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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Locked in and Burned -The Terrible Death of Corrine Abosamra · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:01
Speaker 1: Body bugs, but Joseph's gotten more. Over the course of
0:06
Speaker 1: my career as a death investigator, I was part of
0:11
Speaker 1: several national committees. I had to travel all over the country,
0:16
Speaker 1: various meetings and that sort of thing, And of one
0:21
Speaker 1: of my fondest memories was going to Michigan and teaching
0:29
Speaker 1: a group of investigators there the National Standards for Medical
0:34
Speaker 1: Legal death Investigation. And the spot chosen for that instruction
0:39
Speaker 1: was a place that became one of my favorite towns,
0:44
Speaker 1: certainly up north, and that's Grand Rapids, Michigan. I got
0:47
Speaker 1: to tell you, if you've never been there, it is
0:48
Speaker 1: a lovely, lovely place. I didn't expect it, and during
0:56
Speaker 1: that period of time I appreciated, first off, the people
1:00
Speaker 1: were and also how very cold it was at night.
1:04
Speaker 1: Because I was up there in November. Wound up going
1:08
Speaker 1: salmon fishing when I was there and almost drowned. But
1:11
Speaker 1: that aside, I loved that location and I loved that place.
1:17
Speaker 1: But today I've got a case I want to present
1:20
Speaker 1: to you all that is, at least in my way
1:25
Speaker 1: of thinking, it's one of the most horrible ways that
1:28
Speaker 1: a person could die. It takes place just south of
1:32
Speaker 1: Grand Rapids in the town of Kentwood, Michigan. I'm Joseph
1:37
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan and this is body Backs. Over the course
1:43
Speaker 1: of our marriage, Dave Kim and I have rented multiple
1:47
Speaker 1: storage units over this period of time. They are unnecessary evil.
1:53
Speaker 1: I think our house got destroyed by tornado and we
1:58
Speaker 1: salvaged everything that we could and put it into storage.
2:02
Speaker 1: And we've had to use them before as well because
2:05
Speaker 1: we just can't can't, just can't seem to get rid
2:09
Speaker 1: of chunk many times. And they certainly serve a purpose side,
2:14
Speaker 1: but it's like when you go to one after you've
2:18
Speaker 1: rented it. Every time you open the door to one
2:23
Speaker 1: of these places, you don't know what you're going to
2:25
Speaker 1: find inside, particularly as it applies to your property being
2:30
Speaker 1: degraded in there. Maybe there was a leak, which have
2:33
Speaker 1: we've had happened before, or maybe you smell something bad
2:38
Speaker 1: in there, like a dead animal, which we have found
2:41
Speaker 1: rats before. It's just there's something about them that puts
2:47
Speaker 1: me off, and I think a lot of it has
2:49
Speaker 1: to do with a labor that's involved. But I got
2:51
Speaker 1: to tell you, Dave, when you go to storage unit,
2:54
Speaker 1: one of the things you don't expect to find is
2:58
Speaker 1: a dead person. And that's essentially what our case revolves
3:03
Speaker 1: around today.
3:03
Speaker 2: This story of the charred remains, that's the headline, charred
3:08
Speaker 2: remains of woman found in padlocked storage unit, got it
3:13
Speaker 2: by fire. My first thought, Joe, was how did you
3:19
Speaker 2: get in there to get padlocked in? For starters? Second,
3:26
Speaker 2: why didn't you call for anybody you know? And then
3:29
Speaker 2: down the list? And it's only after reading this and
3:31
Speaker 2: finding out that this I don't know if it was
3:36
Speaker 2: a you know you mentioned Nancy says intent can be
3:41
Speaker 2: formed in the Lincoln an eye. I don't know what
3:44
Speaker 2: the intent was here. Was the intent to lock this
3:47
Speaker 2: person in there and cause her death?
3:50
Speaker 1: I don't know. And they're not they're not really spilling
3:52
Speaker 1: the beans at this point. This this case is fresh.
3:56
Speaker 1: I mean, it is a new case, and it caught
4:01
Speaker 1: my eye because the proximity to Grand Rapids and the
4:04
Speaker 1: bizarre nature of it. And that's why I wanted because
4:06
Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot that we can kind
4:08
Speaker 1: of discuss relative to the forensics here. But you know,
4:12
Speaker 1: when we go out to assess an environment, first off,
4:17
Speaker 1: fire environments or the remnant thereof you never know what
4:22
Speaker 1: you're going to find. I can't tell you how many
4:25
Speaker 1: times I've had friends. This has only happened to me once,
4:28
Speaker 1: but I've had colleagues that have actually discovered other bodies
4:32
Speaker 1: that they did not expect. One of the reasons is
4:36
Speaker 1: is that when you walk into a fire scene, a
4:41
Speaker 1: lot of the items that are in there all look
4:45
Speaker 1: the same because you know, you're talking about fire, which
4:50
Speaker 1: is this kind of living, breathing entity that's seeking to continue.
4:56
Speaker 1: It's what fire is defined as an uninhibited chem reaction.
5:01
Speaker 1: That means that there's nothing that's going to if anything
5:05
Speaker 1: disrupts it. There's like four components that you're looking for
5:08
Speaker 1: with fire, uh, in order to make it sustainable. If
5:12
Speaker 1: any of those four points along continuum get disrupted in
5:16
Speaker 1: any way, then the fire is not gonna you know,
5:19
Speaker 1: it's not just going to simply burn itself out. You
5:22
Speaker 1: have to have a starter, which is a heat source.
5:26
Speaker 1: You have to have fuel, and then you have to
5:29
Speaker 1: have a free supply of oxygen. Okay, so that's more
5:35
Speaker 1: like three points along continuum. But you have to have
5:38
Speaker 1: all of those elements to come into place to sustain fire.
5:41
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things we look at, and
5:43
Speaker 1: the fuel for something like this is not necessarily I
5:47
Speaker 1: know that many people think, well, gasoline or some type
5:53
Speaker 1: of petroleum agent is fuel. No, it's not. It's a starter,
5:58
Speaker 1: or it's an accelerant, because you know when you burn
6:00
Speaker 1: up gasoline, when you use that as an accelerant, it
6:04
Speaker 1: burns up rather quickly, particularly in the gaseous form. But
6:08
Speaker 1: what you're looking at as far as sustainable fuel, I mean,
6:11
Speaker 1: think about the stuff that you've you've stored in your
6:13
Speaker 1: in your storage units over the years. You think about
6:17
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're like anything like we were
6:19
Speaker 1: when we were really young. You didn't have handmade carved
6:25
Speaker 1: mahogany furniture. You had stuff made out of press board, uh,
6:30
Speaker 1: really bad fabrics on the coverings. Then you had pictures
6:35
Speaker 1: and all kinds of others, old clothes, things like that.
6:38
Speaker 1: And then to boot you got cardboard boxes. You can't
6:43
Speaker 1: go to you can't go to U haul or even
6:45
Speaker 1: to a storage unit without them trying to sell you
6:47
Speaker 1: boxesally and.
6:48
Speaker 2: You know what, going and moving, you go to the
6:50
Speaker 2: grocery store out in the back boxes.
6:53
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, And so you think about a sustainable fuel source.
6:57
Speaker 1: Cardboard boxes, those core coreated boxes are one of the
7:02
Speaker 1: best around and even even like if you have because
7:07
Speaker 1: we'll soore stuff in plastic as well. So you know
7:10
Speaker 1: you've got those clip on lids, Well, what is plastic
7:14
Speaker 1: made out of. It's a petroleum based product. So once
7:16
Speaker 1: those things ignite and it begins to change, that kind
7:20
Speaker 1: of a chemical change begins. As you introduce heat to
7:26
Speaker 1: the substance that makes up those little it becomes a
7:29
Speaker 1: sustainable fuel source. After a while, you just have to
7:31
Speaker 1: attain enough heat in order to facilitate that.
7:34
Speaker 2: But what about a rentally unit that has limited ox
7:37
Speaker 2: there's not a lot of wind blowing through. They're pretty
7:40
Speaker 2: you know, they're tight, they're got doors on them, in
7:43
Speaker 2: this case padlog door, but there's oftentimes not very much
7:46
Speaker 2: space inside those Yeah.
7:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you begin to think about and this is
7:51
Speaker 1: something that met people don't think about. Let's see, how
7:55
Speaker 1: can I put this if you let's just say that,
7:58
Speaker 1: Let's just say that you an I sit down, We
8:05
Speaker 1: go and we get inside of a two man submarine. Okay,
8:11
Speaker 1: in that submarine as.
8:12
Speaker 2: You out, you're already stuck again.
8:16
Speaker 1: I couldn't take it, well, you and I would be
8:18
Speaker 1: displacing the oxygen in there, so for us introducing the
8:23
Speaker 1: mass of our bodies into that environment, then we're displacing
8:27
Speaker 1: that oxygen that would otherwise be there. So if you've
8:29
Speaker 1: got all of these items and you don't have free
8:32
Speaker 1: flowing air through there, you're going to have a limited
8:34
Speaker 1: amount of oxygen contained in that space. And so you
8:39
Speaker 1: begin to think about, well, if there's a victim in here,
8:42
Speaker 1: where they breathing at the time the fire initiated, or
8:46
Speaker 1: is this something where perhaps they had died prior to
8:50
Speaker 1: and someone decided to foolishly try to incinerate the body
8:55
Speaker 1: in there. That's why, you know, like one of the
8:57
Speaker 1: things you look at with this, you're thinking, Gee, Louisa,
9:00
Speaker 1: is it would somebody use a storage unit in order
9:04
Speaker 1: to render down a body? I just I don't with fire,
9:07
Speaker 1: I don't know. It seems like it'd be rather glaring
9:09
Speaker 1: to me if you were like the watchman out there,
9:12
Speaker 1: you know, keeping keeping tabs on the thing. All right.
9:14
Speaker 2: Well, from a timeline standpoint, we know that Morgan Wingire
9:21
Speaker 2: was at the storage unit with her mother. They're seen
9:24
Speaker 2: on surveillance video at twelve thirty six pm. We're talking
9:29
Speaker 2: November seventh, now, November seventh, in Michigan, in this particular
9:34
Speaker 2: area of Michigan, Is it going to be really cold?
9:35
Speaker 1: Yes, okay at night in particular, and we're talking about
9:39
Speaker 1: night here well actually, and keep in mind we're Alabama
9:42
Speaker 1: boys too, right, so there their perception of cold might
9:46
Speaker 1: not be the same as ours. But when it gets
9:48
Speaker 1: down to it, if the if the environmental temperature is uncomfortable,
9:51
Speaker 1: you're going to be uncomfortable and it's going to be cold,
9:53
Speaker 1: and you're going to look for a heat source.
9:55
Speaker 2: Would right now. Morgan wing IRE's mother actually rented the
9:59
Speaker 2: store unit for her for Morgan. Morgan and her mother
10:05
Speaker 2: are seen at the storage unit at twelve thirty six pm,
10:09
Speaker 2: so just afternoon. They then on surveillance video you can
10:13
Speaker 2: see Morgan Wingire actually put a padlock on the door
10:17
Speaker 2: and lock it. They then leave at eight point thirty
10:24
Speaker 2: that night. On surveillance video, smoke is seen coming out
10:30
Speaker 2: from the storage unit. I don't know to a level
10:33
Speaker 2: because it's dark, but enough that it can be seen
10:36
Speaker 2: on surveillance video. Just after nine pm, flames are seen
10:43
Speaker 2: coming out of the storage units. And these are several
10:47
Speaker 2: units sitting side by side. At just around eleven pm,
10:54
Speaker 2: police and fire show up to the fire, which has
10:56
Speaker 2: now been going on for at least an hour hour
11:00
Speaker 2: half two hours, at least two and a half hours,
11:02
Speaker 2: because when the smoke was first seen, Yeah, and.
11:04
Speaker 1: The firefighters are merely being called out to a structure fires.
11:07
Speaker 2: They had no idea got a storage unit on fire.
11:10
Speaker 1: That's all exactly exactly.
11:11
Speaker 2: The thing is is that they didn't know until they
11:15
Speaker 2: opened the door. And I wonder how this goes on, Joe,
11:18
Speaker 2: because they get there and they see the storage units,
11:21
Speaker 2: they're not all padlocked from the outside. Now, I'm going
11:24
Speaker 2: to guess that you and I both have rented storage units,
11:27
Speaker 2: and if you put your stuff in there, you do
11:29
Speaker 2: put a lock on it.
11:30
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you definitely do. And there are some
11:32
Speaker 1: that have the I've seen some that have like it's
11:36
Speaker 1: not really a dead bolt, but there's like an external
11:39
Speaker 1: lock that comes the thing comes equipped with, right, which
11:42
Speaker 1: I would never trust in a million years. If I've
11:44
Speaker 1: got valuables in there, I'm going to buy the top
11:46
Speaker 1: of the line lock and put it, which can still
11:49
Speaker 1: be defeated pretty easily with a pair of bolt cutters,
11:52
Speaker 1: which it appears is what the fire service used to
11:56
Speaker 1: gain access.
11:57
Speaker 2: They had padlock was used on the door.
11:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had. They had to get in there, and
12:02
Speaker 1: they had to cut that lock in order to gain
12:05
Speaker 1: access to it.
12:05
Speaker 2: Now, when they open this door, Joe, because the other
12:10
Speaker 2: units were on fire, I'm going to assume it's not
12:13
Speaker 2: just one little place. We know it's been burning for
12:15
Speaker 2: two and a half hours based on surveillance video, at
12:17
Speaker 2: least two and a half hours, yep. But we don't
12:20
Speaker 2: know the actual starting point yet. We don't know did
12:24
Speaker 2: it start in the padlocked room or did it start
12:26
Speaker 2: in one of the other units. The only thing we
12:28
Speaker 2: do know is that at twelve thirty six pm, Morgan
12:32
Speaker 2: wing Eyre and her mother were outside that unit number
12:35
Speaker 2: four fifty four when Morgan actually put a padlock on
12:39
Speaker 2: the door and spun it to lock the door. Firemen
12:43
Speaker 2: show up, They cut the padlock off and get in
12:45
Speaker 2: the door. And what do they find, Joseph Scott Morgan.
12:48
Speaker 1: Well, they find a young woman's body that is in
12:52
Speaker 1: amongst the burn debris in this environment, and she used
12:56
Speaker 1: to cease. You know, at this point in time, there's
12:58
Speaker 1: no saving her or anything like this. And immediately, you know,
13:03
Speaker 1: I think that first off, anytime, well, let me back up.
13:08
Speaker 1: Anytime there's a structure fire, you're going to have a
13:11
Speaker 1: fire marshal that's going to come out, and probably a
13:14
Speaker 1: fire investigator and they're going to say.
13:17
Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
13:18
Speaker 1: Wa.
13:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anytime there's a building, a structure he's on fire,
13:22
Speaker 2: they actually begin an investigation.
13:24
Speaker 1: Is that because of our Yeah? Well yeah, I mean,
13:26
Speaker 1: and nothing's you know, look, the firefighters, and God bless them,
13:29
Speaker 1: they've saved my life before. I love firefighters. I love
13:32
Speaker 1: working with them, and I've said that plainly many times
13:34
Speaker 1: over the years. They're not there to assess a scene
13:39
Speaker 1: other than trying to get a fire knocked down and
13:42
Speaker 1: make it safe. And once they back back out, as
13:46
Speaker 1: it said, once all the flames have been knocked down
13:48
Speaker 1: and they've got the things secured, that's when searches begin. Now,
13:52
Speaker 1: firefighters do find bodies, okay. So if they're in there
13:57
Speaker 1: and they're walking around, they've got the big powerful lights on,
14:00
Speaker 1: they've got respirators on, you know, so that because can
14:03
Speaker 1: you imagine the amount of smoke inside this thing, and
14:06
Speaker 1: it would have just come rolling out on them. I'm
14:09
Speaker 1: amazed by the fact that they were able to appreciate
14:11
Speaker 1: her body in that environment. But once you find that
14:13
Speaker 1: body like that, particularly in this case, and they have
14:17
Speaker 1: subdued the fire to the point they've knocked it down,
14:20
Speaker 1: there's no more flame, they're going to back out and
14:23
Speaker 1: they're going to secure the thing, and they're going to
14:24
Speaker 1: call an arson investigator. They're going to call the police.
14:28
Speaker 1: And in this case what they found was on imagine. Well,
14:47
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of obvious, Dave, you can't lock
14:52
Speaker 1: yourself into a structure with the padlock. They've already got
14:56
Speaker 1: CCTV of this young woman locking that. What fascinates me
15:02
Speaker 1: about this is that Wingmer's mother was physically there. How
15:08
Speaker 1: do you not have an awareness that there's somebody in there?
15:10
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying?
15:11
Speaker 2: That's kind of Isn't that odd that the story that
15:15
Speaker 2: we've been told is that Morgan wing Ire, her mother
15:23
Speaker 2: rented the storage unit for her and she was allowing
15:27
Speaker 2: karenn o Ba Samra to stay in the unit. I'm
15:36
Speaker 2: going to go out on a limb here and say,
15:37
Speaker 2: this is not an apartment, this is a storage unit.
15:42
Speaker 2: And Morgan wing Ire and Karin Obasamra, according to Morgan's mother,
15:48
Speaker 2: had been in a relationship with previously and this is
15:52
Speaker 2: stuff coming from Morgan's mother. Morgan wing Are has not
15:55
Speaker 2: spoken out about this. We have no quotes from her.
15:57
Speaker 2: She's in jail right now.
15:58
Speaker 1: We'll tell you why.
16:00
Speaker 2: But it's her mother that gives us the quotes Joe
16:03
Speaker 2: about them being in a relationship and that she claimed
16:06
Speaker 2: that Karen Obasamra had been homeless, homeless person. I'm gonna
16:12
Speaker 2: be straight up with you, man. Karen Obasamra highly educated
16:16
Speaker 2: woman at thirty three years old. She's got her degrees,
16:21
Speaker 2: she's got her career, she's going places. So I'm gonna
16:26
Speaker 2: follow down a path here, and I'm going to suggest
16:30
Speaker 2: something that is unpopular. But Morgan wing Iyer had been
16:36
Speaker 2: arrested last year, well, twenty twenty three on methamphetamine charges. Okay,
16:46
Speaker 2: based on the situation, Morgan wing Iyr is hiding Karen
16:51
Speaker 2: Obisamra in that storage unit from her mother. From Morgan's mother.
16:57
Speaker 1: Wow, And I don't know, I mean, this is all
17:00
Speaker 1: speculative on part you know. So what what would be
17:03
Speaker 1: the motivation behind a grown woman hiding another grown woman
17:10
Speaker 1: in a storage unit in a storage unit, unless you
17:14
Speaker 1: were trying to I don't know. Perhaps you know knock
17:20
Speaker 1: down any kind of suspicion on the mother's part that
17:23
Speaker 1: they were still involved in a relationship. Right.
17:26
Speaker 2: The padlock came from They're at the survey at the
17:29
Speaker 2: unit and the mother says to you know, because it's
17:32
Speaker 2: rented in the mother's name, and her mother insists, you're
17:36
Speaker 2: not going to put a lock on that. Put a
17:38
Speaker 2: lock on that storage unit. That's when Morgan put the
17:41
Speaker 2: lock on the storage unit. That's when she locked that
17:45
Speaker 2: padlock on at twelve thirty six PM. It was because
17:48
Speaker 2: her mother rented the inn. Her mother said, put a
17:50
Speaker 2: lock on that.
17:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're talking, dude, we're talking hours after all.
17:55
Speaker 2: But think about it, Joe. The twelve thirty six, they're
17:59
Speaker 2: at the unit. The smoke is seen at eight thirty
18:02
Speaker 2: on surveillance at nine, flames are seen at eleven. Cops
18:07
Speaker 2: and fires show up, but Morgan wing II or Mark
18:10
Speaker 2: I mean Morgan Wingyre never shows back up. Police go
18:15
Speaker 2: looking for her and don't find her until the next
18:19
Speaker 2: day at eleven thirty am in a hotel. She said
18:23
Speaker 2: she had no plans to be away from the unit
18:26
Speaker 2: that long. She just got tied up with doing some errands. Well.
18:30
Speaker 2: At twenty three hours. She left that woman in that
18:34
Speaker 2: padlocked storage unit, Joe for twenty three hours without anything,
18:40
Speaker 2: and by the way, she wasn't headed back over to
18:43
Speaker 2: the unit when police found her. Police found her in
18:46
Speaker 2: a hotel room.
18:47
Speaker 1: What would be the motivation for you to take up
18:50
Speaker 1: at least temporary residency in a motel somewhere, so to
18:57
Speaker 1: the point where you're adjunct to a fire that you
19:03
Speaker 1: were last known, your last known whereabouts was going to
19:07
Speaker 1: be at that fire, locking the door, and all of
19:10
Speaker 1: a sudden you come up registered at a motel and look,
19:15
Speaker 1: I mean, why are you not going back to your
19:17
Speaker 1: mother's house? Why are you? And so many questions come
19:22
Speaker 1: about here, and I begin to think, was this purposed?
19:27
Speaker 1: You know? What? Were you? Were you just being mean?
19:31
Speaker 1: I hate to reduce it down to that, but were
19:33
Speaker 1: you just because you know? She I will go ahead
19:36
Speaker 1: and give this bit away. She has been charged ay
19:39
Speaker 1: with false imprisonment. Now, if you say false imprisonment, you know,
19:44
Speaker 1: maybe angels dancing on the head of the pen here.
19:46
Speaker 1: But you began to think, well she was was she
19:52
Speaker 1: actually imprisoning her to hold her or did she just
19:57
Speaker 1: create the environment where it's legitimate she forgot that she
20:02
Speaker 1: was in there. How do you forget another human being
20:04
Speaker 1: that you, according to the mother, that you have been
20:07
Speaker 1: involved in an intimate relationship with. How do you forget
20:10
Speaker 1: that person that you had locked them in there? I
20:12
Speaker 1: don't understand it.
20:14
Speaker 2: Well, you know what sometimes and I'm gonna I'm just
20:17
Speaker 2: gonna speculate that sometimes people who use drugs lose track
20:21
Speaker 2: of time, especially when they use drugs like methamphetamine, they
20:24
Speaker 2: tend to lose track of time. I'm not suggesting for
20:27
Speaker 2: a minute that Morgan Wingeyre went out on a drug
20:30
Speaker 2: bene and ended up in a hotel when police found
20:33
Speaker 2: her to tell her that her storage unit was burned
20:35
Speaker 2: up with a person inside and they have her on
20:38
Speaker 2: surveillance video padlocking the door. By the way, Corinne Obisamra
20:44
Speaker 2: was left inside that storage unit, Joe with nothing, no food,
20:50
Speaker 2: no water, no light, and no phone, no means of communication,
20:54
Speaker 2: just all for help or anything else.
20:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, who in the world nowadays? I know there are
20:59
Speaker 1: people well, don't get me wrong, but who doesn't have
21:02
Speaker 1: at least a burn her phone, you know, with them?
21:05
Speaker 1: And we're talking about a lady that is, by all accounts,
21:09
Speaker 1: is highly educated has been successful. You listen to her
21:14
Speaker 1: family talk about her, and she's been involved in things
21:17
Speaker 1: like public service, you know, like working with people, outreach,
21:23
Speaker 1: those sorts of things. She's got this kind of bubbly
21:26
Speaker 1: personality and you think about, well, what, you know, what
21:30
Speaker 1: kind of detour did she take in her life that
21:33
Speaker 1: would wind up with her inside of a non heated,
21:37
Speaker 1: non electrified storage unit where she doesn't have access to heat.
21:43
Speaker 1: She's just kind of cast aside in the saying, and
21:46
Speaker 1: then locked down and then suddenly, mysteriously a fire begins.
22:06
Speaker 1: You know, David, fire is such a mystery weed We've
22:10
Speaker 1: covered on body backs, We've covered some firecases in the past,
22:15
Speaker 1: but you know, fire is such a mystery. The most
22:19
Speaker 1: important thing I think for fire investigators and death investigators
22:24
Speaker 1: is to try to determine two things. First off, the
22:28
Speaker 1: source of the heat. Remember I talked about the uninhibited
22:33
Speaker 1: chemical chain reaction of fire. Is it sustainable? And adjacent
22:40
Speaker 1: to that is going to be point of origin. Where
22:43
Speaker 1: did this thing start? Because you have to wonder did
22:49
Speaker 1: it start in the middle of the floor. I don't
22:51
Speaker 1: know about you, but Dave correct me if I'm wrong.
22:56
Speaker 1: Storage units are commonly built on concrete slabs, aren't they Those.
23:00
Speaker 2: Five rented have been Yes.
23:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one altered to the ground, the beams and
23:06
Speaker 1: everything or you know, those girders are like you know,
23:09
Speaker 1: they're driven into the ground with bolts and held in place.
23:13
Speaker 1: It's not like you're going to dig a hole, dig
23:15
Speaker 1: a fire pit, you know, and create a fire. And
23:17
Speaker 1: even if you did, what what are you going to
23:20
Speaker 1: use as fuel in there?
23:21
Speaker 2: And you know, I think that's why there is some
23:25
Speaker 2: mystery surrounding this because so far we haven't been told
23:30
Speaker 2: that the fire began in that unit. We were only
23:34
Speaker 2: told that fire department officials had to cut the padlock
23:38
Speaker 2: off of it to get inside. And you know, we
23:42
Speaker 2: can assume that that's where the fire began. We can
23:45
Speaker 2: assume because they were knocking it down everywhere else, but
23:48
Speaker 2: they still had a problem in that unit. We can
23:50
Speaker 2: assume those things, but we don't know that for a fact.
23:52
Speaker 2: That's why I was asking about oxygen in a room
23:55
Speaker 2: and how much there because you're a confined area. That's
23:59
Speaker 2: usually a you know, it's twelve by fourteen or whatever,
24:02
Speaker 2: and it usually has stuff in it.
24:03
Speaker 1: You know.
24:04
Speaker 2: Let's just say for the sake of all that's good
24:07
Speaker 2: and human in this world. That here, this poor woman
24:09
Speaker 2: is in being hidden in a storage unit with nothing,
24:16
Speaker 2: and maybe she's got a lighter in her pocket, and
24:19
Speaker 2: maybe she's trying to light she's cold, she's hungry, she's thirsty.
24:23
Speaker 2: Maybe she's trying to just burn, you know, something to
24:25
Speaker 2: stay warm, trying to burn some papers or clothes. I
24:29
Speaker 2: don't know.
24:30
Speaker 1: But at what.
24:31
Speaker 2: Point do we look at this and say she was
24:35
Speaker 2: in there for at least ten hours before the fire
24:38
Speaker 2: was seen.
24:38
Speaker 1: You know what a what a hopeless feeling that would be.
24:42
Speaker 1: You know, no matter how much you rattle or bang
24:46
Speaker 1: on that door, nobody's coming to your rescue. The thing
24:48
Speaker 1: is locked externally, and there's not a latch. I don't think.
24:52
Speaker 1: I'm sure that people out there will correct me, but
24:54
Speaker 1: to the best milage, it's not an internal latch, and
24:56
Speaker 1: even if there was, it's secure from the outside. So
25:00
Speaker 1: how hopeless would that be? And listen, this is the
25:02
Speaker 1: other thing too. We're talking about November. So in the
25:05
Speaker 1: middle of the day, this metallic box that you've got
25:10
Speaker 1: all your stuff stored in, you're going to have some
25:13
Speaker 1: radiant heating that's in there. My brother, is that sun
25:16
Speaker 1: begins to dip down up there in Michigan, You're going
25:22
Speaker 1: to feel that chill. And can you imagine, let's just say,
25:25
Speaker 1: for the sacred argument, that she is in fact seated
25:29
Speaker 1: on that concrete floor, how cold that is. And it's
25:32
Speaker 1: one of those if you've ever sat on like really
25:35
Speaker 1: cold stone like that for a protracted period of time,
25:38
Speaker 1: you know how people say I can feel the cold
25:40
Speaker 1: in my bones. That's the way it feels. It just
25:43
Speaker 1: kind of travels up throughout your body. And you know,
25:47
Speaker 1: for I don't know what she had that she could
25:49
Speaker 1: have wrapped herself in. You know, did she have a
25:51
Speaker 1: blanket even you know, one of the basic necessities of life, warmth,
25:56
Speaker 1: heat protection coverage, or there any other clothes that were
26:00
Speaker 1: in there that she could have put on, just to
26:03
Speaker 1: you know, try to try to salvage any kind of
26:06
Speaker 1: heat that her little body was generating in that environment.
26:10
Speaker 1: But we do have a clue here, Dave. There's a
26:12
Speaker 1: comment that firefighters made in regards to this, and I
26:18
Speaker 1: found this kind of compelling, Dave. They didn't say that
26:23
Speaker 1: her body was found. They said that her charred remains
26:29
Speaker 1: were found. And that's that's different because I've worked a
26:33
Speaker 1: lot of cases over the years where people did in
26:35
Speaker 1: fact die of smoke inholation. You know the old adage
26:39
Speaker 1: about how many times we've seen the thing. We even
26:41
Speaker 1: learned it when we were kids. If there's a fire
26:42
Speaker 1: in the room, you get on get on the floor,
26:44
Speaker 1: and you crawl right, crawl because there's still breatheable Yeah,
26:48
Speaker 1: there's still breathable oxygen down there, But you do that
26:51
Speaker 1: in order to escape where you're going to escape to.
26:53
Speaker 1: Can you imagine the panic that would set in. Let's
26:56
Speaker 1: just say that she did in fact start a fire
26:58
Speaker 1: in there just for her on comfort. Well, where you
27:02
Speaker 1: going to go to to escape it, and the place
27:05
Speaker 1: is not lighted, She can't see what's around there. There
27:07
Speaker 1: may have been a lot of flammable items that were
27:09
Speaker 1: in there. But we do know that she's sequestered in
27:13
Speaker 1: this area against her will because she can't leave. I
27:16
Speaker 1: can't imagine anybody in their right mind saying, will you
27:20
Speaker 1: please get the padlock and lock me up inside of
27:23
Speaker 1: the storage unit and don't come back and check on me,
27:25
Speaker 1: And by the way, don't give me any means to
27:29
Speaker 1: communicate with anybody out there. You know, it's just it,
27:34
Speaker 1: It's mind boggling when you think about it.
27:36
Speaker 2: Day, I actually went back over this story multiple times
27:40
Speaker 2: and looked through multiple sources, and because they kept thinking
27:43
Speaker 2: I'm missing something here, I am missing something And in
27:46
Speaker 2: reality you have to make it. You know, you don't
27:50
Speaker 2: have to. But if you make a couple of assumptions
27:52
Speaker 2: and you can get there, it's explainable as to what happened.
27:57
Speaker 2: Now on its surface, just looking at it as just
28:00
Speaker 2: too Joe blows. You have a person who my mom
28:04
Speaker 2: rented this unit for me, and I'm hiding a friend
28:07
Speaker 2: in there, but I don't want my mom to find out.
28:09
Speaker 2: And I don't know how mom doesn't know, but she
28:14
Speaker 2: apparently doesn't know that Karen Obisamra is staying inside the
28:19
Speaker 2: storage unit. And as they're getting ready to pull away
28:22
Speaker 2: that day, Morgan wing Eire's mother says, hey, why is
28:27
Speaker 2: that not lock that up? That's my stuff, and lock
28:30
Speaker 2: it up. So she does now her intention. I'm going
28:33
Speaker 2: to come back in a couple hours. You know, I'm
28:35
Speaker 2: going to lock it now, but I'm coming back. She
28:37
Speaker 2: knows she according to Morgan wing Ire herself, she told
28:40
Speaker 2: police she knew that Karen Abusamra had no phone no food,
28:46
Speaker 2: no nothing. She knew that when she left her there.
28:48
Speaker 2: She didn't plan on leaving her there for a long time.
28:51
Speaker 2: She planned on coming back, but you know what, she
28:54
Speaker 2: didn't come back, and she didn't come back because I
28:57
Speaker 2: think she was Probably the only thing that explains it, Joe,
29:05
Speaker 2: is she was using drugs and was not coming back
29:08
Speaker 2: because of that, because she was high now.
29:11
Speaker 1: Or she was cruel beyond measure, if she.
29:15
Speaker 2: Did this intentionally and willfully, she locked somebody in there
29:18
Speaker 2: and then just didn't come back. Because I got to
29:20
Speaker 2: say this, it's not like this woman was only locked
29:23
Speaker 2: in there for ten hours. Back up and regroup and
29:26
Speaker 2: realize the person that should put the padlock on there
29:29
Speaker 2: wasn't back there for twenty three hours. Okay, she didn't.
29:32
Speaker 2: It wasn't ten hours in her mind's eye. It had
29:35
Speaker 2: been twenty three hours when police found her at the
29:38
Speaker 2: hotel and she still wasn't on her way back to
29:42
Speaker 2: the storage unit. So if that was her intent to
29:46
Speaker 2: lock that girl up and let her die, mission accomplished.
29:51
Speaker 1: Well, I think that we have some clues here considering
29:54
Speaker 1: how she was charged, because they did in fact charge her,
29:57
Speaker 1: I believe Dave correct me. If I'm wrong with involuntary manslaughter.
30:03
Speaker 2: They did for.
30:04
Speaker 1: Right now because they haven't released a lot of information
30:08
Speaker 1: in regards to the status of this poor woman's body.
30:12
Speaker 1: And here's another bit, they don't know what the origin
30:18
Speaker 1: of this fire was.
30:20
Speaker 2: I was hoping you did. I'm not in my notes
30:23
Speaker 2: asked Joe about the origin of the fire, because I
30:26
Speaker 2: can't find it anywhere, and they're not saying.
30:28
Speaker 1: Well, the origin, most of the time is going to
30:31
Speaker 1: be determined. You've got two ways to frame origin. For
30:37
Speaker 1: most laymen, you'll say the origin is whatever started the fire, Okay,
30:43
Speaker 1: how did it originate? But for us, origin in forensics
30:49
Speaker 1: is more of a spatial assessment. Okay, Like origin is
30:53
Speaker 1: where you know, like your country of origin, your place
30:56
Speaker 1: of origin, So where did it start? How do we
31:00
Speaker 1: determine that? Most of the time you're going to determine
31:04
Speaker 1: that based upon the degree of damage in a location.
31:09
Speaker 1: So it's relatively simple. The more damage you have in
31:13
Speaker 1: a location, that means that the fire is burned there
31:15
Speaker 1: the longest, and perhaps more intensely. Like if you start
31:20
Speaker 1: a fire, if you've got a I don't know, a
31:23
Speaker 1: sixteen by twenty room, I don't know if that makes
31:28
Speaker 1: sense or not. But anyway, you start a fire over
31:31
Speaker 1: in the corner of a room with dry wall, you know, gypsum,
31:34
Speaker 1: you know, made out of that, maybe you stack some
31:37
Speaker 1: rags there, you put a little gasoline, and you start it. Well,
31:40
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that that fire can't leap and get
31:43
Speaker 1: in behind the walls, because they do get up in
31:45
Speaker 1: the ceiling burn their way around. But the most damage
31:49
Speaker 1: that's going to be done is where those rags were. Well,
31:52
Speaker 1: here's here's the rub, if you will. If this is
31:59
Speaker 1: on a concrete surface and she started in the middle
32:01
Speaker 1: of the room, are they going to be able to
32:04
Speaker 1: tell what the actual point of origin was? Was it
32:08
Speaker 1: over in a corner, because concrete doesn't necessarily it'll be
32:12
Speaker 1: you know, kind of scorched, scored, if you will, But
32:17
Speaker 1: it's not going to it's not like wood that's gonna
32:20
Speaker 1: you know, become brittle and fall apart. Well, if it's
32:22
Speaker 1: right there on the floor, this could make this a
32:26
Speaker 1: bit more of a heavy lift for the forensics people
32:29
Speaker 1: after they get in there. The other thing I want
32:31
Speaker 1: to know, well, I guess the big ask is how
32:36
Speaker 1: did the mother not know that there was a living
32:39
Speaker 1: human being? Inside of there, and that goes to the
32:42
Speaker 1: next question, was she in fact living okay? So at autopsy,
32:49
Speaker 1: one of the things the first things you're going to
32:51
Speaker 1: look for is going to be small smoking relation. Did
32:53
Speaker 1: she inhalate or breathe in inhale the debris that's burning
33:01
Speaker 1: up around her or is there no evidence of that
33:04
Speaker 1: where you don't have any of the soot as we
33:06
Speaker 1: refer to it into the airway, into the lungs, into
33:09
Speaker 1: the narries of the nose, the sinuses. Is it absent
33:14
Speaker 1: any kind of damage you can actually, you know when
33:17
Speaker 1: you do a dissection on a throat, on the neck,
33:21
Speaker 1: the elements of the neck and you look into the trachia,
33:24
Speaker 1: I don't This is one of the most horrible things
33:26
Speaker 1: to me. By the way, Dave, did you know that
33:31
Speaker 1: when we open open the neck, we'll cut right down
33:37
Speaker 1: through the center of it, through through the airway And
33:41
Speaker 1: if an individual has been exposed to superheated air, there
33:48
Speaker 1: are focal areas inside of the airway where it was burning.
33:53
Speaker 1: Just grab hold of that, just for a second. You
33:55
Speaker 1: can see color changes that are like, oh my god,
33:58
Speaker 1: this person. And if we've ever been if you've ever
34:01
Speaker 1: been around a fire like an outdoor fire perhaps and
34:05
Speaker 1: a bonfire, and you're too close to it. It's one
34:08
Speaker 1: thing you feel the heat coming off, but if you
34:10
Speaker 1: take a breath in, you can feel the heat that
34:13
Speaker 1: you're taking on board. Just imagine you can't escape from
34:15
Speaker 1: the bonfire. There's nowhere to run. You're right there, everything
34:18
Speaker 1: is burning up around you. So my big question from
34:23
Speaker 1: a forensics perspective is was was she alive at the
34:29
Speaker 1: time that the fire was going on? Because it begs
34:33
Speaker 1: this question, how could the mother not have an awareness
34:38
Speaker 1: that this person was in there where they just quiet,
34:40
Speaker 1: That's something else happened to them beforehand. And secondly, I
34:46
Speaker 1: want to know what exactly was her cause of death
34:50
Speaker 1: if it's not smoke inhlation, where there other injuries sustained?
34:55
Speaker 1: And that opens up an entire myriad of problems that
35:00
Speaker 1: you're faced with fires, Because if you're talking about a
35:04
Speaker 1: bullet hole somebody's been shot, you can still pick up
35:09
Speaker 1: on that. With X rays you can actually see I've
35:12
Speaker 1: seen bodies that have been burned after they were executed
35:15
Speaker 1: execution style in the back of the head and you can
35:17
Speaker 1: still see within the cranial vault if you will you'll
35:22
Speaker 1: see this kind of lead snow storm that's in there
35:24
Speaker 1: where the projectile particulated and kind of spread out through there.
35:28
Speaker 1: You can still see that. Some fires get so hot, though,
35:32
Speaker 1: I've had cases where fires have gotten so hot. First off,
35:36
Speaker 1: you have heat fractures to bone as well as the skull.
35:39
Speaker 1: I've opened up skulls before where brains were liquefied because
35:43
Speaker 1: of the heat. It's almost like the brain boiled inside
35:46
Speaker 1: of the skull. So those types of things do happen.
35:49
Speaker 1: It's hard to take the measure of it, isn't it.
35:52
Speaker 1: So there's there's a lot more unanswered questions that need
35:56
Speaker 1: to be asked. I think that it's possible that if
36:01
Speaker 1: they see anything that is other than as advertised as
36:06
Speaker 1: they say many times, they can up charge her more
36:09
Speaker 1: than likely Dave on this, It wouldn't just simply be
36:13
Speaker 1: involuntary manslaughter. If they find something else that's going on
36:17
Speaker 1: with her, then that can certainly, I think, you know,
36:22
Speaker 1: probably make those charges a bit more robust.
36:24
Speaker 2: Do you think that, Yeah, You've opened my eyes to
36:28
Speaker 2: a lot of the things that I didn't realize were
36:31
Speaker 2: possible in figuring out because I went back to make
36:33
Speaker 2: sure that it wasn't smokeing elation that you know. What
36:36
Speaker 2: did they find? What did fire and police find? And
36:40
Speaker 2: they found the charred remains of corn Alba Samra And
36:45
Speaker 2: that's what we know. And then we know that Morgan
36:50
Speaker 2: Wingeire put the padlock on the door at twelve thirty
36:54
Speaker 2: six pm and was gone. They didn't even find her
36:58
Speaker 2: for twenty three hours, and when they did, she was
37:00
Speaker 2: at a hotel. She was not at the unit unit
37:03
Speaker 2: burned that day. So I'm looking at it from the
37:05
Speaker 2: person who put the lock on. She didn't come back.
37:08
Speaker 2: She said she planned to come back, but she didn't.
37:11
Speaker 2: So what was it? Did you really want to? Just
37:14
Speaker 2: were you killing this person by putting? And then you
37:16
Speaker 2: mentioned it was she killed before this happened and a
37:20
Speaker 2: fire started in another unit and came into that unit.
37:23
Speaker 2: That's a possibility, right, yeah.
37:25
Speaker 1: It is. Wow, you just you brought back a memory
37:29
Speaker 1: when you said was there an intent to kill her?
37:33
Speaker 1: And that would make this almost like a almost a
37:38
Speaker 1: passive form of homicide instead of kind of a proactive
37:43
Speaker 1: like I'm going to not I yeah, but I'm going
37:46
Speaker 1: to take a weapon and do away with somebody. It's
37:49
Speaker 1: almost like passively you know, well, you know, and that
37:53
Speaker 1: goes to this idea of neglect, which we see. You know,
37:57
Speaker 1: that comes up in other cases, but this is on
37:59
Speaker 1: a different level because you're whether you're drug addlest or not,
38:04
Speaker 1: I don't know what our status is, but you're subjecting
38:09
Speaker 1: this woman first off, to just sheare panic, right, because
38:12
Speaker 1: I don't know about you. I don't do good in small,
38:14
Speaker 1: dark spaces. I'm not saying this. I'm not saying the
38:17
Speaker 1: storage union. It's small by any means. However, can you
38:20
Speaker 1: imagine bumping around in the dark and you don't have
38:22
Speaker 1: any source of light. You have no idea what's in there?
38:24
Speaker 1: I mean boxes and just debris.
38:30
Speaker 2: Even Jeff it was nothing if there was nothing in there, yeah, yeah,
38:36
Speaker 2: And he's walking around the cell that you can't see.
38:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. And there's no source of light. I've
38:40
Speaker 1: been Every storage unit i've had has had I think
38:46
Speaker 1: some light switch in it. Now, I've had one that didn't,
38:49
Speaker 1: and I've had them that don't have power sources either,
38:52
Speaker 1: I guess for good reason. You know, where you can't
38:54
Speaker 1: plug in something in there. I've had other ones, and
38:57
Speaker 1: you get what you get, you know, if you up charge,
38:59
Speaker 1: you know, they'll charge you for it, you know, and
39:02
Speaker 1: certainly you know you have the ones that are in
39:04
Speaker 1: climate you know, they always use the climate controlled storage units.
39:08
Speaker 2: You know, I got one step up from the dirt
39:10
Speaker 2: barn in my neighbor's backyard, you know, cheapest one I
39:13
Speaker 2: could find.
39:13
Speaker 1: That's where my stuff was back Yeah, exactly, And so
39:16
Speaker 1: you you consider all of that if if I think
39:22
Speaker 1: the big thing here is was their intent to do
39:25
Speaker 1: harm to this poor woman? And we can't say at
39:30
Speaker 1: this point in time if her intention was just to
39:32
Speaker 1: leave her in there forever and ever. Amen, we don't know,
39:35
Speaker 1: but we do know that this poor woman was locked
39:41
Speaker 1: in a sword unit and abandoned for hours upon hours
39:46
Speaker 1: until mysteriously a fire starts. There's gonna be more to
39:50
Speaker 1: follow in this case until then. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
39:54
Speaker 1: and this is Body Backs