Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Blood, Shovels, and Antlers Decoding a Disturbing Crime Scene

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Blood, Shovels, and Antlers Decoding a Disturbing Crime Scene · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Many of us find
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: ourselves in positions throughout life where we use those things
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: that are at outer disposal. We use those items that
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: we have access to in order to complete a task.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Perhaps I guess that some people would call these tools
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of convenience. I'm going to speak about something that we
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: refer to in forensics as weapons of convenience. Today, we're
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: going to talk about a man who, out of sheer,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: anger and rage and maybe a healthy dose of suspicion,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: attacks another man and ends this fellow's life with a
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: moose handler. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Bodybags
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Dave mac my buddy who's crime reporter for a crime online.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know that I ever envisioned myself speaking about
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a case involving a moose andler. When I saw the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: story and I began to dig into it a little bit,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I was shaking my head, saying that I just read
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: this correctly. I'm kind of a frustrated historian, and I
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: love history. I love Native American history, and I love
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: learning about tools and things that were used. And I'm thinking,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: who in the world would even have access to a
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: moose andler. And as I began to dig further and further,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: this story just really captivated me, and I began to
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: think about instrumentalities of death, and boy, do we have
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: one today.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Usually when you are talking about a crime, boy you
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: don't want to say killing people is normal, but there
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: are normal aspects to a murder, things that we are
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: accustomed to hearing. Certain types of weaponry comes to mind.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: But when you start mentioning a moose antler, when I
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: picture an antler, I think of a deer antler with
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: a hard bony tribe structure with points on the end,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: and in that I could see how somebody might use
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: that antler as a weapon. But moose antlers aren't like that,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: are they.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: They're kind of flat, and they're dishlike in shape I
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: guess to a certain degree, or bowl like presentation and
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: kind of concave I guess, rolling outward. And they have
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: prongs all along the edge, but they're not necessarily sharp prongs.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: But you can look at this thing and tell that
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: if this animal that's arrayed with these things chooses to
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: do harm, they could do great harm. There's all kinds
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: of stories about how aggressive these animals are, particularly when
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: you've got a cow with a calf, they will spare
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: no one, and you hear that a lot in the
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: animal kingdom, But moose have that reputation as an animal
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: US don't want to cross paths with. They can be aggressive.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: They're very territorial, and territory is interesting in this case
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: because it involves a geographic location. It's not in Canada.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: It's in the United States, but buddy, you can almost
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: see Canada from there. The area where this case actually
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: occurs is within the range of the North American moose population.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: We don't have them all over the place. You and
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I arel Southern boys. If I saw something that big
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: with a set of antlers on it, I'd fall over
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: and die down. Here we see white tailed deer, that's
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: about the extent, and we see antlers laid on the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: forest floor. If you go for a hike, you'll see them.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: They're shedding. But I don't know what I would do
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: if I walked out into a forest and look down
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the ground and see something that could be potentially if
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: you put them both together six feet in wit and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: can weigh up to like thirty pounds, it's astounding to
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: me the size of these things.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: That's just not the type of thing I would think
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: to convert into a weapon and of mayhem. So adding
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: that to the mix, we can actually back up a
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: little bit here, and the actual story centers around a
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: twenty seven year old dad and a seventy seven year
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: old retired guy. They have actually been butting heads for
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: quite some time. Levi Axtell is the twenty seven year
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: old dad, Lawrence V. Scully the seventy seven year old
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: and in this case the victim. Mister Scully in nineteen
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: seventy nine was convicted in Minnesota of sexually assaulting a
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: six year old girl. He was convicted, and he was
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: sentenced to prison, where he was there for a little
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: over two years. He was released from prison in nineteen
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: eighty two. Since that time, it appears that mister Scully
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: has lived a normal life, has not run a foulow
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: of the law that I can find. And I'm looking
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: for this, I'm not seeing anything. I'm seeing that mister
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Scully ran for mayor in twenty fourteen. He lost. Than that,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: we don't have much until twenty eighteen. In twenty eighteen,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: mister Scully and mister Levi Axtell had their first encounter
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: legally speaking, mister Axtell. Again, this is five years ago.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Now Axtell's twenty two years old. Scully is seventy two
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: at the time, and mister Axtell had a reason to
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: seek out protection from mister Scully and he got it. Now, Joe,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: you know what it takes to get in order of protection, right.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: It's not something that you just simply walk in and
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: say I want one and they hand it down. They
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: requires some demonstration to the court that there is a need.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: And of course, since Scully had this prior conviction as
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: a sex offender, it's certainly going to catch the eye
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: of the court of citizen walks and it says, well,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: this is my reasoning for it. And apparently according to
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the perpetrator here, Levi Axtell, he opined that Scully was
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: stalking his daughter. Now I think at the time his
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: daughter was less than two years old, but she was
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: being taken to a daycare. His idea was that Scully
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: was sitting in his van outside of the daycare, watching
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: the comings and goings of small children. Dave, your dad,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I'm a dad. Do you remember what it was like
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: when you're particularly a new dad? You're hypersensitive to anything
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: in the environment. You're always looking for something that could
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: go sideways with the child, those things that you can
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: protect them from in the little environment that you created home.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: But then you begin to think about all of these
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: things where you're taking your child and handing them off
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: to someone else to take care of, and your mind
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: can run wild with possibilities.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: And apparently that's what actually happened.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think so. If you're a registered sex offender,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: those lists are very easy to get into public domain.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know that this happened, but I would imagine
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: this new father probably did a little digging and look
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: what he came up with.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: He made a claim in twenty eighteen. Mister Axtell claimed
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: that mister Scully sitting in a van outside of the
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: daycare and as you mentioned, under two years old. She
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: was a little over a year old at the time.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Toddler being taken to a daycare, and mister Axtell said
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Scully was sitting there in his van and he called
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: it stalking, He called it attempting to groom his toddler.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: My wife goes online and finds out predators living in
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: our area. You can pull them up now and see
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: which sex offenders, registered sex offenders are in your neighborhood.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: And I encourage everybody to go look.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: I would never discourage anybody from doing that. The police
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: can't be with you twenty four to seven. You have
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: to be your own proponent here where you're going to
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: go out and you're going to actively see who's in
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: your area. And it can be done by zip code.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I've done this. When I'm about to buy a house,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I'll look up the zip code and I'll see, well,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: who's living near me. I'm not gonna put the money
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: on the barrelhead here if I've got somebody that's a
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: registered sex offender living next door.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: That is probably what happened. Because of the fact that
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: mister Axtell actually claimed he believed that Scully was grooming
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: his toddler, he was granted a protection order, and that
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: order of protection, as you mentioned, not easy to get.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: He did get it. But the part that we don't
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: know is while Axtell got the order of protection from Scully,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: it was granted and then dismissed. Weeks later it was dismissed,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: So I don't know what transpired. I don't know what
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: it takes to get one dismissed, but it was so
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: that's where we said. A couple of years after that,
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: we have mister Axtell posting online that he actually said, quote,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: the only cure for pedophiles is a bullet. He posted
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: this on his Facebook page. Okay, so you have a
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: convicted sex offender in a seventy seven year old mister Scully.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: We have a twenty seven year old dad with a
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: six year old daughter, and we have a dad who
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: is very territorial and protect of his daughter, as I
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: believe most dads are. I think mister Axtell took it
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: one step at a time and kept going further and
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: further and further, and maybe worked himself into a bit
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: of a frenzy. Not saying he's right or wrong in
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: terms of what his thinking was. I don't know what
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: he was thinking, Joe.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I don't either, And obviously his own perception was that
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: there was a threat. Now, how he acts out on
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: that threat, that's going to be between him and the courts.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, we'll find out more
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: about that his idea, at least in his mind, that
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: there was in fact a threat. He's obviously been watching
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: this guy for some time, Dave, you said this started
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: all the way back in twenty eighteen, it's five years
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: after the fact. Now his daughter at this point in time,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: she's several years older, obviously, And the idea that initially
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: he's using the term stalking and grooming for a twenty
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: two month old child, I don't know how that is
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: necessarily possible, because that's something that with most investigations, if
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: they're going to be kind of tracking an individual and
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: watching their behavior, most of the time requires some kind
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: of one on one contact or the targeted individual where
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: the child can't imagine that back then there was evidence
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of that going on. Now, if he's taking the place out,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: if he's taking out the daycare, he's parking out there
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: we mentioned early on, if you're going to get this
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: protective order, it really makes me wonder did he do
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: any kind of videography back then? Did he take still
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: images of this guy's van parked out in front of
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: the day care? Did he capture the license plate in
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: the foreground with the daycare in the background. Now I
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: could see that potentially being compelling to the court, particularly
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: given Scullies prior history, but it's going to be very
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: difficult to get that without some kind of substance of evidence,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and the fact that they pulled it so quickly. I
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: can see how that would lead to a level of
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: frustration that somebody already has kind of this heightened alert
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: going on with them.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you pointed that out, because this is five
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: years ago. Scully is seventy two. Mister Axtell is twenty
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: two at the time. Remember when you were twenty two,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Sometimes that fuse was a little bit shorter than it
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: needed to be. Scully is the convicted pedophile. He served
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: time in prison for sexually abusing a six year old
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: child in nineteen seventy nine. Now flash forward is twenty eighteen,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: and mister Axtell actually goes to court and files paperwork
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: to get an order of protection because he has seen
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: mister Scully sitting in his van near the daycare. And
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: according to the paperwork that Axtell filed to get the
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: order of protection, he said, quote, he has been there
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: many times stalking children in his van. He is a
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: convicted pedophile, and him stalking and attempting to groom my
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: daughter is completely inappropriate and needs to stop.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: The order of protection was granted for several weeks, but
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: it was dismissed. That's where we are then, Joe. Just
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: so you know, there were a few other complaints about
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: mister Scully during this time period, and it's important to
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: note that no action was taken other than this very
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: short term protection order.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: That's important, particularly if you have a history that's ongoing,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: and if there are other events that are attached to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: this individual that are outside of mister Axtell's actions, that
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: could be rather probative. If the court is being asked
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: to issue this order of protection for this child, and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: then there's other people that are saying things, or there's
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: other instances, somebody might take a closer look at this
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: as the investigation continues.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Well, the sheriff actually said that there were other allegations
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: that Scully faced during the years, but an investigation didn't
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: reveal anything, and he said most of the claims were
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: about harassment and trespassing at the gas station where acts
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: still worked. You pointed out they had an ongoing situation here,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: So again Levi Axtell at twenty seven, Laurence Scully at
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: seventy seven. Scully, the convicted pedophile, ac still the dad.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: When you look over the accusations that axtual leveled. He
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: was trying to do something. He was trying to get
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: this man backed off in some way. Axtell actually, in
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: twenty eighteen got in trouble with the law. Axtell actually
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: was charged with and convicted of doing something to a
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: pastor's vehicle. Did you know about that?
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: No? I didn't. I didn't know about that.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at the years here, and I'm looking at
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: twenty eighteen where Axtell has a young daughter. He is
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: watching this convicted pedophile, He's making accusations with the proper authorities,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: and meanwhile he actually is also getting in trouble himself.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: He was actually not living a laid back life, I
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: guess is the one way to say it. We have
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: a little girl here, we have a dad, and we
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: have the convicted pedophile. So how do we take all
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: of this Joe Scott Morgan and end up with a
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: headline that screams dad confesses to killing a man with
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: a moose ANTL.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I know this with such a level of violence in
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: a blood covered confession, this is something that's going to
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: have to be explored a bit further. So I'm just
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: kind of imagining this scenario in my mind, and the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: thought that is coming to me is being a young
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: uniformed officer. Maybe you're on death duty, maybe the shift
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: is coming to a close. Maybe you've just had one
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: of those days where you just had more than you
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: can stand as a police officer. And trust me, police
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: officers have a lot of those days. And all of
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: a sudden you look up and what comes into your
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: field of vision. You've got a young man covered covered
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: in blood. He drops to his knee in front of you,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: interlocks or interlaces his fingers behind his head, looks up
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: and states, I have just killed somebody. I don't know
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: what my reaction would be, Dave. How about you, man?
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: I know that you have worked around law enforcement. You
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: have talked with plenty of investigators, detectives, sheriff's deputies. You've
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: talked to everybody, and you know how criminal investigations are done. Oftentimes,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: a crime is reported to be a nine to one one,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: and a nine to one one call came in that
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: a man had driven a minivan into the victim. Here,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: mister Scully is an elderly man, he's seventy seven years old,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: and his neighbor sees a man in a minivan comes
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: screaming into the driveway, getting out of his minivan and
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: running in the house. She calls nine one one because
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: the guy smashes a vehicle or her elderly neighbor's driveway,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: but she immediately hears screaming coming from inside that house.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Screaming is so loud that I think on the nine
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: to one one call, the authorities could actually hear something
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: going on in the background. That's what happened right before
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: mister Axtell drove the three blocks from Scully's house to
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the police station where by the way, and I wanted
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: to ask you about this, Joe Scott Morgan, You've been
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: around law enforcement for your adult life. When a man
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: comes in and he's got blood all over him, and
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: he gets on his knees at the police stage and
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: interlaces his hands above his head like he's doing an
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: episode of Cops and police are there trying to find
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: out what happened, and he reeks of alcohol. Do they
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: immediately assume everything he's going to say is the absolute
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: positive truth regardless of what he says.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: No, they don't. You have to treat everything with a
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: level of skepticism. And the way the police would handle
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: this initially, I think is that if you see what
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: appears to be blood, and no matter what they are
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: saying at that time, they still have to assess this
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: guy for an injury because you're thinking, is he out
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: of his mind? Has he injured himself? You're thinking about safety.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: You're thinking about this guy's safety, he's a citizen. You're
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: thinking about the safety of everyone else. So once he
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: has been restrained, you're going to start. If you're the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: police officer, hopefully you're putting on your gloves right and
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: you're getting this guy into a position, whether it's laying
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: face down on the ground, whether it's standing him up
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: so that you can do a full visual assessment, and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: they'll go from the top of his head to his feet.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: The police will run their hands through his hair to
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: see if they can source the blood. If they pull
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: it out and he's got free flowing blood coming out
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: of his scalp somewhere, they're going to look at the
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: back of his head, his neck, his chest, They'll look everywhere.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: They'll lift his shirt up, they'll look to see if
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: this guy has any injuries. Let's just suppose that he
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: is telling the truth and he's murdered someone, that's all
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: fine and good. But if he's injured, and he's injured
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: bleeding out, you're not going to be able to get
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a statement from this guy. You're going to lose a
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: primary source of evidence, at least at the circumstantial evidence
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: where he's making a statement, and it's exculpatory at that
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: point in time, and you can find things out from
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: this guy. So you want to ensure his safety from
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the beginning and just make sure that he's not injured
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to the point where he is going to die, because
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: if you got blood on you, you've got to have a
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: source for it. Once they've established that this guy is
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: not injured, a right thinking person would look at him
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: and say, who okay, we've got that checked off. Now,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: if he ain't bleeding, where's all this blood coming from?
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Does this marry up with the story? Well? I can
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: tell you this that nine to one one call, whoever
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: rolled out on that call is probably radioing in at
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: almost the same time as this guy is standing in
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the lobby. Can you imagine this standing in the lobby
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: covered in blood? You got a guy out there at
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the scene, and I can just imagine this conversation. Police
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: go over to their own band. You hear the repeater
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: kick on when they're talking to headquarters. But cops have
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the ability to flip over to another channel that you
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: can't listen in on, and they can talk directly to
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: one another over this channel. They'll say, go to direct
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: and within this distance, this is almost like a line
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: of sight broadcasting. If you're only merely blocks away, this
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: is an easy conversation to have. So you're telling me,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Jim that you've got a guy there at the station
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: house that's saying he murdered a guy here at this
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: address and he's covered in blood. Okay, I've got a
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: few answers for you out here. They're marrying this information
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: up at this point in time. So once you've established that, hey,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: this guy is probably telling the truth, this person who
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: has just made this confession becomes arguably one of the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: biggest pieces of evidence you have. And I'm talking about
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: his physical person. He has to be secured. All of
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the clothing he's wearing has to be secured. You cannot
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: allow him to wash his hands, you cannot allow him
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: to wash his face, because once you get him secured,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: you're going to take him into a back room, and
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: you're going to not ask him questions because at that
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: point time if you start other than are you okay?
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Once you start to ask questions of an individual, all right,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: even if they're admitting something, they have to be mirandized
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: more than likely, and you don't want to hamper the
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: free flow of information. Okay, Now, you can ask them
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: generalized questions. But if you start to get in the police,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: start to get into kind of probative questions and he
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: hasn't been mirandized, that can create a problem. You say, so,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: you're telling me that you've murdered this guy. Okay, all right,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: that's what you're saying. Now, if you take a step
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: beyond and say, well, how exactly did you go about
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: murdering him? If he has not been mirandized, and he
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: gets an attorney in there, then that can be a
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: problem because he hasn't been made aware of his rights,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and people don't think about that sort of thing many times.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you brought that up, Joe, because that actually
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: comes into play here. One thing that seemed to really
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: frustrate actual Well, first of all, he was intoxicated, okay,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: covered in blood. He goes in, gets on his knees,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: puts his hands on his head, and he is demanding
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: that they handcuff him because he will hurt someone else
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: what he's telling them, And I'm thinking, wait a minute,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: he expected you to go in, make his admission, to
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: cuff him and take him off, but that didn't happen
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: because the police is trying to ascertain what's going on,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: what is actually transpiring here, and they're not going quick enough.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: That's why axtell says, look, either you handcuff me or
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: I'm hurting somebody else. And it's because of what you
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: just explained.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: And is he in such a heightened state at this
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: point in time. He's highly agitated coming from what turns
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: out to be a horrific scene. He's witnessed this, He's participated,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: by his own admission, in this. He's probably wanting to
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: keep the demons at bay at this point in time, because,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: first off, you had mentioned that he's inebriated. We don't
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: know at what level something else that can be explored
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: by the police. At that point in time, they will
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: probably want to get a medical assessment on him. I
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: don't know that the police would have been even more shocked.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: If an alien had landed on Earth and walked in,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: that's how bizarre this is. This is a very Hollywood moment.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, you and I had talked
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: about this off air. It's like he had just watched
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the movie Seven. Spoiler alert. I've always wanted to say
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: that on air. I've never had an opportunity to say that.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: But if you've never seen Seven, one of the big
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: scenes in this movie is where Kevin Spacey walks in
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to the police station. He kneels down on the floor
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: in this police station, interlaces his fingers behind his head,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and demands that he be taken into custody. It admits
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: at that moment time that he's committed all of these
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: heinous crimes. It's almost like this guy had that awareness,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: because it seemed like it duplicates that scene in that movie.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I wonder if they'll come up with that as a defense.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: One thing you got here, Joe is the weapon he used,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: not just the moose andlers, but he actually used a shovel,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: And according to him, he pulls into the driveway and
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: just grabs the shovel. He didn't show up with a
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: shovel as his preferred choice of weapon. He picked it
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: up off the deck as he was on his way in.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: That's an excellent point because perhaps if you are of
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: a mind here and you're trying to do this guy,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you're going to grab onto any scrap that you can,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: right Dave. And so in this case, the attorney would say, well,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: this is demonstrative of the fact that my client is
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: just in a heightened state of rage here. He's being
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: fueled by anger, he's being fueled by alcohol. He's frustrated
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: with the police and the courts because they won't do anything.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: He didn't know what he was going to do when
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: he showed up there. To demonstrate that, he didn't even
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: show up with a weapon. He grabbed a shovel off
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: of the front porch that was laying there at his feet.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: And this course becomes what I'd refer to earlier, and
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: we talked about this in forensics a lot. It's called
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: a weapon of convenience. Now you see this a lot
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: in domestic battery cases, where people will get into a
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: fit of rage and they grab the closest thing they can,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: not considering necessarily the utility of it. It's one thing
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: if you grab a baseball bat, because you can think
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: about the use of it. It has a handle, it's
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: meant for swinging. It's weighted at one end as opposed
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to know, a lamp. You got a lamp shade. Yeah,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you could do damage with it, but it's not the
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: same as swinging a baseball bat. Well, who knew that
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: there would be a shovel on the front porch? He
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: shows up, he grabs a shovel. It's obviously highly effective,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: but it's not necessarily the best type of weapon that
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: you could utilize to bring about somebody's death.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: And that's exactly what he did. That's where the moose
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: andlers come in. He uses a shovel. The neighbor on
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: the nine one one call. Here's the screaming. And by
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: the way, we do know that seventy seven year old
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Lawrence Scully didn't just sit there and take it. He
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: did have defensive wounds on his arms. He was trying
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: to stop the blows from the shovel, which, again I'm
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: thinking using a shovel as a weapon, You've got a
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: couple of different things. You've got the actual shovel head
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: that you could use to batter somebody with. You've also
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: got the sharp end of it, the metal laid part
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: that could be used almost as a cutting device, licing
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: with that one. And I'm wondering, when you have done
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: this your whole life, have you you ever seen somebody
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: use garden equipment as a tool, I mean as a
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: weapon rather.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have. There's a reason I'm an old soldier.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: One of the things that we were taught early on.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: If it ever comes down to it, you can use
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: what we refer to as an E tool as a weapon.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: And the E tool is essentially the little shovels that
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: you carry in your backpack. You carry an E tool
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: that's attached to your backpack and it can be used
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: not only to dig holes with which unfortunately I dug
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: more than my share, but it's also got a bladed in.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: But the difference with a military E tool is that
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: it's small. It's much smaller than what you would think, say,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: for instance, a garden spade or even a big construction
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: style shovel is. And you don't really know the shape
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: of the shovel. Is it a spade shape shovel or
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: is it one of these kind of big flat shovels
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: that you would see somebody hefting gravel with for instance.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I do know this the injuries that Scully sustain are
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: going to be some of the most complicated that we've
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: ever discussed on body backs. Many times, when you're trying
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to assess injuries in the medical legal world, if you
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: have a forensic pathologist that has a body on a table,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: or maybe you're the EMMY investigator that's out at the scene,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: trying to make sense of this bloody mess that you
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: have in front of you, it can be rather daunting task.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And in this particular case, what we're going to be
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: looking at is a combination I think at least of
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: both potentially sharp force injuries as well as blunt force injuries.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I think we're going to have to break that down
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: for him, Dave.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: There are so many different things happening here in this
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: instance that I don't know how you, as a forensic
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: person go into trying to figure out what happened. Because
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: there's going to be blood everywhere. You're going to have
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: defensive injuries, You're going to have a big mess. I'm
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: assuming you're going to have puddles of blood. You're going
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: to have splatter all over the place, probably on the
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: ceiling and the walls. When you get to the scene,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: what are you going to do to divide and conquer
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: the situation to figure out what happened.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: One of my big heroes in forensics of all time
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: is a guy named doctor Thomas Nogucci. And for those
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: that don't know doctor Tom, he was the chief medical
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: examiner slash corner for La County. He's referred to by
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: many as the corner to the stars, and doctor Nogucci
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: stated that he had a problem when he first started
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: working going out to scenes involving these horrific cases. And
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: keep in mind he's the guy that actually did the
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: autopsies in but the Tate and the Lobbyanca cases out
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: in La he also did John Beluci and Marilyn Monroe.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, you name it. He was an involved in
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: these cases. But one of the things that doctor Noguchi
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: wrote about in one of his books, which I highly
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: recommend to anyone if you want a not so technical
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: view of the world that we inhabit, that he had
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a problem when he would walk into the scene of
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: focusing only on the bodies. This guy was so bright
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: in such a simple way, he actively determined that when
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: he would approach any scene, the first place he would
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: always look was up. And I was always fascinated by
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: that because he became so distracted by simply focusing on
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the bodies. He would be told that the bodies are
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: in so and so room, that they're in this location.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine walking into that Tate crime scene after
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the Manson family had done their devilish work there, and
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: how brutalized these bodies were, and how distracting that is
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: as a death investigator, and you forget about everything else.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm glad that you mentioned this, because yeah, that
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: environment would have been covered in Bloe, but it's Scully's home.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: So using doctor Nogucci's premise, here, you look up, You're
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: going to look for any kind of dynamic cast off
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: that might have come from a weapon. You're going to
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: look to the sides, at the walls, maybe the adjacent furniture,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: and then finally you make your way to the body.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: The bodies aren't going anywhere, or the body in this
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: case is not going anywhere. It's going to be there.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: You're not just simply focused on the body. And I
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: think that this is key. I try to teach my
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: students at Jacksonville state the same thing. Don't just merely
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: focus on the bodies, because as humans, our eyes are
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: drawn to the body, and the worse it is, the
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: more mesmerized you seemingly become because of the level of
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: trauma and gore that you're seeing in front of you,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: and it's really easy to get distracted. And of course
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: we all know it's like driving a car, right. The
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: more distracted you are, the higher the probability is that
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: you're going to make a mistake or something's going to
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: go wrong. So you take the scene in total, and
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: of course, in this particular case, we've already got an
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: alleged perpetrat that has walked into a station house and
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: he is covered with blood. You can only imagine the
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: surrounding area around Scully's body is going to be probably
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: super saturated with blood. It's going to be all over
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the place. It's going to be all over the victim.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: There will probably be blood that is off in just
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the periphery in the immediate area where you might have
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: it pool as a result of him bleeding out. This
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: is a dynamic event, so you're going to have the
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: alleged perpetrator stepping in blood that's issuing out of the body,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: so you might have bloody transfer footprints that are all
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: over the place. You're going to have passive blood that's
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: dripping off of any kind of instrument that's being used.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: So if you think about just standing there with a
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: paint brush in your hand that's saturated with paint, paint
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: would drip off the tip of it. It's the same
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: way with an instrument, whether it be a knife or
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: a shovel or a moose antler, it's just going to
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: drip there. And that's kind of that passive drip, and
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: then you have this dynamic distribution of blood that's all
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: over the place as well, where it's cast off onto
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the ceiling and the walls, and famously, there's been a
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: number of cases where perpetrators have actually cast off blood
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: onto themselves. If you can imagine that, where they're drawing
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the thing back so vigorously, these diagonal kind of presentations
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: on their back, where they're drawing it back over the
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: top of their head and the blood deposits diagonally across
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the back of their shirt. It's quite an amazing thing.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So it's very easy to get distracted in a case
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: like this, by our nature, we're drawn to the body.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: We want to try to make sense of it, but
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: we have to take everything into consideration for us.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: All right, Jo Scott, here's the actual question I want
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: to roll out for you, because what we have so
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: far is we've got a man in a police station,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: hands above his head, covered in blood, screaming for police
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: to arrest him right now or he's going to hurt
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: other people, and admits that he has used a shovel
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: and antlers moose antlers to kill a man. And my
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: bigger question is they're both odd things to use as
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: a weapon, either one. But for real, when you go
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: in to start your investigation, and as you mentioned, you
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: were talking about looking all around and you see the
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: blood everywhere, but now you've got injuries to look at.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: How are you going to be able to tell the
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: difference between a flat back of a shovel and an antler,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: or the sharp edge of the shovel and an antler.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Or what if he used the wood handle of the
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: shovel and hit him with that or poked him with that.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: How will you, as the forensic guy, separate these wounds.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: It's very tough. First off, I got to tell you
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: it's not something that we would make that total assessment
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: at the scene. It's impossible, and you're going to wreck
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: your case if you do that. That's why bodies need
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: to go to a morgue. They need to go to
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: an autopsy station. For folks that have never been into
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: an autopsy room, it's lit much like a surgical theater.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: You've got these very brilliant lights that kind of blast
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: away any shadows that might be indwelling there, and so
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: that's the first thing you want to do, eradicate all
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the shadows, and then you're going to have to clean
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: the body up. But of course we'll document it with
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: photography first in its untouched state. So you photograph at
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the scene, you photograph at the morgue, and you photograph
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: before and after images essentially, because these injuries are going
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: to be so over the top day, they're going to
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: be what we refer to as communicating injuries. This is
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: what you're dealing with if you just take the shovel alone.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And I have had people that have been killed with shovels.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I remember a fellow right off the top of my
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: head that was beaten to death with a shovel and
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: the injuries were all about his head and face, and
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: that the leading sharp edge on the shovel was not
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: used in this case. I have had another one though,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: where an individual was essentially chopped with a shovel. Those
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: injuries look completely different because the chopping injuries with the
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: leading edge that blade, well, it could look like an axe,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: it could look like a meat cleaver, could look like
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: a hatchet, and so those are going to be closer
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: to sharp force injuries. Let me kind of give folks
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: at home an idea of what this looks like. If
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: you have someone that is beaten, those injuries that arise
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: from that are going to be what are referred to
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: as lacerations. These are going to be jagged, irregular style injuries.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: And if folks at home will take their fingers and
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: interlace them and then just kind of gently pull them apart,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: that's what we refer to when we look for something
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: called tissue bridging, and that's how we delineate between blunt
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: force and sharp force. So with blunt force, you'll have
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: these little strands of tissue that still connect to either
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: side of the injury. But if you have a sharp
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: force injury, the edges are going to be very clean.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: The margins will be very clean because you've got a
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: milled edge that's cutting through that tissue. That's kind of
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: how we delineate. Also, with lacerations, you're going to have
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: contosed areas because this is an impact area. It's not
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: just the area where the skin tears, because that's what
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: a laceration is, the skin is kind of ripping into.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: You'll have associated bruising or contusion around that area, more
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: so than you will with an edged weapon. Now, the handle,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: you'd mentioned that if someone is being beaten with the
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: handle itself and you've got this weighted shovel head on it,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: and the shovel head doesn't even have to make contact
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: with the body, you're going to get these linear contusions
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: which are quite striking, and you can kind of make
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: those out dependent upon where the body is hit. But
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: now you know how I said that, you've got communicating injuries.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: The story is that the perpetrator ledge perpetrator here had
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: beaten him twenty plus times with the shovel and they
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: say beaten. We don't know if it's actually beaten, or
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: these are chop injuries, or if he was impaled in
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: some way, we don't really know. We don't know what
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: the condition of the shovel is. But then quote unquote,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: according to the sheriff, he picks up a moose antler.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: One has to assume the moose antlers just laying in
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the house. I don't know. Maybe it's a decorative item.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: These things, as I stated early on, they can weigh
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: up to thirty pounds day. The Native American use these
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: as tools as like war clubs, so it's nothing to
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: sneeze at.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: I'm picturing this in my head, Joe, and I'm thinking, Okay,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: the shovel, I get. The guy has lost his cookies.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: He comes slamming in the driveway, he's running in the house.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: He's going to do some major damage to this man.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: He's just reached his point of no return. He's alcoholed
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: up and he's going in. So I get the shovel.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: But what drives a man to look and say I
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: need to finish this guy off and the shovel just
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: won't do. That's not something I see as a weapon.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I've envisioned the thing sitting on a coffee table and
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: you use it as a bowl to put your car
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: keys in or something. I don't live in that north
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: country up there. People in this region are very used
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: to seeing I would assume moose heads on the wall
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: and that sort of thing in a local watering hole
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: or someplace that they go to a family's house that
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: likes to hunt moose. They've seen the antlers. Maybe they
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: understand the utility of the antlers. Maybe they've held an
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: antler before and they say, wow, this is real. It's
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: weighted in a very particular way, so it requires, I think,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: some familiarity with it. Because he didn't go out. It
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: doesn't say that he picked up a pair of shoes
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: and began to beat him to death with it, or
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: that he even picked up a fire poker and started swinging.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: He picked up a moose antler, and the moose's antler
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: is designed in a very peculiar weight. I said early
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: on that moose can hear really well.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: These things are dish shaped, almost like an odd shaped
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: satellite dish that they have on either side of their head.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: They shed them periodically, they grow back. I think in
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: the fifth year of the moose's life. They're the biggest
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: that they'll ever reach. These things are conductors for sound
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: as well, and I would assume that when you picked
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: them up, there's a perceptible weight and maybe a balance
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: to it. Maybe the alleged perpetrator picked some up in
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: the past and said, wow, you know, this might be
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: something you could use as a weapon, and you know,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: he grabs a shovel. Maybe the guy is not dead
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: yet and he says, well, I'm tired of swinging as
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: a long handled shovel. Let me find something that's a
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: bit more compact. You remember when I was talking about
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: the E tool earlier that you're issued in the military.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: It's more compact than a regular shovel. You can perhaps
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: get a bit more leverage with it to direct that
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: energy onto the body. And of course there lies a
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: moose antler. Now, I think for me is someone that's
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: never had any kind of experience whatsoever examining this kind
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: of insult to a body, I'd be intrigued as to
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: what these injuries look like, because they're going to look
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: different than any other kind of blunt for its impact.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: The edges of the antlers also have They're not sharp,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: but they have these little ridges along the area and
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: a couple of these images I've seen some of them
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: look like gigantic saw teeth, and then they'll expand to
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: what looks like almost the diameter of a branch of
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: a tree, but they're smooth and rounded on the top.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: So what kind of injury could you expect? You have
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: to imagine that the edge of the antler is actually
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: what is going to be the contact surface. You're not
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: going to hit them with the bowl like structure. You're
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: going to hit that individual so that they're being impacted
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: by that edge with those little knobs along the ridge,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: and that in and of itself is going to generate
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: a very particular type of injury. Jo.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: I had to ask you this because I'm kind of
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: curious as to how the whole thing comes into play.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: We have a neighbor that actually sees actual his minivan
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: screeching into the driveway and sees him getting out and
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: running inside, obviously grabbing a shovel off the deck as
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: he goes inside. She then, while on the phone with
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: nine to one one here screaming, and while still on
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: the phone with nine to one one, sees actually leave
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: the house, get back in his car and start the
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: three block drive to the police station. So all of
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: this takes place in a very very short period of time.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Will that have any impact on the way police or
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: forensic people come in and address the scene. The speed
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: with which this horrific terror took place.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: There's many times that you will hear, particularly behaviorists that
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: look at they'll use terms like frenzied. It's a frenzied attack.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: And I think that when you go to kind of
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: describe the scene and trust me, my friend, it's going
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: to be chaotic. It'll be chaotic in that environment. The movement.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: You hear this guy screaming. By virtue of him screaming,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: he has an awareness that he's being attacked. You said
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: earlier that there was evidence of defensive injury, so he
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: knows that this individual is coming after him. He would
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: raise his arm and can you imagine being impacted by
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: a shovel on your arm. His arm very well might
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: be sliced open with one of the edges of the shovel.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: He's going to have an awareness that he is being attacked,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: and of course it ends up in his death. So
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: there's a movement here. There's a dynamic environment that's going on.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I would imagine that you're going to have maybe broken furniture,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: certainly upturned furniture dependent upon how much is in there.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: If you've got trinkets on shelves, pictures on the wall,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing, a lot of that stuff you're
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: swinging next time you got to your shed, grab hold
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: of your shovel and just consider for a second and
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: see how unmanageable this thing is. If you're trying to
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: use it as a weapon, you'd have to kind of
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: choke up on it like a baseball bat in order
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: to facilitate, and then it's going to impede your ability
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: to utilize it because you get the rest of the handle.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: It's not the most efficient weapon. And you could see
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: how he may have gotten frustrated along the way, and
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: so that compelled him to ultimately pick up this moose
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: antler that just happened to be laid in there and
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: finally finished Scully off. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: is body bags.