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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Reggie and Carol Sumner....Buried Alive · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Throughout our lives, we face
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: health issues off and on, and you never know what's
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: really going to kind of finally knock you to your knees.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: But the beauty part of that is that sometimes when
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: we're struggling with our health, we have an unintended angel
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that kind of enters into our life and promised us
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to be with us to the day that we die. Well,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: that was the case with Reggie and Carol Summer. They
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: found one another. They found one another, and they held
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: on to one another very very tightly, and they were
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: enjoying their retirement. But they were both faced with great obstacles,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: and the greatest obstacle was yet to come. It ended
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: in their deaths. Today, we're going to talk about the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: double homicide of Reggie and Carol Sumner. I'm Joseph Scott
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Morgan and this is Bodybacks. Jackie Howard, executive producer of
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, is joining me today. Jackie,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: what can you tell us about Reggie and Carol. Carol
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and Reggie Simner reportedly met in high school and rekindled
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: their relationship later in life. They found each other, they
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: wanted the same things out of the rest of their life,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and they wanted to spend time together. Yet this couple
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: was suffering through some health issues. Reggie had diabetes and
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: he had also had some injuries to his ankle which
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: required him to need the assistance of a wheelchair or
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a cane on occasion. However, Carol was suffering through liver
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: cancer as well as appatitis as a result. It's this
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: combination of health issues that will come into play a
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: little later, Joe, So let's talk about how their health
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: issues are impacting their life right now, their quality of life, cancer,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: health injuries, and diabetes. Yeah, it's a horrible set of
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: circumstances to be faced with. You know, they were not
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: like really really elderly people. This couple was only sixty
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: one years old and they had a lot of years
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: in front of mine. I think that that's what they thought.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: At one point in time. They had made this really,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: this really warm promise to one another. It really struck
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: me when I was doing the research on this case,
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  Speaker 1: how they would be with one another until the day
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  Speaker 1: they died. That they had promised to take care of
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: one another, and you know, they had gotten together back
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: up in South Carolina, and they felt strong enough about
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  Speaker 1: the relationship that they had together up there despite their
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: health issues, that they decided to sell everything they had
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: up in South Carolina and moved down to Jacksonville, Florida,
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  Speaker 1: you know, just southbound one, and set up a home
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: down there, and that they would spend the rest of
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: their days down there. And you know, I think that
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: one of the thoughts that came to mind. Someone had
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: quoted Reggie at one point time as having said that
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the doctors felt like that the environment down in Jacksonville
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: near the beach would be good for his condition, and
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: he was. You know, they hadn't just said that he
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: had diabetes. People have stated over and over and over again,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: relative to his history that he had severe diabetes, which
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: means he was obviously insulindependent. It's not some kind of
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: pre diabetic state. That means his sugars were probably out
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: of whack and he had to have constant monitoring, you know,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: where he's taking his blood sugar level constantly, several times
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  Speaker 1: a day. He's having to be treated by an end
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: of chronologist that's a physician that actually works with people
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: that have diabetes. And he was on very specific medication,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: and you know, at towards the end of his life,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Reggie had injured his ankle. And one of the big
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: fears for people that have diabetes or any kind of injuries,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: particularly to their peripheral areas, you know, their hands, their feet,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: these sorts of things, because they don't heal quite as well.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: And this was a severe injury. He had actually fractured
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: an ankle and it required him at least for part
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: of the time, to be wheelchair bound. So you can
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: imagine that, you know, he's dealing with everything that's associated
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: with diabetes, including maybe compromised eyesight, you know, fatigue, constant sleepiness,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: just a general malaise much of the time. And then
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: on top of that, his wife, Carol, she is faced
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: with this huge struggle of liver cancer, and liver cancer
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: is not something that somebody just kind of easily bounces
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  Speaker 1: back from. She's in the midst of this of fighting
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: this disease, and because she had developed liver cancer, it
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: sent her in to what's referred to as hypatic failure,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: which is where deliver begins to shut down and all
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the functions that everything that is required of the liver
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: to do, you know, systemically is compromised. At that point
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  Speaker 1: in time, she develops jauntice along with the hepatitis, and
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: that means that she would have a yellow tinge to
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: her skin, in constant pain. There's always problems with digestion, nausea,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: these sorts of things associated with this disease, and not
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: to mention again, in a very feeble, weakened state. I mean,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: they're both of these people are fragile as newborn kittens.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: As we look at their health conditions, Joe, we see
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  Speaker 1: the term vulnerable keep being mentioned about these two people.
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  Speaker 1: What is it about their conditions that make them vulnerable?
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  Speaker 1: Are we saying that their body is vulnerable to disease?
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  Speaker 1: Are we saying that these two individuals really are physically
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: feeble and unable to defend themselves. Yeah, yeah, that's a
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  Speaker 1: big part of this. And you know, you can even
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: look at primal animal activity and see how predators actually
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: pick the weakest among the herd, those that they know
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  Speaker 1: that they can control and take down. And in the
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Sumner's case, they were the weakest of the week, you know,
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  Speaker 1: And of course they have things that people might want,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing, but they're compromised in sense if
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: you know, if someone came into their home to attack
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: them in any way, they would not be able to
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  Speaker 1: put up a fight. It would be like a grown
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  Speaker 1: man going head to head with, you know, somebody that
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  Speaker 1: has the strength probably of maybe an eight year old child.
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  Speaker 1: At this point in time, they're just living day to day,
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  Speaker 1: hour to minute to minute, you know, and probably to
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  Speaker 1: a great degree, thankful for every second that they have
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  Speaker 1: on this earth because they I think that they probably
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: understood how fragile their life was. You said, predator Joe,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and you really couldn't have phrased that any better, because
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: that is what happened to this couple. They met a
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: group of predators, Tiffany Cole, Michael James Jackson, Alan Wade, Bruce,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Kent Nixon Junior. When the Sumners moved to Jacksonville, Florida,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: they sold a car to Tiffany Cole. Cole agreed to
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: make monthly payments and often drove down to Jacksonville to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: make those monthly payments. While in June of two thousand
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: and five, Cole and her new boyfriend Michael Jackson drove
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  Speaker 1: to Jacksonville to complete the paperwork on the sale of
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  Speaker 1: the car, and while they were there. They stayed with
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  Speaker 1: the Sumners at their home, and it was there that
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  Speaker 1: a plan to rob this couple that had been so
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: generous to Tiffany Cole was hatched. They planned to steal
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: money from their bank accounts. But what's more, they decided
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: that they were not adverse to killing this couple if necessary. Joe,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: this goes to this thought, you know, talking about predators
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  Speaker 1: and the behavior of those types they observed for a while,
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  Speaker 1: you know, they'll watch, they'll see if there's any danger
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  Speaker 1: to them. And once they're in such an intimate environment,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: you know, when you're in that small, tight, little circle
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  Speaker 1: of you know, someone's home, you're actually sleeping in their bed,
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  Speaker 1: you're eating their food, you're you know, using their bathroom facilities,
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  Speaker 1: all these sorts of things, the predator has the ability
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  Speaker 1: to walk through there and check everything. See how vulnerable,
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  Speaker 1: how how easy it is perhaps to access the home,
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  Speaker 1: how easy it is to maybe take things that are
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  Speaker 1: just lying around. But here's here's the most important part.
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  Speaker 1: If you're a predator and you're in what's referred to
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  Speaker 1: as in asymmetrical relationship with a person, that means that
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  Speaker 1: you're dominant over someone that is weaker. You're looking at
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  Speaker 1: them and you can exploit things. You can see that
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  Speaker 1: they're you know, I use term feeble, and I don't
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  Speaker 1: mean that it is a disrespecting term. It's just that
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  Speaker 1: they're feeble in the sense that in their physical bodies
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  Speaker 1: that are very weak. And that's something that you would
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  Speaker 1: catch on too very quickly. You know. You think about
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  Speaker 1: Carol suffering from hepatic failure due to liver cancer, and
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  Speaker 1: she's anytime she takes a step has to grab hold
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  Speaker 1: of the back of the chair or brace herself against
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  Speaker 1: the wall. She has to measure every footfall that she
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: has in the house. Or you begin to look and
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  Speaker 1: see that Reggie he doesn't move very well because of
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: his ankle, that he would rather be in the wheelchair
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  Speaker 1: kind of moving himself about the house as opposed to
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  Speaker 1: ambulating anywhere and automatically. If you are of the mindset
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  Speaker 1: to attack someone to take everything that they have, it's
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  Speaker 1: at that moment in time that bells start going off
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  Speaker 1: in your mind. If you are the aggressor here, and
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  Speaker 1: you know that this is an easy mark for Reggie
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and Carol Sumner, they lived with this false sense of security.
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  Speaker 1: I think you think that you got the world kind
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  Speaker 1: of figured out that you're here in this place that
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  Speaker 1: you've moved to for maybe to better your health and
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  Speaker 1: to move on with your life and adjust your life
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  Speaker 1: so that you can be happy and enjoy the love
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  Speaker 1: of one another. But that suddenly turned a horror for them.
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  Speaker 1: It did. They trusted Tiffany Cole, which turned out to
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  Speaker 1: be not a very good idea. Tiffany Cole, Michael Jackson,
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  Speaker 1: Alan Wade, Bruce Kent Nixon Junior took a month, took
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: one month to put their plan into action. They intended
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  Speaker 1: to invade the home, asked to use the phone, and
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  Speaker 1: then once inside they were going to attack the family.
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  Speaker 1: And that's exactly what they did. But it was Wade
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  Speaker 1: and Nixon, who the Sumners did not know, two men
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  Speaker 1: who knock down the door and asked to use the phone.
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  Speaker 1: Once inside, they attacked the couple. The couple was bound
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  Speaker 1: and gagged with the duct tape and from there put
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  Speaker 1: into the trunk of their Lincoln town car. And meanwhile,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Tiffany Colin Michael Jackson traveled in their car planning to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: deliberately get pulled over for speeding if police got too
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  Speaker 1: close to the Lincoln. Now, what would have these physical
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: limitations done to the sum nurse, considering they already had
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: their own physical limitations. Well, first off, and I think
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  Speaker 1: that it goes without saying. You know, our fight or
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: flight kicks in. But here's the problem. When you're when
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: you are physiologically compromised, like Reggie and Carol were, you
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  Speaker 1: might have that thought in your mind that I need
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  Speaker 1: to flee, that I need to get away, that I
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: need to put distance between myself and danger. What's really
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  Speaker 1: horrific about this is that now you're trapped in these
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: bodies that are riddled with disease, diabetes and cancer and
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: these sorts of things. So you know, you're you're thinking back,
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  Speaker 1: I would imagine so when you were thirty and you
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: could have maybe put distance between yourself in danger, But
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  Speaker 1: now you're in this compromised position and you can't. So
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: you've got adrenaline pumping, even though you can't use it
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  Speaker 1: to get away. Your breathing becomes shallow. And one of
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: the important points here, and something we need to keep
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: in mind is that duct tape was used on both
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Carol and Reggie, and so when that occurs, you know,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: we know that the police have used the term gagged
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: over and over again. I don't necessarily think that this
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  Speaker 1: was a matter of the perpetrators having taken duct tape
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  Speaker 1: and put a you know, a wad of it into
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: their mouth and jammed it down their throat or anything
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  Speaker 1: like that. I think that it was a covering over
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: their mouth, potentially their nose, I'm not sure, but certainly
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the eyes as well. So now you know, your body
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: is demanding more oxygen because you're shallow breathing, and you've
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: got health problems and your airways compromised to the point
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: where you can't uptake oxygen and everything begins to fail.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: You know, for orld Reggie who's suffering from severe diabetes,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I'm sure his sugars probably got out of whack, and
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: you know, along with diabetes also comes issues like heart
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: disease and these sorts of things, so his cardiovascular system
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: could well have been compromised as well at this moment time.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: You know, it's really important to have people ask me
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: this question a lot, you know, when you begin to
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: think about manners and causes of death and they don't
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: see a natural disease that can be utilized as a
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: means to commit homicide. But I gotta tell you it can.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: If somebody is compromised already and you have an awareness
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: of that, you can push somebody to the brink where
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: you can actually kill them visa via the indwelling disease.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: They have. I work cases like that, and it's it's
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: absolutely horrific. It's you know, it's not as simple as
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: just shooting somebody or stabbing somebody, because physiologically they are compromised,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: they have disease on board. You can harm, do great
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: harm to someone this way. And you know, this idea
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: of being in fear of your life being confined, I mean,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know that many of us could ever even
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: begin to comprehend this idea of being bound and gagged
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and blindfolded. You're already frail, and then you're essentially placed
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: into the trunk of your own car and you're completely
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: deprived of any of your external sensory indicators. Here, maybe
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: you can smell, maybe you can't, but you can't see.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: You're having to be helped along to walk. And the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: next thing you know, you can feel yourself on a
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: hard surface. You hear the trunk slam, and now you're
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: going down a road you're moving away from where it
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: is that you felt you were safe in and you're
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: bumping down the road and in total and complete pitch
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: black darkness. One of the things that I know about diabetes, Joe,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: is when your sugar is high, it changes your emotions,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: It changes the way that you think. You become confused,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: you can become angry, and then when you crash, you
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: can die from your sugar being out of range. So
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: describe for me what he would be going through already
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: in a panic, from worrying about his wife, worrying about
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: his own life, and worrying about his health. You know,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: is he going to be able to assist her in
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: any way? So talk to me and explain about how
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: all of that is also impacting his idea or notion
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: of survival. Yeah, you know, and we don't. You know,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: when you begin to think about the timeline when these
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: two showed up at the door and took control of
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Reggie and Carol in their own home, you begin to
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: think about this. You don't know where either Reggie or
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Carol were or their medications that day. And that's a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: that's a critical point here because diabetics in particular so
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: dependent upon their medications to maintenance their life day in
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and day out, and to measure their sugar levels. If
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: if he becomes say, for instance, what's referred to as hypoglycemic,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: which means that the sugar dips precipitously, you become lightheaded, disoriented,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: those sorts of things, and you have no idea, You're
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: you're totally completely confused at that moment time. So it
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: would impact your life greatly. It would impact your ability
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: to make decisions to defend yourself this sort of thing. Now,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: if his sugar was going in the other way, if
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: if it had jumped up to an unexpected level because
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: it wasn't being maintenanced, and he's in this, you know
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: you're going to again become short of breath, diphyeretic, which
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: means you're going to be sweating a lot, feeling like
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: you're going to pass out. Either way, it's a horrible
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: situation to be in. And yeah, he would not have
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: been in a position to take care of his wife
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: or himself at that point in time. You have to
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: compound their situation with the fact that they are in
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the trunk of a car. How is that oxygen supply
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: going to impact what is going on, and are they
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: in fact getting more exhaust from the vehicle than they
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: are oxygen. Yeah, a lot of that is going to
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: be depended upon how structurally intact the vehicle is, and
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: of course the exhaust system. I've had friends of mine
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: that are medical legal death investigators that have worked cases
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: where people have been placed into trunks and they have asphyxiated,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: not from the lack of fresh oxygen being able to
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: just be present, but because there was an intrusion into
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: that environment of carbon monoxide, because there was a faulty
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: exhaust system, and that can play a part of it.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And of course we look for that at autopsy and
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: there's certain things that and they would have done this
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: with both Carol and Reggie. And if folks at home
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: can just think about this, think about the brightest artificial
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: cherry pink color you've ever seen on a piece of
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: candy or a popsicle or something like that. That's actually
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the color, believe it or not, that that the skin
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: of people turns that have been exposed to carbon monoxide,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: even the whites of their eyes become kind of cherry
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: pink in color. And so that's something that when we
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: see it at autopsy. It's a huge flag for us.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: You know, we're thinking, well, they have been exposed to something,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: and generally that leads back to carbon monoxide, and of
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: course they would do you know, in toxicology when they
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: draw blood, there's a test that we call a carboxy
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: hemoglobin level, which checks the level of carbon monoxide that
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: an individual has in their system. You know, just out
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: walking around, there are minimal standards that you know you're
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: going to be exposed to, particularly an urban environments of
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: exhausting that's worth thing, but you can get up into
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: those critical areas where it's going to compromise your system,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: and that's certainly something that would have played a part.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Now when you think about them shallow breathing in this environment,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: if they have any other kind of associated problems with
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: their heart their lungs, that's going to play a part.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And yet if the quality of oxygen might not be there.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: But the question you have to ask, is a trunk
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: actually completely sealed off from available fresh air? And that
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: is generally not the case. It's just not It's not
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: like you're in a plastic bag, so there would have
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: been an air supply. Just I can't attest to the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: quality of the air that they would have breathed and
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: how much there would have been in there. So the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Sumners were forced to hand over their financial information, their
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: pen numbers for their bank accounts. Tiffany Cole and Michael
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Jackson took their jewelry and ponded and stole other items
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: from the Sumners home, and again the ATM card was
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: used to obtain more than a thousand dollars in cash.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Now you would think that this would be enough. You've
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: stolen these things from this family, You've taken them away,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: but that was not how this was to end. The
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: couple was driven to South Georgia and placed in a
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: four by six foot grave that the perpetrators had dug
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: in advance in case it was necessary. You know on
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: body bags. I think in a previous episode, I actually
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: confess to something. I let my listeners know that I
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: myself am claustrophobic and I cannot think of many things
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: in this world that would terrify me anymore than being
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: closed up in a grave or to be buried alive.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, in Reggie and Carol Sumner's case, that's what
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: happened to them. The perpetrators decided that despite the fact
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: that the Sumners had cooperated and give them all the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: information that they wanted, they'd already stolen money, jewels, and
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: other items from the home. They decided that it was
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: necessary to kill the Sumners. But instead of shooting, strangling,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: bludgeoning this couple, they placed them into this grave that
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: they dug and buried them alive. Joe, my mind is blown.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I can't even begin to imagine one what was going
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: through this couple's mind. But let's talk about what would
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: have happened to them. How did they die? Yeah, the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: thing that really strikes me in Reggie and Carol's case
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: is the fact that it has come out that this
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: grave had been dug almost two days in advance. So
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: let's think about that just for a second. That means
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: that there was a plan in place. There was never
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: necessarily a plan to do anything other than have Carrol
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and Reggie's lives end in a hand dug hole out
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: in this desolate area down in South Georgia, which is
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: literally right across the border coming up out of North Florida.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: You know, Jacksonville, Florida and the border with Georgia are
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: not that far away. But these perpetrators chose an area
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that was very isolated, and they went out there two
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: days in advance, and this just boggle in mind and
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: dug this hole that they were going to place this
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: couple into, and I you know, part of me, you know,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: you're you're reading this and you're learning about it, and
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: you're thinking, you know, wow, I really wish on one level,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: if they were going to take them out, that they
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: would have done it mercifully. This is probably, in my estimation,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: at least, one of the most horrific ways an individual
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: can die. And it's not like you're placed in an
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: airtight coffin. Regie Carol Sumner were placed in a big
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: hole in the ground with a big pile of dirt
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: adjacent to it that had been bound with duct tape.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Hang on a second, Joe. The perpetrators reported that the
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: couple had to actually freed themselves from their bindings. Number one,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: how could they have done that? And what were the reports? Yeah,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: you know, the duct tape was used to bind them with.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: And what does duct tape? You know, what's the purpose
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: of It's got a really strong adhesive on the back
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: of anybody's got duct tapeerin your home can attest to this.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: It's certainly stronger than any kind of tape you might
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: use a Christmas time to wrap packages with very resilient,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: very fibers and adhesif it's relatively strong. But let's keep
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: in mind this is Florida. You've got high relative humidity.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: You're placing it on bare skin, which means that they
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: were sweating. And I would think probably Reggie in particular,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: because of his diabetes. Diabetics many times when they are stressed,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: began to sweat profusely, and that may have led to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: him being able to shed these bindings. But I think
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: probably the most chilling part of this is that the perpetrators,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: when they were later interviewed, stated that both Reggie and
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Carol when they opened that trunk and they found him
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: in the back of that car, they were holding on
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: to one another, so they had adjusted to the point
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: where they could at least embrace. One of the purps
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: actually said they were praying. Maybe they were praying that
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: they would be delivered from this, Maybe they were praying
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: for God's mercy at that moment in time, But this
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I do know. Once that trunk was open, they took
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: this couple out of that car and they put them
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: into this hole that it had been dug two days
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: in advance, with the thought, with the thought that this
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: is how their lives were going to end. How did
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: their lives end? Joe? When you were buried alive? Do
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: you inhale dirt into your lungs and suffocate? Do you
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: are you unable to expand your lungs and suffocate? That's
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: two types of asphyxiation? There? Am I missing something? Joe?
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Was there another type? I gotta tell you. When I
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: was reading over the testimony of the medical examiner in
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: this particular case and what his determination was, it really
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: struck me because I had never come across a case
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: like this. The forensic pathologists that did the autopsy on
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Reggie and Carol's bodies actually came to the conclusion that
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: they had died of mechanical asphyxia. And let me kind
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: of break that down because it sounds, I don't know,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: kind of bizarre when you begin to think about it,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: you think of mechanism and that sort of thing, and
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: many times that's what it means. It means that you
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: know one one descriptor that's famously used is say someone
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: has a scarf and it's hanging over some type of
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: machinery that's operating, and they get pulled in by the
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: scarf and it essentially chokes them asphyxiates them. Right there,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that's mechanical, and that's that's a classic example of that. However,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: you have this elderly couple that's actually placed into a
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: grave and then dirt is placed upon their body. So
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: think about the dirt being the mechanism here, and you've
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: got two factors that work here. So not only were
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: they mechanically asphyxiated, and this is more of what's referred
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: to as a compression asphyxia. That means when you begin
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: to have weight placed upon you where your chest can
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: no longer rise and fall, which you know if you're digging,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: say for instance, they did dig a deep, deep hole.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of dirt that you're going to put
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: on their bodies. It's going to compromise their ability for
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: their chest to rise and fall, to inhalate, to exulate,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: all these sorts of things, and then you're diminishing the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: amount of oxygen that's in there. And to your point earlier,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: one of the other factors involved in this case is
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: that when the forensic pathologists did the dissection and he
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: began to closely look at the airway of both Carol
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and Reggie, not just the airway, but Jackie actually looked
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: in the lungs. One of the things he found were
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: particulate bits of soil, the same soil that you would
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: have found down there. And I can tell you what
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: that soul looks like. It's going to be very sandy.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: It's going to be very very sandy. There might be
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: some loam mixed in with it. And that dirt that
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: was from down there that you commonly see in Florida,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: those sorts of things that you walk upon when maybe
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: you go to the beach, go on a vacation with
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: your family. That's what they had within their airways, and
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: at the end, that's what actually wound up killing them
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: because they inhalated this dirt that was being piled on
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: top of them. So it's this kind of complex event
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: that goes on, and you couple that with all of
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: that natural disease process, you know, Carol's liver cancer and
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: hepatitis and her being jaunticed and all those things that
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: come along with that, and then of course Reggie's diabetes
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: and his inability to move around. He was also incontinent
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: as well, which sometimes happens obviously with age, but it
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: can happen with diabetic patients are in a greatly physically
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: compromised position. He's there, They're not receiving any kind of
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: care whatsoever. As a matter of fact, with every shovelful
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of dirt, there's more and more harm, there's more and
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: more danger that is coming to rest upon them, to
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the point where it was the position they were in
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: was just completely and totally incompatible with life, and they
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: succumb there in the grave, lying there next to each other.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: We've talked in the past a lot about asphyxia, and
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: we've talked about positional asphyxia. So is mechanical asphyxia and
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: positional asphyxia the same thing. No, they're not. And I'll
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: give you a great example of positional asphyxia. And this
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: is from my own personal experience working cases, and I've
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: had this happen a number of times. I say a
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: number is several times throughout my career. And it's kind
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of a thread that runs through and people are not
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: aware of the effects that heroin has on somebody. It
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: really depress the respiratory system obviously, you know, you get
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: into this kind of dreamlike state. And I've had a
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: number of heroin addicts that have set there what they
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: call their works up on a sink, you know, where
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: they'll they'll render down their injectable down into a liquid form.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: They'll draw it up after they've they've turned it off
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: on their arm and they're seated on a toilet seat.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: They inject a heroine and in these cases I've worked,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the heroin addict after they have dosed themselves will actually
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: fall between the wall and the edge of the toilet
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: and in this compromise position that can't get up, and
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: this leads to that's a classic example of positional asphixia,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and there's any number of other things that can happen.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: You'd be actually surprised how many people that are involved
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: in car accidents die as a result of kind of
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: a positional slash compression asphyxia. Many times you're in a
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: position where you're test can no longer rise and fall,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and it comes and it's not something that you can
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: absolutely say positively that this is in fact positional asphyxia
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: without having very strong evidence of it, any event of
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: a positional asphyxia. You have this evidence of this kind
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: of staring you in the face, where they're in such
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: a contracted position. That means their body is position in
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: such a manner which their chest can no longer rise
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: and fall and they can't get free of it. In Carol,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: in Reggie's case, though this is the mechanical asphyxia, it
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: was a means to an end. If you think of
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: that dirt being piled upon them, them being compressed by
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the dirt, them inhalating a dirt. This was as if
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: they had utilized this dirt, just like somebody would use
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: a firearm to kill them. How long would this couple
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: have suffered? Job I can say this, It would have
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: been an excruciating death. It would not have been quick.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: It would have been they would have been gasping for air.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: You know. I equated to you know, someone catching a
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: fish and bringing the fish up on the deck or
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the dock and seeing you know, that fish gasping for air.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: You can see their lips moving, their gills expanding, and
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: there's nothing there for them to breathe in, and they
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: would have been attempting to squeeze everybod of oxygen out
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: of that environment. Unfortunately, there was none to be had,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: and so the first thing that would have happened is
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I think more than likely they would have gone into
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: a real state of panic. Again, if they weren't shallow
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: breathing before, then they're certainly shallow breathing now, and that
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: means that quick respirations, very very shallow. And then something
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: happens that's referred to as anoxia at that point in time,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: where your brain goes into a deprived state of oxygen.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: So you have this even further disorientation where they're in
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: this kind of dream like a milky state, if you will,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: and they're going to lose consciousness of eventually. The key
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: here though is and I don't know that it's necessarily measurable.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: You know, if you were to ask a forensic pathologist
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: on the stand, you know, doctor, in your opinion, how
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: long in fact did this take? I think that that
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: the physician would probably state what the literature states, you
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: know that your brain can't you sustain life without oxygen
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: for any longer than you know, three or four minutes.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: But it would not have been quick. It would not
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: have been as quick as, say, for instance, as they
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: had been executed with a pistol. Perhaps all four of
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: these perpetrators are now in jail for the murders of
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Reggie and Carol Sumner. Just this past week, Alan Wade
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: was again sentenced, but he was taken off of death
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: row and sentenced to life imprisonment. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: and this is Body Backs.