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Mayhem in The Morgue: Fame, Fourth Graders, and Darth Vader · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today's episode discusses the death of an individual. If this
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: type of information upsets you, this is not the show
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: for you. Welcome to Mayhem and the More with their host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: doctor Kindo Krans. Over a decade ago, I started doing
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: career days at my children's schools. I did this in
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  Speaker 1: part to hang out with my kids and see them
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  Speaker 1: at school and maybe go out to lunch with them,
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  Speaker 1: But my other reason was to tell people about the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: field of forensic pathology. Not a lot of people even
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: fully realize what forensic pathologists do beyond what they've seen
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: on TV, and they really don't know much about medical examiners.
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  Speaker 1: When I tell people I'm a medical examiner, a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people think I work in the meat industry, expecting
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  Speaker 1: meat like for the FDA. Other people think I work
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  Speaker 1: for funeral homes as m Bomber. People also think I'm
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  Speaker 1: a coroner, and a lot of people don't even realize
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  Speaker 1: I have a medical degree. I've had numerous career days
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: where students were shocked to find out how much education
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  Speaker 1: they needed to become a forensic pathologist. I've even had
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  Speaker 1: medical students tell me in their last year of medical
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  Speaker 1: school that they had no idea forensic pathology existed and
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  Speaker 1: wish they had known about it when they got into
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  Speaker 1: medical school because they would have taken steps to go
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  Speaker 1: into forensic pathology instead of the career that they had
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  Speaker 1: chose to go into. The thing about it is is
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  Speaker 1: there is a shortage nationwide a forensic pathologists. There are
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  Speaker 1: only four hundred to five hundred board certified pathologists in
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  Speaker 1: the United States, and every year more and more retiring
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  Speaker 1: and not enough new forensic pathologists are graduating to keep
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  Speaker 1: up with the loss. After four years of med school
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  Speaker 1: is another three to four years of residency in a
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  Speaker 1: year of sub specialization to become a friends of pathologist.
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  Speaker 1: It takes longer to create a forensic pathologist than it
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  Speaker 1: does a baby elephant. My intention with the Career Days
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  Speaker 1: was not to just hang out with my kids, but
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  Speaker 1: to spread the word about how wonderful a job forensic
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  Speaker 1: pathology really is. And I figured by getting involved in
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  Speaker 1: Career Days, I can inform kids about my job and
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  Speaker 1: get them interested in it, and maybe someone would find
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  Speaker 1: it interesting enough to pursue like I did way back
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  Speaker 1: when I was in ninth grade and was introduced to
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  Speaker 1: the field of forensic pathology. And my career day presentation
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  Speaker 1: is a PowerPoint presentation full of pictures, so I have
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  Speaker 1: different versions of it depending on what grade level I'm teaching.
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  Speaker 1: I have one for grade schoolers, one for medal schoolers,
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  Speaker 1: one for high schools, and finally one for college. Basically,
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  Speaker 1: as the grade level goes up, the talk becomes increasingly
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  Speaker 1: more graphic, and it is the most graphic once they
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  Speaker 1: get into the college age range. Now with grade schoolers,
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  Speaker 1: the most graphic thing they see as an X ray
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  Speaker 1: of a head with a bullet in it. How I
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  Speaker 1: went about deciding which pictures to use was partially based
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: on an interview I saw with Steven Spielberg. He was
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  Speaker 1: discussing the movie Jaws in this interview, and he stated
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  Speaker 1: that it built more tension and made the movie more
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  Speaker 1: scary to give the perception of the monster in this case,
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  Speaker 1: of course, the shark, than it was to show the
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  Speaker 1: shark right from the beginning. The actual build up is
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  Speaker 1: more frightening than the actual reveal of the monster. I
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: incorporated this concept in in my talk. I show an
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  Speaker 1: X ray that shows a bullet, I show close ups
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  Speaker 1: of wounds. I showed the actual bullets that were removed
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  Speaker 1: from the bodies, but I never show the whole body,
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  Speaker 1: faces or any identifying features, So in a way, I
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  Speaker 1: give the perception of the injuries and the gore that
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  Speaker 1: people associate with this career, but they actually never see
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  Speaker 1: the whole thing. By doing this, it makes my talk
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  Speaker 1: less frightening or horrifying, and the students think they have
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  Speaker 1: seen something crazy, but in reality, it was very tame.
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  Speaker 1: In the years I've done these presentations, I've never received
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  Speaker 1: one complaint from teachers, parents, or children, so it must
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  Speaker 1: have not been too frightening, right. I have been asked
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  Speaker 1: back every year since I started doing this, and the
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  Speaker 1: teachers would tell their friends, so I was going to
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  Speaker 1: numerous different school districts, and I only recently stopped doing
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  Speaker 1: these talks because my kids are all in college now
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  Speaker 1: and it just isn't the same for me. Fortunately, I
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  Speaker 1: have colleagues that have taken it over now, so the
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  Speaker 1: information does continue to get out there, but for me,
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  Speaker 1: I've kind of moved on. There's one other thing that
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  Speaker 1: I I always enjoyed, which was the bizarre questions that
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: children would ask, and that's what we'll be talking about
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  Speaker 1: for the rest of the episode. Is one of the
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  Speaker 1: children's bizarre questions, my answer, and the ensuing hijinks that
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  Speaker 1: my answer created. So on this particular day, I was
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  Speaker 1: talking to a group of fourth graders. The talk went
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  Speaker 1: reasonably well. I got my standard oohs and ahs and ooh,
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  Speaker 1: that's gross statements and kids covering their faces. I got
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  Speaker 1: my standard questions like what does it smell like? My
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  Speaker 1: answer always is rotting trash mixed with blood. How much
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  Speaker 1: do you get paid? My answer to that is I
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  Speaker 1: would tell them my salary and some would be impressed
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  Speaker 1: and some would say lame, we're just saying. Ever found
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  Speaker 1: in the stomach ballpoint pins was actually probably over fifty
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  Speaker 1: where this weapon used to kill someone a mini safe
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  Speaker 1: like crushed in his head. Have you ever autopsied a baby?
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  Speaker 1: My answer to this is I have autopsied a wide
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  Speaker 1: age range of people, from fetuses to people over one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and six years of age. Finally, when I got
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  Speaker 1: to the end of my presentation, I asked if there
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  Speaker 1: was any more questions, and one of the children asked,
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  Speaker 1: who is the most famous person you have ever autopsy?
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  Speaker 1: This is a question I get asked on almost every presentation,
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  Speaker 1: and the answer often depends on who I am talking
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  Speaker 1: to with a group of fourth graders. I felt it
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  Speaker 1: would be best to discuss a movie star from a
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  Speaker 1: popular movie. It would probably be someone they would know,
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  Speaker 1: so I chose Richard Lapalmeittier. If you don't know who
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  Speaker 1: he is. He was an actor in many movies, including
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? And Star Wars the original one,
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  Speaker 1: not the prequels, not the sequels, not the TV shows,
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  Speaker 1: but the very first Star Wars movie from nineteen seventy
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  Speaker 1: seven that's now been rebranded is I think the New
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  Speaker 1: Hope or Episode four or something like that. He played
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  Speaker 1: a Mayan character in the Star Wars movie, but in
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  Speaker 1: a very memorable scene. And when he dies years after
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  Speaker 1: being in Star Wars, he was sixty six years old.
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  Speaker 1: He was in town visiting family. I believe he was
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  Speaker 1: going to a comic con to sign autographs. His cause
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  Speaker 1: of depth was from an intestinal cancer that rode it
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  Speaker 1: into a blood vessel that caused him to actually bleed out.
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  Speaker 1: So his cause of death was complications of cancer, and
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  Speaker 1: his manner death was natural. He was the famous person
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  Speaker 1: I chose to tell the group. I told the group
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  Speaker 1: of children that I autopsied Richard la palmeteer, and they
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  Speaker 1: said who's that? And my reply, of course, was have
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  Speaker 1: you ever seen Star Wars? The original Star Wars? And
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  Speaker 1: most of them said, oh, I've seen that movie. I've
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  Speaker 1: seen that movie. And I said, you know the guy
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  Speaker 1: whom Darth Vader chokes with a force on the Death
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  Speaker 1: Star and says, I find your lack of faith and
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  Speaker 1: the force disturbing. And then one of the children screamed, wait,
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  Speaker 1: you mean Admiral Maddy. At that moment, I thought in
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  Speaker 1: my head, wow, I didn't know the character's actual name,
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  Speaker 1: but I responded with sure. At that moment, one of
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  Speaker 1: the children gas and he said, you mean Darth Vader
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  Speaker 1: really killed him. A wave of shock and realization spread
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  Speaker 1: through the room faster than life with kindergarteners. Several kids
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  Speaker 1: excitedly exclaimed what really and more and more kids were
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  Speaker 1: becoming excitable. While this was occurring, I was standing there
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  Speaker 1: not responding. Granted it was only a few seconds, but
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  Speaker 1: long enough for chaos to ensue. The thing is, I
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  Speaker 1: have five children who are now all adults, but when
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  Speaker 1: they were little, occasionally they would say something absurd that
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  Speaker 1: I would get tripped up by. Logically, it made no
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  Speaker 1: sense but they were sure it was real, and they
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  Speaker 1: were sure they were right, and there was no convincing them. Otherwise.
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  Speaker 1: You can't counter a young child with a logical argument
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  Speaker 1: because they just wouldn't understand. And this was one of
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  Speaker 1: those moments. I thought, in my head, no, no, he
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  Speaker 1: didn't kill him. It was a movie. Plus it was
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, which was like over thirty five years ago,
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  Speaker 1: and I was in grade school, so I would not
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  Speaker 1: have done his autopsy if he had died in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy seven. But I thought that in my head. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't come up with a good response. I was standing
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  Speaker 1: there dumbfound it just uh well, and the chaos had
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  Speaker 1: taken over the classroom. The children are all talking about
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  Speaker 1: the murder committed by Darth Vader, and they couldn't believe
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  Speaker 1: that he had actually killed that person. Thankfully, the fourth
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  Speaker 1: grade teacher stepped in and she calmed them down and
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  Speaker 1: got them to listen to reason. Explained how Star Wars
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  Speaker 1: was just a movie, and the more logical children agreed
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  Speaker 1: with her with a resounding yeah. I chimed in and
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  Speaker 1: I said, that's right, your teacher's right, it's just a movie.
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  Speaker 1: And he actually died of cancer. Then that same child,
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  Speaker 1: whose name was Monty by the way, started the chaos
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  Speaker 1: again when he said Darth Vader gave him cancer, and
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  Speaker 1: again that same wave of chaos spread across the room.
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  Speaker 1: This time I said, no, no, Darth Vader had nothing
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  Speaker 1: to do with it, and Monty again exclaimed that it
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  Speaker 1: must have been something in the Death Star, something made
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  Speaker 1: him get cancer in the Death Star. And I thought
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  Speaker 1: this was a reasonable assumption. If the Death Star was
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  Speaker 1: a real working environment that did not follow OSHA's safety guidelines,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, potentially he could have gotten cancer. But
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  Speaker 1: again it was indeed false, and the teacher said, Monty,
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  Speaker 1: that's enough, to which a chorus the girls said, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Manty enough. The thing about it is is I have
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  Speaker 1: testified in court for years. I've testified in massive courtrooms,
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  Speaker 1: in front of legislators, you name it, and I've never
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  Speaker 1: been de raded like I was by that statement from
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  Speaker 1: a fourth grader. After the teacher got the class calm
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  Speaker 1: down again, she said, well, I think we're done asking
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Crown's questions, so let's all thank Doctor Crowns with
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  Speaker 1: a round of applause, and all the kids dutifully clapped
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  Speaker 1: and thanked me, and that ended it. I was a
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  Speaker 1: little relieved that it was finally over, because Monty really
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  Speaker 1: had my number that day. So that incident happened probably
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  Speaker 1: well over a decade ago. Now I don't really know
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  Speaker 1: what happened to little Monty. He'd be in his early twenties.
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  Speaker 1: Who knows what he's up to. He's probably getting ready
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  Speaker 1: to become a lawyer and getting ready to derail medical
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  Speaker 1: examiners across the country with his crazy logic. The one
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  Speaker 1: thing I'd have to say, though, is thank goodness for
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  Speaker 1: grade school teachers, because they actually understand the logic of
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  Speaker 1: children somehow, and that teacher that day really saved me.
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  Speaker 1: That brings us to the end of the story. And
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  Speaker 1: I learned never to take too long to answer a
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  Speaker 1: group of grade schoolers because they are like sharks with
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  Speaker 1: chum in the water, and they will swarm in a
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  Speaker 1: feeding frenzly with any opportunity. I hope you learned something
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  Speaker 1: like Star Wars is just a movie. I know that's
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  Speaker 1: difficult to believe, and I hope you were entertained until
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  Speaker 1: the next time