Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan : The Children in the Basement - Suicide or Murder

Transcript

Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan : The Children in the Basement - Suicide or Murder · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:01
Speaker 1: Quody Donors with Joseph Scott More. I can't really speak
0:06
Speaker 1: for little girls, but for little boys. Having formerly been
0:12
Speaker 1: a little boy, one of the coolest things I used
0:15
Speaker 1: to like to do is to build a fort. And
0:20
Speaker 1: it could either be a fort outdoors or if you
0:23
Speaker 1: had a few dining room table chairs in my case
0:26
Speaker 1: that my granny would let me use. All it took
0:31
Speaker 1: was to take those chairs to a special area of
0:33
Speaker 1: the house and throw a blanket over them. That's a
0:35
Speaker 1: rudimentary for it. And you can have all kinds of
0:39
Speaker 1: going on in your mind. You can be under attack,
0:42
Speaker 1: you can set up defensive positions, or you can just
0:47
Speaker 1: sit there and be in that space when all hell
0:52
Speaker 1: was breaking loose in your family and you just want
0:54
Speaker 1: a quiet, quiet place to escape to. We're going to
1:02
Speaker 1: talk about case. Actually it's a disservice to say that.
1:08
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about two cases, both connected both
1:15
Speaker 1: in life and in death and in blood. Today we're
1:25
Speaker 1: going to talk about two little kids that were found
1:30
Speaker 1: hanging in their mother's basement. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
1:38
Speaker 1: this is body Bags today. There was one location I
1:46
Speaker 1: lived in when I was nine ten and I for
1:55
Speaker 1: those of you that have, you know, know something about
1:58
Speaker 1: my background, family history. I'd love to escape. I love
2:06
Speaker 1: doing two things. I love to escape into books, which
2:10
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time doing. And I love
2:13
Speaker 1: to go out to the woods and there's a peace
2:18
Speaker 1: that exists there. But you know, for some you know,
2:21
Speaker 1: for some kids, I didn't grow up with a basement,
2:23
Speaker 1: but I've often imagined if you could get away, you
2:28
Speaker 1: would want to go to a basement, perhaps some quiet,
2:31
Speaker 1: dark area where you could, you know, pretend that the
2:34
Speaker 1: rest of the world is not happening. If you know
2:36
Speaker 1: what I mean, that you freeze that moment time you're
2:39
Speaker 1: seeking that place of peace. And in today's cases, and Dave,
2:45
Speaker 1: I want you to admonish me if I if I
2:47
Speaker 1: say that in singular these are cases it's not just
2:51
Speaker 1: a singular death. We've got two precious little babies that
2:57
Speaker 1: have have died, and they have died. We'll go ahead
3:03
Speaker 1: and tell you right now, they have died at the
3:06
Speaker 1: hand of their convicted mother. Now, and this this is
3:11
Speaker 1: I have to admit, this case was not on my radar,
3:17
Speaker 1: and it popped up. And I think you and I
3:19
Speaker 1: have some pretty strong feelings about this going forward.
3:23
Speaker 2: When it happened September of twenty nineteen. It happened on
3:26
Speaker 2: my oldest son's birthday, September twenty third, twenty nineteen. And
3:32
Speaker 2: I remember the case when it happened because it was horrific.
3:35
Speaker 2: But even from the very beginning, when you hear a
3:38
Speaker 2: story and the headline is two children eight and four
3:46
Speaker 2: found unconscious in their basement, trying to remember the actual
3:51
Speaker 2: phraseology that was used because the children were found hanging
3:55
Speaker 2: in the basement, and the immediate impact that is what
4:04
Speaker 2: happened before that led up to this, was no one
4:08
Speaker 2: paying attention. Was this an older child that killed a
4:14
Speaker 2: younger child and then tried to kill himself. I mean,
4:18
Speaker 2: there are so many different things to take off with.
4:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when you hear, particularly mental health professionals, and
4:26
Speaker 1: they talk in these very clinical terms about the taking
4:32
Speaker 1: of one's own life, there's two there's two kind of
4:35
Speaker 1: markers that you look for and you listen to. And
4:37
Speaker 1: I've had to listen to a lot of psychiatrists and
4:39
Speaker 1: psychologists over the and social workers of the course of
4:42
Speaker 1: my career when I was investigating suicides. And keep in mind,
4:48
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that we don't give as much attention
4:51
Speaker 1: to homicides we do, but with a suicide in my
4:56
Speaker 1: world of the medical legal world, we're kind of the
5:00
Speaker 1: we're the lead detectives where the lead investigators in those
5:03
Speaker 1: because there's nothing to prosecute, So you have to go
5:07
Speaker 1: back and talk to all of those that are in
5:09
Speaker 1: inner circle. So these terms, these markers that you hear about,
5:13
Speaker 1: and this goes to what you just revealed, is the
5:17
Speaker 1: idea of They'll ask suicidal ideation, does that exist? That
5:23
Speaker 1: is the individual thinking about it? Okay? And then they'll
5:27
Speaker 1: say suicidal ideation with vocalization. So there's kind of this
5:33
Speaker 1: gulf that apparently takes place in the brain where you've
5:37
Speaker 1: got an individual that's been thinking about it, but now
5:40
Speaker 1: they say it. And that's like this kind of threshold
5:43
Speaker 1: that they cross over and you get beyond the saying
5:47
Speaker 1: and they begin It's one thing for somebody to say
5:51
Speaker 1: I don't feel like going on. It's another thing for
5:54
Speaker 1: somebody to say, I don't feel like going on, so
5:58
Speaker 1: I'm going to do X and X in order to
6:02
Speaker 1: facilitate that. That takes it to another level beyond that,
6:05
Speaker 1: and so you have to assess these cases when you're
6:08
Speaker 1: going out, and you know the underlying theme and I
6:11
Speaker 1: know I've talked to you about this over our time together, Dave,
6:16
Speaker 1: is that every death, every death is a homicide until
6:19
Speaker 1: proven otherwise. And so we're gonna when you have a suicide,
6:23
Speaker 1: I want to and you're being presented with this. If
6:28
Speaker 1: I lived in a perfect world and I'm an investigator,
6:30
Speaker 1: I'm showing up. I don't want the police. I don't
6:34
Speaker 1: want a crime scene tech. I don't want even the
6:38
Speaker 1: nine to one one operator that's dispatching me to a scene.
6:45
Speaker 1: I would rather than just say it's a death. Don't
6:48
Speaker 1: tell me that it's a suicide, because just say a suicide,
6:52
Speaker 1: you're assuming something and you do that at your own peril.
6:57
Speaker 1: I've actually had that happen to me where I assumed
7:01
Speaker 1: that something was a suicide and it turned out to
7:03
Speaker 1: be different. And from an investigative standpoint, that your achilles heel,
7:09
Speaker 1: because there are certain things you have to do in
7:10
Speaker 1: homicides you're not necessarily going to do in suicide investigation.
7:14
Speaker 1: So your vision is colored automatically, you know the way
7:17
Speaker 1: your brain is wired. I'm working this as suicide. I'm
7:20
Speaker 1: working this as suicide. Along could be something else, and
7:23
Speaker 1: how much more so with a double hanging, which is
7:30
Speaker 1: something that is so beyond the pale of my experience.
7:35
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about everybody else. You can go out
7:38
Speaker 1: there and you can find these outlier cases, and I
7:41
Speaker 1: know that they exist. But from my experience, have ever
7:47
Speaker 1: had murder suicides? Yeah? Oh yeah, they occur regularly. We'll
7:52
Speaker 1: hear about them in the news. Interestingly enough, when you
7:55
Speaker 1: hear about somebody that goes in and you know, like
7:57
Speaker 1: kills their whole family and then kills themself, isn't it
8:00
Speaker 1: interesting how it only makes it through like one news
8:02
Speaker 1: cycle essentially. And these are big, big deals, you know,
8:07
Speaker 1: in that whatever jurisdiction is, you've got multiple deaths in
8:11
Speaker 1: one location, so you it's really easy, I think for
8:17
Speaker 1: some people intellectually to brush things off. But I always
8:21
Speaker 1: feel like that there's a suspect, and that's I'm jaded
8:25
Speaker 1: and hardened to this. I always assume as an investigator
8:29
Speaker 1: that people are lying to me, and that what I'm
8:32
Speaker 1: not going to allow my lying eyes to dictate to me.
8:36
Speaker 1: You know, perception is one thing, but can I prove
8:39
Speaker 1: it scientifically? Back to the bigger question, have I ever
8:45
Speaker 1: had kids? In my experience as a medical legal death
8:48
Speaker 1: investigator at this age we're talking eight and four. No,
8:56
Speaker 1: I have not. I have not had these kinds of
9:01
Speaker 1: events that have occurred in my experience where I've had
9:05
Speaker 1: a child that has committed suicide and certainly not some
9:10
Speaker 1: kind of double event that that's so off the beam,
9:14
Speaker 1: if you will, uh, this is you know, if this
9:18
Speaker 1: were a real thing. Okay, if it were real, this
9:22
Speaker 1: is the kind these are the kind of cases, Dave,
9:26
Speaker 1: that people that do research on they would write papers
9:31
Speaker 1: about this. Okay, a double suicide of an eight and
9:35
Speaker 1: a four year old. Just let that seep down into
9:38
Speaker 1: your groundwater just for a second and begin to think
9:41
Speaker 1: about that. What are what are the odds you're going
9:45
Speaker 1: to have two kids that are going to simultaneously make
9:48
Speaker 1: a decision like that and in their lives and so
9:52
Speaker 1: and listen, this is not like we're not talking, Dave,
9:55
Speaker 1: about a firearm. Who you know, we have to say,
10:00
Speaker 1: you know what, eight and four year old are going
10:04
Speaker 1: to be able to wield a weapon. Now, have I
10:06
Speaker 1: ever worked accidental shootings with kids? Yes, yes, that's a thing.
10:10
Speaker 1: It happens with some frequency. Okay, but we're talking about
10:15
Speaker 1: something that's really complex here, Dave. We're talking about with hangings.
10:21
Speaker 1: You have to first off identify a ligature, a suitable literature.
10:28
Speaker 1: Then you have to calculate is this going to be
10:31
Speaker 1: sufficient to the task at hand, Like, if I'm looking
10:34
Speaker 1: to take my life, all right, where do I tie
10:37
Speaker 1: it off? How do I secure the knot where I'm
10:41
Speaker 1: anchoring the thing? Then how do I tie a noose,
10:44
Speaker 1: which to this day I've tried to understand. I remember
10:49
Speaker 1: there was a case many years ago where I had
10:50
Speaker 1: a guy that had tied an authentic hangman's news. You
10:54
Speaker 1: generally don't see those, okay, where it's actually wrapped around
10:58
Speaker 1: thirteen times. I took a piece of rope and tried
11:01
Speaker 1: to do that, and it's I'm not I'm not a
11:03
Speaker 1: navy guy, so I don't I don't do well with knots,
11:07
Speaker 1: and I couldn't duplicate it. It's something that has to
11:10
Speaker 1: be practiced. I'm not saying that's what happened here, but
11:12
Speaker 1: you have to be able to understand form and function.
11:17
Speaker 1: And this is really higher level thinking. When you begin
11:20
Speaker 1: to think about it, are considerate. You know, you're talking
11:23
Speaker 1: about placing a noose around your neck. Oh and here's
11:26
Speaker 1: the other thing. How are you going to get up
11:28
Speaker 1: high enough to do it?
11:29
Speaker 2: Oh?
11:30
Speaker 1: Well, we have to find a couple of chairs. That
11:35
Speaker 1: we're talking about an eight and a four year old.
11:37
Speaker 1: And you and I we're both daddies and granddaddies. We
11:39
Speaker 1: know what a distinct difference in height exists between an
11:45
Speaker 1: eight and a four year old, particularly between a little
11:47
Speaker 1: boy and a little girl. How are we going to
11:49
Speaker 1: be able to assess that at this at this age
11:53
Speaker 1: so automatically, automatically, bells and whistles are going off in
11:58
Speaker 1: my brain and think the Lord above, all right, thank
12:02
Speaker 1: the Lord above that in this case, these authorities that
12:06
Speaker 1: were out on the scene, Boba, they were like, something
12:11
Speaker 1: stinks in the state of Denmark here, you know it's
12:13
Speaker 1: it's something smells bad about this case. This is not,
12:18
Speaker 1: this is not as one of the friends of pathologists
12:21
Speaker 1: I used to work with he said this all the time,
12:24
Speaker 1: and it kind of stuck in my lex County says,
12:26
Speaker 1: this is not as as advertised. And so that you know,
12:31
Speaker 1: you're telling me that it's a suicide. All right, you're
12:35
Speaker 1: telling me it's suicide. Ain't buying it. I'm just not buying. David,
12:53
Speaker 1: you got me fired up with this case. You know
12:55
Speaker 1: I can't. It's so it's so bizarre. I really need
13:04
Speaker 1: you to rain me in, draw me back down.
13:05
Speaker 2: To actually excited about doing it.
13:07
Speaker 1: Joe. Well, it's just it, and it gets me. I'll
13:12
Speaker 1: get up on a soapbox. And also, just please bring
13:16
Speaker 1: me back to reality here, and let's orient everybody as
13:19
Speaker 1: to what's going on here.
13:20
Speaker 2: We're starting with the nine one one call. There's a
13:25
Speaker 2: lot of information that gets packed in at the beginning
13:29
Speaker 2: when you have in this case, Mom calls nine one
13:33
Speaker 2: one and says, I found my children downstairs in the
13:40
Speaker 2: basement hanging, and there are several things that didn't take
13:48
Speaker 2: place after that that really bother me. And I need
13:53
Speaker 2: your first hand take on this for me personally, Joe,
13:56
Speaker 2: And I'm going to assume that others need the same thing,
13:59
Speaker 2: because from that nine to one one call, and from
14:03
Speaker 2: what we learned after the fact is that when EMTs arrived,
14:06
Speaker 2: these children were still hanging. And yeah, all I could
14:11
Speaker 2: think of is my first reaction would be if I
14:14
Speaker 2: were to come downstairs and see not one child, but
14:19
Speaker 2: two small children and an eight year old and a
14:21
Speaker 2: four year old hanging. My first thought would be to
14:23
Speaker 2: cut them down.
14:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it would be. And I got to tell you,
14:27
Speaker 1: I don't give two hoots in hell about how fragile
14:31
Speaker 1: you are as a mama. Okay, just let me lay
14:35
Speaker 1: that groundwork. These are your babies. They're suspended in the air.
14:42
Speaker 1: Why is it that you are not moving Heaven and
14:47
Speaker 1: Hell to get over there to release this pressure from
14:51
Speaker 1: their neck.
14:53
Speaker 2: And they would still be warm.
14:55
Speaker 1: Oh, let me tell you something. Not only would they
14:57
Speaker 1: still be warm, but these kids lived three days afterwards, David,
15:02
Speaker 1: they were still alive.
15:03
Speaker 2: You have evidence or first hand accounts from the EMTs
15:06
Speaker 2: that arrived who could describe the scene as they see
15:09
Speaker 2: it as opposed to what they would have seen. If
15:11
Speaker 2: it had been me, they would have come into a
15:13
Speaker 2: train wreck. I would have had both children on the
15:15
Speaker 2: ground trying to do whatever I could, because that's what
15:18
Speaker 2: everybody I know in my entire life would have done. Yeah,
15:22
Speaker 2: but that that didn't happen here. And so my multi
15:24
Speaker 2: prompted question for you is one, have you ever had
15:28
Speaker 2: a child commit suicide that you had to work and
15:31
Speaker 2: child I'm talking under ten? Have you ever had a
15:33
Speaker 2: child hanging? And have you ever ever heard of somebody
15:40
Speaker 2: finding a child in this situation and not taking them down.
15:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me break this down. So in answer to
15:46
Speaker 1: the question part A, I have never worked me personally,
15:53
Speaker 1: I'm sure I have colleagues out there that have. I've
15:56
Speaker 1: never worked a case involving a child ten and under
16:01
Speaker 1: that committed suicide. I know that they exist. I know
16:06
Speaker 1: that they've happened. It hasn't happened in my world, all right.
16:10
Speaker 1: Number two children hanging, Yes, I have, and probably two
16:14
Speaker 1: of the most tragic cases I've ever had, and they
16:17
Speaker 1: still haunt me to this day. I had I think
16:23
Speaker 1: this child was eleven, and this was in Atlanta. His
16:28
Speaker 1: mom was cracked out. He was left in charge of
16:33
Speaker 1: all of his siblings, and it was right after one
16:37
Speaker 1: of the Batman movies had come out, and he they
16:44
Speaker 1: had no television. This was in the winter time. There
16:46
Speaker 1: was no heat in the house. I'll never forget this as
16:48
Speaker 1: long as I lived. This child would he had an
16:53
Speaker 1: old jump rope, you know, the cloth kind of rope thing.
16:58
Speaker 1: They're real inexpensive, And what he would do was they
17:02
Speaker 1: had this house was really old and I had huge closets,
17:04
Speaker 1: and he would tie off the jump rope, and he
17:08
Speaker 1: would put on his batman mask and make a cape
17:11
Speaker 1: out of a towel, and he would swing from inside
17:16
Speaker 1: of the closet on the outside and bounce back and forth,
17:20
Speaker 1: and he would have all the little kids on the
17:22
Speaker 1: floor watching him, and he'd entertain them. Okay, well he
17:27
Speaker 1: did this and he got twisted in that in that
17:33
Speaker 1: rope and suspend the suspension, hanging with this thing, and
17:39
Speaker 1: he died in front of his little siblings. And the
17:43
Speaker 1: mother was out walking the stroll and this lady that
17:49
Speaker 1: lived down the street heard a child crying in the
17:52
Speaker 1: middle of the street. And the child is only wearing
17:54
Speaker 1: a diaper, and memory fails me. I think this was
17:58
Speaker 1: like in February in Atlanta day, which is rather cool.
18:02
Speaker 1: This baby is walking down the street crying, and this
18:05
Speaker 1: little old lady comes out and she knew about the house.
18:07
Speaker 1: She knew, you know, bad things were going on. And
18:11
Speaker 1: she finds this little precious child walking down the road.
18:14
Speaker 1: She goes and scoops her up and little babies crying,
18:18
Speaker 1: and she goes in the house and finds the other
18:20
Speaker 1: kids in total you know, they're in total disarray, and
18:25
Speaker 1: this child is hanging. That was the first one that
18:29
Speaker 1: comes to mind. Second one, I had a child that
18:33
Speaker 1: I actually assisted on the autopsy on. I didn't work
18:37
Speaker 1: the scene, but one of my colleagues did. And this
18:41
Speaker 1: was a kid that was on top of a tire swing.
18:46
Speaker 1: And you know how kids will get on top of
18:48
Speaker 1: a tire swing, put their feet on the tire and
18:51
Speaker 1: then swing back and forth and kind of do you know,
18:56
Speaker 1: move gyrate the rope and it and his mother drove
19:01
Speaker 1: up and it had wrapped. He had slipped off and
19:05
Speaker 1: the tire had pendulumed around his body and he hung
19:10
Speaker 1: like that. So yeah, those happened, But Dave, those are
19:14
Speaker 1: extreme cases where these are accidental events that occur. I've
19:19
Speaker 1: had adults that have accidentally hung themselves and that's you know,
19:24
Speaker 1: and that that happens, you know, I mean, it truly does.
19:27
Speaker 1: And generally they get twisted up in cord somehow, or
19:32
Speaker 1: it's just blind fate you know, that creates these things.
19:38
Speaker 1: But that's not what we're talking about here, Dave. These
19:41
Speaker 1: these two babies, the children by the way of Lisa Snyder,
19:46
Speaker 1: were found hanging by dog leads in the basement, which
19:53
Speaker 1: for me is you know, dog leads are generally I
20:00
Speaker 1: found and she purchased these I think from Walmart if
20:03
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, or had purchased them online.
20:05
Speaker 2: She ordered them the day before and tacked them up
20:07
Speaker 2: in the morning of Yeah.
20:09
Speaker 1: And these things are generally you can get them in
20:13
Speaker 1: a variety at or time. If you think about a
20:15
Speaker 1: central cable that runs through it's kind of like, you know,
20:18
Speaker 1: a twisted wire of a certain gauge. The lower the
20:23
Speaker 1: number of the gauge, the bigger in diameter or something is.
20:25
Speaker 1: It's counterintuitive many times anyway. And they're coated with rubber
20:31
Speaker 1: or some kind of rubber eyes plastic, you know that
20:33
Speaker 1: kind of it's like almost like a conduit, you know
20:35
Speaker 1: that that that you know contains these things. But she
20:40
Speaker 1: had bought these things, and these have been used in
20:47
Speaker 1: order to facilitate the hanging of both of these children.
20:51
Speaker 2: Dave Joe. When looking at a case like this where
20:55
Speaker 2: you have two people dead from hanging, and in this scenario,
21:03
Speaker 2: eight year old and four year old, when mom calls police,
21:06
Speaker 2: calls nine one one and describes it. She went upstairs
21:12
Speaker 2: to call nine one one, the hanging stick place in
21:15
Speaker 2: the basement. She never returned back downstairs. She calls nine
21:20
Speaker 2: one one and never goes back down. Now would this
21:27
Speaker 2: be a tip off to investigators that this is not
21:31
Speaker 2: in the norm, and would it be enough for them
21:34
Speaker 2: to actually say it out loud something's wrong here?
21:39
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, yeah not. I would expect her to stand
21:43
Speaker 1: and deliver at that moment, Tom, if I asked her
21:45
Speaker 1: a direct question, what and you know I hate to
21:48
Speaker 1: watch question. Let's see, how could I phrase this?
21:51
Speaker 2: Why didn't you cut him down?
21:53
Speaker 1: Yeah? Why didn't you cut him down? What was what
21:56
Speaker 1: was going through your mind? What was it that was
22:00
Speaker 1: some more important that you stay up here as opposed
22:03
Speaker 1: to going down there. And let me go ahead and
22:06
Speaker 1: tell you, ma'am beforehand, fear don't count.
22:09
Speaker 2: She actually had an answer, Joe, Yeah, I got to
22:12
Speaker 2: hear it, Dave. She said that she tried to tried
22:16
Speaker 2: to do what she tried to get him down. Four
22:19
Speaker 2: year old Brindley, little girl, beautiful little thing. Four year
22:24
Speaker 2: old Brindley. I think weighed under forty pounds, right, okay,
22:29
Speaker 2: and she mom didn't have the strength to get her down.
22:37
Speaker 2: Connor eight years old was a big boy. He weighed
22:41
Speaker 2: just south of one hundred and fifty pounds, and when
22:44
Speaker 2: she couldn't get Brindley. She immediately just said, well I
22:47
Speaker 2: can't get him. That's the story she told. That's what
22:50
Speaker 2: she said. And I think about the mother's stories we've heard,
22:53
Speaker 2: you know, mother's lifting cars off babies and things like that. Yeah,
22:57
Speaker 2: this internal this much the motherhood strength is not just physical.
23:02
Speaker 2: It's emotional. It's like allogical, it's every type of strift.
23:05
Speaker 1: It'll trump just about anything that's out there. And also
23:08
Speaker 1: response response, response toward other individuals that are coming into
23:12
Speaker 1: the sphere of their children too.
23:14
Speaker 2: Uh.
23:15
Speaker 1: You know things that moms will do. They'll get in
23:18
Speaker 1: between their kids and a pit bull. Uh. And you
23:22
Speaker 1: don't think, you know, as you know, you're you're here
23:25
Speaker 1: and you're thinking, well, I don't want to be subjected
23:27
Speaker 1: to the pain of all that stuff falls away when
23:30
Speaker 1: you're talking about your babies. You'll do anything, you know,
23:33
Speaker 1: and where where is that here? And I think for investigators,
23:36
Speaker 1: you know, when they're hearing this, and I'm sure that
23:38
Speaker 1: some of these investigators are moms and dads, and they're
23:43
Speaker 1: they're thinking, you know, what, what's wrong here?
23:46
Speaker 2: Why?
23:46
Speaker 1: Why is it? Why is it that that you have
23:50
Speaker 1: not done something? And you know, I do know this,
23:53
Speaker 1: I do know that the sun. He had asked if
24:01
Speaker 1: he could go down into the basement and build a fort,
24:04
Speaker 1: and he had taken two chairs down there to facilitate this.
24:11
Speaker 2: You know, we mentioned that earlier at the building a fort. Yeah,
24:15
Speaker 2: my grandson Braylan, Yeah, has been in that mode. Oh
24:19
Speaker 2: yeah building. Yeah, he will build a ford out of anything.
24:23
Speaker 2: And that's what struck me as well. When you were
24:25
Speaker 2: talking about that earlier. I thought, Yep, he's in that
24:27
Speaker 2: zone of and has been.
24:29
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I don't you know, you think about Connor,
24:35
Speaker 1: who's this eight year old kid he's got We know
24:38
Speaker 1: that he has issues.
24:41
Speaker 2: And very specifically the issues of disability for him. He
24:45
Speaker 2: has a speech issue, he has dexterity issues, he doesn't
24:51
Speaker 2: not as and these are things that he's growing with.
24:54
Speaker 2: And he is a big boy. I mentioned eight years old.
24:56
Speaker 2: He's one hundred and fifty pounds. This is a jovial child, Joe.
25:00
Speaker 2: But mom, Mom claim from the very beginning he was
25:05
Speaker 2: bullied at school, bullied on the bus, did not want
25:09
Speaker 2: to go to school, hated going to school. She laid
25:11
Speaker 2: out all the reasons and even said he didn't want
25:15
Speaker 2: to die alone. Her eight year old son bullied at school,
25:20
Speaker 2: hates school, wants to die, doesn't want to die alone.
25:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's break that down real quick, because here's the deal.
25:29
Speaker 1: For every kid that is actually bullied, that's you know,
25:35
Speaker 1: truly being bullied in an environment, well, first off, by
25:38
Speaker 1: virtue of this. And I know that this probably doesn't
25:40
Speaker 1: matter to Lisa Snyder at this point in time. She's
25:44
Speaker 1: got more problems on her hands. But it diminishes, it
25:49
Speaker 1: diminishes everybody else that are every other child that's going
25:53
Speaker 1: through this kind of thing, right, and so, and it's
25:57
Speaker 1: almost like that that's a default position many times bullying.
26:02
Speaker 1: And you can say that, you know, and it really
26:05
Speaker 1: doesn't require much of a deep dive, you know, you say, oh, bully, okay,
26:11
Speaker 1: Well let's let's roll with that. That that superficiality many
26:15
Speaker 1: times kind of clouds of judgment when you're trying to
26:19
Speaker 1: do an investigation. And I think that she understood, yeah,
26:23
Speaker 1: and yeah, exactly, and so she's by that by virtue
26:27
Speaker 1: of that. It's my opinion that she's trying to put
26:31
Speaker 1: the police off scent. You know, she's given them you know,
26:35
Speaker 1: you know, I got to tell you, Dave, there's something
26:38
Speaker 1: that happens when you work the death of a child,
26:43
Speaker 1: and I know this to be a fact in my
26:45
Speaker 1: world of investigations. Most of the time parents, particularly in
26:53
Speaker 1: the immediate one or two things happens, they're either nonverbal,
27:00
Speaker 1: they're screaming so loud and it's unintelligible that you can't
27:03
Speaker 1: make sense out of it. There is no middle ground.
27:05
Speaker 1: Most of the time, you don't have somebody that when
27:07
Speaker 1: they're talking to you and you're asking them about the
27:10
Speaker 1: death of a child, where you know they've got that
27:14
Speaker 1: very kind of flat thing that's going on, where calm collected.
27:20
Speaker 1: You know, they have kind of all the plot line
27:23
Speaker 1: is there, or as they say in Hollywood, the through
27:25
Speaker 1: line is there. You know, you don't have that, and
27:28
Speaker 1: so investigators would pick up on that, and then you
27:32
Speaker 1: go back to to the idea that these you know,
27:36
Speaker 1: you couple that with this explanation, and then these children
27:41
Speaker 1: are suspended, still hanging when she goes down there. And
27:44
Speaker 1: here's another little thing. Those chairs that I mentioned, h
27:52
Speaker 1: they're turned over, and that's again that goes to staging.
27:59
Speaker 1: It goes to staging because you can take I mean,
28:01
Speaker 1: how much effort does it take. Well, if I take
28:03
Speaker 1: the chair and I lay it on its side like this,
28:06
Speaker 1: it's gonna look like they kicked the chair out from
28:09
Speaker 1: under them, you know, in some grand thing, you know,
28:12
Speaker 1: like the scene with Brooks in Shaw Shank Redemption. You
28:17
Speaker 1: know where he kicks you know, kicks the yeah, rocks
28:21
Speaker 1: it back and forth, and that's kind of the classic thing.
28:23
Speaker 1: You're going to tell me that an eight and a
28:25
Speaker 1: four year old child did this and the chairs are
28:27
Speaker 1: both laying there, and yeah, it would be horrific, But
28:31
Speaker 1: I would think it would be a greater horror if
28:34
Speaker 1: you have to look back and say I didn't do
28:36
Speaker 1: a damn thing about this to rescue my children from death.
28:41
Speaker 1: So you know, for me, I think working a case
28:45
Speaker 1: like this, I'll have more questions than answers, because here's
28:51
Speaker 1: the thing. This would not have been a painless death.
28:59
Speaker 1: This would have been something that these children would have
29:03
Speaker 1: been fully aware of that the last bit of oxygen
29:10
Speaker 1: was leaving their body. Their brain is screaming, it's on fire,
29:17
Speaker 1: their chest no longer capable of rising and falling. They
29:21
Speaker 1: can't take it in because all the while, all the while,
29:25
Speaker 1: that noose created by a dog lead is growing tighter
29:31
Speaker 1: and tighter around their necks simultaneously while the weight of
29:37
Speaker 1: their body draws them down, and there would be an
29:40
Speaker 1: awareness there. It would not be merciful death. But I
29:45
Speaker 1: have to say, Lisa Snyder is faced with a certain
29:52
Speaker 1: reality of prison. Brother, let me kind of break this
30:10
Speaker 1: down for you. Let me tell you what this person,
30:14
Speaker 1: Lisa Snyder has said about her children, all right, in
30:20
Speaker 1: this case. First off, she's told investigators that she thought
30:27
Speaker 1: that her children wanted to kill themselves. Just you know,
30:33
Speaker 1: think about that. Then she says that her child was
30:38
Speaker 1: bullied at school. Connor specifically, she claims that Connor again
30:46
Speaker 1: we go back to, you know, when I was talking
30:49
Speaker 1: about ideation and with vocalization. She claims that he had
30:53
Speaker 1: vocalized about taking his life. Okay, and then she said,
31:00
Speaker 1: and this is a very profound statement here when you
31:03
Speaker 1: think about it, that he didn't want to die alone.
31:11
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's the kind of thing you hear,
31:13
Speaker 1: like if somebody's you know, suffering from some kind of
31:16
Speaker 1: horrible terminal illness, I don't want to be alone, you know,
31:20
Speaker 1: in my bed when I pass on, I want my
31:21
Speaker 1: loved ones around me or something. That he's this eight
31:24
Speaker 1: year old is actually vocalizing this to her. And here's
31:31
Speaker 1: the other piece to this that kind of it's almost
31:34
Speaker 1: like she's building out this narrative. She says that Connor
31:42
Speaker 1: did not like to go into the basement alone, ergo,
31:47
Speaker 1: he's going to bring his four year old sister down
31:50
Speaker 1: there to accompany him. And of course for her in
31:54
Speaker 1: her mind, I'm assuming this is her line of logic here.
31:58
Speaker 1: She's trying to, you know, give the police a rationale
32:02
Speaker 1: for what she wound up bearing witness to when she
32:05
Speaker 1: went down there and saw both for kids suspended uh
32:08
Speaker 1: in the basement. You know, you think about, well, how
32:13
Speaker 1: does how does this work? You know, we're not we're
32:16
Speaker 1: not talking about like two adults that have entered into
32:20
Speaker 1: and these cases do happen. I've actually worked a couple
32:22
Speaker 1: of these where you have two adults that have entered
32:25
Speaker 1: into a suicide packt and but that generally involves like
32:28
Speaker 1: an od uh uh there. It's smacks of what we
32:33
Speaker 1: used refer to as a final exit death, which are
32:36
Speaker 1: kind of detailed in this book that was written years ago.
32:40
Speaker 1: You have all those, but it goes to kind of
32:42
Speaker 1: a higher level thinking something you don't expect, you know,
32:46
Speaker 1: from an eight year old child. And and here's the
32:48
Speaker 1: other thing. We're talking about child that police discovered and
32:52
Speaker 1: he's been diagnosed with praxia, and he's you know, he
32:59
Speaker 1: has a difficult tom vocalizing things. His thought pattern doesn't
33:04
Speaker 1: marry up to others. But he's jovial kid. And he's
33:07
Speaker 1: also here's the other thing, David, he's also got dexterity
33:10
Speaker 1: issues that kind of accompanies apraxia. He has limited motor
33:15
Speaker 1: motor ability or it's compromised. It's not the same as
33:18
Speaker 1: say a children on a normal developmental scale. And so
33:25
Speaker 1: the fact that you go just at a baseline, Dave,
33:28
Speaker 1: at a baseline, Why this is so absurd is you
33:32
Speaker 1: think about again the tying of everything, the facilitation of
33:38
Speaker 1: moving chairs. And then he would have had to have
33:42
Speaker 1: if this were the case, he would have had to
33:44
Speaker 1: have taken his little sister, gotten her up on a chair,
33:48
Speaker 1: put a noose around her neck, and then kicked the
33:53
Speaker 1: chair out from under her, or pushed her swinging out
33:56
Speaker 1: away from her and pulled it down to whatever the
33:58
Speaker 1: case might be. How do you explain that if this
34:01
Speaker 1: kid has this this handicap essentially, you know, how do
34:06
Speaker 1: you do that? Oh, and by the way, after this
34:08
Speaker 1: eight year old bears witness to what this horrible thing
34:12
Speaker 1: that he is alleged to have committed, then he's going
34:16
Speaker 1: to get on the chair and do the same thing.
34:19
Speaker 1: How does it? Please explain to me, and this is
34:22
Speaker 1: obviously rhetorical, Please explain to me, how exactly does that happen?
34:26
Speaker 1: Oh okay, Well, here's the other thing. You've got two siblings,
34:30
Speaker 1: one eight and one four. They look at one another
34:32
Speaker 1: and they go, Okay, we've got the nooses set up,
34:35
Speaker 1: one two, three go. It's that the other option that
34:40
Speaker 1: I have here. See, that's what really makes this so absurd.
34:44
Speaker 1: There's so much planning in my experience with suicidal hangings
34:49
Speaker 1: that takes place. I just I'm not buying it. I'm
34:52
Speaker 1: not buying it, no matter how hard you try to
34:56
Speaker 1: sell this to me. That's what it's so absurd. But David,
35:00
Speaker 1: if this couldn't get any darker, please, I'm begging you.
35:07
Speaker 1: I've already heard this line about she had mentioned to
35:10
Speaker 1: somebody that and I'm paraphrasing here. I just I couldn't
35:15
Speaker 1: do it anymore. I didn't want to do it anymore,
35:17
Speaker 1: whatever the case might be. You know, crimea river. But
35:22
Speaker 1: this scene really took another dark turn here, didn't it.
35:25
Speaker 2: Well, you know, in today's world, there's always a digital
35:28
Speaker 2: footprint that has to be looked at, and as police
35:32
Speaker 2: were searching, they found out that Lisa Snyder had done
35:37
Speaker 2: a number of things online. She looked up topics such
35:41
Speaker 2: as carbon monoxide, hanging yourself, effective ways of hanging a person.
35:47
Speaker 2: She searched episodes of the TV show I Almost Got
35:51
Speaker 2: Away with It, which is fascinating to me because in
35:54
Speaker 2: each one of those cases they didn't get away with it.
35:56
Speaker 2: You're not really going to learn how to get away
35:58
Speaker 2: with it, You're going to learn how they got caught.
36:00
Speaker 2: But the other thing that pops up in this authorities
36:05
Speaker 2: recover digital evidence that revealed photos and conversations regarding sexually
36:14
Speaker 2: explicit messages about the dog performing sexual acts on Snyder.
36:23
Speaker 2: There you have it right there, b s reality and
36:30
Speaker 2: holy moly, Joe, you've got a woman accused of killing
36:34
Speaker 2: her two children, ages eight and four, and add bestiality
36:40
Speaker 2: to it all. She's going to have a great time
36:42
Speaker 2: in prison.
36:42
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, because you know, look, I know people
36:47
Speaker 1: judge folks that are that are in prison, and people
36:50
Speaker 1: are in for a number of reasons. You know, there's
36:54
Speaker 1: many paths that lead there. But let me tell you something.
37:00
Speaker 1: A group of people that do exist in prison, and
37:03
Speaker 1: just let this sink in, their mama's in prison. Their
37:06
Speaker 1: mama's in prison that lament every day the decisions that
37:10
Speaker 1: they have made that have separated, that have separated them
37:15
Speaker 1: from their precious babies on the outside. Okay, they sit
37:19
Speaker 1: there and they think about that. Now, Lisa Snyder, who
37:25
Speaker 1: has now been found guilty okay in a court of
37:28
Speaker 1: law in Pennsylvania, she's going to mark herself into that prison.
37:34
Speaker 1: And the prison population is fully aware of what a
37:41
Speaker 1: new inmate has done. They have ways of finding out. Okay.
37:48
Speaker 1: I would suspect there would be a few people within
37:51
Speaker 1: that prison that would look at this mother and realize
37:54
Speaker 1: suddenly that she in fact destroyed these two precious babies
38:05
Speaker 1: because she was tired of it. Where you have that
38:10
Speaker 1: portion of that population that every day would long to
38:15
Speaker 1: wrap their arms around their babies that are on the
38:18
Speaker 1: outside while they're in think she's going to have a
38:23
Speaker 1: tough road ahead over Listen, folks, if any of you
38:28
Speaker 1: are struggling with issues, or you have friends that are
38:34
Speaker 1: struggling with issues. All you have to do is called
38:40
Speaker 1: nine eight eight. That's nine eight eight. There's a lifeline.
38:46
Speaker 1: It's a suicide and crisis lifeline. Please don't sit back,
38:50
Speaker 1: You're not alone. There's hope, there's help again. That's nine
38:57
Speaker 1: eight eight. Just reach out, there's help available. I'm Joseph
39:04
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan and this is Body Bodies