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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan:The Murdaugh Trial Autopsy Review Official Findings · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Morgan. We've waited for months now
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: trying to understand the dynamics of the injuries that were
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: sustained by Paul and Maggie Murdoch, and as it turns out,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: they're as brutal as we expected them. And today we
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: want to try to understand exactly how their depths came about,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the sequencing of the injuries that they sustained, and precisely
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: how long did it take for them to die. Today
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I'm taping from Hollywood, California, so the sound is going
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: to be a bit different than normal, but I felt
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the need to hop on here in wake of doctor
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Reemer's testimony in the trial. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: this is Bodybags. Joining me today is Dave Mack, reporter
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: with Crime Online. Dave, as I mentioned in the opening,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: we've been waiting some time now for the testimony of
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the forensic pathologist, and here we have it before us.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: It certainly sent a shockwave through that courthouse the lead
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: up to testimony of doctor Allen Reemer. As you mentioned,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: this is the one thing that people have really been
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: waiting for. Alec Murdaugh is on trial for the murders
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of his wife and son. So, Maggie and Paul, they
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: were both murdered on Gin seven twenty one. I'm murda property.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: They were both murdered within minutes of one another, and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: they were both murdered with different weapons. There's a lot
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: to unpack here. Doctor Reemer was testifying about the wounds
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: to Maggie and Paul. As we begin, I have to
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: ask you the very specific question. I thought, we're at trial,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: You're going to show us pictures. We're going to see
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: the pictures of everything that's going on with Paul and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Maggie Murdock and what they did. First though, doctor Riemer
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: used poster boards of male and female diagrams. Why would
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: that happen, Joe, when we look at autopsy photography. First off,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: for those that are not familiar with the trauma at all,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: and keep in mind, this is being used as a
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: descriptor as an illustrative aid for a jury that is
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: comprised of layman. Maybe there's a nurse on there, maybe
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: somebody served as an EMT at some point in tom
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: But when you begin to it into this find of detail,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: when you're talking about trauma, it looks like somebody's nightmare,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: you know, when you're looking at this tissue that's twisted
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and blown apart, and you can't pick out specific anatomical landmarks.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: So a lot of it goes to orientation, a lot
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: of it goes to the idea of the extent of
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the trauma. And Dave, I got to tell you, I've
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: seen it. I've seen it done kind of both ways
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: over the years. I've seen people demonstrate with photography and
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: then they fall back to a diagram, an anatomical diagram,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: And those diagrams that they're using in court are specifically
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: blow ups of what's used at autopsy, where you have
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: a silhouette where it's drawn out and you can kind
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: of appreciate it. But in this case, they kind of
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: flip the script. They presented this thing in court and
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: she's got these two diagrams up on an easel. We
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: go with Paul first, which these injuries are just beyond
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the pale when you begin to consider we're talking about
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: two shotgun blasts, and so the jury is looking they're
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: looking at these diagrams, which are essentially kind of like
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: outlines of bodies, and they're seeing it from a clean perspective. Okay,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: So when you see it from a clean perspective, and
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: you can begin to see, okay, well that's his shoulder,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: that's the side of his head, that's his chest, this
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: is his back, all of that stuff, and you begin
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: to see these little defects because she's drawing with both
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: a red and a black marker. The red, I think
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: was indicative of entrance wounds, the black indicative of eggs
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: at wounds. Suddenly the jury has an orientation to anatomy here. Okay.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Then it's at that point in time, after she's gone
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: through this, she's talking about direction of fire and she
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: goes into great detail about all of these elements. That's
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: when the prosecution introduces the graphic photographs, which you know,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: by all of the descriptors from everyone to a person
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: that was in the court. They were so shocking when
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: you compare and contrast this. They put images up a
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Paul throughout this case. They put images up of Maggie
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: throughout this case. People have seen it in the news,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: but now you see what the real end result was.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: You see what happens when somebody is shot with a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: shotgun and essentially a high powered driver it's not a
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: matter of the Murtle homicide. It's a matter of the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Murtle homicides plural. We've got two, and you can only
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: imagine that once you make it through just one of
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: these deaths Paul, namely that you're thinking, you know what
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I got to say, I don't know if I can
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: take anymore, but you have to move on to Maggie then,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and it just it's insulting to the senses I think
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: are probably a better word is assaulting. They did go
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: into great detail in breaking these cases down, and whether
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: you like it or not, that's just the nature of
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: what you have to do in court when you're talking
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: about homicide. During the opening statements, the defense and prosecution
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: both alluded to the injuries, but in particular, the defense
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: statement was very graphic about what happened to Paul about
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the second shot, since you mentioned there too. You know,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: we've got Paul and Maggie and looking at both of
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: these one at a time. It's believed that Paul was
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: shot first. He was shot twice, but he was the
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: first of them to be shot. The first was the
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: shotgun blast to the chest, and doctor Or testified that
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: had Paul received medical attention. He could have survived that shot.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So what kind of injuries are we looking at from
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the first blast into Paul's chest this shotgun wound And
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: there's a difference. And she actually makes note of this
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: on the stand because prosecution, when they threw to her
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: on the stand, mentioned the term gunshot wound. And we
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: have to understand that this is not a gunshot when
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it's a shotgun wound. And the reason that is significantly
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: different is it's a different type of ammunition. Instead of
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: just one singular projectile coming down range and striking a target,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: you've got multiple projectiles. And in this case, the first
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: shotgun wound was actually from buckshot. So if you think
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: about this, this is the equivalent of sending multiple thirty
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: two caliber pellets into Paul's body. But you know, Dave, amazingly,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: this was according to the forensic pathologists, this was a
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: survivable injury. Can you imagine that we're talking about the
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: first blast. It lines up so that when this weapon
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: is fired, it's fired into his right side essentially, or
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: into the right aspect of his chest and travels across
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the center of the body. People refer to this as
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a media stynem and it's traveling across the body and
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: exits out of what's called the left exilla. So if
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: folks at home will kind of lift their left arm
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and the area just below your armpit, the pellets actually
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: pass through the left outer chest wall and back in
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: to his left arm and out of his left arm. Now,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: not all of them, not all of them did, because
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: with the shotgun wound in particular, you don't retain a
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: lot of the energy that you do with a rifled projectile.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Where the bullet is spinning and it gets on target
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and it passes through an area, the energy expends very quickly,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: so you're not going to have all of the rounds
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: pass through at the same time. They'll stop. You can
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: actually cover some of the pellets. That's why it's so
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: important that you know, you do an X ray of
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the body before the autopsy begins, so you can count
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: how many pellets you have, and depended upon the type
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: of ammunition that's being used, you will have a specific
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: count of pellets to expect to find, so you'll know
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: that if you're missing that number, it's either still in
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the body or it's at the scene. The other thing
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: that was kind of curious they talked about was the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: fact that the wadding was still in the body in
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: this particular case, and the wadding is it's kind of
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: like it's a cup of Some people refer to this
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: as a shot cup and imagine a plastic sleeve with
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: all of the little pellets that go into it. And
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: then it's placed into the interior of the shot shell itself,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: because like I said, there's no rifling. When the scene
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: is fired, that actual shot wadding comes out and it
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: acts as kind of a container as it's traveling out
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: of the end of the barrel. The petals deployed and
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: it looks like a flower and it's got it contained outside,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden it opens up and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: there's this blast of these little projectiles that are traveling
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: through the air. And they actually recovered this shot cut
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: wadding there within his body. They were able to find it.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: This was, according to her survivable injury. She talked about
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: how Paul would have gone to surgery, they would have treated,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: stitched him up, debreeded some of the wounds, treated for
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: potential infection. And it's amazing in such close proximity as
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: this weapon was fired, it didn't tear more tissue up.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: He did sustain a contusion to his lung because of
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: this concussive blast, but it didn't compromise the structural integrity
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: of the lung. It would have still functioned. It didn't
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: harm the heart. That's kind of an interesting perspective when
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: you begin to think on it. But that wasn't the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: only injury that he sustained. He actually had one more day.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: This shot that we heard about during the opening where
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it was very descriptive of what happened on the second
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: shot to Paul's head. When I heard them describe this
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: during the opening statement, it was said that it shot,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: his brain exploded out of his head, hit the ceiling,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and the brain landed at his feet. Isn't that something?
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Pathologists have an interesting way of speaking that many people
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: are not used to. When she began to describe specifically
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: with her language, she used the term dave ejected. You
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: think about pilots coming out of a plane if they
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: hit the ejection handle. That's actually what happened the blast
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: that he sustained, and it wasn't These are not very
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: well aimed at shots, because if you're taking the shotgun
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: and pointing it at his head. Where are you going
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to shoot him in the shoulder? Well, I guess he
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: in motion because he's reacting to that first blast. And
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: you know, she even opined that he was still in
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: an upright position when the weapon was fired that shot
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: sequence was initiated. In the second shot, he was still
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: standing up and this blast traveled out of the barrel.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: And this is not you know, we think about buckshot,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: which he was shot with initially. That's generally something that
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: is commonly associated with a tremendous amount of trauma. A buckshot,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you're talking about using The reason they talk
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: about buckshot and call it that is that you can
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: hunt a deer with it, okay, and you think you're
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: going to take it out on a large animal this thing.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: But it didn't do as much disruption as the second shot,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: which was actually going to get this bird shot. So
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: when he struck, he struck in the shoulder. It passes
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: through his shoulder, winds up in the side of his neck,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: and hits this large bone in the base of the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: skull that interiorly it supports the brain. It blew out
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the right side of his head. Here's kind of another
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: another interesting little queue to this, Dave, is that they
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: and I think that this probably really caught people off guard,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: is that they described removing Paul's brain from the scene
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: in a bucket. Let's let that sink in just a second,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: in a bucket. And she actually says that when the
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: body is received at the morgue, the brain is in
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a bucket. Maybe the people that are sitting in the
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: jerry box they can't understand some of the fancy medical lingo,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: technical jargon. But then you think about this. Everyone knows
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: what buckets are used for collecting things mopping, but your brain,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: his brain into the morgue in a bucket. If Maggie
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: is present when the shotgun blast initiate and this is
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: her child, my goodness, what in the world was going
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: through her mind at that moment? Does she have an
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: awareness when she turns, she looks at the sound. Maybe
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: there's a yelp or a scream that issues forth from Paul.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Does she even hear that? Does the shooter say anything
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: at that moment, Tom, You've suddenly got this just rain
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of tissue and blood that is settling in this place.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Not to mention, you know, the smoke that's kind of
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: rising up from this shotgun blast it's taken place, there
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: would even potentially be a smell in this environment of
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: burned gunpowder at that point in time. I don't know
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: really the dynamic for me, it's still very confusing. There
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: was something said during opening statements. You know, we heard
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: the part of the brain being ejected hitting the ceiling,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: landing back at Paul's feet, but there was something else
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: about that shot. Paul's face was left intact, and I
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: don't know how that's even possible, Joe. In the vernacular
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that we've heard for years and years, people will use
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: terms like blowing heads clean off, are blowing your face off,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing, and that's really not the case.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Things don't necessarily play out like people suggest that they might.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: This is not like a watermelon that you're firing at
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: where the thing, you know, kind of explodes like that.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: It doesn't happen. There's a level of elasticity to the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: human skin. Now, every now and then you'll have enough
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: trauma where things will completely disintegrate. But in this particular case,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: what she did describe, let's just say just arbitrarily, he
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: was laying there on the ground. The blast did not
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: involve his face to the extent where his recognizable features
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: were disrupt it and it was concentrated on the poster
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: are the back side of the head, which, of course,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: as you and I have already stated, this ejection took place,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and you know, the brain essentially exited the cranial vault,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: but his face would still be recognizable. And one more thing,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you mentioned this because I just got to
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: think and she was asked about range of fire with Paul,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: and I think this plays over into Maggie as well
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: with her injuries. You know, range of fire with Paul,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: he had stippling, and stipling means that you've got gunpowder
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: that is unburned, that is coming out of the end
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: of that muzzle and it's essentially embedding into the skin
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: at a very superficial level. As a matter of fact,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: if you took a cross section of the skin where
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: there is stipling or gunpowder, you can actually see the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: gunpowder microscopically. You can see it so clearly that you
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: can make out if the gunpowder is conical and shaped
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: or it has a spherical shaped to it or pyramiddle.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Because every manufacturer uses a different type of gunpowder, and
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: it's the way it's kind of shaped out, if you will.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: So that was there, but there was no soot, which
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: means that soot arrives from burning gunpowder. And if you're
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: really close, like okay, let's back up to the stippling.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Stipling was relative to range of fire, you think she's
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: saying two to three feet that that shotgun blast would
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: deposit that unburned gunpowder into the skin and kind of
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: embed it. But yet there's no soot. Soot essentially drifts
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: away outside of about eighteen inches. So when you're looking
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: at this, you're thinking, she can at least give us
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: a theoretical construct here about how far away then that
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: muzzle was. And these things are so dynamic you can't
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: necessarily pin everything to it. In this case, the weapon
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: was not pressed directly to the sights of entrance with Paul.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Were there any type of defensive wounds on Paul? No, no,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: nothing that there's no indication. And that's a fantastic question, Dave,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: because you think that if a young man, and let's
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: just suppose that it is somebody that is within their family, okay,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: that's doing this. If somebody points a weapon at you
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: you're going to fight them. You know, that's just something
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: regular people just don't do. You don't take a weapon
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: and point the muzzle at somebody. So what does that
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: tell us? That tells us that with Paul, that there
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: was not a level of awareness that this was occurring
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: or he was being held at bay, you know, at
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: a distance. You know what I'm saying, Where there's a
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: distance from the end of that muzzle to his person,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: all right, that he's not fighting, he's just like submitting
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: at that point. But the prosecutor says, were his hands
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: up at any point in Tom No, they weren't. They weren't.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: So you know, you think of somebody in a surrender
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: pose where they're putting their hands up above their head
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: to demonstrate that I don't have any weapons, I'm not threat.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: That's worth that didn't happen. Meanwhile, we've got Maggie to
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: get to and her setup is a totally different thing.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: You've got Maggie, probably here's the first shot, moves towards
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the sound because to the best of her knowledge, there's
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: only Paul and Alec out there, and so she moves
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: towards it as an accident. Got to figure out what's
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: going on. The second shot would send her running, and
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: that's what was mentioned during opening statements that she was
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: running away. And as a matter of fact, if I'm
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: not mistaken, there was a question about did she have
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: any defensive wounds? Yes, she was running away. And so
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: when we get to Maggie's wounds versus Paul's, we're looking
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: at a totally different weapon. How do you transition, Oh, Dave,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: how do you transition in this particular case? And my
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: contention with this has been that a shotgun is more
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: than sufficient to render someone dead, and it's a semi
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: automatic shotgun. We know that, So why would you initiate
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: this sequence with a shotgun? Have a rifle sequestered somewhere else,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: or maybe it's just laying I don't know, maybe it's
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: laying at the perpetrator's feet. They go to the trouble
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: to put the shotgun down, retrieve the rifle, raise it
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: at a target that is moving away from them, and
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: start the firing sequence, knowing that there is a probability
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: that you might miss. The term scattergun. They just don't
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: use that term for no reason. It's a scattergun. It
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: as it goes out of the barrel, that spreads out.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: And that's the beauty of a shotgun is that even
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: if you can't aim well, you can impact a target
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: with it, not with this rifle. That's why they're talking
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: about a sequencing of I I don't remember, Dave. I
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: think it's either four to five shots. I think that
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: there was one where they're talking about that there might
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: be an entrance and a reentry and that sort of thing.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Umer actually explained that Maggie Murdah's injuries, she had five
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: gunshot wounds from at least four gunshots, right, And when
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: you look at these injuries, you can actually have a
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: round that will, say, for instance, pass through one anatomical
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: area of the body, exit and depended upon position that
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: you're in, say that you're in a position of submission
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: where you're kind of bent at the waist, for instance,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and that round enters the body, it can actually pass through,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: say and just throwing this out there, it passes through
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the post of your chest, the back, exits the at
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: your chest, the front, and then maybe reenters the abdomen.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: That happens, and the reason it happens, particularly with a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: r le is because they're so much muzzle velocity involved
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: in this thing. I mean, this is a robust round
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: that we're talking about. One thing that I think of
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: when I think of a rifle is shooting from a
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: bit of a distance. But in this case, there was
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: stippling around Maggie Murda's wounds. This is what kind of
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: shocked me. I really wanted to ask you because the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: first two shots apparently have been fired from within three
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: feet a yardstick, that's it. And he's got a rifle. Yea,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: how do you transition? How do you transition? I keep
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: asking that question. How do you go from a shotgun
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: which is and it's not what they're opining is even
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: though they don't have it. They're not suggesting that this
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: is like a tactical shotgun. It's got like a short barrel.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: They're not actually talking about that. They're implying that this
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: is a shotgun that would be used to hunt with.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: And you want a long barrel. These have a long barrel, okay,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: because it proves your aim. You've got this robust shotgun
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: here in your hands, You're gonna fire this thing. And
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: then after you fired it and probably not emptied it
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: because you know, the shotgun depended upon the configuration, it
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: can hold five, maybe even six rounds. Well, you've only
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: fired two times out of it, so you're gonna put
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: this thing down. Pick up a rifle, which, as you mentioned,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: is a rifle that is set up to fire great distances.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: You know, you think about like a and it's not
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the same, but a five point five six also in
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: civilian caliber two to three, which approximates what our military uses. Okay,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the M four carband, you think about that, and it's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: good up to three hundred yards away day. I mean,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, it's at a great distance. This is
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: a three hundred blackout. This is a more robust round.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: The diameter of it's bigger, it's it's closer to it's
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: not a three O eight, but it's closer in diameter
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to a three A. It's more robust, and say what
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: our military carries, and it's still got a great reach
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: to it. But it's used as a tactical weapon where
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: you can go into the thing, you can fire to
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: great distances, but you can also utilize it if you're
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: sweeping a room in the military, or say with the
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: police and a swat team. It doesn't have a long,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: long barrel length most of the time. Sometimes it will,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: but most time it's more compact. So again we go
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: back to the utility. What were they thinking, this perpetrator,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: What were they thinking in this particular case. It just
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: it boggles to mind as far as I'm concerned. And
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: so you've got the first two shots fired within three feet.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Maggie apparently goes down. She's on her knees, and according
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: to doctor Reemer, shot fired into Maggie's admin while she's
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: standing causes her to lean over and fall forward. She's
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: on her knees. Two fatal shots to the head. She's
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: on her hands and knees, and now you're going to
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: kill shot. Yeah, not not one, but two. And Dave,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: the fact that you mentioned the nature of this gunshot
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: wound to the abdomen is it's important to understand this.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: And I'm gonna I'm gonna definitely understate this and do
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: a disservice to this. So forgive me in advance. This
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: would have been like getting hit in the abdomen with
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: a ten pound sledgehammer swung by a three hundred pound man.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: All right, So when she contracts like this and goes
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: to the ground. She's in a position where she's non ambulatory,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: she's not moving, she's had the win knocked out over
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: at this point in time, I mean, can you imagine
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the horror at this point because she is alive. At
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: this point in time, there's an awareness. I keep going
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: back to that term, there's an awareness of what's going on.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the proverbial cool de gras two gunshot wounds
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: to the head with a high velocity weapon, and we
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: get some sense of the dynamics of these injuries. And
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: you hear the term defect in pathology. They're not talking
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: about like something like a defective instrument or something. Their
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: defect actually means an opening or hole, So they'll say
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: it's an injury. So instead of saying gunshot woman, they'll
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: say defect. So you've got a series of defects that
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: are in the body where she's trying rumors, trying to
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: make sense. And this brings us back to what we
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: had said earlier. If it's this difficult for the forensic
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: pathologist to kind of figure out the sequencing of these wounds,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: and I think this is kind of an interesting point.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: How much more difficult is it going to be for
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: a jury because this is put it frankly, it's a
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: damn mess. I mean it truly is. This is not
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: like a single gunshot woman. So you've got all these
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: different injuries that are kind of communicating with each other,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: entrances and exits and re entrances, and it's very complex
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: and complicated. That's why you need a forensic patholo. Just
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: it's not only technically sound. I think she's done like
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: fifty five hundred autopsies by her own admission, but she's
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: having to draw this out. And that's the beauty of this,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: if there can be anything to that. The beauty of
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: it is that she's able to communicate effectively with a jury.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Use these diagrams and show it, because it's like you're
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: looking at the diagrams right now, and I think you'd
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: agree with me, Dave. Those diagrams are stark white. You
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: know when you see those images in a court that
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, they're about to get their senses
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: blasted because they're going to see bloody gore is what
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: they're going to see. And how do you make sense
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of that? But one thing that doctor Riemer pointed out
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: is that either of the head shots would have been
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: fatal at the moment it happened. Is this a sense
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: of overkill that there were two shots to the head,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the second shot going straight down the top of her
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: head and coming out her shoulder. I think that it is.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: That's a very interesting point in this. You know, we
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: think about overkill most of tom and we've talked about
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: it on bodybacks, or that people overkill with a blunt object,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: people overkill with sharp force injuries with an edged weapon,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and there's a there's kind of the sense that they're
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: trying to disfigure people, you know what I'm saying, where
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: they're just going in and brutalizing somebody. I don't know that.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: And again I am not a forensic psychologist. I don't
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: want to be a forensic psychologist. If we pull this
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: over to overkill, I don't know if it's if it
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: is overkill or if it is a flourish if it's
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: like being overly engaged in this event, and you want
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: assurance that this individual is deceased, because here's the real
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: indicator here. This is not like you have brought a
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: nine millimeter pistol and you have shot somebody in the
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: head day you have brought a weapon, the shotgun first off,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: but this three hundred blackout. You've brought this three hundred blackout,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: which is a weapon that the murder hogs were known
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: to use to hunt hogs with. Wild hogs are some
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: of the most ferocious animals that are out there. Why
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: do you need that much? Why is it? Well, it
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: either is you're trying to make a point by being
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: over the top with it, okay, or it's what you know.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: It's what you're familiar with. Because there are guns all
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: in that house, we know that they used them to
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: hunt with, and it's certainly something that they had at
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: their disposal. As of the state, the Mrtile trial continues.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: We'll see what happens in the coming days. We'll see
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: what else presents itself, what other evidence is put forth
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: by not just the prosecution, but by the defense as
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: well of Joseph Scott Morgan. And this is body backs