Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Two Linked Lives - The Heartbreaking Story of Reagan Simmons Hancock

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Two Linked Lives - The Heartbreaking Story of Reagan Simmons Hancock · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. There are certain days in
0:20
Speaker 1: your life that mark you, and for me those days
0:25
Speaker 1: were the birth of my kids and also the birth
0:29
Speaker 1: of my grandchildren. I'll never forget it as long as
0:31
Speaker 1: I live, because you know, people, it's it's kind of
0:34
Speaker 1: wrote to say it, I know, but it is truly
0:37
Speaker 1: a miracle when you're there in year you watch this happen,
0:41
Speaker 1: this thing that just occurs and brings life into the world,
0:46
Speaker 1: and it's so beautiful, and it's something that you never forget,
0:49
Speaker 1: at least from me. I'll never forget it until my
0:52
Speaker 1: dying day. Look, today we're going to talk about a
0:57
Speaker 1: case involving a young mother and a baby who never
1:05
Speaker 1: had a chance in life. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
1:10
Speaker 1: this is Bodybags. Joining me is Jackie Howard, executive producer,
1:21
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Jackie, I don't know, probably
1:27
Speaker 1: for me as a death investigator, if there were any
1:31
Speaker 1: sadder cases than those involving kids and particularly babies. It
1:36
Speaker 1: just it hurts your heart, It bruises you. It's something
1:38
Speaker 1: that you carry with you for the rest of your life.
1:40
Speaker 1: And the case that we're going to be discussing today,
1:43
Speaker 1: is such a case like that that I don't know
1:46
Speaker 1: that anyone could ever get over this, beyond it, past it,
1:51
Speaker 1: and certainly never forget it. No, Joe, And I think
1:54
Speaker 1: for me, what made this case as bad as it was,
1:58
Speaker 1: what made it one degree work, is that the young
2:01
Speaker 1: lady who died, her mother was the one who found
2:05
Speaker 1: her body. Reagan Simmons Handcock, was found lying face down
2:10
Speaker 1: in her bloody living room, and according to the police,
2:13
Speaker 1: there was blood throughout the house. Now, this woman was
2:18
Speaker 1: seven and a half, nearly eight months pregnant with her
2:21
Speaker 1: second child. And keep the mind again that there was
2:24
Speaker 1: blood everywhere in the house, on the floors, on the walls,
2:28
Speaker 1: on the furniture, on the appliances, and other items throughout
2:32
Speaker 1: the house. And we discussed this case with someone else
2:35
Speaker 1: the other day and the comment was made, you know
2:38
Speaker 1: how horrific it was because you don't keep your toaster
2:42
Speaker 1: in the living room. So she was found in the
2:45
Speaker 1: living room, yet there was blood on the toaster in
2:48
Speaker 1: the kitchen. Reagan Handcock Simmons was stabbed and her baby,
2:55
Speaker 1: her nearly eight month fetus, was cut from her womb,
3:00
Speaker 1: and her mother made the nine one one call around
3:03
Speaker 1: ten thirty on a Friday morning in October, having found
3:08
Speaker 1: her daughter lying face down in the living room. It's
3:11
Speaker 1: one of those things I'm glad you brought up a
3:13
Speaker 1: point by blood because it's part and parcel of what
3:16
Speaker 1: we do is death investigators. It's one of the first
3:19
Speaker 1: things that people think about from an evidentiary standpoint, because
3:22
Speaker 1: the spilling of blood is evidence that something horrible has happened,
3:26
Speaker 1: that there's a sickness, or that there was some type
3:29
Speaker 1: of event that brought about at least from the smallest
3:33
Speaker 1: blood droplet to just a vast amount of blood where
3:36
Speaker 1: it looks like a room sometimes it's just been bathed
3:40
Speaker 1: in it, and you have to be able to look
3:44
Speaker 1: past the horror of that and try to get down
3:48
Speaker 1: to business and try to understand the dynamics of the
3:51
Speaker 1: blood flow, dynamics of the staining of the blood that's
3:55
Speaker 1: left behind, and what does the blood trying to tell you.
4:00
Speaker 1: It's quite something when you think about it and that
4:02
Speaker 1: transfer of the blood and you get an idea of
4:06
Speaker 1: what had happened to both the victim and potentially a
4:09
Speaker 1: perpetrator because they're contacting various surfaces. You know, you brought
4:13
Speaker 1: up this point about the toaster. How in Heaven's name
4:17
Speaker 1: does a toaster have a transfer or contact blood stain
4:21
Speaker 1: on the surface of it? And it's just not something
4:24
Speaker 1: that is compatible with logical thought. And it goes back
4:28
Speaker 1: to the premise that I've always said here on body backs,
4:31
Speaker 1: and that is that we as death investigators are always
4:34
Speaker 1: having a view the abnormal in the context of the normal,
4:37
Speaker 1: and sometimes things just don't make sense. Speaking of that,
4:42
Speaker 1: I have two questions for you. The first thing you
4:45
Speaker 1: have to consider is, we know we have a finite
4:48
Speaker 1: amount of blood in our body, so how much is
4:51
Speaker 1: there for it to be everywhere? And we know that
4:53
Speaker 1: it smears and runs and pools. But to make another analogy,
5:00
Speaker 1: let's liken this to an arson scene. How do you
5:03
Speaker 1: find ground zero? How do you find the burn point? So,
5:06
Speaker 1: with blood everywhere, how do you figure out where the
5:10
Speaker 1: murder actually occurred? Well, let's go back to your first question,
5:14
Speaker 1: and it's certainly a great question. People want to know
5:17
Speaker 1: how much blood is in a person, you know, just
5:20
Speaker 1: up and walking around. And the answer is variable, and
5:23
Speaker 1: a lot of it depends upon the size and the
5:26
Speaker 1: level of a physical maturity. If you're talking about a child.
5:29
Speaker 1: Obviously a child is not going to have as much
5:31
Speaker 1: as a full grown adult. And then you know a
5:34
Speaker 1: more diminutive full grown adult is not going to have
5:36
Speaker 1: as much as a rather robust individual. You know, if
5:39
Speaker 1: you begin to think and toy around with the idea,
5:42
Speaker 1: so maybe about two gallons of blood and your body,
5:44
Speaker 1: that gives you an idea of how much blood is
5:46
Speaker 1: floating around, and again that that number is greatly, wildly
5:49
Speaker 1: variable when there is a blood letting or a spillage
5:54
Speaker 1: of blood. The primary you drew the comparison between that
5:59
Speaker 1: an Arson case and Jackie. I don't think I've ever
6:01
Speaker 1: heard anybody do that, but actually it's really cool, you know,
6:04
Speaker 1: because in Arson we think about things like points of origin,
6:08
Speaker 1: and with blood it can in fact be the same
6:12
Speaker 1: where first off, the initial attack may have taken place
6:16
Speaker 1: where you're going to have cast off blood. There's kind
6:18
Speaker 1: of a dynamic flow. You might have what's called arterial
6:21
Speaker 1: spray if you cut a vessel, and you'll have that
6:25
Speaker 1: kind of immediate pumping out of blood. And then a
6:27
Speaker 1: person might say, for instance, after initially being injured, runaway
6:31
Speaker 1: or attempt to escape, and then you'll have these kind
6:33
Speaker 1: of droplets that are falling away passively off of the
6:36
Speaker 1: body as they're tracking through it, and the person's footprints
6:40
Speaker 1: might be tracking through it along with the perpetrators that's
6:43
Speaker 1: certainly chasing them. And then finally, the location of where
6:47
Speaker 1: they come to rest, if they're viable, is where they're
6:50
Speaker 1: going to pump out. And many times you see that
6:52
Speaker 1: at those locations. And you know case I'm thinking about famously,
6:56
Speaker 1: and I hate mentioned the name of Jodi Arius. When
6:58
Speaker 1: you go back to that case, Travis Alexander's body where
7:01
Speaker 1: he came to rest, you had that copious amount of
7:04
Speaker 1: blood where she cut his throat and that final desperate
7:08
Speaker 1: moments and then the carpet was super saturated. Well, the
7:12
Speaker 1: attack had occurred back down the hall in a bathroom.
7:16
Speaker 1: But in a case like this, you've got a lot
7:19
Speaker 1: of activity that's going on in this particular case, in
7:22
Speaker 1: the ideas to try to find out what the dynamic is,
7:25
Speaker 1: the points of origin from the body, what caused the injury,
7:29
Speaker 1: because in this particular case, we've got a young mother
7:35
Speaker 1: to be that has been stabbed over a hundred times.
7:41
Speaker 1: Let that sink in over a hundred times, and not
7:43
Speaker 1: just that she's been bludgend as well. One of the
7:47
Speaker 1: facts in this case is that a hammer was used
7:50
Speaker 1: on this poor woman. What can a hammer do to
7:54
Speaker 1: a skull? When it comes to the death of Reagan,
7:57
Speaker 1: this is one of the more horrific things that I've
8:00
Speaker 1: come across in sometime. In addition to all of these
8:03
Speaker 1: sharp force injuries that she sustained, probably near a hundred,
8:07
Speaker 1: I guess, the fact is is that she was also
8:11
Speaker 1: beaten with a hammer. And when I say hammer, it's
8:15
Speaker 1: not simply the blunt end of the hammer. The medical
8:19
Speaker 1: examiner concluded that not only was she struck with kind
8:24
Speaker 1: of the flat coin shaped end of a hammer, but
8:28
Speaker 1: also the claw. So not only has Reagan been beaten
8:33
Speaker 1: with this hammer by the end that you would commonly
8:35
Speaker 1: associate with driving nails with, but this is a claw hammer.
8:40
Speaker 1: And according to the medical examiner, Reagan was also beaten
8:45
Speaker 1: with a claw as well. And these are going to
8:47
Speaker 1: be very distinctive injuries to her skull. So you're going
8:50
Speaker 1: to have this kind of underlying depressed skull fracture that
8:53
Speaker 1: you get with the end that you would commonly drive
8:55
Speaker 1: a nail with. Many times these injuries will will give
8:58
Speaker 1: the appearance of a kind of a quarter size shape,
9:05
Speaker 1: perfectly circular. It would marry up with that end of
9:08
Speaker 1: the hammer. But then you get these nasty blows that
9:12
Speaker 1: originate from the claw, and as you well know, the
9:14
Speaker 1: claws too pronged, and so those can fracture the skull
9:18
Speaker 1: as well. But those injuries appear completely different. They appear
9:21
Speaker 1: different on the surface of the scalp because they almost
9:24
Speaker 1: look like an incised injury. And then into the skull,
9:27
Speaker 1: you'll have these kind of grooves that are cut into
9:30
Speaker 1: the skull where this claw actually makes impact. And it
9:35
Speaker 1: is an absolutely brutal way to die because this hammer
9:40
Speaker 1: over and over again she struck five times, would have
9:42
Speaker 1: been driven deeper and deeper into her skull. Dependent upon
9:46
Speaker 1: where these strikes took place, you might have an instance
9:49
Speaker 1: where you have over lapping fractures and over lapping impacts,
9:54
Speaker 1: and so it would be a collection of injuries focalized
9:58
Speaker 1: in one specific area in her Her skull would have
10:01
Speaker 1: just been crushed. What I found really strange about this Joe.
10:05
Speaker 1: We know that the scalpel, or a scalpel rather, was
10:08
Speaker 1: removed from the woman's neck, even with the amount of
10:12
Speaker 1: blood that was found knowing that this young mother was stabbed.
10:16
Speaker 1: The stabs were not what killed her. The autopsy showed
10:20
Speaker 1: that handcock was strangled. How does that happen? Does that
10:25
Speaker 1: mean she was stabbed afterwards? In a lot of these cases,
10:28
Speaker 1: and look, we say this a lot, but in this
10:31
Speaker 1: particular case, when you have an individual that has this
10:34
Speaker 1: many stab wounds, what we refer to as StarForce injuries,
10:39
Speaker 1: those sites are whether or not they're going to be fatal,
10:43
Speaker 1: is heavily deepened upon the depth and if they're impacting
10:46
Speaker 1: any kind of underlying structures and like vital organs. If
10:49
Speaker 1: you've got to, say, for instance, a six inch long
10:52
Speaker 1: butcher knife, and you drive it into the chest just
10:56
Speaker 1: to the left of the sternum, well you're going to
11:00
Speaker 1: eventually drive that home if you have the strength, into
11:03
Speaker 1: the heart, and that's not instantaneous, but the individual's going
11:07
Speaker 1: to die pretty quickly. Whereas you have an individual that
11:10
Speaker 1: has cut multiple surfaces of the body, it's not necessarily
11:14
Speaker 1: going to bring about an instantaneous death. And there's another
11:17
Speaker 1: thing that happens here when you think about post mortal
11:20
Speaker 1: activity with an individual that is attacking somebody, what's the
11:25
Speaker 1: rationale for it. You know, why would you obviously be
11:28
Speaker 1: stabbing or cutting someone that's obviously dead. What's the motivation
11:32
Speaker 1: behind it? And again, for us in forensics forensics science
11:35
Speaker 1: in particular, that's not really the area that we're going
11:38
Speaker 1: to go down the road in, but we're going to
11:40
Speaker 1: make note of it because it is significant if a
11:42
Speaker 1: case like this finally goes to trial, because it's demonstrative
11:45
Speaker 1: of a bigger issue, and it's rare, you know, because
11:48
Speaker 1: we know that she was struck in the head, we
11:51
Speaker 1: know that she was stabbed all these times, and then
11:53
Speaker 1: you throw on top of this that there's some kind
11:56
Speaker 1: of asphyxial event that's going on. You want to say overkill.
12:00
Speaker 1: People love to throw that term around. This is I
12:03
Speaker 1: don't know that there's a finer example of overkill in
12:07
Speaker 1: a case than what Reagan had to endure in this.
12:10
Speaker 1: I know that she endured something. She had an awareness
12:13
Speaker 1: because her pain centers are being struck. You know, you
12:16
Speaker 1: can imagine it goes back to you know that old
12:18
Speaker 1: adage about death by a thousand cuts. It's not necessarily
12:22
Speaker 1: that you're going to die instentaneously by being stabbed or cut.
12:25
Speaker 1: It's the totality and that's the term that we use
12:28
Speaker 1: frequently in forensics, the totality of the injuries that she sustained,
12:33
Speaker 1: and then you couple that with specific anatomical locations in
12:37
Speaker 1: the body. What structures did these cuts impact beneath the surface?
12:41
Speaker 1: Did they get down into major vessels where any of
12:46
Speaker 1: her organs actually struck where she would begin to bleed
12:49
Speaker 1: out internally? And again those are questions that would certainly
12:52
Speaker 1: be answered in the morgue. But again, it wasn't the
12:56
Speaker 1: stabbing that killed her. She was strangled. So her fight
13:01
Speaker 1: or flight mechanism is both hindered and enhanced because she
13:05
Speaker 1: obviously wants to protect her baby, but her body can't
13:10
Speaker 1: move like she would if she wasn't nearly eight months pregnant.
13:15
Speaker 1: All of us have seen women in the advanced stages
13:18
Speaker 1: of pregnancy. I certainly add with my wife, and you
13:21
Speaker 1: know that the longer you go, the more inhibited you
13:24
Speaker 1: are physically. There's a certain things. Your backsache, and you're
13:28
Speaker 1: constantly tired, you know, because you're carrying for two, you're
13:31
Speaker 1: eating for two, you're ambulating for two, you're sleeping for two,
13:34
Speaker 1: and so you're already drained. Any attempt to forward an attack,
13:39
Speaker 1: and she's literally running on adrenaline at this point in time.
13:43
Speaker 1: Her body is not at the same level of peak
13:46
Speaker 1: performance as it would have been in life when she
13:48
Speaker 1: was not pregnant. She may have been able to fend
13:51
Speaker 1: off somebody that was smaller than her, for instance, But
13:54
Speaker 1: in a case like this, where you've got this young
13:56
Speaker 1: mother that is seven and a half months down the
13:59
Speaker 1: road in a pregnancy, she's going to be so diminished
14:02
Speaker 1: that she's not going to be able to fight off
14:04
Speaker 1: an attacker. She's just not physically, she's changed metabolically. She
14:08
Speaker 1: doesn't have the energy and the strength to continue on.
14:11
Speaker 1: But this is the one thing that I can say.
14:14
Speaker 1: It sounds as though to me at least, that she fought,
14:19
Speaker 1: and she fought to the point where the attacker felt
14:22
Speaker 1: the need to injure her. This many times, and certainly
14:27
Speaker 1: in these various modes where we've got an asphyxial event,
14:31
Speaker 1: we've got a bludgeoning or blunt force trauma event, and
14:35
Speaker 1: we've got short force injuries. In my office, I've actually
14:57
Speaker 1: got a scalpel handled, and it's not just any scalpel handle.
15:01
Speaker 1: It is actually the first scalpel handler that I ever used.
15:05
Speaker 1: In performing an autopsy, and the pathologist that I was
15:08
Speaker 1: working with, he gave it to me and he said,
15:10
Speaker 1: you'll want to have this someday you'll remember it. And
15:13
Speaker 1: I do, and I have it there probably displayed on
15:16
Speaker 1: my shelf in my office at the university. And the
15:20
Speaker 1: reason I bring that up is that in this case,
15:23
Speaker 1: there is an instrument involved in this homicide that, to
15:28
Speaker 1: my recollection, the best of my recollection, I've never heard
15:31
Speaker 1: of before, and that is whoever did this brought a
15:35
Speaker 1: scalpel in order to facilitate Reagan's death and concurrently removal
15:44
Speaker 1: of her unborn baby. The first question that popped into
15:48
Speaker 1: my mind as you were talking, Joe, is where did
15:51
Speaker 1: she get a scalpel? I mean, this is everybody thinks, oh,
15:54
Speaker 1: it's a sharp knife, but I mean the scalpel is
15:56
Speaker 1: a very precise, very specific instrument. And it's not like
16:00
Speaker 1: you can go down to the you know, to the
16:02
Speaker 1: drug store buy one, is it. No. I don't think
16:04
Speaker 1: that you can assume that there are some places medical
16:08
Speaker 1: supply houses and there are surgical supply locations, and I
16:11
Speaker 1: don't think that they necessarily have to have a justification
16:14
Speaker 1: for you to purchase these and keep in mind, I'm
16:16
Speaker 1: almost positive that you can order scalpels online of I've
16:19
Speaker 1: actually done it in forensics where you can you know
16:23
Speaker 1: you can order them, particularly if you're going to do
16:25
Speaker 1: postmortem dissections. And it's not like going out and buying
16:28
Speaker 1: a weapon or something. You don't have to have some
16:30
Speaker 1: kind of special license or anything like that. And I
16:32
Speaker 1: don't know that it would necessarily raise any eyebrows if
16:35
Speaker 1: you did it, But in this case, this person got
16:37
Speaker 1: their hands on one, and I found it fascinating because
16:42
Speaker 1: when you begin to think about preparation preparation of an
16:47
Speaker 1: event of this type, it gives you an insight into
16:50
Speaker 1: the planning that the individual would have had to have done.
16:54
Speaker 1: The perpetrator in this case, this person is actually sitting
17:00
Speaker 1: in their home thinking, Okay, I've got maybe a couple
17:05
Speaker 1: of candidates here, I want a baby, and I've decided
17:10
Speaker 1: I want this baby in particularly the one that Reagant
17:13
Speaker 1: is carrying. What tools do I need? Do you see
17:17
Speaker 1: how ghastly this becomes when you begin to follow this
17:19
Speaker 1: line of logic. Look a standard C section that a
17:24
Speaker 1: physician performs an OBG way in and I know many
17:27
Speaker 1: in our audience of loved ones, and maybe many of
17:30
Speaker 1: our listeners have had a C section. You have to
17:33
Speaker 1: show up with the appropriate tools. It just makes sense, right,
17:36
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like they're going to come to
17:37
Speaker 1: your house and do the C section. I guess in
17:39
Speaker 1: certain cases they would, maybe a midwife would have to
17:42
Speaker 1: have that tool kit with them. But in this case,
17:46
Speaker 1: you think about going to the hospital, you go into
17:48
Speaker 1: labor and they say, well, it's not going to be
17:50
Speaker 1: a vaginal delivery, We're going to have to do a
17:52
Speaker 1: C section. Well, there is actually what's referred to as
17:54
Speaker 1: a C section kit that trinic surgeons have at their disposal,
18:00
Speaker 1: and these things are literally just kind of laid out
18:02
Speaker 1: on the table by the surgical text and the nurses,
18:04
Speaker 1: and when mama gets prepped, they have everything at their
18:08
Speaker 1: disposal because they've anticipated all possible outcomes, I mean all
18:13
Speaker 1: possible outcomes because they've delivered so many babies via C section.
18:18
Speaker 1: And in this case, you really wonder what else was
18:22
Speaker 1: in the perpetrator's toolback. Was it just simply a scalpel?
18:28
Speaker 1: Did she show up with mets and bomb scissors? Did
18:31
Speaker 1: she show up wait wait wait, mets and bomb scissors,
18:36
Speaker 1: which is a very scissors, Yeah, mets and bomb scissors,
18:39
Speaker 1: which which are well, they're they're very particular to surgical
18:44
Speaker 1: practice and it's something that you would find in an
18:47
Speaker 1: obstetrician's kit. In order to do this, you also have
18:50
Speaker 1: to have retractors, which are going to kind of hold
18:52
Speaker 1: back to tissue. Remember, one of the things that you're
18:54
Speaker 1: doing in a C section delivery is your actually going
19:00
Speaker 1: through the abdominal wall and then into the top of
19:03
Speaker 1: the uterus. This is not something that is going to
19:07
Speaker 1: stay in place. It has to be retracted, kind of
19:10
Speaker 1: pulled away in order to remove the baby from the
19:14
Speaker 1: mother's tummy. These are all items and there's a whole variety.
19:18
Speaker 1: I mean, people can look this up. There's a whole
19:20
Speaker 1: list of these items that come in a kit. But
19:24
Speaker 1: do you think about the person that would sit down
19:26
Speaker 1: and do this that they would think about, well, what
19:29
Speaker 1: do I need to show up with? Well, at a baseline,
19:31
Speaker 1: they're showing up with a scalpel. And there's a very
19:36
Speaker 1: particular way that surgeons train surgeons go about this. And
19:39
Speaker 1: here's something kind of interesting that a lot of people
19:41
Speaker 1: don't understand. When surgeons make incisions into bodies, for instance,
19:46
Speaker 1: c sections and an example, in a standard operating environmental
19:51
Speaker 1: surgical environment, they follow what are referred to most of
19:54
Speaker 1: the time, not every time, okay, but most of the time,
19:57
Speaker 1: they're going to follow what are called the languor line.
20:01
Speaker 1: And for all of my veterans that are in the audience,
20:05
Speaker 1: any of us that have ever been through basic training,
20:07
Speaker 1: particularly in the Army and the Marine Corps, you have
20:09
Speaker 1: to learn to read a contour map. Well. Languor lines
20:13
Speaker 1: are actually the contours of the body, isn't that something?
20:15
Speaker 1: So the body actually has its own grain to it.
20:18
Speaker 1: You don't see it, but it's there, and surgeons study
20:21
Speaker 1: this and what happens is is that when you go
20:25
Speaker 1: against the grain on a body, okay, when you go
20:29
Speaker 1: against the grain on a body and you attempt to
20:31
Speaker 1: cut across these their lines of tension is actually what
20:34
Speaker 1: it is. When you go across those lines of tension,
20:39
Speaker 1: then you get these ghastly wounds. And that's one of
20:42
Speaker 1: the reasons that okay, let me stop you. Yeah, sure,
20:44
Speaker 1: because I want to make sure that I understand this.
20:46
Speaker 1: And I do not mean I am not trying to
20:49
Speaker 1: make light of anything, but I can't obviously imagine cutting
20:53
Speaker 1: a person. So let's say I was cutting a steak. Yes,
20:58
Speaker 1: So basically what you're telling me is is like cutting
21:00
Speaker 1: across the grain if you're trying to trim or cut
21:04
Speaker 1: a stage. Yeah, kind kind of like that. And for
21:06
Speaker 1: folks that don't really fully grasp this, I'll give you
21:10
Speaker 1: even a better example. If anyone has ever had a
21:13
Speaker 1: nasty blunt force laceration that occurs on the top of
21:17
Speaker 1: your head or anywhere on your body where you impact
21:20
Speaker 1: a location, if you've ever heard a term or someone
21:25
Speaker 1: m the description of the injury as being a jagged laceration,
21:29
Speaker 1: the reason it's jagged is because that impact area has
21:35
Speaker 1: gone against the grain, against the languor lines, and so
21:39
Speaker 1: it opens up in a very nasty fashion. So if
21:42
Speaker 1: you don't know what you're doing, you're going to have
21:44
Speaker 1: this presentation, and particularly where you've got this young mother
21:48
Speaker 1: that's fighting for her life and apparently in this particular case,
21:52
Speaker 1: the authorities believe at least that Reagan mercifully was actually deceased.
22:00
Speaker 1: When you know, this perpetrator opened up her womb and
22:04
Speaker 1: remove this precious angel. So you not only have to
22:07
Speaker 1: have the right instruments, obviously, a scalpel is going to
22:10
Speaker 1: be your number one item, but something sharp to do
22:12
Speaker 1: this with. But the main thing you have to worry
22:15
Speaker 1: about is if you are the perpetrator, how you do
22:20
Speaker 1: the C section to not injure the baby, because, let's
22:22
Speaker 1: be realistic, there's nothing delicate about what was done to Reagan.
22:26
Speaker 1: There's nothing delicate about this, but you have to be
22:32
Speaker 1: delicate if you are trying to save a child. Yeah,
22:36
Speaker 1: and if it is the desire of a perpetrator in
22:39
Speaker 1: case like this to have a viable baby, the technique
22:43
Speaker 1: which is employed here is going to be critical because
22:46
Speaker 1: just entering the body, you're going through the external abdominal
22:50
Speaker 1: wall here, which you have a layer of skin, and
22:52
Speaker 1: then you have a layer of subcue fact that you
22:55
Speaker 1: can go through, and then any kind of fascia, which
22:57
Speaker 1: is kind of that white tissue that's on the back
23:00
Speaker 1: side of the normal wall, and then you get down
23:02
Speaker 1: to the organs. You're going to get down into the uterus,
23:06
Speaker 1: the top of the us, the roof of it as
23:08
Speaker 1: they have referred to it, and you've got all kinds
23:10
Speaker 1: of other structures that are in there too. If you
23:12
Speaker 1: don't know enough about anatomy, if you're trying to get
23:15
Speaker 1: a viable child. Then you can clip other things as
23:18
Speaker 1: well that might send a mother into a cardiac arrest.
23:20
Speaker 1: So you have to be careful. And that's why you
23:23
Speaker 1: know things like force ups. We refer to them as pickups,
23:26
Speaker 1: which tweezers some people might think about that. We use
23:29
Speaker 1: big force ups. You know, you have to lift the
23:31
Speaker 1: roof of the uterus before you can make the incision,
23:33
Speaker 1: because this is the problem that you run up against.
23:35
Speaker 1: If you're not skilled at what you're doing, you're going
23:37
Speaker 1: to harm the child. And that's all I will say
23:40
Speaker 1: about that point, because it's so ghastly. Beyond that, there's
23:43
Speaker 1: a term that we use in the forensics. It's called masceration,
23:47
Speaker 1: which is where you have mascerated organs, and I've seen
23:50
Speaker 1: mascerated children as well, and it's a total destruction within
23:54
Speaker 1: the womb in various case and in this case, it
23:57
Speaker 1: appears that this little lange was the end of game here.
24:01
Speaker 1: That's what this perpetrator wanted. Jackie is so sad in
24:06
Speaker 1: Regan's home, in her own home where she should feel
24:10
Speaker 1: safe and protected. There on that floor, the child was
24:15
Speaker 1: delivered into this world, and Regan's body just kind of
24:18
Speaker 1: laid there, twisted and having bled out and dead, and
24:22
Speaker 1: perpetrator left with a bank. There are babies that do
24:46
Speaker 1: survive outside the womb as young as twenty two weeks
24:50
Speaker 1: gestational age, but it's you have to be on top
24:55
Speaker 1: of things. I mean, you have to be there with
24:58
Speaker 1: a mother that has given birth, a hospital that has
25:01
Speaker 1: neo natal intensive care unit and NICK and you have
25:04
Speaker 1: to have skilled people that are all around. Thank God
25:07
Speaker 1: for those people. But in this case, this child was
25:11
Speaker 1: down range about seven and a half months. In the
25:15
Speaker 1: normal gestational age at birth is somewhere, you know, varies
25:18
Speaker 1: at thirty eight, thirty nine, forty weeks. It's generally what
25:21
Speaker 1: they're looking at. But in this case, the baby was
25:23
Speaker 1: removed at seven and a half months. While Jess Brooks
25:27
Speaker 1: was finding her daughter lying dead on her living room floor.
25:31
Speaker 1: Across the state, a Texas State trooper was pulling over
25:35
Speaker 1: a car for speeding and inside he finds Taylor Parker,
25:40
Speaker 1: who ultimately is the perpetrator in this case, giving CPR
25:45
Speaker 1: to a newborn and Parker told the trooper that she
25:49
Speaker 1: gave birth on the side of the road, but the
25:51
Speaker 1: baby wasn't breathing, and the trooper said he could see
25:55
Speaker 1: an umbilical cord connected to the infant coming out of
25:59
Speaker 1: the female's pen out of the Parker's pants, and then
26:02
Speaker 1: Parker and the newborn were rushed to a hospital and
26:07
Speaker 1: the baby died. But not only was the umbilical cord
26:11
Speaker 1: stuffed down Parker's pants, but the placenta was also inside
26:19
Speaker 1: Parker's pants, giving the impression that she had given birth.
26:24
Speaker 1: How did she get it? Where did it come from?
26:28
Speaker 1: Explain to us most of us have heard the term placenta.
26:32
Speaker 1: Tell us what it is. The placenta is that it's
26:37
Speaker 1: the sack that literally provides a protected environment for the
26:42
Speaker 1: developing baby, and the baby is contained within the sack
26:48
Speaker 1: kind of free floating in there, cushioned from the outside
26:51
Speaker 1: world or in addition to the cushioning that the mother's
26:55
Speaker 1: wound creates as well. But it is essential for life. Okay,
27:00
Speaker 1: you have the umbilical cord that is in dwelling there,
27:02
Speaker 1: that's providing nourishment for the baby from the mother. The placenta.
27:07
Speaker 1: It's a further guarantee of viability that the child will
27:10
Speaker 1: develop to the point where the child can survive outside
27:14
Speaker 1: of the mother's body. And I think that anybody that
27:18
Speaker 1: was thinking about kind of pulling this off, and anticipating
27:21
Speaker 1: pulling this off, they knew enough that they would have
27:25
Speaker 1: to present with these three elements. Obviously, you mentioned the placenta,
27:30
Speaker 1: the umbilical cord as well as the baby. And it's
27:33
Speaker 1: interesting that the umbilical cord is still attached to the baby.
27:35
Speaker 1: You know that, And I can reflect back to my
27:38
Speaker 1: precious children all those years ago when I had the
27:41
Speaker 1: privilege of snipping the umbilical cord. And I'm sure that
27:44
Speaker 1: many people in the audience have heard of this and
27:45
Speaker 1: maybe even experienced it as well. It's a great moment time.
27:48
Speaker 1: But in this case, the child was there and she
27:51
Speaker 1: tried to feign pregnancy, and I think from a just
27:56
Speaker 1: a demonstrative standpoint, this person believes that if she presents
28:03
Speaker 1: with the placenta and with the umbilical cord and not
28:07
Speaker 1: just a baby, it's going to further convince the medical
28:10
Speaker 1: staff at whatever hospital she winds up in that she
28:13
Speaker 1: is actually the birth mother. I would imagine for the
28:17
Speaker 1: state trooper that was involved in this, they probably were
28:21
Speaker 1: kind of scratching their head too. Maybe for a moment
28:24
Speaker 1: they thought, oh wow, they're witnessing a miracle here. But
28:27
Speaker 1: after they begin to think about this and they're assessing
28:30
Speaker 1: this individual that is telling them the story, a trooper
28:33
Speaker 1: doesn't have any choice whatsoever but to get an ambulance
28:38
Speaker 1: en route as quickly as possible what we call CO
28:41
Speaker 1: three lights and irons and roll into that location and
28:45
Speaker 1: placing this person and the baby and the ambulance to
28:47
Speaker 1: get them to the hospital. And you know, I think
28:49
Speaker 1: that that was the goal all the way along. That's
28:52
Speaker 1: the reason that these elements and evidence in this person's
28:56
Speaker 1: mind of birth were necessary. She's running a game here,
29:00
Speaker 1: and it's horrible as it sounds. These are props. That's
29:02
Speaker 1: what this comes down to it. It's horrible the props
29:05
Speaker 1: that have been delivered from Reagan. This poor woman who's
29:09
Speaker 1: been butchered in her home. These are props to try
29:12
Speaker 1: to feign a pregnancy and give the impression that she's
29:15
Speaker 1: given birth. And it isn't it amazing that she's traveling
29:20
Speaker 1: with this child? And I can't really even imagine what's
29:23
Speaker 1: going on in this person's mind, is rolling down the
29:26
Speaker 1: road to the hospital, is seeking help because they want
29:29
Speaker 1: the child to be viable. They have been feigning that
29:32
Speaker 1: they are the mother, and how are you going to
29:34
Speaker 1: convince the medical staff trust me? This is not the
29:37
Speaker 1: medical staffs first rodeo. They have seen mothers that have
29:40
Speaker 1: walked into the AR, have been driven to the AR,
29:43
Speaker 1: that have given birth outside the hospital. So they're looking
29:47
Speaker 1: for particular things like what Joe, because Taylor Parker when
29:51
Speaker 1: she got to the hospital refused, originally refused to be
29:57
Speaker 1: checked by a doctor, knowing that they would obviously see
30:01
Speaker 1: the details that would prove that she hadn't given birth,
30:05
Speaker 1: But can you kind of guide me through that the
30:07
Speaker 1: body differences that would have been the big bred polis
30:10
Speaker 1: to say, oh no, that's not what happened here. Well, yeah,
30:14
Speaker 1: I mean just essentially, if you're looking at this person
30:18
Speaker 1: and assessing them, which physicians do in the emergency, nurses
30:21
Speaker 1: do too. Nurses are probably even better at it than
30:24
Speaker 1: the doctors. Doctor is going to treat you in and out.
30:26
Speaker 1: But I love nurses in this sense. They can figure
30:29
Speaker 1: things out real real quickly. They're real and tune to
30:31
Speaker 1: this sort of thing. So they're looking at her presentation
30:35
Speaker 1: relative to her body. The way she's responding, is this
30:38
Speaker 1: the way a postpartum mother would be responding? In this
30:43
Speaker 1: moment relative to her ability to speak, her orientation to
30:46
Speaker 1: time and space. Is there any kind of bleeding? Do
30:50
Speaker 1: they still see bleeding issuing out? I mean you'd mentioned
30:53
Speaker 1: that the placenta was actually contained within her pants, okay,
30:58
Speaker 1: and then the umbilical cord was leading from there to
31:01
Speaker 1: this little angel's body. What was there continued bleeding Because
31:06
Speaker 1: with a vaginal birth, you're still going to have bleeding
31:10
Speaker 1: if things have not been assessed and treated properly at
31:13
Speaker 1: that moment in time and the first few moments of
31:16
Speaker 1: the postpartum state. It requires rest, it requires down time
31:20
Speaker 1: on the mother, and she's not presenting that way, And
31:22
Speaker 1: then I would imagine they would think it's very curious
31:25
Speaker 1: that this individual would not want to be assessed that
31:29
Speaker 1: you know, they don't want to disrobe, they don't want
31:31
Speaker 1: them to take a look at them. And with a
31:34
Speaker 1: vaginal birth, one of the assessments that's made you prior
31:37
Speaker 1: to delivery vaginally is that they have these markers for
31:41
Speaker 1: what's referred to as dilation. And this is a natural
31:44
Speaker 1: occurrence where the vaginal opening is beginning to open further
31:49
Speaker 1: and further, and you know, you go to dilation relative
31:51
Speaker 1: in it's measured in centimeters. One of the obvious things
31:54
Speaker 1: that you would look for is what she dilated at all?
31:58
Speaker 1: Is there any evidence of that? Because if she hasn't
32:01
Speaker 1: given birth, then the vagina and the vaginal opening is
32:04
Speaker 1: going to appear in its normal state. And so how
32:08
Speaker 1: do you explain the fact that you have this baby,
32:11
Speaker 1: You have this baby with the abilical cord still attached,
32:16
Speaker 1: and there's no evidence of a birth per their fiscal examination.
32:20
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to fathom the reaction of the
32:24
Speaker 1: medical staff as they're standing there. They're probably eyeball on
32:26
Speaker 1: one another and thinking, you know, what the hell is
32:29
Speaker 1: going on here? I can't imagine that this is actually
32:34
Speaker 1: her child because there's no evidence of this. We must
32:37
Speaker 1: be witnessing a miracle. Either that or she's lying to us. Ultimately,
32:42
Speaker 1: this baby died. Did the baby die because it was
32:46
Speaker 1: not viable? Did it die? Do you think because it
32:50
Speaker 1: was injured during the horrific removal from its mother's body.
32:54
Speaker 1: Now I think that this is a grievously traumatic situation
32:59
Speaker 1: for this baby to have survived in. First off, you've
33:02
Speaker 1: got this, you know, this kind of adrenaline rush that's
33:05
Speaker 1: going on with a mother where she's fighting for her life.
33:07
Speaker 1: That's going to impact I think some folks might disagree,
33:10
Speaker 1: but I think that that's going to impact the baby's
33:12
Speaker 1: ability to survive. Additionally, we don't actually know what kind
33:18
Speaker 1: of trauma may have been inflicted on this child, you know,
33:21
Speaker 1: during the course of this just barbaric act that this
33:26
Speaker 1: person perpetrated on Reagan. And then you have to think
33:29
Speaker 1: about post delivery care of a child. You know, there's
33:32
Speaker 1: certain things that have to be done with a baby,
33:35
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of us have this image
33:36
Speaker 1: of the old timy doctor inverting a baby by their
33:39
Speaker 1: ankles and spinking on the backside and the baby starts squalling,
33:42
Speaker 1: And obviously that's something that has occurred and still does
33:45
Speaker 1: curb you. Now you begin to think about suctioning the
33:48
Speaker 1: baby's nose, checking the baby's vitals to see if they're
33:51
Speaker 1: all within norm parameters, and we cannot forget that even
33:55
Speaker 1: though seven and a half months is in fact viable,
33:58
Speaker 1: you're still talking about a premature baby at this point.
34:01
Speaker 1: And every baby is different, Okay, every baby is different
34:04
Speaker 1: relative to the gestational development. Are their lungs sufficient to
34:09
Speaker 1: the task in order to handle breathing? At that point
34:13
Speaker 1: in time processing of oxygen. Is the heart sufficient to
34:16
Speaker 1: the task in order to have appropriate circulation throughout the body.
34:20
Speaker 1: There's all kinds of metabolic considerations with a child, and
34:24
Speaker 1: of course you've got this huge gap in time because
34:27
Speaker 1: of this horrible act where we don't really know how
34:30
Speaker 1: much time had elapsed since her baby was stolen from her,
34:35
Speaker 1: from Reagan's body within her home, to the point that
34:38
Speaker 1: this person was finally pulled over by the state troopers.
34:42
Speaker 1: You were talking about being prepared to do this act
34:45
Speaker 1: to remove the baby from its mother's womb outside of
34:49
Speaker 1: a surgical suite. And what's really interesting is to learn that,
34:55
Speaker 1: according to testimony in this trial, Taylor Parker bought a
35:00
Speaker 1: fake baby bump. She posted pictures on her social media
35:04
Speaker 1: saying that she was pregnant. She had internet searches on
35:08
Speaker 1: her devices, a fake ultrasound scan online, a purchase dozens
35:12
Speaker 1: of baby belly photos and selfies. She stopped ob clinics
35:17
Speaker 1: in East Texas and Shreveport looking for places where she
35:21
Speaker 1: could find pregnant women, even looking up the license plates
35:25
Speaker 1: of patients coming out. She searched online for private adoptions
35:30
Speaker 1: and out of hospital birth certificates, and according to testimony,
35:36
Speaker 1: she even watched videos just days before the murder on
35:40
Speaker 1: how to do with C section and how to examine
35:44
Speaker 1: a newborn, and there was even a spoof cell phone
35:46
Speaker 1: number used to contact Reagan Hancock. What are your final thoughts, Joe,
35:53
Speaker 1: when you begin to think about this kind of prosthetic
35:57
Speaker 1: device that's being used to try to fool everybody into
36:01
Speaker 1: thinking that you're with child. The imagery you know that
36:04
Speaker 1: you're you're generating off off of the Internet, and the
36:08
Speaker 1: idea that you're in a celebratory mood going in to
36:12
Speaker 1: this butchery is what it comes down to. This baby
36:16
Speaker 1: and Reagan both. I never had a chance. So at
36:21
Speaker 1: the conclusion of her trial, Taylor and A Parker twenty nine,
36:26
Speaker 1: was found guilty of murdering Reagan Michelle Simmons Hancock, who
36:31
Speaker 1: was only twenty one years of age. I'm Joseph Scott
36:38
Speaker 1: Morgan and this is body backs