akron, Ohio.
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Speaker 1: Take a listen to Dave Matt at Crime Online. Imagine
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Speaker 1: waking up to this Scott Perk is awakened to a
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Speaker 1: loud explosion at three am. His house is on fire.
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Speaker 1: Perk gets his wife of seventeen years, Tammy, and their
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Speaker 1: two children, a daughter sixteen and a son twelve, out
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Speaker 1: of the home. Has his daughter called nine one one.
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Speaker 1: His daughter makes the call, but Scott gets on the
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Speaker 1: line and explains that the family made it out the
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Speaker 1: home safely. The fire department arrives to find the home
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Speaker 1: fully engulfed in flames and a very strong odor of gasoline. Suspicious.
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Speaker 1: Fire officials called detectives from the Stow, Ohio Police Department
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Speaker 1: to come to the scene. Sergeant Ken Mifflin arrives and
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Speaker 1: is filled in by fire officials that when they arrived,
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Speaker 1: the gas meter was unhooked from the gas line and
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Speaker 1: gasoline appeared to have been poured all around the foundation
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Speaker 1: of the house to the gas meter, with gasoline poured
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Speaker 1: on top of the gas meter as well. You don't
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Speaker 1: want to go to Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics. I mean,
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Speaker 1: I know you love bloods batter like me, but I
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Speaker 1: also love an arson scene. And the first arson I
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Speaker 1: ever prosecuted was a woman who single handedly burned down
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Speaker 1: an apartment complex over a lover's quarrel okay, and then
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Speaker 1: sat back with a beer on the hood of the
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Speaker 1: car to watch the whole thing burn. Another arson case
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Speaker 1: that I prosecuted involved an accelerant, like what we're talking
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Speaker 1: about here in this case is gas case. It was
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Speaker 1: tiling and even after the burn, Joe Scott, it looks
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Speaker 1: like somebody poured coke, Coca cola or pepsi or something
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Speaker 1: on the floor and let it dry. Even after the fire,
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Speaker 1: you can still see sometimes where accelerant was and this
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Speaker 1: may have gone unnoticed except for the heavy smell of gasoline.
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Speaker 1: And when you are used to investigating arsons, you pick
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Speaker 1: up on so many things. What should the arson investigator
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Speaker 1: do right now? Well, what they're going to be looking for,
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Speaker 1: Nancy upon, you know, after the fire is put out, okay,
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Speaker 1: the arson investigator arrives afterwards, obviously, and what they're going
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Speaker 1: to be looking for, specifically, when you talk about things
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Speaker 1: like accelerant, gasoline, this sort of thing, you're going to
7:51
Speaker 1: be looking for what are referred to in this case
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Speaker 1: as poor patterns. And in some cases, in some cases
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Speaker 1: where you have say a cupful of of gasoline and
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Speaker 1: someone throws it on a wall, that develops what's called
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Speaker 1: a splash pattern, and that is as you'd mentioned earlier.
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Speaker 1: Can you slow down. I mean it's like drinking from
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Speaker 1: a fire hydrant too much, too fast. You said, you
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Speaker 1: can see a poor pattern, which is what I saw
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Speaker 1: in the home I describe it was a mansion. By
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Speaker 1: the way, Why do rich people just want more and
8:21
Speaker 1: more and more money. Hey, that's that's for doctor Bobert,
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Speaker 1: you know, forensic psychiatrist or doctor Angela Arnold, she's a
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Speaker 1: psychiatrist as well. Hey, dodgor Angie, I want you to
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Speaker 1: go back and get your degree in forensic psychiatry because
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Speaker 1: we needed big time. So Joe Scott, you said, poor pattern,
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Speaker 1: splash pattern, Okay, go ahead. Yeah. So you know, the
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Speaker 1: goal here obviously is to initiate a fire with this accelerant.
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Speaker 1: But the fact, and this is fascinating, the fact that
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Speaker 1: the firefighters, uh you know, we're able to smell and
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Speaker 1: this accelerant out there gives us an indication of what
9:00
Speaker 1: well it means it hadn't been consumed, it was there,
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Speaker 1: So they kind of bungled this from the beginning. I
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Speaker 1: find it fascinating. You know, this guy said that someone
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Speaker 1: took a wrench and actually loosened the nut on this
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Speaker 1: attachment for the natural gas to kind of leak out,
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Speaker 1: and that goes to purpose and when this thing initiates,
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Speaker 1: it's blowing out. Remember he said there was a loud,
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Speaker 1: roaring sound and that's what it sounds like. And it's
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Speaker 1: terrifying to hear this. But it didn't get to the
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Speaker 1: point where all of the gas was consumed. Time Stories
9:46
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace Guys. A family wakes up to a
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Speaker 1: loud explosion in their home and they find out the
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Speaker 1: gas nine has been tampered with intentionally to blow up
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Speaker 1: the whole family. Now, who in that home has an
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Speaker 1: enemy that would do that? I want to go out
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Speaker 1: to Richard Trunks, private investigator, former cop I believe in
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Speaker 1: Fort Lauderdale now at Crispin Special Investigations dot com. Richard,
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Speaker 1: don't you just love it when you've got a perp
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Speaker 1: who obviously is smart and they thought everything out, but
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Speaker 1: then one little detail goes wrong when the gas maine
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Speaker 1: blew the gasolene that he and I'm saying, yes, I'm
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Speaker 1: saying he. I'm going out on a limb. Because this
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Speaker 1: is typically statistically a male crime. You get a woman
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Speaker 1: Jackie it's a little embarrassing to a womankind. The most
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Speaker 1: they do is to like get their cheating boyfriend or
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Speaker 1: husband's clothes and go burn them in the front yard. Anyway,
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Speaker 1: back to the topic trunks. Don't you just love it
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Speaker 1: one of their carefully planned schemes screws up like here,
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Speaker 1: the timing, the gasolene catch fire, and the whole family lived. Well,
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Speaker 1: you gotta love it, and thank god. You know, these
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Speaker 1: criminals they make mistakes. And because they make mistakes, you know,
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Speaker 1: they talk too much and next thing you know, you're
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Speaker 1: solving a crime. Now. I don't know that this was
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Speaker 1: really a mistake, Richard. I think this just had to
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Speaker 1: do with can I say, the purps bad luck and
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Speaker 1: my good luck and the family's good luck. They didn't
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Speaker 1: go up in flames. I mean, you know, Ashley Wilcott,
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Speaker 1: judge and trial lawyer, court TV anchor, you see it
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Speaker 1: every day in corn and at Court TV, where one
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Speaker 1: little thing and a very carefully crafted crime goes wrong.
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Speaker 1: The gasoline didn't catch fire when it was supposed to.
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Speaker 1: That's right, and that's why criminals are caught nine times
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Speaker 1: out of ten. Because something does go wrong. They think
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Speaker 1: they can plam for everything. They think they can make
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Speaker 1: it happen exactly the way they want it to happen.
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Speaker 1: But guess what, that's not what happens. And because of
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Speaker 1: something not going the way they anticipated, then we have
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Speaker 1: better evidence in a way to catch criminals. Now we
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Speaker 1: can figure out it's just this an outright pyro. I
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Speaker 1: don't think so a pyromaniac that loves starting fires. I
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Speaker 1: think it's something to do with this family, because if
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Speaker 1: things had gone to plan, they would all be dead.
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Speaker 1: But let me go back to doctor Angela Arnold renounced
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Speaker 1: psychiatris joining me out of the Atlanta area. What's the
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Speaker 1: deal with Pyros? What? Because we hear about it like
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Speaker 1: starting a huge fire that consumes thousands and thousands of
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Speaker 1: acres and puts people out of their home, and it
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Speaker 1: all started with them just wanting to start a fire.
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Speaker 1: What is the deal with Pyros? It's really kind of disgusting, Nancy,
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Speaker 1: because Pyros, it's it's alten related to a sexual kind
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Speaker 1: of deviance. You know, you know, I don't know what
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Speaker 1: it is with you, doctor Angie, but you somehow connect
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Speaker 1: everything back to sex. I would not think of somebody
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Speaker 1: starting a fire and has to do with their sex life.
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Speaker 1: Are you sure it's not just you doctor Angie projecting? Sure? No, no,
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Speaker 1: I promise you. How starting a fire have you anything
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Speaker 1: to do with sex? It's it's that power? Is that
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Speaker 1: can you edge and burn down a whole I mean
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Speaker 1: a whole like field or something? Just their way to
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Speaker 1: get off? Is that a technical medical term that you
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Speaker 1: just throw at me. Their way to get off? Yet
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Speaker 1: in the DSM get off diagnostic something manual? Manual? Yes,
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Speaker 1: I need that's too for something. Okay, So guys, the
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Speaker 1: whole home goes up, and luckily the dad, here's the blow,
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Speaker 1: and he gets his wife. I think, didn't he say
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Speaker 1: leave a page of seventeen years and two children out
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Speaker 1: of the home, Nancy. They were all out of the home,
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Speaker 1: they escaped, They all lived all right. So the hunt
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Speaker 1: is on for a pyro, possibly with a grudge against
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Speaker 1: somebody in that house. But then a twist in the case.
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Speaker 1: Listen to Josh Mankowitz. Amy Salvagio remembers well the night
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Speaker 1: her duplex apartment in Stow, Ohio caught fire. It was
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Speaker 1: March twenty seventh, twenty ten, A rare night off for
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Speaker 1: the twenty four year old intensive care nurse. I was
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Speaker 1: at my boyfriend's I got a call in the middle
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Speaker 1: of the night from a neighbor saying that the house
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Speaker 1: was on fire. We were only about two minutes away,
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Speaker 1: so drove over very fast. Amy says she jumped out
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Speaker 1: and ran toward the firefighters who were working her half
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Speaker 1: of the duplex, where the worst damage was. The first
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Speaker 1: thing that they asked me was who would want to
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Speaker 1: kill you? Who would want to murder you? And I
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Speaker 1: just kind of looked at him, like, what what are
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Speaker 1: you talking about? And then they asked me, don't you
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Speaker 1: smell all the gasoline? And that's when I stopped, and
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Speaker 1: I realized that that's all you could smell was this
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Speaker 1: strong odor of gasoline. A season arson investigator will pick
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Speaker 1: up on things that civilians won't, such as a smell
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Speaker 1: of gas Now, when you go to a gas station,
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Speaker 1: you smell it, and you expect to smell it. But
15:19
Speaker 1: notice here, she wasn't even aware the victim the second
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Speaker 1: family attack. She wasn't even aware of the heavy smell
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Speaker 1: of gasoline until the cops pointed it out to her
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Speaker 1: and said, who wants to kill you? Did you notice that?
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Speaker 1: What about it? Joe Scott. Yeah, yeah, because you know,
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Speaker 1: why else, why else in the world would there be
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Speaker 1: an accelerant present at the scene. You know, this goes
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Speaker 1: I think, you know, to kind of get into your
15:45
Speaker 1: area relative to law is intent. Why is it that
15:49
Speaker 1: you would have the smell that's out there? You know,
15:52
Speaker 1: obviously they had picked up on this. So this goes
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Speaker 1: to this idea that somebody is framing this event to
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Speaker 1: do great harm to this individual. Interesting, guys. Stowe is
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Speaker 1: a city in Summit County, Ohio, population thirty four eight
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Speaker 1: three seven. It's a small town. So how is there
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Speaker 1: a piro and nobody knows who it is? Doctor Angie,
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Speaker 1: doctor Angel Arnold. When you're looking for an adult piro
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Speaker 1: or it may not be an adult, what would the
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Speaker 1: signs be of someone who's willing to wipe out a
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Speaker 1: whole family in order to as you say, Angie, your words,
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Speaker 1: not mine, get off, you know, Nancy, would I would
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Speaker 1: look for some Well, first of all, one of the
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Speaker 1: most important things you'd want to look for is what
16:40
Speaker 1: kind of things are they buying at the store, what
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Speaker 1: kind of things are being delivered to their home, what
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Speaker 1: kind of things are they looking at on the internet?
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Speaker 1: Because I'm telling you, Nancy, these people are going to
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Speaker 1: look like they're just your typical joe. Particularly in a
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Speaker 1: small town like that, typically everybody lost them. They're probably
16:58
Speaker 1: coaching some two into their kills. They there's nothing that
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Speaker 1: could make this person stand out. They are doing a
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Speaker 1: really horror and good job of fitting into the community.
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Speaker 1: You know, Ashley will kind of want to follow up
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Speaker 1: on what doctor Angela Arnold just said. You know, as
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Speaker 1: serial killers, we can almost always trace back that they
17:19
Speaker 1: tortured animals when they were younger. They had a main streak,
17:23
Speaker 1: to put it in lay person's terms, and you see
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Speaker 1: a callous disregard for life, and you can't identify their
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Speaker 1: behavior almost till the time that they're prepubescent. But for arsenists,
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Speaker 1: it's not that easy, Ashley, it really isn't, Nancy. It's
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Speaker 1: a whole different set of red flags, so to speak,
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Speaker 1: that you can look back and say, well, this was
17:45
Speaker 1: a red flag they were killing animals at age seven.
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Speaker 1: With arsenists, it is a unique set of characteristics or
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Speaker 1: qualities that seem to lead into this. And so often
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Speaker 1: I have read studies where there is an arsonist who
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Speaker 1: is finally caught and when you interview or speak to
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Speaker 1: people that knew them growing up, there were not a
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Speaker 1: lot of red flags to make these people say, oh,
18:10
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised. Very often you find ineffectuality, someone that
18:15
Speaker 1: feels powerless, someone that let's just say, dropped out of school,
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Speaker 1: dropped out of college, goes from job to job, is
18:23
Speaker 1: angry with their personal life. There are red flags, but
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Speaker 1: it's Ashley and doctor and you're pointing out very hard
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Speaker 1: to find with an arsonist crime stories. With Nancy Grace,
18:49
Speaker 1: what happened to the Perk family, and now what happened
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Speaker 1: to Amy and Silvaggio. As a matter of fact, you
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Speaker 1: leave a page the gas meter at Amy Salvajo's duplex
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Speaker 1: was also tampered with. It was disconnected and hanging and
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Speaker 1: gas was escaping into the air. That's exactly what happened
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Speaker 1: at Scott Park's home when his family asleep. Yes, Nancy,
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Speaker 1: you're correct. The second fire was a block away from
19:19
Speaker 1: that home. It happened almost a year later, on the
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Speaker 1: same day, and the mo was the same. There was
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Speaker 1: gas board around the foundation, gas board around the gas lining,
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Speaker 1: gas meter, gas line unfooked from the gas meter. And
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Speaker 1: because it happened in the same neighborhood. Investigators were connecting
19:39
Speaker 1: the diets and saying this could be linked. We could
19:41
Speaker 1: have an arsonist on our hand. Now, you can't ignore
19:46
Speaker 1: the almost fingerprint nature of these two arsons were in
19:50
Speaker 1: both cases people were nearly killed. You got the gas
19:55
Speaker 1: meter tampered with in both cases, gas escaping into the
19:59
Speaker 1: air in both cases, a disconnect to gasline, gasoline port
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Speaker 1: around the foundation of the duplex and the home. Both
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Speaker 1: of them are home dwellings. In other words, they're not
20:11
Speaker 1: apartment complexes. They're not commercial complexes. You're not burning up
20:15
Speaker 1: a car. Both times, you've got a structure, a residential
20:19
Speaker 1: structure with GasPort around the foundation. They're one block from
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Speaker 1: each other, and it's almost exactly one year later from
20:29
Speaker 1: the perk arson, and it's at the same time in
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Speaker 1: the morning. Would you say, Richard Trump said that's a
20:36
Speaker 1: fingerprint crime. There's definitely a fingerprint crime. And what happened
20:41
Speaker 1: is because of the similarities involved here, the actual police
20:45
Speaker 1: lieutenant that handled the first fire, and because he handled that,
20:50
Speaker 1: he was there for the second fire, and he started
20:52
Speaker 1: to connect the dots. To you, Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics,
20:56
Speaker 1: what would the arson investigator do Now, well, let me
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Speaker 1: tell you what they're going to do, Nancy. The thing
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Speaker 1: about it is, remember how we talked about earlier on
21:04
Speaker 1: with that first fire, that there was a smell of
21:08
Speaker 1: gasoline there. Well, what this individual has done they have
21:12
Speaker 1: left back. They have left in place a specific chemical signature.
21:16
Speaker 1: What that means is that if this person is very
21:21
Speaker 1: used to this, this is they're returning to the trough,
21:23
Speaker 1: if you will. They're going to try to connect Kim
21:27
Speaker 1: at a chemical level at least, and this is just
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Speaker 1: one of the things they're going to try to connect.
21:31
Speaker 1: Is there a match between the accelerant used at the
21:34
Speaker 1: first case and the second case, And again that's going
21:37
Speaker 1: to go into the thread that's weaving all of this together.
21:40
Speaker 1: You couple that with the behaviors. For instance, let me
21:44
Speaker 1: give you another piece here. If that pipe was disconnected
21:48
Speaker 1: with the same tool, for instance, remember we're talking about
21:52
Speaker 1: them being familiar with this and being comfortable, there might
21:55
Speaker 1: very well be little inventions along that nut that match
22:00
Speaker 1: up to the same tool, maybe use the same thing.
22:03
Speaker 1: And again we could call it a tool mark expert
22:05
Speaker 1: for something like that. You know, another factor is that
22:08
Speaker 1: these are only one block from each other. It's not
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Speaker 1: like they're ten miles, They're one block. And I love
22:15
Speaker 1: using the example of Robert Blake the killer I A
22:20
Speaker 1: Robert Blake barretta movie star, Robert Blake. His wife Bonnie
22:26
Speaker 1: Lee Bakeley shot dead behind a restaurant while he and
22:31
Speaker 1: she had been inside eating at the Italian restaurant Vitellis,
22:34
Speaker 1: that was the name of it. She goes to the car,
22:38
Speaker 1: he walks her, then he has to come back and
22:40
Speaker 1: to the restaurant and boot. While he's gone, she's shot dead.
22:43
Speaker 1: The point is the murder weapon has found a couple
22:48
Speaker 1: a few yards away from the murder and a dumpster.
22:52
Speaker 1: So the killer is somebody that couldn't get too far
22:56
Speaker 1: away from the crime scene to dispose of the murder weapon.
23:00
Speaker 1: So that drastically narrows down your pool of suspects, I e.
23:05
Speaker 1: Robert Blake. So in this case you have someone committee
23:10
Speaker 1: two arsons within one block. Joe Scott, do you remember
23:15
Speaker 1: the guy in Florida that was shooting people off bus
23:20
Speaker 1: routes they get off the bus had follow him and
23:23
Speaker 1: shoot him dead. He killed multiple people that way, we
23:26
Speaker 1: knew it had to be somebody that took that bus,
23:29
Speaker 1: or familiar with the neighborhood because they were also close together.
23:32
Speaker 1: So what does it tell you these two arson scenes
23:35
Speaker 1: where they literally blow up the place with people in
23:39
Speaker 1: it or try to what does that tell you about
23:42
Speaker 1: the purp Well, it goes to comfort Nancy again, this
23:45
Speaker 1: idea that they're familiar with this geographical area. There's a
23:50
Speaker 1: high likelihood that if they don't live there, they at
23:53
Speaker 1: least frequent that area on a daily or weekly basis.
23:56
Speaker 1: They know the streets, they know the comings and goings
23:59
Speaker 1: of the individual. They have an opportunity also to target
24:02
Speaker 1: individuals in that location. Remember, these things are revolved by
24:07
Speaker 1: around individuals that are within your circle. Many times, those
24:11
Speaker 1: things that you can see, those things that you interact
24:13
Speaker 1: with all the time, and there is a comfort level.
24:16
Speaker 1: This is completely different, say, for instance, where we have
24:18
Speaker 1: a serial killer that's roaming the entire nation. Those are
24:22
Speaker 1: the exception as opposed to the norm. This serialized event
24:25
Speaker 1: right here goes to familiarity with that location. You're absolutely right,
24:30
Speaker 1: it's not just setting a field on fire. Like doctor
24:33
Speaker 1: Angela Arnold was talking about earlier, the thrill that some
24:37
Speaker 1: people would get from that. These are targeted individuals in
24:41
Speaker 1: their home. So let's look at the individuals. What's the
24:45
Speaker 1: common factor? Then police start thinking back thinking. Listen to
24:51
Speaker 1: our friend at a dateline on the night of the fire,
24:55
Speaker 1: the detective told Ldell Scott Perk had casually added a
24:59
Speaker 1: titalizing detail to his life story. Scott, just out of
25:05
Speaker 1: the blue says to me, well, his first wife had
25:09
Speaker 1: committed suicide in nineteen eighty five, and she was pregnant,
25:13
Speaker 1: nine months pregnant. As if, like, you know, not only
25:17
Speaker 1: is my house in embers, but this isn't even the
25:20
Speaker 1: worst thing that happened to me. I was shocked. So
25:23
Speaker 1: as his home is burning and he saved his family,
25:27
Speaker 1: he casually mentions, this isn't the worst thing that ever
25:30
Speaker 1: happened to me. My wife committed suicide when she was
25:33
Speaker 1: nine months pregnant. Now right there, stop everything. The method
25:44
Speaker 1: and assessment of homicide and suicide is very clear statistically,
25:48
Speaker 1: and I talk about statistics a lot because they can't
25:50
Speaker 1: lie statistically Richard Trunt's PI former Cop Crispin Special Investigation. Statistically,
26:00
Speaker 1: it is almost statistically impossible that a female nine months
26:08
Speaker 1: pregnant and that social strata is going to commit suicide.
26:18
Speaker 1: It's what just sticks out, I mean, out of the
26:21
Speaker 1: clear blue. This guy mentions he lost his wife to suicide.
26:25
Speaker 1: But the nine months, I think is what really stuck
26:29
Speaker 1: out to the investigator really jumped out at him when
26:31
Speaker 1: he mentioned that nine months. That is not common or
26:34
Speaker 1: anybody commit suicide, especially when you're nine months pregnant, not
26:38
Speaker 1: at all. You're overwhelming in a desire is to protect
26:44
Speaker 1: the child. So that suddenly comes back to one of
26:50
Speaker 1: the cops, and the cops starts thinking about it. Take
26:53
Speaker 1: a listen to Dave Matt Crime Online. On the morning
26:55
Speaker 1: of March eighteenth, nineteen eighty five, Meg Perk, twenty four
26:59
Speaker 1: years old and nine months pregnant, woke up not feeling well.
27:02
Speaker 1: According to her husband Scott, he called the doctor and
27:04
Speaker 1: he got her an appointment. Then he took a bath.
27:07
Speaker 1: While he was in the tub, he saw Meg walk
27:09
Speaker 1: by the bathroom down the hallway. About five minutes later,
27:12
Speaker 1: Scott gets out of the tub and calls out for
27:14
Speaker 1: his wife. Getting no reply, he walks down the hall
27:16
Speaker 1: and he sees Meg hanging from a banister with a
27:19
Speaker 1: rope tied around her neck, grabbing a knife from a
27:21
Speaker 1: nearby table. Scott Perk cuts his wife down and calls
27:24
Speaker 1: EMS and begins performing CPR. When EMS crews arrive a
27:28
Speaker 1: few minutes later, Scott Perk meets them at the door.
27:31
Speaker 1: Meg Perk is taken to the hospital, where her baby
27:33
Speaker 1: is declared dead. Megperk hangs on for another twenty four hours,
27:37
Speaker 1: but on March nineteenth, nineteen eighty five, Meg Perk dies.
27:40
Speaker 1: The assistant Summit County Corner Doctor Robert Uise rules her
27:44
Speaker 1: death suicide by hanging. There's so many things about that
27:48
Speaker 1: that are wrong. Time stories with Nancy Grace. Guys were
28:07
Speaker 1: talking about two Arson's one block apart. But what does
28:12
Speaker 1: that have to do with a pregnant woman that commits
28:16
Speaker 1: suicide at nine months too? Joe Scott Morgan death investigator.
28:22
Speaker 1: What's the difference between a medical examiner and a coroner? Well,
28:25
Speaker 1: the coroners are elected, Nancy, and they're all over the country.
28:29
Speaker 1: They don't have to be forensic pathologist. And this guy,
28:33
Speaker 1: this Ruise guy that did this initial assessment and this
28:37
Speaker 1: examination on this woman. Hey, listen, let me ask you something, Nancy.
28:41
Speaker 1: If you had to have heart surgery, would you go
28:43
Speaker 1: to a surgeon that had never been trained in heart surgery. Well,
28:47
Speaker 1: this guy did the autopsy. He had never had any
28:49
Speaker 1: training in forensic pathology at all. And when you're talking
28:53
Speaker 1: about somebody that has hung themselves, these cases are very
28:56
Speaker 1: delicate because you have to be able to have the
28:59
Speaker 1: tools at command to assess the injuries around the neck.
29:02
Speaker 1: But we heard a lot about that over the past
29:04
Speaker 1: couple of years, and so this is critical in this case,
29:07
Speaker 1: and this is what created the problem this case to
29:10
Speaker 1: begin with. This guy had no training and should not
29:13
Speaker 1: have been doing this assessment. It's a very delicate procedure
29:17
Speaker 1: when you are talking about or examining injuries to the neck.
29:22
Speaker 1: Think of Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein, in the controversy even now
29:27
Speaker 1: that's going on. Did he commit suicide or was he murdered?
29:30
Speaker 1: Because when you hang, you expect a U shape ligature
29:36
Speaker 1: marking around the neck and it is theorized and evidence
29:41
Speaker 1: shows Epstein's markings were straight across. So what do we
29:49
Speaker 1: find out? How difficult is it to get her body
29:52
Speaker 1: exom Take a listen to our friends at dateline. In
29:56
Speaker 1: September twenty eleven, the remarkably well preserved by of Meg
30:00
Speaker 1: and her baby son were exhumed. It was amazing. Tax
30:05
Speaker 1: she meet her. It really was thinking that, you know,
30:08
Speaker 1: we are going to do her and her family justice.
30:10
Speaker 1: She was holding that baby in her arms in the casket. Yes,
30:15
Speaker 1: hard to see. It is very tough. It really it
30:19
Speaker 1: brings everything home. A lot had changed since that day
30:26
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, when the Summit County coroner had
30:29
Speaker 1: declared Meg's death a suicide. First of all, instead of
30:34
Speaker 1: a coroner, the county now had a board certified medical examiner.
30:39
Speaker 1: The staff was all new that her trained. Forensic technology
30:43
Speaker 1: was much improved, and thanks to an excellent embalming job,
30:49
Speaker 1: the marks on Meg's body were still there. To get
30:54
Speaker 1: a body exom is, somehow sometimes a very difficult thing.
30:58
Speaker 1: You've got to go through a lot of legal hurdle.
31:00
Speaker 1: The next of ken is the one that typically goes
31:04
Speaker 1: along or opposes it. But technically, once a body has
31:09
Speaker 1: been entombed, it then belongs oftentimes to the state, so
31:14
Speaker 1: it could be up to a judge solely as to
31:16
Speaker 1: whether exhimation is appropriate. We're hearing when her body was exhumed,
31:23
Speaker 1: this is Perk's wife that committed suicide at nine months pregnant.
31:27
Speaker 1: They could still see the markings on her throat. What
31:33
Speaker 1: did they discover to leave I page? What did they
31:36
Speaker 1: learn about the markings on her throat? So, Nancy, the
31:40
Speaker 1: body of Margaret per Se, it was well preserved and
31:44
Speaker 1: it had actually shown the injuries to her throat, and
31:48
Speaker 1: it was consistent with strangulation because investigators looked at her
31:52
Speaker 1: neck and the bruising was going in a downward direction
31:57
Speaker 1: instead of an upward direction, as if she had hanged
32:02
Speaker 1: herself with a rope. It was going in the direction
32:05
Speaker 1: of someone holding her throat down, strangling the life out
32:09
Speaker 1: of her eat Morgan. One of the one of the
32:12
Speaker 1: theories is is that this was more consistent with her
32:16
Speaker 1: as opposed to having a rope having a belt around
32:19
Speaker 1: her neck, Nancy. And this is something that's commonly seen
32:23
Speaker 1: with a literature strangulation, where we're talking about whether the
32:28
Speaker 1: noose itself or the apparatus is pulled downward and you
32:33
Speaker 1: create a mark that is more parallel to the shoulders,
32:37
Speaker 1: whereas with hanging we have what's referred to as the tinting,
32:41
Speaker 1: and I mean like an old fashioned tent pup tent
32:44
Speaker 1: tinting feature where it comes to a point above the head.
32:47
Speaker 1: So this is that's absent, so they miss this in
32:50
Speaker 1: the initial autopsy. And the fact that this body was
32:53
Speaker 1: so well embombed is really the saving grace in here, Nancy.
32:57
Speaker 1: That literally freezes the time. It freezes the time so
33:03
Speaker 1: that you can still see the hemorrhage from all these
33:05
Speaker 1: years back. And they were able to appreciate this because
33:08
Speaker 1: now they've got a board certified forensic pathologists looking at
33:12
Speaker 1: this case. And what, if anything can you tell me
33:15
Speaker 1: about a bruise that was discovered on Margaret Anne Perk's
33:19
Speaker 1: back at the small the bottom of her back. It
33:22
Speaker 1: was determined that somebody had their knee on her body
33:26
Speaker 1: and was holding her down as they were strangling her
33:29
Speaker 1: with an object similar to a belt. So how do
33:32
Speaker 1: we fee I am thinking, jos Goot Morgan. She's got
33:35
Speaker 1: the bruising at the bottom of her back, and she's
33:38
Speaker 1: got ligature markings that instead of going up like a
33:43
Speaker 1: you that she would have from hanging, is going sideways
33:47
Speaker 1: or even a little bit down like someone's pulling her back. Now,
33:52
Speaker 1: the only way to prove that is to experiment and
33:57
Speaker 1: reperform the autopsy. To leave my page, what can you
34:00
Speaker 1: tell me they cops did regarding the banister from which
34:06
Speaker 1: she hung herself. So this banister, all those years later
34:12
Speaker 1: this happened, the suicide, alleged suicide happened in nineteen eighty five.
34:19
Speaker 1: All these years later, in around twenty eleven, they actually
34:23
Speaker 1: tried to see if this banister would hold together if
34:27
Speaker 1: someone hung themselves, and it would not indentation marks at
34:33
Speaker 1: the very least on that banister. And they ended up
34:35
Speaker 1: finding another banister exactly like that one and doing the
34:41
Speaker 1: test on it, and they learned there would have been
34:44
Speaker 1: at least indentations. And they're thinking back on what Perk
34:48
Speaker 1: said about how he was in the shower, I think
34:50
Speaker 1: and he saw her walk by. So who breaks into
34:53
Speaker 1: the house and kills his wife in this manner while
34:55
Speaker 1: he is in the shower. Then they start thinking back
35:00
Speaker 1: about the night the Perk home went up in flames.
35:03
Speaker 1: Listen to Dave Mack. Sergeant Ken Mifflin gets Scott Perk
35:06
Speaker 1: to join him in his warm car while they watch
35:08
Speaker 1: crews try to put out the fire. As they talk,
35:11
Speaker 1: Perk tells the sergeant that he recently lost his job,
35:13
Speaker 1: the family is in serious debt, and the insurance company
35:16
Speaker 1: told him to videotape everything in the house in case
35:18
Speaker 1: of fire. Mifflin asks how recently, Perk says recent. Mifflin
35:23
Speaker 1: notices the family van parked in the driveway appears loaded
35:26
Speaker 1: down with stuff, and Perk tells him that he was
35:28
Speaker 1: taking a trip to North Carolina with his son to
35:30
Speaker 1: his irrelatives. As Mifflin looks at items in the van,
35:33
Speaker 1: he sees old family photos, family cookbooks that have been
35:36
Speaker 1: in the family for generations, not things one would normally
35:39
Speaker 1: take on a vacation. And to you, very quickly, Richard Trumps,
35:42
Speaker 1: I learned that day one in arson investigations, one guy
35:46
Speaker 1: prosecuted had taken every one of his fancy suits to
35:49
Speaker 1: the cleaners, moved all his shoes, all of his personal
35:53
Speaker 1: family photos of his not his wives, and a lot
35:57
Speaker 1: of other things valuable to him, and then whoops, the
35:59
Speaker 1: fires started. That's one of the first things investigators look for.
36:02
Speaker 1: His has a Perk removed personal belongings. Well, that just
36:06
Speaker 1: completely jumps out at you. You know, the guy's taking
36:09
Speaker 1: things out of his house that he wants to keep,
36:12
Speaker 1: and then gives a story that, oh, I, you know,
36:14
Speaker 1: we put everything in the van because we're going on
36:16
Speaker 1: a trip, a trip with all the family photos and cookbooks.
36:20
Speaker 1: Richard trumps, you're right again. So guys, they take another
36:24
Speaker 1: careful listen to the nine one one call. Listen to
36:27
Speaker 1: our friends at dateline. It was a few days after
36:30
Speaker 1: the fire at Scott Perk's house that Stowe's chief arson investigator,
36:33
Speaker 1: Jim Lydell, back from vacation, called Detective Ken Mifflin and
36:39
Speaker 1: he says, you've got to hear this, and he so
36:42
Speaker 1: he played me the nine one one tape. Jaley Mifflin
36:48
Speaker 1: had heard something on that initial nine one one call
36:51
Speaker 1: from Scott Perk's daughter, something he wanted Lidell to hear too.
36:56
Speaker 1: During a long Scott Perk can be heard called whispering
37:00
Speaker 1: to someone, Oh god, you're he's talking about a pet ferret,
37:07
Speaker 1: and his tone seemed to be more rueful oversight than
37:12
Speaker 1: anguished alarm. That was a bit of a flag a flag.
37:17
Speaker 1: Oh no, you forgot the ferret. You forgot the ferret.
37:22
Speaker 1: Obviously they were trying to take belongings and pets out
37:26
Speaker 1: of the home. A throwaway comment snares a killer arson
37:31
Speaker 1: suspect makes detect us suspicious when he starts talking about
37:36
Speaker 1: his pregnant wife that commits suicide. Years and years before then,
37:40
Speaker 1: A careful listening to that nine one one tape blows
37:44
Speaker 1: the case wide open, LEVI, Page where is Scott Perk now? So?
37:49
Speaker 1: Nancy Scott Perk pled guilty to arson, attempted murder, child endangerment.
37:56
Speaker 1: Remember his kids were young teenagers, one, sixteen, one, twelve,
38:01
Speaker 1: and he was sentenced to twenty eight years in prison
38:05
Speaker 1: for that arson. Not only the arson to his home, Nancy,
38:09
Speaker 1: but that arson that happened a block away. And you
38:12
Speaker 1: know how police knew that he was responsible for that arson.
38:16
Speaker 1: He had moved his family to an apartment complex, and
38:20
Speaker 1: the night of that arson, they went to the apartment
38:23
Speaker 1: complex and examined all the cars in that apartment complex.
38:27
Speaker 1: All of them had frost on them because it was
38:31
Speaker 1: so called, except his vehicle. It had no frost on it,
38:35
Speaker 1: which means that night he had driven somewhere. Amazing police work.
38:41
Speaker 1: So the night when the second fire happens, they go
38:45
Speaker 1: to his place and his car's the only won the
38:47
Speaker 1: parking lot without snow and frost on it, in fact,
38:50
Speaker 1: is still warm. Inside they find muddy boots and a
38:56
Speaker 1: gas can inside perks home. LEVI, what about the charge
39:03
Speaker 1: of the murder of Margaret Anne per pregnant with his child. Yes,
39:08
Speaker 1: so he went to trial on that Nancy, and he
39:13
Speaker 1: was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for
39:17
Speaker 1: strangling her with a belt. Well, here's one that didn't
39:22
Speaker 1: get away. Nancy Gray's crime story, signing off goodbye friend,