Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Medical Mystery or Murder - Investigating the Hartsfield Case

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Medical Mystery or Murder - Investigating the Hartsfield Case · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. There's a reason I
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: think that people emphasize in any discussion that they have
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: about marriage, they emphasize the word trust. Why is that
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: some people can look at it from the perspective of
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: being faithful to your spouse. Some people might consider, well,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: do I trust this individual? Do they trust me with
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the finances? While others perhaps have an expected level of
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: trust when it comes to confidence that you can rely
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: on that person, that you can depend upon them when
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: times are really and they do get dark, they do
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: get dark. As many people can attest to, trust goes
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: even further. What about that kind of trust that you
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: have to have when it comes to your help, when
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: it comes to your existence. Today we're going to have
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: a discussion about trust, how much trust you put in
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: a person to watch after you and consider your well
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: be We're going to talk about a homicide that has
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: alleged to have been committed by something that seems very benign.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the death of Joseph Hartsfield.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks. Dave mac
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: my friend crime reporter with Crime Online. It's amazing to me.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I've worked in medical legal death investigation for many years,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: and I know that most people think at the line
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: share of deaths that we handle our homicides, and it's
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: not that's something the police do. We handle all the homicides,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: but we also handle everything else. And to be a
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: really good medical legal death investigator, you have to want
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: to understand the mechanisms of natural disease pathology. And what
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I mean by that is that those things that bring
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: about death from a natural perspective, and heart disease is
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the first thing that comes to mind. But it's amazing
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: nowadays how many people are diabetic.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: When I first saw this story, Joe, my first question
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: was how this transpired, how long it took? What goes
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: into the complications surrounding insulin. I mean, we know people
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: die from diabetes. My grandfather was diabetic, and after having
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: his leg amputated and other things, he continued to go
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: down a path that eventually led to his death. In
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: this case, Sarah Hartsfield and her husband Joseph, we have
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: insulin as being part of the death. Am I am
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I right in saying.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: That, Yeah, You're absolutely right.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, how can something that's supposed to be a lifesaver
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: turn into a mechanism of death.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: It's almost as though when an individual is diagnosed with diabetes,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: they are first off, it's not a death sentence. It's
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: something that you know, given modern medicine, that people can
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: live with and can have robust lives. You just got
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: to be really careful with what you're putting into your body.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Life and moderation. I think it really draws people back
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to being centered in their life with what they consume,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: how much they consume, and also how are you going
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: to regulate it? And you know, there's any number of
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: ways that you regulated because the idea here is that
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the individual that is faced with this diagnosis is now
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: in a position for the rest of their lives that
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: they're going to have to monitor their blood sugar levels.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And this is done in a number of ways. We've
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: seen people that do the fingersticks that's been done for
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: years and years, where you get that sample of blood
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and it goes onto a meter. There's actually an indwelling
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: monitors that you can have that are placed in these
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: out of view locations on the body that will send
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: signals to either a meter that you keep on your
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: person or maybe in your home or even on your phone.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: There's actually apps for this now, and it will set
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: off an alarm if your insulin levels begin to spike
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: or to drop down desperately. What the individuals are faced
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: with is not just the diagnosis, but they're faced with
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: the fact that they're going to learn a lot about medicine.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Whereas you know some people, you know, they know that
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: they have a disease and they have to maintain a
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: particular healthy lifestyle. But now you're kind of playing junior chemist.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: You're having to keep all of these things in balance
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: at a molecular level, and it's a daunting task for anyone.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: The condition itself is so very subtle in many ways
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: that many folks don't realize that they're about to have
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: some kind of symptom that's going to pop up and
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: is really going to wreak havoc in their life. So
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: they have to be aware. They have to be sitting
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: sitting on go ready to interdict on their own behalf.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: That's what it comes down to. You have to, I
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: hate to use the term advocate for yourself. It's not
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: about that. It's about, you know, treat yourself in those moments,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: and people go through education programs and that sort of
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: thing to do it. So the fact that mister Hartsfield
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: was in this position, it's not something that he had
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: just come to at this point in his life. It's
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: something that he had been having to be monitored for
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a number of years probably, and he's relying on his
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: wife to help him out.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: He was forty six years old, Joseph was and you
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: mentioned it wasn't something that just popped up one day.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: He actually had been living with it for a while
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: and Sarah was kind of brought into the fold here
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: of managing his diabetes. When you look at this case,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: the death of Joseph Hartsfield in and of itself was
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: not suspicious. It was when the police looked into his
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: wife how she was reacting, because that was her reactions
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: weren't something they were familiar with. And do you take
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: into account the people closest to the victim and how
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: they are acting reacting to the situation that's going on, Yeah,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: you do.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: It kind of integrates itself into your interactions with a
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: family to kind of begin to understand what are their
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: responses to these horrible events. And it look not one
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: size fits all with families and the way they react
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to death. I've mentioned before that I've seen people become
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: almost catatonic. Literally they've got the thousand yard stare, they
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: won't respond to you, their numb on a very deep level.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: And other people I've seen people shrug their shoulders and laugh.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: If you can imagine that, and it does happen, then
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: you have people that show what psychologists and people like
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that will say an appropriate amount of grief. And I
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: don't know how you really take the measure of that necessarily,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: but you get this feeling. I think when you're an
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: investigator and you begin to watch people, you have other
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: cases that you judge these individuals based upon what have
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: been the reactions of subjects that I have total these
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: things to in the past. When you're discussing this with them,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: you kind of measure it by that benchmark, taking into
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: account whatever the relationship is to this person. Is it something,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: for instance, where you have a family member that comes
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: to a home and finds their elderly parent has passed away.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: What's their level of expression with that. One of the
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: most glaring things that you hear is I just talked
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: to them the other day. They seem fine. Or she
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: had asked me to come over, but I just I
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: didn't have enough time, and they're weeping over that. You
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: get those kinds of responses, and you take all of
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: those factors into consideration. Couple that with things like their
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: reaction when they see the body. Maybe they're in the
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: room with you as you're examining the body. That does happen?
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: What were their responses immediately upon finding the individual? What
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: were the steps that you took. Did they wait a
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: long time? Did they respond immediately to finding the individual down?
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Did they call other people and this happened. Sometimes you'll
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: have family members that will discover their loved ones deceased,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: and they won't call nine eleven. They'll actually call a
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: sister or brother, or an aunt or an uncle before
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: they'll ever call nine to eleven. And they have to
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: be told by one of these peripheral actors, and they're saying,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: you need to get off the phone and call nine
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: eleven and have them come to the scene. You don't
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: know if that's because they were delaying perhaps that contact
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: with people that could provide life saving measures, or if
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: this is just a normal reaction. You don't normally call
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: none one one you call people in your immediate circle
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: that are going to comfort you and advise you in
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: those sorts of things.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Joseph Hartsfield died as a direct result of insulin as
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: complications is how it was worthy complications from an insulin issue.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: They started looking into it. Wait a minute, Sarah was
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: not acting the way they thought was appropriate to the situation.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And the sheriff looks into it and says, wait a minute,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: how many hours did you wait before you called for
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: help with them. It's not like diabetes just showed up yesterday.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: So they knew from a very early standpoint that something
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: was not quite right.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Mister Hartsfield actually had an alarm that would go off.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: There was an indicator that there was something wrong, and
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of course the police believed that there was something sinister
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: going on. I guess probably my favorite Indiana Jones movie
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: is probably the Last Crusade. I love the spiritual element
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: of it. I certainly love it when you know they
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: finally make their way into the chamber and the villain
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: drinks from the wrong chalice, and the old knight is
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: sitting there and as the guy kind of melts away,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: he looks at Indiana Jones and he says he chose poorly.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I think about that in the case of mister Hartsfield's passing,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: there is something that's kind of ominous about this person
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that he made a choice to marry the person of
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Sarah Hartsfield. I'd say that he probably dave. He probably
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: we'll chose poorly.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Sarah Hartsfield and Joseph Hartsville got together about the same age.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: They have had different backgrounds, in particular with Sarah Hartsfield
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: when you look at the partners up until the time
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: that she and Joseph Hartsville got together in February of
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. They met online, by the way, something
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: that in the last twenty years has become a real thing.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: But when you meet online, oftentimes you don't know a
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: lot about the background of the individual. You only know
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: what they let you in on, what they tell you about.
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  Speaker 2: And that's a little different than when you're dating somebody
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: and you know a little bit about their background geographically,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: might be from the same area, you have some common interests,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: in common background, and you can share a lot of
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: these things. Well, they met online, and maybe she was
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: able to spin a story of her background because Sarah
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Hartsfield had five husbands. Things started in the mid nineties,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: from husband number one to husband number five and a fiance.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: There's it seemed to be an escalation of pain inflicted
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: on the partner. In her first marriage, there was some
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: domestic abuse. She actually was arrested in the first year
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: of that marriage her first husband for fighting. Charges will
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: drop later, but that's the start of her marriage career.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: When you go through the years of her dating and
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: all the way to twenty eighteen, where now she's on
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: husband number three and a half number four and engaged
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: to a guy, David Bragg. At the time, she was
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: known as Sarah Donahue, and she shot and killed David
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Bragg during an argument that got physical. She claimed self defense.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: No charges were ever filed. That case has since been reopened.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: So we go to Sarah Hartsfield, married to Joseph Hartsfield.
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  Speaker 2: He dies and the police find out that he is
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: bad shape. For a number of hours, she doesn't call
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: for help. She doesn't call nine to one one. She
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: has been living with this man with diabetes for every year,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: day in and day, helping him manage his diabetes. But
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: she allowed the man to suffer for hours before ever
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: calling for help, and that's where the sheriff said things
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: just didn't add up. But the sheriff said, if the
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: hospital didn't call us, our officers didn't get involved, make
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: good decisions, we would not be here. And potentially she
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: could have gotten away with murder because it was at
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: the very beginning the hospital staff going to the deputy
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: said hey, man, there's something not right here, and the
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: deputy looking into it, and they start following her background
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: and they see this escalation from domestic violence in her
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: first marriage to killing a man with a gun, and
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: now you've got another dead guy, this time from insulin.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: So they opened the case. They started digging in. How
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: can you tell that somebody has died from complications due
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: to insulin? What does diabetes do to a person, and
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: how does it lead to this type of death?
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Excellent question, And this is all going to be revealed
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: that autopsy because the medical examiner in this case conducted
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: their examination, They had their suspicions. And do you know
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: how I can tell that anytime you see an initial
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: cause of death listed as undetermined, you know that something
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: else is going on in the background. They're seeing something
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that has actually occurred that could be indicative of more
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: than meets the eye. Here's one of the problems that
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I have with the way this case was initially handled.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: For years, we've seen images of a vial of insulin.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: It's a separate vial. It looks like just kind of
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: any other injectable that you might see, say at emergency
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: room or doctor's office anywhere, and then you take what
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: people refer to as an insulin needle. It's a very
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: fine point because it just goes into what's referred to
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: as SubQ fat, which is that layer of fat that's
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: just below the skin, and as the insulin is injected,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: it's kind of gradually absorbed into the system and becomes
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: part and parcel of regulating the metabolism, because that's one
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: of the things that's going on. You know, Insulin is
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: actually a hormone is produced by the pancreas, and these
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: little islets they don't function correctly for any number of reasons.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: You can have kind of type one diabetes that people
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: come into and refer to many times as juvenile diabetes,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and then you have type two which comes along and
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: it can result from any number of factors. Obesity is
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: one of those things that comes into play. Certain people
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: have indicated that there might be a connection with some
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: of the foods that we ingest nowadays as opposed in
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the past. Some people think that that's because our food
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: is so highly processed now that that might be one
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: of the issues that comes up. There are certain medications
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: that some believe that bring about diabetes as well that
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: we take. But at autopsy you would draw blood and
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: there will be tests that are done and conducted. The
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: medical examiner saw something in there that gave them an
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: indication that he was in a critical state as far
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: as his diabetes. One of the things that was indicated
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: at the scene that I really have trouble with is
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: that Dave there we're referred to as insulin pens for
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: folks that have never seen one. They actually do look
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: like pins with a cap on them, okay, and it's
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: got a graduated dial on it that tells you the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: number of units that you're going to inject into that
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: sub Q fatty area generally around the stomach. You can
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: dial up the amount of insulin you're going to take
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: in Dave there were eight of these on his nightstand
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and they weren't collected at that time.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Well, we'd n't expect to find well.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: For one, if you've for one, you have to keep
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: insulin refrigerated. Man, And that's that's a I mean, it's
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: it's staple up to a point. Now. I guess if
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: you were living in a house at the temperature at
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: sixty two degrees, perhaps even then you don't want to
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: run the risk. I've gone out to many scenes over
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the course of my career, and you know what the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: most common location is. You'll you'll find insulin stored in
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: and a refrigerator.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Take a while, guess I'm butter.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolutely right. You nailed it. You nailed it. Yeah,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: actually in the butter container. And the reason is is
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: that many times it's at eye level, depending upon obviously
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the configuration of the refrigerator, but it's right there. Diabetics
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: don't keep their butter and their insulin side by side.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: But what you do is that you can visualize it,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: and you can see it in at eye level with
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the old vials. You can see how much insulin you
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: have remaining. Okay, it's a fragile medication and something that
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: you and so I couldn't really understand why it was there.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Would he stockpile them after they were being used, perhaps,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: you know, just to keep kind of understand the pacing
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: which he was using it. You know, when do I
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: need to reorder admit the request for a refill at
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: this point in time. If a cop a cop shows
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: up at a scene, say it's a young uniform officer, which,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: by the way, you're not going to call the medical
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: examiner necessarily immediately as soon as you find somebody deceased,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: particularly if they've got a long standing medical history. I've
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: taken any number of calls over the phone from family
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: members that awaken the morning they find their loved one deceased,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and young police officer will be dispatched as a result
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: of nine to eleven being called, and they'll be at
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the scene and they'll say, well, yeah, investigative Morgan, I
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: see this medication out here. The wife is telling me
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: got a long history of diabetes or heart disease, or
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: you know, he's being treated for all these other things.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: If the medical examiner is working in another case, they
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: might say, well, we're going to have the funeral home
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: bring the body by the emmy's office before the funeral
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: home for preparation will draw talks on them, do an
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: external exam, and then release them from the medical examiner's office.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: And in some cases they'll release the body directly from
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the scene. Generally that requires a visit by the EMMY
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: investigator or the corner to come out and take a look.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: So I found that quite fascinating. In this case, she's
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: also got an alarm on her phone day that went off.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Here's the thing about it. If you're connected electronically to
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: a censor that is giving you readings on the person
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: that essentially have agreed to take care of through this
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: marriage contract and you're not taking care of them, that
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: suspicious in and of itself. When they begin to kind
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: of dig into her behaviors how long it took her
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: to call nine to eleven. You have these kind of
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: active and passive events that happened many times with alleged homicides.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: If we think about kind of in an active phase,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: that's an individual that picks up an instrument and can
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: bludge in somebody to death or shoot them or as
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: this accused Miss Hartsville had done years before with this
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: other individual shoes involved when she shot them. That's an
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: active event. Okay, Then you have these more passive things,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: because you kind of if you're questioning these types of people,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: you can kind of look at them and go, well,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the alarm goes off all the time, which he actually
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: stated it goes off all the time. And I really
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: wasn't paying real close attention to this. And yeah, I've
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: gotten up and given him some juice. I'd try to
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: offer him some jam, these sorts of things. So now
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: you're thinking, from an investigative standpoint, does this marry up
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: with what would be considered their norm. Yeah, the alarm
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: goes off all the time. I've gotten now where I
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: ignore it or is it something that is darker where
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: you're purposing to weaponize insulin or the use of insulin.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: I'm really stuck on the eight pens on the nightstand,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: and we've got the hospital calling. In this particular case
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: with Joseph Hartsfield, the hospital calls the Sheriff's department says, hey,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: we've got a suspicious illness. Joseph Hartsfield had not died yet.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: The hospital called and said, we have a suspicious illness.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: And because his insulin levels are extremely high, what would
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: happen with somebody who is insulin dependent diabetic if they
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: were given too much insulin over a period of time.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: The individual's going down a very dark path. And I
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: literally mean that you can wind up in a coma
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: as a result of it, where everything kind of shuts down.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: And when you've got somebody that has they go into hypoglycemia,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: that means their sugar is dropping precipitously. You'll see them
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: where they'll get irritable, they can get double vision. Many times,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: they're sweating profusely, they're kind of disoriented to time and space,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: they're dizzy, They a little bit of confusion, and they
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: get the shakes too, pretty bad. But when you get
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: up into that upper range, and sometimes that can be
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: moderated just by I don't know if you've you've ever
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: heard there are diabetics that will carry like a pack
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: of mints perhaps in their in their pocket, and if
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: they feel their their bloods is beginning to drop, you know,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: they'll pop a mint in their mouth and it'll give
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: them just enough sugar to kind of readjust Some people
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: use things like raisins, for instance, if they don't want
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to use some kind of highly refined sugar. But when
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: you start to get off into this severe level of hypoglypcemia,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: they get into a state which is referred to as
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: insolent shock. It's very dangerous because it can lead to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: you can have seizures, they certainly can't focus on anything.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: You'll have like slurred speech, they have their uneven gait,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: it's hard for them to actually ambulate, to walk, that
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: sort of thing. And then finally they'll go into an
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: unconscious state and then that again goes into this area
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: of being comatose. And that's essentially what had happened with
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: mister Hartsfield at this point in time. He kind of
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: was in this vegetative state in the hospital. And at
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: that point you begin to try to understand why, why
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: suddenly is this fellow who's obviously you've been dealing with
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: diabetes for a protracted period of time, Why is it
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: that suddenly he kind of falls off the cliff. There's
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: been no prior indication that his medication needed to be
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: adjusted or anything like this, so why now? And when
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: you begin to dig into this as a medical investigator,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: you begin to see that there are some other things
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: that are there that might give you pause that this
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: case needs to be looked into a bit more in depth.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: There's homicides, and then there are those cases that don't
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: really know if there are homicides, and how do we
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: define a homicide. We always have to return back to that,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and I will on my podcast. I will always remind
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you of that, and that is, if we're talking about
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: a homicide, that is the death of an individual at
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the hand of another. And that's very simple. It's a
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: very simple way of understanding this. And you're not sitting
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: in judgment as a court of Lawwood, You're merely stating
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: a fact that there is at least an indication that
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: this individual may have died at the hand of another.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: But in a case like mister Hartsville's death, this is
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: something that's going to require a bit more rigor, it's
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: going to require a bit more digging into, as opposed
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: to something that might be more trauma related like a gunshot,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: wound or a knife.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: In this alleged murder, and again alleged because she has
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: not been convicted and she says she's not guilty. My
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: bad decision was picking bad husbands. That's what she actually
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: has said, paraphrasing. But when I was looking back at this,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: she was an army and so it's her first husband. Well,
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: his best friend, also in the army, was Sarah Hartsfield's
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: second husband. Okay, so the first two marriages of her
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: life were military. Well, I wondered about when people in
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: the military have an affair, aren't there issues they deal
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: with with the army that goes beyond just regularly we're
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: getting a divorce because here she cheated.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they do. And I think a lot of it
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: comes down to, you know, whether or not Jack, who's
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the judge Advocate General, is actually going to charge somebody
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: because did you know, Dave, you can actually be charged
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: with adultery. Isn't a fence in the military, And there's
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of reasons why it is. It falls under
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: what's called the Article one point thirty four. If you
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: engage in adulterous behavior while you're in the military, under
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Uniform Code of Military Justice, you can be charged. And
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: there's apparently in her history there's there's multiple episodes of this.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: You're held to this kind of higher standard, and there's
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of jokes are made faithfulness and being in
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the military and choices that people make, particularly when they're young.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: But this is a harsh, cold reality that I don't
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: think many people are aware of It's not like being
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: in civilian world. It's a completely different justice system. And
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: there's evidence that she they Miss Hartsfield as she's known now,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: was never interdicted for this behavior. Perhaps in the military.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I really wonder if that may have played a role,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: because she wound up, according to reports, retiring from the military.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: That means that she made it through to the end
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: where she received was referred to as a d D
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: two fourteen, which you know, means that you've served, you've
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: served honorably, and you're there honorably therefore honorably discharged from
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the military. She was an enlisted person. That begs the question.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: And also these domestic violence issues that have arisen, and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: this has been a problem in the military. You know,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: over the years, you have people that don't get along well,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: they wind up fighting, there might be children involved, and
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: the military looks at this or as in the past,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: looked at it as kind of a cohesion issue. If
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: an individual winds up committing an adultery or winds up
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: involved in domestic abuse, that disrupts the form and function
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: of the military. You know how it's going to operate,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: because if you've got spouses that are engaged in adulterous behavior,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: particularly if it's between two individuals that are currently serving.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: That creates a problem with uniticohesion, problems with people getting along,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: being able to serve along side one another, particularly if
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: you're called to go fight. It's very dangerous set of circumstances.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And it seems as though that miss Hartsfield, she lived
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: kind of on the edge throughout her life.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: In this particular case where you've got a suspicious illness
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: and later deemed a suspicious death, do you, as a
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: forensic individual, as you look into the case right in
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: front of you, you're looking at a person who was
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: in a really bad way physically for a number of
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: hours before the person who has has sworn to love,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: honor and chairs calls for help. Do you not peel
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: back that onion and start going okay, Husband number one,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Husband number two, three, four, Oh wait a minute, we've
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: got a fiance in here who's also dead. There's like
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: an escalation of starting down here where you have a
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: fight in the second marriage that leads to somebody spending
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: the night in jail to a fiance being shot in
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: what is that first determined to be self defense, but
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: later it's like, well maybe not. And now we actually
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: have somebody who has gone from suspicious illness to suspicious
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: death that wasn't just pulling out a gun and shooting
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: and saying it was self defense. That had to have
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: been planned.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, allegedly it would have had to have been planned.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: And it's certainly something that there's been evidence of other
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: people that have done this over the years, that have
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: used this methodology to bring about the death of an
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: individual that is in their charge, if you will. And
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: so yeah, it's easy to I think that it's very
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: easy to kind of of utilized that as a tool
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: of death, if you will. And it's very passive, isn't it.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: It's very kind of camouflaged. This individual that has this
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: disease is at the mercy of individuals that they're trusting, right,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: And so in law enforcement and investigations, you don't necessarily
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: go out looking for this type of modality when it
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: comes to a cause of death. Obviously the fallback position
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: for everybody, and I'm guilty of it too. You think
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: about this huge level of violence, right, how many violent
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: cases have we covered on body backs? Certainly more than
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: anything that say where a medical condition could be utilized
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: as a weapon. There are a number of cases that
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: are out there where people are, particularly in the medical field,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: where people refer to and I know you've heard this
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: over the course of your career. I know you've heard
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: this term angels of death, where individuals are in clinical
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: settings where they take people's lives by using medication to
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: facilitate this, or even worse, where they fail to render aid.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: And you'll see that happen as well. And it's a
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: very you know, you talk about peeling the onion, and
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: it's very difficult to conduct an investigation when you don't
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: necessarily have this level of sophistication when it comes to
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: medical conditions and understanding disease pathology. And that's why it's
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: so very important that the medical examiner get involved in
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: these cases. In the corner's office get involved in these
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: cases because a case like this Dave is going to
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: require a deep dive that not many are equipped to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: deal with. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: bags as