Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: When Home Isn't Safe, A Dissection of the Armstead Case

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: When Home Isn't Safe, A Dissection of the Armstead Case · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Think back, just for
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: a moment, think back to a time before you ever
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: knew death. Now, remember that moment in your life when
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: death first visited you. Maybe you were at a bedside
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: watching over a family member, or maybe you received a
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: phone call. It's something that marks you. I still remember
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the first time it happened with me and an aunt
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: that I loved very very much, and she died as
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: a result of a car accident, and it's my earliest memory,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: true earliest memory of death. But just imagine for a moment,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: your a young child. Your mother is your world. You've
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: got a baby's sister, and you've been brought home, been
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: brought home to that place that you've always known peace.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: You're nine years old. Your toys are there, your room
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: is there. Everything that defines you as a family is
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: kind of in that environment. And the person that has
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: just killed your mother makes you kneel before her body
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: to bear witness to all that remains. Today on Bodybacks,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about one of the darker cases
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: that I've come across, and we're going to talk about
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: a mother who tried to make a family. You know,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a very fractured environment.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Lavina Armstrong's attempt to leave her marriage ended in violence.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Husband Gary Green stabbed his wife multiple times with two
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: different knives. When Armstead was dead, Green grabbed his six
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: year old stepdaughter, Jasmine Montgomery, and bound her hands together
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: behind her back with duck tape. Montgomery then drowned the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: girl in the bathtub. Green showered in the same tub, dressed,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: and went to pick up his two step sons from church.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Back at the house, the older boy was stabbed in
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: the stomach. The younger boy was able to talk Green
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: out of killing them, but not before Green forced them
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: to look at the dead bodies of their mother and
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: little sister.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Bodybags Day. We
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: talk about death on the show. That's what we do.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I hate to be so morose because of our relationship
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: that we have. I know how much you love your mama.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I love my mama. I've talked about having been the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: child of a single mother, and you look at your
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: mother and she holds up the world that you live in.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: She is that foundation, she's your at less. Essentially, potentially,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: in my case, the man in my family's life walked
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: out there. I can't imagine the depths of sorrow and horror.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine that that the small child experienced when
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: he saw his mother and his little sister lating dead
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: on that floor in that house, and this monster standing
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: right over his shoulder.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: It just makes you shudder to think of what people
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: are capable of. Gary Green was married to Levita Armstead.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: She has three children. Jerome Armstead is twelve, Jared Armstead
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: is nine, Jasmine Montgomery is six, and Levita had decided
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: it was time to annul the marriage based on what
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: we know. There was more than just physical abuse, psychological abuse,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: and we know that Gary Green was not psychologically healthy.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Not throwing that in there as an excuse for what
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: took place, merely pointing it out to the level of
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: hell that he put his wife, Levita, and the children Jerome,
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Jarrett and Jasmine on a daily basis. They had to
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: be walking on Hl's Joe.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I got to tell you, Gary Green, when you
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: see this guy, the first term that comes to mind
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: for me is ogre. He is a big, hulking mass.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, he is a big man and you look
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: at him and you think, how easy is it to
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: just maybe intimidate for somebody like him, a grown man,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: how much more so this woman that he's into a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: marriage with, that he's supposed to be her protector, right,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: And then these babies. You think about them, and how
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: intimidating is this. Many of us have been on the
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: receiving end of verbal abuse and physical abuse and that
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: sort of thing over the years, and you see somebody,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: this hulking person that is able to do this, this
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: life that they led your right to say this, I
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: think that it was probably a hellish existence.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Well, we know that there were two letters written by
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Levita Armstead explaining to Gary Green why she wanted to
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: do what she wanted to do with regard to her
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: family and protecting everybody. And in those letters she wrote,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: and I'm trying to she said. She told him, I
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: love you, but I have to do what's best for me.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: And hers was this tone of love, of caring about
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: she was caring about his feelings and how he thought.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: And he wrote a letter to her and when you
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: read it, it's not love, it's anger. It's a rambling
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: expression that he believed Armstead and her children were involved
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: in some kind of plot against him. He also laid
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: out exactly what he planned to do to his wife,
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Levita and those three children. What he was going to
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: do was end it all and then take his own life.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Joe. Yeah, and one of the most dangerous times to
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: be around someone that has this level of discord in
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: their life, has this potential for anger, and you hear
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the a lot. You know, I've worked a lot of
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: suicides over the course of my career, and you begin
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: to kind of develop a kind of a standard profile
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: when it comes to this. There's one thing for somebody
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: to maybe think about what the world would be like
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: without them. Then you've got another level where they might
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: make a comment, well, I'm just going to take my life.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Then you've got this kind of third phase that they
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: go into where now they have planned in a case
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: like this, where you've got a planned or at least
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: it's intimated that there is a plan in place for
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: a murder suicide, and they begin to specifically explain how
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: they're going to go about doing this. That means that
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: in the front end of their mind they are actually
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: formulating that and that's when it gets dangerous. And this
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: is what psychiatrists and psychologists actually refer to as suicidal
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: ideation and homicidal ideation. And you add this other component
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: to it that's called vocalization. You can kind of understand
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: what that means. So not only you thinking it now,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: you're saying that this intimidating thing a little kids like this.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but when I was a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: little kid, I didn't think about the end of things.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Everything seemed like it was going to go on forever
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and ever. You know, now that I've gotten a little
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: bit longer in the tooth in my life, you know
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: that there is a terminus that's approaching all of us.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: You don't think that way when you're a little kid.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: And so if he ever threatened these kids with that,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: it may have been more abstract. They may have just thought, well,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: he's going to hurt us, you know, he's going to
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: hit us, or he's going to yell at us again,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: or maybe he's going to hurt mama again. But at
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, it wasn't this monster that
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: killed himself, but he reigned hell down on his family
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and brought two lives to an end. A combination of
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: sharp force injuries, which means any injury that is generated
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: with an edged weapon. We think about knives, meat cleavers, axes,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: and machete. If it has an edge on it that
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: can generate a sharp force injury. It could be your
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: grandpa's pocket knife that's been passed down for generations. I've
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: had homicides committed with pocket knives. But you've got a
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: combination of that and Dave. In this particular case, we've
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: also got the added element of homicidal drowning. That's something
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: that you don't commonly come across because it requires so
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: much exertion. It requires so much effort on the part
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: of the perpetrator. And like I said, this guy is
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: so big, and when you're talking about kids, when you're
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: talking about say a woman that might be physically weaker
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: than him, it can be pulled off, but it's not
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: going to be pulled off without some kind of fight.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I want to point a couple things out very quickly here. One,
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: Levita and Green had not been married very long. It'd
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: only been a matter of months. And that's why the
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: term annulment is used. Is not thrown around in a
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: silly way. It is an annulment, meaning that married long
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: enough to do the divorce. She had already seen enough
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: in a very short period of time that she wanted
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: it over for the safety of herself but her children
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: more than anything else. Also, when the act took place,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: the boys were at church and Levita and Jasmine were
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: at home with Green. Then he goes to the church
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: and picks up the boys and brings them back. Joe,
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, what kind of person.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's one of the things that you begin
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: to think about. It's one thing when you have and
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I've worked these cases where you'll have sharp force injuries,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: for instance, and the person comes running out of the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: home and there's some kind of fevered mental state and
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: they're screaming in their blood covered. That's not what happened here, Dave.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: This is kind of cool and calculated, isn't it. And
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: that adds the level because Levita has sustained multiple stab wounds,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: the number is astronomical. In addition to that, there is
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: water involved. So you've got blood and water because these victims,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: the little girl in particular, has been drowned Jasmine, So
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: you've got blood that is potentially covering this fellow, and
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: then you've got bathwater that has splashed all over him.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: He would be covered from head to toe. So from
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: an evidentiary standpoint, when you begin to think if he
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: has calculated this out in his brain where he wants
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to pull this thing off and perpetrate it, well, he's
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: got the mama and her daughter separated from the two boys, right,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: so he's not gonna have to deal with a larger
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: group of people. The boys are at church during that
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: period of time. He has taken this opportunity to perpetrate
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: this horrible crime on Levita, and in addition of that, Jasmine.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Well it's a mess, It's an absolute mess. So what
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: does he have to do before he goes and picks
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: up these boys?
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: Can we back up a minute, Joe, because I'm all right,
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: we know that he's got two and he has to
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: control the entire situation. Six year olds are fast. Six
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: year old girls are really fast. And I was looking
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: at this trying to figure out how did he do this?
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: How was he able to be this? He didn't have
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: LaVita tied down in the bed and just start stabbing away.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: They were in a fight, and I wondered the whole
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: time what was going on with Jasmine? That Jasmine had
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: duct tape, her hands were duct tape behind her back.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: We know he's brandishing the weapon and threatening. I'm wondering
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: if he made Jasmine witness what he was doing to
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: her mother, because what he did to her mother was
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: multiple I don't know how many times. And I wondered
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: they were in this fight because Levita actually was able
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: to stab Gary Green twice during their fight. He brought
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: a knife on her and had to get another one.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: This was not some I've already got her down and
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: I'm stabbing. This was a fight.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, It's not some kind of stealthy attack, and that
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: goes through the viciousness of it.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: LaVita was trying to save not just her life, but
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: think about it. She knows her daughters are here, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: she knows the boys at some point they're going to
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: come home. Now we know that he had to have
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: killed LaVita first based.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: On this, Yeah, he would have had to. He would
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: have attacked her. I don't know if the little girl
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: may have been in another room when all of this initiated.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. We know that he killed her,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the mother, Levita, and did he actually make Jasmine sit
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: there through this event and bear witness to what he
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: was doing to the mother perhaps, but as you rightly stated,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: we've got multiple edged weapons that are involved in this
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: where he's been stabbed, so he's leek blood. And then
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: you take that and you compare it to the injuries
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: that Levita has sustained. And I'll look, man, I'll go ahead.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: What I'm going to tell you is that this number
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I'm about to tell you is going to be shocking.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Levita was stabbed thirty times, Dave thirty. Just let that
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: sink in and anybody in the sound of my voice,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: think about what it would take to hold a knife
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: and almost like a sewing machine, an old fashioned sewing machine,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: drop that knife thirty times into somebody the will that
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: it takes to do that, because you know you're passing
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: through multiple layers of tissue when you're doing this. And
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: so she's been injured grievously. And the one thing that
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: we know about stab ones is that they generate a
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of blood. Copious. We use that term quite
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: a bit. When you go on to a scene where
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: there has been a a stabbing event, those scenes are
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the bloodiest. And I think that a lot of it
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: has to do with your compromising the structural integrity of
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the circulatory system. And so you're opening up these large,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: gaping injuries, and they're not all going to be the
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: same because some of these can be what are referred
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: to as classic stab wounds, while others will be referred
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to as incized wounds. For instance, like our teeth, our
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: frontal teeth are referred to as incisors. And it goes
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: back to an original definition of bladed. So are edged,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: so they're used for cutting, and so insized wound means
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that if you in size an area, just like surgery,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: that means you're taking the edge of the weapon and
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: drawing it across the skin. So it's always the rule
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: of thumb for us is that insized wounds are longer
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: than deep, and then stab wounds are deeper than long,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and so you're going to go deeper into the tissue
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: with a stab wound. Say, if you stab someone in
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the chest and withdraw thene Now you may or may
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: not hit a major organ, that's possible, but you are
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: going to hit some kind of vessel structure that's in there,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: whether it's an artery or a vein. Maybe sometimes you'll
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: clip both of them along the way. Along the track
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: because stab wins have tracks, just like bullets have tracks,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: So you're going to damage that tissue in there, and
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the scene would just be covered in blood. And that's
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: what's so fascinating that after he had perpetrated this crime,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: if this child is restrained, or if he restrained her
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: in order to get her to the bathtub, he would
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: have just been covered in her mother's blood. So not
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: only does is she disoriented because there would have been
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of screaming, there would have been a lot
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of banging, there would have been a lot of carrying on.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Her terror level is rising. Now she's got duct tape
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: over her mouth, and she's already shallow breathing already the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: only way she can breathe is through her nose. He
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't want her to scream, and she's born witness to this,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and he is just covered in blood. He grabs her,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: and when he does, he's got water in the bathtub
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: and he begins to submerge Jasmine. And the last thing
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: that she has seen, Dave, is this image for her
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of her mother splayed out in that house with blood.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: You can just imagine maybe the last words coming out
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of her mouth is don't hurt my baby. Maybe she
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: calls out her name Jasmine, because mom has no idea
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: what's going to happen. She doesn't live to tell the tale,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: and she knows in her mind. Trust me, mamas know
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: where their kids are. She knows that her babies or
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: her other two babies are at church. She's thinking, what's
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: he going to do? No wonder. She fought like a
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: tiger in the midst of this because she knew this
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: horrible event was taking place, and she is that last
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: line of defense.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: Dave.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: If he even attempted to wash his hands off in
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: any way when he's grabbing Jasmine, which I doubt that
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: he would have, and even though she would have been
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: in the bathtub, there's still going to be transfer of
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: her own mother's blood to her in some way. That's
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the thing about death. Everywhere death is present, there will
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: be a trace left behind. One of the most horrific
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: aspects to this family being completely destroyed is that when
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the forensic pathologist, doctor Meredith Lawn, was examining Jasmine's body
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that autopsy, she made note of the fact that she
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: saw the Jasmin's ankles Jasmine's wrist were bound with duct
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: tape imagine that if you will. You're six years old
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: and you're restrained to the point where you can't move.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: In kind of this little final note, she looks at
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: jazz usband's little cheek on the left side and there
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: is adhesive that has been left behind by duct tape.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: We can appreciate this because lots of us have used
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: duct tape over the years. You know that when you
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: peel it back, there is that residue that remains. And
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: she probably would have seen some blood. That is Levita's blood.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: The blood of this child's mother would have been on
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: the body in some form, maybe minute, but it would
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: have been there. As she's conducting this examination, she's taking
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: a look at Jasmine and her broken little body there,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: and she's noting that there are fatiki little blood vessels
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: have burst in her eyes and overlining the thiamus, which
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: is an organ that is situated beneath the breastbone in
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the body, and as we get older it kind of
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: decreases in size. But in a little child like Jasmine,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: very dominiont of six years old, when her little chest
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: would have been opened up at autopsy, that thiamus would
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: have been very visible. It was covered with Petiki as well.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: There were petiki all over the long stay, over the epiclottis,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: which is that flap that kind of covers the windpipe,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: if you will. They were everywhere, and that means that
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: this child struggle dave in the wake of what had
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: just happened.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Joe, I'm looking at both of these the victims here
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: with Levita and Jasmine. Now we have Lavida stabbed thirty times.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Now did that number come from Gary Green saying I
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: stabbed her thirty times? Were they counted? And then the
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: second part here when it comes to Jasmine asphyxiated and drowned?
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: All right, So how do we know? How is it
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: possible for somebody to be stabbed thirty times in the
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: case of Levita and not one of those stab wounds
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: actually be fatal? And how is it possible to determine
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: was Jasmine asphyxiated or drowned or was it a combination
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: of both.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: It's an excellent question, and I'm so glad you asked that,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: because it it confusing, because this is a layer case.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I know I always fall back to gunshot wounds. There's
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: a simplicity in gunshot wounds. Okay, some people would argue
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: that I'm Morgan, You're out of your mind. But there's
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: a simplicity to gunshot ones. But when you look at
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: just stab wounds alone, or let's say sharp force injury wounds,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: there is a real complicating factor. Every time you stab someone,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: there's no guarantee you're going to strike a critical area.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: You can pass an eye through interstitial tissue that is
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: just maybe subkey fat. You'll have these superficial wounds in
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: the arms, in the hands, maybe lateral chest, maybe even
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the neck that are not necessarily fatal. But you've got
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: this combination of all these. And the trick is when
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: you're examining at autopsy the body of someone that has
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: been stabbed. First off, you have to clean the body
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: very very thoroughly externally. You document it in its pristine state,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: where you have blood crusted clothing. You've got these injuries
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: that are crusted with blood, but you're not truly going
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: to be able to appreciate the injuries, so you have
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: to clean it very very thoroughly and then go back
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: one by one and try to count the number of wounds,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: and you have to orient them anatomically. You have to
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: stay there's a stab woond to the apex of the
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: left shoulder, or there is a stab woone that's more
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: medial than it is lateral relative to the left shoulder blade,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and you have to do anatomical measurements. That's all of
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: the external stuff. And then one of the other things
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: that you're going to be looking for is you begin
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to get into the dissection, is do any of these
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: stab wounds or let me say it this way, how
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: many of these stab wounds actually have hemorrhage? Because I
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: know a lot of folks are probably thinking, well, every
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: stab wound would have hemorrhage. No, it wouldn't because if
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: stab winds have occurred post mortem, you're not going to
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: have hemorrhage in those areas. So it's important to try
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: to determine where the most hemorrhage is and what organ
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: systems are affected. I mean, you've got a stab one
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: that's going into the lung, for instance, there's a high
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: probability that that's going to be lethal. If you've got
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: multiple of them, that probability increases the heart, the neck,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: any of the vessels in the neck, that sort of thing,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and there'll be a lot of bruising associated with this. Too,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: because you know this, when you stab someone, this is
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: not just merely an action that is solely involving that
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: edged weapon passing through the tissue. It involves a kind
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: of a slamming down or an insertion, a forceful insertion
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: of this blade. So if the person is still alive,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: you can get word referred to as hilt bruises that
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: surround actually the insized area where that area around the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: injury itself has hemorrhage. This is one on one combat,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Let's face it, Dave, You'll have bruises all over the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: body many times because people are being punched and pummeled
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and kicked in addition to being stabbed. So it's they're very,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: very complex, these stab woond cases.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Are they not overlapping? I mean, are they not interconnected?
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: I'm just picturing if you're stabbing that there's going to
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: be a general area where the stab wounds are going
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: to be. Yeah, I'm just kind of picturing a circle
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: in just these whole stab because it's all happening so fast,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: and I'm thinking, aren't some of these going to blur together?
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Or one ends here, the other one starts here, but
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: then they intersect here? And how do you separate, because
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: that's the goal here at autops he has to figure
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: out exactly what happened. But how long would it take
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: you if none of the actual stab wounds inn and
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: of themselves is fatal. How long does it take for
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: somebody to bleed to death?
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Well, again, that's deepended upon which vessels are clipped. And
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: many times, and this is one part that's really horrific,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Many times you can have multiple stab wounds and you're
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: not going to be bleeding externally. Imagine that. Guess where
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: the blood is going, and particularly if you have stab
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: wounds to the chest, well, it's filling the chest. I've
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: participated in an autopsy before man where we've had individuals
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: that have been stabbed in the heart and the lungs
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: and they lived, but the entire time they're living, it's
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: not much much of a life. They're bleeding out internally.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: So there is this pressure that is building in what's
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: referred to as the plural spaces around the lungs, and
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: the lungs are essentially their ability to expand is being
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: compromised greatly. Not to mention, there's probably a stab wound
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: to one of them. So it's even further complicated by that,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and all the while the chest cavity is filling up
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: with blood. That's one of the reasons when people are
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: shot in the chest and stabbed, when they get them
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: to the emergency room, there will be a little incision
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that is made in between the ribs and there will
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: be a drain that is inserted in there. And what
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: are they doing, Well, they're draining blood out of the
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: chest because you've got what's referred to as plurally fusion,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: and it literally begins, you know, people say it drowns
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the lungs. It's really a pressure event that's complicating the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: lungs ability to expand and refill with air. So they
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: have to relieve that pressure and to get them into
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: surgery so they can close that area. And this is
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: how complicated it is. If you want the person to survive,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: you've also got to hang units of blood on them
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: because they've lost blood. It's a real race against the clock.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: In this particular case.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: We know that Levita is stabbed thirty times or more,
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: she's bleeding out, she's dying, and Gary Green then moves
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: on to his stepdaughter, six year old Jasmine, and we
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: know based on duct tape with her hands behind her back.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: We know this. We also know, as we mentioned earlier,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: asphyxiated and drowned. And my question really, I don't know
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: how far to go with this, but I'm thinking, was
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: he trying to strangle her first? Was he trying, you know,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: putting his hands on around her neck and then sticking
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: here underwater or was it simultaneous. Can you figure that out?
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can figure it out. I know one thing
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: that kind of popped in mind for me when I
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: was reading the physician's autopsy report. The cause of death
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: is actually going to be hypoxia, which is a lack
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: of oxygen, and you can create that event into one
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: of two ways. You can either be drowned. There's other ways,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: but in this case, there's one of two ways. You
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: can either drown or you can inhibit their ability to
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: breathe outside of water. You can cover their airway, you
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: can compress their neck maybe with your hands or ligature.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: So I think that you've got this going on both levels. However,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: she was producing and this is noted by the physician
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: that's doing the examination. She's producing this kind of pink
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: froth that's coming from her nose. And her mouth, and
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: many times we see that associated with drowning, and you
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: see it with drug odes too, But you'll get this.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: We call it frothy, ademitous cone that's coming out of
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the mouth and it will rise up, and it's really
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: kind of this strange event that occurs. I've been present.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Started my career in New Orleans, so I had a
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: lot of water related deaths, drownings, and when you pull
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the body out of the water, many times, all of
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: a sudden, when you're laying the deceased on their back,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: this cone begins to appear out of their nose, in
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: their mouth and it's bubbling. People will think about the
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: head of a poorly poored beer they showed on television,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: you know where you have beer, and it's this glorious thing.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: They say, you know, you don't want this gigantic head
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of white froth on the beer. It's like that only
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: in the case of a drowning victim. And in some
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: poisonings and some ods it'll be pink tinged. And that's
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: that hemorrhagic event that's going on in the lungs. The
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: lungs are screaming, they're crying out for air and it's
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: just it's not on the way. So this thing presents
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: as well, and she makes note of that. The physician
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: does in addition to the petikii and pi or those
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: little blood vessels that are bursting. And many times this
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: is happening as a result of just the strain of
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: this lack of oxygenation. You're struggling for air in some way,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the airways being compromised, and you see a lot in
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: strangulations where you have these little pinprick hemorrhages that are
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: taking place in the eyes. It's one of the things
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: that we'd look for in cases of strangulation, and you'll
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: see those presenting and it's quite striking. When you observe
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: them and you make note of it, you know that
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: there's something has gone on relative to the airway being compromised.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: According to the autopsy report on Jasmine, she had a
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: hemorrhage on her brain. And I'm trying to figure out
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: how that could happen in the bathtub, assuming that's where
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: she died, Assuming that he put her in the tub
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: and was trying to drown her in chokery asphyxiator, how
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: does she end up with a hemorrhage on her brain.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Well, there's a fight that's going on. She's got little
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: scrapes and scratches that are covering her body. Oh and
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: by the way, in addition to the duct tape, there
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: was a telephone cord that had been tied in a
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: knot around her ankles as well.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: I forgot to mention that that actually matters when you
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: think about it. It wasn't why she didn't run. It's
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: because she was tied up. Her legs were tied up
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: so she couldn't run.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: No, she couldn't. There's no way and why you would
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: have to restrain a six year old to that point.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: You've got her contained in this specific area.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: He has destroyed Levita, he has destroyed Jasmine. He actually
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: takes a shower where he killed Jasmine. In that same
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: shower tub, he washes himself off, gets dressed, and goes
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: to church, picks up the boys, and comes home. Now,
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: to give you an idea, when they walk in the house,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Levita is in the bedroom with the You know how
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: a master bedroom has a master bath. Well, that's where
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: the murder of Levita and Jasmine took place, was in
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: the bathroom master bedroom, and that door is locked when
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Gary Green left, he locked that door. So when the
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: boys come home, they are told that their mother wanted
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: him to take them someplace else. He tells Jerome go
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: take a bath or shower, and so he goes in there.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: They don't know that Levita and Jasmine are dead at
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: this moment, and so Jerome goes to the bath and
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: to shower, and he hears screaming coming from outside. He
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: gets out of the tub and that's when he finds
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: out that Jarrett has been stabbed and Garry Green is
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: holding a knife to his throat and threatening both boys, saying,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: you know he's going to kill them both. These two boys,
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: nine and twelve years old are able to convince this
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: monster who has just killed his wife and his stepdaughter,
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: these little boys are able to convince him to spare
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: their lives. Don't kill us. We're too young to die.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, too young to die. What kind of fortitude does
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: that take in that moment? What level of bravery?
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: And I should mention that he actually the boys don't
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: know what has happened to their mom and sister at
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: that point point, and we're too young to die. Gary says, Okay,
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: you're not going to die.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Today.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: By the way, I need you to go back here
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: to your mother's room. He unlocks, the door opens up,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: and that's when the boys see their mom and their sister.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: They see mom in the bedroom, they see the sister
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: on the floor of the bathroom, and that's when they
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: see the devastation. They testified to this at trial.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: The destruction of this precious family actually took place in
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: September two thousand and nine, and it's been since that
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: time that gear Green has roughly been incarcerated and has
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: been sitting on death row in Huntsville, Texas. That is
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: until March seventh, twenty twenty three, when gear Green died
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: by the lethal injection at seven o seven pm. I'm
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Josephcott Morgan and this is body backs
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: U