Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Introducing ‘Body Bags’! Episode 1: Death in the Tetons

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Introducing ‘Body Bags’! Episode 1: Death in the Tetons · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan, Death Investigator, Professor Forensics,
0:05
Speaker 1: Jacksonville State University. Scott Morgan has been on over ten
0:11
Speaker 1: thousand death scenes and now he takes a part in
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Speaker 1: a way that only he can the homicides that we
0:20
Speaker 1: are all investigating. Whether you're in the thick of it
0:24
Speaker 1: with the police department or the FBI, or you're an
0:28
Speaker 1: arm chair sleuth, Joe Scott Morgan will give you answers
0:34
Speaker 1: Body Bags Joe Scott Morgan. Following subscribe now on the
0:39
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you've listened to your
0:44
Speaker 1: podcast Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. I don't know
1:03
Speaker 1: in recent memory if there's been a case that has
1:07
Speaker 1: captivated America like the Gabby Potito case. This young beautiful
1:15
Speaker 1: woman just kind of vanishes initially off of the face
1:18
Speaker 1: of the planet. You had no idea where she is.
1:21
Speaker 1: The family, they didn't even know she was gone for
1:25
Speaker 1: almost ten days. They were frantically trying to get in
1:29
Speaker 1: contact with her, and she had left on this odyssey
1:32
Speaker 1: with her boyfriend, traveling across the nation on the trip
1:36
Speaker 1: of a lifetime. Unfortunately, in Gabby's case, this turned out
1:41
Speaker 1: to be. I don't know, a nightmare. This is body backs.
1:48
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan. The Gabby Potito case. When she
1:56
Speaker 1: is finally found, when the questions are finally answered as
2:00
Speaker 1: to where she is, mom and dad and her stepfather
2:04
Speaker 1: are told that she's been found deceased in the rugged
2:09
Speaker 1: terrain the Grand Teton Mountains. I don't know if any
2:13
Speaker 1: of us can actually fathom the horror that's involved in that.
2:18
Speaker 1: Joining me is Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime Stories
2:22
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. Jackie, what do we know about the
2:25
Speaker 1: case so far? Joe Gabby Petito, twenty two years old,
2:29
Speaker 1: went missing August twenty fourth, At least that's when we
2:33
Speaker 1: believe she went missing. That was the last time she
2:35
Speaker 1: was seen. Her parents reported her missing on September the eleventh.
2:40
Speaker 1: During that time, we know that Brian Laundry was home
2:44
Speaker 1: in Florida at his parents house, but would not answer
2:48
Speaker 1: the family's request for where was Gabby. Gabby's body was
2:53
Speaker 1: found September the nineteenth in the Grand Tetons. In the meantime,
2:56
Speaker 1: Brian Laundry has gone missing. There is a thirty thousand
3:00
Speaker 1: dollar reward out for his whereabouts. The search for Brian
3:04
Speaker 1: Laundry has been going on. Now they have searched the
3:06
Speaker 1: Carlton Reserve, which is more than seventy underwater, looking for him.
3:11
Speaker 1: Now we have information that he could be hiding in
3:14
Speaker 1: Fort de Soto, also with camping sites and trails and
3:20
Speaker 1: keys that you could travel to by boat. The FBI
3:24
Speaker 1: has now taken over the search again. They are looking
3:26
Speaker 1: for Brian Laundry. In the meantime, we go back to
3:30
Speaker 1: the body being found. You know, Jackie, a lot of
3:32
Speaker 1: times has been spent talking about Brian Laundry over these
3:37
Speaker 1: past few days, and I got to tell you it's
3:40
Speaker 1: as badly as I want him found. You know, something
3:43
Speaker 1: happens in the media lots of times you lose sight
3:46
Speaker 1: of the victim. And in this case, I'm going to
3:48
Speaker 1: say her name. Her name is Gabby Petito. She's been found,
3:52
Speaker 1: she's been found, and she's a homicide victim. For me,
3:56
Speaker 1: we have to keep her in the forefront moving forward
4:00
Speaker 1: because without her, without her, there's not gonna be a
4:04
Speaker 1: case to prosecute him with and the evidence, the clues
4:06
Speaker 1: that Abby and her body have left behind, and I
4:10
Speaker 1: think that that's critical for us to examine. As you
4:13
Speaker 1: said that, Joe, that is critical for us to examine.
4:16
Speaker 1: The coroner has released as report a preliminary report. We're
4:19
Speaker 1: still wedding on toxicology. But the preliminary report did say
4:23
Speaker 1: and classify Gabby's death as a homicide. But why have
4:28
Speaker 1: they released just the manner of death and no cause
4:32
Speaker 1: as yet? What could they still be looking for? You know,
4:35
Speaker 1: in Gabby's case, they have released a manner, as you mentioned,
4:40
Speaker 1: and I got to tell you, one of the most
4:41
Speaker 1: glaring things here is the fact that they released it
4:44
Speaker 1: so quickly. You know, they did her autopsy on a
4:48
Speaker 1: Tuesday morning, and by that afternoon they held a press
4:53
Speaker 1: conference and did it well. They did a press release
4:55
Speaker 1: and stated that they had in fact a manner of death,
5:01
Speaker 1: but they weren't releasing the cause. And what's so striking
5:05
Speaker 1: about the fact that they released this manner so quickly
5:09
Speaker 1: gives me an indication. But they saw something glaring in
5:13
Speaker 1: that autopsy suite. And folks might not understand what it's
5:17
Speaker 1: like to be present at an autopsy. When you reach
5:22
Speaker 1: this level of focus, you know, all bets are off
5:28
Speaker 1: at that point in time. The authorities are going to
5:31
Speaker 1: call in every possible expert that they have and just
5:35
Speaker 1: kind of let me paint a picture for you. Within
5:38
Speaker 1: this autopsy suite, obviously, we're going to have a forensic pathologist.
5:42
Speaker 1: That's a board certified forensic pathologist that's going to be
5:45
Speaker 1: doing and it's actually in charge of the examination of
5:49
Speaker 1: Gabby's remains. But I hate to say this, but by
5:53
Speaker 1: virtue the fact that Gabby's remains are probably partially skeletonized,
5:58
Speaker 1: you're going to have a forensic anthropologist. And for those
6:02
Speaker 1: that don't know, if you know the name the body
6:04
Speaker 1: Farm up at the University of Tennessee, this is the
6:08
Speaker 1: kind of thing that they trained for. This is the
6:10
Speaker 1: reality of what they do. All of that training, all
6:12
Speaker 1: those things you hear about. They examined skeletal remains and
6:17
Speaker 1: their biggest claim to fame is trying to pin down
6:21
Speaker 1: not just what brought about a death, but how long
6:23
Speaker 1: an individual has been dead. And then more than likely
6:27
Speaker 1: they also had a forensic odentologist there because you know,
6:32
Speaker 1: at the time there was a question about ID and
6:35
Speaker 1: they wanted to specifically do that. So they're going to
6:37
Speaker 1: do a dental examination and moreover, and this goes to
6:41
Speaker 1: how big this case is the FBI was present. They
6:45
Speaker 1: were present at the scene where Gabby was found, but
6:48
Speaker 1: in addition to that, they were probably present at the autopsy.
6:52
Speaker 1: I've actually worked cases during my career where we had
6:55
Speaker 1: members of the FBI evidence team that were present in
6:58
Speaker 1: the morgan there there to actually collect any kind of
7:03
Speaker 1: trace evidence. In particular, let's talk about that just a
7:24
Speaker 1: little bit more, because we do know that Gabby's body
7:28
Speaker 1: was found in the rugged terrain of the Grand Tetons.
7:32
Speaker 1: Her body had been there for several days. So what
7:36
Speaker 1: are we looking at. How difficult did that make it
7:39
Speaker 1: to come up with a cause of death or a
7:43
Speaker 1: manner of death? And where does it go from here?
7:47
Speaker 1: You know, that's the key, is where do we go
7:50
Speaker 1: from here? Because right now we're still pending the actual
7:53
Speaker 1: cause of death. Remember there's five manners of death. They
7:56
Speaker 1: could choose from anything. You know. Obviously in her case
7:59
Speaker 1: they've ruled it as a homicide. But we've got suicide
8:01
Speaker 1: and natural and undetermined accidental. But they chose homicide. And
8:05
Speaker 1: when they walked out of that door that day of
8:07
Speaker 1: that morgue, and they affirmatively stated, we got a homicide here.
8:12
Speaker 1: And I could tell you the term that was floating
8:13
Speaker 1: around inside of that autopsy suite was a term evidence
8:17
Speaker 1: of homicidal violence. And let that kind of sink in. Now,
8:22
Speaker 1: they're not putting enough of a fine point on it yet.
8:25
Speaker 1: And when we get to that point, they will have
8:28
Speaker 1: accumulated all of the evidence that they needed to affirmatively
8:33
Speaker 1: say that this is the actual causal effect that brought
8:38
Speaker 1: about her death. Now that that could be any number
8:40
Speaker 1: of things. You know, we're you know, we're talking about
8:44
Speaker 1: two individuals that had been out Her and Laundry had
8:48
Speaker 1: been out camping. Now I don't I don't know if
8:50
Speaker 1: either one of these folks possessed firearm, but I do
8:53
Speaker 1: know what they had. They had camping tools. You know,
8:56
Speaker 1: we begin to think about, you know, what do you need?
8:58
Speaker 1: You know, we saw that little tent that they were
9:00
Speaker 1: living in addition to the van, they had this little
9:02
Speaker 1: tent that they would set up. What do you need
9:04
Speaker 1: to camp with? Well, you need probably a hammer or
9:07
Speaker 1: mallet to drive tent steaks. Most campers carry a saw
9:11
Speaker 1: with them. You know, some people cutting down brush. I
9:15
Speaker 1: think that more than likely you need to shovel, all right,
9:19
Speaker 1: and certainly everybody that goes camping has some type of
9:22
Speaker 1: sharp instrument, don't they. And you know, when you look
9:25
Speaker 1: at the scene where her body is found, one of
9:28
Speaker 1: the things that really jumped out to me Jackie was
9:31
Speaker 1: the fact that she's adjacent to kind of a creek
9:35
Speaker 1: bed and there are these beautiful, very smooth round stones
9:39
Speaker 1: out there and they're in all manner of shapes. Well,
9:42
Speaker 1: guess what those stones could be used for. They could
9:44
Speaker 1: be used for the specific purpose of bludgeoning. And bludgeoning
9:48
Speaker 1: is actually where there is an impact related injury, Like
9:54
Speaker 1: you pick up a stone and you actually drive it
9:57
Speaker 1: into the skull and it creates like a depressed skull
10:00
Speaker 1: fracture you can bludge and the rest of the body
10:02
Speaker 1: as well. It's blunt force trauma at the end of
10:04
Speaker 1: the day. So they're trying to weed through all of
10:08
Speaker 1: these things and this is disrupted as a result of decomposition.
10:13
Speaker 1: This is what we call in forensics decompositional artifact. That's
10:18
Speaker 1: those little things. You hear that term artifact and you
10:20
Speaker 1: think about ancient Egypt and you know what, you know
10:24
Speaker 1: what archaeologists do, but artifact for us in forensics are
10:28
Speaker 1: those little things that are left behind. And one of
10:31
Speaker 1: the things I'm very happy about is that the FBI
10:34
Speaker 1: Response Team Evidence Response Team were actually there. They were
10:38
Speaker 1: there at the scene. And not only were they at
10:41
Speaker 1: the scene, my money is on the fact that they
10:44
Speaker 1: were present at the autopsy. And guess what they're looking for.
10:47
Speaker 1: They're looking for all these little artifacts, anything that might
10:51
Speaker 1: be a tie back to her actual cause of death,
10:55
Speaker 1: not the manner, but the actual cause of death. It
10:58
Speaker 1: could be anything from a broken knife blade. It could
11:03
Speaker 1: be an impression that's left behind. If you will think about,
11:06
Speaker 1: for instance, like a hammer. If you look at that
11:09
Speaker 1: leading edge of a hammer, it's kind of shaped like
11:12
Speaker 1: a coin, almost like a quarter in size. Well, that
11:14
Speaker 1: leaves behind a very distinctive mark on the body. When
11:18
Speaker 1: the body is struck, you've got a hemorrhage, and then
11:20
Speaker 1: you've got an underlying fracture. And do you know that,
11:22
Speaker 1: actually many times with the fracture, the fracture takes on
11:26
Speaker 1: the outline of a coin. Isn't that amazing? And if
11:31
Speaker 1: the leading surface of the hammer has kind of a
11:33
Speaker 1: dimpled texture to it, those dimples, the negative, if you will,
11:38
Speaker 1: impression of that surface will be left behind on the skin.
11:41
Speaker 1: But the trick is here is the fact that we
11:45
Speaker 1: know that because she'd been down so long, she's decomposing,
11:50
Speaker 1: and that kind of creates a problem when you're moving
11:54
Speaker 1: forward and you're trying to analyze this evidence. That means
11:57
Speaker 1: that it's obscured, so you have to take more time.
12:01
Speaker 1: It's not just going to be very very obvious. Like
12:04
Speaker 1: you know someone, you hear a gunshot, you run upstairs,
12:08
Speaker 1: you find somebody has taken their life with a gun.
12:11
Speaker 1: All right, guns laying there, you got a bullet hole,
12:14
Speaker 1: and you can kind of move forward from there very quickly.
12:16
Speaker 1: That that's not the case here with Gabby. Gabby is
12:20
Speaker 1: in an isolated area, Jackie. She's in an area that
12:24
Speaker 1: I would imagine the line share of people in the
12:26
Speaker 1: United States have not even come close to visiting. I
12:30
Speaker 1: know I have, and I'd love to. I've always want
12:31
Speaker 1: to go to the Tetons, but it is isolate. There's
12:33
Speaker 1: reasons why people go to these locations. It's to get away,
12:37
Speaker 1: to get away so that you don't have seal service,
12:39
Speaker 1: so that you're not around a computer, to really drink
12:42
Speaker 1: in nature. And it's absolutely beautiful, but it is deadly.
12:46
Speaker 1: And another thing that you're contending with up there is
12:52
Speaker 1: what happened as she laid there. Well, she's subjected to weather, keet,
12:57
Speaker 1: the drop of temperature. That's going to have an impact
13:01
Speaker 1: on how her body reacts. Also, and people, many people
13:06
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about this, but this is the
13:08
Speaker 1: reality which you're faced with as a medical legal death investigators.
13:13
Speaker 1: Animal activity, anything that happens post mortem, you know, and
13:17
Speaker 1: you know, people automatically the default position for most people,
13:20
Speaker 1: and I've heard this in the news over and over again.
13:22
Speaker 1: You know, people say, oh, well, yeah, you got codies,
13:24
Speaker 1: and you got wolves, and you got bear and all
13:27
Speaker 1: these sorts of things. And that's not what I'm worried about.
13:31
Speaker 1: Some of the most seemingly innocuous animals on the face
13:35
Speaker 1: of the planet, things like raccoons, awesomes, those types of animals.
13:43
Speaker 1: Those animals are scavengers. And yes they're not that you know,
13:47
Speaker 1: people have this idea that they're that they're vegetarian, I
13:51
Speaker 1: guess are herbivores. They're not. They're omnivores. They will actually
13:56
Speaker 1: feast on bodies. And then you have insect activity. So
14:00
Speaker 1: everything that comes in contact with a body, any kind
14:04
Speaker 1: of animal like this, is going to take something away.
14:07
Speaker 1: But the animal is going to leave something. It's going
14:10
Speaker 1: to leave its mark upon the body, and it can
14:13
Speaker 1: kind of give you an idea. And most of these
14:15
Speaker 1: animals are not going to be present at the same time,
14:17
Speaker 1: these scavengers, And so when we look at this, this
14:21
Speaker 1: is one of the things that the forensic pathologist and
14:24
Speaker 1: all of the other evidence people that are collecting evidence
14:27
Speaker 1: have to take into consideration. And you know, the investigation
14:31
Speaker 1: of her death is not just simply end with removing
14:36
Speaker 1: her from the scene, taking her to the autopsy room
14:39
Speaker 1: and examining her body there. Once you get her body
14:42
Speaker 1: removed from the scene, that area and you know, I
14:46
Speaker 1: want to make this perfectly clear, the area that was
14:49
Speaker 1: underlying her body. That's significant. You have no idea when
14:54
Speaker 1: you're looking at a body at a scene, what might
14:59
Speaker 1: be hidden beneath that lower surface, that underlying surface that
15:03
Speaker 1: supported the body all that time. There could be it
15:06
Speaker 1: could be an evidence rich environment. Again, if you're talking
15:09
Speaker 1: about gunshot ones, for instance, you could have a projectile
15:12
Speaker 1: down there. You can I've actually had cases where perpetrators
15:17
Speaker 1: have killed someone and have actually taken the weapon and
15:21
Speaker 1: obscured it beneath the body. I remember quite distinctly I
15:25
Speaker 1: had a guy that stabbed a fellow to death and
15:27
Speaker 1: then scratched the ground out below the body and buried
15:31
Speaker 1: the knife beneath the body. And we're looking everywhere for
15:34
Speaker 1: this knife. We're thinking that the perpetrator has moved on.
15:38
Speaker 1: And then suddenly, after we had the body removed, one
15:41
Speaker 1: other investigator looked down and saw just the tip of
15:44
Speaker 1: the handle hanging out. You never know what's going to
15:48
Speaker 1: be out of sight. It's not necessarily those things there
15:51
Speaker 1: in playing say, so, once they removed the body, my
15:54
Speaker 1: suspicion is they probably took a metal detector and waved
15:58
Speaker 1: it over that area where body was found. Because you
16:01
Speaker 1: get one shot at you want to collect everything. And
16:05
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of where they stand right now. The
16:08
Speaker 1: only other thing regarding her body that people need to understand,
16:14
Speaker 1: because when you do a post mortem examination that is
16:16
Speaker 1: an autopsy, it's not just physically looking at the body
16:22
Speaker 1: and doing a dissection or in the case of humans,
16:25
Speaker 1: or pro section, you're you're also having to go down
16:31
Speaker 1: to a molecular level. You have to think about, well,
16:34
Speaker 1: what's contained in their system, you know, And that's why
16:37
Speaker 1: we draw blood, that's why we draw urine. That's why
16:43
Speaker 1: we draw vitreous from the eyes. Many people don't know
16:45
Speaker 1: that we draw fluid out of the eyes. We take
16:49
Speaker 1: all of these samples and we send them to the
16:53
Speaker 1: lab and these things will be run for toxicological examination.
16:56
Speaker 1: And what you're looking for is any kind of substance
16:59
Speaker 1: that's in system. Okay, it might be a prescription drug
17:02
Speaker 1: that people might be on. It could be an elicit drug,
17:06
Speaker 1: an elicit substance, any number of things that are illegal
17:09
Speaker 1: to possess. It could be poisons. Those are some of
17:13
Speaker 1: the things that that talxicologists look for. So it's a
17:15
Speaker 1: real broad spectrum. And this is you know, I like
17:17
Speaker 1: to say, forensic science is not microwave science. It takes time.
17:23
Speaker 1: And many people don't understand that. It's not television. It's
17:26
Speaker 1: not wrapped up in an instant. I know that's kind
17:29
Speaker 1: of cliche, but that's the reality of it. It takes time. So, Joe,
17:33
Speaker 1: the one thing that you're talking about is the evidence
17:36
Speaker 1: that is there. The evidence can be found, the evidence
17:39
Speaker 1: that might be under the body, the evidence that you
17:42
Speaker 1: can detect, but being out in the elements as she was.
17:47
Speaker 1: One thing that you have to consider is the evidence
17:50
Speaker 1: that's not there. The evidence that has been washed away,
17:53
Speaker 1: corroded by the weather, corroded by the temperature, destroyed by
17:57
Speaker 1: the animals. Wow, do investigators proceed from here? What can
18:04
Speaker 1: you do about it? You know? One of the biggest
18:06
Speaker 1: things that it was kind of left out in that list,
18:08
Speaker 1: and it was a great list, you know, one of
18:10
Speaker 1: the biggest enemies of an investigator relative to a death
18:15
Speaker 1: scene outdoors, something very common. It's something very benign, seemingly
18:21
Speaker 1: what's that Let me guess the wind. The wind is
18:24
Speaker 1: a big one. But even bigger than that. Rain, rain, rain, rain,
18:31
Speaker 1: because rain washes away, it cleanses things. It's it's nature.
18:38
Speaker 1: It's what nature does. You know, you can go outside,
18:42
Speaker 1: you know, after it's rained many times in the summertime,
18:44
Speaker 1: it's got that clean smell to it. Well yeah, but
18:47
Speaker 1: there's also a downside of that. If you're a forensic investigator,
18:51
Speaker 1: it means that things have been cleansed to a certain degree,
18:54
Speaker 1: particularly outside and all of this organic material. And you know,
18:58
Speaker 1: let's not forget that all of the images that we've
19:01
Speaker 1: kind of seen have been adjacent to this kind of
19:05
Speaker 1: riverbed looking area. Well, if they had some kind of
19:08
Speaker 1: torrential downpour, which can come and go. Ground can dry
19:12
Speaker 1: out pretty quickly. But if it became torrential, you figure
19:15
Speaker 1: that water's flowing over the rocks. If she is suspended
19:18
Speaker 1: between a log and some of these rocks, the water
19:21
Speaker 1: could actually can you imagine what effect that if you
19:24
Speaker 1: had whitewater that suddenly appeared, it could actually bathe the
19:29
Speaker 1: body and bathe the way anything that might be contained
19:32
Speaker 1: therein So at the end of the day, you can't
19:34
Speaker 1: sit back and say, oh, what is me? You know, boohoo,
19:37
Speaker 1: I don't have the evidence. No, you have to drive
19:39
Speaker 1: on with what you have and take what nature leaves
19:42
Speaker 1: for you to examine. That's why it's so critical to
19:45
Speaker 1: be as thorough as you possibly can. And also, you know,
19:48
Speaker 1: as an investigator, it's incumbent upon you, as crazy as
19:52
Speaker 1: it sounds, to go back and look at weather reports.
19:54
Speaker 1: I've done this any number of times, things like damn releases, downpours,
20:00
Speaker 1: anything that's associated with weather. Also, you know, Jackie, you've
20:04
Speaker 1: mentioned when when has a huge impact when you think
20:07
Speaker 1: about things like touch DNA. It's so fragile. Think about
20:12
Speaker 1: when you think about touch DNA. You know, we think
20:14
Speaker 1: about losing skin cells. And that's that's essentially what it
20:17
Speaker 1: comes down to. Think about how delicate baby powder is TALC.
20:22
Speaker 1: If you just take a little bit of talk and
20:24
Speaker 1: put it in your hand and gently blow on it,
20:26
Speaker 1: that gives you an idea. It'll put you in the
20:29
Speaker 1: ballpark with touch DNA. But touch DNA is even more
20:32
Speaker 1: fragile than that. It can be gone in an instant
20:36
Speaker 1: if the perpetrator put their hands on her like around
20:39
Speaker 1: her neck, and you had a strong wind that came by, Yeah,
20:43
Speaker 1: it could compromise that DNA evidence that's present there. You
21:07
Speaker 1: were talking about being thorough, and you did a great
21:09
Speaker 1: job in describing that to us. So then we have
21:13
Speaker 1: to apply that to the van that Gabby and Brian Laundry,
21:19
Speaker 1: Gabby Petito and Brian Laundry were living in. That van
21:24
Speaker 1: is going to tell us, in my mind, and I'm
21:27
Speaker 1: not a death investigator so much, it's going to tell
21:30
Speaker 1: us about what went on before Gabby died. Did she
21:34
Speaker 1: die in the van, did she die outside the van.
21:38
Speaker 1: It's gonna tell us whether she had been hurt before.
21:41
Speaker 1: It's going to tell us what was there when Brian
21:44
Speaker 1: if he was in that van alone, which we do
21:47
Speaker 1: believe he was because the van ended back up in
21:49
Speaker 1: Florida in his parents' driveway, so obviously at some point
21:53
Speaker 1: he was in that van alone. Pick it up from there, Joe,
21:57
Speaker 1: what do we do where we go? And what did
21:59
Speaker 1: the authorities due when they took that van away and
22:02
Speaker 1: processed it? Everybody, in the sound of my voice, I
22:05
Speaker 1: want you to look at a picture of the van
22:08
Speaker 1: that Gabby owned, not Brian laundry, that Gabby owned. Look
22:13
Speaker 1: at that van. One of the things that absolutely stands
22:16
Speaker 1: out to me about that van, other than the fact
22:18
Speaker 1: that it was outfitted to go on a journey. You know,
22:22
Speaker 1: it had the external ladder and I guess the luggage
22:25
Speaker 1: racks and all this stuff, one of the things that
22:26
Speaker 1: stands out to me relative to that van is the
22:30
Speaker 1: fact that that van, other than the windshield and the
22:33
Speaker 1: driver's window and the passenger's window, no windows. There were
22:37
Speaker 1: no windows whatsoever. So anything that you wanted to do
22:42
Speaker 1: within that van to be done in total concealment. Think
22:47
Speaker 1: about that just for a second. If you wanted to
22:50
Speaker 1: make yourself a ham sandwich in there, you could do it.
22:52
Speaker 1: No one would see you. You know, if you wanted
22:55
Speaker 1: to play dominoes. No one would see you. You wanted
23:00
Speaker 1: to commit murder, no one would see you. It would
23:04
Speaker 1: be done in obscura. No one would be able to
23:09
Speaker 1: witness any kind of violence that was going in there.
23:11
Speaker 1: Now you might hear, if you're close enough, you might
23:14
Speaker 1: hear screams, You might even see the van rock back
23:17
Speaker 1: and forth. But my estimation is is that whatever horror
23:22
Speaker 1: befell Gabby more than likely took place within the walls
23:29
Speaker 1: of that van, within those walls that she and Brian
23:33
Speaker 1: Laundry had actually ripped out, reconfigured, and put together for
23:40
Speaker 1: this trip that they were planning on doing. And that's
23:43
Speaker 1: the heartbreaking part of this. This van was emblematic of
23:47
Speaker 1: everything that they wanted to do, everything she wanted to do,
23:50
Speaker 1: this grand adventure. But from an evidentiary standpoint, this thing
23:54
Speaker 1: is what we call a target rich environment. Besides the
23:58
Speaker 1: Potito Van Joe, federal authorities also took Brian laundry silver
24:04
Speaker 1: Mustang in for processing. It had been left at the
24:08
Speaker 1: Carlton Reserve. The mother and father had gone to the
24:11
Speaker 1: reserve and brought it back home to their family house
24:15
Speaker 1: and brought it back home when Brian Laundry disappeared, So
24:18
Speaker 1: what were the authorities looking for? Anything different in the car?
24:25
Speaker 1: And since it was not out there where Gabby Petito died,
24:28
Speaker 1: so what were they looking for here? Yeah, Holy smokes,
24:31
Speaker 1: that Mustang got returned really quick. You can actually see it,
24:36
Speaker 1: to see it in videography. The most recent videography of
24:40
Speaker 1: the laundry's home is sitting right there in the driveway.
24:43
Speaker 1: But what's not there in that driveway is that van
24:46
Speaker 1: that was taken on a cross country trip, you know,
24:49
Speaker 1: and it had been completely tricked out. I mean it
24:53
Speaker 1: contained all of these appointments inside of it, which is fantastic.
24:57
Speaker 1: But from a forensics standpoint, every item, and we've seen
25:02
Speaker 1: interior shots of the van, every item, every surface within
25:07
Speaker 1: that van's interior has potential to yield a harvest of
25:11
Speaker 1: forensic evidence. And I'm talking everything from at a molecular
25:16
Speaker 1: level with DNA to a visible level with things like
25:22
Speaker 1: you know, blood staining, and secondly, anything that's out of sorts,
25:28
Speaker 1: like dents, things being broken, things that look like that
25:33
Speaker 1: might indicate that there was a struggle within that van.
25:37
Speaker 1: That's all critical. Now as you begin to peel away
25:42
Speaker 1: the interior, and I can tell you that's what the
25:43
Speaker 1: authorities are doing. They're taking this thing apart, piece by peace,
25:48
Speaker 1: by peace, and they are examining all of the underside,
25:51
Speaker 1: the backside, every item that's in there. I'm looking at
25:54
Speaker 1: a little desk that they actually created that's on one
25:57
Speaker 1: of the doors, the side doors of this thing. They
26:00
Speaker 1: would actually take that little portable desk off and look
26:02
Speaker 1: at it and photograph it and be very careful with it.
26:07
Speaker 1: They will have stripped the entire inside of that vehicle out,
26:11
Speaker 1: enumerated each thing that they took out, because each thing
26:14
Speaker 1: is potential evidence, and they're going to get down into
26:17
Speaker 1: the nooks and the crannies of this van, all the
26:20
Speaker 1: little holes where they drop screws into to support areas,
26:24
Speaker 1: all the little crevices that might have overlying you know,
26:29
Speaker 1: floor work that's been done, that stuff's coming up. They're
26:31
Speaker 1: going to get down into those knooks and crevices and
26:33
Speaker 1: look for anything like blood. The disturbing part to all
26:37
Speaker 1: of this is that Laundry had possession of this van
26:42
Speaker 1: for days, for absolute days, and you know, just this
26:47
Speaker 1: quick turnaround trip that he made from Wyoming back to Northport,
26:53
Speaker 1: there's any number of places he could have stopped and
26:55
Speaker 1: that over that thousand plus mile trip to pull over
26:59
Speaker 1: to a car watch for instance, you know, the ones
27:01
Speaker 1: with the high pressure wants dropped a bunch of quarters
27:03
Speaker 1: in there, and he begins spraying the entire interior out.
27:07
Speaker 1: Maybe he thought that it was a great idea to
27:09
Speaker 1: go somewhere and buy some bleach and dump it all
27:11
Speaker 1: over the place. There's gonna be evidence of that, because
27:14
Speaker 1: I can tell you what they're gonna be doing. They're
27:16
Speaker 1: still gonna be looking for trace evidence, but they're also
27:18
Speaker 1: gonna be doing things like luminol or blue Star, trying
27:23
Speaker 1: to get any kind of left behind blood to luminous.
27:26
Speaker 1: And even if he's made an attempt to clean that
27:30
Speaker 1: area up, the cool thing about it, you can eradicate
27:34
Speaker 1: that very easily. And I don't you know, everybody talks
27:37
Speaker 1: about what an outdoorsman he is. You know, he's hiked
27:41
Speaker 1: up and down the Appalachian Trail, he lives on the land.
27:45
Speaker 1: You know what he ain't. He's not crimsine an investigator,
27:51
Speaker 1: he's not a forensics expert. He's not going to fool
27:54
Speaker 1: any of us, I mean any of us in forensics.
27:58
Speaker 1: Because he couldn't get the band clean enough. And you know,
28:04
Speaker 1: whatever he brought home with him is also critical because
28:08
Speaker 1: if he emptied out that van brought it into the house,
28:12
Speaker 1: any of her possessions, any of their quote unquote their
28:16
Speaker 1: possession scenes that they had jointly, anything that went into
28:22
Speaker 1: that house that the FBI may have found. There may
28:25
Speaker 1: be evidence on there of a life lived by Gabby.
28:31
Speaker 1: That is, bloodstain, any kind of body fluid, tufts of hair,
28:35
Speaker 1: maybe her touch DNA. Nothing is off the table on
28:38
Speaker 1: this kise, so Joe. As the investigation continues, the one
28:42
Speaker 1: thing that we're still waiting on is the toxicology and
28:48
Speaker 1: the cause of death. What are they looking for in
28:52
Speaker 1: that toxicology, Well, they're going to look for all manner
28:55
Speaker 1: of agents that could be contained in there, and it's
28:58
Speaker 1: it's going to be anything from prescription medication. There's been
29:03
Speaker 1: a lot of talk, some of it non verified, but
29:06
Speaker 1: you know, anything to maintenance your life with, like uh,
29:11
Speaker 1: you know, anti depressent drugs, anything like anti anxiety medication.
29:18
Speaker 1: They're also going to look for, let's say, signs of alcohol.
29:22
Speaker 1: What we do a blood alcohol level of BA as
29:24
Speaker 1: we refer to it, or blood ethanol level. They're going
29:26
Speaker 1: to check for that. Additionally, they'll look for things as
29:31
Speaker 1: innocuous as aspirin. I don't I don't know folks at
29:34
Speaker 1: home understand that. But you look for what are called solicillates,
29:37
Speaker 1: and those are actually that's evidence that you're taking an aspirin.
29:40
Speaker 1: They'll even probably find a seat a menaphon, perhaps as
29:43
Speaker 1: she was taking any other kind of anti inflammatory drug.
29:48
Speaker 1: But they're going to look for poisons as well, any
29:52
Speaker 1: anything that could have harmed her. And one other thing
29:55
Speaker 1: that's really critical here. They're also in a to toxicology.
30:00
Speaker 1: They're going to do what's called histology, and histology is
30:03
Speaker 1: at autopsy, we take little slivers of tissue, we fix them,
30:08
Speaker 1: put them on a slide, and you look at the
30:11
Speaker 1: body literally in a microscopic setting. You look at how
30:17
Speaker 1: that tissue looks, how it appears, and anything that has
30:21
Speaker 1: adversely affect that tissue or change that tissue is going
30:25
Speaker 1: to be noted, and there'll be an entire histological report
30:29
Speaker 1: as well, and everything. Nothing is off of the table here,
30:32
Speaker 1: all right, Because one of the things that you have
30:36
Speaker 1: to consider is what is the motivation for a grown
30:38
Speaker 1: man to be in an open street in public slapping
30:44
Speaker 1: a ninety five pound young lady. Well, I mean they're
30:49
Speaker 1: in a intimate relationship together, and one of the things
30:52
Speaker 1: as an investigator I'm going to want to ask is
30:55
Speaker 1: what you're pregnant. I want to know that, and that's
30:58
Speaker 1: something that will be examined at autopsy. Had she been
31:02
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted anyway, that will have been examined at autopsy.
31:06
Speaker 1: Rate kit will have been performed. So those test results
31:09
Speaker 1: are pinning as well, and we'll see, we'll see what
31:12
Speaker 1: they reveal. Until next time. This is Bodybacks. I'm Joseph
31:20
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan.