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HEAR IT: Exactly HOW did George Floyd die? Expert Death Investigator EXPLAINS · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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  Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories with
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  Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. I'm Jackie Howard, joined today by Joseph Scott,
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  Speaker 1: Morgan's forensics expert. He is Professor of Forensics Ejaconville State
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  Speaker 1: University and has been covering the Derek Chauvin trial since
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  Speaker 1: it began two weeks ago. Joe Scott, what do you
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  Speaker 1: make of it? I have I don't know in my
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  Speaker 1: recollection that I have seen so many technical witnesses in
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  Speaker 1: one case, and you know, we're not even through with
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  Speaker 1: the prosecution's presentation yet. So far this week alone, we've
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  Speaker 1: heard from a toxicologist PhD toxicologist, not to mention graduate
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  Speaker 1: level crime scene investigators, and just the other day doctor Tobin,
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  Speaker 1: who was kind of an entertaining, interesting little slice of
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  Speaker 1: life inside of a world that we don't get much
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  Speaker 1: of view of. He's a pulmonologist by trade, originally from Ireland,
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  Speaker 1: and he had some interesting insights into the death of
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  Speaker 1: George Floyd from the perspective of believe it or not,
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  Speaker 1: someone that is air deprived as as you would think of, say,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, in a case he treats people with sleep
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  Speaker 1: at me of all things, so he had a really
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  Speaker 1: had an interesting take on how the human ventilation works,
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  Speaker 1: that is to inspire and respire air and process it
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  Speaker 1: out of our lungs. He addressed that and talked about
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  Speaker 1: kind of the function and how miss Floyd may have
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  Speaker 1: been inhibited by the presence of the weight of Derek
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  Speaker 1: Schauman on his back as he's pressed into the concrete.
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  Speaker 1: Then we had a forensic toxicologist PhD level forensic talks
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  Speaker 1: collogists from Pennsylvania who, by the way, is with a
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  Speaker 1: lab called n the MS who handles all of the
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  Speaker 1: forensic toxicology for Henvon County in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The guy
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  Speaker 1: has got a very impressive background, and of course he
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  Speaker 1: went in specifically to this interesting mixture of drugs that
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  Speaker 1: they found not only in George Floyd's system per the
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  Speaker 1: toxicological samples, but also what may have been at the scene. Remember,
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  Speaker 1: one of the things that came to life this week
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  Speaker 1: was the tablets that were found showed up and spit
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  Speaker 1: out in the back of the patrol unit. Now, one
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  Speaker 1: interesting thing that came to light relative to this was
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  Speaker 1: the fact that this vehicle, this patrol unit, had been
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  Speaker 1: in the possession of the Minneapolis police Department, the State
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  Speaker 1: Police Department for Minnesota for eight months and no one
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  Speaker 1: had found these tablets. It actually took the defense representatives
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  Speaker 1: to go out there to examine the car. They were
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  Speaker 1: not allowed to touch the car when they cut the
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  Speaker 1: tape that kind of seals the car shut to protect
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  Speaker 1: chain of custody. Immediately the defense attorney looked and said, hey,
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  Speaker 1: what's that? And it was striking. You could see these
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  Speaker 1: actually very very luminescent of white tablets or particulate pieces
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  Speaker 1: of tablets up against this black ground to the floor,
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  Speaker 1: up against this black background of the floormat, and all
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  Speaker 1: of us are sitting there thinking how in the world
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  Speaker 1: could you possibly miss this? And under cross examination, when
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  Speaker 1: the crime scene tech was asked about this missing of
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  Speaker 1: the tablets upon initial search, she actually said, I didn't know.
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  Speaker 1: I was supposed to be looking for pills, and so
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  Speaker 1: that kind of took us all back there for a moment.
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  Speaker 1: And of course, one of the threads that runs through
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  Speaker 1: this entire trial is this idea that the defense is
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  Speaker 1: saying that George Floyd had been ingesting what are referred
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  Speaker 1: to as speedballs, which are a mixture of methamphatamine and
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  Speaker 1: of course spent in on and you know, all we
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  Speaker 1: have to do is reflect back in time. How many
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  Speaker 1: people do we know that have actually died of speedball? Well,
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  Speaker 1: let me name three. We've got Philip Seymour Hoffman, We've
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  Speaker 1: got River Phoenix of course, and John Belushi. So we've
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  Speaker 1: got three individuals, high profile individuals in not too distant
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  Speaker 1: past that we all know of, that have actually died
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  Speaker 1: from using speedball. So that has been kind of on
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  Speaker 1: the minds of everybody that studies that studies things like
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  Speaker 1: this and studies this case in particular from a forensic
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  Speaker 1: toxicology standpoint. So that was fascinating and I think kind
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  Speaker 1: of to round things off today, we had a prize
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  Speaker 1: witness that we didn't see coming who is a forensic pathologist.
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  Speaker 1: But this individual was not the forensic pathologist of record
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  Speaker 1: that did George Flood's autopsy. This is actually a lady
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  Speaker 1: named doctor Thomas, who was previously employed by the Hennepin
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  Speaker 1: County Medical Examiner's Office and is now retired and has
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  Speaker 1: over thirty years plus experience as a forensic pathologist. She
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  Speaker 1: actually got on stand and had been summoned not by
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  Speaker 1: the defense but by the prosecution and was a witness
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  Speaker 1: for the prosecution, and as it turned out, at the
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  Speaker 1: end of the day, she was actually on the stand
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  Speaker 1: the longer than the pathologist, doctor Baker, who actually did
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  Speaker 1: the autopsy. We were all kind of scratching our heads
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  Speaker 1: and wondering where in the world this is going, and essentially,
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  Speaker 1: in a fascinating move, she sat on stand and and
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  Speaker 1: actually interpreted doctor Baxter's autopsy report, and they were asking
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  Speaker 1: her very specific questions. We were kind of amazed at
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  Speaker 1: the amount of latitude that the court had afforded the
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  Speaker 1: prosecution in this, because one attorney actually mentioned that it
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  Speaker 1: seemed almost as if they were trying to drown the
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  Speaker 1: jury in in scientific witnesses. And I'd have to concur
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  Speaker 1: because at the end of the day our heads were spending,
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  Speaker 1: there was so much data coming in and it was
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  Speaker 1: actually quite amazing. And then finally the day ended with
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  Speaker 1: doctor Baker, who actually did the autopsy. He's the chief
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  Speaker 1: medical examiner for Hennipen County. Very composed, very professional, but
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  Speaker 1: you know, there had been some questions along the way
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  Speaker 1: about his examination because he had actually stated in a
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  Speaker 1: separate hearing where he had gone in and testified and
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  Speaker 1: offered testimony not only just to the grand jury, but
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  Speaker 1: he actually had a meeting with the county attorney up
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  Speaker 1: in Henneman County where he said, I can't say definitively
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  Speaker 1: that George Floyd didn't die of in od relative to fentnyl,
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  Speaker 1: and he even remarked that he had worked cases that
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  Speaker 1: he had ruled as a lethal overdose of fentnyl at
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  Speaker 1: three nanograms. Keep in mind, George Floyd actually had eleven
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  Speaker 1: nanograms of fentnyl in his system at the time of death,
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  Speaker 1: So there's still a lot to uncover. I suspect that
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  Speaker 1: going into next week with the with the prosecution, they're
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  Speaker 1: going to start to wrap up their case. We expect
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  Speaker 1: to see possibly a cardiologist. We've already had a pulmonologist.
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about we're gonna have a cardiology just
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  Speaker 1: because Miss Floyd had extensive heart degree heart disease. As
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  Speaker 1: a matter of fact, he has one coordinary artery that
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  Speaker 1: was almost I think ninety blocked or included. As they say,
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  Speaker 1: he had stenosis, which is kind of hardening of the arteries.
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  Speaker 1: A couple of other vessels had close to seventy seventy five.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, the defense is trying to say that the
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  Speaker 1: combination of the drugs and the heart disease, and he
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  Speaker 1: also had an enlarged heart as a result of hypertension,
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  Speaker 1: that all of these played into his death. But at
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  Speaker 1: the end of the day, a lot of people are
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  Speaker 1: saying that had George Floyd and Derek Schaumin night cross
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  Speaker 1: paths that day, would would George Floyd still be alive.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a lot more to come starting next week,
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  Speaker 1: particularly as it applies to the prosecution kind of wrapping
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  Speaker 1: up their end of the case. We'll see what the
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  Speaker 1: defense has on board. There's even people saying that there's
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  Speaker 1: a chance that Derek Chauvin might testify. I believe that
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  Speaker 1: when I see it. I think that the defense is
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  Speaker 1: going to come full bord with their own set of experts,
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  Speaker 1: and we'll see who triumphs in the end. Because this case,
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  Speaker 1: as has been said by many other people, not just me,
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  Speaker 1: this case is it comes down to a battle of
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  Speaker 1: the experts because there's so much science involved in this case.
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  Speaker 1: There's so much clinical medicine that's involved in this case
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  Speaker 1: that you truly do need experts to kind of try
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  Speaker 1: to explain what was going on with George Floyd in
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  Speaker 1: the anti mortem state, which means before death, and then
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  Speaker 1: the perimordem state which means during the throes of death,
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  Speaker 1: and of course what they found in the post mortem
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  Speaker 1: state after death. Time stories with Nancy Grace. Let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about what you just said, just got about the battle
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  Speaker 1: of the experts. Obviously, we've seen that with two medical
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  Speaker 1: examiners taking the stand, even the medical examiner who did
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  Speaker 1: not do the autopsy taking the stand first. Is this
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  Speaker 1: going to be over the head of the jury? I mean,
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  Speaker 1: is there going to be so much technical information that
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  Speaker 1: they're either going to get lost or confused by what
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  Speaker 1: they're hearing? You know? The fact that they had two
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  Speaker 1: separate forensic pathologists in this particular case is it's a note.
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  Speaker 1: And first off, let me say, as a medical legal
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  Speaker 1: forensic professional, and I've done this now for over thirty
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  Speaker 1: five years myself, I don't ever and I don't ever
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  Speaker 1: remember ever seen a prosecution placed two forensic pathologists on
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  Speaker 1: the stand consecutively and one of them not being as
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  Speaker 1: they say, prosector of record. This person had nothing to
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  Speaker 1: do with the autopsy, had never come in contact with
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  Speaker 1: George Floyd's a body and was simply left with the
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  Speaker 1: notes of doctor Baker, the chief medical examiner, to review.
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  Speaker 1: She also obviously got to see a lot of the
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  Speaker 1: videography and that sort of thing, because a lot of
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  Speaker 1: this is hinging on George Floyd's reactions during the videotaping
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  Speaker 1: from the various angles. But you know, I gotta tell you,
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  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it was kind of
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  Speaker 1: muddled and confusing, and I think that the doctor Thomas
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  Speaker 1: had presented information that was kind of contrary to what
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  Speaker 1: doctor Baker had said. You know, doctor Thomas had actually
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  Speaker 1: alluded to the fact that she in no way believed
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  Speaker 1: that this compression event on George Floyd's back, was that
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  Speaker 1: his death was related to nothing other than specifically that compression. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: the drugs and the heart disease might have um might
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  Speaker 1: have contributed, But for doctor Baker, the actual medical examiner
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  Speaker 1: or slash forensic pathologist of record, he stated that he
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  Speaker 1: didn't know. He didn't know, And so I think that
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  Speaker 1: the prosecution probably when they began to analyze this case,
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  Speaker 1: they said, we might have a problem here, so we're
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  Speaker 1: going to have to go full board. What impact does
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  Speaker 1: it have on injury? I don't know. It's almost as
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  Speaker 1: though they are just a wash and data right now.
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  Speaker 1: The interesting narrative I think that it's going to develop
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  Speaker 1: out of this is going to be the fact that
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  Speaker 1: that the defenses forensic pathologists, who we don't know who
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  Speaker 1: this is going to be yet, we do know that
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  Speaker 1: there is probably going to be one. They're going to
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  Speaker 1: have the last say in this unless they call back
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  Speaker 1: the Chief Medical Examiner or maybe even doctor Thomas as
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  Speaker 1: a rebuttal witness at some point in time. But you know,
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  Speaker 1: if this case kind of runs, of course, the defense forriendsic.
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  Speaker 1: Pathologists will have the last say, and that's kind of
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  Speaker 1: what the jury will be left within their mind. Remember,
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  Speaker 1: you've got two forendsic. Pathologists that are working for the prosecution,
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  Speaker 1: but they're giving different data sets and I would imagine
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  Speaker 1: they're they're kind of confused. The defense presents theirs and
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  Speaker 1: there will be a succinct nature to it and it
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  Speaker 1: will provide quite a bit of clarity. Forensics expert Joseph
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  Speaker 1: Scott Morgan. Thanks for being with us today. You can
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  Speaker 1: follow this trial at crime online dot com. This is
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  Speaker 1: Crime Stories with me. It's a great