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Body Bags: The Last Thanksgiving · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Since I was a
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: young boy, I've been fascinated by true crime. And one
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: of the first cases that ever kind of caught my
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: attention involved a serial killer over in England that was
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: eventually hung executed, if you will, for some deaths that
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: he had perpetrated. He attempted to get rid of those
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: bodies with acid. The case I'm going to talk to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: you about today is unbelievable and it involves acid as well.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Backs back
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: with me again today is my friend Jackie Howard, executive
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: producer of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Jackie tell us
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: about this case, Joe. The case today is the death
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: of Joel and Lisa Guy. They were planning their last
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: family Thanksgiving in their Knox home. The Guys were planning
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: to retire and had sold the home. They were moving
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: to the family homestead in Upper East Tennessee. Lisa was
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: still working, but her co workers had planned a retirement
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: party for her. But when Lisa didn't show up and
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: didn't answer her home telephone or cell phone, they called
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the Knox County Sheriff's department for a wellness check. The
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: detectives that went to the home knocked on the front door,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: rang the doorbell, but there was no response. When co
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: workers were still unable to reach Lisa, they called the
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Sheriff's department again for the second time in about an hour,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and at that time police were able to enter the
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: home through the garage door. They found an unlocked vehicle
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: with a rodge door opener inside and used it to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: enter the home. As soon as they entered the home,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: they were hit with an intense heat. The stove was on,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: there was a strange chemical odor was very overbearing, and
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: at that point they realized something was very very wrong.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: As they headed up the stairs, they found large amounts
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: of blood and a scene that just became more gruesome.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Yes they did, Jackie. Can you even begin to imagine
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: You're kind of going about your daily business as a
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: police officer, patroling the street, you know, trying to look
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: out for the people in the community, and then you
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: get summoned to this location and you know, any kind
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of domestic environment. And it's well known this has been
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: said over and over and over again, how dangerous a
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: domestic squabble or problem is for any police officer to
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: walk into. But you get there, they have to make
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: their way into the house and then suddenly it's not
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: necessarily that it's what you see initially. It's the fact
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: that as you open this door there's a tremendous amount
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: of heat that just kind of rushes out at you
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: and kind of slaps you in the face, and it
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: is rather shocking. And then coupled with that is this
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: overwhelming chemical odor that to some has I think given
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the indication that it would make you light headed, because
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I do know this. As the day progressed, the police
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: suddenly realized that they had a need out at the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: scene for their investigators to show up in protective gear,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: you know that had like respirators wearing these on their back,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: because the environment that they were entering into was so
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: very hostile jacking. As the police officers investigated, what they
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: found were dismembered body parts. Joel Gray's hands were found
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: in a hallway, and they found the mother's head boiling
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: in a pot on the stove. The father's torso was
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: in a plastic tote submerged in a chemical bath. So
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not really sure where to start. Joe the dismemberment
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: or the chemicals trying to be used to dispose of
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the evidence. I think you you just pose the same
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: question that the investigators probably posed themselves. You know, where
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: where in the world do we start with this case?
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Because not only do you have this this chemical smell
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: that's coming out, and it's kind of affecting your ability
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: to probably even think clearly because you're you're worried, You're
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: you're worried about your own personal safety in this environment.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Heat is going to make you uncomfortable, and then you're
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: kind of shocked in your mind's eye this uh, with
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: this blood bath that is a sent present at the scene,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: You've got areas of what would be consistent with the
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: body having been present in a specific spot, bleeding out
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: or maybe having the blood drained from it. There's a
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: large kind of damp area of focal areas we refer
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: to it on the carpet surface, and then you have
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: dynamic blood staining on the walls as well. Most of
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: it looks like it's low velocity perhaps or kind of
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: drippings that are on not only the handrails but also
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: kind of seeping down the walls in specific locations and
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: then you know, you come across, you come across a
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: pair of hands, Jackie. Can you just imagine just for
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a second, the thought of walking up you're in this home.
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  Speaker 1: And remember I've said this before on body bags. For
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: us as forensics people, we're always having to view the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: abnormal in the context of the normal. This is not
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: like some a slaughterhouse or something like that. This is
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a domicile that family actually in dwell as they live in.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: There's family pictures about, there's evidence of life being lived
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: in this environment. Here you are in this blood saturated area,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: horrible odors and dismembered body parts all over the place.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: So it is certainly herculean task I think probably for
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: the investigators to begin to kind of work their way
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: through it. And you know what's kind of striking about
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: this case is the fact that, you know, most of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the time forensic pathologists do not come out to crime scenes,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and in this particular case, you had a situation where
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: there was a potential for what we refer to as
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: co mingling of remains, where you have more than one
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: body and the parts are dissected out they're lying about.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: There's remains, you know, dissected limbs that are lying about
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the house. And so the forensic pathologists they felt as
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: though they needed them out there to kind of to
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: help guide the investigators through a scene so that they
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: could process it appropriately, so they could account literally for
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: each and every remain that they were finding at the scene.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: So the acid that was being used, the caustic substance
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: was muriatic acid. Number one, what is it? Number two?
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: What does it due to a body? And number three,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: how do you determine a true cause of death after
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: a body has been subjected to this? The acid that
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: was being used is actually a diluted form of hydrochloric acid,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and it's the muriatic acid is actually an acid that's
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: easily acquired. It's probably it's something that you could go
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: to any big box store and pick up. Many times
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you'll find it in drain cleaners, for instance, and I'm
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: talking about sewer line sewer lines that have gotten backed up.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: The problem is is that the individual that's using it
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: just you know, you're every day working a person that's
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: going to apply this to a clog drain. Even on
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the labels on these things, it says, look, you've really
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: got to be careful with this, because this is something
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: that's used as to remove corrosion, to remove blockages and
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: sewer lines, to actually you could apply it actually into
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: onto the floor in your garage if you so chose to,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: if you have a big oil or grease stain there,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: to try to get it up. And this isn't the
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: worst of it. The worst of it is the fact
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: that there were also other chemicals present, and the police
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: at the time had described this as a toxic soup
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: because it was not just the acid, but this was
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: commingled with bleach as well as well as hydrogen peroxide.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: And you know, when you think about hydrogen peroxide, one
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: of the things that kind of bounces around in people's minds,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: and it does. You can't use it for this per
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: is if you have a blood stain, you can apply
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: hydrogen peroxide to try to get it off your clothes.
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  Speaker 1: And it's almost like the individual that's putting this together
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: is attempting to create this kind of interesting recipe that
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: is going to solve all of the problems. We want
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: to get rid of blood evidence, maybe get rid of DNA,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and also we want to try to render down a
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: human body, and that in and of itself is no
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: small undertaking. Okay, So the second part of that question was, Joe,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: what does this acid due to a body? Does it?
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: It dissolves the skin and the muscle, But what does
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: it do to the bone. Well, yeah, it can. You know,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: first off, let's let's talk about what it would do
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  Speaker 1: to a living person if you if you contacted this
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: on your skin. At the very top of the list
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: are chemical burns. It will it will actually blister your skin.
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  Speaker 1: It creates a situation where your skin will begin to
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  Speaker 1: literally ulcate. It's it's very very harmful, not to mention
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: you know, the noxious odors. It can create lung damage,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: all these things, and it is a corrosive substance that's
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: going to eat away any kind of soft tissue. So
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: once it gets down to the bone, after the soft
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: tissue is gone, at that point in time, it's also
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: going to impact the bone as well as it begins
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  Speaker 1: to compromise the structural integrity of the bone and potentially
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: eradicate any kind of evidence that might be there. The one,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the one thing that can prevent this is time. You know,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: how quickly can you get to the body to kind
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: of stem stem this chemical change that's taking place at
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: that point when you have that chemical change taking place
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  Speaker 1: and evidence is destroyed and the muscle structure that has
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: been destroyed. So how do you go about Joe finding
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: out the cause of death. Well, you know that probably
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: from a forensic standpoint in this particular case, one of
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  Speaker 1: the things that may have happened is that this process
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  Speaker 1: of compromising the tissue, you know, to get rid of
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  Speaker 1: any evidence of injuries, may have been diminished somewhat because
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: of the mixture. If the individual that had bathed these
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: bodies in pure hydrochloric acid there ends probably would have
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: been better served through bathing the bodies in pure hydrochloric
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: acid as opposed to this kind of toxic soup that's
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: going on at this point in time. You're stemming the
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  Speaker 1: actual chemical reaction that occurs when pure acid is applied
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: to the body. So you throw bleach on top of that,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: you put in hydrochloric acid, and anything else that this
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: individual may have been applying, you're creating a problem for
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the chemical reaction to go forward at that point time. Now,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: not to say that this is a caustic, because it
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  Speaker 1: still has impact on the tissue, but the acid is
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: not being utilized to its fullest effect because it has
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: been diluted to this point. What about the heat component
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to this, Joe. When the police officers arrived, every thermostat
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: in the house was turned on high, as well as
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: space heaters throughout the house were turned on high. What
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: did this do? How did this affect the bodies? And
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: was this an attempt to cause a fire? Well, there's
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: one thing that you forgot to mention there. We've also
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: got a big pot on the stove that's boiling. And
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: anybody that's ever been in a kitchen that's had a
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: pot that's been going for a protracted period of time,
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  Speaker 1: the one thing that you know is that that is
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: an incredible heat source, particularly in the immediate area. I
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily think that this was an attempt to burn
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: the house down. Necessarily. I think that it may be
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: an attempt to speed the process of decomposition. And that's
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: why I love forensic science, Jackie. That's that is plain
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and simple why I love this because in medical legal
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: death investigation, one of the things that's played out in
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the realm of physical science that we learn from. You know,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: we learn physical science when we're very young, is that
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: we do know that every experiment most of the time
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: that you engage in in school. You remember when you
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: got an alcohol burner or a Bunsen burner, you turn
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: it on and you've got that little blue flame that's
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: coming out and it's you know, you're heating the mixture up. Well,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: this is what we do know, is that heat will
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: speed a process up, and particularly decomposition. Heat just makes
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: heat causes the pace of decomposition to increase exponentially. And
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: a very specific example is as you well know, I
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: started my career in new Lands, all right. It is
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a tropical subtropical environment, and their bodies that I would
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: examine down there for the corner's office would begin to
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: break down much more quickly than say bodies in other
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: regions of the country. So heat does in fact impact this.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I can only imagine that the heat was left at
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: this level in order to speed this process. One of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the things that sticks with me about this case is
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: that one of the police officers actually stated, and I'm
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: paraphrasing a bit, but they actually stated that this scene
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: is something that they will never ever get out of
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: their mind. And I can I can understand that that
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: you walk into this environment and you see this much destruction,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: you see this much horror, and you know, you begin
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: to think about what in the world went on in
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: this house. Well, we do know, Joe that it was brutal.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Joel Guy Senior had been stabbed forty two times, but
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: there was much more damage done to his body. The
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: mutilation and dismemberment was severe. Yeah, it was Jackie, and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: you know that's evidenced out and what you're seeing at
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the scene. I've seen the crime scene photographs from this
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: particular case, and as I had earlier mentioned, there is
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of evidence of the blood dynamics that went
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: on during this event. We have everything from kind of
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: passive blood flow, you know, where you get this seepage
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: that comes out as as a body rest in one
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: particular spot, and then there's kind of the more telling
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: blood staining that's going on where you have contact blood
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: that's kind of dripping down the walls, maybe some low
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: velocity blood that's kind of cast off, if you will,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: and that happens many times. Would stab injuries, and particularly
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: when you have forty two of these, it would take
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of physical energy for a perpetrator to
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: wield a knife forty two times, burying it in to
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: an individual's body. And you know, this is not something
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that's done in a passive form because the person Joel Senior,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: would have been fighting back. So it's a dynamic event
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: where you've got wrestling that's going on, you've got reaction
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: that's going on, you've got an individual that's trying to
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: fend the individual off that's attacking them. And you know,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the forensic pathologists rightly stated that there were any number
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: of defensive injuries on Joel Senior's hand ends and his arms.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: He had an awareness that this was actually occurring to
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: him as a result of these little insults that he
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: had all over his arms where he's trying to fend
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: off this attack being stabbed forty two times. We know
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: that his lungs, liver, and kidneys were damaged. So, depending
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: on the size of the knife, how hard would the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: stabbings have to have been or does it just depend
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: on the size of the knife. You know, damage that's
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: inflicted is heavily depended upon the position of the victim
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: in relation to the attacker. So and let me give
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: you an example. Let's say, for instance, an individual is
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: charging you and you're standing upright at this moment in time,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the stab wound that you would sustain in this particular
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: posture might not necessarily be as deep as say the
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: following stab wounds. When you've been forced to the floor,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: you're bleeding out, and now the individual has leverage over you.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: They're lifting the knife above their head and they're driving
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: it into your body. So he's got a tremendous number
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: of injuries. As you mentioned, Jackie, we're talking about the lungs,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the liver, and the kidneys, and to get to the kidneys,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: if you try to do this anteriorly, and of course
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: anterilly means on the front, you would have to use
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: such force to get through all of the tissue because
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the kidneys are oriented to the rear of the body.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: So he's probably got stab wounds all over the body
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: his total circumference. He's rolling around, he's writhing on the floor.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: These are tremendous injuries. When it comes to his dismemberment, Joe,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: his hands were severed at the wrist, his arms at
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: this shoulder blade, his legs at the hip, and his
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: right foot at the ankle. Do you believe that this
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: was an attempt to make the body small enough to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: fit into the storage totes so that it can all faster. Yeah,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: there's a lot that we can tell by virtue of
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the way this body was dismembered. And it's interesting that
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the body was dismembered at these critical joints. Uh. You know,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: lots of times with dismemberments, you'll see individuals that will
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: take sauce, for instance, and try to go safer. Instance,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the femur, which is the long bone in your upper leg,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: they'll try to cut across the shaft of that bone.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: That that's not what this individual did. They actually went
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: to joints to try to take this body apart. We're
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: talking about the risks, remember that that was famously mentioned
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: also the shoulders, were talking about the hips, the knees,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: this sort of thing. So it's easier to facilitate this.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: And what happens is is that if you can get
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: a blade, and there were several blades found that the scene, Jackie,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: in addition to a pair of blood covered scissors, you
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: can cut through some of the connective tissue and literally
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: pull the body apart. At that point, of course, it's
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: going to take time to do this. In trying to
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: do this, the attempt here, I believe at least, is
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: to compartmentalize the body and to get it as compact
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: as possible to put it into this kind of rendering
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: ben if you will, where the body the tissue is
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: going to be placed into this area where you can
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: actually dissolve and eradicate the body. You're going to have
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: to do this because we're talking about a grown man here.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: He was not a small man, so you're going to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: have to make him as compact as possible so that
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: you can bathe his body in this caustic stew. The mother, Lisa,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: was stabbed thirty one times. Her legs were severed below
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the knee and her arms at the shoulder, and she
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: again had been decapitated. For lack of a better question,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: why yeah, and that kind of interesting. You know, we
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: know that Lisa, she was in fact decapitated, and of
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: course you know her head was actually found in this
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: pot on the stove where it would appear that the
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: individual is attempting to render down her head visa v this.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: But why her as opposed to Dad? Sometimes? You know,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I know that sometimes forensic psychologists will look at mutilation
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: of bodies and try to paint a picture relative to
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the psychopathology that's going on inside somebody's head. You know,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: an attempt to rip somebody to shreds and this sort
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: of thing, and you have to pause, I think as
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: an investigator, and begin to think, is this because they're
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: attempting to disfigure the body or is this just their
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: own economy if you will, to try to render it
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: down and make it as small as it possibly can.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: You know, when you take a look at the scene,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: people might think, well, this is a very ordered event.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: It's not. It seems kind of haphazard. You've got an
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: individual that has taken out a plastic sheet, laid it
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: on the ground, has put the tubs on top of
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the plastic sheet, and is rendering down those remains that
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: were found in those tubs in this solution. But yet
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: you still have random bits of bodies laying all over
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the place. There's all kinds of blood of it. It's everywhere.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: And also what's kind of unique. I watched the video
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: of the walkthrough of this scene, the crime scene walk through,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: and it's quite horrific. You'll see that there is like
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: a huge collection of chemicals that are literally downstairs in
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: an area that they had just kind of been piecemeal together.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: And you'll see all kinds of different containers down there,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: containing everything from bleach to drain cleaner to all of
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: these things. So there is a level of order to it,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: but there's also disorder, like it's kind of randomly thrown together.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: And this individuals trying to do this on the fly.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Both individuals Joe, as we've discussed, we're stabbed multiple times
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: and both saw injuries to their ribs. The mother at
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: least nine of her ribs were severed. The dad had
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: twelve marks on his ribs. How much force does it
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: take to leave that kind of damage to a bone
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: that still shows up after being soaked in acid. A
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of force, Jackie, and you'll get these They're
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: quite fascinating to see when you look at them on magnification.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: If everybody will, in the sound of my voice, will
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: visualize the shape of a V a V like the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: letter V. And when you're looking at a cross section
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: of this, that's what it appears to be went on
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: high magification, when you're looking at the edges of these ribs,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: and that v is the result of what's referred to
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: as a tool mark. That means that a single edged
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: sharp instrument has been inserted through the ribs. And yeah,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: you know, the the caustic substance, this acid bath, if
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: you will combine with bleach and hydrogen peroxide and all
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: these other items, it might very well compromise it. You
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: might not be able to appreciate it as much as
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: you would have been if that solution had not been applied. However,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: you can still appreciate it. And what's really fascinating about
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: this is that one of the most famous forensic anthropologists
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: in the country that specializes in tool mark examination on bone,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: doctor Steve Simms, was involved in this case and gave
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: kind of a painted a very dark picture of what
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: had actually taken place. And one more thing that's kind
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: of significant when we begin to think about the mother here,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: that doctor Simms and the friends of cathologist had noted
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: is that Lisa's head was not neatly dissected away from
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: her neck. As a matter of fact, she was decapitated
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: as a result of what they frame as blunt force trauma.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: That gives you an indication that either there was a
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of anger involved in this. They're trying to
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: maybe in a post mortem sense, disfigure the body, or
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: they got frustrated with trying to remove the head from
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the neck at what's referred to as the C one level.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: That's commonly that's the vertebra that immediately supports your skull.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Some people referred to it as the atlas. And there's
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: evidence that there was blunt force trauma. To my way
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: of thinking, the individual would have started and you'd probably
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: see tool marks on the bone as well. They probably
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: started with a knife trying to cut away the attachments
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: where the head attaches to the spine. They got frustrated,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: and probably more than likely they began to stomp on
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the back of the head until the head was dislodged
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: from the I gotta tell you, I don't think that
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I would have ever imagine myself talking about decapitation through
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: blunt force trauma. I mean, I've seen a thing or
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: two in my day. I've seen bodies decapitated, most frequently
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: in motor vehicle accidents. But you know, the pathologist and
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the forensic anthropologists painted such a horrible picture here, Jackie,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: where they're talking about blunt force trauma separating the head
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: from the rest of the body. Joe, what makes this
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: case even more heinous is to find out that these
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: murders were committed by Joel Guy Junior, Lisa and Joel
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Senior's twenty eight year old son. He had arrived with
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the family for a Thanksgiving dinner, and the intention was
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: to portray the fact that he was headed back to
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Louisiana after the holiday celebration. The sisters were planning to
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: get in touch with him to tell him what happened.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Then the police revealed what they had found. A backpack
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: in the home with the manifesto of everything that needed
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: to be done to complete these murders, as well as
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: video of Joel Guy Junior at local stores buying an
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: aseptic peroxide, band aids bandages to treat his own wounds
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: from committing these murders. What do we understand, Joe, about
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: these murders from the details in that manifesto? What was
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: in it? Oh? My lord, I don't know that I'll
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: ever be able to get this out of my mind.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: You know, I've read this several times, and you know
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: you sit here and you meditate on this for a
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: little bit, you know, when you're trying to put this
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: together and try to understand what's going on in somebody's mind.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: This guy actually laid this thing out. He had made
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: notes very conscious of what he wanted to do. There's
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: there's no equivocation here, there's no there's nothing here to
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: say that, well, maybe he was not going to do this. No,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: he had. He had very specific plans in order to
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: not just kill, but to get rid of the bodies.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: And he's taken all things into consideration. And interestingly enough,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the police went on to later name this list as
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: a as the rather as the premeditation list, that those
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: are those things that he was considering that he would need.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about items everything, and it ranged from everywhere
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: from uh knives he identifies knives plural um and he
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: uses the term uh multiple. And also the fact that
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: what's kind of chilling about this, and this is actually
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: one of the first items as listed, is that he's
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: got the word quiet in there. Jackie. Just think about
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: that just for a second. When you're talking about quiet,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: that his idea is that to utilize a knife is
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: going to be quieter, say, for instance, than firing a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: gun and I guess if he was really skilled at
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: using a knife, that would be quite accurate. But as
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: you had mentioned, he's actually seen on CCTV walking into
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: a store in order to purchase antiseptic and bandages and
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: all these sorts of things. And do you know why,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: because like many people that wield knives, that he wound
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: up cutting himself and injuring himself. When you see the
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: fight that senior his father put up, the defensive injuries
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: that the father had, this kid essentially inflicted wounds on
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: himself with this edged weapon. He wound up cut in himself.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: And this happens many times in cases involving sharp force injury,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: you'll see perpetrats. That's one of the reasons why when
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: a suspect is arrested, we're very very careful to take
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: ventral views of the hands, the photographs, if you will,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and then take palmer aspects of the hands, so that
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: we can get all aspects of the hands, because many
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: times the hands will tell the tale. They will tell
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: you where the individual has been, what they've been engaged in.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: And in this case, there's this photograph that has risen
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: up of him actually being having following his arrest where
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: his hands are being photographed and you can quite literally
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: see the injuries that he has on the palmer aspects
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: of both hands. So there was quite a fight that
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: he was involved in. And he's really kind of, you know,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: kind of playing this out. It's almost like he's when
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: you read this list, he's thinking about things. It's not
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: just like, say, for instance, a grocery list, though there
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: are things that are listed in here, but he's talking
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: about he's got to get bleached in order to d
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: nature proteins. That means that he's got some idea as
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: to how we go about discovering DNA, so he's trying
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: to eradicate the proteins. He's talking about also things like
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: he needs plastic sheets in order for the disposal process.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: He's talking about this. He even goes so far as
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: to use the term flush chunks down the toilet, not
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: garbage disposal. There have been many cases over the years
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: and cases that I've worked where individuals that attempt to
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: get rid of tissue. When they will put tissue into
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: garbage disposals and they flip the switch, what happens is
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: that specific tissue will get hung up on those little
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: teeth and you know, crime saying investigators, We've got all
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the time in the world, don't we We don't have
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: to go in and take our time and kind of
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: flash through things. We can actually take a part of
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: garbage disposal, get in there and recover tissue that's in there,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: and that tissue that we recover, you know, can be
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: traced back to its point of origin, and specifically we
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: can find we can harvest DNA from from that soft tissue.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: He had an awareness of all of this. One one
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: consideration that he has on his list is this idea
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: of he was thinking about going to the point of
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: flooding the house. I guess he was going to maybe
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: make the pipes burst or or just unleash water hose
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: inside the house to try to fill the house with
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: water in order to and he specifically talks about this,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: if he floods the house quote unquote, it covers up
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: forensic evidence. And that's that's kind of fascinating as well.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: And you know, when you're looking at this and you're thinking, well,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: how much thought and how long had he been thinking
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: about this prior to doing this. Remember it was just
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: literally days before days before that he had sat had
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: sat at table with his mom, his dad, his siblings
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: and enjoyed Thanksgiving. But you know you're sitting there and
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: you're thinking about him. Is he sitting there staring at
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: his parents, staring at his siblings, thinking how am I
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: going to facilitate this crime? I'm sitting here watching these
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: people eat, We're having conversations, we're talking about what's going
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: on over the past year, what's going on in our lives,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: and all the while, maybe that little seed is turning
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: in his mind and he decides that he's going to
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: go ahead and perpetrate this crime almost immediately after Thanksgiving
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: dinner has ended. Well, you're right about one thing, as
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I always show, you're usually right about everything. But you
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: are right about the fact about how long he had
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: been planning this crime, because the detailed nature of his
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: list shows that he had and spending copious amounts of
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: time trying to cover all of his spaces. As you said,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: get multiple knives, get a sledgehammer to crush the bones,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: bring a blender, get bleach the plastic binds. He even
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: notes that it doesn't matter whether they're killed, you just
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: have to get rid of the bloody spots. He notes
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: that his DNA is already throughout the house, so that
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: qualifies his DNA is there because that's where he lives.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: He also talks about opening up the doggie door as
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: a way for whoever did this to get into the house.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: So he spent lots of time trying to figure out
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the best way to make this happen for him not
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: to get caught. Yeah right, you are, Jackie, and you
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: know you have to wonder, you know's what's the end
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: game for this? And he is doing a lot of thinking.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Remember our friend Nancy Grace always says that famously, you know,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: she always says that intent, uh intent, premeditation perhaps can
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: be formed in a twinkling of an eye. And in
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: this particular case, he's had quite a bit of time
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: to kind of ruminate, if you will, on all of
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: these issues, to consider all of the possibilities that the
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: problem in this particular case for him logistically is that
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: it still wound up being very frenzied. You look at
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: this and you understand that he was able to recognize problems.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: He's just not good at bringing things to a resolution
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: and solving the problems. Hence, you know, for the guy
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: has never had a job He's always been dependent upon
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: his parents for everything in his life. Even at the
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: advanced age at twenty six, twenty eight years old that
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: he was, he was still living off of his parents.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: And I think that that goes to the bigger, bigger
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: picture here, that he was just incapable, incapable of inishing
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: anything in his life, even when it came down to
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the disposal of his parents' body. There was one more
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: note Joe on that list that certainly lays out the
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: framework for what you just said. He notes in his
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: list he's not alive to claim her half of the insurance,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: meaning his father money all mine, five hundred thousand dollars.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: This twenty eight year old son killed his mother and
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: father over money. I spend some time thinking about that
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: and how gruesome this crime was. That he would do
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: this to the two people that created him, essentially, you know,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: that he would just rip them to shreds and bathe
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: their bodies in acid after he had dismembered them in
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: their own home. And you know, I spent some time,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: you know, considering that. I thought, you know, yeah, he's
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: got five hundred thousand dollars listed as you know, the
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: end game if you will the motivation behind all of this,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and you really begin to think, you know, would that
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollars have been enough. Let's say that
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: he had gotten away with it, say that he had
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: laid claim to that five hundred thousand dollars. Would it
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: have still been enough? What would happen when he ran
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: through that? Would he go out and find more people
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: to absolutely eradicate. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Bodybacks