Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Jospeph Scott Morgan: Joshua Drennen's Murderous Rampage

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Body Bags with Jospeph Scott Morgan: Joshua Drennen's Murderous Rampage · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Morgan. As I've gotten older, I
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: think that horn of things I enjoy doing more than
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: anything on weekends with my wife. I can't believe I'm
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: saying this, but it's actually going antiquing. I love to
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: go to old junk stores and I love to go
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to antique shops and just look at things. It's not
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: that I'm necessarily going to buy anything I like, and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I think because I'm a frustrated historian at heart, and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: every item in every one of these stores has its
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: own tale to be told. And it's fascinating, particularly when
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: you walk through an area of a store and you
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: see tools that are left behind that people find useless nowadays,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: but it's things that meant something to people in their
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: workaday life, things that they used on a regular basis,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and it draws you in. You can learn a lot
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: about a person and the life that they have lived.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I think perhaps by those things that they utilized. And
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: that brings me to what we're going to talk about today.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: A lady that had lived a full life, had made
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: it into her seventies, had retired and was now just
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: pointing to live at peace, working on clothing working as
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: a seamstress and using an old fashioned iron, a steam iron,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, whole world exploded in Charleston,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: West Virginia. My name is Joseph Scott Morgan and this
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: is Bodybags. I was very hesitant to talk about this
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: case to day. However, I think that it's emblematic of
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: how quickly terror can fall upon us at any moment
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: in time. And I had to talk about this case
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: with my friend Jackie Jackie Howard from Crime Stories with
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. Jackie. I don't know that over the course
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: of our discussions of encountered a case like this, but
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: it really kind of punched me in the gut when
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I began to think about you live your life and
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: you just want to be at peace. You just you
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: want to love those that are around you and enjoy
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: your years that you've worked so hard for. To live
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: in this kind of environment where you don't have to
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: get up and do those things that you have to do,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: you do the things you want to do. I don't
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: know how it affected you, but this case, when I
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: read it, it was just horrifying. We have talked about
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: so many things that we as humans can do to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: each other. But this is one of well of the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: worst that we've talked about. Seventy seven year old Barbara
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Steele was in her home just enjoying and doing the
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: things that she wanted to do when Joshua Drennan, twenty
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: eight years old, entered her home and attacked Barbara Steele.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Let me warn you now, not that I think that
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: you're listening to this podcast with children in the room,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: but if you have someone who is sensitive to rough content,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: we advise you now this is a rough podcast to
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: listen to. Very heinous things were done by Joshua Drennan
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and multiple He went on a mini crime spree, attacking
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: multiple victims, but it started with Barbara Steele. He went
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: into her home and attacked this woman. The piece of
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: equipment that you're talking about, Joe, the antique here is
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: an iron. You know, there's a term that people, you
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: know that study artifacts use, and I've always been fascinated
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: by this term. It's called patina, and patina gives you
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: an indication that the appearance of an item or a
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: work of art, or whether it be an instrument of
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: some kind, that over the years that decades, perhaps it
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: has aged in a particular way, and it, you know,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: it takes on these different characteristics where almost the item
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: itself is kind of morphinous as years go by, and
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: we would expect that, and it seems kind of obvious,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: but I've seen images of this steam iron and if
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I can, you know, just kind of describe it. It
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: looks like an old fashioned iron that you would play, say,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: for instance, on a stove. It's not an electric iron.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: It's something that you would place perhaps on a stove
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and you know, heat the thing up, you know, something
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: like a great gram mother would have used. My grandmother
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: actually had a couple of old fashioned irons that you
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: would put on the surface of a wood burning stove
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of pope belly stove, and you know that you don't
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: really give it a second thought. But this one looks
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit different. It's got a kind of a
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: bulb on the front of it and a metal handle.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: It's kind of rusty in appearance, I guess, and the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: bulb itself apparently is where water is contained. And it's
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: an early iteration of what we would refer to as
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a steam iron, so that when it's heated, the little
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: ball that contains the water heats up and it transfers
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: that steam, you know, to the item that you're ironing,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you know, pressing. It's fascinating to see that someone would
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: still use this to this day. But from what we understand,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: this item was in fact utilized by the victim in
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: this case, she worked as a seamstress and would still
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: utilize this iron something that she preferred. You know. Even
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: her children said that they seen it in the house
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: for years and years. It was just part of who
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: she was. She liked it. I don't know what the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: origin of this item is, and maybe it's something that
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: had been passed down through her family, you know, because
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: this is an art form, working with clothing and doing alterations,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: and it's something that maybe she had had in her
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: family for a long time. Maybe it had been passed
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: on from you know, almost from master to apprentice, you know,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: as it were, and something she had held onto. And
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: so the iron itself becomes part and parcel of the story.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: It's kind of what the whole thing centers around, because
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: it's an item that is what we would refer to
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: from a forensic standpoint, is a weapon of convenience. It's
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: something that a perpetrator does not come armed with. It's
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: something that they utilize that is within arm's reach. That's
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: something that is part of that environment which they kind
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: of invade and step into, And in this case, it
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: was utilized in the most brutal way that I think
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: that anybody could imagine. Police were made aware of what
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: was happening inside this home, or what did happen inside
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: this home by neighbors who witnessed Joshua Drennin exiting Barbara
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Steele's home. Now, remember Barbara Steele is seventy seven. Joshua
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Drennin is twenty eight. The owner of a business that
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: was located across the street from Steele's home, and he
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: had known her from quite some time, was the first
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: person to find her. He said he looked through the
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: screen door and could see down the hallway, and he
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: described it as looking like a battle zone. He said,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: there was broken glass everywhere, things were toppled over. It
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: basically looked like a tornado had gone through. So forensically, Joe,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: what do we see here? What can that tell us?
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: How many times have we talked about over the course
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: of our years together, Jackie on Nancy Show and any
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: other kind of medium that we're on, you know, when
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: they come to me and they asked me about prompting assessment,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: it's kind of our fallback position, we say, you know,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: there was no signs of forced entry or struggle, all right,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: in this case, this is a classic sign of struggle.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: You've got items that are randomly broken, shattered glass. I
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: think that was the most striking thing about this, that
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: there was broken glass. People kept implying that. I think
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of it had to do with the fact that,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: in addition to what had gone on inside of the home,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Miss Steele's vehicle that was parked at her home there
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the police described in an interesting way. They said that
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: her vehicle had been attacked. And when I was reading
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: over the police reports in this particular case, that was
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: an interesting you know, kind of turned the phrase there
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: her vehicle was attacked, because you think of people, or
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: you know, an animal or you know, being attacked, you
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: don't think of a car being attacked. But that's the
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: way it was described. And I think that that's also
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: something that had drawn the neighborhood's attention to this, because
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: when Drennan left her house, he has this steam iron
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: that we talked about in hand and he is essentially
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: pounding on the outside of her car and breaking the
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: windows and all that sort of thing, and he met
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: with a certain level of frustration where he couldn't gain
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: access to it. So you can imagine that in this
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: environment which the neighbor had talked about. You know, you'd
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: known her for years and years, and miss Steel was
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: known as somebody. First off, she retired from local school board,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: had put in her time there. She was highly regarded,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: and you know, the thing that you come away with
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: when you read back through the interviews of witnesses and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: people that were in her circle, they talked about how
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: gentle she was and how kind she was. She had
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of kids that she I'm sure she had
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: touched their lives in this community. She lived on the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: west side of Charleston, West Virginia, in just a modest
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: wood frame whitewood frame home. She was widowed and just
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: living this kind of peaceful existence and then all of
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a sudden her world explodes with this guy. That there's
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: no indication that they had ever crossed pass before. And
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: that's what makes this all the more horrific. Why of
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: all the people in the world, would you, in fact
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: target a lady like this, who is obviously going to
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: be weaker than you, who's not posing a threat in
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: any way. There's no indication, you know that she was
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: screaming at this guy as he's walking down the street,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: you know, engaging with him anyway. He just burst into
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: her life and just absolutely just ripped it to shrift.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Besides the assault on Barbara Steel the assault on the car,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Joshua Drenning continued his crime spree, going through the neighborhood
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and ultimately assaulted at least two other people that we
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: know of. One was a woman sitting in a drug
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: store parking lot. What happened to her? Again, somebody just
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: randomly sitting can you imagine? And all of us had
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: done this, hopefully nobody's you know, texting while they're driving.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: And this lady had pulled over into the local drug
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: stores parking lot and was sitting there and she's like
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: in a two thousand and four Hondas CRV, you know,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: her back it's to this guy as he's approaching her car,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and she's sitting there. She's texting, you know, and you're thinking, well,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: what would she be texting about it? You can kind
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: of superimpose your thoughts about it. But maybe she's at
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the drug store. She's trying to contact her family, saying, look,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I'm at the drug stores or anything I can pick
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: up for you while I'm here, this sort of thing.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, her driver's side window
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: just explodes in a hail of glass. This iron that
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: we talked about is being wielded by Brennan. He drives
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: this thing through the glass and begins to pummel her
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: with this iron and beat her and then doesn't open
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: the door. He drags her out of the car through
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the broken window and onto the ground, a Jason you know,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: to the vehicle, and he hops in the vehicle and
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: drives away. And I can only imagine, you know, her,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: it's not surprised, doesn't even begin, you know, to kind
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: of describe this. You're minding your own business, and all
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: of a sudden the world just explodes in the shattering
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: of this cube safety glass, which is what you know
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: we have, you know in these windows all sign if
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: you ever see a car, the glass on either side
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: shatters into these little cubes, and she probably would have
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: wound up with tiny little lacerations as a result. Of
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the glass fracturing into these little bits that comes across
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: these little cubes. They make these little L shaped lacerations
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: as they strike skin, and that's one of the reasons.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: That's kind of how in motor vehicle accents, for instance,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: we can tell which side of the vehicle and individuals
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: positioned in. Were they a passenger in the front seat,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and do they have these cube that called it cubing
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: injuries on the right side of their face that gives
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: you an indication they were adjacent to that window, and
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: on the less side, you know, of the face, that
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: would give you an indication that you're on the driver side,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: either in the front or the back seat. And then
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: she's drug out there and she's probably dazed, in a
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: state of complete and total confusion, and then she looks
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: up and her car is just gone. Total stranger has
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: just driven off with this vehicle, and he's this guy
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: is in kind of this amped up state. He's driving
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: along the road and according to what the police reports
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: are saying, he wound up striking another vehicle that a
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: gentleman was driving. And I don't know if the CRV
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: that he had stolen had become disabled, but he decides
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: that he's going to try to commandeer the vehicle that
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: he has just struck. But suddenly reality sets in. I
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: think a lot can be learned about the nature of
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: this fellow. It's at this point he approaches the driver
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: of that vehicle and the next thing you know, he's
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: staring down the muzzle of a gun because this guy's
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: a concealed carry guy, and he draws his weapon and
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Drenning suddenly, I guess he has
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: a lucid moment. He realizes, Oh, this guy's a threat.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Now keep in mind, the two people that he has
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: brutally attacks so far have been women, unarmed women, and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: now he comes face to face with a person that
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: is prepared to shoot him, and he runs away. At
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: that point in time, the next person that Drennan runs into, Joe,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: is a police officer, who by now are made aware
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: that this has happened to In Barbara Steele's home, witnesses
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: saw Drennan leaving and reported it to the police. Now
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: you have a second woman injured, as you said, and
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: then he runs into a police officer. The police officer,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: this gentleman, he is aware. You know, there's radio chatter
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: at this point, you know, something ain't right. I can
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: tell you, you you know, they probably don't have this kind
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: of thing. You know, Charleston is not a tiny town,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: but I can tell you they don't have some maniac
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: running down the street every day with an antique iron,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: pummeling people with it. He's aware. Now it's gone out
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: on the radio. Can any of us imagine how terrified
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: you are. You're seeing this, and there are calls that
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: are coming into the nine eleven center. You know, people
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: are seeing this. One guy even I think he videotaped
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: a goodly portion of this at a distance. This confrontation
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: that Drennan winds up having with the police officer, he
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: begins to again hummel this police officer with this iron.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, cops are set up. They're trained to
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: have situational awareness. That is, those those things that are
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: occurring in the environment around them. I don't know if
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: in the academy, you know, they prepare you for you know,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: what do I do if a guy shows up with
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: an antique iron. I'm sure the police officer is shocked,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: but he reaches into his belt, his service belt, and
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: pulls out his what's referred to as an ass It's
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: a deployable baton. People have seen these. They're telescoping and
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: they're very heavy. You extended by popping it out, and
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: then you go into position to strike, you know, the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: person that's advancing on you. The problem is is that,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: apparently as the officer set Drenning is advancing on the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: police officer with the iron and begins to swing it
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: wildly at him, and the police officer backs up and trips.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: This is horrifying when you think about trips backwards over
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: a curb. And he drops his asp and in the meantime,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Drenning just descends on him. I mean, he begins to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: pummel him again with the iron, beating him all over.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: The only thing the police officer can really do is
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: just kind of contract into a ball on the ground.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he's got his vest on, but that's not
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: protecting his head. It's not protecting his hands and his hips,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And you've got this wild man
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: just assaulting you. And it's at this point that the
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: police officer, his name is Casto. Officer Casto, was able
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: to draw his weapon and shoot Drenning in the chest
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and the neck area. Now, amazingly Drenning survived that two
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: gunshot wounds at close range, just survive them, but it
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: stopped a threat. At that moment time they were able
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: to you know, pack drinning off to the local hospital
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: where he was treated and arrested there and spent some
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: time in the hospital. Obviously, guy has been shot, so
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: they had to do surgery on it. But all of
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: this happened in a very short period of time where
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: this perpetrator traveled just a few blocks and in his wake,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: you know, he just left absolute horror. So many times
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: it's the quietness to get you when you're threat a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: crub scene. It's really kind of hard to put into words,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: but it used to be. When I would get a
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: call to roll out on you get this sudden, i
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: don't know, jolt of adrenaline, the anticipation of what's going
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: to happen. You show up and there's lights flashing, there
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: might be firetrucks there, there's people crying and and carrying on,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: and you're standing there and you're about to make entry
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: into the scene, and then all of a sudden, the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: outside chatter begins to die down, and there's this kind
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: of uneasy piece that kind of settles in the environment.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Things get really really quiet. You no longer hear the chatter,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: and you stand there just for a moment, And many
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: times I found myself I'd be there by myself in
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the room with a decedent, and you are able to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: begin to see what had happened. Quietly, consider what had
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: happened just for a moment to the victim lying there,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: and what the police saw when they walked into miss
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Steele's house. I can't even begin to fathom what kind
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: of course through their bodies at that moment time. I
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: would imagine that the police officers had never seen anything
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: like this. Well, I would certainly hope not, Joe, because
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: this scene just absolutely horrendous. The indignities that this poor
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: woman suffered. Let's take them one by one. First, we
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: know she was beaten with the iron. You think about
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: this item, and I urge anybody that wants to research
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: this case, police take a look at the pictures that
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: are available, and when you see this thing, it's not
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: like you're looking in one of the things that we
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: talk about in forensics blunt force injuries. Okay, and I
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: think many people think blunt force injuries. They all automatically.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Their default position is something like, say, for instance, a club,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: a baseball bat, and you have those to generate obviously
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: blunt force injuries, but there are a myriad of other
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: items that can do this as well. And when you're
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: trying to interpret blunt force trauma, you're having to assess
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: it on various levels. You want to try to understand
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: how old the injuries are, you know, if somebody's sustained
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: a contusion or bruise. You want to if it's recent
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: or if it's in the distant past. And then you
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: try to determine is there a pattern to the item
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: that was used to strike somebody with Let's say, for instance,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: the example I gave a baseball bat. When you see
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: somebody that is struggle with a baseball bat, they're going
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: to have these very kind of defined linear margins on
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: either side that would give you an indication that you've
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: got this surface that has contacted the flesh and it's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: left these kind of lines of demarcation if you will,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: running parallel to one another, and you'll have you know,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: an associated bruise with it. But with this item, this iron,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: you look at the surfaces along the edges of this thing,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and they're multiple. You've got kind of the base of
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the thing that's got a sharp leading edge, it comes
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: to a point, and then you have all of these
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: other elements to the structure of this thing that are
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: kind of protruding from it. So just imagine it's being wielded,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: beholding this handle that's in the superior port, just like
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you think about an iron has an old fashioned handle
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: though that's kind of got a curved appearance to it,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and it's being brought down. Now, the totality of the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: weight is going to be in the base. Remember, the
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: purpose of an iron is to place a heated surface
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: that has weight to it that will essentially run all
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the wrinkles out of anything that you're pressing, if you will,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: And so there will be a lot of weight that
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: is going to be associated with the base of this thing.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: It looks like it's made out of some type of
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: cast iron more than likely. So when you're delivering that
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: strike with the seeing the energy that is transferring from
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: this element from the iron to that surface that you're
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: striking in this case Missteal's head, you're going to get
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: these really deep gash like injuries. But you'll also have
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: to try to pick out all of these little attachments
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: that are along the side of this thing, because they're
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: going to generate a different type of injury, and they're
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: going to impact the body in a very specific way.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: So it's it's going to be very difficult to kind
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: of interpret these along the way. And the pathologist would
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: have had to have made sense of this, and he said, well, Morgan,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: why is it important you know, we know that she's
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: been beaten to death. Well, it's important because you begin
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: to understand that for every one of these strikes, there's
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: a readjustment perhaps of the victim and of the perpetrator
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: relative to one another. So did he hold her down,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: did he put his foot on her chest and began
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: to strike downward at her? Was he chasing her about?
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Because those types of strikes are going to look different
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: than say, somebody that's in a static position. What we
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: do know is that when they observed her, they noticed
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: that these insults that she had sustained, these injuries she sustained.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: He had total involvement of both the head and the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: face on her, and she was greatly, greatly disfigured. When
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: you talk about something that has this kind of concentrated
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: weight to it, like this old fashioned iron it, with
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: a single blow you could strike leathally because the surfaces
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: that you're going through, the skin, the muscle, and of
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: course the table, the table of the skull. With that
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: energy transference, you can collapse all of that with one strike.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: And it's that transferred some energy that can essentially render
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: that person incapacitated with one blow. Now you might not
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: necessarily kill them with one blow, but you're going to
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: have high probability with something that's heavier as opposed to
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: something that's lighter in that same vein. I'm thinking that
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: this would be we throw around the term throw around.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: It's not really inaccurate way of saying it, but we
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: do use the term a lot over kill. I think
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that that's when you see this case where she has
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: struck so many times with this item over and over again,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: you begin to think why was this done and why
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: did you do this? Because you go from the point
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: of killing, which in and of itself is horrible, to mutilation.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: At that point, you know, because you're doing it over
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and over and over and over and over again, which
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: is again so horrific. You know, in this particular case,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and it would be absolutely horrific it no matter who
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: it happened to. But in this case we're talking about
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Miss Steele and mis Steel was this, you know, a
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: very affable, passive, gentle kind of person. You think what
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: would drive somebody to do this to her? A knife
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: was also used to kill Miss Steele, and the damage
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that was left behind, well, it's just nightmarish. I cannot
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: imagine if you're not used to seeing this sort of thing.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: If you're a patrol officer and you walk in and
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: I've heard patrol officers say this, you know, have stated
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: this to me, and they'll say, I don't see how
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: you do what you do for a living. And of
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: course on my end it never got easy, but it's
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: very difficult for say a police officer that walks into
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: an environment and they see not just this gental soul
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: who has been beaten, you know about the head and
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: face with a heavy object, but now they notice that
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: her clothing is in disarray, and it's in disarray to
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the point where when they look at her abdomen, she's
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: been partially eviscerated. And for those that don't really understand
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: that term, and it's by no fault of your own.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Trust me. I wish that no one knew what this tournament.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: But in our world, in the medical legal world, and
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: specifically in forensic pathology, one of the things that takes
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: place is that when we remove organs, that process is
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: called oration. And if this iration means to expose and remove, well,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know that they were necessarily removed, but her
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: vowels were essentially outside of her body. And in order
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: to accomplish this, this is not something that you could
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: have done obviously with this iron. It would be a
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: herculean task to do that and would take a protracted
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: period of time. So then you begin to think about, well,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: it was there an opportunity to again use a weapon
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: of opportunity, that is, those things that are at at
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: his at Drennan's reach, or did he have a knife
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: on his person in order to go through her abdominal
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: wall and essentially create a situation where she had loops
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: a bowl resting outside of her body. Now imagine that
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you've beaten this woman to this point with this antique iron,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: and now you have you know, essentially opened up her
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: abdominal cavity to expose her intestine. When we're in the morgue.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: We have specialized tools that are created for this purpose.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: You know, you have the scalpels that are so sharp
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: they're disposable. Not handles, but the blades themselves. They're so
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: sharp you can essentially only use them that one time.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Some people are amazed that we have to change them
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: so frequently. But the edge is so fine on the things,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and it's so very sharp that it dolls very quickly.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: And the reason it does is that you're going through
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: multiple different types of tissue to get down through the
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: abdominal wall in this particular case, to go through that
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: layer of skin, and then what's referred to as the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: subcontaneous fat, and then down through the abdominal muscles, which
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: is an entire complex in and of itself, just to
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: expose the bowl. This is quite messy work as well
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: for someone that is not clothed for it or prepared
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: for it. There's no way to avoid getting blood on
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: on you. So you will if you are perpetrating this crime,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: you will essentially be a wash in blood. You'll be
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: speckled with blood all of your body. You'll have great
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: kind of swaths of blood that have been smeared upon
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you and for us forensically, when you begin to look
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: at this, that type of blood or transfer a blood
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: from an abdominal injury as you're opening up about, is
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: going to appear completely different than the dynamic kind of
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: injury that you have. When an individual is being beaten
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: with something like this heavy iron, that's going to have
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: a completely different appearance to it. It's very important when
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you get an individual who is clothed still with the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: clothing that they were wearing at the time, that you
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: secure that clothing because you can really begin to tell
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the tale as to what happened and the dynamics of
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: this environment. At least it will give you an indication
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: as to what may have happened. Even more disturbing than
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: what you've already told is Joe Barbara Steele was also
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: sexually assaulted. Yeah, she was, And I think that just
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: might of a sense of propriety. I'm not going to
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: go too deeply into this, just suffice it to say
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: that she was, in a most horrific way sexually assaulted.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: And I think that this extends out into a bigger,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: a broader narrative when it comes to Trenton, where his
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: mind was, perhaps where you would feel compelled at whatever
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: level to do this to this dear woman. What would
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: be the driver behind obviously assaulting her, not just in life.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: But I you know, I have to put forth my
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: opinion of the fact that this was done post mortem,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: So you've got a degree of post mortal activity that
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: has a sexual connotation to it, and I think that's
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: just absolutely it raises it to an entirely different level.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: If this can get any ars. Forensic psychologists, many times
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about the ordered mind and the disordered mind,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: or disorganized events versus organized events. In the case of
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Missus Steele's attack and the others that were attacked at
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: the hands of Drenning, there is apparently no rhyme or
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: reason to a lot of this. Jackie, you had mentioned
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: just a moment two ago you use the term tornado.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I think that one of the witnesses saw that, and
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: having lived through a tornado, I have to say that
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: that kind of sums it up because everything is in disarray,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: everything is from about there are no patterns to it,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: and many times as investigators, that's kind of what leaves
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: a scratching a head in addition to an iron, we
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: assume and suppose that it was a knife, and then
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: we have the sexual assault. But the last part of
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: this case, Joe, is how Barbara Steele's body was positioned
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: and left. We know that his attorneys during his trial
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: said that they attributed his crimes to mental illness that
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: included methamphetamine us and that Drennan suffered from religious delusions,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: and we kind of see a little bit of that
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: inference in how Barbara Steele's body was positioned after the crime. Yeah,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I can only recall I was singing about the when
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I was reading through her case, and a couple of
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: points kind of struck me, and I was thinking, had
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: I ever worked anything that had a religious connotation to it?
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: And yet, yeah, I have. There were a couple of
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: cases along the way. Obviously you're going to have, you know,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: these kind of people that are in spiritual conflict and
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing, and they wind up taking their
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: own lives and you'll, you know, you'll get these very
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: involved suicide notes and all those sorts of things. And
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I've had, I think, to the best of my knowledge,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I've had one homicide that was a multiple homicide that
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: had heavy religious overtones. But in her case, what was
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: kind of stood out is the fact that when they
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: observed her body, her body had been positioned And I
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: think that that's very important here to use the term
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: positioned on her coffee table, so that you know, coffee
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: tables are not very big. You know, you have to
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: think that you know her goodly portion of her body
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: to the appendages, the appendicular areas of the body. The
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: arms and legs are hanging off, and the trunk of
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the body is essentially supported, so the chest is kind
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: of thrown upward. It would seem as though that the
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: coffee table had been used, almost as if it were
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: an alter, you know, with kind of the hyper extended
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: chest and the abdomen. Remember we talked about the trauma
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: she had sustained. I hate the word why, and you've
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: heard me say that before because why so highly subjective,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: particularly in a case like this, because you'll you'll never
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: you'll drive yourself to madness if you try to understand
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: why or try to figure out why. It's much safer,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: at least I think intellectually, to stay with you know,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: what happened, and maybe if we can explain that. But
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: sometimes things are just beyond the pail, if you will.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: In this case, with this kind of hyper extended posture
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: that she's in, it was important to note and I
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: found this kind of fascinating that a clock had in
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: taking off of the I guess it was the adjacent
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: mantelpiece there in her home and placed upon her chest.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: There was no indication, at least for the police reports
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: that she had been beaten with the clock. The clock
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: was essentially placed on her chest. Why would you do that?
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: You know, again, there's the why question. I don't know
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: that there is You can never answer that. But I
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: do know that another item that they found immediately adjacent
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: to her body was a bowl from within her house,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: and contained within that bowl was it's been described in
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: a couple of locations is either across or Cruciffix. You know.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: But again you've kind of got this heavy religious overtone here.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: I find it kind of fascinating when people go down
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: this road of mental illness, you know, with people where
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: they say, well they were affected by drugs or they've
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: got this kind of hyper religiosity thing going on where
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: they're delusional and all that. When you look at that,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: you think, well, why didn't he go to the home.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: If he's so, you know, out of his mind, why
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: didn't he go to the home of say a two
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty pound auto mechanic and walk into their
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: house and do this to them. That gives you an
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: indication that maybe he had targeted her for whatever reason.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: It's disordered as an environment. Was he picked somebody that
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: was weaker than him. It was a completely asymmetrical attack.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: He didn't pick anybody twice. He did it twice. Yeah,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: he did. And that was the other thing. You know,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: the woman in the parking lot, what did we say
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: about her? He snuck up from the rear with her.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: It's not like he approached her from the front and
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: was menacing her where she could have given her an
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: opportunity to dry away. No, he snuck up from the rear.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: And then when he crashed that vehicle, what did he do.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: He came face to face with a guy that was
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: prepared to kill him, and what did he do? He
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: ran away. So he has some inkling of self preservation,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: if you will. He's picking out people that are weaker
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: than him where he can dominate over them. And in
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: miss Steele's case, I mean you know, God bless her family.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: I can't even begin to imagine the depths of sorrow
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: that's associated with it. Twenty eight year old Joshua Drennan
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: was convicted of killing Barbara Steele, seventy seven years old,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: and injuring a police officer. He was sentenced to life
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: in prison without the possibility of parole, and an additional
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: ninety two years on the other charges for the other crimes,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: including attempted murder, robbery, malicious wounding, assault, stealing a car,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: and larceny. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is bodybags.