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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan : The Mother Goose Land Murders · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:01
Speaker 1: Quality votaries, but Joseph's gotten more married Mary quite contrary,
0:09
Speaker 1: how does your garden grow with silver bells and cocke
0:15
Speaker 1: shells and pretty mates all in a row. I think
0:22
Speaker 1: we probably all recognize that nursery rhyme because that's what
0:29
Speaker 1: it is. I mean, kids for ages have used that
0:34
Speaker 1: over and over again. I remember that it was many
0:38
Speaker 1: many moons ago being in nursery school is what they
0:43
Speaker 1: used to call it, and we used all of these.
0:47
Speaker 1: I think that teachers and I know nothing about teaching
0:50
Speaker 1: small children, but they use these repetitive rhymes in order
0:56
Speaker 1: to form language and get into rhythm, if you will.
1:01
Speaker 1: But you know, these nursing rhymes have dark origins. I
1:08
Speaker 1: think that many of you have heard that with Mary
1:14
Speaker 1: Mary like contrary, its origin is said to go back
1:17
Speaker 1: to Bloody Mary, who was Queen Mary the First of England,
1:23
Speaker 1: and it has to do with her execution of hundreds
1:28
Speaker 1: of Protestants over a very dark period in British history.
1:34
Speaker 1: And if you didn't know, some scholars believe that silver
1:39
Speaker 1: bells and cockle shells are actually references to not things
1:46
Speaker 1: that might adorn your garden, but actually they're tied back
1:54
Speaker 1: to torture devices that were used in dungeons back during
1:59
Speaker 1: those days. Today, we're going to talk about a case
2:05
Speaker 1: that has linkage to Mother goose If you will, seemingly innocent,
2:15
Speaker 1: a place where you can go and enjoy your children
2:21
Speaker 1: and watch them play Mother goose Land. Actually, but like
2:25
Speaker 1: these nursery rhymes, there's a very sinister underlying story here.
2:33
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks.
2:39
Speaker 2: Joe before we dig into the fairy tale part of this.
2:42
Speaker 2: I had no idea that there were little parks all
2:45
Speaker 2: over America that had names like Storytime Park or Mother
2:49
Speaker 2: goose Land until I saw the headline in this story.
2:52
Speaker 2: It says Mother goose Land Murder. Can't Ohio, There actually
2:56
Speaker 2: was a place called Mother goose Land. It's now known
2:58
Speaker 2: as Cityfield Park, but it's still identified by those from
3:02
Speaker 2: the area as Mother Gooseland. And we've got City Field
3:07
Speaker 2: Park workers that are dumping trash cans nine thirty in
3:10
Speaker 2: the morning, and they get to a big receptacle and
3:13
Speaker 2: it's heavier than it should be, and as they look inside,
3:17
Speaker 2: it appears to be a human body wrapped in plastic
3:20
Speaker 2: has been shoved into the trash can. They immediately call
3:23
Speaker 2: nine to one one and the identifier is Mother Gooseland.
3:27
Speaker 2: So that's where today's story comes from, the Mother Gooseland murder.
3:31
Speaker 2: But you were telling me about places that you knew of, Joe,
3:35
Speaker 2: and in particular in New Orleans where you grew up,
3:39
Speaker 2: going to a place that was kind of like this.
3:42
Speaker 1: Right in the heart of City Park in New Orleans
3:49
Speaker 1: is a location called story Land and it's been there
3:53
Speaker 1: since the fifties. And when you walk through the gate,
3:58
Speaker 1: it's you know that scene in Willie wanng Go where
4:00
Speaker 1: they the kid the real Willy Wonka. I'm not talking
4:02
Speaker 1: about this thing with Johnny. I'm talking about the real
4:05
Speaker 1: Willy Wonka with the great late Jean Wilder, thank you,
4:12
Speaker 1: the late great Gene Wilder, where they opened that door
4:16
Speaker 1: and you see all of that candy. I don't know
4:18
Speaker 1: about you. That was magical to me. That's the way
4:20
Speaker 1: Storyland was when I was little in New Orleans. And
4:23
Speaker 1: it's got all of the Mother Goose characters. There. You've
4:28
Speaker 1: got old Mother Hubbard, You've got actually Mother Goose in
4:32
Speaker 1: the air flying on her goose with children on her
4:36
Speaker 1: back on the back of the goose as well the
4:39
Speaker 1: little old man that lived in the little old house,
4:41
Speaker 1: you know, the crooked house, and it just goes on
4:45
Speaker 1: and on, I mean, and you could walk and run
4:47
Speaker 1: and play through all of these things. It's a glorified playground.
4:51
Speaker 1: But they also had like a little roller coaster. And
4:55
Speaker 1: it's not just me if you talk to any kid
4:58
Speaker 1: that was the grew up and I split time growing
5:03
Speaker 1: up in New Orleans when I was little. You know,
5:05
Speaker 1: we you know, we lived in various locations, and but
5:09
Speaker 1: those memories you know that you have when you're a kid.
5:13
Speaker 1: I remember going to the streetcar line and New Orleans
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Speaker 1: is famous for the street car that runs down Saint
5:18
Speaker 1: Charles and being there with my aunt and it was
5:20
Speaker 1: the first place I ever put a penny on a
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Speaker 1: track and the street car would run over it, you know,
5:26
Speaker 1: and crush it down. And of course that was adjacent
5:28
Speaker 1: to one of another beautiful UH park and zoo called
5:33
Speaker 1: Audubon UH the Autumn Zoo, which again, you know, is
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Speaker 1: a magical place for me and all of the kids
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Speaker 1: you know that inhabit these spaces. But Dave Brother, I
5:44
Speaker 1: got to tell you, it's when something that is this
5:47
Speaker 1: innocent winds up in the midst of what truly is
5:54
Speaker 1: a real horror show. You know that that imagery from
6:00
Speaker 1: your past. I think that there were probably a lot
6:03
Speaker 1: of places around the country that were similar to this,
6:05
Speaker 1: because the place we're going to talk about today is
6:09
Speaker 1: it has a lot of similarity. It sounds like to
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Speaker 1: you know this place that I that's beloved to me
6:15
Speaker 1: as you know, as a kid that grew up around it,
6:17
Speaker 1: you know, down in New Orleans. Well, can you kind
6:20
Speaker 1: of take us through this real quick, because you know,
6:23
Speaker 1: I got to tell our friends kind of sit back,
6:25
Speaker 1: and this is something that I think shocked both to
6:28
Speaker 1: Dave and I when we heard this story.
6:30
Speaker 2: Now, whenever our stories begin, Joe with somebody calling for
6:37
Speaker 2: police to do a welfare check. It's a pretty innocuous
6:42
Speaker 2: thing when you think about it, but in reality, for us,
6:45
Speaker 2: it's usually a loved one, a friend, an employer that
6:49
Speaker 2: had an expectation for you to be someplace and you weren't, and.
6:52
Speaker 1: So they pick up, Hey, let me let me step
6:55
Speaker 1: on you just for a second, apologize. I want everybody
6:57
Speaker 1: to understand this. Welfare checks by law enforcement are done
7:03
Speaker 1: minute by minute all over the country. This is not
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Speaker 1: something there's not something sinister that pops up every time,
7:10
Speaker 1: and so writes you our day because with this particular case,
7:15
Speaker 1: there's a big reveal here, I got to tell you.
7:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's your big reveal. Rachel Sheridan doesn't show up
7:20
Speaker 2: for work and her mother, knowing the relationship with Sean
7:23
Speaker 2: Goh and how volatile he can be, her mom. Rachel's
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Speaker 2: mom calls the sheriff's department and asks them to do
7:28
Speaker 2: a welfare check on her. Deputies show up. They already
7:31
Speaker 2: know that Rachel drives a maroon Jep Liberty, so they're
7:33
Speaker 2: looking over the parking lot to see if they see it.
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Speaker 2: They don't. They go to the apartment and the door
7:38
Speaker 2: to the apartment is open, not just unlocked and can
7:40
Speaker 2: turn that. We're talking. The door is open, they can
7:42
Speaker 2: see inside, but deputies don't see anything that anything that
7:48
Speaker 2: actually gives them the right to walk into that apartment
7:51
Speaker 2: right away without a search warrant. So it's suspicious, so
7:54
Speaker 2: they stayed there. They called their boss, Hey, we need
7:56
Speaker 2: a search warrant. Here's why. So they're waiting on search
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Speaker 2: warrant to right so they can go in the part
8:00
Speaker 2: when they see maroon jeep Liberty being driven by Sean
8:06
Speaker 2: go right in front of him, so hey, let's find
8:09
Speaker 2: out what's going on. He's driving her car. He has
8:11
Speaker 2: to know where she is, so boom, they go ahead
8:13
Speaker 2: and light him up. Well, he goes to pull over
8:15
Speaker 2: and Sean go takes off and runs. He flees the scene.
8:18
Speaker 2: He flees through the woods and everything else, and he
8:20
Speaker 2: gets away from him. They search for him for hours,
8:22
Speaker 2: can't find him anywhere. Finally, the next morning they do
8:25
Speaker 2: find Sean go At a homeless shelter and they take
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Speaker 2: him into custody on some other warrants that he has
8:31
Speaker 2: out standing. Still they haven't found Rachel Sheridan. They don't
8:34
Speaker 2: know where she is. Then that's when the nine to
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Speaker 2: one one call comes in from Mother Goose Land Park
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Speaker 2: now known as City Field Park, and the workers calling
8:45
Speaker 2: with we got a body wrapped in plastic in the trash.
8:48
Speaker 1: Can this Mother Goose location? This is up in you know,
8:54
Speaker 1: adjacent to Canton, Ohio, Stark I think it's Stark County location.
9:01
Speaker 1: And you know this park that is there, The Mother
9:07
Speaker 1: Goose Park has roughly been in operation or was in operation.
9:12
Speaker 1: And here's the odd thing. It opened in the fifties.
9:16
Speaker 1: David Singh's been shuddered since the eighties, and you can
9:20
Speaker 1: see the pictures of it online and there are all
9:22
Speaker 1: these kind of magical looking, magical looking creatures that are
9:27
Speaker 1: still existing. There's like a big whale in a lagoon
9:31
Speaker 1: with its mouth open that kids could run into. How
9:35
Speaker 1: can you resist not wanting to go into this place?
9:37
Speaker 1: But when you take a look at it, it's got
9:41
Speaker 1: kind of because it's not being used, it's kind of
9:43
Speaker 1: got a real creepy vibe to it now because nobody's
9:47
Speaker 1: maintaining these things. These things are always brightly painted. You know.
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Speaker 1: It's the type of stuff that you want to see
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Speaker 1: when you're a little kid. It attracts you to it.
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Speaker 1: You want to come in, Hey Mama, can we go
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Speaker 1: in here and play? You know that sort of thing.
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Speaker 1: This is the kind of place that you would see though,
10:01
Speaker 1: and it's it's in stark contrast, you know, to like
10:06
Speaker 1: what I love about Storyland in New Orleans that's really
10:09
Speaker 1: kept up, brightly colored, all those sorts of things. And
10:13
Speaker 1: you know, you think about the the deposition of a body,
10:19
Speaker 1: it would I think that most people would not think
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Speaker 1: that it's a place where a body would be found,
10:29
Speaker 1: maybe because it's an abandoned location and it has been
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Speaker 1: shuttered since the eighties that it's it's nobody's going to
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Speaker 1: find it. And you know, sometimes it's just dumb luck where,
10:43
Speaker 1: you know, because how many cases do we have where
10:45
Speaker 1: people just like vanish off the planet and you don't
10:49
Speaker 1: have any kind of idea where they went to the
10:55
Speaker 1: fact that they were able to find her body, I
10:57
Speaker 1: think relatively quickly is amazing and there's a bit of
11:02
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna call it joy, but there's a bit
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Speaker 1: of relief for the family because how many cases have
11:07
Speaker 1: we covered over the years where you know, and I
11:11
Speaker 1: still I get contacted all the time, particularly over social media,
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Speaker 1: can you help me? You know, we haven't seen our
11:18
Speaker 1: and you know, helping people in that particular way is
11:20
Speaker 1: not really my forte. But you know, there's so many
11:24
Speaker 1: people out there that want to know where their loved
11:26
Speaker 1: ones are. But I'm interested in something that you said
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Speaker 1: earlier about the welfare check. You know, when police typically
11:35
Speaker 1: go and they must really have put the screws down
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Speaker 1: on the cops out here, because if they're not crossing
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Speaker 1: over that threshold to go into the location without a warrant,
11:47
Speaker 1: and it's a welfare check most of the time if
11:52
Speaker 1: you can if you know that somebody's in danger, as
11:56
Speaker 1: long as you don't if the door is open and
11:58
Speaker 1: you're calling out to them to check. I guess it's
12:02
Speaker 1: probably departmentally dependent. When it's a it's it's health and
12:07
Speaker 1: safety is actually kind of the the thread that runs
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Speaker 1: through this. From a legal standpoint, that's what they're trying
12:14
Speaker 1: to do. You know, you can't go looking in hidden places,
12:18
Speaker 1: and that's that's what the warrant would be for. But
12:21
Speaker 1: it's again dumb luck that when they pivot and they
12:26
Speaker 1: see her car moving down the road and then you
12:30
Speaker 1: got a guy. They chase this guy down and he
12:33
Speaker 1: bolts out of the car and runs off into the woods.
12:37
Speaker 1: There's your sign. As they used to say. You know,
12:39
Speaker 1: one of the questions I would ask when I would
12:42
Speaker 1: show up at a scene, because you know, when by
12:43
Speaker 1: the time the Emmy or corner investigator arrives at a scene,
12:47
Speaker 1: you don't there's so many actors on the stage by
12:50
Speaker 1: that time. Commonly, my practice, if there was some kind
12:54
Speaker 1: of domestic beef that occurred, I would seek out the
12:59
Speaker 1: actual beat unit, like the officer that was in the
13:02
Speaker 1: patrol car, the unit that patrols this area their beat,
13:07
Speaker 1: and I would go to that individual, not to their sergeant,
13:11
Speaker 1: not to their lieutenant who was there, is like, hey,
13:15
Speaker 1: can you tell me something. Have you ever rolled out
13:17
Speaker 1: here on anything? Have you ever been by here, because
13:20
Speaker 1: you'd be surprised. You know, when people see cops, you
13:23
Speaker 1: know just kind of and I hate this term, but
13:25
Speaker 1: they'll say cops are loitering around. Well, they're not loitering.
13:29
Speaker 1: They're sitting there and they're watching. Now I'm not a
13:32
Speaker 1: big fan of, you know, speed traps, but if you're
13:37
Speaker 1: in a neighborhood and you see a cop, you know,
13:39
Speaker 1: that's kind of sitting there. They're watching most of the time,
13:44
Speaker 1: and they know they've got their finger on the pulse.
13:46
Speaker 1: They know more than people suspect about each house on
13:49
Speaker 1: the block because they will have been called out to
13:52
Speaker 1: domestic beefs, they will be called out when children are missing,
13:56
Speaker 1: they'll be called out for an elderly person that has
13:58
Speaker 1: fallen in the house, and they know that that and
14:01
Speaker 1: some you know, you go back to this idea of
14:05
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things they teach is community
14:07
Speaker 1: police and I don't know really how well that has worked.
14:09
Speaker 1: But the idea of the cop getting out of the
14:12
Speaker 1: car and just walking up to a fence and talking
14:14
Speaker 1: to the elderly people that live on the street. Hey,
14:17
Speaker 1: how you doing. I'm officer Mike, and this is my area.
14:19
Speaker 1: I wanted to introduce myself. So cops have a lot
14:22
Speaker 1: of knowledge of that area. But you know, Dave, I
14:26
Speaker 1: don't know if they even begin to suspect, or what
14:33
Speaker 1: they would eventually find inside of that house, let alone,
14:38
Speaker 1: or what they would find at the Mother Goose Park.
14:55
Speaker 1: Here we go, boilerplate statement incoming. I found no evidence
15:01
Speaker 1: of forced entry or struggle. Wish had a nickel for
15:06
Speaker 1: every time I'd written that down. Wish I had a
15:10
Speaker 1: bitcoin for every time I'd written that down. I'd be
15:12
Speaker 1: a very very wealthy man. But because you know, it's
15:18
Speaker 1: including all of our reports if we don't see anything,
15:23
Speaker 1: but Dave, they they saw something at that at that home.
15:29
Speaker 1: Not only was the door open, and there's no indication
15:33
Speaker 1: that it was necessarily forced open, it was just open,
15:37
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like it had been kicked in necessarily.
15:40
Speaker 2: That's an important part. Yeah, Yeah, because as they arrive,
15:45
Speaker 2: they're doing a I want to go back to the
15:46
Speaker 2: welfare jack. Yeah, they're already warned that this is a
15:50
Speaker 2: vaul of a situation. Mom is concerned because she didn't
15:52
Speaker 2: show up for work she always does, and she lives
15:55
Speaker 2: with a man who is not oftentimes doing things in
15:59
Speaker 2: her best interest. They have had a ballatle relationship. He
16:02
Speaker 2: has allegedly beaten her before enough that family and friends
16:08
Speaker 2: have been worried. And when they get there and they're
16:11
Speaker 2: looking inside the apartment, they don't see anything that jumps
16:15
Speaker 2: right out at them that says there was a struggle
16:17
Speaker 2: or a fight in here. And as they're waiting for
16:21
Speaker 2: that search warrant to arrive so they can go in
16:24
Speaker 2: because at this point they're not seeing the whole apartment.
16:26
Speaker 2: They're just seeing a living area and probably a kitchen,
16:29
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, And it's only after they get the
16:32
Speaker 2: search warrant. By the time they've already got they they
16:35
Speaker 2: know Sean Goh has taken off. He's running, so what
16:38
Speaker 2: is he He's driving her car and he's now running.
16:40
Speaker 1: So and she's nowhere to be found.
16:43
Speaker 2: Right, I still can't find her, still have not been
16:45
Speaker 2: able to verify, you know. So they go into the apartment.
16:48
Speaker 2: Now this is after you know, they get the search warrant,
16:52
Speaker 2: and I can't imagine Joe, that the search warrant was
16:54
Speaker 2: very specific, because it would have been we're looking, we
17:00
Speaker 2: don't know where she is, we're trying to find her.
17:02
Speaker 2: So would the warrant say they can go in the
17:05
Speaker 2: apartment and look under things and see if they can
17:08
Speaker 2: find share it.
17:10
Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's it's going to be more specific.
17:15
Speaker 1: And most of the time you have to have some
17:18
Speaker 1: kind of probable cause that's going to be an ingredient
17:21
Speaker 1: into this.
17:23
Speaker 2: But the welfare check in and of itself is not enough.
17:26
Speaker 2: They can't know that it's.
17:27
Speaker 1: Well unless here's the thing. If you if you visualize,
17:31
Speaker 1: let's just say that that you walk into a scene,
17:37
Speaker 1: I think that a magistrate or judge would bite on
17:40
Speaker 1: the idea if you see what appear to be and
17:42
Speaker 1: remember in forensics, we cannot say something is blood until
17:46
Speaker 1: we test it and determine that it is blood. But
17:50
Speaker 1: if you see what appears to be blood at a scene,
17:53
Speaker 1: and you couple that with anything that you might find
17:55
Speaker 1: in another location like broken or turned over furniture, certainly
17:59
Speaker 1: any kind of item that might have specific evidence on it,
18:05
Speaker 1: I think that a magistrate would probably be willing to
18:10
Speaker 1: issue that warrant and you can go in and you know,
18:13
Speaker 1: and you can go in and process the scene at
18:15
Speaker 1: that point in time, but yeah, you have to hold
18:18
Speaker 1: back because anything that you do absent a warrant, you're
18:23
Speaker 1: really running the risk of that being thrown out from
18:27
Speaker 1: an evidentiary standpoint. And if that pe and you never know, Dave,
18:31
Speaker 1: what is actually going to be critical to proving the
18:34
Speaker 1: case or disproving the case with any type of item.
18:40
Speaker 1: Let's say that you have some kind of instrument that
18:45
Speaker 1: might create a particular pattern. Okay, if you discover that
18:50
Speaker 1: instrument and you don't expressly have permission to do that,
18:57
Speaker 1: or the warrant is written inappropriately, or whatever the case
19:00
Speaker 1: might be, then did you know that that item can't
19:04
Speaker 1: be included as part of the evidence. And so you
19:08
Speaker 1: have to That's why they're very very careful about these
19:10
Speaker 1: things because for so many years, you know, people would
19:16
Speaker 1: just they would go in to a scene and you know,
19:21
Speaker 1: with their hair on fire and not not show up
19:25
Speaker 1: with the appropriate documentation relative to a warrant, and a
19:29
Speaker 1: lot of stuff winds up being excluded, and if in
19:31
Speaker 1: fact it is excluded, then that huge building block for
19:36
Speaker 1: your case is blown at that moment in time, Dave,
19:40
Speaker 1: all right.
19:40
Speaker 2: And in this case, when they when they get the
19:46
Speaker 2: search warrant and they go in, they're able to get
19:49
Speaker 2: past the open the living area where they didn't see anything.
19:52
Speaker 2: They're able to get into the apartment, and it's when
19:56
Speaker 2: they get to the bedroom that they realize, Okay, we
20:00
Speaker 2: got a problem. We have a major problem. I remember
20:04
Speaker 2: Sean go By, Rachel and Rachel Sheridan and Shaan Goh
20:08
Speaker 2: lived together in this apartment, and he has been arrested
20:13
Speaker 2: and is at jail on other charges, not to do
20:17
Speaker 2: with this particular case of Rachel at the time. Remember
20:19
Speaker 2: he was in her car. And so it's the next
20:23
Speaker 2: morning he's in jail, and they've gone into the apartment
20:27
Speaker 2: and they find in the master in the bedroom that
20:30
Speaker 2: they share, that something has occurred. They see signs of struggle,
20:35
Speaker 2: they see signs that point to a bloody fight. Yeah,
20:40
Speaker 2: in the bedroom. And it's from that point on and
20:44
Speaker 2: this is my I was curious about this because how
20:46
Speaker 2: far did they go? We people bleed, a bloody knows
20:50
Speaker 2: can cause a lot of issues. I'm also clumsy. I
20:54
Speaker 2: tend to trip and fall so if something is knocked over,
20:58
Speaker 2: if there's a little blood, you could explain that. But
21:03
Speaker 2: we have a violent man in jail and we can't
21:06
Speaker 2: find his living girlfriend, and so where do you go
21:11
Speaker 2: from here?
21:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the blood can be easily explained by any
21:15
Speaker 1: defense attorney. We've heard this over and over relative to DNA,
21:17
Speaker 1: because if you're domiciled there, it's not unreasonable to expect
21:22
Speaker 1: to be able to find blood that has issued forth
21:27
Speaker 1: from one of the occupants that's that's also you know,
21:32
Speaker 1: domiciled there, so and that can be explained away. Yeah,
21:35
Speaker 1: I felt, you know, like you said, I tripped, I
21:37
Speaker 1: hit my head, all right, that explains the blood that's there.
21:40
Speaker 1: Or yeah, you know, when you're thinking about Rachel, maybe
21:45
Speaker 1: Rachel had a bloody nose. I don't know about you.
21:48
Speaker 1: I'm prone to bloody noses. You know. I can be
21:50
Speaker 1: sitting in church and all of a sudden, I feel
21:52
Speaker 1: that warmth, you know, beginning to run down my lip
21:58
Speaker 1: and it just spontaneously happened. Well, any attorney worth their
22:02
Speaker 1: salt can make that argument, you know, if you find
22:05
Speaker 1: but when you have this kind of dynamic event that
22:08
Speaker 1: has occurred inside of the dwelling, particularly in the bedroom,
22:12
Speaker 1: this very intimate space, and you've got there's a level
22:17
Speaker 1: of reasonableness that comes into this. So if you've got
22:22
Speaker 1: you don't expect, say, cast off blood from an instrument
22:28
Speaker 1: to be on the walls. If you have a bloody nose, okay,
22:32
Speaker 1: you don't expect to be to find a mattress that
22:35
Speaker 1: is super saturated with blood, or sheets and towels and
22:40
Speaker 1: all these sorts of things and you know, maybe soaked
22:42
Speaker 1: into carpet or onto the hardwood floor. And the patterns
22:47
Speaker 1: themselves showed that this was a dynamic event with movement
22:51
Speaker 1: and deposition and all these sorts of things that have
22:54
Speaker 1: a certain level of velocity. You know, back to the
22:57
Speaker 1: example of a bloody nose, if someone standing there passively,
23:01
Speaker 1: and that's a passive stain where it's just kind of
23:03
Speaker 1: free falling through the air and it drops onto the ground.
23:08
Speaker 1: It's kind of a classic droplet that you would think
23:11
Speaker 1: that drops straight down and there's not much dynamicism to it.
23:17
Speaker 1: You can have actually maybe multiple of those spots, but
23:21
Speaker 1: you're not going to have it in this kind of
23:24
Speaker 1: an elliptical pattern that occurs with a little tail on it.
23:28
Speaker 1: You know, where it's cast off and those sorts of things,
23:31
Speaker 1: So you have a reasonable expectation that you would find
23:35
Speaker 1: blood there. But in an environment like this, if you've
23:39
Speaker 1: got multiple locations where blood has been shed, this is
23:42
Speaker 1: gonna you know, this is going to give rise to
23:45
Speaker 1: this idea that an attack probably occurred in this environment.
23:49
Speaker 1: But you know, Daved, the thing about it is is
23:51
Speaker 1: that still, even though you have this evidence that's there,
23:58
Speaker 1: you don't have a body. And that's a problem. And
24:04
Speaker 1: yet the moment you don't have a body, and that's
24:08
Speaker 1: the rub, you know, you think about, you know, the
24:11
Speaker 1: absence of in what a chill because if you're a
24:15
Speaker 1: police officer, you're still thinking that if if there is
24:22
Speaker 1: blood and there's no body, maybe there's a chance she's
24:26
Speaker 1: still alive. Maybe there's a chance we can find her.
24:31
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, you know, in this case, that's that's not
24:35
Speaker 1: necessarily true.
24:36
Speaker 2: Dave Wow, Well, you know they're looking for Rachel Sheridan,
24:42
Speaker 2: her living boyfriend is sitting filling his heels in jail.
24:47
Speaker 2: They find blood in a mess in the bedroom and
24:51
Speaker 2: then they get the sanitation workers at nine point thirty
24:53
Speaker 2: that morning, they call nine to one one found a body.
24:57
Speaker 2: Now they did not do a whole lot to look
25:00
Speaker 2: at the body. They found a body and stopped, which
25:02
Speaker 2: is incredible. I don't I wonder when I saw this,
25:07
Speaker 2: I wonder how many times people have found a body
25:10
Speaker 2: and immediately started poking around at it versus stopping everything
25:14
Speaker 2: and calling nine on one.
25:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I've had, I've had. I've had multiple
25:22
Speaker 1: scenarios that have occurred. I've actually had civilians that have
25:25
Speaker 1: come over. I've actually had civilians to do this with
25:27
Speaker 1: decomposed bodies where and don't ask me what compels them
25:33
Speaker 1: to do this, because when you're around a decomposed body,
25:37
Speaker 1: it's most of the time it's one of the most
25:38
Speaker 1: important things you can you know that you can encounter
25:41
Speaker 1: in life. I've had civilians that have encountered bodies like
25:44
Speaker 1: that and they they roll the body over, whereas I've
25:50
Speaker 1: had I remember, in particular, I had an autoerotic case
25:54
Speaker 1: with a gentleman that had hung himself on a door,
25:57
Speaker 1: on a door hinge with a dog. Call nude in
26:01
Speaker 1: a microtel if you're familiar with those, and the little
26:07
Speaker 1: lady that was that was the housekeeper. She came to
26:12
Speaker 1: the door and she had just arrived here in the country.
26:17
Speaker 1: I think she was from Guatemala, if I'm not mistaken.
26:20
Speaker 1: She couldn't speak English. She's pushing her cart up and
26:24
Speaker 1: down the hall day and opens the door, and this
26:26
Speaker 1: nude guy hanging by a dog collar with his hands
26:29
Speaker 1: tied is literally staring her in the face. And Dave,
26:32
Speaker 1: when I got there, she the way she had alerted
26:37
Speaker 1: that she had found the body was her screaming, and
26:39
Speaker 1: she was sitting this poor this poor lady was sitting
26:42
Speaker 1: on the floor clutching her rosary with her knees pulled
26:44
Speaker 1: into her chest, doing Hail Mary's in Spanish. And she
26:50
Speaker 1: was terrified. So you never know what anybody's reaction is
26:54
Speaker 1: going to be, you know, when it runs the gamut,
26:57
Speaker 1: you know, just like deaths run the gamut, you don't
26:59
Speaker 1: know which going to find. But if you're a sanitation worker,
27:03
Speaker 1: you come across some pretty disgusting things, as you can imagine,
27:07
Speaker 1: as there's probably stuff that you and I could never fathom.
27:11
Speaker 1: You know that those people encounter out there in the
27:14
Speaker 1: streets of things that we throw away that they go
27:16
Speaker 1: out and collect. And it's interesting how that initial contact
27:23
Speaker 1: might very well impact the case or affect the position
27:27
Speaker 1: of the body so that we don't necessarily appreciate it
27:31
Speaker 1: in its pristine condition. But I can tell you this,
27:35
Speaker 1: when they finally alerted the police in regards to this
27:42
Speaker 1: young woman's body, they didn't touch it. They called and
27:47
Speaker 1: what they discovered when the my got out there was horrific.
28:07
Speaker 1: Sean Go, this person that I would assume, at one
28:12
Speaker 1: point in time, professed, you know, professed his love for
28:19
Speaker 1: Rachel Sharonan told her that he cared about her, told
28:24
Speaker 1: her he would take care of her. And you know,
28:29
Speaker 1: you know who knows, you know, with these domestic cases
28:32
Speaker 1: that we catch like this, Dave, nobody knows anybody. You
28:37
Speaker 1: never know the level of violence that anyone is particularly
28:41
Speaker 1: capable of because you don't know what their you know,
28:46
Speaker 1: psychological history is, you don't know what their criminal history is.
28:49
Speaker 1: But Dave, I got to tell you. With Shaun Go,
28:51
Speaker 1: he he had he had a reputation as a bad seed,
28:58
Speaker 1: if you will, bad seed. Now that's a dated comment.
29:02
Speaker 1: You know. Also luck to use the term good egg
29:06
Speaker 1: every now and then too. Just go with me.
29:09
Speaker 2: She was a bad egg. Another reference to Jane Wilder.
29:12
Speaker 1: Yep, there you go, the egdicator.
29:14
Speaker 2: So in this particular case with Sean Goh, as I
29:17
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, as soon as police saw him, as they're
29:20
Speaker 2: standing outside the apartment trying to find the very beginning
29:24
Speaker 2: part doing their welfare check on Rachel, they see Sean
29:29
Speaker 2: in her vehicle and they give chase. He takes off
29:32
Speaker 2: in bolts. They get him locked up. And this isn't
29:35
Speaker 2: the first contact that Sean Goh has had with police.
29:38
Speaker 2: At the time he's arrested, he was wanted on a
29:42
Speaker 2: number of different issues. He allegedly stole a handgun from
29:48
Speaker 2: a residence in the North Canton area a couple of
29:53
Speaker 2: months before Rachel goes missing. He had physically threatened Rachel
29:59
Speaker 2: in the and friends and family knew about these threats
30:03
Speaker 2: because he didn't just make a threat and that was it.
30:07
Speaker 2: He made threats and he actually punctured. The actual stories
30:12
Speaker 2: is cut holes in her tires. Now that I'm always
30:15
Speaker 2: picturing a puncture, you know, like with a knife or
30:17
Speaker 2: a screwdriver or something, but cutting holes in her tires
30:21
Speaker 2: seems to take it to a different level. It's a
30:23
Speaker 2: different phrase than I've ever heard, but.
30:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. That means that you're jamming. You're probably
30:28
Speaker 1: jamming a sharp instrument in there. And I'm not talking
30:30
Speaker 1: about like a piece of rebar. I'm talking about like
30:32
Speaker 1: a knife, and you're going, you're you're carving the tires,
30:36
Speaker 1: is what it comes down to.
30:37
Speaker 2: Now, going into the sidewall. So the tire cannot be repaired.
30:39
Speaker 2: It will have to be replaced, which is a lot
30:41
Speaker 2: more expensive. Ten bucks to patch a tire hole versus
30:44
Speaker 2: you know, one hundred dollars for a whole tire.
30:46
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, and that's if you get a low
30:48
Speaker 1: end tire. Right. And you know, this couple is unmarried,
30:52
Speaker 1: they're living in an apartment together. She's driving a cheap liberty.
30:56
Speaker 1: She doesn't strike me as somebody that's got a ton
30:58
Speaker 1: of money. So when you strike out at her like this,
31:01
Speaker 1: it's not just it's not just a violence that's implied.
31:05
Speaker 1: It's also it puts a financial burden on her. He
31:08
Speaker 1: would have known that because yeah, they yeah, absolutely, And
31:12
Speaker 1: you never know what's going to set him off at
31:15
Speaker 1: any particular time, what button is going to be pressed.
31:20
Speaker 1: And you get somebody that has a history of violence,
31:23
Speaker 1: I mean it violence extends for me, when you go
31:28
Speaker 1: to someone's home and you actually steal a weapon, that's
31:33
Speaker 1: that has that has a flavor of violence to it
31:38
Speaker 1: in that environment, even if you don't have physical contact
31:40
Speaker 1: or you're not threatening, you know, what's your purpose to
31:43
Speaker 1: specifically go to a location and steal a gun and
31:47
Speaker 1: then you have this action with the tires. I can understand, Dave,
31:52
Speaker 1: I can understand why her mother would have been terrified.
31:57
Speaker 1: Can you imagine? I bet there are so many times
31:59
Speaker 1: she had probably spoken with her and this, this again
32:02
Speaker 1: is a thread. I worry about you, darling. Please is
32:06
Speaker 1: you know, can you break away from him? And you
32:08
Speaker 1: never know what the dynamic is is somebody saying, you know,
32:12
Speaker 1: oh I love him, He's going to change all this.
32:14
Speaker 1: They never changed, Dave. They don't. It's it's it's the
32:18
Speaker 1: same story over and over and over again, and you
32:21
Speaker 1: wind up with something that winds up in this horror
32:25
Speaker 1: this horror show that that's eventually discovered.
32:28
Speaker 2: Just remember, any guy that will hit a woman once
32:31
Speaker 2: is not going to stop at once.
32:33
Speaker 1: No.
32:33
Speaker 2: So here we have the sanitation workers called nine one one,
32:38
Speaker 2: Rachel Sheridan's body. They find her at nine thirty or
32:42
Speaker 2: that's when they call. So we know we have the day,
32:44
Speaker 2: the moment of discovery. But we don't know exactly how
32:48
Speaker 2: long she has been dead because we don't know other
32:54
Speaker 2: than the welfare check call. We know that police recall
33:00
Speaker 2: specific time after she didn't show up for work, but
33:02
Speaker 2: we don't know right now. Can they determined based on
33:06
Speaker 2: the body they find at nine thirty in the morning,
33:09
Speaker 2: can they go back in time and figure out approximate
33:12
Speaker 2: time of death?
33:13
Speaker 1: Joe, Yeah, and I And just to give you a
33:16
Speaker 1: little insight, you know, when they first rolled up on
33:21
Speaker 1: this case at the home they the police had shown
33:27
Speaker 1: up I think on July the second, at about twelve
33:29
Speaker 1: thirty two pm, so you're going into the afternoon hours
33:35
Speaker 1: at this point in time. They were able to hook
33:37
Speaker 1: him up, you know, because he bolted, you know, while
33:39
Speaker 1: they were there initially. They actually found him on the third,
33:45
Speaker 1: and they got on this pretty quick. I don't know
33:48
Speaker 1: if they were able to track him somehow or you
33:50
Speaker 1: know where, if they were pinging his phone or what
33:53
Speaker 1: exactly happened they got it.
33:54
Speaker 2: I that was they got him at a homeless shelter.
33:57
Speaker 1: Right, And I'm talking about his movement relative to depositing
34:01
Speaker 1: Rachel's body, because they actually found her on July the third,
34:05
Speaker 1: so it was it was actually less than twenty four
34:09
Speaker 1: hours when they finally found her body. Yeah, it would be.
34:14
Speaker 1: She's going to be at the outer margins, Dave, as
34:17
Speaker 1: far as postmortem changes go, you know where we're looking
34:20
Speaker 1: for the rigidity to begin to release. Also, and this
34:25
Speaker 1: is in this is in July, Dave, And so it's
34:31
Speaker 1: gonna it'll be hotter. And as I've mentioned before, when
34:35
Speaker 1: it comes to obviously body temp and certainly riger mortis,
34:39
Speaker 1: those are going to be slightly accelerated. And when they
34:41
Speaker 1: find her, she's actually cocooned and plastic. So he's taken
34:47
Speaker 1: time to wrap her body up in plastic and has
34:53
Speaker 1: driven out to the Mother goose Land area and found
34:58
Speaker 1: a plastic track can not unlike you know what we
35:02
Speaker 1: have at our homes that we roll out to the
35:04
Speaker 1: street if you live in town, and you know, you
35:07
Speaker 1: put by the road and the garbage guys come by
35:09
Speaker 1: and pick it up, and you know, it was just
35:13
Speaker 1: the sanitation workers, you know that looked into the can
35:17
Speaker 1: and saw and can you imagine their horror, you know
35:20
Speaker 1: when they lift that lid up and they look inside
35:25
Speaker 1: and there's her body inside of this of a rubbish container.
35:32
Speaker 1: You know, the things that you discard. And I think
35:34
Speaker 1: that says a lot here, Dave. It speaks to potentially
35:38
Speaker 1: how he viewed her as as refuse, something to be
35:43
Speaker 1: thrown away, treated horribly, And there's it's fascinating to me,
35:50
Speaker 1: as horrific as this is. As horrific as this is
35:54
Speaker 1: when bodies are cocooned like this, for us in forensics,
35:59
Speaker 1: it's actually there's an upside to this. The upside is
36:04
Speaker 1: is that there's a containment of evidence that takes place.
36:07
Speaker 1: So anything that's on the body, you have the opportunity
36:12
Speaker 1: to retain that, and not just retain it. Here's the
36:18
Speaker 1: cool part. You actually keep it in place on the
36:23
Speaker 1: specific surfaces of the body if it's deepened, upon how
36:26
Speaker 1: it's secured. So let's just say you've got a you've
36:32
Speaker 1: got a bit of evidence, say a hair or something
36:35
Speaker 1: that's on the shoulder. If they're cocooned in this wrapping,
36:42
Speaker 1: you can still find that hair in place on the
36:44
Speaker 1: shoulder and it might give you an indication as to
36:49
Speaker 1: where his hands were on her or where his head
36:53
Speaker 1: was in relation to her body. Did he slough hair,
36:55
Speaker 1: did it fall off of his head onto her bloody handprint?
37:00
Speaker 1: That may transfer to her clothes because you know, you're
37:03
Speaker 1: having to manipulate dead weight here. If there's been a
37:06
Speaker 1: spillach of blood that's so significant, he can get blood
37:10
Speaker 1: on his hands, transfer those contact points to her shirt,
37:14
Speaker 1: maybe the cuffs of her pants, maybe to her bare legs.
37:18
Speaker 1: Drag her onto the sheeting, the plastic sheeting, wrap her
37:22
Speaker 1: up in it. The other thing that it protects, because
37:25
Speaker 1: plastic is a non poor surface, it protects latent prints, Dave.
37:30
Speaker 1: We've recovered latent prints off of plastic sheeting before. And
37:34
Speaker 1: then if there's blood involved, that's a different type of
37:38
Speaker 1: print from say, for instance, a latent print that's oil.
37:42
Speaker 1: That's the you know, generated from the oil in our fingertips.
37:45
Speaker 1: If he touches her body with the bare hands and
37:49
Speaker 1: he transfers his fingerprint onto that surface and it's the
37:54
Speaker 1: medium is actually blood, that's a different type of print
37:57
Speaker 1: that can be recovered. So the fact that her body
38:01
Speaker 1: is cocooned, even though it's in this filthy rubbish container,
38:05
Speaker 1: she's kind of protected in that sense. But that's not
38:09
Speaker 1: really what turned this case, Dave.
38:11
Speaker 2: Is it they're able to determine police say that you
38:14
Speaker 2: know she was attacked in the bedroom and then her
38:18
Speaker 2: body was drug and placed and the damage, the wounds
38:25
Speaker 2: were inflicted about her head, yeah, for the most part.
38:29
Speaker 2: And they said she was beaten with an object. And
38:34
Speaker 2: they're only willing they being police and the medical examiner.
38:38
Speaker 2: They're only about to go as far as saying that
38:41
Speaker 2: she was hit with a hammer at least once. And
38:45
Speaker 2: I find that to be an odd comment. There was
38:49
Speaker 2: only of all the battering that was going on, Yeah,
38:52
Speaker 2: one was obviously a hammer.
38:56
Speaker 1: They weren't all right, so if and they also believe,
39:02
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, that she was probably asleep when
39:06
Speaker 1: this occurred. Sorry, Yeah, and no, that's a significant point.
39:11
Speaker 1: So this coward waits until this diminutive and she is diminutive, Dave,
39:21
Speaker 1: a young woman is asleep and he begins to essentially
39:27
Speaker 1: wail on her. It's not surprising that they're identifying a
39:32
Speaker 1: single hammer strike here. They found a hammer at the scene.
39:38
Speaker 1: But you know, this is not something that is well
39:45
Speaker 1: thought out. This is very frenzied. They were able to
39:49
Speaker 1: delineate that she had been struck, that she had ten
39:54
Speaker 1: specific injuries that apparently are all blunt force trauma, and
40:02
Speaker 1: this coward could have potentially have shown up with a hammer,
40:07
Speaker 1: or he could have beaten her in her sleep with
40:10
Speaker 1: his fist, striking her all about her head, and then
40:17
Speaker 1: he goes and gets a hammer, and she's so she's
40:23
Speaker 1: so wrung out. I mean, just imagine if you're awakened
40:28
Speaker 1: from a dead sleep, and I know you can imagine this,
40:32
Speaker 1: if you have kids, you can imagine this. You're slumbering,
40:35
Speaker 1: you finally lay your head on the pillow, and suddenly
40:38
Speaker 1: there's a scream that lets out in the middle of
40:40
Speaker 1: the night in your house. You're completely diswarriented. How much
40:43
Speaker 1: more so with her if she doesn't see this incoming
40:48
Speaker 1: and she's attacked in her bedroom like this, And I
40:52
Speaker 1: guess the you know, the coup de gras is going
40:55
Speaker 1: to be to take a hammer and have this single
40:57
Speaker 1: hammer strike. The way they were able to delineate this
41:06
Speaker 1: specific injury away from the others, and I'm not saying
41:09
Speaker 1: that the others could not be hammer strikes, because hammer
41:12
Speaker 1: can be held in any number of ways. And this was,
41:16
Speaker 1: by the way, a claw hammer, which means it's got
41:19
Speaker 1: a nail extractor on the back of it with the
41:20
Speaker 1: two prongs. The very common hammer that we see and
41:23
Speaker 1: that most of us own. This is actually the blunt
41:27
Speaker 1: and end, the leading edge that she's struck with, and
41:30
Speaker 1: hammer strikes are very specific when you see them in
41:35
Speaker 1: the morgue. When we're doing these examinations, what would happen
41:39
Speaker 1: is her head would be probably completely shaved at autopsy
41:45
Speaker 1: because it's impossible to appreciate all of the injuries. And
41:50
Speaker 1: so when a body is when you have head strikes
41:54
Speaker 1: like this with women in particular, because women commonly have
41:59
Speaker 1: more hair than guys do, we actually shaved their heads
42:04
Speaker 1: at autopsy.
42:05
Speaker 2: I got to ask you something, Joe, and maybe this
42:07
Speaker 2: seems silly and no, but would you have to ask
42:12
Speaker 2: the family about that?
42:14
Speaker 1: No? No, I've had that question asking me before. This
42:18
Speaker 1: is a search. No, we'll tell the funeral director, okay,
42:23
Speaker 1: and the funeral director generally will. Now we've had families
42:27
Speaker 1: that will ask the question, you know, why did you
42:30
Speaker 1: do this? And here's the sole reason where it's an
42:36
Speaker 1: evidentary search. You know, you're you're trying to assess the family.
42:40
Speaker 1: I think you know as time goes by, because they
42:44
Speaker 1: probably can't have an open casket. And there have been
42:47
Speaker 1: times where we've had these really traumatic events where I've
42:50
Speaker 1: seen them get wigs, and funeral homes are good about
42:54
Speaker 1: doing that. Hats. People will put hats on individuals and
43:01
Speaker 1: if they're going to have a viewing. But your sole
43:04
Speaker 1: purpose here is I'll put it to you this way, knowing,
43:08
Speaker 1: and I don't want to put words into this precious
43:13
Speaker 1: woman's mother's mouth. But would you rather her head be
43:19
Speaker 1: shaved and us appropriately assess these insults to her head?
43:26
Speaker 1: Or do you want to run the risk of having
43:28
Speaker 1: an incomplete assessment? And this guy's back on the streets.
43:33
Speaker 1: You know, I know which one I'm going to pick,
43:35
Speaker 1: and because I want I want every I want every
43:38
Speaker 1: ounce of retribution that I can get if I'm a
43:45
Speaker 1: parent here. And so when we shave the head, and
43:48
Speaker 1: sometimes we'll do it selectively, we were very very careful though,
43:52
Speaker 1: and the more because and these are hard and this
43:56
Speaker 1: is one of the problems to run into. You'll see,
44:00
Speaker 1: like when you get a hammer strike, you'll actually have
44:03
Speaker 1: an abrasion, Okay that you have to pay real close
44:06
Speaker 1: attention to to see because it's so ghastly, because you'll
44:09
Speaker 1: have a laceration. Many times that occurs. So you've got
44:12
Speaker 1: two things happening. That top layer of skin is abraided
44:18
Speaker 1: and you'll see the little margins of it because the
44:20
Speaker 1: skin is rubbed because it's coming in contact with this
44:23
Speaker 1: metal object. Then the skin will split. Okay, sometimes on
44:28
Speaker 1: the skin you can see the pattern like a it'll
44:32
Speaker 1: look like a quarter almost if it's a flush strike.
44:36
Speaker 1: Then depended upon the level of force, and I've seen
44:39
Speaker 1: this happen. When you get below that layer of the
44:43
Speaker 1: scalp and you get onto what's referred to as the
44:46
Speaker 1: external table of skull, you'll see a plug of bone
44:49
Speaker 1: day that's also shaped like a quarter, and it's depressed,
44:53
Speaker 1: which means the bone actually sinks in to criminal vault
44:58
Speaker 1: at that point in time, and you know, impacts the
45:00
Speaker 1: brain directly and it'll you know, many times the bone
45:04
Speaker 1: will fragment and the little shards of bone will go
45:07
Speaker 1: into the brain. That's incompatible with life. Not to mention,
45:10
Speaker 1: you know, just a concussive event of this that leads
45:13
Speaker 1: to death. The question is was he striking her with
45:16
Speaker 1: a fist beforehand he had the hammer at the ready
45:19
Speaker 1: and then used it, or was he holding the hammer
45:22
Speaker 1: in a way that you couldn't really tell if it
45:24
Speaker 1: was a hammer strike or not, Like if it's on
45:26
Speaker 1: the one of the edges, for instance. I don't see
45:31
Speaker 1: that happening, because even if you strike somebody with the
45:33
Speaker 1: edge of a hammer, you're gonna have these kind of
45:35
Speaker 1: linear marks that occur on the soft tissue either way.
45:40
Speaker 1: Either way, they were able to determine that she did
45:44
Speaker 1: die as a result of blunt force trauma. And thankfully,
45:50
Speaker 1: very very thankfully, Sean Go is no longer among the
45:58
Speaker 1: land of the free. He's now been convicted and now
46:05
Speaker 1: he's awaiting sentencing. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
46:12
Speaker 1: Body Backs.