Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags: Dishonor Thy Father and Mother

Transcript

Body Bags: Dishonor Thy Father and Mother · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Body Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan. You've worked your entire
0:21
Speaker 1: life to make a home, to create a family, maybe
0:25
Speaker 1: even put away enough money to have a lakehouse somewhere
0:28
Speaker 1: where you can get away, get away from all of
0:31
Speaker 1: the every day the grind. But suddenly your life ends
0:35
Speaker 1: brutally at the end of a rifle, and then your
0:39
Speaker 1: body is dismembered. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is
0:48
Speaker 1: Body Backs. Joining me today is my good friend Jackie Howard,
0:57
Speaker 1: executive producer of Crime Stories. Would Nancy Grace joining me
1:03
Speaker 1: today is my good friend Jackie Howard, executive producer of
1:07
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, Jackie, what can you tell
1:11
Speaker 1: us about this case? Today? Twenty three year old Chander
1:14
Speaker 1: Halderson is charged with first degree intentional homicide, mutilating and
1:20
Speaker 1: hiding a corpse, and giving false information to authorities. Now.
1:25
Speaker 1: The tension between Halderson and his parents began after it
1:28
Speaker 1: was discovered that he had been lying about a variety
1:31
Speaker 1: of things, including attending Madison Area Technical College. It was
1:36
Speaker 1: Halderson who first reported that his parents were missing. He
1:39
Speaker 1: told police that they had intended to spend the weekend
1:42
Speaker 1: at their Lakeside cottage, but according to Chandler Halderson, they
1:46
Speaker 1: did not return as expected. That missing person report was
1:50
Speaker 1: made at approximately eleven thirty in the morning. He also
1:54
Speaker 1: told them that maybe they decided to go to a casino.
1:56
Speaker 1: He said their phones were off, or they had no reception,
2:00
Speaker 1: or maybe they were on a boat having some fun.
2:03
Speaker 1: What we find out is Blart and Krista Holderson are
2:06
Speaker 1: missing because their son has murdered them and dismembered the bodies. Joe,
2:11
Speaker 1: there were so much deception in this case, and that
2:16
Speaker 1: really caused a problem with the investigation. When you have
2:20
Speaker 1: so many lines that are being told, what do you do?
2:22
Speaker 1: How do you start an investigation like this? It's very difficult, Jackie.
2:27
Speaker 1: When you begin to think about it. It's one of
2:30
Speaker 1: these things where you, as as an investigator, you begin
2:34
Speaker 1: to look at it and you see it's almost like
2:36
Speaker 1: fishing line that gets tied in this massive night. Some
2:39
Speaker 1: people call it a bird's nest, and it's your job
2:43
Speaker 1: to go in there and begin to kind of take
2:46
Speaker 1: this thing apart very carefully. You don't want to tear
2:48
Speaker 1: it tear, you don't want to pull it apart to
2:53
Speaker 1: the point where you break it into pieces. You want
2:55
Speaker 1: to try to unravel it so that you can understand
2:59
Speaker 1: the time line, because that's what this is all about. Uh.
3:03
Speaker 1: You know, with this young man, he was specifically lying
3:07
Speaker 1: about timelines, and time is, as investigators, is the most
3:11
Speaker 1: important thing that we possess. It is the greatest asset
3:14
Speaker 1: that we have in any death investigation, in particular for
3:18
Speaker 1: a variety of reasons. You know, if you look at
3:20
Speaker 1: it from the forensic standpoint, you begin to think about
3:24
Speaker 1: the main One of the main questions they ask a
3:25
Speaker 1: death investigator is how long in fact has the individual
3:29
Speaker 1: been deceased. Well, when you when you have witnesses, and
3:32
Speaker 1: in this case, you have a son that's that possesses
3:36
Speaker 1: what you hope is firsthand knowledge, if he is giving
3:39
Speaker 1: you bad time information, then everything begins to get twisted.
3:43
Speaker 1: But here's here's the reverse of that. When you begin
3:47
Speaker 1: to when you finally get your hands on a body,
3:49
Speaker 1: for instance, and you begin to examine the body, the
3:53
Speaker 1: science says otherwise, okay, relative to the timeline, And that's
3:57
Speaker 1: one of the things that we look for. And many
3:59
Speaker 1: time criminals don't think about that. They don't think that
4:02
Speaker 1: the science can actually trip them up at the most
4:06
Speaker 1: simple level of science. You know, when we begin to
4:08
Speaker 1: talk about postmortem changes in decomposition and all those sorts
4:11
Speaker 1: of things, that's when the science doesn't marry up with
4:15
Speaker 1: a narrative that a potential perpetrators trying to sell to us.
4:18
Speaker 1: So we know that Chandler Holderson first reported his parents
4:22
Speaker 1: missing at eleven thirty that morning, and he said they
4:25
Speaker 1: could be with friends. He didn't know where they were,
4:28
Speaker 1: so the police started there, where did they go next?
4:31
Speaker 1: Since we don't have an idea who the couple is.
4:34
Speaker 1: Do they go to the home, to the farm that
4:36
Speaker 1: they were supposed to be at? Do they start looking
4:39
Speaker 1: for bank records? I mean, how do you start to
4:42
Speaker 1: form that timeline? Well, you know, you want to reach
4:45
Speaker 1: out to any of the principles that are in the
4:49
Speaker 1: life of the missing individual. And in this particular case
4:53
Speaker 1: with Krista and specifically her co workers had become concerned
4:58
Speaker 1: over the fact that that she hadn't turned up at
5:02
Speaker 1: work and you know, she's apparently very diligent and what
5:05
Speaker 1: she does she doesn't, you know, not come to work,
5:09
Speaker 1: So that is a head scratcher for them. She hadn't
5:12
Speaker 1: requested any kind of time, a time off at that
5:15
Speaker 1: point in time, and here he is, he's telling this
5:17
Speaker 1: story that well. First off, the story he said is
5:20
Speaker 1: that they had left with a mystery couple, Okay, that
5:22
Speaker 1: they were going to this a lake cottage that the
5:25
Speaker 1: family had, and he didn't know who the couple was.
5:29
Speaker 1: All right, how can you do that? You live with
5:32
Speaker 1: your parents, you don't know who they're who they're going
5:34
Speaker 1: off with. And when her co workers came to the house,
5:37
Speaker 1: they looked in the garage and they saw that both
5:39
Speaker 1: of the cars were there, so that was kind of
5:41
Speaker 1: a head scratcher for them. And then Chandler puts forth
5:45
Speaker 1: also that the family that his mom and dad had
5:48
Speaker 1: to go to the lake because of an emergency. They
5:52
Speaker 1: were going there to check on the cottage in order
5:55
Speaker 1: because there had been a big storm that had come
5:57
Speaker 1: through and they were going to go do repairs. And
5:59
Speaker 1: then the story just becomes bigger and bigger and bigger
6:03
Speaker 1: all along. And this is the trick, isn't it If
6:06
Speaker 1: you're trying to stay convincing when it comes to investigators.
6:12
Speaker 1: The more you add on to this, you can't remember
6:15
Speaker 1: the lies that you've already told. And so this is
6:18
Speaker 1: going to make alarm bells go off with the cops
6:21
Speaker 1: at any moment in time, and you have to be
6:23
Speaker 1: very very careful if you're the perpetrator, and it distracts you,
6:26
Speaker 1: doesn't it It distracts you from what the reality is
6:30
Speaker 1: versus what the story is that you're trying or the
6:33
Speaker 1: story that you're trying to sell them is. So it's
6:35
Speaker 1: kind of an odd situation to be in the first
6:37
Speaker 1: Live When Chandler reported that his parents were missing again,
6:41
Speaker 1: I just mentioned that, I know, but it's really important
6:44
Speaker 1: because his report was made on Wednesday, July seventh. That
6:49
Speaker 1: was when Chandler reported his parents missing again eleven thirty
6:53
Speaker 1: that morning. But the last time that Bart and Krista
6:57
Speaker 1: Holderson were seen was Life First twenty twenty one at
7:02
Speaker 1: their home. You would think that there would be more
7:05
Speaker 1: concerned with the fact that your parents did not come
7:08
Speaker 1: back when they said they were going to before six days. Yeah,
7:13
Speaker 1: you would think so, Jackie, that you know that you
7:17
Speaker 1: would have contact with him. Now, you know, Chandler's got
7:19
Speaker 1: a brother, an older brother that doesn't live at home.
7:22
Speaker 1: He's out on his own. This young man lives with
7:25
Speaker 1: his parents. He has an intimate relationship with them from
7:29
Speaker 1: a familial standpoint, you know, he kind of knows their
7:32
Speaker 1: comings and goings. That's why it's so odd about this
7:35
Speaker 1: mystery couple that they were supposed to have gone off
7:38
Speaker 1: with that he can't come up with a name for.
7:41
Speaker 1: How can you not keep track of your parents timeline?
7:45
Speaker 1: And why is it that you would wait six days, Jackie,
7:48
Speaker 1: six days to report your parents missing? I mean, this
7:52
Speaker 1: is these are people that he sees day in and
7:55
Speaker 1: day out. He knows what his father does for a living.
7:59
Speaker 1: He's an accountant, he knows his mom's schedule. He's fully
8:03
Speaker 1: aware of what's going on. And here's another wrinkle, and
8:06
Speaker 1: this is kind of interesting that, you know, it's kind
8:08
Speaker 1: of a head scratcher. Knowing what we know about Chandler's father.
8:14
Speaker 1: Chandler had put forth a narrative as well that that
8:19
Speaker 1: his mom and dad had gone to a casino. Well,
8:24
Speaker 1: just let me tell you, Bart Holderson, guess what he
8:28
Speaker 1: did for a living. He was an accountant. And according
8:32
Speaker 1: to his friends, the people that were quote unquote in
8:35
Speaker 1: his intimate circle, this guy knew every single scent that
8:41
Speaker 1: he had. He didn't spend money at all. Now for
8:45
Speaker 1: somebody that holds onto money like that that is fully
8:50
Speaker 1: aware of what they have in the bank. Going off
8:55
Speaker 1: to a casino rather spontaneously seems a bit frivolous, doesn't it.
9:00
Speaker 1: It does. And what compounds this web of lies is
9:04
Speaker 1: that Halderson told the police that he had messages between
9:10
Speaker 1: himself and his parents while they were gone. Messages are
9:16
Speaker 1: easily traced. You would think that that people nowadays would
9:20
Speaker 1: have an understanding this is not like this took place,
9:24
Speaker 1: you know, two decades ago, where you know, back then,
9:28
Speaker 1: text messaging and everything was it was rudimentary compared to
9:33
Speaker 1: what it is like now and tracking a phone devices
9:35
Speaker 1: and all of those sorts of things. We are in
9:38
Speaker 1: a connected universe now, and this case is a prime
9:43
Speaker 1: example of the lack of an awareness that an individual
9:48
Speaker 1: has relative to how they can be tracked, not just
9:52
Speaker 1: with the messages that they're sending, but also the movement
9:57
Speaker 1: of a phone, you know. And to keep this in mind,
10:02
Speaker 1: both Christa and Bart's phones were nowhere to be found.
10:07
Speaker 1: At least initially, they couldn't track them. They didn't know
10:11
Speaker 1: where they were. As a matter of fact, one of
10:13
Speaker 1: the messages or one of the teams that they had
10:16
Speaker 1: came back from a county which they had not been
10:19
Speaker 1: visiting that they did not regularly go to, and so
10:23
Speaker 1: from Jump Street the police were suspicious at that moment time, Jackie,
10:48
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you us, as a death investigator, one
10:52
Speaker 1: of the most overwhelming task that we have is anytime
10:57
Speaker 1: we have a case where a body or bodies have
11:02
Speaker 1: been dismembered. And the reason it's so difficult is the
11:08
Speaker 1: fact that there's always the potential that you're going to
11:11
Speaker 1: have multiple scenes with a case like that. What can
11:14
Speaker 1: you tell us about the evidence in this case, One
11:17
Speaker 1: of the biggest clues that came forward Joe to help
11:19
Speaker 1: the police solve this crime is that even though Chandler
11:25
Speaker 1: Holderson told police that he did not have any idea
11:27
Speaker 1: where his parents were, that he had not been to
11:30
Speaker 1: the family cottage, we now know that he had been.
11:33
Speaker 1: A witness came forward after the couple was reported missing
11:38
Speaker 1: to tell police that Chandler was seen coming out of
11:42
Speaker 1: the woods by the cottage house and that gave the
11:45
Speaker 1: police a place to start searching. And is in that
11:50
Speaker 1: search that they found the remains or partial remains, I
11:54
Speaker 1: should say of Bart Holderson. You know, with Chandler he
12:01
Speaker 1: claimed that he had no idea as to the location
12:05
Speaker 1: of his parents. But let's keep in mind that several
12:09
Speaker 1: witnesses had actually placed an individual that looked similar to
12:14
Speaker 1: Chandler in these specific areas. I think one area was
12:18
Speaker 1: near what's referred to as the Wisconsin River, where he
12:22
Speaker 1: was kind of wandering back and forth between a roadway
12:25
Speaker 1: and the river, presumably to look for a place to
12:29
Speaker 1: deposit remains. There was also a vehicle that fit the
12:33
Speaker 1: description of one of the family's vehicles there at the scene.
12:37
Speaker 1: Now get this with the hatchback open, and he was
12:41
Speaker 1: seen walking away from the vehicle with a backpack on
12:44
Speaker 1: his shoulders. And so anytime you begin to see this
12:47
Speaker 1: kind of activity and it sticks in the brain of
12:50
Speaker 1: a witness, that could be very damning, but it can
12:53
Speaker 1: also be a major help to the police because keep
12:58
Speaker 1: in mind, at this point in time, when you walk
13:00
Speaker 1: into an investigation like this, you don't really know which
13:04
Speaker 1: way the wind is blowing, particularly if you have a
13:07
Speaker 1: primary suspect witness like the Sun who is giving you
13:12
Speaker 1: bad information all the way along. The key here is
13:16
Speaker 1: discovering physical information, whether it would be say gunfire related evidence,
13:22
Speaker 1: blood evidence, instrumentalities or specifically human remains. We know that
13:29
Speaker 1: the first piece of evidence that the police came across
13:32
Speaker 1: was a tarp covered in blood, and inside that tarp
13:37
Speaker 1: was Bart Halderson's body. So with the discovery of that,
13:42
Speaker 1: that gave the police empathis to get a search warrant
13:45
Speaker 1: to search the entirety of the property and other related properties.
13:50
Speaker 1: So let's start with the tarp, Joe, what all is
13:53
Speaker 1: that going to tell us? We know, Jackie, a lot
13:55
Speaker 1: of people don't understand you, in particularly if you listen
13:58
Speaker 1: to any kind of trial, any kind of testimony from trial.
14:01
Speaker 1: You cannot simply go up on a stand as a
14:04
Speaker 1: forensic witness and say I saw blood at the scene.
14:08
Speaker 1: You have to jump through several layers in order before
14:10
Speaker 1: you can get to blood. So one of the things
14:14
Speaker 1: they would have done with that tarp is they do
14:16
Speaker 1: what is referred to as a presumptive test, and that's
14:19
Speaker 1: a field test that you can do out of the scene.
14:21
Speaker 1: You look at the tarp and you might see a
14:24
Speaker 1: dried red area or brown. Sometimes it appears brown. Sometimes
14:27
Speaker 1: I've even seen it look like milk chocolate. And you
14:30
Speaker 1: swab that area and you do a test at that
14:33
Speaker 1: point in time, you say, okay, yeah, this is blood.
14:36
Speaker 1: The chemistry is telling me this is blood. But you
14:39
Speaker 1: can't go any further than that without doing another test,
14:42
Speaker 1: and that is a test where you test it to
14:44
Speaker 1: see if it is actually human blood, because it could
14:48
Speaker 1: be an animal. Maybe it was a deer, maybe it
14:49
Speaker 1: was a dog. You have no idea. And so once
14:52
Speaker 1: you find human blood, then you have to think, well,
14:57
Speaker 1: we've got people that are missing. Is this blood tied
15:02
Speaker 1: back to the individuals that are missing in some way?
15:05
Speaker 1: And of course it turned out to be Bart. Now
15:08
Speaker 1: you had mentioned that they found Bart's body, Well, they
15:11
Speaker 1: didn't actually find the totality of his body. They found
15:15
Speaker 1: his torso and his torso it was missing limbs, Jackie.
15:21
Speaker 1: So you know, can you imagine your police officer and
15:25
Speaker 1: you have no idea what to expect, and then suddenly
15:28
Speaker 1: you recover the body that is missing limbs. It's missing
15:32
Speaker 1: ahead and as it turns out, I had a couple
15:36
Speaker 1: of gunshot wounds in it as well. That was the
15:38
Speaker 1: first indication of the gruesomeness of this case. At that
15:42
Speaker 1: time that the father's body was found, Christa. Halderson's body
15:46
Speaker 1: was still missing and we still do not believe that
15:49
Speaker 1: full remains of Christ to have been found. The parents
15:54
Speaker 1: were dismembered and brutally dismembered. Explained to me Joe what
15:59
Speaker 1: he used, How is that going to be done? How
16:02
Speaker 1: difficult is that going to be done? And what is
16:04
Speaker 1: the evidence that is going to show up on the body?
16:07
Speaker 1: To let us know which instruments were used. I want
16:11
Speaker 1: our listeners who are just really bright. You wouldn't believe
16:15
Speaker 1: some of the comments I get from folks about what
16:18
Speaker 1: we talk about on body bags. I know that you
16:20
Speaker 1: guys are going to understand this. When you think about
16:23
Speaker 1: a body and you're taking a body apart, what are
16:26
Speaker 1: you doing? Well, you're creating more evidence, aren't you. And
16:31
Speaker 1: it's not just the marks that you leave on the body,
16:33
Speaker 1: it's what you leave behind, all of the blood evidence
16:36
Speaker 1: because it's hard to keep blood evidence, for instance, contained.
16:39
Speaker 1: I mean, how many of us have spilled a glass
16:40
Speaker 1: of milk before it goes everywhere? It doesn't, Well, blood's
16:43
Speaker 1: no different. You're going to have a shower of blood
16:46
Speaker 1: all over these locations where you're attempting to dismember a body,
16:49
Speaker 1: and then you're going through bone. Jackie and we do
16:51
Speaker 1: know that he used a saw hand saw, and not
16:55
Speaker 1: only did he use a saw jackie, they found broken
16:58
Speaker 1: saw blades, which means he went through several iterations of
17:03
Speaker 1: the saw. You know, he's attempting to end because the bone,
17:07
Speaker 1: human bone is so robust. If you don't have the
17:09
Speaker 1: right tools in order to take it apart, it's going
17:13
Speaker 1: to be problematic. So he actually broke a couple of
17:16
Speaker 1: blades while sawing through the remains of his parents, and
17:20
Speaker 1: so that's going to leave telltale marks on the bone.
17:24
Speaker 1: And that's where we call in people like tool mark examiners,
17:27
Speaker 1: people that are criminalis and they can actually microscopically match
17:31
Speaker 1: up marks on the bone that are created by metal
17:34
Speaker 1: objects like teeth from the saw and every saw. I
17:39
Speaker 1: urge anybody at home, if you have a hack saw,
17:42
Speaker 1: for instance, it's going to look different than say a
17:44
Speaker 1: limb saw or the saws that we use, for instance
17:47
Speaker 1: in the Morgue. I mean, how many of you watch
17:48
Speaker 1: the show like Dexter or something like that and hear
17:50
Speaker 1: the little buzzing sound, that high pitch buzzing sound for
17:54
Speaker 1: a bone saw that's called a striker saw. We use
17:58
Speaker 1: those in the Morgue and that's how we open, say,
18:00
Speaker 1: for instance, the head. It's an agitating saw like a
18:03
Speaker 1: cast saw, so those teeth mark are going to look different,
18:06
Speaker 1: particularly microscopically. So anytime you apply an instrument to a body,
18:12
Speaker 1: it leaves a specific marking on the body, much like
18:16
Speaker 1: a bullet has specific markings, and it's something that can
18:19
Speaker 1: be tied back to the instrumentalities that are being used.
18:23
Speaker 1: We do know that they found scissors that had blood,
18:27
Speaker 1: bone and DNA on them. We do know that they
18:30
Speaker 1: also found the aforementioned saw with the handle and the
18:34
Speaker 1: broken blade. Jackie. They found bolt cutters. Can you imagine
18:37
Speaker 1: that bolt cutters were used as well, and an axe,
18:42
Speaker 1: So you have all of this instrumentality that is literally
18:45
Speaker 1: bathed in the parents' DNA and then to boot you know,
18:50
Speaker 1: after the dismemberment takes place, he has to deposit these
18:54
Speaker 1: remains somewhere. So at the end of the day, the
18:58
Speaker 1: remains are found dispersed in a variety of different locations
19:04
Speaker 1: I think in total almost six maybe with one of
19:08
Speaker 1: them actually being the family home. But of course the
19:11
Speaker 1: most gruesome thing is yet to follow. What actually happened
19:14
Speaker 1: in the fireplace, Jackie, Well, that would be the discovery
19:17
Speaker 1: of the father's skull inside the fireplace. It is believed
19:22
Speaker 1: that Halderson burned his parents' heads in the fireplace. That
19:29
Speaker 1: is apparently what had happened. The fire in this fireplace,
19:33
Speaker 1: according to the arson investigators, got so very hot that
19:37
Speaker 1: the bone begin to fragment. And when you look at
19:40
Speaker 1: fragmented bone that comes about as a result of burning,
19:45
Speaker 1: it's a very interesting presentation. When it kind of cracks apart,
19:50
Speaker 1: it looks like a matrix. It's like a spider web
19:55
Speaker 1: looking appearance, and you'll generally get this. It's very pronounced
19:58
Speaker 1: in burned bone. If it doesn't pulpify, that means go
20:01
Speaker 1: down to powder. It begins to kind of break apart,
20:04
Speaker 1: and you can see this webbing that it appears like
20:07
Speaker 1: within the interior of the bone itself. Now, I want
20:11
Speaker 1: our listeners to really understand this and kind of grab
20:14
Speaker 1: hold of this. A crematory if you've ever had loved
20:18
Speaker 1: ones that you know their remains have been taken care
20:20
Speaker 1: of by funeral home and they've been cremated. It takes
20:24
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred degrees of sustained heat in order to render
20:30
Speaker 1: down a human remain. And that's with a constant fuel source,
20:33
Speaker 1: which of course is natural gas in most cases. You know,
20:38
Speaker 1: this is going into the line that powers the powers
20:41
Speaker 1: the crematory and that's sustained. And keep in mind, cremation
20:46
Speaker 1: unit is actually all contained. It's not like an open
20:49
Speaker 1: hearth fireplace. So this is what this young man would
20:54
Speaker 1: have allegedly had to have done. Can you imagine, Jackie,
20:58
Speaker 1: You're having to sit in front of the fireplace. You've
21:01
Speaker 1: got your father's head, potentially your mother's head. You build
21:05
Speaker 1: a fire in the hearth, a hearth that you've sat
21:08
Speaker 1: around as families, maybe on Christmases, and you begin to
21:12
Speaker 1: burn wood in order to fuel the fire, and you
21:15
Speaker 1: have to constantly ten this fire as these heads are
21:19
Speaker 1: literally cooking down before your eyes. And this is a
21:22
Speaker 1: big takeaway from me. On the right side of the
21:27
Speaker 1: fireplace there is a large black stained area, and this
21:34
Speaker 1: is quite horrific. The fire investigator said that was an
21:38
Speaker 1: indication of liquefied fat that had rolled off of the
21:42
Speaker 1: bodies and had stained that metallic grate that holds the
21:47
Speaker 1: wood in place, and presumably that's where the head or
21:52
Speaker 1: heads would have been rendered down. Now, apparently there was
21:56
Speaker 1: an attempt made to push. There's an ash trap in
22:01
Speaker 1: the base of the fireplace, and the individual had opened
22:04
Speaker 1: the ash trap and pushed these ashes down into the
22:08
Speaker 1: ash trap and they had fallen behind the wall. It's
22:11
Speaker 1: like this catch area that they had. And you would
22:14
Speaker 1: not believe what the investigators had to go through in
22:17
Speaker 1: order to retrieve these fractured remains. They actually had to
22:21
Speaker 1: call a forensic anthropologist out to the scene to sift
22:26
Speaker 1: through this ash that they're trying to collect. It is
22:28
Speaker 1: a major major undertaking, Jackie. When you talk about rendering
22:34
Speaker 1: down the bones, Joe and you talked about how robust
22:38
Speaker 1: bone is. What kind of temperatures are you're talking about
22:42
Speaker 1: that he used to break down the bone and it's
22:46
Speaker 1: not like paper. It doesn't just oh there's heat and
22:49
Speaker 1: it turns into ash. Talked about sustained temperatures. But did
22:54
Speaker 1: he pound? Did he grind the skull down? I mean,
22:56
Speaker 1: how do you actually get it down to powder? Will
22:59
Speaker 1: find actually just do that? I think that it probably
23:02
Speaker 1: could over a protracted period of time, But listen, if
23:05
Speaker 1: you don't have a contained space where you can hit
23:08
Speaker 1: that hit that sustained temperature of eighteen hundred degrees Remember
23:13
Speaker 1: in a crematory. They're not tending remains, they're not having
23:16
Speaker 1: to add fuel, and it's it's it's just as I've stated,
23:19
Speaker 1: it is a sustained constant heat until this is till
23:23
Speaker 1: these remains become what are referred to as cremains. In
23:28
Speaker 1: this particular case, he would have had to or the
23:31
Speaker 1: perpetrator would have had to have sat in front of
23:35
Speaker 1: the hearth and maintain this heat. So if you cannot
23:39
Speaker 1: attain that eighteen hundred degrees, Jackie, you're going to have
23:43
Speaker 1: to work with a lower heat and a longer period
23:46
Speaker 1: of time. I cannot even begin to fathom to fathom
23:51
Speaker 1: how long he had to sit there and tend that
23:53
Speaker 1: fire and continue to add fuel to that fire in
23:57
Speaker 1: order to keep the sustainability going where you can begin
24:00
Speaker 1: to render it down. And to your question, I think
24:02
Speaker 1: that's a fantastic question. Would you have had to have
24:06
Speaker 1: pulplified the remains? Yeah, I think that you would probably
24:10
Speaker 1: have to. And the question is would you have the
24:12
Speaker 1: will to do you have the ability to take an
24:15
Speaker 1: instrumentality like a hammer or maybe even a sledge hammer,
24:18
Speaker 1: or maybe even your foot and then take the mortal
24:20
Speaker 1: remains of your parents out of there and stomp them
24:23
Speaker 1: down or beat them down until they become pulplified, you know,
24:44
Speaker 1: and it's totality. When you begin to look at this case,
24:47
Speaker 1: you can see how much activity has involved in this.
24:50
Speaker 1: You know, we're talking about the disappearance, we're talking about
24:56
Speaker 1: the murder, the homicide, and then we're talking about dismemberment.
25:00
Speaker 1: And you know, as I previously stated, Jackie, yeah, I
25:02
Speaker 1: mean the idea here is that everywhere you go, even
25:06
Speaker 1: going back to old my favorite, my favorite forensic scientist
25:10
Speaker 1: of all time, Edmund Lecard who stated that every contact
25:14
Speaker 1: leaves a trace. He said that over a hundred years ago.
25:16
Speaker 1: This is a perfect example of that happening here. Every
25:20
Speaker 1: contact left a trace. In this case, well, I think
25:23
Speaker 1: the obvious answer here is that Halderson contacted his parents
25:27
Speaker 1: in just about every location of that home. DNA and
25:31
Speaker 1: blood found throughout the home. Police do believe that the
25:35
Speaker 1: parents were shot in the home. With the DNA that
25:40
Speaker 1: was found, it was even found on his shoes and
25:42
Speaker 1: in the walls. How did that part of the investigation progress?
25:47
Speaker 1: You know, once the police had a search warrant into
25:50
Speaker 1: the Halderson home, they really took their time. Once they
25:55
Speaker 1: we're in there. And keep in mind, when you have
25:56
Speaker 1: a search warrant to go through a home, it gives
25:58
Speaker 1: you license to be in there for a protracted period
26:01
Speaker 1: of time. You can take your time. It's a controlled environment,
26:04
Speaker 1: and you want to be very, very careful. But through
26:07
Speaker 1: their care in this investigation, what the police discovered was,
26:11
Speaker 1: first off, they found mom and Dad's phone. They were
26:14
Speaker 1: hidden away and I think if I remember correctly, they
26:17
Speaker 1: were hidden hidden away on a shelf and eath an
26:20
Speaker 1: old pair of shoes, if I'm not mistaken. But the
26:23
Speaker 1: other thing that they found were several spent case tings
26:26
Speaker 1: which the caliber was seven point six two by thirty nine,
26:30
Speaker 1: which UM folks are familiar with firearms. That's actually the
26:35
Speaker 1: same round that an AK forty seven platform or an
26:39
Speaker 1: AK platform utilizes. In this case, when the police began
26:45
Speaker 1: to search through the home, they pulled back part of
26:48
Speaker 1: the wall, uh that was that was kind of hidden,
26:51
Speaker 1: and they discovered what turned out to be an SKS
26:55
Speaker 1: rifle that actually fires uh. This same the same shelf
27:00
Speaker 1: case in that they found the same the same AMMO
27:02
Speaker 1: that they found with the spent spent brass at the scene.
27:06
Speaker 1: And so that was a specific tie back to these
27:09
Speaker 1: injuries that Bart had sustained. He had the forensic pathologist
27:16
Speaker 1: actually testified that one of the rounds traveled through his spine,
27:20
Speaker 1: smashed it and cut through his spinal cord. Quite horrific.
27:26
Speaker 1: And there's evidence that there was an attempt to clean up.
27:29
Speaker 1: But as we know, it doesn't matter how much you
27:33
Speaker 1: clean up nowadays, we're going to be able to find
27:35
Speaker 1: The forensic community is going to be able to find blood.
27:37
Speaker 1: In this case, they did. They found a treasure trove
27:41
Speaker 1: of blood at the scene, and as you rightly mentioned, Jackie,
27:45
Speaker 1: this is a real interesting point here. They found Bart
27:50
Speaker 1: and Christa's blood droplets and they identified those through DNA
27:56
Speaker 1: on the exterior of a pair of shoes there. But
28:00
Speaker 1: guess what they did. They swabbed the interior of the shoe,
28:05
Speaker 1: and guess what the only DNA was that they found
28:09
Speaker 1: on the interior the shoe that was Chandlers. And so
28:13
Speaker 1: you've got this kind of odd marriage between a son
28:18
Speaker 1: and his parents and death where their evidence is being
28:23
Speaker 1: borne out in shoes that he utilized as he was
28:26
Speaker 1: taking the bodies and part in their home. You said
28:28
Speaker 1: something very specific there, Joe, talking about blood droplets. One
28:33
Speaker 1: of the things that I have learned from listening to
28:35
Speaker 1: you and Nancy Grays is there's a difference in the
28:40
Speaker 1: way blood falls. Can you explain that to me? Yeah, absolutely, Jackie,
28:44
Speaker 1: we'll get you. Know, you can have various forms of
28:48
Speaker 1: blood staining that take place. You have like a dynamic form,
28:52
Speaker 1: a very dynamic form where we measure velocity, where we'll
28:56
Speaker 1: talk about low velocity. If you think and kind of
28:58
Speaker 1: break this down for you, think about low velocity blood staining.
29:02
Speaker 1: That's going to be where someone, let's say, for instance,
29:05
Speaker 1: is punched, Okay, that's about as much velocity as a
29:08
Speaker 1: human punch could sustain, or maybe a stomp Okay, the
29:12
Speaker 1: blood droplets will be rather big. Then you go up
29:15
Speaker 1: to a medium velocity, okay, and the medium velocity is
29:18
Speaker 1: going to be say, if an individual is struck with
29:21
Speaker 1: a bat or they're hit with a machette or something
29:24
Speaker 1: like that, where you can leverage force. All right, that'll
29:27
Speaker 1: be medium velocity. And then you have high velocity, which
29:30
Speaker 1: is this kind of fine particular or histamine like spray
29:34
Speaker 1: that comes off and that's generally associated and it's almost
29:37
Speaker 1: always associated with gunfire. And so those are the three
29:44
Speaker 1: types of dynamic blood staining that we have. Now you
29:48
Speaker 1: do have other types. You have this kind of passive dripping, say,
29:52
Speaker 1: for instance, back to somebody being punched. If you have
29:55
Speaker 1: a bloody nose, and many people have, as you're standing
29:59
Speaker 1: there in the blood it is falling from your nose,
30:01
Speaker 1: that's kind of a passive droplet and the droplets remained
30:04
Speaker 1: large and that sort of thing. And then you have
30:06
Speaker 1: transfer a blood which is where you brush up against
30:10
Speaker 1: something or you grab something and blood is transferred onto
30:13
Speaker 1: a surface. So all of these types of blood droplets
30:16
Speaker 1: and blood staining are very specific, and somebody that is
30:21
Speaker 1: a blood expert can actually kind of ferret through this
30:24
Speaker 1: and understand this, and they can actually tell a tale.
30:26
Speaker 1: So if you have blood droplets on a shoe, say,
30:29
Speaker 1: for instance, in this case, the thing that you want
30:31
Speaker 1: to think about, well, we know that there was a fire,
30:35
Speaker 1: I'm involved, right, So is it a high velocity blood
30:38
Speaker 1: stain where you have this kind of fine system and
30:41
Speaker 1: spray that's on the surface of the shoe and kind
30:44
Speaker 1: of on the tongue of the shoe and this sort
30:46
Speaker 1: of thing, or is it this kind of passive dripping
30:49
Speaker 1: that's taking place as if you were, say for instance,
30:52
Speaker 1: sawing or remain all right? Or is it a transfer?
30:57
Speaker 1: Is this a transfer where for instance, you've got a
31:00
Speaker 1: bloody surface, say like an arm that's been dismembered or
31:04
Speaker 1: taken away from a body, and you brush up against
31:06
Speaker 1: it with your shoe and this creates this kind of swath,
31:09
Speaker 1: this blood swath that's on the shoe itself, on the surface.
31:13
Speaker 1: So we look at this and these the dynamics of
31:16
Speaker 1: the blood itself can tell us a tale about what
31:18
Speaker 1: actually happened. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body
31:27
Speaker 1: backs