Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Teen Kills Mom, Stepdad, Lives With Bodies for Weeks!

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Teen Kills Mom, Stepdad, Lives With Bodies for Weeks! · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:01
Speaker 1: Quality times, but Joseph's gotten more. When people meet me
0:07
Speaker 1: many times that have heard me on a podcast or
0:10
Speaker 1: seen me on television, one of the first questions they
0:15
Speaker 1: asked for. One of the first comments they make is
0:19
Speaker 1: I cannot begin to understand how you did for a
0:24
Speaker 1: living what you did for so long. And it always
0:29
Speaker 1: comes back around to the fact that I essentially lived
0:35
Speaker 1: with the dead. Now, yeah, I understand. I'm a forensics guy,
0:41
Speaker 1: and i'd go out and I work cases, I interacted
0:44
Speaker 1: with my colleagues, but I got to tell you, there
0:47
Speaker 1: were many weeks when I literally spent more time with
0:53
Speaker 1: dead folks than I did with living folks. And there
0:56
Speaker 1: were many times in my life I preferred being around
0:59
Speaker 1: the dead. They generally don't give you any issues at all.
1:03
Speaker 1: There's no surprises with them most of the time. I mean, yeah,
1:07
Speaker 1: you'll find pathology, but you know, the dead or dead
1:14
Speaker 1: and the living going about their lives. But every now
1:19
Speaker 1: and then there's a case that occurs where the living
1:27
Speaker 1: and the dead just can't seem to go their separate ways.
1:39
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Body Backs, Dave.
1:50
Speaker 1: I'm thinking back in time right now, and I wrote
1:59
Speaker 1: about it. I wrote about in my memoir. I wrote
2:02
Speaker 1: a story about a case that I'd worked many many
2:06
Speaker 1: years ago, that I spent a protracted period of time
2:10
Speaker 1: with a literally a refrigerator truckload full of dead bodies
2:18
Speaker 1: from a capsized vessel. And we were real busy that
2:22
Speaker 1: summer when that happened. And so just because you have
2:26
Speaker 1: a major loss of life incident in a medical examiner
2:29
Speaker 1: or corner's office, does that mean does not mean that
2:33
Speaker 1: the everyday other cases stopped coming in. It's kind of
2:36
Speaker 1: like and I wouldn't presume to necessarily compare myself literally
2:41
Speaker 1: to my colleagues that worked nine to eleven at the
2:46
Speaker 1: OCME in New York. But you have to understand, you
2:50
Speaker 1: had the Twin Towers collapse, other buildings collapsed, you had
2:53
Speaker 1: thousands of dead, but Dave homicides didn't stop, you know,
2:58
Speaker 1: you didn't have fatal events that just ceased because that
3:02
Speaker 1: one moment in time we had a major loss of life.
3:06
Speaker 1: Things happen, and sometimes you get stacked up with the dead,
3:10
Speaker 1: and in a way you become numb to it. I
3:14
Speaker 1: think the dead, and I mean no disrespect by this,
3:20
Speaker 1: but the dead just they're part and parcel of your
3:23
Speaker 1: daily existence when you when I would walk into a room,
3:28
Speaker 1: into the autopsy room, for instance, and I would have
3:31
Speaker 1: somebody literally with their head blown apart. Then next to
3:35
Speaker 1: them on another table would be a horribly decomposed body.
3:39
Speaker 1: And then you might have a grandma that just passed
3:41
Speaker 1: away in or sleep, and they're all lined up on
3:43
Speaker 1: the table. I didn't pay any more attention to that
3:45
Speaker 1: in a Man in the Moon. I mean, it just
3:47
Speaker 1: you get numb to it when you're going through it. It
3:50
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you're not paying attention to detail. But
3:53
Speaker 1: there's this thing that comes about where as part of
3:56
Speaker 1: your occupation and part of what you do, you're able
4:02
Speaker 1: to create this kind of weird membrane that kind of
4:06
Speaker 1: buffets any kind of trauma you might have. What's really
4:10
Speaker 1: odd is that when people that are not used to
4:13
Speaker 1: being around the dead suddenly insert themselves into an environment
4:17
Speaker 1: where they they not only are around the dead for
4:22
Speaker 1: a period of time, but they might live with dead
4:25
Speaker 1: bodies for a protracted period of time. And it took
4:28
Speaker 1: me a long time professionally to build up that callous,
4:32
Speaker 1: and it is a callous. It's like swinging a hammer.
4:35
Speaker 1: You know, you just you get to the point where
4:37
Speaker 1: it's it's it doesn't impact you the way that it
4:40
Speaker 1: did when you first started. But for somebody just to
4:42
Speaker 1: end dwell a residence, a structure with dead bodies and
4:45
Speaker 1: not think anything of it, it's kind of odd. What
4:49
Speaker 1: say you, my friend?
4:50
Speaker 2: But the first questions I had about the story, Joe
4:54
Speaker 2: is we're going to talk about Nikita Nikki Cassop and
5:01
Speaker 2: he is seventeen years old, and he is accused of
5:04
Speaker 2: killing his mother and his stepfather and staying with their bodies,
5:10
Speaker 2: their dead bodies for at least ten days, probably longer
5:17
Speaker 2: than that, maybe fifteen days. It could be somewhere but
5:21
Speaker 2: a week and a half to two weeks worth of time.
5:23
Speaker 2: This seventeen year old person stayed in the home with
5:27
Speaker 2: two dead bodies. And we're not talking about people that
5:30
Speaker 2: he just saw in a battlefield, you know, We're talking
5:34
Speaker 2: about his mother and stepfather. We're talking about people he
5:38
Speaker 2: has a long relationship with that he allegedly took their
5:43
Speaker 2: lives for whatever reason. We still don't have a true
5:45
Speaker 2: motive here. But he actually was cohabitating, He was sleeping, eating,
5:49
Speaker 2: in this house with both of these bodies. That's why
5:54
Speaker 2: we're doing body bags on this episode, on this particular story,
5:58
Speaker 2: because we don't know what was going on in this
6:04
Speaker 2: person's life that brought him to the It wasn't just
6:07
Speaker 2: enough to kill and leave, which we see that a lot.
6:12
Speaker 2: You know, we see people kill and get rid of
6:14
Speaker 2: a body. You know, that's where we catch them getting
6:17
Speaker 2: rid of the body. Not here. You've got a kid
6:20
Speaker 2: who never missed school, Joe, and one of the ways
6:22
Speaker 2: he got caught, well, he didn't show up for two weeks.
6:26
Speaker 2: The school was concerned, school resource officer reaches out, you know,
6:29
Speaker 2: that's where this kind of came from is And of
6:33
Speaker 2: course his stepfather's mother she hadn't talked to her son
6:36
Speaker 2: and she was concerned as well. So you had two
6:39
Speaker 2: different calls for a well being check again, I know,
6:47
Speaker 2: isn't It's so weird because they don't used to call
6:49
Speaker 2: the welfare check, but because of people getting a welfare check,
6:52
Speaker 2: they don't call it welfare check now it's well being check.
6:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what they actually did change the verbage
6:58
Speaker 1: for that purpose. Yeah, because I found that so odd.
7:02
Speaker 1: I know, it'ally odd.
7:03
Speaker 2: It's like, you know what when President Ronald Reagan was
7:06
Speaker 2: shot by Hinkley back in nineteen eighty one. Yeah, March
7:12
Speaker 2: of eighty one. Okay. The Gilligan's Island franchise had become
7:19
Speaker 2: a movie of the Week kind of thing where they
7:20
Speaker 2: were doing your Return from mcgillian's Island Escape from Gillian's
7:23
Speaker 2: Island like Battle of the Apes. But from the very
7:27
Speaker 2: first episode when they announced the names of all of
7:30
Speaker 2: these passengers on the ses meno, they gave you the
7:34
Speaker 2: name of the professor. His name was Professor Roy Hinckley.
7:38
Speaker 2: When John Hinckley tried to kill Ronald Reagan for the
7:41
Speaker 2: next I don't know, Harlan Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island or
7:44
Speaker 2: whatever it was, they changed the name of the professor
7:47
Speaker 2: to Hinkele for that reason or that very reason. Yeah,
7:51
Speaker 2: And I think about that when these things come up.
7:54
Speaker 2: So instead of saying it's a well being, we're checking
7:56
Speaker 2: on their well being.
7:58
Speaker 1: Right, it's no longer welfare check. Yeah. So the verbiage changes,
8:02
Speaker 1: you know, day in and day out, and it's everybody
8:05
Speaker 1: likes to engineer language, but you know, the one thing
8:07
Speaker 1: you can't engineer is outcomes. I think relative to the
8:14
Speaker 1: consequences of living with a dead body, and I was thinking,
8:18
Speaker 1: you know, you and I both and please, you know,
8:21
Speaker 1: don't misconstrue what I'm saying here. I am not comparing
8:25
Speaker 1: our sons to this individual. What I'm doing is comparing
8:30
Speaker 1: teenage boys. You and I both have had the adventure
8:37
Speaker 1: of living in a household raising teenage boys, and teenage
8:41
Speaker 1: boys do really stupid things. Not the most the world,
8:47
Speaker 1: yeah they're not. And I were one at one point
8:49
Speaker 1: in time, and I do remember doing really stupid things.
8:53
Speaker 1: And I got to thinking about this kid who is
8:57
Speaker 1: is actually living in this environment with these two individuals,
9:04
Speaker 1: one of whom is his own mother, the other his stepfather,
9:09
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, did they did he have like a
9:13
Speaker 1: brain freeze, you know, at that moment time where it's
9:16
Speaker 1: like I I have done this and now I don't
9:24
Speaker 1: know where to go, and I really wonder many times
9:27
Speaker 1: if And it's not that doesn't necessarily just apply to
9:30
Speaker 1: teenage boys. I think it applies to a lot of
9:32
Speaker 1: perpetrators out there, because we see it, Dave. I mean,
9:36
Speaker 1: you know, every week we cover cases and we see
9:39
Speaker 1: these individuals that make really stupid, you know, mistakes along
9:44
Speaker 1: the way. If you want to call it a mistake.
9:48
Speaker 1: It's not like they're following their taxes and they've you know,
9:51
Speaker 1: mis entered something. It's it's actually a they didn't think
9:57
Speaker 1: the process through. I think it's really easy, you know.
10:02
Speaker 1: I think that when you react, and all of us
10:04
Speaker 1: have reacted in anger to things many times. I know
10:08
Speaker 1: I have, I'm chief amongst sinners. And then you go back,
10:13
Speaker 1: you have a quiet moment or two, and you sit
10:16
Speaker 1: back and you shake your head and you say, I'm
10:19
Speaker 1: such an idiot. Why did I say that? Why did
10:22
Speaker 1: I do that? I know that there are going to
10:25
Speaker 1: be consequences for this, and I'm just going to have
10:27
Speaker 1: to sit down and take it, you know. And I
10:31
Speaker 1: wonder many times about these individuals that perpetrate crimes and
10:35
Speaker 1: they just kind of freeze and they can't move move
10:39
Speaker 1: beyond that to make some better decision about how they're
10:43
Speaker 1: going to handle something.
10:46
Speaker 2: You know. The headline on this story, yeah, I was
10:49
Speaker 2: looking at several because a seventeen year old killing his
10:53
Speaker 2: mother and stepfather is a that's a big deal. That's
10:56
Speaker 2: a big story. But the headline's on this one. It's Wisconsin.
11:00
Speaker 2: Tine killed mother and stepfather and lived with dot dot
11:05
Speaker 2: dot teen lived with bodies of mom and stepfather after
11:10
Speaker 2: killing them. Dot dot dot teen killed mom and stepdad,
11:14
Speaker 2: then lived with bodies for dot dot dot. It's all
11:18
Speaker 2: about oh in this one. I love this one. Teen
11:21
Speaker 2: charged with killing parents lived with rotting corpses dot dot dot.
11:27
Speaker 2: That's what we're actually doing today is getting to the
11:30
Speaker 2: most explosive ending. It's not bad enough that the guy
11:33
Speaker 2: killed his parents at seventeen years old, but now the
11:37
Speaker 2: real headline, the real shock is he didn't get rid
11:40
Speaker 2: of the bodies. He didn't chop them up and try
11:42
Speaker 2: to get rid of them like so many we've had recently.
11:45
Speaker 2: He's got two dead bodies in different parts of the house, Joe,
11:48
Speaker 2: and basically he threw blankets over the top of them.
11:52
Speaker 2: So I'm wondering, very and I know we'll get to
11:55
Speaker 2: this right, right, But how long does it take before
12:00
Speaker 2: or the body start to decompose and give off this
12:06
Speaker 2: odor of death? And that's what this seventeen year old
12:10
Speaker 2: is living with. I can't imagine that it's going to
12:13
Speaker 2: be a pleasant thing to live in.
12:16
Speaker 1: By the end of day two, he would have he
12:19
Speaker 1: would have had an odor in the air. I can
12:21
Speaker 1: almost I can almost guarantee that. So you're talking about
12:26
Speaker 1: if that's the case, if that's our benchmark for starting
12:30
Speaker 1: from I'm not talking about the appearance of post warm
12:34
Speaker 1: changes and decompositional changes. I'm talking about that that smell.
12:41
Speaker 1: It's like a phantom that comes out of the dark
12:43
Speaker 1: and kind of slaps you in the face the first
12:45
Speaker 1: time you smell it. We would be talking about the
12:49
Speaker 1: line's share of the time that he was living in
12:52
Speaker 1: this home. He would have smelt this, and he made
12:56
Speaker 1: no effort to take them out into the yard or
13:01
Speaker 1: disposed of them in the basement, or even removed them
13:05
Speaker 1: to the attic. Do you remember the case that we
13:08
Speaker 1: had which, by the way, that reminds me did do
13:11
Speaker 1: follow up on this? The case from from was it
13:15
Speaker 1: in gross Point? It was? It was in Detroit the
13:19
Speaker 1: wealthy surgeon that was found wrapped up in his attic.
13:23
Speaker 1: Do you remember that case? And he had been killed,
13:26
Speaker 1: and they have arrested somebody with that. But you know,
13:29
Speaker 1: even in that case, the perpetrator, to the best of
13:31
Speaker 1: my knowledge, didn't hang around, but they still wrapped the
13:34
Speaker 1: body up, took the body into a sequestered area in
13:39
Speaker 1: the attic, and put him up there. Well, that guy
13:41
Speaker 1: would have been smelling, you know, pretty quickly. These bodies,
13:45
Speaker 1: and particularly the mother, and this is and we can
13:48
Speaker 1: dive into this a little bit more, but the mother
13:52
Speaker 1: had had multiple layers placed upon her. And we've talked
13:59
Speaker 1: about this before. When you layer a body like that,
14:05
Speaker 1: that's essentially like placing an item in a crock pot. Uh,
14:10
Speaker 1: it's the heat that's being given off, you know, just
14:14
Speaker 1: just as a result the heat that is generated. And
14:17
Speaker 1: there is a certain amount of heat that is generated
14:20
Speaker 1: from cellular decay where you have the cells, the actual
14:26
Speaker 1: cells and our bodies begin to break down and kind
14:30
Speaker 1: of leach out there. There is a certain amount of
14:33
Speaker 1: heat that is given off in that process. Well, it's
14:36
Speaker 1: further exacerbated by doing these lay the layers like this,
14:40
Speaker 1: and so the body is slowly kind of rendering down
14:44
Speaker 1: throughout the entire period, and you can actually think of
14:47
Speaker 1: it as almost like a tenderizing moment. So the body
14:51
Speaker 1: at a cellular level is that's expedited as a result
14:54
Speaker 1: of this this layering of blankets all on top of
14:57
Speaker 1: the body. So when you finally pull back these blankets,
15:01
Speaker 1: it's going to be something that is so disgusting and
15:04
Speaker 1: so insulting to your senses. But you know, there's a
15:10
Speaker 1: lot to be said about the nature of a scene
15:15
Speaker 1: like this, particularly when you consider that the victims are
15:22
Speaker 1: those individuals that held the title of parents. And how
15:28
Speaker 1: much even more so when one of the victims has
15:33
Speaker 1: been so brutalized at the hands of her son and
15:37
Speaker 1: then left to right in the floor of their home
15:42
Speaker 1: without any consideration or desecration of her remain So, brother Dave,
16:02
Speaker 1: you mentioned that, you know, our our favorite term welfare
16:07
Speaker 1: check or what's the new term now being check? The
16:13
Speaker 1: well being check? Yeah, the wellbeing Yeah, the well being
16:18
Speaker 1: check had been requested on February the twenty eighth of
16:25
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. And this isn't actually in Waukeshaw, Wisconsin.
16:32
Speaker 1: And what kind of prompted this, you know, kind of
16:36
Speaker 1: moving for it was?
16:37
Speaker 2: There were two things. It was a two pronged thing. One,
16:40
Speaker 2: you have a student who has a perfect record for
16:44
Speaker 2: attendance and and his name is Nikiki nik Kiki Nikita
16:51
Speaker 2: Cassop and he goes by the name Nikki Nicki had
16:56
Speaker 2: perfect attendants and all of a sudden he misses two
17:01
Speaker 2: weeks out of school, that was from the school standpoint.
17:05
Speaker 2: They're like, hey, something's wrong, and they're trying to call
17:07
Speaker 2: the house. They're not getting anybody on the phone. So
17:09
Speaker 2: finally the school resource officer he calls the police and says,
17:14
Speaker 2: we need to do a well being check. We've got
17:15
Speaker 2: a student. He hasn't been here. We can't get in
17:17
Speaker 2: touch with anybody on our records. Well. At the same time,
17:21
Speaker 2: while that is happening, on the twenty eighth of February,
17:26
Speaker 2: the stepfather's mom, Donald Mayer's mother, Dorothy, she actually calls
17:34
Speaker 2: and asks for a well being check because she hasn't
17:37
Speaker 2: talked to Donald in a couple of weeks. And oh,
17:42
Speaker 2: I need to add something and I apologize for missing this.
17:44
Speaker 1: Hush, that's okay.
17:45
Speaker 2: There were a couple of instances of odd text messages
17:52
Speaker 2: being received. One in particular was Donald Mayor the stepfather.
18:00
Speaker 2: His boss, his supervisor at work, had gotten text messages
18:04
Speaker 2: from him during the course of the time leading up
18:07
Speaker 2: to February twenty eighth, and one of them was I'm
18:10
Speaker 2: still sick, going to need another week And it wasn't
18:14
Speaker 2: normal for him to text in that manner, And one
18:18
Speaker 2: of the text messages has said I'm sick and I
18:21
Speaker 2: can't talk, so I otherwise I would call you, but
18:25
Speaker 2: I have to text I can't talk. So as adults,
18:27
Speaker 2: we know, what are the odds of this happening. You know,
18:30
Speaker 2: this is not something in our lifetime we have ever
18:32
Speaker 2: really heard of. It happens on sitcoms, you know, and
18:34
Speaker 2: things like that, but not in real life. And so
18:37
Speaker 2: those that text message was one and the other one
18:39
Speaker 2: was at the school, So they had some suspicious meanderings
18:42
Speaker 2: going on with these text messages. But either way you
18:45
Speaker 2: look at it. On February twenty eighth, the police show up,
18:49
Speaker 2: and that's when this case hits the media because when
18:57
Speaker 2: they first walk in, and Joe, this is something that
18:59
Speaker 2: I've asked you before, and I wonder if there's a
19:04
Speaker 2: difference in communities and towns, county, states and things like
19:08
Speaker 2: that on when you're doing a well being check. As
19:11
Speaker 2: an officer, you walk in, you know you're not getting
19:15
Speaker 2: anybody at the door, you're not getting anybody on the phone,
19:18
Speaker 2: and you know you're looking for ways to get inside
19:21
Speaker 2: the house, you know, to see in what's going on
19:23
Speaker 2: in there. And when they do, when police do finally
19:26
Speaker 2: get inside, they find a body, right, They don't find
19:32
Speaker 2: a body sitting out in front. What they do is
19:35
Speaker 2: in the garage. They find the mother's BMW is in
19:39
Speaker 2: the garage, but the father's stepfather's VW atlas is not
19:44
Speaker 2: in the garage. There's no dog. They have a dog
19:46
Speaker 2: named Toby. Toby's not there either. But they do find
19:53
Speaker 2: miss Cassab. What is her name to I apologize to that, Tachiana, Yeah,
19:57
Speaker 2: Tatiana Cassab. They find her body in a hallway adjacent
20:01
Speaker 2: to the kitchen, and it's covered in blankets, towels, things
20:07
Speaker 2: like that. And I'm wondering, Joe, when police see that,
20:11
Speaker 2: they have to determine that there's Oh, by the way,
20:15
Speaker 2: when they got there, they could when they opened the door,
20:18
Speaker 2: they smelled death. That's what they smelled this And so
20:22
Speaker 2: it's the twenty eighth of February in Wisconsin and they
20:25
Speaker 2: smelled death. Now when they walk in, the police find
20:30
Speaker 2: this area in the hallway that it's got clothes and
20:36
Speaker 2: things piled up, blankets and what have you. But there's
20:39
Speaker 2: a body underneath. I'm going to guess you could pretty
20:41
Speaker 2: much tell based on things happening in that general vicinity
20:46
Speaker 2: of a body is there because it's deteriorating enough that
20:48
Speaker 2: they smelled it.
20:49
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, well you'd have to confirm. And these are
20:53
Speaker 1: excellent questions. And this is actually the type of thing
20:57
Speaker 1: that that we teach each at Jack State with my students.
21:03
Speaker 1: And I'll let me just kind of break it down
21:06
Speaker 1: to you this way.
21:06
Speaker 2: I need you to because I'm serious. Well, Joe, I've
21:10
Speaker 2: been on scenes where there were bodies and things, okay,
21:13
Speaker 2: but I'm not the officials. I'm there after the fact
21:15
Speaker 2: as a journalist usually you know, or a family member,
21:18
Speaker 2: And so I was confused as to what would be
21:21
Speaker 2: the first step. I mean, even if you're the police officer,
21:24
Speaker 2: how far do they have to go? Because do they
21:27
Speaker 2: call you first, say I think we got a dead body.
21:29
Speaker 1: Or well, they will call still generally call. What will
21:31
Speaker 1: happen is the call will go out. And by the way,
21:34
Speaker 1: Wisconsin is a corner state, so they still have corners
21:37
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, and you know, it is one of those
21:41
Speaker 1: states that still elects a county corner and I've met
21:45
Speaker 1: some of them over the years. They're fine people. They
21:48
Speaker 1: go through pretty extensive training, but you know, it's like
21:52
Speaker 1: anything else in life, you don't know what you're going
21:54
Speaker 1: to get from county to county, but the corner is
21:57
Speaker 1: somebody that you have to rely on in a set
22:00
Speaker 1: of circumstances like this. What the Uniform Division would do
22:06
Speaker 1: is that once they determined that they at least have
22:09
Speaker 1: this one body. First off, just because you smell something
22:15
Speaker 1: does not necessarily mean that it is human. Remember you
22:20
Speaker 1: talked about Toby the missing dog. Well, dog's going to
22:24
Speaker 1: give off a foul oat or two. It would appear
22:27
Speaker 1: that Tatiana. I've seen the images of her. She's not
22:30
Speaker 1: a very big person. As a matter of fact, there's
22:32
Speaker 1: one great family image of her with their son and
22:39
Speaker 1: the stepdad and they're standing there and you know, both
22:42
Speaker 1: these guys tower over her. You know, she's tiny. So
22:47
Speaker 1: you would have to confirm that you do in fact
22:51
Speaker 1: have a human body. You would do as little as
22:56
Speaker 1: you possibly could to disrupt those layers, because Dave, every
23:02
Speaker 1: strata of garment, blanket, I don't know, tablecloth, towel, each
23:15
Speaker 1: one of those has evidentiary value. The reason it does
23:19
Speaker 1: is that if you believe this is a homicide, which
23:23
Speaker 1: remember our working assumption that not some, but all deaths,
23:26
Speaker 1: until proven otherwise, are in fact homicides. Each thing that
23:32
Speaker 1: the perpetrator, and you have to assume that it's the
23:34
Speaker 1: perpetrator that covered the bodies, has put their hands on
23:40
Speaker 1: each one of these layers. So each layer has evidentiary
23:44
Speaker 1: value to it. Once the police had very and I'm
23:48
Speaker 1: talking about the uniform division. Once the uniform division, and
23:52
Speaker 1: hopefully there was a supervisor out there. That supervisor would
23:56
Speaker 1: look at anybody in a uniform in that house. Stop
23:59
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Do turn around, exit out through this door.
24:05
Speaker 1: No other doors. Don't touch anything else. Pay attention to
24:10
Speaker 1: where you put your feet, be fully aware of your surroundings.
24:15
Speaker 1: Get out of this house. We're shutting the door behind us.
24:19
Speaker 1: We're calling CID Criminal Investigation Division, crimes against persons. Because
24:25
Speaker 1: not all police departments have a homicide division. The guys
24:30
Speaker 1: that work in crimes against persons will handle rate assault,
24:36
Speaker 1: AG assault, they'll handle homicides. It all kind of gets
24:45
Speaker 1: lumped in together. You go to a bigger department and
24:47
Speaker 1: they'll have specific homicide investigators, but you're going to call
24:51
Speaker 1: CID and you'll say, get CID in route out here.
24:55
Speaker 1: You'll also say we're going to have to get forensics
24:59
Speaker 1: en route, which means the crime scene unit is going
25:02
Speaker 1: to come out and oh, by the way, get the
25:03
Speaker 1: corner and the rout as well. But before any of
25:07
Speaker 1: those people can enter the house, you're going to have
25:10
Speaker 1: to go to a magistrate. The sea the detective will
25:14
Speaker 1: they will go to the magistrate that's on duty or
25:17
Speaker 1: the judge, and they'll say, look, we've we've got to
25:20
Speaker 1: get a search warrant. We've got a lady laying in
25:24
Speaker 1: a hallway covered by all manner of clothing and you know,
25:31
Speaker 1: blankets and everything else, and it looks like we've got
25:33
Speaker 1: a homicide. Because you don't want to You do not
25:38
Speaker 1: want to go into that house and start processing that
25:41
Speaker 1: scene and not have all of your bases covered, because
25:47
Speaker 1: anything that you find in that house that does not
25:52
Speaker 1: have and I'm talking about absent a warrant, anything you
25:55
Speaker 1: find in that house like that's in a hit in space. Say,
26:00
Speaker 1: if you if you just kind of arbitrarily walk over
26:04
Speaker 1: and open a closet, you can open a closet door
26:08
Speaker 1: if you think there might be a body in there,
26:10
Speaker 1: maybe you see fluid leaking out from under the door,
26:12
Speaker 1: maybe it's blood which you think is blood. You can
26:15
Speaker 1: open the closet. But if you get in that closet,
26:17
Speaker 1: you start digging around, you find some kind of valuable
26:19
Speaker 1: piece of evidence. Guess what, Without a warrant, there's a
26:23
Speaker 1: high probability that whatever you find in that closet, it
26:26
Speaker 1: could be a kilo of cocaine, can be excluded it.
26:33
Speaker 1: So you have to be very very careful. That's why
26:36
Speaker 1: and a lot of people scratch their heads, why do
26:38
Speaker 1: you need a warrant? I mean, this is this might
26:40
Speaker 1: this is probably a homicide. That's all the more reason
26:44
Speaker 1: that you want to warrant because you're going to be
26:46
Speaker 1: backstopped by that legally, and that way you can do
26:49
Speaker 1: and it's not going to hurt anything for you. If
26:51
Speaker 1: you secure the seing, then you're there's nothing, there's no
26:59
Speaker 1: harm that's going to come. And there let me tell
27:01
Speaker 1: you one other thing. In this case, they were able
27:06
Speaker 1: to find mom and they were able to find stepdad,
27:12
Speaker 1: but they couldn't find the dog, they couldn't find the car,
27:17
Speaker 1: and they can't find the son. Well, there's two parts,
27:23
Speaker 1: two major parts of this investigation. You've got the bodies
27:28
Speaker 1: in the house which appear to be homicide. You know,
27:32
Speaker 1: the victims of homicide. And then you've got a son
27:37
Speaker 1: that's vanished and who's seventeen. By the way, he's a kid,
27:42
Speaker 1: and the car is missing. You don't know that he
27:45
Speaker 1: hasn't been kidnapped. You don't know that you know he's
27:49
Speaker 1: being held somewhere. You also don't know if maybe he's
27:53
Speaker 1: a suspect. I mean, for me, being the jaded old investigator,
27:57
Speaker 1: I am he's at the top of the list. I
27:59
Speaker 1: got to tell you that. But your other part of
28:01
Speaker 1: the investigation is find this kid and find him immediately,
28:07
Speaker 1: because the further away he gets, there's a higher probability
28:12
Speaker 1: that evidence can be destroyed or he might escape capture.
28:17
Speaker 1: You do, he's somebody you do want to talk to
28:21
Speaker 1: because he is domiciled at this location. You got two
28:24
Speaker 1: dead bodies and he's missing, and one of the family
28:27
Speaker 1: cars is missing. So you've got to do everything that
28:31
Speaker 1: you can to secure the scene so that CID can
28:35
Speaker 1: get out there in the corner and everybody. And oh,
28:37
Speaker 1: the other part of this is you got to track
28:40
Speaker 1: this kid now, and there's no you don't need a
28:43
Speaker 1: warrant for that necessarily. You don't need a warrant to
28:46
Speaker 1: go to the school and maybe talk to the principal
28:49
Speaker 1: the counselors, and that would be a separate set of
28:52
Speaker 1: investigators that are going to go out and do that,
28:54
Speaker 1: and you're going to be handling this. There will be
28:56
Speaker 1: one lead investigator that'll be in charge of everything, and
29:00
Speaker 1: they'll be the point of contact for the DA as well,
29:04
Speaker 1: and they'll kind of overlord the whole investigation, all right,
29:09
Speaker 1: finding him and understanding what's going on the seeing and
29:15
Speaker 1: then once you get that kind of steadied, get the
29:19
Speaker 1: ship steadied, then you can begin to process the scene
29:22
Speaker 1: after you get that warrant, Because Dave, this is going
29:26
Speaker 1: to be a highly complex situation that you're walking into
29:32
Speaker 1: because you have no idea. You've got a decomposing to
29:36
Speaker 1: decomposing human remains here, you have no idea what the
29:41
Speaker 1: cause of death is, and you've got to kind of
29:45
Speaker 1: narrow that down as quickly as you possibly can, first off,
29:49
Speaker 1: to see if you're actually dealing with a homicide or
29:53
Speaker 1: maybe something different. There's probably no greater iconic figure in
30:14
Speaker 1: motion picture history when it comes to playing the cop
30:18
Speaker 1: against the system than the character of Dirty Harry played
30:23
Speaker 1: by Clint Eastwood. And he famously said, and I think
30:28
Speaker 1: that It was actually in the first, the first Dirty
30:32
Speaker 1: Harry movie, which is called Dirty Harry, that the forty
30:38
Speaker 1: four magnum was the most powerful handgun in the world.
30:42
Speaker 1: That's no longer true. There are other ones that are
30:46
Speaker 1: more powerful now, but yet it's still formidable. But it's
30:50
Speaker 1: not really practical, all right. It's a huge weapon. It
30:54
Speaker 1: was never practical really for anybody to carry. But one
30:58
Speaker 1: weapon that is not quite as powerful but is revered
31:03
Speaker 1: is three point fifty seven magnum. And three fifty seven
31:07
Speaker 1: magnum is an interesting weapon in the sense that it
31:13
Speaker 1: it is zero point three point five seven caliber in
31:18
Speaker 1: a magnum load, which means that you've got this chunk
31:22
Speaker 1: of lead in the end of a bullet alive round
31:28
Speaker 1: and you've got a magnum load of propellant in here.
31:33
Speaker 1: So you've got this thing driving it down the muzzle
31:36
Speaker 1: of this weapon, and when it slams into anybody, it's
31:43
Speaker 1: like being hit with a sledgehammer. Very powerful, and interestingly enough,
31:48
Speaker 1: in our case today that we're discussing, Dave mister Mayor,
31:53
Speaker 1: the stepfather of this young man, had recently purchased a
31:59
Speaker 1: three point fifty Evan magnum and guess what it's missing.
32:04
Speaker 1: It's missing from. Not only is the car missing, Toby,
32:08
Speaker 1: the dog is missing, the teen is missing, the reach
32:11
Speaker 1: is recently purchased three point fifty seven magnum is missing
32:14
Speaker 1: as well.
32:16
Speaker 2: Now we've got, as we mentioned before, we actually have
32:19
Speaker 2: a little bit of a time frame between the last
32:23
Speaker 2: time anyone recalls hearing from Donald Mayor or Tatiana Cassop
32:29
Speaker 2: and her son attending school. And we also know that
32:35
Speaker 2: when police arrive, they find her body under a bunch
32:38
Speaker 2: of clothing. Now what they've told us, Joe, is that
32:42
Speaker 2: they've got multiple gunshot wounds to her and Donald Mayer
32:48
Speaker 2: was found in an office in the home.
32:49
Speaker 1: By the way.
32:50
Speaker 2: This is a three thousand square foot home, four bedroom,
32:52
Speaker 2: two and a half back. Big, I had some picture.
32:54
Speaker 1: I urge anybody out there go take a look at
32:56
Speaker 1: the picture.
32:57
Speaker 2: Interrupt you now, buddy, beautiful house, nice neighborhoo. And again
33:02
Speaker 2: you know the dog is missing, and so is the
33:04
Speaker 2: VW Atlas that is owned by Donald Mayer. Anyway, police
33:09
Speaker 2: get there and they find her in the hallway. That's
33:10
Speaker 2: when they walk back out. Let's get the search warrant.
33:13
Speaker 2: They come back. Now they know they don't have the sun,
33:17
Speaker 2: and they don't have a car, and they don't have
33:19
Speaker 2: a dog. So those three things are things they're looking
33:21
Speaker 2: for right now. They find Donald Mayer in his office
33:25
Speaker 2: in an office in the house, and he's been shot
33:27
Speaker 2: once in the back of the head with that three
33:30
Speaker 2: point fifty seven magnet. Well, I don't know how soon
33:33
Speaker 2: they figure that out, but based on the wound as
33:36
Speaker 2: it's described, But as they're trying to figure everything out,
33:40
Speaker 2: Joe and I'm I asked you early on about the smell,
33:44
Speaker 2: how long would it take before the smell hit Because
33:48
Speaker 2: we are dealing with a number of days here between
33:54
Speaker 2: the time that they the police believe the killings took
33:58
Speaker 2: place and the day they were the body's found. But
34:01
Speaker 2: we have a seventeen year old who is not in
34:03
Speaker 2: the home. Dead, cars missing, dogs missing, and so they
34:07
Speaker 2: put out they're doing a they're on scene at the house,
34:11
Speaker 2: they're examining the bodies, and we got to find this kid,
34:15
Speaker 2: find that car, look for this kid, find the dog.
34:19
Speaker 2: So anymore, we have these license plate readers, they're everywhere.
34:22
Speaker 2: We got surveillance cameras, they're everywhere. It's amazing. If you
34:26
Speaker 2: haven't kept up with the Times friends, you are being
34:30
Speaker 2: tracked all day. Every day they were able to find
34:35
Speaker 2: they were able to find Nicki, and he was not
34:38
Speaker 2: near home. They found Niki the same day they found
34:41
Speaker 2: the body's show. They find Nicki eight hundred and fifty
34:45
Speaker 2: miles away from home. The same day they find the bodies.
34:51
Speaker 2: They find him at eleven twenty at night. And by
34:54
Speaker 2: the way, he's not dead. Obviously, we're doing the show
34:56
Speaker 2: about the son killing his mom and his stepfather, but
35:00
Speaker 2: I wanted to go back to the house. Now. Inside
35:02
Speaker 2: that house, they find that his mother has been shot
35:05
Speaker 2: multiple times. Yep, there's four wounds caused by three shots. Now.
35:13
Speaker 2: One of the wounds was to her right hand. Yes,
35:16
Speaker 2: and I was wondering, because you've got two shots to
35:18
Speaker 2: the abdomen. One to the neck. Was the wound in
35:22
Speaker 2: her right hand caused by her a defensive move, her
35:25
Speaker 2: putting her arm up.
35:26
Speaker 1: It could be you could also have with the abdominal
35:31
Speaker 1: wound as well. And I've had this happen and it's
35:33
Speaker 1: kind of a it's an odd it's an odd thing
35:37
Speaker 1: to see, but it does happen. You will have a
35:40
Speaker 1: and I don't. They have not released the autopsy report
35:43
Speaker 1: on the case. But you can have a situation where say,
35:47
Speaker 1: for instance, someone is turning and I'm talking about the victim. Okay,
35:51
Speaker 1: let's say the victim is kind of rotating at the
35:54
Speaker 1: waist and now the shooter is obliquely oriented to the
36:00
Speaker 1: so they're on the side. I've had cases where in
36:03
Speaker 1: the abdomen, in particular, where it's kind of flabby, you
36:07
Speaker 1: can have around that initially enters kind of laterally okay,
36:14
Speaker 1: goes through exits and re enters the body, and you
36:20
Speaker 1: can yeah, and this happens with some frequency. It's not
36:24
Speaker 1: like if you saw it in the morgue, you wouldn't say, Wow,
36:27
Speaker 1: what a finding, because it happens more than you know.
36:30
Speaker 1: You know, people people see old Western movies and I
36:34
Speaker 1: guess even movies today where people are shot and it's
36:39
Speaker 1: they people many times appear to be static when they're shot.
36:43
Speaker 1: If you know that you have a weapon pointed at
36:46
Speaker 1: you and they're firing, or you sense that they're going
36:49
Speaker 1: to fire, people will flinch, they'll turn. Nobody's going to
36:52
Speaker 1: stand still most of the time to be shot. They're
36:56
Speaker 1: going to react to the site. And can you imagine
37:00
Speaker 1: with a three point fifty seven magnum. If she sees
37:03
Speaker 1: this thing, the muzzle on this thing is it's going
37:06
Speaker 1: to look like, you know, you're looking down inside of
37:08
Speaker 1: a peach basket. It's that big. Of course it's not,
37:11
Speaker 1: but it's it's rather imposing. Well, she's going to react
37:15
Speaker 1: to that. Now, back to what she said. Can she
37:19
Speaker 1: be shot through the hand. Let's say that she raises
37:22
Speaker 1: her hand to her neck in where the palm is out. Okay, yes,
37:30
Speaker 1: you can have around that will go through and through.
37:32
Speaker 1: It's called a throw and through wound. It would pass
37:34
Speaker 1: through the palm of the hand or through the fingers,
37:38
Speaker 1: out through the back of the hand, and then back
37:40
Speaker 1: in to the neck. That can happen as well. And
37:44
Speaker 1: those injuries are rather interesting because let's just say, for instance,
37:48
Speaker 1: and we don't know this for a fact, but let's
37:50
Speaker 1: just say, for instance, everybody at home kind of feel
37:54
Speaker 1: the palm of your hand right now, and you can
37:56
Speaker 1: feel the bony structures within your head hand. Okay, Well,
38:02
Speaker 1: if you're shot through your hand, that projectile, that lead
38:05
Speaker 1: core projectile that is passing through the palm of your hand,
38:08
Speaker 1: there's a high probability it's going to strike bone. When
38:12
Speaker 1: it strikes bone, there's going to be potentially deformation to
38:20
Speaker 1: the round. So when it exits out of the hand,
38:22
Speaker 1: it enters the hand, strikes bone, there's a wind track
38:26
Speaker 1: through the hand exits. The bullet is not going to
38:30
Speaker 1: be pristine, Okay, when it comes out, it's going to
38:33
Speaker 1: be oddly shaped and you'll get kind of like in
38:37
Speaker 1: the neck, you'll get these kind of weird looking injuries
38:40
Speaker 1: where you have and it's what is referred to as
38:42
Speaker 1: we use a term for it, it's called an intermediate target.
38:45
Speaker 1: And it doesn't have to be a body part, like
38:48
Speaker 1: if somebody is shot through a wall or shot through
38:50
Speaker 1: a piece of glass, or shot through the door of
38:53
Speaker 1: a car. The bullet has changed forever. The projectile has
38:57
Speaker 1: changed because it becomes shredded, it becomes even more jagged,
39:01
Speaker 1: so we get these really nasty looking wounds.
39:04
Speaker 2: And so if they're in exacting November twenty second, nineteen
39:08
Speaker 2: sixty three in Dallas, Texas, ideally there and Governor Connolly
39:11
Speaker 2: was shot through the wrist and everything else, and it
39:13
Speaker 2: was a pristine bullet that landed next to his thigh
39:16
Speaker 2: on the gurney exactly.
39:18
Speaker 1: And again, the pristine bullet theory and of course that's
39:22
Speaker 1: it's utter nonsense.
39:23
Speaker 2: I had to throw it in there.
39:24
Speaker 1: Sorry, well, I'm glad that you did, particularly in the
39:27
Speaker 1: wake of everything that we're seeing. Now we need to
39:30
Speaker 1: do another episode, I think anyway.
39:32
Speaker 2: Thank You're right? All right?
39:33
Speaker 1: So yeah, you have you have this and and then
39:37
Speaker 1: she's got multiple gunshot wounds. But she's got multiple gunshot wounds.
39:42
Speaker 1: And this is really interesting. Mister Mayor has got one.
39:48
Speaker 1: And I got to tell you, Dave, this goes back
39:50
Speaker 1: to the old the old adage theory or you know,
39:56
Speaker 1: the way we view these things. Why do you need
39:59
Speaker 1: to take a three point fifty seven magnum and shoot
40:04
Speaker 1: this diminutive woman multiple times? Can you explain? And I'm
40:10
Speaker 1: this is hypothetical. Can you explain that to me? Most
40:17
Speaker 1: people would look at this. I think behaviors might look
40:21
Speaker 1: at it and say, well, this borders on overkill. It
40:25
Speaker 1: borders on overkill.
40:27
Speaker 2: And that's where Joe as I was looking at this
40:31
Speaker 2: in my mind, because you know, you started off the
40:35
Speaker 2: show talking about being around bodies, you know, and over
40:37
Speaker 2: a period of time you can see different types of
40:40
Speaker 2: bodies in different stages of decomp what have you. Yeah,
40:45
Speaker 2: when I do stories even now, I still have that
40:48
Speaker 2: hope when a child does something, or when a parent
40:50
Speaker 2: does something that the victim doesn't know that the victim.
40:55
Speaker 2: In the case of mister Mary, I'm thinking, Okay, he
40:57
Speaker 2: was shot in the back of the head with the
41:00
Speaker 2: fifty seven magnum. I'm hoping it was by surprise that
41:02
Speaker 2: he never knew it was coming. Boom, he's gone. I'm
41:05
Speaker 2: guessing if that were to happen now, the mom knows
41:08
Speaker 2: something bad is happening and she's coming, and that's why
41:11
Speaker 2: she gets shot multiple.
41:13
Speaker 1: Times, and she's in a different area of.
41:15
Speaker 2: The house, right in the hallway. And then my thing is,
41:18
Speaker 2: I hate to think that the last thing this mother
41:20
Speaker 2: knew was that her son was doing this horrific thing allegedly.
41:26
Speaker 2: But I want to go quickly to when the police
41:30
Speaker 2: arrived and we have both the bodies were covered with
41:33
Speaker 2: different things, and you covered how that has to be unlayered.
41:36
Speaker 2: When the bodies are taken out of the home. Are
41:40
Speaker 2: they taken up as a lump with the blankets, covers,
41:43
Speaker 2: or whatever's on them, or are those removed and the
41:46
Speaker 2: bodies are placed in a bag? How are they transported
41:49
Speaker 2: so they don't lose all the possible forensic evidence in there.
41:52
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, in a case like this
41:54
Speaker 1: where you've got loose blankets, if it were me, I
42:04
Speaker 1: would document let's just take Mom's body. I would document
42:09
Speaker 1: her body so well, or the location where she is seen, okay,
42:13
Speaker 1: or reviewed here at sight. I would go into pains,
42:19
Speaker 1: taking detail about every aspect of this. And because I
42:24
Speaker 1: don't want to lose anything or transfer anything to the
42:28
Speaker 1: outer layers of the blankets that might be contained therein
42:31
Speaker 1: because you're going to run that risk and a body back.
42:35
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say it's like a tumble dryer,
42:37
Speaker 1: but you can have things that are mixed up in
42:39
Speaker 1: there as the body is bouncing down the road. I
42:43
Speaker 1: would take each layer off if it's not secured, if
42:47
Speaker 1: the say the perpetraary hadn't wrapped it with anything. If
42:50
Speaker 1: you're talking about wrapping a body, uh this cocooned in blankets,
42:55
Speaker 1: that's a different story. But if you've got them just
42:58
Speaker 1: laying I'm going to take up each individual blanket one
43:03
Speaker 1: by one, put it in a separate paper container, seal
43:09
Speaker 1: it up, label it, and it's going to go in individually.
43:14
Speaker 1: It's not going to accompany the body. It's going to
43:16
Speaker 1: go with the crime scene tech back to their repository
43:22
Speaker 1: so it can make it out to the state crime lab.
43:25
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about layer if I've got look, and
43:29
Speaker 1: I don't know that this is the case, but let's
43:31
Speaker 1: just say I'll pick an arbitrary number. Let's just say
43:33
Speaker 1: we've got twelve layers. You're getting twelve backs from me. Okay,
43:38
Speaker 1: you get twelve backs. Yeah, and I want each one
43:41
Speaker 1: of them to be examined. And here's one more thing
43:45
Speaker 1: that you got to think about. Was she covered in
43:51
Speaker 1: blankets and then shot? Or was she shot and then
43:55
Speaker 1: covered in blankets? And you say, well, got that that's
43:58
Speaker 1: kind of obvious. No, there's nothing obvious in depth investigation,
44:03
Speaker 1: you know your assumption. You have to consider all possibilities,
44:07
Speaker 1: and it gets very complex. I mean, can you imagine
44:09
Speaker 1: how much more complex this would be if he I
44:13
Speaker 1: don't know, some weird, bizarre set of circumstances happened and
44:17
Speaker 1: he tackles mom. He puts blankets all on the top
44:20
Speaker 1: of him because he's seen a movie that thinks it's
44:22
Speaker 1: going to muffle the sound. He starts firing through multiple
44:25
Speaker 1: layers of blankets into her body. Well, that's even going
44:28
Speaker 1: to make the rounds more deformed. You're going to get
44:30
Speaker 1: fiber evidence. I've actually recovered bullets projectiles from bodies, Dave
44:36
Speaker 1: that had bits of fiber twisted up in jagged edges
44:40
Speaker 1: of the projectile that are embedded in the body because
44:43
Speaker 1: it passed through. Again, one of these intermediate targets went
44:47
Speaker 1: into the body and then it's there. I found wood
44:51
Speaker 1: embedded in bodies that you know where you've got like
44:54
Speaker 1: particle board, where you've got rounds that pass through particle
44:57
Speaker 1: board and that kind of splinter and goes into a body.
45:02
Speaker 1: There's all manner of things, and it tells it tells
45:04
Speaker 1: a very specific story about this. But David, you know,
45:09
Speaker 1: I'd I'd be very curious to understand. I think with
45:15
Speaker 1: the stepfather in particular, you had mentioned that you were
45:18
Speaker 1: hoping that he didn't see it coming. I hope that
45:22
Speaker 1: he didn't either, to be honest with you, but I'm
45:26
Speaker 1: one of the things they would have to figure out
45:28
Speaker 1: with him. I think particularly this is kind of curious.
45:31
Speaker 1: This is this sounds like a classic execution style killing.
45:37
Speaker 1: I'd like to know if they were able to determine
45:42
Speaker 1: a range of fire if the muzzle was placed directly
45:46
Speaker 1: against the back of his head. This kid just walked
45:49
Speaker 1: up the guy you said, he's in his office, maybe
45:51
Speaker 1: you see it in a chair. He didn't know what
45:52
Speaker 1: was coming, walks up behind him, pops him, you know,
45:55
Speaker 1: right in the head. Or did he say, gee, stepdad,
46:00
Speaker 1: you know, I'd really like to handle that new three
46:02
Speaker 1: fifty seven magnum that you bought. Can can I see it?
46:06
Speaker 1: And he hands it over to him and things loaded,
46:08
Speaker 1: and he looks at him and shoots him in the face,
46:10
Speaker 1: you know, because you say, or shoots him in the
46:12
Speaker 1: head while he's not suspecting that. You know, it can
46:17
Speaker 1: go either number of ways. You know, how did the
46:19
Speaker 1: kid know that the weapon was in the house? How
46:21
Speaker 1: do you get access to it? Okay, then with mom,
46:26
Speaker 1: where were her wounds oriented? And what range of fire
46:30
Speaker 1: would there be? Because you're going to have with three
46:32
Speaker 1: fifty seven magnum in particular, it's a magnum round, so
46:37
Speaker 1: you're talking about a lot of propellant, Dave, and you
46:40
Speaker 1: will have stippling. You know that where this gets embedded
46:45
Speaker 1: into into the skin and onto the clothing. We can
46:51
Speaker 1: determine range of fire based upon how far out it's
46:54
Speaker 1: spread on the remains are on the clothing, and that
46:58
Speaker 1: gives us an idea, and all of a sudden, you know,
47:01
Speaker 1: the focus on stories becoming a little bit tighter now,
47:06
Speaker 1: you know, once you kind of establish the physical relationship
47:10
Speaker 1: between the muzzle of that weapon being held allegedly by
47:13
Speaker 1: a son and the recipients of the rounds that you know,
47:17
Speaker 1: these bodies that the rounds were fired into.
47:20
Speaker 2: You know, when they actually were able to get to
47:22
Speaker 2: the sun, Yeah, and have I mentioned earlier he was
47:26
Speaker 2: eight hundred plus miles away. They used a number of
47:29
Speaker 2: different things, surveillance cameras to cell phones. When they did
47:33
Speaker 2: track him the sun, they found him, Like I said,
47:37
Speaker 2: you found the bodies early in the day, you know,
47:39
Speaker 2: with their well being calls, and this is now twelve
47:41
Speaker 2: hours later and they already got him, you know, eight
47:43
Speaker 2: hundred plus miles away. They were able to track this
47:47
Speaker 2: his behavior using his parents' credit cards and things like that,
47:51
Speaker 2: starting on February twelfth, all the way through the twenty eighth.
47:56
Speaker 2: The gun, the three fifty seven magnum matching the description
47:59
Speaker 2: of donald marriage gun that he had just bought, is
48:01
Speaker 2: found in the floorboard of the well when they caught
48:05
Speaker 2: Nikki driving the VW Atlas owned by his stepfather. That's
48:10
Speaker 2: who they caught him driving his car. And the three
48:12
Speaker 2: fifty seven magnum is on the floorboard along with unspent
48:17
Speaker 2: and spent shell casings. Yeah, and you have bullets in
48:20
Speaker 2: there and spent shells. Do you think he picked them
48:23
Speaker 2: up in the house and left with him?
48:24
Speaker 1: I don't know, No, no, no, because three fifty seven
48:27
Speaker 1: magnums of revolver. Okay, so the gun, oh yeah, and
48:31
Speaker 1: he probably dumped them. Which when you open up the
48:35
Speaker 1: gate on a revolver and and the cylinder spins out,
48:40
Speaker 1: because it I say spin out, you press it out.
48:43
Speaker 1: There's an ejection rod on the thing. So you press
48:47
Speaker 1: the ejection rod and all of those spent well anywhereund
48:51
Speaker 1: that's in there. It doesn't matter ifest live or spent
48:54
Speaker 1: are going to drop out. Now here's here's the interesting thing.
48:57
Speaker 1: Can we go back to the mom just one second. Wow,
49:00
Speaker 1: how many injuries did you say that she had sustained?
49:02
Speaker 2: And they think three gunshot wounds? Four injuries?
49:06
Speaker 1: Okay, so she's got three gunshot wounds, four injuries. Mister
49:10
Speaker 1: Mayer has got a single gunshot wound. Okay, so three
49:17
Speaker 1: fifty seven magnums. These revolvers can come in in a
49:28
Speaker 1: configuration to hold five rounds in cylinder or six. Now,
49:35
Speaker 1: just so we all understand, because I know I'm going
49:37
Speaker 1: to get blowback on this. There is a semi automatic
49:41
Speaker 1: three fifty seven out there. It does exist, but the
49:44
Speaker 1: line share people do not possess these. Most of these
49:47
Speaker 1: platforms with three fifty seven magnums are revolvers. So if
49:52
Speaker 1: it's a semi automatic, like you had said, you know,
49:55
Speaker 1: did he pick up the rounds at the house or
49:57
Speaker 1: the spent casings, then yeah, if it's a semi automatic.
50:02
Speaker 1: But my suspicion is is that traditionally the three fifty
50:06
Speaker 1: seven magnum is something that you have in a revolver configuration.
50:11
Speaker 1: And I actually owned one or was issued one at
50:14
Speaker 1: one point in time years ago. That was a cult lawman.
50:18
Speaker 1: I loved that weapon. It was a actual a snubnose
50:22
Speaker 1: weapon and it was only five shots. The cylinder only
50:27
Speaker 1: held five rounds, but you can have the more robust
50:31
Speaker 1: and for years, cops there were some cops that still
50:35
Speaker 1: carried thirty eight specials, but you had those that actually
50:41
Speaker 1: opted for a three point fifty seven magnum. This is
50:44
Speaker 1: before the days of police officers being issued semi automatic handguns,
50:49
Speaker 1: you know, with the Barrettas and the glocks and you
50:51
Speaker 1: know every six and all these other brands that are
50:54
Speaker 1: out there now. There were some police officers that prefer
50:58
Speaker 1: the three fifty seven because they you that the energy
51:02
Speaker 1: they were going to put on target if they had
51:04
Speaker 1: to use this thing was going to be substantially more
51:07
Speaker 1: significant than the thirty eight special, all right. They knew
51:11
Speaker 1: that it would have more power to it. That's originally
51:14
Speaker 1: everything that we do in firearms, and this is kind
51:17
Speaker 1: of interesting, most in the civilian world, even in policing,
51:21
Speaker 1: has its origins in the military. You go all the
51:24
Speaker 1: way back to the turn of the twentieth century, from
51:29
Speaker 1: you know, from the late eighteen hundreds, before the invention
51:33
Speaker 1: of the nineteen eleven forty five caliber side arm that
51:37
Speaker 1: our military carried. Our officers and NCOs used to carry
51:43
Speaker 1: thirty eight specials, and those rounds were insufficient, We'll put
51:50
Speaker 1: it to you that way. That's why they you know,
51:52
Speaker 1: when they could get up to a forty five caliber
51:55
Speaker 1: semi automatic handgun, they went to it because again it
51:59
Speaker 1: was like, you know, it's getting hit with a forty five,
52:03
Speaker 1: which is even more robust than three point fifty seven magnum,
52:06
Speaker 1: is like getting head with a sledgehammer.
52:09
Speaker 2: So that's what we've got, that kid using that on
52:11
Speaker 2: his stepdead in the back of the head. All right,
52:13
Speaker 2: But let me go back to something else, Joe. Because
52:16
Speaker 2: the bodies were so decomposed that they could not be identified. Now,
52:20
Speaker 2: how is that in the space of two weeks time
52:23
Speaker 2: inside of a home, out of the elements, How is
52:25
Speaker 2: that a thing I would have thought that. Granted I
52:29
Speaker 2: understand odor, I understand that and decomposition, but talking about
52:32
Speaker 2: two bodies inside of a home decomposing at such a
52:36
Speaker 2: rate that they could not be identified in two weeks time.
52:40
Speaker 1: Well, we're talking about Wisconsin. We're talking about the wintertime.
52:43
Speaker 1: And guess what you got going on in the house.
52:46
Speaker 1: You're running the heat, baby, And so there's constant heat.
52:50
Speaker 1: And for everyone that has to fight this fight that
52:54
Speaker 1: lives in areas where it turns off cold. You know,
52:56
Speaker 1: our friends down to Florida might not have to deal
52:59
Speaker 1: with this too much, but where it's always having to
53:02
Speaker 1: fight that fight, that heater is always competing with the
53:05
Speaker 1: external temperature, and you know it's you know, if you've
53:09
Speaker 1: got a drafty house or whatever, thermostat is going to
53:12
Speaker 1: indicate that, you know, you've got the temperatures decreasing, so
53:16
Speaker 1: it's going to kick back on. So it's always in
53:18
Speaker 1: a state of having warmth. And also here's here's the thing.
53:24
Speaker 1: You know, you're the the heat in a house varies
53:29
Speaker 1: from location to location. I mean, that kind of makes sense.
53:32
Speaker 1: But let's just say you're talking about Mom's body being
53:36
Speaker 1: in the hallway where she's laying next to a vent,
53:39
Speaker 1: and on top of that, she's got these layers of
53:43
Speaker 1: fabric that are lying on top of her. That's going
53:46
Speaker 1: to further exacerbate. There are actually cases out there day
53:49
Speaker 1: where you will have people that have been homicide victims
53:52
Speaker 1: in homes where because of the location within the structure,
54:00
Speaker 1: one body decomposes quicker than the other body because of
54:07
Speaker 1: the relative position to like heating vents or cooling cooling.
54:13
Speaker 1: It can work conversely as well. We saw this not
54:18
Speaker 1: exactly the same thing, but we saw with Gene Hackman,
54:20
Speaker 1: which you and I have talked about extensively, where Betsy's
54:25
Speaker 1: body was found. They talked about her being mummified. But
54:27
Speaker 1: you know, mister Hackman had probably walked through that house
54:30
Speaker 1: for five days I think, you know, before he finally
54:33
Speaker 1: succumbed to you know, and of course he had advanced Alzheimer's.
54:37
Speaker 1: But yeah, you think about just even the variation in
54:41
Speaker 1: the location within a structure can impact the rate at
54:44
Speaker 1: which bodies decompose. The fact that this kid stayed in
54:49
Speaker 1: this house for as long as he did, the fact
54:55
Speaker 1: that he allegedly tried to feign the still living existence
55:04
Speaker 1: of his parents through text messages and these sorts of things.
55:08
Speaker 1: The fact that he ran up almost ten thousand dollars
55:14
Speaker 1: in the use of credit cards and debit cards, and
55:17
Speaker 1: the fact that he stole that car and ran off
55:19
Speaker 1: with it. There's more to be revealed in this case,
55:23
Speaker 1: I can tell you that. But when you've got a
55:28
Speaker 1: young man who's seventeen years old, who allegedly executes both
55:34
Speaker 1: of his parents and in dwells a house with their
55:39
Speaker 1: rotting corpses for this long, these still waters run very
55:45
Speaker 1: very deep. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body
55:52
Speaker 1: Backs