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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: An Unthinkable Execution - The America Thayer Case · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. My wife says, I've got
0:21
Speaker 1: a lot of useless information in my brain, and she
0:24
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily say that in a disparaging manner. Particularly it
0:28
Speaker 1: comes in handy when we go to do trivia, and
0:32
Speaker 1: it's something I enjoy and I love to read, and
0:34
Speaker 1: particularly I love to read about history. I'm thinking we
0:37
Speaker 1: have just had coronation or the Brits have as I'm
0:42
Speaker 1: laying the sound down right now, and I believe it's
0:47
Speaker 1: King Charles the Third, if I'm not mistaken. And here's
0:51
Speaker 1: the thing about it, there's another King of England that
0:54
Speaker 1: I find far more fascinating. He came along in a
0:57
Speaker 1: very crucial time period when there was great turmoil in
1:04
Speaker 1: Great Britain over religion. His name was Charles the First.
1:08
Speaker 1: I've been fascinated by him because he didn't seem like
1:11
Speaker 1: necessarily a brutal dictator or anything. But he died very brutally.
1:18
Speaker 1: He was actually publicly executed, and when he was executed,
1:23
Speaker 1: he died as a result of an executioner wielding a
1:27
Speaker 1: large bladed instrument over his head. It hung in the
1:31
Speaker 1: air for a moment and it fell upon his neck.
1:35
Speaker 1: And separated his head from his shoulders. Today, on body Bags,
1:40
Speaker 1: I'm actually going to chat about a cause of death
1:44
Speaker 1: that to this point I have yet to address, and
1:48
Speaker 1: that is a homicide by means of decapitation. Today we're
1:54
Speaker 1: going to talk about the homicide of America, Theayer out
1:59
Speaker 1: of Minnesota. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body Bags.
2:09
Speaker 1: My buddy Dave Max joining me right now. Dave, how
2:13
Speaker 1: you doing? Man?
2:14
Speaker 2: So far, so good. A little curious as to why
2:16
Speaker 2: we're going to do this.
2:17
Speaker 1: Story though, Oh yeah, why was that? Well?
2:19
Speaker 2: All right, there's a whole lot to it. And when
2:22
Speaker 2: I say there's a whole lot to it, there's a
2:24
Speaker 2: lot of background. But when you come right down to
2:27
Speaker 2: the body bags portion of it, I'm asking this because
2:29
Speaker 2: I don't know, Joe, but is this one where you
2:31
Speaker 2: have to use two bags? And I'm not being funny.
2:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, people have asked me that. Okay, I've had cases,
2:37
Speaker 1: generally involving blast trauma, airplane crashes every now and then
2:42
Speaker 1: a car crash where I've had to use bags plural
2:48
Speaker 1: in order to facilitate collection of remains. But most of
2:52
Speaker 1: the time those remains and I remember one plane crash
2:56
Speaker 1: in particular that had multiple victims, where we had these
3:01
Speaker 1: bodies that were just so devastated. We at the time
3:03
Speaker 1: we couldn't say, well, in the field, we couldn't say well,
3:07
Speaker 1: this arm belongs with this body because they were so mangled,
3:11
Speaker 1: and so we would just organize the anatomic elements as
3:16
Speaker 1: best we could and then take these items back to
3:19
Speaker 1: the Morgan try to marry them up accordingly. I've had
3:23
Speaker 1: traumatic decapitations. Most of the time these are involving motor
3:29
Speaker 1: vehicle accident. There's that classic scene I think it's the
3:32
Speaker 1: movie which one is it? The Omen? The Original Omen,
3:35
Speaker 1: where you have the photographer that is decapitated by a
3:39
Speaker 1: piece of glass. I've had motor vehicle accidents where you
3:43
Speaker 1: have something that will pass through a windshield because you
3:47
Speaker 1: have a victim that's in a static position okay, they're
3:50
Speaker 1: driving a vehicle, that they're seated in a vehicle, their
3:53
Speaker 1: head is literally separated from their body. I don't recall
3:57
Speaker 1: ever working a hum where the cause of death has
4:02
Speaker 1: been listed as a decapitation. It just kind of sets
4:07
Speaker 1: this apart. I think in all of the cases that
4:10
Speaker 1: we've discussed on body bags.
4:12
Speaker 2: We actually are dealing with a domestic violence situation, Joe.
4:15
Speaker 2: The end result is part of the story and it's
4:18
Speaker 2: why we're doing this. But the reality is this is
4:22
Speaker 2: a domestic violence story that dated back several years. The
4:27
Speaker 2: couple have been dating for seven years, and in that
4:30
Speaker 2: time period, they'd had multiple run ins with police because
4:35
Speaker 2: America Thayer was in trouble with her boyfriend for whatever reason.
4:40
Speaker 2: And as a matter of fact, on the day that
4:43
Speaker 2: this took place, they were on their way to court
4:46
Speaker 2: America Thayer's boyfriend they had an argument. Don on one
4:49
Speaker 2: was called. The police show up and there was a
4:51
Speaker 2: standoff at their apartment and so he set their apartment
4:54
Speaker 2: on fire to try to get the cops to leave.
4:56
Speaker 2: And that was a domestic violence situation that kept. It
4:59
Speaker 2: was just going out of control. That's actually why they
5:02
Speaker 2: were headed to court that day when all this happened.
5:05
Speaker 2: So we have several different police interactions with this couple
5:09
Speaker 2: and with America they are being oh, and I don't
5:12
Speaker 2: want to say typical because that's so wrong, but she
5:14
Speaker 2: was the battered spouse. Even after all of the different
5:18
Speaker 2: things went on with police, America there wrote the court
5:22
Speaker 2: a handwritten letter asking them to get rid of a
5:26
Speaker 2: no contact order because her boyfriend, slash abuser, didn't speak English,
5:32
Speaker 2: he was from Cuba and he needed her to help him.
5:35
Speaker 2: That no contact order was put in place so he
5:37
Speaker 2: couldn't get near enough to hurt her. And she wrote
5:40
Speaker 2: the personalized, handwritten letter to the court asking that the
5:44
Speaker 2: no contact order be removed, and it.
5:45
Speaker 1: Was Yeah, and it goes on for so long, and
5:49
Speaker 1: we hear so many of these cases. And by the way,
5:51
Speaker 1: just a little aside, I've seen the end result over
5:54
Speaker 1: the course of my career. What happens when these cases
5:58
Speaker 1: gone for a protracted period of time. Our friend Nancy Gray,
6:01
Speaker 1: she has a real special place in her heart for
6:03
Speaker 1: victims of domestic violence. And while I've got everybody's attention,
6:07
Speaker 1: there is actually a National Domestic Violence hotline and that
6:10
Speaker 1: number is one eight hundred and seven ninety nine seven
6:13
Speaker 1: two three three, or you can go to their website,
6:16
Speaker 1: which is just simply thehotline dot org. And if you
6:20
Speaker 1: or any of your friends are suffering in a situation
6:24
Speaker 1: like this, you know, check them out and see if
6:25
Speaker 1: they can come up with some resources for you. But
6:27
Speaker 1: in this case, this has gone on, David, if I'm
6:30
Speaker 1: not mistaken for at least a decade, perhaps a little
6:34
Speaker 1: bit more, and you've got this comfort level of escalation.
6:40
Speaker 1: You allow that old say and give them an inch
6:43
Speaker 1: to take a mile, give them a rope, they think
6:44
Speaker 1: they're cowboy, and it just continues to replicate or increase
6:49
Speaker 1: in intensity, this sort of thing. And what's really sad
6:53
Speaker 1: about America is that we find she was well loved.
6:56
Speaker 1: She actually worked for my pillow company up in Minnesota.
7:00
Speaker 1: Her coworkers were just absolutely heartbroken and when they found
7:05
Speaker 1: out about this case because the level, I think the
7:07
Speaker 1: level of violence in this particular case is so over
7:12
Speaker 1: the top that it's hard for people to comprehend. Firearms
7:18
Speaker 1: and those sorts of things are difficult as well, But
7:21
Speaker 1: when you start to talk about decapitation, most of the time,
7:24
Speaker 1: when you and I have a discussion on body bags,
7:27
Speaker 1: about decapitation, it's an adjunct to dismemberment. We've covered ki.
7:33
Speaker 1: It seems like we've been washing dismemberment cases for some reason,
7:36
Speaker 1: just in the recent months, where people are trying to
7:40
Speaker 1: take a part of body in order to dispose it.
7:42
Speaker 1: That's not the case here. This case actually centers around
7:48
Speaker 1: America being not in a private spot, just keep this
7:53
Speaker 1: in mind, but in a very public location where she
7:57
Speaker 1: was decapitated in front of witnesses. I'd mentioned early on
8:21
Speaker 1: about Charles the First He was publicly beheaded, and this
8:26
Speaker 1: is something that has gone on for thousands of years
8:30
Speaker 1: as a form of execution. You know, the French allegedly
8:34
Speaker 1: perfected the process of decapitation vis a vis the guillotine,
8:39
Speaker 1: and they had actually had well their last I think
8:43
Speaker 1: public guillotining had taken place, like back in the twenties.
8:47
Speaker 1: I remember, for some reasons seeing a still image of
8:51
Speaker 1: this event having taken place, and I've seen images of
8:54
Speaker 1: the fellow's body, and that was the last public one,
8:57
Speaker 1: and I think that they were still using the methodology.
9:00
Speaker 1: I think their last one was either like in seventy
9:02
Speaker 1: six or seventy seven, but it was done in a
9:05
Speaker 1: sequestered area, and so it has still continued. There been
9:10
Speaker 1: a number of public executions around the world, the Middle
9:14
Speaker 1: East country, some of them still use beheading as a
9:18
Speaker 1: way of public execution. When you begin to think about
9:21
Speaker 1: this area that this took place up in Minnesota, it's
9:24
Speaker 1: a rather nice area, families, neighborhood, this sort of thing,
9:29
Speaker 1: and I can't begin to imagine what it would be
9:32
Speaker 1: like to be outside your home and actually have this
9:35
Speaker 1: thing happening before you. It has to be one of
9:37
Speaker 1: those moments like, am I actually You're frozen for a
9:40
Speaker 1: moment and you're thinking, am I actually witnessing this? Is
9:44
Speaker 1: this actually happening? And then your fears are certainly confirmed.
9:48
Speaker 2: I think while this was taking place, there were witnesses.
9:52
Speaker 2: It took place at two thirty in the afternoon, but
9:55
Speaker 2: beyond that people were videotaping. In this day and age
9:58
Speaker 2: where we all almost all of have a cell phone
10:01
Speaker 2: that has a camera and the ability to upload things
10:04
Speaker 2: online for whatever reason, to document every aspect of our
10:08
Speaker 2: life instead of helping this situation you have, but you're
10:13
Speaker 2: watching a person who is obviously being beaten. You have
10:18
Speaker 2: a man standing outside a Chrystler three hundred. I believe
10:21
Speaker 2: they're parked in a residential area. I'm looking at a
10:23
Speaker 2: picture of it right now of where this took place,
10:26
Speaker 2: and the man is beating You don't know that the
10:29
Speaker 2: victim is male or female. They're in the front seat
10:31
Speaker 2: of the car, but they're taking a pounding and rather
10:34
Speaker 2: than go to the aid of who is being beaten
10:36
Speaker 2: and try to put a stop to this. Pull out
10:39
Speaker 2: your phone and start videotaping, and as this crime takes place,
10:45
Speaker 2: you decide to videotape the entire thing and then upload
10:48
Speaker 2: this for all the world to see. It is the
10:52
Speaker 2: most graphic, gruesome video I've ever seen, And all I
10:58
Speaker 2: could think of, Joe is our we trained monkeys that
11:01
Speaker 2: instead of trying to help, we think about how can
11:04
Speaker 2: I take advantage of this?
11:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like it. Sometimes the monsters out among
11:08
Speaker 1: us are not necessarily the ones wielding wielding the weapons,
11:12
Speaker 1: now are they? And the word that comes to mind
11:14
Speaker 1: is interdiction. And it's easy to say, well, you know what,
11:18
Speaker 1: that's something that the police should do. It's old, it's time.
11:21
Speaker 1: You know, people say I don't want to get involved.
11:24
Speaker 1: You wanted to get involved, But you wanted to get involved.
11:27
Speaker 1: From a videography standpoint, that's the road that you chose.
11:31
Speaker 1: You were not compelled toward the action. You were not
11:35
Speaker 1: motivated to interdict. And maybe I don't know, they thought
11:39
Speaker 1: that they were going to take a beating if they
11:41
Speaker 1: ran over and interdicted instead of videotaping, our reactive mind
11:47
Speaker 1: seems to be in neutral stuck in neutral for some
11:51
Speaker 1: reason because of these things that we carry in our
11:53
Speaker 1: pockets with us everywhere, and that we have to push
11:56
Speaker 1: it out there. It's brutal at every level. And I
12:00
Speaker 1: know DA will be very pleased that they have a
12:05
Speaker 1: videotape of this when trial comes about, because this is
12:08
Speaker 1: something you're documenting, an actual homicide. She was. Initially, from
12:13
Speaker 1: my understanding, the perpetrator was standing outside of the door
12:19
Speaker 1: and for some reason he had a dumbbell in his hand.
12:23
Speaker 1: Just imagine this. He had taken the dumbbell and had
12:28
Speaker 1: begun to beat her in the chest with it, apparently,
12:31
Speaker 1: and then there was a head strike. The witnesses said
12:35
Speaker 1: they saw him produce a large knife at that moment
12:38
Speaker 1: in time, and I think knife actually translates into machete,
12:44
Speaker 1: and for those that are not familiar with a machete,
12:46
Speaker 1: it's a single edged weapon. It's got a very heavy
12:50
Speaker 1: spine on it. And the reason machetes are built like
12:53
Speaker 1: they are and constructed like they are, they have been
12:56
Speaker 1: used for years and years, particularly I think in the Philippines.
12:59
Speaker 1: Those individuals down there use them as weapons, but they
13:02
Speaker 1: were also used as a farming tool. And do you
13:05
Speaker 1: know specifically what crop they were used with. They famously,
13:08
Speaker 1: I would think sugar cane. Yeah, you're absolutely, you're right
13:11
Speaker 1: on the money. Yeah, yeah, And you know, coming from
13:14
Speaker 1: South Louisiana, they grow a lot of sugar cane down there,
13:17
Speaker 1: and they were used to harvest sugar cane with. So
13:20
Speaker 1: you can take it and the weight of this blade
13:24
Speaker 1: and how it's constructed, and the cutting edge is very
13:28
Speaker 1: long on this thing. It's not the same link that's say,
13:31
Speaker 1: for instance, as a sword, but it's certainly it's bigger
13:35
Speaker 1: than what people might think of a bowie knife. And
13:38
Speaker 1: you can wield it and swing it almost like a
13:41
Speaker 1: bat if you will, and chop with it. So it's
13:45
Speaker 1: a chopping instrument that can. You know, you can put
13:47
Speaker 1: a very fine edge on it and slice right through
13:50
Speaker 1: sugar cane. If anybody has ever had any experience with
13:53
Speaker 1: sugarcane or maybe even bamboo, you know that it's very resilient,
13:58
Speaker 1: it's very tough, and so they had to create the
14:00
Speaker 1: blade in order to facilitate this. Machetes are very popular
14:03
Speaker 1: in the Caribbean as well. Cuba, they grow a lot
14:06
Speaker 1: of sugarcane there and so you know they're used worldwide,
14:10
Speaker 1: and some people carry them as a defense tool. My father,
14:14
Speaker 1: I even remember sent home when he was in the Philippines,
14:18
Speaker 1: who was in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam Era,
14:20
Speaker 1: and sent home a machete to me as a little boy,
14:24
Speaker 1: and it had a handle that was carved out of
14:27
Speaker 1: what was what I was told was the second hardest
14:29
Speaker 1: wood in the world, in some wood called monkey wood,
14:31
Speaker 1: and it was black, the color of the of the woods,
14:35
Speaker 1: actually black and very resilient, had a brass handle on it.
14:38
Speaker 2: I'm concerned about the area, and not concerned this wrong term.
14:42
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about person here, the victim of America in
14:45
Speaker 2: the car. He's already beaten her with the dumbbell, and
14:50
Speaker 2: now he's got the machete and he's going to decapitator.
14:55
Speaker 2: We already covered this at the beginning, so I'm not
14:57
Speaker 2: throwing out anything you don't already know. But I'm trying
15:00
Speaker 2: to picture how he could get the momentum, the power
15:04
Speaker 2: necessary to swing the machete to be able to decapitate
15:11
Speaker 2: her in the area.
15:12
Speaker 1: Provided I was singing the same thing, because you know
15:15
Speaker 1: the way the witnesses have described this, and if anybody home,
15:18
Speaker 1: I mean you can do this at home, you know,
15:20
Speaker 1: you just go and visualize with your vehicle. A sedan
15:23
Speaker 1: perhaps doesn't have to be a sedan, but I think
15:26
Speaker 1: this is a Chrysler three hundred, so it's a four
15:29
Speaker 1: door car. If she's positioned in the front seat, the
15:33
Speaker 1: momentum that it would take, the velocity that would have
15:37
Speaker 1: to be generated in a very short stroke, because it
15:40
Speaker 1: would be a short stroke. But you're inhibited because your
15:43
Speaker 1: arm has a certain link to it, and you add
15:45
Speaker 1: this long blade. You couldn't do this in one fail swoop.
15:48
Speaker 1: People would say, well, I have a knife that's so
15:50
Speaker 1: sharp it'll cut through anything. Yeah, but still you're not
15:53
Speaker 1: just talking about simply cutting a piece of paper here.
15:57
Speaker 1: You're talking about multiple layers of soft tissue. And then
16:02
Speaker 1: you're talking about going through the spinal proceeds in the
16:05
Speaker 1: back of the neck. How long I think did this take?
16:09
Speaker 1: And that would be something that would have to be
16:12
Speaker 1: assessed in the morgue. I do know this though, Dave,
16:17
Speaker 1: that when it's happened, not only did these people that
16:21
Speaker 1: were bearing witness to this event see America brutalized in
16:27
Speaker 1: what they saw next her bloody body being drugged from
16:31
Speaker 1: the car by the perpetrator placed on the ground, and
16:34
Speaker 1: then the same individual grabbed her head that was now
16:39
Speaker 1: removed from her body and ladd immediately adjacent to her
16:43
Speaker 1: bloody corpse outside of the vehicle. I never really minded
17:09
Speaker 1: working really bloody scenes within structures, within homes. Certainly, I
17:15
Speaker 1: didn't mind working them outdoors. Being a forensic investigator, a
17:20
Speaker 1: death investigator, specifically, you have to document the environment. But
17:25
Speaker 1: you know, Dave, one of the things that I never
17:27
Speaker 1: really ever got used to was climbing inside of a vehicle.
17:31
Speaker 1: I never liked it because it's constricting. There's nowhere. Let's say,
17:37
Speaker 1: for instance, you're standing at a crime scene where you
17:40
Speaker 1: have remains that are in a living room, or you're
17:43
Speaker 1: outside of a home in an open field. You can
17:46
Speaker 1: kind of orbit around the specific area where everything has
17:50
Speaker 1: taken place. You have a kind of freedom of movement.
17:53
Speaker 1: You can take your photographic images. We followed the points
17:57
Speaker 1: of the compass. That's kind of how you do it,
17:59
Speaker 1: from mac grow to micro and you do all the
18:02
Speaker 1: points kind of three hundred and sixty degrees all the
18:03
Speaker 1: way around the body, and then you tighten in and
18:06
Speaker 1: you do that again, and you do the same process
18:09
Speaker 1: with looking for trace evidence, and you know all these
18:13
Speaker 1: other things you're documenting blood stain, the dynamic, what kind
18:18
Speaker 1: of dynamic you're looking at, and this sort of thing.
18:20
Speaker 1: But when you're inside of a car, I always felt
18:23
Speaker 1: like I was going to miss something, you know, because
18:26
Speaker 1: there's so many little hidden areas, little grooves, contours, and
18:30
Speaker 1: you never can quite get positioned in there. And this
18:35
Speaker 1: one other element, particularly as it applies to America's homicide,
18:40
Speaker 1: is that it would have been absolutely bathed in blood
18:46
Speaker 1: in that environment.
18:47
Speaker 2: The shocking part of this, as we've talked about it,
18:51
Speaker 2: Joe to me, are the nine to one one calls.
18:54
Speaker 2: I would think that if you or I were near
18:57
Speaker 2: the scene saw something taking place, that a nine to
19:00
Speaker 2: one one call would be made saying this is going
19:03
Speaker 2: on and there are two guys running towards the action,
19:07
Speaker 2: that would be the appropriate number one call. Now that's
19:09
Speaker 2: not what happened. There's a call that came in at
19:12
Speaker 2: two thirty one to nine one one. It was a female.
19:15
Speaker 2: The perpetrator of this crime was supposed to be in
19:19
Speaker 2: court that day for a previous attack on his significant other.
19:25
Speaker 2: America there and he was refusing to go to court.
19:28
Speaker 2: They had a friend in the car with him, and
19:30
Speaker 2: he gave witness to this argument that took place. Now,
19:33
Speaker 2: that was it. Between two pm and two thirty one,
19:36
Speaker 2: We go from he won't go to court. America is
19:39
Speaker 2: crying because he won't go to court and he's going
19:41
Speaker 2: to have to go to jail now and again she's
19:43
Speaker 2: crying for her abuser. If you're in an abusive relationship,
19:47
Speaker 2: get out. She's crying for her abuser because he won't
19:49
Speaker 2: go to court. She doesn't want to go to jail.
19:51
Speaker 2: He gets mad at her. The friend gets out of
19:54
Speaker 2: the car, and that's where we see them together in
19:59
Speaker 2: a neighborhood broad daylight. Alexis Subrette gets out of the
20:04
Speaker 2: car and starts pounding away at America Thayer. He first
20:09
Speaker 2: uses a dumbbell, then breaks out the machete. Nine one
20:12
Speaker 2: one gets a call of a knife stabbing, but at
20:15
Speaker 2: two thirty one, a nine to one one call is
20:18
Speaker 2: placed by a woman who is right there at the scene.
20:21
Speaker 2: This is happening in front of her house. She reports
20:24
Speaker 2: that a mail a man has just pulled a body
20:28
Speaker 2: out of his car and it has no head. The
20:32
Speaker 2: nine to one one caller said the mail got out
20:35
Speaker 2: of the car, was chopping at something in the car
20:39
Speaker 2: with a huge knife, tossed the knife into the grass,
20:43
Speaker 2: took what looks like a head with hair out of
20:47
Speaker 2: the car, threw it on the ground, then pulled the
20:52
Speaker 2: body out of the car. The man is then described
20:55
Speaker 2: as heading eastbound down an alleyway, and she described the
20:59
Speaker 2: man as wearing a white T shirt and a hat.
21:03
Speaker 2: That is the exact description of an eyewitness account of
21:07
Speaker 2: what took place on that day. And it sounds like
21:11
Speaker 2: something out of a horror flake.
21:13
Speaker 1: It does. You have visions of somebody in some horrible
21:16
Speaker 1: mask wielding a machete. It's what and here's what, you know.
21:20
Speaker 1: What really struck me the most is not necessarily the
21:23
Speaker 1: level of gore. Perhaps we're staying in the horror vein
21:28
Speaker 1: here is the fact that he began hoofing it away
21:31
Speaker 1: from the location. That tells me, Dave, that there's an
21:34
Speaker 1: awareness on his part that he's done wrong.
21:38
Speaker 2: Now, what do you do, Joe as an investigator, as
21:41
Speaker 2: a forensic investigator, where do you start with this? Because
21:44
Speaker 2: you've got to determine so many things about this. I mean,
21:48
Speaker 2: it's obvious there's a body with no head, but you
21:50
Speaker 2: have to put this back together in such a way
21:53
Speaker 2: that in court it can be laid out for the
21:55
Speaker 2: average person to understand what took place and who is
21:59
Speaker 2: true add fault. I don't even know where you begin
22:02
Speaker 2: with that. I am curious, though, do you start with
22:05
Speaker 2: determining was she dead before her head was severed?
22:08
Speaker 1: That's going to track back to the morgue when her
22:12
Speaker 1: remains are finally examined there in ideal circumstances, you know,
22:17
Speaker 1: the ideal circumstances of lighting, where you have all of
22:21
Speaker 1: the instruments that you're gonna need. Chief among them is
22:24
Speaker 1: X ray. I think in order to not just examine,
22:28
Speaker 1: but to document. It's very difficult to do this at
22:31
Speaker 1: the scene, I think as accurately as you could back
22:34
Speaker 1: at the morgue. Here's the thing. We've got two weapons
22:37
Speaker 1: involved here, and they will both have been collected at
22:40
Speaker 1: the scene. Here's something that folks might not know. Did
22:44
Speaker 1: you know that even in homicides, if you have a
22:47
Speaker 1: good relationship, if the police, the police investigators have a
22:50
Speaker 1: good relationship with the emmy and this is just one
22:53
Speaker 1: of the reasons you need to play nice with one
22:55
Speaker 1: another in our field. The me the pathologist specifically will say,
23:00
Speaker 1: look y'all, please bring the weapon to the morgue. And
23:06
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that you do that because generally
23:09
Speaker 1: the police will collect, say, for instance, the aforementioned dumbell
23:12
Speaker 1: that was utilized, they collect that independent of the body. Now,
23:17
Speaker 1: if you have a knife sticking out the body, first off,
23:20
Speaker 1: you never remove the knife. You know that's something will
23:22
Speaker 1: be collected at autopsy. But in this case, you would
23:24
Speaker 1: have had these two elements of the dumbbell as well
23:29
Speaker 1: as the edged weapon, this machete, So when you get
23:33
Speaker 1: them back to the morgan the police can bring those along.
23:38
Speaker 1: What will happen is that after the bodies are cleaned
23:43
Speaker 1: or in this case, America's remains would have been cleaned,
23:45
Speaker 1: you're going to look for patterns externally on the body.
23:49
Speaker 1: What are the patterns going to tell you what? You
23:50
Speaker 1: can have patterns with the dead, okay, but what the
23:54
Speaker 1: dead do not produce are contusions because they don't have
24:00
Speaker 1: The dead don't have the ability to hemorrhage. With these
24:03
Speaker 1: bruises and with overlying abrasions. You can actually, let's say,
24:10
Speaker 1: if you think about the shape of a dumbbell, many
24:13
Speaker 1: dumbbells today have flat, flat surfaces all the way around
24:17
Speaker 1: the circumference of both of the weighted ends, and so
24:20
Speaker 1: if you're striking somebody with that, it will leave a
24:23
Speaker 1: very distinctive pattern that's going to have edges and margins
24:27
Speaker 1: and all those sorts of things. And what we will
24:30
Speaker 1: do many times is take the alleged weapon and have
24:35
Speaker 1: it immediately adjacent to a contusion and take a microphotograph
24:40
Speaker 1: of that at autopsy, and it demonstrates kind of a
24:44
Speaker 1: pairing up of these items, you know, where you can
24:46
Speaker 1: actually see, Oh, okay, I can draw this conclusion. Now
24:49
Speaker 1: I've got this kind of I don't know what it
24:51
Speaker 1: would be, an octagonal shape on the end of it,
24:54
Speaker 1: where it's got eight sides. Perhaps you can see the
24:57
Speaker 1: edges in the contusion might very well match that pattern.
25:01
Speaker 1: That's important because when you get into court now you
25:05
Speaker 1: have eyewitnesses that are saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw
25:08
Speaker 1: this man, the accused, wielding this dumbbell at first, and
25:13
Speaker 1: he's pounding her with it. I saw that he puts
25:16
Speaker 1: the dumbell down, then he picks up this blade and
25:18
Speaker 1: the next thing I know, I seemed chopping, you know,
25:20
Speaker 1: as you stated, And you get the pathologist on the
25:23
Speaker 1: stand and the attorney during the examination will say, listen, doctor,
25:27
Speaker 1: we've had previous testimony here that said that they witnessed
25:31
Speaker 1: this dumbbell being utilized to beat America as she's sitting
25:35
Speaker 1: in the sea. Can do you see evidence of that
25:37
Speaker 1: in the It's at that point in time. That's why
25:39
Speaker 1: autopsy photographs are so important. We say, oh, yeah, well,
25:43
Speaker 1: as demonstrated here, you can see we have the alleged
25:46
Speaker 1: weapon here, this dumbbell. And do you see how these
25:49
Speaker 1: margins kind of match this pattern? And he'll go into
25:53
Speaker 1: great description relative to that. Here's one of the underlying
25:57
Speaker 1: things that you have to consider. You might have con
26:00
Speaker 1: usions related to this beating event, but what do you
26:04
Speaker 1: have that demonstrates that she was still alive at the
26:08
Speaker 1: time her decapitation took place? And that's key because Dave,
26:12
Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and bury the lead here and say
26:14
Speaker 1: that her cause of death is not blunt force trauma.
26:18
Speaker 1: Her cause of death is listed as decapitation. So this
26:23
Speaker 1: is going to require kind of a layered dissection of
26:27
Speaker 1: the skin where these chop because and this is key
26:30
Speaker 1: as well, because the witnesses described a chopping event. This
26:35
Speaker 1: is not like we talked about horror movies just a
26:37
Speaker 1: moment ago where you know, you think about these movies
26:41
Speaker 1: where this monster will wheel the weapon in the head
26:44
Speaker 1: will go flying off and one one. That's not what
26:47
Speaker 1: happened here. You're talking about an individual that's using this
26:50
Speaker 1: weapon in order to chop with So for every chop,
26:54
Speaker 1: if she is still alive, guess what you're gonna have.
26:57
Speaker 1: You're gonna have hemorrhage in that wound. There's a high
27:00
Speaker 1: probability that every time this individual chops, they're not striking
27:05
Speaker 1: the same edged weapon injury that they did initially. So
27:09
Speaker 1: you might have a strike they draw back again confined
27:14
Speaker 1: quarters and remember when we're talking about in a car,
27:16
Speaker 1: and then they drive it home again and they might
27:19
Speaker 1: be approximating that area, but they're never going to match
27:22
Speaker 1: that up. So you get like the first strike maybe
27:25
Speaker 1: you're looking at you don't. It's hard to tell the order,
27:27
Speaker 1: but I can tell you this. If you have one
27:29
Speaker 1: strike and you've got hemorrhage in that first area of
27:33
Speaker 1: insulted tissue, you know that we're alive there. You got
27:36
Speaker 1: any hemorrhage in the next one, Yeah, Yeah, there's hemorrhage here.
27:38
Speaker 1: You get down to the third or the fourth, there's
27:41
Speaker 1: no longer any hemorrhage, and then suddenly the head is
27:45
Speaker 1: off the body. He's removed and she's dead at that
27:47
Speaker 1: period of time. But this is the really gruesome part
27:50
Speaker 1: about it. Unless she was unconscious and we know that
27:54
Speaker 1: he struck her in the head and you could tell that,
27:56
Speaker 1: I think based upon how extensive the hemorrhage was in
27:59
Speaker 1: the brain from the Dumbell strike, she may dave have
28:02
Speaker 1: had an awareness that this was happening to her. It's
28:06
Speaker 1: so very troubling.
28:07
Speaker 2: When everything is said and done, you have eyewitness testimony, obviously,
28:12
Speaker 2: but you've also got the video that somebody took instead
28:15
Speaker 2: of providing help, and I'm sure that helped the prosecution
28:18
Speaker 2: as well. When everything is said and done in court,
28:21
Speaker 2: his defense was that she was the troublemaker and she
28:24
Speaker 2: was breaking up on it. I mean, it's crazy that
28:26
Speaker 2: you actually have how do you defend this per you know?
28:28
Speaker 2: But I know it's the court system anyway. Yeah, he's guilty.
28:32
Speaker 2: The shocking matter is that there was any that we
28:35
Speaker 2: had to go through all the court process. The man
28:38
Speaker 2: chopped her head off in broad daylight after beating her
28:41
Speaker 2: with a dumbbell. How is it possible that we have
28:43
Speaker 2: to consider this?
28:45
Speaker 1: I think what's really telling here, Dave, is the fact
28:50
Speaker 1: that not only was he found guilty this alexis Sebaret,
28:57
Speaker 1: not only was he found guilty, but he was Dave,
29:00
Speaker 1: actually found guilty of premeditated I.
29:04
Speaker 2: Was going to ask you about that, Joe. It was
29:06
Speaker 2: first degree premeditated murder. How is it that they could
29:09
Speaker 2: determine that when it took place in a car after
29:13
Speaker 2: he beat her with a dumbbell? How can they go
29:15
Speaker 2: with premeditation? That looks sounds like something that he got
29:18
Speaker 2: out in the car and just started beating her and
29:20
Speaker 2: then decided, Hey, I'm going to go ahead and do
29:23
Speaker 2: more damage. She's already dead. Kind of thing.
29:25
Speaker 1: He shut up with a weapon, not just one, but two.
29:28
Speaker 1: Now you can say, well, he was in he liked
29:30
Speaker 1: to exercise, so he had dumbbell. But did he have
29:34
Speaker 1: a whole weight set in there? He had that one weight?
29:37
Speaker 1: How did he get her into that car to begin with?
29:40
Speaker 1: How is it somebody that's so threatened by this man,
29:44
Speaker 1: somebody that they're looking to end this thing? She wants out?
29:48
Speaker 1: How are you going to get her into a car.
29:50
Speaker 1: I think that there's at least some indication that she
29:53
Speaker 1: was wrangled into that car through force, perhaps that he
29:58
Speaker 1: got her into that car by threat. And this, trust me,
30:02
Speaker 1: this is not the first time he's put hands on her.
30:05
Speaker 1: It's not. It's a sad tale that goes on every
30:09
Speaker 1: single day, and it's as we speak right now, right now,
30:12
Speaker 1: my friend, this is happening somewhere else right now in
30:16
Speaker 1: this country, in multiple locations where you've got domestic abuse
30:20
Speaker 1: going on. But he was in fact found guilty. I
30:24
Speaker 1: don't know if there's any solace that can be found
30:27
Speaker 1: in that, but he's off the streets at this point
30:31
Speaker 1: in time. And of course you can't bring her back.
30:35
Speaker 1: You can't bring America back. This person that was beloved
30:38
Speaker 1: and that loved obviously loved him in her own way.
30:42
Speaker 1: She's stuck around him for so long. But I just
30:45
Speaker 1: want to again close with this and just as a reminder,
30:49
Speaker 1: if you or anyone you love is going through domestic
30:55
Speaker 1: abuse at this point in time, there if you're having problems,
30:59
Speaker 1: there's help for you. The National Domestic Violence Hotline can
31:03
Speaker 1: be found. That phone number is one eight hundred seventy
31:06
Speaker 1: nine nine seven two three three, or go to thehotline
31:11
Speaker 1: dot org. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybags