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Season 1_ Sidebar 13(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

0:10
Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome this week's Proof Sidebar. I'm here with
0:13
Speaker 1: Kevin Fitzpatrick and just to Davis to discuss episode fourteen
0:16
Speaker 1: of our series In the Case of King story Lee Clark.
0:24
Speaker 1: In this episode, we finally heard from corner Craig Burns
0:28
Speaker 1: and got some more answers about why in this case
0:32
Speaker 1: there was never an autopsy done, or at least officially
0:34
Speaker 1: there was never an autopsy done.
0:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it was an episode one
0:39
Speaker 2: or two when we spoke to Mark Corman, who had
0:42
Speaker 2: been a police officer with the Floyd County Police Department,
0:45
Speaker 2: and he said, I think Craig Burns will talk to
0:48
Speaker 2: you guys. You should give it a try, and I
0:50
Speaker 2: remember thinking there's no way. So, Susan, when you called
0:55
Speaker 2: to say that he actually called you back.
0:57
Speaker 3: I was shocked.
0:58
Speaker 2: I didn't see that coming.
1:00
Speaker 1: I thought when answered the phone and it was Craig Burns.
1:02
Speaker 1: Was Mark Corbin was right?
1:04
Speaker 4: I was.
1:05
Speaker 3: I was stunned that he called you. I mean, I
1:08
Speaker 3: couldn't believe it, particularly after everything that I had heard
1:12
Speaker 3: in Rome. So I was stunned and he called you,
1:14
Speaker 3: but maybe he wanted to know just what you were thinking.
1:18
Speaker 1: When I first began working on this case from the start,
1:20
Speaker 1: obviously it made no sense that there was no autopsy done,
1:23
Speaker 1: Like just in any any case anywhere in the world
1:26
Speaker 1: where there's a murder, you would assume there'd be an autopsy.
1:30
Speaker 1: So that always seemed weird. But the more we investigated
1:33
Speaker 1: and the more we learned about Craig Burns, it became
1:35
Speaker 1: even stranger because nothing we knew added up. One there
1:41
Speaker 1: should have been an autopsy, and two, why not with
1:44
Speaker 1: Craig Burns not do an autopsy when he had every
1:46
Speaker 1: reason in the world to do it well?
1:48
Speaker 2: And three because when we talked to Amanda and Kenneth,
1:51
Speaker 2: aunt Melody and Uncle Michael, they all truly believed that
1:56
Speaker 2: there had been an autopsy.
1:58
Speaker 1: And the first time I forget who spent to do first,
2:00
Speaker 1: The first one I heard that, you know, you can
2:01
Speaker 1: kind of just assume it was an error. After twenty
2:03
Speaker 1: five years, memories can be changed, things are not always
2:07
Speaker 1: literally accurate, and I was willing to believe that the
2:11
Speaker 1: family was misremembering that or they had seen the photos
2:14
Speaker 1: of Brian with the rod through his head and thought
2:16
Speaker 1: it was from an autopsy. But the more we talk
2:18
Speaker 1: to the family, they're all on the same page. They're like, yeah,
2:20
Speaker 1: there's an autopsy done, and we're like, no, no, there wasn't.
2:23
Speaker 3: There's this recurring theme in this story where it constantly
2:28
Speaker 3: takes these bizarre terms that are almost beyond imagination, with
2:34
Speaker 3: Charlie and Angela, Bruce and all of these things, and
2:39
Speaker 3: for this turn to happen, for there to be a
2:42
Speaker 3: question about the corner and if he was actually conducting
2:45
Speaker 3: autopsies or he was charging people for money, and it
2:49
Speaker 3: was just another bizarre turn that you just sort of
2:52
Speaker 3: pause and say that just can't be possible. This all
2:54
Speaker 3: can't be happening in one story, but sure enough it is,
2:58
Speaker 3: and then he.
2:58
Speaker 1: Calls you Wrongful. Convictions never happen in isolation. There are
3:02
Speaker 1: always products of the system they're in. And I think
3:06
Speaker 1: for this case to have happened, for Lee and Kin
3:09
Speaker 1: to be convicted under the story that they were sent
3:12
Speaker 1: to prison for life under, it's symptomatic of something much
3:15
Speaker 1: bigger and something much more wrong overall in Floyd County.
3:19
Speaker 3: But even even you couldn't have imagined that there would
3:23
Speaker 3: be this many bizarre twists.
3:25
Speaker 1: Oh hell no. The craig Burns then come in best surprise,
3:28
Speaker 1: because I hadn't even it wasn't it was on my radar,
3:31
Speaker 1: and that I knew there was an issue with him,
3:32
Speaker 1: but like, I hadn't dug into it yet because it
3:35
Speaker 1: didn't seem like it was relevant until bit by bit
3:39
Speaker 1: we're like, oh my gosh, there's something even darker here
3:42
Speaker 1: about the corner and lack of autopsy than we even
3:44
Speaker 1: dreamed of when we started.
3:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, and of all of the cases that he has
3:49
Speaker 3: been a part of, it would seem like he would
3:51
Speaker 3: remember this one.
3:52
Speaker 1: And he remembers the excimation pretty clearly actually, and yet
3:58
Speaker 1: somehow has zero memory of what came before it. I
4:01
Speaker 1: can't say one way another, but I do struggle to
4:03
Speaker 1: believe that he has no memory of this determination in
4:06
Speaker 1: this case.
4:08
Speaker 2: Which again is a common theme for the story people
4:11
Speaker 2: people not remembering testifying, not remembering the trial. And I
4:16
Speaker 2: know you've run across that before and other story season.
4:19
Speaker 2: It was something new for me, but it is interesting
4:23
Speaker 2: that you know, the testimony that's in question is from
4:28
Speaker 2: people who maybe we should be questioning.
4:31
Speaker 1: Yea, And we also mentioned its someone on the episode.
4:35
Speaker 1: This problem with the coroner isn't limited to Floyd County.
4:38
Speaker 1: The coroner system in Georgia has been subject to problems
4:43
Speaker 1: and abuses since it existed. I was actually looking at
4:45
Speaker 1: some old news articles about it, and there was one
4:47
Speaker 1: from like eighteen eighty eight, and it was like, should
4:50
Speaker 1: we abolish the coroner system? It's outdated and antiquated, like
4:54
Speaker 1: they thought it was like bad idea back then, and
4:56
Speaker 1: we still have it over one hundred years later.
4:59
Speaker 3: What else was in then?
5:01
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't look I usually do.
5:03
Speaker 2: I don't think you mentioned that it's also the coroner's
5:06
Speaker 2: job to round up escaped livestock.
5:09
Speaker 1: Right, Mississippi has that one.
5:11
Speaker 2: Oh Mississippi, not Georgia.
5:12
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, in Georgia the corners of the corner. As
5:16
Speaker 1: Bob bro the former corner from Georgia, explained to me,
5:20
Speaker 1: it's a little more about checks and balances.
5:23
Speaker 5: And of course, you know, what was it one hundred
5:25
Speaker 5: plus years ago when they developed this, because the sheriff
5:27
Speaker 5: has a ridiculous amount of power as it is, and.
5:30
Speaker 4: They could be unchecked.
5:32
Speaker 5: If they decided to shoot somebody, they could and then
5:36
Speaker 5: declare them dead and bury them off. So that was
5:38
Speaker 5: the idea, was that you'd have another elected position that
5:42
Speaker 5: is the only one who can say someone died, so
5:45
Speaker 5: it's the checks and balance was the original intent as
5:48
Speaker 5: I understood it.
5:50
Speaker 2: So they put in the system of checks and balances,
5:53
Speaker 2: but it doesn't seem like it works.
5:56
Speaker 1: I mean, that was back in the day where the coroner,
5:59
Speaker 1: like originally even the corner was the only one who
6:00
Speaker 1: could arrest the sheriff. But that's all in the past.
6:03
Speaker 1: Today when things work well, ideally with the coroner system,
6:07
Speaker 1: the corner should be working very closely with law enforcement,
6:10
Speaker 1: both the county level and the state level, like the GBI,
6:13
Speaker 1: So it shouldn't be this adversary relationship. It should be
6:16
Speaker 1: working hand in hand, which according to Craig Burns, was
6:21
Speaker 1: the case here. He says that this decision not to
6:24
Speaker 1: autopsey Brian Bowling was jointly made with Dallas Battle, and
6:29
Speaker 1: the of the GBI's examiner was at the time.
6:33
Speaker 3: In what scenario would you just not decide to do that.
6:37
Speaker 3: I can't figure out a scenario on which you would say,
6:39
Speaker 3: let's not conduct an autopsy in this case.
6:43
Speaker 1: Especially when you get more money if you do do one.
6:46
Speaker 2: And he said to you his excuse was that maybe
6:49
Speaker 2: it was to honor the family's wishes and that just
6:53
Speaker 2: hit so hard because the family that he did it
6:57
Speaker 2: and to use that as an excuse was kind of
6:59
Speaker 2: mind blowing.
7:00
Speaker 1: And then he says it's because the organ donation. But
7:02
Speaker 1: in the files we got recently from the DA's office
7:05
Speaker 1: talking about some other cases that the coroner's involved in,
7:08
Speaker 1: it describes how Lifelink, which is the organ donation facilitator,
7:11
Speaker 1: it is their policy to do autopsies in many cases.
7:16
Speaker 1: So it's obviously not true, but like it is documented
7:19
Speaker 1: in the files that after organizations autopsies were done, Craig
7:23
Speaker 1: Burns is involved in them. Like there's no question there
7:26
Speaker 1: that that should not have been a block to an autopsy.
7:30
Speaker 3: And just so everyone is clear, if they were to
7:33
Speaker 3: e xzoom Brian's body now and look at the wound
7:38
Speaker 3: in the skull, they could determine if it's a contact wound.
7:43
Speaker 1: Most likely from all the experts we've spoken to, yes,
7:47
Speaker 1: probably yes, depending of course on the condition of the
7:51
Speaker 1: body somewhat but most likely yes. It should be still
7:56
Speaker 1: something we could determine conclusively.
7:58
Speaker 3: Now, So the potentially answer is still out there.
8:01
Speaker 1: It is, of course, the last time someone tried to
8:05
Speaker 1: file emotion to exhume the body. That was Kane's story.
8:08
Speaker 1: He was the court was like, I'm sick of your
8:11
Speaker 1: the stuff. You're not ever filing again in this court.
8:13
Speaker 1: You're barred from over filing emotion with the court again.
8:15
Speaker 5: Yeah.
8:16
Speaker 3: Now, I wanted to ask you, have you ever heard
8:18
Speaker 3: anything like that before?
8:19
Speaker 1: Soon, yes, because sometimes courts get very frustrated with pro
8:23
Speaker 1: se defendants. It's unconstitutional, they can't do it, they shouldn't
8:27
Speaker 1: do it. But their way of dealing with someone filing
8:31
Speaker 1: jail mail like considered like just motions and all kinds
8:34
Speaker 1: of stuff over and over again is to just block
8:37
Speaker 1: them and again not allowed. But also because they're pro se,
8:41
Speaker 1: they can't really challenge it, so they get away with it.
8:44
Speaker 1: And I want to note as well when this all happened.
8:48
Speaker 1: When when Brian died, Craig Burns was actually the deputy coroner.
8:54
Speaker 1: He was not a county corner yet. He was elected
8:57
Speaker 1: like two weeks later and took office January first, the
9:00
Speaker 1: following year. But he told me that as deputy corner
9:03
Speaker 1: he still handled ninety eight percent of cases. He was
9:06
Speaker 1: still basically functioning as the coroner even if he wasn't
9:09
Speaker 1: a name. So like the situation was not different from
9:12
Speaker 1: how it was when he actually was kind of corner,
9:16
Speaker 1: but in terms of how he took office, it was
9:17
Speaker 1: because the previous one had retired and asked him to
9:21
Speaker 1: step in. And something about what he told me about
9:24
Speaker 1: how the previous corner had operated made wonder if it
9:27
Speaker 1: led Craig Burns under the path he ended up on.
9:31
Speaker 4: Mister Cally owned a funeral home, and it was beneficial
9:36
Speaker 4: to him to tell Lingle his corner work with his
9:42
Speaker 4: funeral homework, the same way that it was for Barry
9:46
Speaker 4: Henderson to tell Lingle his funeral work, his funeral homework
9:53
Speaker 4: with the corner work and safe. When I became corner,
9:59
Speaker 4: I didn't not have that conflict of interest. Fred had
10:03
Speaker 4: it all those years, and then Barry Henderson had it.
10:07
Speaker 4: I didn't have it and didn't want to have it.
10:11
Speaker 4: I wanted to be above board.
10:14
Speaker 1: So when you say Commingle, what do you mean.
10:17
Speaker 4: Oh, that's a hard thing to explain. Oh, if you're
10:24
Speaker 4: the funeral director and the corner, you've got a conflict
10:29
Speaker 4: of interest.
10:30
Speaker 1: I can see that.
10:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I didn't have that because I was not
10:35
Speaker 4: a funeral homeowner.
10:37
Speaker 1: So the corner can influence where bodies go.
10:39
Speaker 5: Or absolutely.
10:43
Speaker 4: Absolutely they can't.
10:45
Speaker 1: But this is actually pretty standard. Although corners come from
10:48
Speaker 1: all walks of life. I was looking at a list
10:50
Speaker 1: of from the twenty fifteen, it's like there's hairstylists and farmers, retirees,
10:55
Speaker 1: the predominant profession the cor has come from is funeral homes,
10:58
Speaker 1: most likely because of the situation where corners. You know,
11:03
Speaker 1: you go to a home there's a body there, you say,
11:05
Speaker 1: don't worry, I'll take care of it, by the way,
11:06
Speaker 1: and take my funeral home and the family's like, yes, yes,
11:09
Speaker 1: of course, you know, grief stricken and all that. So yeah,
11:12
Speaker 1: it's it is a money maker that way for funeral directors.
11:16
Speaker 2: But Craig Burns didn't have a funeral home, so there
11:19
Speaker 2: wasn't a way for him to traffic this business into.
11:24
Speaker 1: But there was. So there was a multiple levels of
11:30
Speaker 1: wrongdoing by Craig Burns. But the thing that struck me
11:32
Speaker 1: before we got the files was like, how could this
11:35
Speaker 1: be going on without someone realizing? How could this be
11:39
Speaker 1: happening without someone in the county knowing? And one thing
11:42
Speaker 1: that's prising from the files is that, well, yeah, the
11:46
Speaker 1: county did know, because there's an affidavit from the Siston
11:48
Speaker 1: County manager who says the Burns asked him if he
11:51
Speaker 1: could do this, and the after says like, yeah, he
11:54
Speaker 1: came to me and said, like sometimes families have paid
11:57
Speaker 1: to offset costs for my office for you know, corners duty.
12:00
Speaker 1: Can I do this? And the answer he was given
12:02
Speaker 1: by the assistant county manager and like the Rome City attorney,
12:06
Speaker 1: was quote, Craig could build anyone he pleased, but there
12:10
Speaker 1: was no requirement for anyone to pay a bill from
12:11
Speaker 1: the coroner.
12:13
Speaker 2: Which that's just nuts. So basically he's saying, yeah, Craig,
12:16
Speaker 2: go ahead, bill whoever, whatever amount you want, but if
12:19
Speaker 2: they don't pay you, there's nothing you can do about it.
12:22
Speaker 2: And if they do good for you.
12:24
Speaker 5: Yeah.
12:24
Speaker 1: I mean it's still illegal, still a crime when he
12:25
Speaker 1: was doing but he wasn't doing it in secret. The
12:28
Speaker 1: people in the county had something definitely knew, they had
12:31
Speaker 1: to have been aware of it. Might not have known
12:33
Speaker 1: the full details, but it does seem like he wasn't
12:36
Speaker 1: keeping it like some kind of super secret procedure here.
12:41
Speaker 1: One thing we still don't really know is how this
12:44
Speaker 1: whole investigation kicked off exactly. We have a lot of
12:46
Speaker 1: inconsistent time lands here, And one thing I keep going
12:50
Speaker 1: back to is multiple news articles describe how in January
12:52
Speaker 1: of ninety eight, when Lee's and Kane's trial occurred, that's
12:55
Speaker 1: when this started, That's when the investigation was tipped off,
12:58
Speaker 1: and when the flood can a police department learned about
13:01
Speaker 1: illegal practices. There's no record that in the files we
13:04
Speaker 1: were given. The files we were given show that it
13:06
Speaker 1: was not until late the next that summer that the
13:09
Speaker 1: investigation tipped off, But it does to me anyway, seemed
13:15
Speaker 1: like the files dance around the origins of the investigation.
13:19
Speaker 1: The record also shows that his misconduct included things like
13:26
Speaker 1: potentially stealing money from the bodies that were in his custody,
13:29
Speaker 1: and there was a few references to cases where it
13:33
Speaker 1: looked like a suicide or cases where it looked like
13:35
Speaker 1: a hospital natural death, where there's it could potentially be
13:39
Speaker 1: saying more. And Craig Barns had gone to the families
13:42
Speaker 1: and suggested that he could reach an alternate outcome if
13:45
Speaker 1: they wanted to. Like quote from one of the investigation reports,
13:49
Speaker 1: a telephone conversation mister Burns resulted in him advising the
13:53
Speaker 1: mother that he was ruling her daughter's death a suicide
13:56
Speaker 1: unless she could convince him otherwise. The mother stated that
13:59
Speaker 1: she never had any doubt that her daughter's death was
14:01
Speaker 1: a result of his self induced overdose, but she thought
14:03
Speaker 1: that mister Burns was trying to make more of it.
14:06
Speaker 2: Is there any evidence in the files that you've seen
14:08
Speaker 2: that he was offering, Like, why would it be incentive
14:13
Speaker 2: for a family to have their loved one death be
14:16
Speaker 2: ruled a homicide versus a suicide.
14:20
Speaker 1: Well, in one of the cases involved a possible or
14:22
Speaker 1: so apparently the man who died had been in bad
14:25
Speaker 1: health for a while and the family didn't doubt he
14:28
Speaker 1: just died of bad health. But Burns was like, do
14:30
Speaker 1: you think the hospital could have screwed this up and
14:32
Speaker 1: killed him? Want me to do testing for a fee
14:34
Speaker 1: to find out more So in that case, potentially if
14:37
Speaker 1: they wanted to bring a suit or I don't.
14:39
Speaker 2: Know, malepractice of some sort.
14:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was offering for a fee to do testing
14:44
Speaker 1: that could potentially give a different answer.
14:46
Speaker 2: And in the case of the suicide, if it was
14:48
Speaker 2: ruled possible homicide, then maybe it would affect life insurance
14:52
Speaker 2: pay out.
14:52
Speaker 1: Yes, And then there's stuff he was doing this is
14:55
Speaker 1: just kind of weird. Like a woman died, she had
14:57
Speaker 1: a young child. Burns told a family like, want me
15:00
Speaker 1: to test to make sure the purported father is actually
15:02
Speaker 1: the father? And they're like, wtf, we never doubted that,
15:06
Speaker 1: Like why why is the coroner asking if we need
15:09
Speaker 1: to get a paternity test on our grandchild?
15:12
Speaker 2: I mean, part of it could be the more tests
15:14
Speaker 2: he does the morning.
15:15
Speaker 1: Phil, That's that's kind of what I'm thinking. That's the
15:18
Speaker 1: only thing I can imagine why he get involved there.
15:21
Speaker 1: But you know, my imagination might not be uh white
15:25
Speaker 1: enough in this context.
15:28
Speaker 2: You don't go to those dark dark places.
15:30
Speaker 1: I thought I did, But no, not not enough for that.
15:36
Speaker 3: You need me to go to the dark dark places.
15:38
Speaker 2: That's what you and I are here for.
15:41
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, So what's the result of all of this, Well,
15:49
Speaker 1: we still don't know for sure what happened with the autopsy,
15:53
Speaker 1: if there was one done or not. I initially thought
15:56
Speaker 1: for certain there was never one done, and I have
15:59
Speaker 1: to to doubt that in recent weeks. I don't there's
16:02
Speaker 1: no proof at this point one was done. But you know,
16:05
Speaker 1: I go back to the Joy Watkins case, where there
16:07
Speaker 1: was an issue of why didn't they test a dead
16:10
Speaker 1: dog because it's a complicated, long drawn out story. But
16:14
Speaker 1: in Watkins case, one of accusations against someone who killed
16:17
Speaker 1: victim's dog first and then killed another dog as like
16:20
Speaker 1: a calling card or signature move, and they had the
16:23
Speaker 1: dog's body, they brought it in to the police, custody whatever,
16:27
Speaker 1: and then they never determined if the kind of bullet
16:29
Speaker 1: that killed the dog was connected to the murder. And
16:33
Speaker 1: again that seems strange, like why wouldn't you do an
16:35
Speaker 1: autopsy of the dog there? Like you should do one.
16:38
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's why it's important. That's why I
16:40
Speaker 1: was taken into evidence. And what we found out months
16:43
Speaker 1: and months months later, on surprise, the GBI did autopsy
16:46
Speaker 1: the dog. The bullet was extracted. They determined it was
16:50
Speaker 1: a caliber that did not match the murder. It was
16:52
Speaker 1: all hidden under a fake case number.
16:54
Speaker 2: So so I mean, if you're drawing the parallel, we
16:58
Speaker 2: have not uncovered any reports of an autopsy anyway, have not.
17:03
Speaker 2: Then in the trial, the testimonies that there was not
17:06
Speaker 2: an autopsy done, But what you're saying is that there
17:10
Speaker 2: may have been one and those reports have been lost.
17:15
Speaker 1: It's very possible, especially since we know for a fact
17:17
Speaker 1: that this has happened before the GBI did an autopsy
17:19
Speaker 1: and then hit it under a fake case number. So
17:22
Speaker 1: we have no evidence that's what occurred here beyond the
17:25
Speaker 1: questions that were raised. But I don't rule it out either,
17:28
Speaker 1: and I would love to know if somewhere in the
17:31
Speaker 1: GBI's files there's a record of an autopsy that not
17:34
Speaker 1: support the conclusions that Battle wanted to have drawn. What
17:38
Speaker 1: it does mean, though, the record that we've been left
17:40
Speaker 1: with is even worse than we thought. Originally, we thought
17:43
Speaker 1: we had some photos of a gunshot wound that, while blurry,
17:48
Speaker 1: maybe could help us draw some conclusions about what happened
17:50
Speaker 1: to Brian Bowling, and we now know that we don't
17:53
Speaker 1: even have that. Those photos we have they were post
17:56
Speaker 1: embalming and the wound had been substantially altered before the
18:00
Speaker 1: photographs were taken, and they're basically worthless in terms of
18:05
Speaker 1: forensic evidence.
18:07
Speaker 2: Because there's no way of knowing what the wound looked
18:11
Speaker 2: like before it was treated.
18:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the photos are bad too, so it's
18:15
Speaker 1: hard to see what's going on, but it looks like
18:17
Speaker 1: there's been there's definitely been like trimming and cutting away
18:20
Speaker 1: and cleaning up and leveling off, basically preparing Brian's body
18:24
Speaker 1: so cosmetics can be used and putty can be used
18:26
Speaker 1: to make him presentable for the viewing. And it looks
18:28
Speaker 1: as if as possible. There was also tearing, like a
18:30
Speaker 1: stellia tear around the wound, which is the reason why
18:33
Speaker 1: Burne says he was convinced that it was not self inflicted,
18:37
Speaker 1: even though it wouldn't necessarily mean that it hadn't been
18:39
Speaker 1: in contact shot. The photos he has don't prove that
18:43
Speaker 1: there was no tearing at all, because that would have
18:46
Speaker 1: been fixed before that photo was taken. One thing we
18:50
Speaker 1: do still have a record of, though, from the hatskin
18:54
Speaker 1: that was taken of Brian in the hospital, has to
18:57
Speaker 1: do with the angle of the shot, and that's one
19:00
Speaker 1: thing that's been cited by a couple of experts as
19:04
Speaker 1: being potentially anomalous. Are potentially not consistent with self lifted
19:07
Speaker 1: wound because the angle from front to back is greater
19:11
Speaker 1: than they'd expect, and that's not affected by the bombing. Obviously,
19:16
Speaker 1: that comes from before he was dead. But one thing
19:21
Speaker 1: we realize and Cinda, you and I like texted back
19:24
Speaker 1: photos of us holding like fake guns to our head
19:27
Speaker 1: one night, like showing the angles of how it goes.
19:29
Speaker 1: But like what Can's story described to me about how
19:33
Speaker 1: Brian did this is that he was holding the gun
19:35
Speaker 1: in Cane's words, gangster style, which she explained meant that
19:39
Speaker 1: the the butt of the gun was not pointing towards
19:41
Speaker 1: the floor. It was pointed like towards the wall. And
19:45
Speaker 1: if you are holding like a like a fake gun,
19:48
Speaker 1: and you mimic that motion, you can see that the
19:51
Speaker 1: angle that would result in matches pretty much exactly with
19:54
Speaker 1: what's shown in the cat scan.
19:56
Speaker 2: And let's just be clear, no one should try putting a.
19:59
Speaker 1: Gun, a fake gun down, a cab gun, not even
20:03
Speaker 1: a cat gun, well not cap gun. I had a little,
20:06
Speaker 1: uh like a nerve down.
20:08
Speaker 2: I think mine was a water gun. But yeah, I mean,
20:12
Speaker 2: I guess the way the gun was held would change
20:14
Speaker 2: the angle of how the bull entered Brian's brain. But
20:18
Speaker 2: we also talked to an expert who said he had
20:20
Speaker 2: seen various angles and it's not conclusive one way or
20:23
Speaker 2: the other.
20:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not conclusive, but they said it was often
20:27
Speaker 1: for shots when you're not holding a quote unquote gangster style,
20:30
Speaker 1: the angle would not be quite as far back as
20:33
Speaker 1: it wasn't this case, but to me, it kind of
20:36
Speaker 1: validates Cane's story and that the way he describes Brian
20:40
Speaker 1: holding the gun matches exactly what we see with the
20:42
Speaker 1: angle of the shot, and that brings us back to
20:47
Speaker 1: what dom Nic Gastrino, the embalming expert, told me about
20:50
Speaker 1: these photos. And I got to say that was probably
20:52
Speaker 1: one of my favorite interviews I've done during the season.
20:57
Speaker 1: He he had a lot of interesting in it.
20:59
Speaker 2: You were totally nerve being out him.
21:01
Speaker 1: You could tell it was yeah, he I mean, he's
21:04
Speaker 1: seen a lot of complicated cases, not from a medical
21:07
Speaker 1: point of view, but in terms of like reconstructing, like
21:10
Speaker 1: that's literally his job is to figure out what happened
21:12
Speaker 1: and put stuff back together again. And it gave him
21:14
Speaker 1: some good insight about first of all, what happened here
21:18
Speaker 1: the Brian's case, and like what could be shown from
21:21
Speaker 1: the records we do have again not much, but one
21:24
Speaker 1: thing that the other experts we talked to were all
21:26
Speaker 1: baffled by was the what I wouldn't call the false
21:29
Speaker 1: stippling around the gunshot winded Brian's head. There's these little
21:33
Speaker 1: pink dots sort of in a circular pattern, and these
21:37
Speaker 1: dots kind of look like what's called stippling, which is
21:39
Speaker 1: what happens when you have a gun shot that's not
21:42
Speaker 1: a contact shot, but it's not a distance shot either,
21:44
Speaker 1: like an intermediate shot. They aren't stippling, And I know
21:48
Speaker 1: the experts we talked to were all like, I don't
21:49
Speaker 1: know what to make of that, but like it's just
21:51
Speaker 1: not stippling or it was confusing, and don like Estorino
21:56
Speaker 1: looked at it and he's like, oh, I think I
21:57
Speaker 1: know what that is. Yeah, you can see sort of
22:00
Speaker 1: the pinkish like circling the wound, like little dots.
22:05
Speaker 6: Yeah, Oh, I thought you were rescuing on a completely
22:08
Speaker 6: different picture. If you want my opinion, it's that's caused
22:13
Speaker 6: by the whatever metal like the Tweezers or the hemostats
22:17
Speaker 6: they used when they were packing the wound with cotton,
22:20
Speaker 6: and the hemostats scraped against the skin. Because any sort
22:24
Speaker 6: of scrape or abrasion on skin after death or especially
22:28
Speaker 6: after embalming, it's not going to bleed because the heart's
22:30
Speaker 6: not plumping, so you're not gonna be able to tell
22:32
Speaker 6: you nick, like if you give someone razor burn it's
22:35
Speaker 6: not going to show up until after the tissue dehydrates
22:38
Speaker 6: and then it's magnified like that. So if you picture
22:42
Speaker 6: that rod going in there, I know it's it was
22:44
Speaker 6: put on the other side. Pretend it's going in this
22:46
Speaker 6: way and you're using like long metal tweezers to pack
22:50
Speaker 6: them with cotton, and the bottom finger of your tweezers
22:52
Speaker 6: is scraping on the skin as it gets close to
22:54
Speaker 6: the wound. It would look like that.
22:57
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, the medical examine
22:59
Speaker 1: the bliss it's got I was. They were very confused.
23:01
Speaker 1: They're like, it's not it's not stippling.
23:05
Speaker 3: He has such a unique understanding and perspective on this issue.
23:09
Speaker 3: And then it's sort of fascinating that you found him
23:11
Speaker 3: and no one to talk about all this. I was
23:15
Speaker 3: the only person in the world who isn't dealing with
23:16
Speaker 3: what might really have happened.
23:19
Speaker 1: And one other thing that askedor you know, uh, was
23:22
Speaker 1: able to address was an issue with Craig Burns's story
23:26
Speaker 1: about the hardening compound. There was no harden compound. That
23:30
Speaker 1: was not something that was used at all. But before
23:32
Speaker 1: we realized that I was asking talking to Craig burns,
23:34
Speaker 1: And I asked him because I had some understanding of
23:37
Speaker 1: how the hardening compounds still have worked, and it didn't
23:41
Speaker 1: make sense to me because the pictures that he took
23:45
Speaker 1: showa rod going through Brian's head. But here's what he
23:48
Speaker 1: had to say. If there was hardening compound in the wound,
23:52
Speaker 1: would a rod be able to go through the head?
23:56
Speaker 4: You could put a rod through the hardening compound.
23:58
Speaker 5: Yes.
24:00
Speaker 1: So I asked Astrian about this and here's what he
24:02
Speaker 1: told me. If you put the harden compound in, could
24:05
Speaker 1: you've gotten a rod through?
24:06
Speaker 4: Still?
24:07
Speaker 6: You would have had to break the heart. Its hardening
24:11
Speaker 6: compound sets up like claster, so.
24:13
Speaker 1: You would you would have to literally break through it
24:16
Speaker 1: to get the rod through.
24:18
Speaker 6: Yeah, no one Valmer would want to do that because
24:19
Speaker 6: they've already done all their work.
24:21
Speaker 2: So what does this all mean now that we know
24:24
Speaker 2: the family was built for an autopsy that there's no
24:27
Speaker 2: records of it ever happening. The harding compound wasn't what
24:31
Speaker 2: it was. Brian was actually involved before the photos were taken. Like,
24:35
Speaker 2: what legal significance does this have for Lee and Kane?
24:39
Speaker 1: Well, that will be for Lee's attorneys to determine the
24:42
Speaker 1: Georgia Nison's project will be investigating this case as well
24:45
Speaker 1: and looking for an he used to sort of get
24:48
Speaker 1: Lee's case back into court. And kind of the tragedy
24:52
Speaker 1: of these cases is that often, except maybe in DNA cases,
24:58
Speaker 1: proving innocence doesn't and really get you that far. I mean,
25:02
Speaker 1: it's often so much better to have a technicality than
25:05
Speaker 1: it is to have proof of innocence, because the right
25:08
Speaker 1: technicality that fits the right fact pattern an existing case
25:12
Speaker 1: law that can be used to get the conviction of returned.
25:16
Speaker 1: But like overwhelming proof of innocence by itself, not so much.
25:21
Speaker 1: I do think there's reason to be hopeful here and
25:22
Speaker 1: that Lee's attorneys will likely have a very strong case
25:26
Speaker 1: thing put together for a post conviction proceeding. But there's
25:28
Speaker 1: nothing certain about this one way or the other. It's
25:31
Speaker 1: very much work in progress, and it'll be up to
25:33
Speaker 1: the courts to determine what significance or what relevance any
25:37
Speaker 1: of its possible claims may have. So we have a
25:40
Speaker 1: question from Paula at lair Keeper on Twitter, and she writes,
25:44
Speaker 1: have you spoken with the family of Brian Bowling since
25:46
Speaker 1: the podcast has aired? Have their thoughts on the case
25:49
Speaker 1: changed with the new information.
25:51
Speaker 3: If you tune into Monday's episode, you will find out
25:55
Speaker 3: what Brian's family thinks about the podcast and what they
25:58
Speaker 3: think about the case, and two members of Brian's family
26:02
Speaker 3: and Lee's father actually sit down face to face in
26:07
Speaker 3: the episode on Monday. It's just it's an incredible moment
26:10
Speaker 3: and I was fortunate enough to be there with Just
26:13
Speaker 3: Send in Susan four it and I think that most
26:17
Speaker 3: people will be moved by what they see and here,
26:20
Speaker 3: and there will also be video to go along with
26:23
Speaker 3: it that will be posted on the YouTube channel because
26:26
Speaker 3: we've filmed it.
26:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a powerful moment to see Brian's family
26:31
Speaker 1: and Lie's dad Glenn meet for the very first time.
26:41
Speaker 1: Well thanks for listening to this episode of Proof sidebar.
26:43
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26:46
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26:52
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26:53
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26:57
Speaker 1: now find Just Send on Instagram too. I just Send
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27:03
Speaker 4: Had