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Episode 7_ Mortician_s Powder(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

0:07
Speaker 1: M hm.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hm. When he never heard you did that in the morning,
0:20
Speaker 2: is loud? He ring then pawn the back hand and
0:24
Speaker 2: pull the hairbag and then how Nune waited.
0:29
Speaker 3: Do you think the gun was like directly in contact
0:32
Speaker 3: with the skin?
0:33
Speaker 2: Well, no, yeah, yeah, he had to be. I mean
0:36
Speaker 2: there's no there's no there's no doubt it had to be.
0:39
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean it was right there. I mean
0:42
Speaker 2: he hadn't turned byway like you know, like he none
0:45
Speaker 2: again when he gonna use valets or whatever. He hadn't
0:49
Speaker 2: turned voways on his head.
0:51
Speaker 4: If Can's story is telling the truth about what happened
0:53
Speaker 4: to Brian Bowling, then the forensic evidence should show that
0:56
Speaker 4: the shot that killed Brian was fired.
0:59
Speaker 3: From a gun in contact with his head.
1:01
Speaker 4: Conversely, if investigators are right about what happened, and if
1:05
Speaker 4: their favorite theory about Lee Clark shooting Brian through a
1:07
Speaker 4: bedroom window is correct, then the forensic evidence should show
1:11
Speaker 4: that the shot had been fired from at least a
1:13
Speaker 4: couple of feet away, And this question of whether Kine
1:16
Speaker 4: is right or investigators are right whether this was a
1:19
Speaker 4: contact shot or a distant shot should have been trivial
1:22
Speaker 4: to answer. As ballistics expert Ronald Scott told us this
1:27
Speaker 4: is something that we could have and should have known
1:29
Speaker 4: for certain.
1:31
Speaker 1: You know, everything that they did wrong, everything the powder,
1:35
Speaker 1: in the lack of the autops There's a lot wrong
1:38
Speaker 1: with this case.
1:39
Speaker 4: It just seems like there's so many points where if
1:41
Speaker 4: we had just this one piece we could have had
1:44
Speaker 4: an answer, and yet because we don't have those pieces right,
1:47
Speaker 4: we're now left an ambiguous record.
1:49
Speaker 5: I think the autopsy would have been in that would
1:51
Speaker 5: have answered the question.
1:53
Speaker 4: There was no autopsy in this case, but there had
1:56
Speaker 4: been one, it would have been able to tell us
1:58
Speaker 4: whether Brian Bowling have killed by a contact shot. If
2:01
Speaker 4: he was, then it's possible that Brian himself pulled the
2:04
Speaker 4: trigger that night, and it would also mean beyond any
2:08
Speaker 4: doubt that it's impossible for Lee Clark to have been
2:11
Speaker 4: the one to shoot him.
2:12
Speaker 1: The more right, the more right here, the more I'm
2:15
Speaker 1: saying this, this is really just really it's a kangaroo trial.
2:20
Speaker 1: It is, at least for a personal side of the window.
2:23
Speaker 1: Seems to me like he got drawn into this, ended
2:27
Speaker 1: up for a life sentence, but the evidence doesn't support her.
2:38
Speaker 4: Hi. My name is Susan Simpson. I'm an attorney and podcaster,
2:42
Speaker 4: and previously I hosted the Undisclosed podcast.
2:46
Speaker 6: Hi, I'm just Into Davis and I'm a true crime
2:48
Speaker 6: TV producer. Last year, Susan and I decide to team
2:53
Speaker 6: up and reinvestigate the murder of Brian Bowling. Along with
2:56
Speaker 6: Kevin Fitzpatrick, president of Red Marble Media, decided to launch Proof.
3:02
Speaker 6: You can listen to Proof like you would any podcast,
3:05
Speaker 6: and you can follow us everywhere with the handle at
3:07
Speaker 6: Proofcrime Pod and on our website proofcrimepod dot com. Thanks
3:13
Speaker 6: for listening and welcome to Proof. A note to our listeners.
3:23
Speaker 6: In this episode, we discussed the forensic evidence related to
3:27
Speaker 6: the shooting of Brian Bowling.
3:31
Speaker 7: This is an issue.
3:32
Speaker 6: Critical to the case, but it may not be suitable
3:35
Speaker 6: for all listeners as we discuss images of the gunshot
3:38
Speaker 6: wound that killed Brian, as well as the evidence the
3:42
Speaker 6: prosecution used to prove their theory that Brian could not
3:45
Speaker 6: have shot himself, and that evidence came from Floyd County
3:50
Speaker 6: Coroner Craig Burns.
3:53
Speaker 8: He was a funeral directly worked at funeral homes in
3:57
Speaker 8: Forward County before it become Corner.
4:01
Speaker 6: Former Floyd County Police officer Mark Corbin told us about
4:05
Speaker 6: his experiences working with Coroner Craig Burns. He was elected
4:09
Speaker 6: in nineteen ninety six, just a couple of weeks after
4:12
Speaker 6: Brian died, but he'd been deputy coroner for many years
4:15
Speaker 6: before that. It should be noted that the coroners are
4:19
Speaker 6: not medical professionals. They're not forensic experts. Under Georgia law,
4:24
Speaker 6: the requirements to hold the office of.
4:26
Speaker 7: Coroner are minimal.
4:28
Speaker 6: You must be over twenty five years old, not be
4:31
Speaker 6: convicted of any felonies, and have a high school diploma. Technically,
4:35
Speaker 6: what that means is even I could be a coroner
4:38
Speaker 6: in Georgia.
4:39
Speaker 3: Is it usual to have the coroner give like the
4:41
Speaker 3: medical assessment.
4:42
Speaker 8: He just determines to cause the death through the crime lab,
4:47
Speaker 8: and he takes control of the body and sets it
4:49
Speaker 8: up for an autopsy. I would think it would have
4:52
Speaker 8: been Dallas's job to at least correspond with him whether
4:57
Speaker 8: they needed one or not. Surprising that they were in
5:01
Speaker 8: an autopsy.
5:03
Speaker 6: It is the county coroner's job to decide whether or
5:06
Speaker 6: not to request an autopsy, but in criminal cases the
5:10
Speaker 6: decision is made with the input of local law enforcement.
5:13
Speaker 6: A day or two after Brian's death, The exact date
5:16
Speaker 6: is unclear, but Sergeant Dallas Battle and Craig Burns went
5:19
Speaker 6: to the funeral home to inspect Brian's body. According to
5:23
Speaker 6: the sergeant, Battle, he wanted to determine whether or not
5:25
Speaker 6: Brian had been killed by a contact shot. While there,
5:29
Speaker 6: Burns snapped a few photographs. In the first photos he took,
5:33
Speaker 6: there's still medical equipment attached to Brian's body and blood
5:37
Speaker 6: covering his face. The bullet wound is not even visible.
5:41
Speaker 6: It's only after Burns cleaned the body that the gunshot
5:45
Speaker 6: wound to Brian's right temple can be seen. Then Craig
5:48
Speaker 6: Burns took a metal rod, stuck it through the hole
5:51
Speaker 6: in Brian's head, and snapped a few more blurry photographs.
5:55
Speaker 6: And it is these photos that Brian's family remembers as
5:59
Speaker 6: autopsy foots. The family, I mean, they all, even the uncle,
6:05
Speaker 6: really believed there was an autopsy. It makes me wonder
6:08
Speaker 6: if we're just missing more paperwork.
6:11
Speaker 4: There was no autopsy.
6:12
Speaker 3: I think there's no automsy.
6:14
Speaker 7: I all think there Maybe you know what it is.
6:16
Speaker 6: I bet those pictures it could be a semantics thing,
6:19
Speaker 6: like when you see the body with the rods that.
6:21
Speaker 7: Looks like.
6:25
Speaker 6: The photos are terrible quality, but otherwise they do kind
6:28
Speaker 6: of look like autopsy pictures. When I first saw them,
6:31
Speaker 6: I thought that's what they were. So if you didn't
6:34
Speaker 6: know where the photos had been taken, you might assume
6:37
Speaker 6: they were taken out a morgue. And these photos made
6:40
Speaker 6: a big impact on the jury. Between the pillow and
6:44
Speaker 6: he distinctly remembered the photograph of there's a photograph of
6:50
Speaker 6: Brian who's already dead, laying on the table and there's
6:53
Speaker 6: a rod going through the skull to show how the
6:57
Speaker 6: bullet passed through his brain. And that picture he members.
7:02
Speaker 6: Some of the jurors we spoke to thought these photos
7:05
Speaker 6: proved Lee's and Kine's guilt, though the jurors seemed to
7:09
Speaker 6: also remember the person who took these photos as being
7:11
Speaker 6: more than just a coroner.
7:14
Speaker 4: He seemed to have no doubts. It was not a
7:16
Speaker 4: case that he walked away, And I was like, man,
7:17
Speaker 4: I get it right, So why was he so confident?
7:22
Speaker 6: He really stuck with the medical examiner.
7:24
Speaker 4: With the no no, no medical examiner right. The coroner,
7:27
Speaker 4: the elected coroner who eyebawled the body in the funeral
7:31
Speaker 4: home and said things that he was not qualified to
7:36
Speaker 4: say because he doesn't have any medical training.
7:42
Speaker 6: We showed the photos taken by Craigburns to Officer Corbyn,
7:46
Speaker 6: who I spent decades as a police investigator. So you've
7:51
Speaker 6: seen a lot of gunshot wounds to the head.
7:55
Speaker 4: Can I show you Brian's picture?
7:57
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean I remember Brian.
8:00
Speaker 7: How can you tell like the distance a gun is fired.
8:04
Speaker 8: By the wound. I mean, forensically, it's gonna be a
8:07
Speaker 8: path to auditis, it's gonna tell that. That's yeah. So
8:12
Speaker 8: all your all your black and he was wrapped there
8:15
Speaker 8: in one area. So you got to the fire and
8:18
Speaker 8: oftcome out of there and done a little burning around here,
8:21
Speaker 8: but it was all contained to here. It could have
8:22
Speaker 8: been further back there had been more burns around. So
8:26
Speaker 8: that's fires coming. That's a close gun shot.
8:33
Speaker 6: Officer Corbyn knew nothing about the state's theory in this
8:37
Speaker 6: case concerning how Brian Bowling had been shot, but from
8:40
Speaker 6: the coroner's photos, he thought it was obvious that Brian
8:44
Speaker 6: had been killed by a shot fired from a close distance.
8:48
Speaker 6: And he's not the only one who felt that way.
8:51
Speaker 9: But once that other police officer you spoke to me
8:53
Speaker 9: once he says, they're stippling there. Doesn't that end the
8:56
Speaker 9: debate as to whether or not the gun was pressed
8:58
Speaker 9: up against his head?
9:00
Speaker 4: There shouldn't have been debate here in the first place.
9:02
Speaker 4: The defense did have an expert come in, how he's
9:04
Speaker 4: dead now? He is just an older medical examiner, and
9:07
Speaker 4: he said, like, based on the photos, is not a
9:09
Speaker 4: close call to the contact wound. But because he could
9:12
Speaker 4: never examine the body, they were able to undermine that.
9:14
Speaker 4: The states they both undermine that and say, well.
9:18
Speaker 3: He doesn't really know.
9:19
Speaker 4: He never examined the body like our cornered it, and
9:21
Speaker 4: even just from looking at the pictures that it's just
9:23
Speaker 4: not an And he was saying, like, I'm a medical examiner.
9:26
Speaker 4: I testified for the state almost always. I don't do
9:28
Speaker 4: defense stuff. But I looked at these photos and like,
9:31
Speaker 4: it's a no brainer here. It's obviously ash Charie. It's
9:35
Speaker 4: obviously what you detected with contact wound. The defense expert
9:41
Speaker 4: was doctor Harvey Howell. He had been the medical examiner
9:44
Speaker 4: in neighboring Bartow County for forty four years. He testified
9:48
Speaker 4: that he was very certain that Brian had been killed
9:50
Speaker 4: by a contact gunshot. Andy said the shot had almost
9:54
Speaker 4: certainly been self inflicted, but the prosecution was able to
9:58
Speaker 4: undermine doctor Howell's test simony by pointing out that he
10:01
Speaker 4: never got to see Brian's body himself. Prosecutor Steve Cox
10:05
Speaker 4: told the jury that they should dismiss doctor Howell's testimony
10:07
Speaker 4: because he was basing his opinion off of just a
10:09
Speaker 4: few blurry photographs. Instead, Steve Cox told them they should
10:14
Speaker 4: listen to licensed funeral director Craig Burns, and Craig Burns
10:18
Speaker 4: had reached a very different conclusion.
10:24
Speaker 6: On Brian's death certificate. Coroner Burns listed the cause of
10:28
Speaker 6: death as homicide, but as he explained in his testimony
10:33
Speaker 6: at the trial, he nevertheless declined to request an autopsy.
10:38
Speaker 9: If we had autopsied mister Bowling, then I could not
10:41
Speaker 9: have honored the request for lifelink for the organ and
10:43
Speaker 9: tissue donation and the results of the autopsy. We had
10:47
Speaker 9: all of the information that we needed documented in the
10:49
Speaker 9: medical records. The autopsy wouldn't have told us anything.
10:53
Speaker 4: But it was set a trial that no autopsy could
10:56
Speaker 4: be done because the victim had been an organ donor
11:00
Speaker 4: prior to his death. Is that something that prevents an autopsy?
11:03
Speaker 4: From being done.
11:05
Speaker 1: No.
11:07
Speaker 6: Doctor Eric Peters is a forensic pathologist and the Deputy
11:11
Speaker 6: Chief Medical Examiner for Pima County, Arizona. He has performed
11:16
Speaker 6: thousands of autopsies, and he told us that organ donation
11:20
Speaker 6: in no way prevents an autopsy from being performed, and
11:24
Speaker 6: in this case it would not have even impacted the
11:27
Speaker 6: forensically relevant part of the examination.
11:31
Speaker 10: When someone is a donor, what it's usually means is,
11:33
Speaker 10: of course that it's for organs or tissues that are
11:38
Speaker 10: essentially from the neck down, so like maybe valves of
11:41
Speaker 10: the heart, maybe tendons and ligaments and bone for potential
11:45
Speaker 10: features and orthopedic procedures. But no, a an autopsy is
11:51
Speaker 10: something you still can do when someone has been armisted.
11:56
Speaker 4: Doctor Peter said that Craig Burns was also wrong about
11:59
Speaker 4: an autopsy not being able to tell us anything, and
12:02
Speaker 4: ballistics expert Monald Scott agreed. In this case, he said,
12:06
Speaker 4: an autopsy would have told us everything.
12:09
Speaker 3: Would an autopsy have been able to better document?
12:11
Speaker 5: Oh absolutely absolutely.
12:14
Speaker 1: You look and by the way, the boom the skullar
12:17
Speaker 1: would have had soot burned into the bone.
12:22
Speaker 5: So there would have it would have answered the question.
12:25
Speaker 5: It would have been closed.
12:26
Speaker 1: It would have either been a contact gunshot or a
12:29
Speaker 1: distant gunshot. But because they failed to do that, and
12:33
Speaker 1: Burns did made the decision not to, it's left this
12:38
Speaker 1: uh just hodgepodge of questions that can't be answered.
12:48
Speaker 11: Kind of makes me feel sick to my stomach. But
12:50
Speaker 11: it just seems so clear that something is wrong. When
12:56
Speaker 11: the autopsy there was no autopsy, Like, but you.
13:00
Speaker 4: Assumed the body like, that's the time to do the autopsy,
13:02
Speaker 4: Like what if you like, let's say there's a big
13:04
Speaker 4: stafoo and people like drop the ball and Dallas Battle
13:08
Speaker 4: made an oopsie forgot to get an autopsy. Well, you're
13:10
Speaker 4: digging the body up. You can fix that oopsy, and
13:13
Speaker 4: they make no effort to do so. Because even Battle,
13:15
Speaker 4: you think, would have thought to do an autopsy, right.
13:18
Speaker 11: Well he did, and Tommy, who was in charge of Battle,
13:20
Speaker 11: said I would have ordered an autopsy.
13:23
Speaker 4: Captain Tommy Shifflett was the head of the department's investigative division.
13:28
Speaker 4: He was Dallas Battle's boss. When we told him there'd
13:31
Speaker 4: been no autopsy, he was surprised, as was doctor Peters
13:35
Speaker 4: when we explained to him what had happened in this case.
13:41
Speaker 10: In a case that would be considered a possible side,
13:46
Speaker 10: we would do an autopsy one percent of the time.
13:48
Speaker 10: If if that was an inkling from investigators or from witnesses,
13:54
Speaker 10: we would invariably do a full autopsy examination with toxicology studies.
14:00
Speaker 10: You know, the whole works.
14:03
Speaker 4: Without an autopsy, all we have to go on are
14:05
Speaker 4: those snapshots that Greg Burns took in the funeral home.
14:10
Speaker 10: Well, I wish the photos were of higher quality, the
14:14
Speaker 10: particularly the photos of mister Bowling lying in the funeral home.
14:19
Speaker 10: They are, as are the scene photos of a tag blurry.
14:22
Speaker 10: And you know, it's almost imperative in these types of cases,
14:27
Speaker 10: particularly upon a first, second, or third or tenth review,
14:32
Speaker 10: to have really good pictures of the entrance wound in particular,
14:38
Speaker 10: and in this case, you know this really, if not literally,
14:43
Speaker 10: only one picture of the entrance wound after it's been
14:47
Speaker 10: cleaned up, so I'm kind of left to make an
14:51
Speaker 10: interpretation of the findings based upon that one photo.
14:56
Speaker 4: There is one blurry photo of the entrance wound to
14:58
Speaker 4: Brian's right temple, and a second, even blurrier photo of
15:02
Speaker 4: the exit wound, which is in the area of Brian's
15:05
Speaker 4: left ear. The photo of the entrance wound is at
15:08
Speaker 4: least clear enough that you can tell you're looking at
15:10
Speaker 4: a gunshot wound, But the photo of the exit wound
15:13
Speaker 4: is out of focus and so badly crop that it's
15:15
Speaker 4: not immediately recognizable for what it is. But these photos,
15:19
Speaker 4: along with the photos of the rod placed by Brian's head,
15:22
Speaker 4: are all we have to go on to show the
15:24
Speaker 4: trajectory of the bullet that killed him.
15:28
Speaker 6: What the photos do conclusively show is that the shot
15:32
Speaker 6: that killed Brian was angled backwards. It entered closer to
15:36
Speaker 6: the front of his head, and exited further back, and
15:40
Speaker 6: the prosecution argued that this was proof that Brian hadn't
15:44
Speaker 6: shot himself. The state's evidence for this came from doctor
15:49
Speaker 6: Carl Herring, the neurosurgeon who treated Brian at the ICU
15:53
Speaker 6: and who testified for the state. He testified that most
15:57
Speaker 6: of the self inflicted gunshot wounds he had treated in
16:00
Speaker 6: his career had been fired straight across the head, which
16:04
Speaker 6: he thought was the natural way that people tended to
16:07
Speaker 6: shoot themselves. But doctor Howell, the medical examiner called by
16:12
Speaker 6: the defense, testified that in his experience, Brian's injury was
16:17
Speaker 6: quote very characteristic of a self inflicted wound unquote. In fact,
16:24
Speaker 6: the majority of self inflicted wounds, he said, were angled backwards.
16:30
Speaker 4: So there was a neurosurgeon at trial testified that in
16:33
Speaker 4: his experience, it was very unusual to have a backwards
16:36
Speaker 4: directing suicide shot, and that they were always straight across
16:39
Speaker 4: in his experience.
16:40
Speaker 10: No, absolutely, no, no, definitely not the vast majority, or
16:44
Speaker 10: front to back and upward. I mean, it's it's it's
16:49
Speaker 10: let's just put its way. It's notable when it's not
16:52
Speaker 10: front to back. But what might be interesting in that regard,
16:55
Speaker 10: I see cases of fatality, and a nerve surgeon may
16:59
Speaker 10: be seen cases where person has an integral survival.
17:03
Speaker 6: Doctor Peters noted that is a nerve surgeon. Doctor Herring
17:07
Speaker 6: only saw patients who had survived their injuries for at
17:11
Speaker 6: least some period of time. Although it's much less common
17:15
Speaker 6: for self inflicted gunshots to go straight across the head,
17:19
Speaker 6: that kind of wound also tends to be more survivable,
17:23
Speaker 6: which could explain why doctor Herring thought that straight across
17:27
Speaker 6: was the normal direction for a self inflicted injury, when
17:31
Speaker 6: in reality, most such cases are angled from front to back.
17:36
Speaker 4: Now, a shot angled downwards would be more unusual and
17:39
Speaker 4: a trial, doctor Herring testified that the shot had been
17:42
Speaker 4: angled slightly downwards, while doctor Howell testified that the shot
17:45
Speaker 4: been angled slightly upwards.
17:47
Speaker 3: So which is it?
17:49
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, the photos taken by Craig Burns make it impossible
17:53
Speaker 4: for there to be any kind of consensus here. Now
17:56
Speaker 4: I'm looking at photos and it is not the collusion.
17:59
Speaker 10: Well, the one from Afar with the probe, it looks
18:02
Speaker 10: like it's going upward. Yeah, but you're also it's what
18:06
Speaker 10: the other part of the illusion is the fact that
18:09
Speaker 10: there's a shadow from the flash of the cameras, and
18:12
Speaker 10: then on the next photo number six, it clearly looks
18:16
Speaker 10: a little bit downward, whereas in the previous photo with
18:19
Speaker 10: the shadow, it looks like it's upward. But that's the
18:22
Speaker 10: other part of what we do during an examination, we
18:24
Speaker 10: measure exactly where each wound is from the top of
18:29
Speaker 10: the head.
18:31
Speaker 6: We don't have those measurements. Instead, we're left squinting at
18:35
Speaker 6: some photos like they're a magic eye puzzle, which is
18:38
Speaker 6: likely why experts who have reviewed the available records have
18:42
Speaker 6: come to different conclusions about whether it's more likely the
18:45
Speaker 6: shot angled upward or angled downwards.
18:49
Speaker 7: But here's the thing.
18:51
Speaker 6: Although there was a lot of debate over this issue
18:53
Speaker 6: at trial, this whole question doesn't even matter.
18:57
Speaker 10: But regardless of that path downward does not denote the
19:04
Speaker 10: discharge being impossible to be suicidal and make it be homicidal.
19:11
Speaker 4: It can still be suicidal, so it's not conclusive either way.
19:16
Speaker 10: That's correctly. The path of the bullet doesn't indicate if
19:20
Speaker 10: it's suicide or if it's homicide.
19:26
Speaker 6: Even more critical than the question of the bullet's trajectory
19:30
Speaker 6: is whether this had been a contact shot or a
19:33
Speaker 6: distant shot, and that's something that investigators should have been
19:37
Speaker 6: able to determine. When someone is shot from a distance
19:41
Speaker 6: of several feet or more, they are only injured by
19:44
Speaker 6: the bullet itself. But when someone is shot from a
19:47
Speaker 6: closer distance, they are injured in other ways as well.
19:51
Speaker 6: They will have injuries from the expulsion of gunpowder and
19:54
Speaker 6: from the heat and gas of the shot itself. The
19:57
Speaker 6: skin in and around the wound will be literally earned.
20:01
Speaker 6: As doctor Peters explained, this tells us how far away
20:04
Speaker 6: the gun had been when it was fired.
20:07
Speaker 10: You have to of course, determine ranger fire anything from
20:11
Speaker 10: contact to distant and distant means essentially with a handgun
20:15
Speaker 10: beyond three or so feet away or further. So let's
20:20
Speaker 10: take this from contact outward and a contact wound, you
20:25
Speaker 10: will typically see a muzzle imprint. You'll see a pattern
20:29
Speaker 10: or bruising that surrounds the entrance wound that often is
20:33
Speaker 10: the exact shape of the end of the weapon because
20:36
Speaker 10: it's pressed up against the skin. Also, and kind of
20:40
Speaker 10: germane to this case is that you on contact wound,
20:43
Speaker 10: you will not see stippling, and stippling is the deposition
20:48
Speaker 10: on the skin rather under the skin, around the entrance
20:51
Speaker 10: of unburned gunpowder, and it's like little tiny cuts and
20:56
Speaker 10: abrasions that surround the entrance wound. And that hit is
21:01
Speaker 10: characteristic of what we would call an intermediate gunshot wound,
21:05
Speaker 10: not contact.
21:07
Speaker 6: If the gun is close but not touching when it
21:10
Speaker 6: is fired, then you'll typically see stipling around the gunshot wound.
21:14
Speaker 6: And the farther back the gun is when it is fired,
21:17
Speaker 6: the more room that soot has to expand.
21:19
Speaker 7: Before it hits the person, and so the wider the
21:22
Speaker 7: area of.
21:23
Speaker 6: Stippling becomes, until finally the gun is far enough back
21:26
Speaker 6: that there's no stippling.
21:27
Speaker 10: At all because once you're past three or so feet away,
21:31
Speaker 10: nothing that exits the end of the barrel of a
21:34
Speaker 10: weapon except the bullet will deposit on the skin, so
21:38
Speaker 10: no soot and no unburned gunpowder particles will make their
21:42
Speaker 10: way to the individual's skin beyond roughly three feet.
21:49
Speaker 6: So if there is no soot, no stippling, no burning,
21:52
Speaker 6: then a gunshot wound was fired from three or more
21:55
Speaker 6: feet away. Lee Clark remembers this came up a lot
21:58
Speaker 6: at his in Kane's trial. Craig Burns, Dallas, Battle and
22:02
Speaker 6: the prosecutor had all been adamant there was no evidence
22:06
Speaker 6: of any soot or burning whatsoever on Brian's injury.
22:10
Speaker 12: They trying to make you saying like what no contact
22:12
Speaker 12: won't to try to roll out the possibility to him
22:15
Speaker 12: killing himself. You don't say everything in there, including the keys,
22:18
Speaker 12: you're saying. They try to prove it is no way
22:22
Speaker 12: could have kill herself because the ain't no content won't.
22:24
Speaker 12: They're playing that little cord so much right there, it's
22:27
Speaker 12: like they don't want it to come out there. They're
22:29
Speaker 12: actually he's.
22:29
Speaker 3: Probably one minute last, you say.
22:32
Speaker 6: Craig Burns testified otherwise though he had examined Brian's body,
22:36
Speaker 6: he said, and there wasn't any evidence of soot or
22:40
Speaker 6: burning anywhere.
22:42
Speaker 7: Therefore, in his opinion, Brian had.
22:44
Speaker 6: Been killed by a shot fired from a distance. But
22:47
Speaker 6: Craig Burns had not been testifying to this as an
22:49
Speaker 6: expert witness, as the trial judge correctly determined, he was
22:54
Speaker 6: not an expert and therefore not qualified to give an
22:57
Speaker 6: expert opinion. But the much decided that Burns would be permitted.
23:02
Speaker 7: To testify as a lay expert.
23:05
Speaker 6: Instead, he would be allowed to give the jury his
23:09
Speaker 6: non expert, non professional, purely personal opinion. Ballistics expert Ronald
23:15
Speaker 6: Scott told us this shouldn't have happened, but he came
23:19
Speaker 6: across as an expert.
23:21
Speaker 3: You see, Well he only have because I didn't have
23:25
Speaker 3: medical examiner.
23:26
Speaker 5: Right. The judge did not tell the jury that they well,
23:33
Speaker 5: he did tell him they.
23:34
Speaker 1: Could give whatever weight they wanted to to a testimony,
23:36
Speaker 1: which is that that's the catch all for all judges.
23:41
Speaker 1: But he let him testify as a lay expert, but
23:44
Speaker 1: he didn't explain to the jury the difference.
23:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that was a mistake.
23:53
Speaker 4: The distinction here was a fine one. Craig Burns was
23:57
Speaker 4: not allowed to testify that he was an expert in
24:00
Speaker 4: identifying whether powder burns were present, but he was allowed
24:03
Speaker 4: to testify that he had the expertise to identify whether
24:06
Speaker 4: powder burns were present. When the prosecutor asked Burns what
24:10
Speaker 4: expertise he had, he said he had just completed his
24:13
Speaker 4: master's degree in forensic Medicine and environmental Pathology, which had
24:18
Speaker 4: been awarded to him by the Saint Louis University School
24:20
Speaker 4: of Pathology Environmental Medicine. He had recently completed that degree,
24:25
Speaker 4: he said, in the middle of nineteen eighty seven. He
24:33
Speaker 4: does claim that he has a master's in like forensics,
24:36
Speaker 4: but as far as I can tell, that that not
24:38
Speaker 4: actually accurate.
24:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was trying to bring that up myself.
24:42
Speaker 1: I didn't see any environmental medicine of course, offered no Now,
24:48
Speaker 1: granted this is twenty four years ago, maybe change.
24:51
Speaker 4: Saint Louis University does not have a School of Pathology
24:55
Speaker 4: and Environmental Medicine, and it does not have a master's
24:58
Speaker 4: degree program for any kind of forensics Fiel. But every
25:01
Speaker 4: other July, Saint Louis University does offer what it calls
25:05
Speaker 4: the Master's Conference. The Master's Conference is a four day
25:10
Speaker 4: seminar on medico legal death investigations.
25:16
Speaker 6: At trial, the judge asked Craig Burns whether, with his
25:19
Speaker 6: experience and training, he could look at something and tell
25:22
Speaker 6: whether or not it was gunpowder residue. I can't give
25:26
Speaker 6: you a scientific feeling, he answered, I can give you
25:29
Speaker 6: a gut feeling, and Craigburn's gut feeling was that there
25:34
Speaker 6: was no powder or burning present, and Brian had therefore
25:37
Speaker 6: been shot from a distance.
25:40
Speaker 4: I mean, it's crazy to me that no medical examina
25:43
Speaker 4: ever really looked at this.
25:45
Speaker 13: I say that, I don't understand why you didn't mend
25:47
Speaker 13: some kind of taste on it. I don't had somebody
25:49
Speaker 13: just eyeball in it. Think was the corner somebody or somebody.
25:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was not a doctor, not next for any
25:54
Speaker 4: of us.
25:55
Speaker 1: He's just eyeballing it.
25:56
Speaker 13: Yeah, you're just eyeballing it. So that order's no gunbodderer?
25:59
Speaker 2: Come home?
25:59
Speaker 1: Man?
26:00
Speaker 2: Why did you do it?
26:01
Speaker 13: Some kind of chemical taste approving.
26:09
Speaker 6: We can't do any kind of chemical testing now, but
26:13
Speaker 6: we can ask actual experts to weigh in on the
26:17
Speaker 6: records we have. And this matters because if there was
26:21
Speaker 6: soot and burning present, inside the gunshot wound, then we
26:25
Speaker 6: know it was a contact shot. It would be fully
26:29
Speaker 6: consistent with a self inflicted injury. And what's more, it
26:34
Speaker 6: would prove beyond any doubt that Lee Clark did not
26:38
Speaker 6: fire the shot that killed Brian.
26:41
Speaker 7: There's simply no.
26:42
Speaker 6: Way that Lee could have fired a contact or close
26:45
Speaker 6: contact shot from.
26:46
Speaker 7: Outside of Brian's bedroom window.
26:49
Speaker 6: We showed the photos taken by Craig Burns to our
26:52
Speaker 6: ballistics expert Ronald Scott.
26:56
Speaker 4: So when you look at the photo without seeing putting
26:59
Speaker 4: outside Burns' test the money. If you look at the
27:00
Speaker 4: photos of the victim's head, what do you see there?
27:05
Speaker 5: I do you see a black area inside of the wound?
27:13
Speaker 5: And that's about it.
27:15
Speaker 1: I you know, it just appears, doc. But again, those
27:18
Speaker 1: photographs are very resolution. Is bad their PDFs they there problematic.
27:28
Speaker 6: The photographs are indeed problematic. But even with their fuzziness,
27:32
Speaker 6: Lee Clark thinks it's obvious what this jet black charcoal
27:35
Speaker 6: looking area is.
27:38
Speaker 12: I mean, damn, because say right, a black or a
27:42
Speaker 12: right there? Get the interest them you can clearly.
27:47
Speaker 6: We asked doctor Eric Peters to review the photos as well.
27:52
Speaker 4: In the photo which about earlier, the area inside the wound.
27:56
Speaker 4: What does that look like to you?
27:57
Speaker 10: So, the air inside the defect is very blackened, right,
28:03
Speaker 10: and it's likely represents a combination of soot and singing
28:12
Speaker 10: of the tissues, which more supports a contact wound. But
28:18
Speaker 10: the blackened area in there suggests, you know, literal burning,
28:21
Speaker 10: a singing of from the hot gases as well as
28:25
Speaker 10: those gases being black because it's sooked.
28:29
Speaker 6: Although the photos could be better quality, the wound does
28:32
Speaker 6: look burned and blackened, which would indicate that the wound
28:36
Speaker 6: was in fact burned and blackened, because what else could
28:39
Speaker 6: have possibly caused that appearance.
28:42
Speaker 3: So the color to you, given that it's a pretty
28:44
Speaker 3: terrible photo and a scan and all that it looks, it.
28:47
Speaker 1: Looks black it got Yeah, that would either have been
28:53
Speaker 1: shot or it would have been gunpowder that had adhered
28:58
Speaker 1: to the inner po the wound.
29:01
Speaker 5: All would have been this powder that heures in.
29:10
Speaker 6: The powder that Ronald Scott is talking about comes from
29:13
Speaker 6: the testimony of coroner Craigburns.
29:17
Speaker 7: At trial.
29:17
Speaker 6: He explained this blackened area had nothing to do with
29:21
Speaker 6: soot or burning.
29:23
Speaker 9: The other part of the blackening that you see there
29:25
Speaker 9: is a granulated powder that is placed into a lot
29:28
Speaker 9: of wounds, and this powder will absorb blood and it
29:31
Speaker 9: will give the appearance almost of a jet black color.
29:35
Speaker 9: It's called the hardening compound. And what it does when
29:38
Speaker 9: that granulated substance comes in contact with blood or body
29:41
Speaker 9: fluid or something liquid, it sets up like a concrete
29:44
Speaker 9: barrier and it prevents additional blood from coming out.
29:51
Speaker 4: At trial, there was testimony that the coroner used a
29:55
Speaker 4: granulated mortician's powder.
29:58
Speaker 10: I'm not entirely sure how that would alter what we're
30:01
Speaker 10: looking at here. I don't know if that powder, you know,
30:04
Speaker 10: over time turns a dark color and looks black or
30:07
Speaker 10: purple or whatever this color is. But it does raise
30:11
Speaker 10: some questions as to what one might expect to see
30:15
Speaker 10: in the wound if it's already been treated with some
30:18
Speaker 10: sort of chemical compound.
30:19
Speaker 3: Before the photographer statement.
30:22
Speaker 4: Are you familiar with the name kind of morticians powder
30:24
Speaker 4: that does cause it blackening?
30:28
Speaker 10: In my jurisdiction, at least something like this would have
30:31
Speaker 10: never happened. Therefore, I never see this. No funeral home
30:35
Speaker 10: would dare you know, start applying any type of treatment
30:39
Speaker 10: or embalming prior to us being complete with our investigation
30:45
Speaker 10: or exams. So I don't have experience in what one
30:48
Speaker 10: would expect to see with different compounds that maybe applied,
30:51
Speaker 10: because it just doesn't happen.
30:55
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32:34
Speaker 4: When Sergeant Dallas Battle and corner Craigburns were at the
32:37
Speaker 4: funeral home to inspect Brian's body, they knew that this
32:40
Speaker 4: question of contact shot versus a distant shot was going
32:43
Speaker 4: to be a critical issue in the case, and after
32:46
Speaker 4: seeing Brian's body, they decided that the nature of his
32:49
Speaker 4: gunshot wound was proof that he'd been murdered, and yet
32:53
Speaker 4: at the same time, they decided they did not want
32:55
Speaker 4: to Knautosi done and did not want a medical examiner
32:58
Speaker 4: to examine Brian's body. But why was Sergeant Battle so
33:03
Speaker 4: confident that this gunshot wound had not been self inflicted?
33:08
Speaker 4: And a trial, the prosecutor asked the lead detective, why
33:12
Speaker 4: were you at the funeral home?
33:13
Speaker 3: What do you want to see? Answer?
33:15
Speaker 4: We wanted to see exactly where the victim was shot
33:18
Speaker 4: and wanted to see if we could find any stripling effect.
33:21
Speaker 4: Question what is a stripling effect?
33:23
Speaker 3: Answer?
33:24
Speaker 4: It's when a contact wound. If you have a gun
33:27
Speaker 4: up against the head, there will be a sort of
33:29
Speaker 4: tearing of the skin, sort of a star shape.
33:33
Speaker 5: There's actually a little wrong, but I mean he's talking
33:36
Speaker 5: about the gas, not the stip one.
33:44
Speaker 4: Ronald Scott is being kind here. Sergeant Battle was a
33:48
Speaker 4: lot wrong, although he refers to it as stripling. What
33:52
Speaker 4: Battle is actually describing here is something called a Stelli tear.
33:56
Speaker 5: When you press the.
33:57
Speaker 1: Gun against the head, there's a space between the skin
34:02
Speaker 1: and the skull, and what happens is the bullet goes
34:05
Speaker 1: into the skull, the gas goes in, but a lot
34:08
Speaker 1: of the gas gets trapped underneath the skin and it
34:11
Speaker 1: comes right back out and that's what they call blowback,
34:14
Speaker 1: and it tears the skin into this star shaped stellate
34:20
Speaker 1: pattern that was missing.
34:23
Speaker 4: The presence of soot are burning inside a bullet wound
34:26
Speaker 4: isn't the only indication though, of how close or forest
34:28
Speaker 4: shot was fired from. There are other indications of distance too.
34:34
Speaker 1: Stippling is the little pock marks, little red pock marks
34:39
Speaker 1: that come from the particles of powder. These are all
34:43
Speaker 1: coming out at the same velocity as the bullet. The
34:46
Speaker 1: burning particles and the unburnt particles hit the skin. It
34:51
Speaker 1: creates little pock marks. It's almost like you took a
34:54
Speaker 1: needle and just put little dots. So there are none
34:59
Speaker 1: of those are around that wound that I can see now,
35:03
Speaker 1: I understand. One of the darkness said he saw stip one.
35:08
Speaker 1: I don't see stip one.
35:10
Speaker 4: Stipling would imply a shot fired at intermediate range, close
35:15
Speaker 4: but not touching. And the photos Craig Burns took show
35:18
Speaker 4: a tight reddish band around the gunshot wound. But is
35:21
Speaker 4: it stippling, we asked utter Peter's what he thought.
35:25
Speaker 10: Well, that's the thing. The one particular gunshot wound that
35:28
Speaker 10: is cleaned up, you see a kind of a reddish,
35:32
Speaker 10: bruised looking area that also has like an individual nature
35:36
Speaker 10: of like small little cuts or operations. It's hard to tell.
35:39
Speaker 10: And that's where I'm left a little bit still questioning
35:44
Speaker 10: the results of this example. It's hard to tell whether
35:47
Speaker 10: this is a muzzle entrint or stipling.
35:54
Speaker 4: If there's a muzzle imprint around the wound, then it's
35:56
Speaker 4: a contact shot. If they're stippling, then it's not a
36:00
Speaker 4: contact shot. Unfortunately, the record on this point is ambiguous.
36:05
Speaker 4: So based on the Luna record here, is there an
36:08
Speaker 4: estimate or like a probability you could place some like
36:11
Speaker 4: what range this might have been from or is it
36:14
Speaker 4: to little information to have any conclusion at all.
36:17
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's too little information, just because I can't tell
36:19
Speaker 10: whether it's a muscle imprint, whether it's stippling. So granted
36:22
Speaker 10: that that takes us from a contact wound to something
36:25
Speaker 10: that's probably just a few inches away, but it could
36:27
Speaker 10: be anywhere on that path.
36:29
Speaker 4: So you you wouldn't think this would be from like
36:31
Speaker 4: feet away?
36:32
Speaker 10: Oh no, No, absolutely no.
36:35
Speaker 4: Based on the red ring around the gunshot wound, doctor
36:38
Speaker 4: Peters can't say whether this was a contact shot or
36:41
Speaker 4: a close contact shot. But what he can say is
36:44
Speaker 4: that the state's theory of lee Clark being the shooter
36:46
Speaker 4: could not have happened, So that would probably rule out
36:52
Speaker 4: the boy outside the window, but could apply either to
36:55
Speaker 4: a self inflicted shot or a boy sitting next to.
36:57
Speaker 6: Him, right.
36:58
Speaker 10: I mean, I mean, I'm a little confused here because
37:01
Speaker 10: you're talking about they're playing Russian Roulette and then someone
37:04
Speaker 10: from feet away shot him. I mean, that's such a
37:08
Speaker 10: weird marriage of facts or details.
37:13
Speaker 4: We explained to doctor Peters that investigators believed that the
37:16
Speaker 4: shot that had killed Brian had been fired from several
37:18
Speaker 4: feet away, and then at trial the prosecution argued this
37:22
Speaker 4: shot had been neither a contact shot nor a close
37:24
Speaker 4: contact shot, but rather a distant one. Later, the police
37:28
Speaker 4: come back and say this was a gang revenged Marter
37:32
Speaker 4: conspiracy and that there was no Russian Roulette and that
37:36
Speaker 4: the actual shooter was a boy, a third boy who
37:38
Speaker 4: fired through the window.
37:41
Speaker 10: Yeah, and I can't buy that. I can't buy that.
37:46
Speaker 4: As we heard from ballistics expert Ronald Scott, there's other
37:49
Speaker 4: evidence that indicates this was in fact a contact wound.
37:52
Speaker 4: In this case, people heard the gunshot, but there was
37:55
Speaker 4: a trailer, there's a bedroom, and like five adults were
37:58
Speaker 4: in the living room, of the trailer and they heard
38:01
Speaker 4: a noise. But it seems like most of them, maybe
38:06
Speaker 4: all of them except for one, possibly didn't identify as
38:09
Speaker 4: a gunshot.
38:10
Speaker 2: No.
38:12
Speaker 1: That brings up if you had this against your head,
38:15
Speaker 1: then you wouldn't hear The gun would still be muffled.
38:20
Speaker 1: In other words, it would act like it being against
38:24
Speaker 1: the pillow. But you're still going to get noise coming
38:26
Speaker 1: out of that barrel cylinder gap.
38:29
Speaker 3: So if it was a contact shot, that itself could
38:31
Speaker 3: act as a silencer of sorts, Yes, you would.
38:39
Speaker 4: And that brings us back to what would be the
38:41
Speaker 4: most conclusive evidence of all the black charcoal appearance of
38:45
Speaker 4: Brian's injury. If it was sut or charring, how how
38:51
Speaker 4: would that imply about how far the gun was.
38:54
Speaker 10: Well, if it's soot and singing, it would represent that
38:59
Speaker 10: being a a contact.
39:01
Speaker 2: Wound or.
39:03
Speaker 10: Very near contact, like the gun is in a quarter
39:06
Speaker 10: inch a half inch at most away from the skin.
39:10
Speaker 4: If the black area is from sood or burning, then
39:12
Speaker 4: there's no question this was a contact wound, or as
39:16
Speaker 4: close to contact as you can get without actually touching
39:18
Speaker 4: the skin. Our ballistics expert told us the same thing.
39:25
Speaker 1: When I first looked at the picture that looked to
39:28
Speaker 1: me like it was a contact gunshot wound because of
39:32
Speaker 1: the blackening. But then when I looked at the X
39:36
Speaker 1: rays of the catch scin later, I realized that there's
39:39
Speaker 1: something wrong here. So when I've read the testimony, it
39:42
Speaker 1: answered the question as to why the wound a paid blackish,
39:47
Speaker 1: but damage to the skull was less than I expected.
39:51
Speaker 4: Normally, there wouldn't be any uncertainty here. Normally, blackening inside
39:55
Speaker 4: of the gunshot wound means it was a contact shot
39:58
Speaker 4: because normally that would be the only do nation for
40:00
Speaker 4: why would appear that way? But when one it's got red.
40:04
Speaker 4: Craig Burns's testimony about applying some kind of granulated powder
40:07
Speaker 4: to the wound, he realized, Oh, maybe that's why the
40:11
Speaker 4: wound appears black and charred, not because of soot or sharing,
40:14
Speaker 4: but because of an embalming product.
40:16
Speaker 3: Have you ever seen a kind of powder like that
40:19
Speaker 3: before that?
40:20
Speaker 5: No, I've never. I've never seen it or heard of it.
40:23
Speaker 5: That's the first time.
40:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, we gotta find a mortician see if it exists,
40:27
Speaker 3: because now, well, you know, you.
40:28
Speaker 5: Find one of the one of the older morticians.
40:31
Speaker 1: You know, that feeling a home because I mean, that's
40:33
Speaker 1: the type of guy you want to see who would
40:35
Speaker 1: have been around in the nineties and would know about it.
40:41
Speaker 6: Like that would change everything if if we find out
40:44
Speaker 6: that no one's ever heard of this powder doesn't exist,
40:48
Speaker 6: and that that would indicate it really is soot or gunpowder.
40:58
Speaker 6: Whether or not Brian was by a contact wound is
41:01
Speaker 6: the most critical question that was left unanswered.
41:05
Speaker 7: Due to the failure to do an autopsy.
41:08
Speaker 6: But there's another unanswered question too that an autopsy would
41:12
Speaker 6: have helped resolve, which is.
41:15
Speaker 7: What hand was Brian holding the phone in.
41:18
Speaker 14: He was laying on his right side like he was
41:23
Speaker 14: sitting on his bed, like he had just fell off
41:25
Speaker 14: his bed. He had the phone in his right hand.
41:28
Speaker 14: Mama had to break the spingers to get the phone
41:31
Speaker 14: to call now one one.
41:33
Speaker 4: So do you start looking for the phone or it's
41:35
Speaker 4: in his hand?
41:36
Speaker 7: Do you see it right away?
41:37
Speaker 2: Yeah?
41:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, and your mom gets the phone.
41:41
Speaker 15: Yeah.
41:41
Speaker 14: She had to break the spangers because he had the
41:43
Speaker 14: death grip. I guess whenever something like that happens.
41:51
Speaker 4: The real The only piece of factual evidence in this
41:54
Speaker 4: case that I can't quite reconcile is the statements from
41:58
Speaker 4: the mom and a little bit of Amanda, although she
42:01
Speaker 4: didn't testify about it, as much as the phone that
42:05
Speaker 4: was apparently like clenched tightly in Brian's right hand, and
42:11
Speaker 4: if that phone was in Brian's right hand the way
42:14
Speaker 4: Deborah Bowling, his mom describes and Amanda was telling us about,
42:18
Speaker 4: it is hard to see how he shot himself in
42:20
Speaker 4: the right side of the head.
42:22
Speaker 12: But I mean, I didn't know that if the phone
42:24
Speaker 12: is clenched in his right handers no way he could
42:26
Speaker 12: shot himself in the head on the right side.
42:30
Speaker 6: If Brian's mother really did break his fingers to retrieve
42:33
Speaker 6: the phone from his right hand, that would be strong
42:36
Speaker 6: evidence that Brian hadn't been the one holding the gun
42:40
Speaker 6: when it was fired, and Brian's uncle Michael recalls there
42:44
Speaker 6: was in fact proof of this.
42:46
Speaker 16: The only thing they were mainly concerned about when they
42:49
Speaker 16: got to the hospital was the telephone being in his
42:53
Speaker 16: hands and if his fingers were actually broken or you know,
42:55
Speaker 16: because she had to pry of the phone out of
42:57
Speaker 16: his hand, and Tom, I whish they had them to
43:00
Speaker 16: do and make sure you're on his hand at the hospital.
43:03
Speaker 6: Michael is either remembering this wrong or got some bad
43:06
Speaker 6: information somewhere because this didn't happen. There was no X
43:11
Speaker 6: ray of Brian's hands. There was nothing done medically or
43:15
Speaker 6: forensically to determine whether Brian had been holding a gun
43:18
Speaker 6: or a phone when he was shot, but members of
43:22
Speaker 6: Brian's family testified that the cordless phone had been clutched
43:25
Speaker 6: in his right hand.
43:27
Speaker 10: The reason I lean more towards that.
43:31
Speaker 5: Kane either did it on purpose or even still by accident,
43:35
Speaker 5: is the whole thing with the phone.
43:38
Speaker 9: Unfortunately, the only person that said a phone that is
43:41
Speaker 9: in his right hand is.
43:42
Speaker 7: The mom, mom and the sister.
43:45
Speaker 4: But like they don't say it right away, and do
43:47
Speaker 4: they really remember if it was the right verse's left hand.
43:57
Speaker 4: I have wondered if Brian's family is as early remembering
44:01
Speaker 4: which hand the phone had been in. I can see
44:03
Speaker 4: how when thinking back to a moment of panic and chaos,
44:07
Speaker 4: someone could confuse seeing a right hand when really they
44:10
Speaker 4: saw a left hand, or vice versa. That kind of
44:13
Speaker 4: mistake seems especially possible when no recorded interview was done
44:17
Speaker 4: with Brian's mother until seven months after the shooting, and
44:21
Speaker 4: not until fifteen months after the shooting for the rest
44:23
Speaker 4: of his family. So I asked Kane which hand he
44:27
Speaker 4: remembered Brian holding the phone.
44:28
Speaker 2: In when he's playing and the mall was in his
44:36
Speaker 2: left hand, and then going in his right when he
44:38
Speaker 2: was playing the whole time, when he's standing up above
44:41
Speaker 2: me and he got a hole and get the goum
44:43
Speaker 2: bay he has. When he was on the baby down,
44:45
Speaker 2: he was hitting down out beside me, put the phone
44:47
Speaker 2: on his left. That's when he's fun the cylinder.
44:51
Speaker 4: Cain says, in that final round of Russian Roulette, Brian
44:54
Speaker 4: played the game for real. He'd actually spun the cylinder,
44:58
Speaker 4: and doing so had required him to u both of
45:00
Speaker 4: his hands. Caane told me that Brian put the phone
45:03
Speaker 4: down in his lap first, and that the phone was
45:05
Speaker 4: still there when.
45:06
Speaker 3: The shot went off.
45:09
Speaker 4: And you think he was he still like touching the
45:11
Speaker 4: phone or did he just put it down in his
45:13
Speaker 4: lap and still held on to it? Okay, lap, So
45:18
Speaker 4: you don't remember him even holding the phone in either.
45:20
Speaker 2: Hand, uh huh. Now the ball was on his hand.
45:24
Speaker 4: Bell Caine says that Brian's left hand was resting at
45:28
Speaker 4: his lap near where the phone was, but from what
45:31
Speaker 4: Cain remembers, Brian hadn't actually been holding it at the time,
45:36
Speaker 4: he told me he doesn't know how to explain why
45:38
Speaker 4: Brian's family describes ubbor Bowling breaking Brian's fingers to recover
45:42
Speaker 4: the phone. That's not how he remembers it.
45:49
Speaker 6: The first time we reached out to Craig Burns, he
45:52
Speaker 6: declined our request for an interview. He told us that
45:56
Speaker 6: twenty five years later on he did not remember this case,
46:00
Speaker 6: had nothing he could tell us, so we couldn't ask
46:03
Speaker 6: him what the granulated powder was that had been applied
46:05
Speaker 6: to Brian's head.
46:07
Speaker 7: And maybe Burns really didn't remember this case.
46:09
Speaker 6: He had handled a lot of death cases in Floyd County,
46:12
Speaker 6: after all, first as the deputy coroner and then as
46:16
Speaker 6: the county corner. After being elected in nineteen ninety six,
46:20
Speaker 6: Burns only served as a county coroner for a couple
46:23
Speaker 6: of years, though he did not get a chance to
46:25
Speaker 6: finish out his term in office.
46:31
Speaker 4: In this case, the coroner who testified shortly after trial
46:35
Speaker 4: was sentenced to prison for falsifying autopsies and the certificates.
46:39
Speaker 12: Interesting, so I do have questions about the work that
46:43
Speaker 12: was done here.
46:44
Speaker 10: I'm assuming that that charge and imprisonment was not specificulated
46:50
Speaker 10: in a relate to this case or do we know.
46:53
Speaker 4: The only thing we know at this point because they're
46:55
Speaker 4: not giving us records, is that investigation starts mid January,
47:00
Speaker 4: which is exactly when he testified in this case, So
47:04
Speaker 4: we don't know if there's any connection. What we would
47:07
Speaker 4: love to know is if the reason there was no
47:09
Speaker 4: autopsy done is related to his falsification.
47:12
Speaker 10: Of autopsies, what would his motive be then?
47:15
Speaker 4: Funny he was charging people for stuff that was never
47:18
Speaker 4: done and charging families for services the county pays for
47:23
Speaker 4: that we're never done.
47:24
Speaker 6: Yeah, at this point, we have no evidence that Craig
47:28
Speaker 6: Burns' decision not to have Brian Bowling autopsyed was anything
47:33
Speaker 6: more than just a bad call. But on the other hand,
47:36
Speaker 6: it's a huge mistake, and you have to question how
47:38
Speaker 6: something like this slipped through.
47:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just.
47:45
Speaker 4: I really wonder if Burns's corruption explains why, No, what.
47:48
Speaker 2: Helps with done?
47:48
Speaker 3: Because it makes no sense otherwise.
47:50
Speaker 6: Yeah, and we know, I mean, he's invent in prison
47:53
Speaker 6: for falsifying documents.
47:54
Speaker 3: So he's been in prison for a falsifying autopsy. S
47:59
Speaker 3: also guard Rod.
48:01
Speaker 6: Back in twenty twenty one, our associate producer Amory sent
48:05
Speaker 6: a request into the Floyd County DA under the Open
48:08
Speaker 6: Records Act, requesting to review records related to the Craig
48:12
Speaker 6: Burns case. The DA's office had gotten back to Amory
48:16
Speaker 6: almost immediately.
48:18
Speaker 15: Lee Patterson just called me the Floyd County DA.
48:22
Speaker 7: Oh what did she have to say?
48:24
Speaker 15: I just sent a new request for the Craig Burns case.
48:28
Speaker 15: She was just saying, why all the open records request
48:34
Speaker 15: to Floyd County. This never happened before. And I did
48:39
Speaker 15: mention that this was only the second case. But I
48:42
Speaker 15: think she was, yes, well, Craig Burns confused about the
48:46
Speaker 15: first one.
48:47
Speaker 6: Craig Burns is part of the Lee Clark Josh Kane's
48:52
Speaker 6: story case because he was a coroner.
48:54
Speaker 11: Yeah.
48:55
Speaker 15: I said that, you know, she could talk to you
48:58
Speaker 15: further if she wanted to.
49:04
Speaker 6: To date, we've not received a single page of records
49:07
Speaker 6: from the Floyd County DA, and without the case file,
49:10
Speaker 6: the information we have about the investigation into Craig Burns
49:14
Speaker 6: is limited.
49:16
Speaker 7: But here's what we do know.
49:18
Speaker 4: In January of nineteen ninety eight, the same month that
49:21
Speaker 4: Burns testified at Lee's and Kayne's trial, the Floyd County
49:25
Speaker 4: Police Department received a complain about his actions in office,
49:28
Speaker 4: and investigation was launched, and in September of that year,
49:32
Speaker 4: the Floyd County Police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation
49:35
Speaker 4: seized records from his home in office. According to news
49:39
Speaker 4: reports at the time, Burns had been billing family members
49:42
Speaker 4: of dead people heat autopsied or signed desert tickets for
49:46
Speaker 4: even though the families the deceased owed nothing for his services.
49:50
Speaker 4: He was paid by the county for each death he handled.
49:55
Speaker 4: Investigators also found that Craig Burns had submitted false bills
49:58
Speaker 4: to the County Commission for autopsies and medical examinations that.
50:02
Speaker 3: Were never performed.
50:04
Speaker 4: The chief of the Floyd County Police Department is quoted
50:07
Speaker 4: as saying the coroner may have altered death certificates. Either
50:11
Speaker 4: that or we have an epidemic of people dying in
50:14
Speaker 4: this county. In February of nineteen ninety nine, Craig Burns
50:18
Speaker 4: was indicted in state court on thirty six separate charges
50:21
Speaker 4: related to theft, misconduct in office, and the state reco Act.
50:25
Speaker 4: He pled guilty and was sent USD to fifteen years
50:28
Speaker 4: with tin suspended. Burns was also indicted on federal charges
50:33
Speaker 4: of credit card fraud for unlawfully accessing accounts of various
50:36
Speaker 4: funeral homes in Floyd County. He received an additional fourteen
50:40
Speaker 4: months in federal prison plus three year supervision.
50:53
Speaker 6: It wasn't just Craig Burns who made the decision not
50:56
Speaker 6: to autopsy Brian's body. Sergeant Dalla Battle testified that he'd
51:01
Speaker 6: been part of the decision too. He had discussed it
51:05
Speaker 6: with Burns and apparently had agreed with him that no
51:08
Speaker 6: autopsy should be done. And in Dallas Battle's career as
51:12
Speaker 6: a detective for the Floyd County Police Department, this was
51:16
Speaker 6: far from his only questionable decision about how an investigation
51:20
Speaker 6: should be handled.
51:29
Speaker 7: Next time on proof, I.
51:36
Speaker 16: Don't want to say that any why I didn't do it.
51:42
Speaker 6: So we've talked to a lot of people who have
51:44
Speaker 6: stories about Dallas Battle, and unfortunately he's not here to
51:48
Speaker 6: tell us.
51:48
Speaker 7: But are any of those rumors true?
51:51
Speaker 8: Which one is your atashment about?
51:56
Speaker 5: I told my root debut who Hollerday's Dying?
51:59
Speaker 3: I said, give shit for that? But that's for all
52:04
Speaker 3: one right there. I don't say it's maybe out there.
52:08
Speaker 5: To say him do that?
52:09
Speaker 7: What kind of man does that to something?
52:11
Speaker 12: This man got a lot of hate in him because
52:13
Speaker 12: I'm reading another He's got a lot of hate.
52:18
Speaker 3: Hello with a student speaking SASA.
52:22
Speaker 2: My name is Craig Bronch.
52:30
Speaker 6: You've been listening to Proof, a podcast by Red Marble Media.
52:33
Speaker 6: We'll be back next Monday for episode eight. Send us
52:36
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52:41
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52:46
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52:58
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53:12
Speaker 7: That's all for this week. Thanks for listening.